NOVEL NEXT BECMI Chapter 200 – A New Dawn for the World
Hey there! It's been three months and another hundred chapters in, so here's my normal call for some story support for those of you who've had the patience to stick with me as Edge plots against the invincible Immortals of this living world!
Most of my long-time readers have only rarely seen any of my stories reach the top 20 (I think two have). Getting past 50 is generally a big hurdle, mostly because I don't have the thousands of supporters of many larger novels.
That's fine, I make what I can from the loyalty of those following my stories.
A 5-star is an upvote to the story and helps it advance, anything else sends it backwards at this point. So, if you think the story is great, worth a read, and a high quality level, I ask for an upvote, and maybe a review telling people what you like about the story. Both are the things that drive my story forward.
I'd take several thousand more readers, too, but that's a bit harder to work out, although if someone can arrange it...
Thanks for everyone who has given me Ratings and positive Reviews! Those are the feedback to authors letting us know we are doing the right stuff!
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There was a solemn silence in the Markspace. My Sims could Tat Marks onto people, and so they did every day as one of their routine duties, recruits sussed out in both the alternate past and the now, agreeing to Allegiance, and then receiving their Marks.
They were communication tools unlike anything in either timeline I was established in, capable of being maintained and disseminated by my Sims, and they explicitly allowed mortals to exceed mortal limits on a single Stat of their choosing.
Benefits of being in an Allegiance, which not even Immortals could see without the right spells, and they had to know the spells and Allegiances existed to do such things. Being invisible to the views and senses of mortals could also be turned back onto Immortals. They weren't Divine and didn't have Divine Awareness, so they were limited in what they knew and could undertake, their primary 'extra' awareness being the prayers in their name and the information that came with their faithful sending up such things… much of which was dross, and had to be filtered out, ignored, and dismissed, as appropriate to the Immortal's own objectives.
New cults rose all the time. Entropic Immortals loved to make such things, cloaking them in veneers of righteousness by evoking old heroes and legends that had no connection to the Immortal actually granting the prayers and directing them to do this and that. Mortal pawns happy to have direction and slinging magic around fell for such tricks all the time, 'chosen' by divine powers and so obviously favored by the gods for a greater cause and purpose.
Even the not-so-evil Immortals frequently raised up splinter faiths for special purposes, then either folded them into the main churches or let them quietly fade into the background until needed again. Ours popping up might have a weird philosophy, but the key thing is that it would have a new beginning, with none of the baggage of the old world, none of the racial or cultural biases, no history to drag it down, and no Immortal to turn it into just another of their tools.
It also meant it would be a de facto enemy of every other Church and religion on the face of the planet, as they were all in competition with one another, and they would all be in competition with us.
It was what it was. I always knew we were going to be fighting on every side, one way or another, and on many levels. I didn't and couldn't think only small, and raising a floor past a current ceiling was one of greatest and grandest things that could be done, in my point of view.
"Tomorrow morning, at the dawn, I will show you the power of Faith, and those of you who think yourselves wise enough to tap it, will see it for yourselves."
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The dawn was coming.
Sir Horn was up on the altar platform, open to the sky and the sun as Aru willed it, facing east for the dawn service.
Knowing the Salute and being about to voice it made the time of dawn, the onset of Natural Renewal, incredibly obvious to anyone with any self-awareness, i.e. a Wisdom score of 11 or higher.
The Salute had its own minor magic. If started with best intentions, it always finished exactly on time with the dawn.
As Sir Horn began to speak, I began to hum a very specific set of notes in the Sublime Chord.
We'd be leaving on the morn, so my fellow students were up and around. They knew I always got up and faced the dawn in the morning, murmuring to myself, and had long figured that it was simply an outgrowth of elven reverence for nature.
But now, they heard the Salute in full.
Sir Horn's strong tenor rang out for a mile in all directions, and the waiting villagers, soldiers, and farmers all turned to face the east as it did so.
"Dreams of the wind at dawn,
A new day has begun.
Light chases back the dark, and the future lays before us.
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Will it be something bright and new?
Walk the road before you now, and leave the night behind,
Today is a new day, and the light comes to warm you all.
Let go the shadows, and behold the sun!
The Light has come, as ever it must.
Behold the new day!"
There was no mention of a god or Immortals. It was simply words.
But as it finished, Natural Renewal blew across the world with the first true light of the day, exactly on time, and those in Allegiance with me saw.
They saw the swirls of Faith that rose up, triggered by Truth, Hope, and Valor, and could feel them reaching up for something that was not yet there to receive them. Yet Faith it was still, it was power, and it came from the best part of mortal souls here.
Sir Horn went down to one knee, gasping as he beheld it, and Faith gathered to him.
A Soul Shining Silver.
I could feel it ignite on him, the special status of a true Paladin, a warrior of the highest and most difficult ethos to follow. He could feel the Call in that Faith, the power aching for something to represent it, and he answered.
As for the Zanzyrans and others, they all gasped as the power of the Salute whispered past them, bringing clarity, energy, invigoration at the dawn, concentrating and making them aware of the power of Natural Renewal. Once it was just a time of day where magic failed and had to be re-Cast.
