BECMI Chapter 474 – Immortal Sacrifices
The weight of the universe crashed down on this Immortal-Warped area of sensory deprivation. A Null absolute lock on the past and Interdiction against dimensional foolery extended out like an adamantine bar of certainty, hit this area of warped perception, and forcibly realigned it, like a raging filter going through a mixed-up bowl of pasta and straightening everything out.
I could definitely hear something squawk out in pain and alarm when their clever little perception-bending trick was hammered out straight, and suddenly all the Immortals looking into/through it had to realign their perceptions back to standard in order to be able to see it effectively.
There’d been tales here of grandiose divine buildings in the ancient Eonic style often preferred by the overly wealthy and government institutions, with white marble columns and pillars and fountains and sculptures and impossibly beautiful gardens and so forth and so on.
None of that was remaining, all cracked and charred and broken, only ruins left of the temples and homes and thrones of these would-be gods.
The nine Immortals who’d made themselves gods were plenty visible, however.
They were surrounded by a nimbus of unnatural energy that swirled and shimmered faintly about where they were chained to the stone by manacles of baka, made from a creature of Matter that could defy Immortal Power. Bound as they were, they could not expend Immortal Power in any form, and thus could not escape their judgment.
A judgment currently manifest in the form of a truly nasty Greater Rune Pattern about them, which was slowly but surely sucking away their Immortal Power. If one of them was completely drained, they likely could be annihilated, a true final ending for an Immortal.
Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Ares, Aphrodite, Apollo, Athena, Hermes, Hephaestus. Those were the names they’d given the natives of Federyn, and they stayed right on trope. Zeus was the tallest and mightiest of them, bare-chested and muscular with wild red hair and not ceasing to struggle against his chains and manacles, Aphrodite was a lovely thing with tears going everywhere, Ares was a darkly-bearded warrior looking around for anything he could use as a weapon, Poseidon had hair of blue-green hue to emphasize his Sphere, and so forth and so on.
“Should I be ridiculing them for not choosing someone to be the third brother?” Sama grinned with appreciation for the sight of all the male Immortals stripped to loincloths.
“Who says they didn’t, and he just betrayed them?” Briggs snorted, also studying the scene. We could feel a LOT of eyes on us in the area, none of them visible to mortal sight. “Edge?” he inquired calmly.
I reached down, grabbed a chunk of purest white marble that turned out to be an extended middle finger from one of the shattered statues, and handed it over to him. “Toss it at the barrier.”
Briggs obligingly did so, little more than a flick of the wrist.
It hit the wall of energy, and then reappeared about ten feet back from where it had struck, in the middle of its arc, but all of its momentum was gone. It fell to the ground with a clink.
“Displaced back to a previous point in time, and innately unable to repeat its actions or its course,” I said leisurely. “Looped time. My, I bet they think they are clever.” I just pointed at it. “Commander, Sama, kindly go hit the same spot and secure our past and future, would you?” I stepped over behind the Mick as I said that, and dragged Hanvol behind me by dint of his elbow.
The Mick just crossed his arms to watch, not even looking back at us as the mighty Source and Null stepped forwards. They could have used their Weapons, but didn’t even bother to, instead just holding hands as they stepped up to the displacing Barrier, forming a fist of interwoven fingers.
They braced, half-facing one another, and then their interwoven fists snapped forward in a harmonization of ki and muscle, punching into the Barrier, and then right on through it!
By the pulsings in the manafield, the equivalent of Immortal jaws were dropping all around.
The Barrier was unable to displace them into their past, unable to lock them down, and was unable to move them from the present, thanks to Sources keeping the future open. They punched a hole in it, and that hole gaped there for several inches around their arms.
They both took a half-step forward.
DING! DA-DUM.
Carried on a heartbeat of the inevitable passing of time, a sharp note seemed to slash through the entire Barrier as they both expended Interdictions. The future flooded into and through the zone of churned and looped Time, and expanded on the relentless absoluteness of a single past turning the whole thing brittle and fragile as glass as the march of ages swelled and resumed properly.
TING!
The whole damn thing exploded in currents of riven temporal energies. I put my back against the Mick’s back, pulled Hanvol’s head down, and we waited calmly as copious chronal energies blew around and past his Null. The ruins around us eroded away even as they built back up, sands of time shifting and falling as the loop unspun itself.
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At the same moment, the skies unloaded.
The churning storm reacting to Immortal energies above us was a great place to hide the Forked Topped Call Lightnings I had waiting above, all of them buttressed with Immortal Power from Dread, which the sharpest-eyed among the watching Immortals clearly saw and felt me expend from my Staff.
The sky fell down as some really, really powerful Thunderbolts came down from above, blazing brighter than the sun, echoing with profound Thunder.
Mortals dared to kill Immortals!
Which was precisely the point, and the Immortals present realized what was happening and didn’t even try to resist. After all, they were trapped in their Avatars, and going to die. The baka chains binding them wouldn’t hold their incorporeal true selves, so destruction of their Avatars would actually release them from what was actually life-threatening torture and agony.
A couple other things happened at the same time.
