BECMI Chapter 417 – Eternal and Immortal Ambitions
“The Endgame we’re shooting for is inviting in true Divine beings to come here and represent and shield the mortals from these Immortals and their little Projects,” I stated to Captain Emeril and Master Lalo in no uncertain terms. “The Immortals can play up their Spheres and their balance of powers and the Immortal civilization they’ve built, and it’s all complete balderdash, they’ve proven it over and over. They’re irresponsible super-beings with what amount to grandiose whims and no repercussions or penalties for their actions save one of their peers or superiors getting annoyed with them. Since they can’t fight one another without being penalized all around, there are no consequences to success or failure, and precious little recourse for the mortals involved.
“I want most Immortals off the Mortal Plane unless they are directly involved in further mortal evolution, not just favoring a few who take old-school paths to power so they can become Immortals.” I just shook my head. “I don’t care about the damn goals of some stupid Sphere, that’s some Hierarch-level rigmarole justifying the shit they pull on mortals, it has no bearing in operational reality.”
“So we actually do want to pull in Aru, the force behind the Salute to the Morning,” Master Lalo breathed. “And all those gods allied with Him?”
“If we can. However, that will be difficult because the Immortals control the metaphysical reality of the world at this point. I don’t believe that even if we can call them and get their attention that they can manifest fully here. The power of the Hierarchs would be mustered to deny them as just more Outsiders coming in and messing with their turf.” I shook my head slowly. “Every scenario I run says they are going to have build up power properly here, establish their own turf, and expand into a Divine role.”
Both Immortals looked at me keenly. “A Divine path, in addition to an Immortal and Eternal path?” Captain Emeril exclaimed.
“Technically, the Eternal Path forks to the Divine side and the Titanic side,” I informed both of them. “One leads to Faith, the Alignments, and a non-finite existence as a representative of some of the vital concepts and forces that define reality. The other maintains a finite existence, with ever-growing physical and existential power incarnated on themselves, usually evolving to a more and more specialized type of being under their own will.
“Both paths eventually become tropes of a sort, incarnations of the virtues and forces they embody, simply by going down those roads and serving as examples for others to do the same.”
Both men nodded with me. “So how are you planning to reconcile this?”
I shrugged. “We get them to send over Avatars, and they build their power up in a proper spectacular fashion in the way Immortals love to see it… but with totally different goals.
“In the meantime, you two and I run a lot of interference for them.”
“Which will keep us busy and improve our own Immortal status,” Master Lalo agreed. “The Captain is running three, ah, Immortal Projects, as it were. I only seem to have my Inns and Innkeepers,” Master Lalo admitted. “Is there something else I could be contributing to?”
“A second Project for you.” I tapped my nails a couple times in series, thinking of various options that would work for him, given how tied he was to his Inns. “What about a postal service?”
Both of them blinked at me. Captain Emeril blurted out after a moment, “That’s bloody brilliant!…” He looked at Lalo meaningfully. “Travelers and Inns combined, basically! Nothing knits people together like more communication. The fairest of them are always government-run, but it easily moves into transport of goods and services, to an extent… and a good postal service is always a neutral power. It just delivers the mail, and it goes everywhere and sees everything…”
“Tying in directly with what we are doing now, which includes some mail delivery with our produce packages,” Master Lalo agreed quickly. His followers were basically an intelligence service, in the end. A mail service would extend that significantly, even if they didn’t poke into packages! “What would I call myself?” he had to ponder.
“Guy,” I said without blinking. “You’d be the mail Guy. The Postal Guy.”
His smile widened. “Irreverent, but easy and everywhere and distractingly low-key. If done following the Inn standard, we could make an order of mystics out of it pretty easily, could we not?”
“Their ability to travel light and fast without needing heavy armor and weapons would be useful for foot travel, although we’d definitely need to work in Teleporting and Portals at the higher levels,” I nodded agreeably. “Setting up orders of mystics that wander around to locations with an Inn would make perfect sense.”
“Then it appears I have a new avenue of growth. A Postal Order that crosses national boundaries.” Master Lalo sat back in contemplation. “Oh, Captain, I think I’m going to enjoy this!”
We all got a nice laugh out of our plan to save/guide/encourage civilization, especially when I told him how stamps were often the first variant of paper currency, and Postal Offices often served as the first banks in recovering economies…
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The Delphans hadn’t discovered Nown yet. No mortal had actually made the trip between the two worlds yet, separated so far dimensionally as they were, a trip of months through the Astral Plane and intervening worlds if you were to take the shortest route.
Gate didn’t care, it got us there in one spell.
This time, we didn’t have to hide who we were. Cirru smiled as she sniffed the familiar air and spread her wings.
This time, we’d be changing history, and starting rather earlier than on the Far Shore, deeper in the Empire’s past.
We’d be teaching the Followers of Water, who were among the more fringe Wizards, probably never going to rise to much importance here without a Waterworld in the Empire.
