BECMI Chapter 405 – Masters Moving
-It takes about a month to really get moving, but when it is, it will definitely tear Siricil apart!- Sama /grinned, not at all adverse to feeding the empire some of its own blood and tears, despite having lived there for over a generation. She had little investment in its culture or belief systems, nor the Immortals who watched over it. Empires won on blood and conquest who could only sustain themselves with more of the same were not worth saving in the slightest.
Siricil lived and died on conquest and treachery. The same happening to them was only fair and right!
-We are saving that move for if and when they plan a true invasion,- Briggs /stated firmly in the Markspace, brooking no argument on the move. -In the meantime, we are simply evacuating slaves of good heart and merit to the North here, helping increase our own population and work force, and strike teams are culling their slaving operations viciously.- Which, given the Empire’s appetite for slave labor, was both never-ending, and raising the cost of an economy that no longer had enough free labor to provide for everyone AND fund a massive war machine.
But it was trying regardless. The continual disappearance of slaves and the worst of slave owners was an ongoing problem Siricil definitely wanted to fix, and was having major problems addressing. They simply didn’t have the funds to make war and buttress their economy built on slave labor.
-We can’t start a slave revolt there without basically starting one in Delpha, too,- Sama /informed Edge, who did much less with broad policy matters like this and more with building projects and Wondrous Architecture overall. The Federation and the personal reach of her and Briggs extended all around the planet at this point, including multiple locations in Delpha… which also tolerated slavery. -If the Forsaken start lighting things off in Siricil, the Delphan ones will naturally demand they do so in Delpha… even if they are absolutely in no way prepared to take on the overwhelming power of Delpha’s archmagi.-
-I posit that the greater challenge will be making sure none of them sell out to the Overmagi for the benefits of a Bond,- Edge /replied in her usual analytical manner. -You might want to start drawing up the names of archmages who would be worth Bonding to on moral grounds, instead of wealth or status. And get those Nulls past Ten so they have the Wisdom bonuses to understand the idiocy of going up against Archmages who are powerful enough to punch their Nulls as if they don’t have them.-
Sama just laughed softly. -I’ll beat it into their heads myself. No, I’ll have the Mick do it, he’s got a way with them for this brutally pragmatic living-under-wizards shite. He’ll have fun with it.-
And he totally would. His wife an Overmagus, his kids Forsaken and Casters alike, living with magic, without magic of his own, and quite content and surpassingly deadly for it.
-If you all are fine with it, I’ll be paying the Imperial Palace in Siricil a visit, then!- Sama /declared with satisfaction. -Damn place was in need of a makeover, anyway.-
-Come see me first. I’ll put Her Truename on a Token on your Blade, and see how She likes not knowing anything that is happening,- Edge /sniffed.
Sama grinned more widely. -Be there as soon as the plundering here is done!-
One of the houses exploded as a chimera came rampaging through the walls into the packed and panicking refugees, roaring with its lion and dragon heads as the ram head brayed loudly.
Said roars were abruptly cut off as a massive Greathammer came roaring in, shattered the lion head and broke its spine, sending the horse-sized creature, its wings clipped and unable to fly at the moment, tumbling wildly from the hit. Before it could rise, archers waiting on elevated perches buried half a dozen arrows in its body and other heads, and it slumped to the ground.
There were a lot of enslaved monsters being randomly released and dumped on them, so everyone was still on their toes.
The Interdictions that were stopping random teleporting in and out, and any Summonings, meant the Butcher Teams couldn’t come in and claim the creature, either.
“A hundred gold to the group that butchers that chimera!” Briggs’ Voice carried over the cries and murmurs of the masses. “Get them an urn and a Tube, Ranger!” he pointed to a Daisho pair. The human and dwarf saluted quickly and raced for the corpse, calling for volunteers. Amusingly, a group of women were the first to do so, and quickly raced after them in their threadbare dresses to help out.
Money was money, after all.
------
The Forsaken trainees were a bit exhausted but happy. It had been a productive day of bug-killing out of Cave Fourteen. Every day fighting from a different location, harvesting karma, keeping the bugs in check, and feeling themselves growing stronger, tougher, and more capable.
Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!
There wasn’t a lot of money to be earned this way, of course, but they were being fed, their Gear was improving with Naming Karma, and their dreams were inching closer.
They pulled back inside the Cave, the Cryptomancer there Rune-Shaped the place all shut in the face of the hordes of giant bugs still making for them over the corpses of thousands of their own, and the Mirror came up to bring them all back to their barracks.
They hadn’t been expecting to be shown outside and under the spring sun, at least before washing off and recovering. More importantly, to find the First Forsaken and his wife, Fire Elemental Grandmistress Laurentine, waiting for them.
His expression wasn’t too happy with the company of trainees, judging by the frown. A bit nervous, the Forsaken drew up in rows of ten, forming a square as they assumed proper positions and saluted The Mick.
