NOVEL NEXT BECMI Chapter 226 – Plans upon Plans
"They made a Hollow World with a whole lot of surface area to work with…" Sama hissed out. "Even cut down the size of it for you!" she grinned nastily.
"Yes. I have to get down there and map the place out. Given your description of it as a zoo and museum, I really don't think I'm going to have too many problems doing such things."
"The restrictions on magic?" she asked archly. "The spellcasters there were very restricted in some of the things they could Cast."
"How much would you like to bet such restrictions don't affect Immortals?" I might have gotten a little singsong there, too.
"Eh, no bet. No need to inconvenience themselves just to annoy mortal spellcasters. They just have to lock down the smartest folk who might break open their little experiment and they're good to go."
"Is it true that you found a Sythian realm down there?" I asked, my eyes narrowed.
"Yeah," she nodded, glancing at me. "Custom form of Pyramid power and everything, startlingly advanced magical tradition, and they looked like they stepped out of an Egyptian god-flick or something. Totally snobbish elitists, of course, and literally couldn't consider me or Briggs anything but barbarians. They loved the blonde hair and blue eyes, however. Had like ten requests to join the harems of some of the rulers. A couple got too handsy, and we had to see ourselves out of there."
"Whereupon they learned that ancient tricks and mystic hokum are no match for a huge hammer and modern fencing techniques?" I misquoted blithely, absolutely certain that 'no hard feelings' had not been part of that equation.
"There are times I could have enjoyed using a good blaster," she snickered, "but fighting guys who didn't wear armor because it's so damn hot because they live in a fucking desert by choice was so lazy, and of course their magic didn't affect us much. You want a good look at it, too?" she inquired. "They had a unique spin on levitation magic that allowed them to field wheel-less chariots and battle barges, among other things."
"I don't need it. There's a whole wing of my library devoted to the magic of the Sythians. It's probably the only remaining store of true Sythian history left on the planet. My Sims had to spend over two dozen Miracles just to offset Immortal efforts to wipe the knowledge away by fiat. Even the Delphans didn't manage to keep their memories and records of them intact, but then they weren't really trying, either."
"You… have a library devoted to Sythian history and their magic?" she asked, her voice rising slightly, before she rolled her eyes. "Those Sims of yours must be hellaciously useful. You can find out something you need to know now, and send a Sim back a hundred or a thousand years to find out about it, without even involving yourself, can't you?"
"That is correct. I am restricted to having twenty extant at one time, however. So I can actually load up the past with them, but to make new ones, they either have to have died or to have gained a soul and gone mortal. The oldest is about two thousand years old. She sits on the Ruling Council of Delpha and has been acclaimed the greatest aeromancer of the nation for most of a millennium after she went mortal. Her mastery of air magic is venerated by them, although none seem to be able to emulate her skills… save a certain Delphan family now active in Zanzyr," I noted tellingly.
Sama gave me a look. "Zanzyran aeromancy, before it existed?"
"When they go mortal, my Sims can make choices to not exactly follow the Classes that I have, specifically those of the gamma-thaumic Classes central to Zanzyr. Lady Cloudrose chose to go the aeromancer route, figuring it would allow her easier access to the heart of Delpha's power if she did, and it has done so, allowing her to relieve two of the older Sims who had been recording its history by other means and permitting them to go mortal, as well. They masquerade as her daughter and grand-daughter, and are quite relieved to have finally reached my time period, where they are no longer restricted by Time's absolute march.
"Most of my Sims died in great obscurity over the millennia, completely intentionally, held from interfering with history overmuch by the power of your Null lock on time. Repeated Castings of the Rune of Time allowed them to smooth over minor mistakes, allowing history to heal itself, and Miracles to the same effect were also used.
"I have to take off about ten years and start going through the library and the knowledge they have accumulated."
"Which you will, starting twenty years in the past or something?" she nodded, instantly figuring the angles.
"I see you understand the strategic benefits of being able to manufacture time out of the past. It was incredibly boring at times, but the forty years I spent trapped in the Inn on my trip through the past allowed me to complete my magical studies to a degree simple Karmic accumulation wouldn't really allow.
"However, I didn't have the library as a resource. What I've discovered on my own alludes to the fact the Sythians had magical knowledge that exceeded that of the current Delphans, hard as that might be to imagine."
Sama just snorted as we turned the corner, and the smithy and her manse was just ahead. "Not really. I've known Delphans for most of a century, and they exist in a weird kind of magical stasis. They play at doing this and that thing that's wild and bold and new, but they all still tend to wear the same style of robes, just looking for new cuts, colors, and maybe a foreign style of jewelry to raise the eyebrows and tell a story. They are very magically powerful, but they aren't very innovative. Their culture travels a well-worn road, ruts and all, and they cling to it in the face of other forces simply because that raw magical power protects them."