We’d also be teaching the Followers of Earth in the mainstream as an alternative to the more aggressive Air and Fire followers, and in doing so start fracturing their unity. I had no doubt it would have much more common support than the other two, while profiting from the same tradition of supporting their own with Wishes, if they could get to Grand Archmage.
I would start the process off, and so they would most definitely get there, and the Sims I was going to be leaving here would forge the way.
A Clone could not do the whole job, because they’d be an Elf and so always an outsider. But Simulacra I could make in any likeness, as I had on the Far Shore, and they could always appear totally native. The Clone I left behind would be severed in linkage by the dimensional distance, and could handle things here while I did the same on Nown.
I had hundreds of years of experience living in Delpha due to my Sims on the Far Shore and the decades I’d spent there personally across the years. Blending in wasn’t hard.
Delpha was going to have a different path this time through, and not just because I was going to be hunting Thanatos’ Avatars through it and stopping the shenanigans of him and his Entropic buddies. I was shifting the foundation of their magic, and in time was going to introduce the Forsaken to them and really rock the core of their magocracy when I did so.
It would be a Good Thing.
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Five years pass…
“Mistress, the Erto have come with a large raiding fleet to Drakkunport. There is much fighting going on there,” Cirru reported to me as I stepped into the throne room at the top of the Castle.
I of course knew that some time ago. Wings out, I glided to the open doorways, the mountain winds held at bay by magic and only allowed through if I wanted them to be.
Cirru came up behind and over me, Duum next to me. A half-dozen dragons, present in the throne room for various purposes as a neutral ground, also came up to crane out the windows and look at the visible flames and smoke in the far distance.
“Shall we go to their aid, Lady Edge?” the Gold Autzenmark asked formally, clearly ready to up and do so. The gold and ruby dragons liked to visit the place in human guise for entertainment and decent food, and even some of the other elder dragons went slumming for such purposes.
“They pay tribute to me, but have not actually called for help,” I considered aloud. “I believe they want to flex and see how long they can hold before needing such help from me.” Dragons hummed in understanding of that point. Showing one’s strength was a matter of pride.
“That being said, their invasion of a place under my protection is quite the insult. I can only infer that I have not beaten them bloody enough in the past.” Duum audibly snickered at that. “I would prefer to do something entertaining. I will accept any volunteers for an amusing task.”
“What would you have us do?” the Red Elder Tornflame spoke up quickly, eager to curry some favor here. His and Elder Heartburr’s children had gotten into scuffles with one another again, and had come here to work out something with Cirru ready to pass judgment on an annoying matter.
“You will don my sign and do this…”
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The roars of threescore dragons was like thunder, especially hitting at such close-range as it did. The invading Erto vikings were almost bowled off their feet from their positions around Drakkunport, and those on the docks most definitely were, because dragons the size of mammoths and even larger were landing and sweeping them off the large and well-made Drakkunport piers like they were ants!
As the gaping Northmen watched in disbelief, sailors and reserves at their longships were plucked off the boats and either tossed negligently overboard or simply bitten or ripped in two and disposed of.
And then the dragons, all of whom were sporting some very large, very glowy, and totally obvious black roses on their bellies, looped the Erto’s own ropes about the figureheads of their boats, held the ropes in their claws, and began to drag their longships out to sea!
Screaming vikings belatedly raced to try to intercept the boats in shock and horror as the dragons left, despite having no courage to face so many dragons head on with violence. A few archers did try some desultory shots, and for their efforts received Fireballs to the face that were not much appreciated by those about them, either.
The invading force of Erto warriors could only stare from the docks and the shores as their easy way home was towed away to the west, where the Ringlands of Fire awaited and a tall spire flashed lightning visible on the horizon, letting them know the Lady of Doomrose was aware and watching them.
A towering figure bigger than any clan champion among the Erto rose on the walls of the city, the Greathammer in his hand gleaming, his dark armor covered in gore. Down below him, standing in front of the entry to the city, waited a young woman with waist-length red hair, an incredibly severe and nasty-looking black Claymore in her hands, and the corpses of fifteen different skilled warriors sprawled dead about her, slain in challenges one after another, yet she was barely touched.
The mounds of corpses dragged back behind those fifteen men were mute testament to the tolls she and the shield wall behind her had taken of the attackers.
“I have been nice,” Thor growled, raising his Hammer up. He had held the southern gate, crushing skulls and caving in ribcages with tremendous blows, a terrifying force of nature willing and able to go head-to-head with the best of the Erto chieftains and champions, and hurl them away crushed and broken.
Even the favor of the Priests of Grimr had not helped them in the slightest, and his hurled Hammer had reaped the lives of half a dozen of the Stormfather’s own without mercy as they tried to deliver their Patron’s wrath upon him.
It just had not worked out very well for the Erto here!