“At ease. Well, maybe not,” the Mick began in his laconic style, looking over the lines of men from the Delphan Empire, most of them from the poorest levels of society, now turned into something hard, sharp, and tough beyond their own wildest dreams. “I be keeping this short an’ sweet, and then be leaving ye to yer showers and yer rest.” His stare hadn’t softened as he raked their eyes back and forth, the force of his ki intimidating and penetrating.
“Ye’ve got dreams of heading back to Delpha and overthrowing the nasty mages there,” he began succinctly. “I be knowing exactly how ye be feeling with that, as I done managed to do the exact same thing. Ye know of what happened in Caeledon, in Zanzyr. I’ll not be repeating what ye all know. Yer problem is that yer talkin’ about doing the same in Delpha, o’ all places.”
He let the following silence drag on as he continued to survey them, watching eyes drop, hard men and women shuffle, some daring to meet his gaze with their pride and desire for revenge shining bright in their eyes.
“Ye’re Forsaken, not fools,” he said at last, puncturing their hopes. “To liberate Caeledon we mobilized nigh two hundred Forsaken, our elites, plus another four hundred Casters and support personnel.
“For Caerguard. Me home. Where the people knew me, didn’t fight back, and were on our sides as we cut down the undead made from our kin and necromancers who made ‘em.
“The whole population o’ Caeledon could be dropped into the foreign quarter o’ every provincial capital in Delpha an’ kind o’ vanish into the city,” he said flatly. “Ye could drop all o’ Zanzyr into most any province in Delpha an’ it would barely make an impression.
“There be more Archmages in Delpha than Wizards in Zanzyr. Archmages, mind ye, that be strong enough to ignore your Nulls as cute little jokes.
“Ye’re beginner Nulls, reaching for Ten, when the ones who took back me homelands in Caeledon started at Twenty, and were twice yer numbers, with bondmages and friendly Casters!”
His scowl was ferocious. “Look around at each and every one o’ ye!” he ordered grimly. “Ye see all hundred of ye? DO YE?!” he bellowed out, and got loud assurances that they did.
“When there are ONE HUNDRED companies o’ ye like this, ye can think of rising up in Delpha!” he stated unequivocally, and the Forsaken there swallowed. There were only about fifteen companies of Forsaken in total. “AND THEY BEST BE AT THIRTY, OR THIS IS YER FATE!”
Laurentine, smiling warmly, stepped forward, saying a few Words that snapped and crackled. Fire coalesced over her hands, and she flung them skywards as if tossing something lightly into the sky.
The magic went up, a ball of fire that came apart into two spinning balls of flame, four… and came arcing back down straight at them!
They had good reflexes drilled into them, and tried to jump away. The Mick and Laurentine just stood there, her discretely inside his Null, as the Meteor Swarm came down on the packed ranks of them and exploded with four bell-like detonations of fire and fury, swallowing them all and their screams with them.
The fires burnt out but a moment later, but the damage was done. Four shallow pits were blasted into the sands of the marching grounds, fused to glass in many places, and armored bodies were scattered all about the place, not a single one of them moving.
Of course, if it had not been a Merciful Fireball, they would all have been ash.
Mick and his wife were naturally totally unharmed, of course. His Null was either absolutely effective against his Bondmage’s magic, or not effective at all, as he desired.
He looked over the fallen bodies, knowing all of them had just felt themselves burning away to ash from just one spell from an Overmagus, and they were going to remember it for a long, long time.
He’d had that lesson pounded into him, too, although Lady Edge had been quite kind about it, ‘killing’ him a dozen different ways before it stuck that his Null had to get Really, Really strong to deal with some of the mages out there, and Laur and her companions weren’t really those at the time… but they could be.
And he wasn’t Sama. He didn’t know if even Sama could withstand Lady Edge’s magic, and didn’t ask. Lady Edge and Sama got along like an ice witch and a blood witch, their own little coven of disaster waiting to happen, while Commander Briggs glowered up above them like a mountain ready to blow if anything were to happen to either of them.
Delpha’s magocracy was going to come down in time, there was no doubt of that. But not nearly as these first groups of Forsaken wanted it to happen.
The Mick sighed. Fifty years on the Other Shore had allowed a LOT of things to happen. Having kids, some of them Forsaken, trained from childhood to BE Forsaken, changed things, increased their numbers.
Time and Karma gave them additional Levels, and Levels were very, very important for Forsaken. They could indeed gain power against normal Spellcasters, to the point of being nearly impervious… but all of that happened after TWENTY, and for most of them, required being Thirty or higher!
It was going to take these Delphan Forsaken at least two generations to get the numbers they needed, and the Levels they needed to make those numbers work!
Thankfully, they got the extra years once they passed Seven, so it was totally doable, even if they might have to grind monotonous beasts in specific locations across time and space to get things done properly. They’d even have time to have their own kids, and the kids to have wee ones and start a proper clan and family.
But it wouldn’t be quick, no, unless something came down and swatted thousands of archmages out of existence, whisk, whisk, whisk. That many archmages was just too damn dangerous…