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"Well, they don't have a lot of respect for warriors, either, which I assume didn't earn you any favors after you popped a few of the more arrogant ones in the face?"
"Yeah, well, they aren't opposed to slavery, either, and their laws blatantly favor spellcasters. So, you know, gutting a necromancer conquering the local population of barbarian savages and using them for cheap labor and lab experiments is wildly illegal and a good way to earn yourself and your family a death sentence in the Delphan Empire."
"But if all concerned parties are dead, no such sentence?" I wondered for no particular reason.
Double canines gleamed in the moonlight. "I see you understand…" her voice trailed off, and she held up a hand to stop me. "Fuzzy is quiet."
That meant more to us than to a normal person. It meant he had let his Markspace go dim.
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Dread went from one hand to both of mine, and gleamed darkly in readiness. "The area has been blanked to Divination magic, my Detects are off-line," I reported matter-of-factly. I did reach out with one hand and tap the air with a finger. "A Source Interdiction and Stillflight Field is in effect, this area is locked down on his end, too. I don't know his tactics. Why no bright lights and loud clashes?"
"He's hunting whoever is behind this, while the boys take care of whoever or whatever was sent in here to deal with him." No famous female gladiator students among Briggs' students, Sama would handle any women worth the time.
I sniffed the air. "There's negative energy in the thaumic field. Undead, probably incorporeals sent in to drain strength and ambush them?" I theorized, looking over at her, except she wasn't there anymore.
Riiiiight. Pulling a Batman on me with an insanely high-speed lightfoot technique equal to any Mystic Grandmaster alive. Sama was off and hunting someone unfortunate, too.
Well, I imagined they had enemies, and one had chosen today to end its career in style. Er, try to kill them.
But there was also the problem of the students, who might have been sucked into this. They were not exactly experts on facing the undead.
"Miklan McMikal, I can see the place is dark, but I don't know where you are. I am standing out in the plaza on the other side of the walls and main smithy. Sama has departed to inflict some grief on whatever is moving here. Have one of the others Message me."
A breath later Isadora's voice whispered in my ear, "We're in a safe room in the basement with bricks laced with lead and gorgon's blood in the mortar. Master Briggs said there were hostile spirits running around. Entelia put up a Circle of Protection from Evil and has been concentrating on keeping it up. There are two members of the staff here, probably here to protect us more than we are them."
So, they had been here. Likely finalizing up some deals. I knew the Mick and Chekwort had picked out a big spread of Pellior wines they were going to make an absolute killing on back in Zanzyr. It was possible some thieves might have thought they were quails to be rousted down and shot for their fat meat, but that wouldn't explain the undead presence I surely felt here, and which had been alluded to them.
No, the native thieves were much more likely to try a smash-and-grab while the exchange was being made, and likely to call that off if there was a lot of magical presence, unless they had overwhelming numbers.
There was also the fact that they definitely didn't want to piss off Briggs and Sama over something like this, and surely they were going to be pissed.
Something unfolded from the shadows of the beam holding up the awning of the smithy and lunged at me, dagger raised high and jaws opening on an otherwise featureless black expanse of a face, causing my heart to-
"Oh, just die," I hissed, ignoring the potentially fatal fear effect as Dread snapped out into the Archer's Stand Thrust, and the red star of the black star sapphire pulsed with hot white light.
The incoming shade, all shadow energy in the vague form of a slender man, introduced his face to the head of my Staff, the blunt end forming a spear of ki that drove right into that head with all sorts of neat stuff, but the worst had to be the Disruption on it.
Bolstered by a lot of Holiness to boost the Save reqs, the shade was completely blown apart by the combination of triple damage set-to-the-face and double damage Disruption on a Grandmaster's weapon, something like a base 6d8+96 +3d6 before all other modifiers.
It blew apart without a sound, immaterial shadow energies flaring and poofing into vapors that revealed at least four Greater Shadows also converging in on me in the flash of it dying.
I slid backward calmly, Dread spinning as I fed them some Shards. There had to be things watching, and I didn't want to reveal too much more than I was showing, so it suddenly coming to light that I was a weaponmaster visiting arguably the best weaponmaster alive wasn't going to indicate much.
Swapping out Holy damage to up the numbers against these undead for Dread's Disruption was also a no-brainer, and the black Banefire against Undead I set up on him just looked like I was keeping to a theme.
Dread smacked away limbs that were forced into corporeality by the Interdiction effect Briggs had blown across the Veil here, only one sparking against the Force Armor I threw up on myself at the start of every day and repelled promptly. Then I was spinning and striking and Disruption was igniting them savagely as they moved in on me and my own expanded reach, and I punished them for it.