Now, it would always be something more.
Even the surly I'm-not-a-morning-person folks could not help but waken up and clear the fog from their thoughts as the Salute included them.
Godless Zanzyrans, awed and shocked, bowed to the east as did everyone else, feeling that whisper of something great and natural sweeping past them… and then it was gone.
It was a wake-up call, and it threw into horrible contrast the views of the Philosophy of Thaum and the right and power of wizards to defy the Immortals and seize power for themselves, that they were all proto-gods in the making.
This, this was something clearly far beyond mortals to do, and no Immortal had been named in the Salute. Faith, as ever, had a power all of its own, and just because they could work magic did not mean they could work something as broad and subtle as the words of Aru's Salute to the Morning.
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"What were that, m'Lady?" the Mick was the first to ask, as we left Sir Horn's sprawling keep and its high walls, heading due east and a little north, around the great forest of the Vellibra elves there. There were no trade roads through the trees there, I didn't want to be hemmed in under the canopy, and it was easier to make time overland through the grasslands instead.
The Zanzyrans were a bit shocked when I began to talk about Faith as easily and surely as I talked about mana. One just didn't DO that in Zanzyr...
Also, we'd doubtless run into elves, have to partake of their hospitality, have to put up with their questions, and another day would be lost. The Vellibra and Cyapri were neighboring tribes, the latter living on the forest that formed the western edge of the Siricil Empire, and likely yet another reason why the empire hadn't rolled over this land long ago. The elves had bargained for their autonomy with the training of human Rangers, long employed as special agents by the Empire with their breadth of fighting ability and magic, and so Siricil had not marched through their woods, content to have at least some elvish power to draw upon for its armies and 'special services'.
Princess Brittabelle had naturally been in contact with both elven tribes concerning the training of Rangers, and still had personal envoys there 'visiting relatives'. Given elven visits could easily stretch years, this was both completely correct and happily misleading. Neither of the forests here were magical enough to be conducive to training Elven Wizards, and so such recruits were also being shuffled off via Teleportation to Erendyl to be trained there, just at a time when there was plenty of work for elven spellcasters to undertake.
No overland traffic, nothing for spies and gossips to see, moving along now…
Elven Wizardry was an elven Tradition, not a Zanzyran one, so training elves in it was hardly treason to Zanzyr. If they chose to learn Cryptomancy while in Zanzyr, that was exactly as Zanzyran law allowed, and even if they chose to leave in the future… the Tradition couldn't be learned without the gammathauma of the Radiance around to initially empower it, so teaching it to others outside of Zanzyr was not even possible.
All this hurry-hurry work by the elves of Erendyl was rather unlike many elven tribes, although the Vellibra had worked and lived alongside humans for literally millennia and so had an almost human-like work ethic. The Cyapri were much more isolationist and traditional, but having to deal with Siricil's imperial aggression also meant they were more familiar with the 'hectic' pace of human society, even if they wanted to minimize all exposure to it.
Thus it was that I went overland, not flying to make sure everyone laid their lived-lines properly, and the students got to sit back and enjoy the view as the miles zipped on past at a good speed.
These were wild lands, however. We did see random orcs, goblins, ogres, and gnolls moving about here and there, and they were singularly unhappy to see us coming. Most didn't see us going, since as long as I didn't slow down much I was perfectly happy to buzz them, and a small group of hunters went down very quickly under arrows and Shards zipping out to do their things, keeping things lively and everyone looking around for more things to shoot.
The manticore that thought it might be able to strafe us was one of those, but it was not happy when Duum punched his Lance through its side from out of Invisibility, driving it right out of the sky. All the students got to practice their component salvaging as we had it sliced up in under fifteen minutes, wings and hide and tail and spikes and blood and whatnot piled up on Disks, meaning more spending money soon to be available as they cheered one another and we got back on track.
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I was outvoted by dint of too many puppy-dog eyes.
All the wizards agreed that the town of Franklin was no place to visit, as we'd been informed that the Siricilan noble in charge of the place had outlawed all wizard magic in the town, and that would just cause all kinds of problems with wizards from Zanzyr, who kinda believed in just the opposite, just for swords and clerical magic!
However, the meet-town of Corillinian, where the Vellibra basically met human traders, had blossomed into a fair and idyllic little settlement where humans and elves and other races all lived together quite happily, not the least because elven law prevailed as a rule, with mandated exceptions only towards non-native humans at the insistence of the Archduke.
The others had been talking with Sir Horn's people, and it seemed the Twin Tails Inn there had silverfish that was simply to die for. They absolutely insisted that we stop and partake and enjoy the place.
Also, after five hours and over a hundred miles of overland travel, plus all the excitement on the way, it was a great time to pull into a town, get some eats, meet the locals, and enjoy the atmosphere.
A colorful flock of Zanzyrans coming through, especially well-behaved ones, was definitely an event, and soon the Twin Tails was rocking with customers all turned out to see the strange northern wizards coming into town.