With a flexing of planetary willpower, the massive locus of IP already drained into the unnatural mount beneath us was politely and completely drained away. Vwoop, nibblies gone, Nown happily burping in the distance.
As Immortal bodies detonated under the judgment of Heaven, ironically just like they’d killed random mortals, the new Rune Formation underneath them I’d just Shaped into being was filled up with released Immortal Power. Precisely attuned to them, it exploded in profundity and power, expanding out along the Veil as these Immortals were blasted to Heaven and away, sent stunned back to their home realms.
Chain Nameripping also doing its thing, but they wouldn’t remember that amid the pain.
What Immortal Power they hadn’t had drained was permanently gone as it exploded with their bodies and vivus took it, a major sacrifice for them, especially the false Zeus, who was the most powerful of them. The weakest actually got off the lightest, but that was fine.
-Time to go!- The three of us fell over onto my Disk, the others snapping over as Sama and Briggs burst into sprints towards the edge of the plateau, which suddenly had a thousand thousand fractures spilling out the harsh white light of Immortal Power as all the energies which had supported its construction were gone, and it was falling apart.
-Go!- Tek /shouted telepathically, flares of Immortal Power flashing around us as assaults of IP were intercepted, and suddenly the air was alive with some really impressive blasts of IP being leveled at hitherto-hidden figures making sure some irate Immortals didn’t punish the very inventive mortals for succeeding at their tasks.
Sama and Briggs dove over the side of Mount, then Hill, then Mound, and finally Pile of Rubble Olympus even as it was crumbling and falling apart, whooping with glee and uncaring of the two-thousand foot arcing fall, courtesy of the Featherweight both could call upon. Lightfoot ensured they were going to get some safe distance from the bouncing rocks, and the Disks just tracked them as they fell, Hanvol and the Mick rolling off to their own Disks in midfall and watching the play of energies lashing back and forth above and behind like a kaleidoscopic lightning storm going crazy.
The surrounding mortals were all fleeing in proper terror from the Immortal Power radiating through the air, which faded as I addressed them.
“This is the Lady Edge. The Immortals of the Mount playing at godhood have been punished and forced to sacrifice power for their actions. No mortals of our world need fear their hands again, and if they dare to take servants here in some other false guise, they will be revealed and the identities of their false powers exposed for who they are.
“Whether the other Immortals will make right what they have done is a different concern, and beyond our power. They are discussing the matter as we speak.”
Their fear magically washed away by the Greater Cloak of Bravery riding my words, the fleeing natives of Federyn and Sidheduiche looked back at the sky going crazy, and knew Immortals were being pissy bastards with one another, the scorn and irony in my words finding fertile ground.
No reverence, no fear. Only a new contempt and distrust, and the knowledge that mortals who grew powerful enough could even affect the deeds of Immortals if need be!
Immortals had power, but they were now quarreling like irate children, not the cool and lofty images the priests tried to cultivate!
The Churches of Morning and of Tek were going to receive a nice shot in the arm as word of these events spread… if they were allowed to spread. I had my doubts on that, Immortal traditions of mindfuckery were well-established, but we’d just have to see…
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Tek’s Avatar among us was an android. As a Construct, he could animate and control it with only a tithe of his Health, and it nominally appeared as nothing more than another working drone that helped with the maintenance of the Engineering Department most of the time. It had a more customized tool rig, and a prominent monkey wrench badge, but it didn’t really stand out.
Every engineer with an Allegiance Oath knew that was Tek’s Avatar among us, however, and accepted him as one of their own.
The wave of memory-editing magic had swept across the world just an hour ago, removing all awareness, written and cerebral, of the events which had transpired over the last two weeks. Those who had died were returned to life, Mount Olympus was wiped away as if it had never been, all deeds and awareness of Immortals misbehaving was gone so it wouldn’t reflect on the others, and the lost time was just glazed over and filled in with ‘average workday’ and a lull in the battles between the empires.
It had no effect on the Oathbound under us. As the memories were swept away by those unable to resist Immortal Magic, they were just as quietly replaced from the Markspace… with the knowledge of just what had been attempted on them.
Needless to say, everyone’s opinions of most Immortals only soured the more.
“One thousand Immortal Wishes were expended to wipe away all traces of these events. That cost was imposed on the Immortals responsible for the worst abuses of power as a permanent cost… which included Nyx Herself, who unilaterally chose to punish the non-Entropic Immortals involved in this scheme and make a bad ending so much worse. The sheer fallout from mortals managing to undo their scheme to kill the rebel Immortals and reveal Immortal machinations was deemed entirely unacceptable, and the killings of Immortal Aspirants of non-Entropic Spheres was looked on dimly,” Tek reported to all of us in the conference chamber, a report echoing through Markspace among the Eternals and Aspirants.
“Breakdown of Aspirants?” Sama asked promptly.
“Tellingly, four Overmagi for Energy, all from Delpha. Three each from the other Spheres, all around the world, including one Priest of Anapexis in Siricil. No Entropics,” he added dryly.
“How utterly surprising. Next we’ll learn the night is dark,” I noted acerbically, and they all laughed without humor.