BECMI Chapter 270 – A Pyramid for Heaven

A grav sled coasted by smoothly overhead, lifting capability buttressed by to increase capacity. The freight modules it was towing were heading for the wheat fields to the south, where the rail lines hadn’t reached yet, easing the distance the farmers had to travel to get their crops to market.Steel and glass buildings rose here and there, surrounded by more mundane stone and wood counterparts, and interspersed with many trees, broad lawns, walkways, and running streams where appropriate.

In the distance, the city walls, moved outward once again, rose calmly, especially high near Castle Darkmoor, and lights in the sky indicated soldiers on patrol, watching for surprises. It was still remarkable how many large flying things, dimension-hoppers, and incorporeal things tried to get into the city, not to mention the diggers the tremor-sensors detected incoming. It was safe to say that on average once a day the patrols caught something trying to get into Darkmoor magically, and at least thrice other forms of infiltration.

Fifteen years, a huge change for everyone. A whole generation had grown up without being worried the Northmen would come with swords and steal all they had, killing anyone who tried to stop them. That monsters couldn’t swoop out of the sky and make off with children, cattle, or parents. That barbarian conquerors from the west and merciless imperial legionnaires weren’t coming from the south to decimate everything and force the people to labor for them.

No, this had been a time of peace, and productivity, and zealous children making sure that the labors of their parents weren’t in vain as they learned new things, discovered the power of mortal science, and aimed to make the world a better place than it had been.

And they were totally willing to fight for that, if not to conquer willy-nilly for it.

“Well, Antius?” I asked him, as we looked down from the Heavenly Pyramid, and the contents of the picnic basket floated out between us. “Do you like what you see?”

The Powered evolutions had definitely worn well on him. The king looked both younger now than when I’d first met him, yet more mature at the same time. He took his time to respond as he gazed out over his erstwhile kingdom, years of civil planning and input from all races making something progressive yet retro in its own way, shouting out to style and elegance while making sure function wasn’t ignored.

“It is hard to believe science could do all this, Edge,” he admitted, the two of us long past honorifics. “And a great deal of inspired hard work. To think humanity once had this level of technology all over the world…”

The Pyramid about us pulsed happily. Its foundations were white and silver, blending up smoothly to yellow and gold, rising to flames of orange and rainbow here at the top, where they glittered with the joy and happiness of a new day coming for everyone.

It wasn’t the tallest building in Darkmoor City, but it was definitely the most massive. The Great Jordie was proud to ascend the steps every morning and Salute the Dawn, rain or shine, from atop its glowing steps. When its stones dimmed to stars and moonlight at the dusk, he Saluted the Dusk as well, lauding those who watched over us in the night as we waited for the new day.

Not relying on Immortals for blessings or boons, working towards a better future.

Something that could not be permitted in the long run.

Below our feet, Faith gathered, strong and pure, belief in their king and kingdom and one another and the power of mortal souls to reach higher together united in a greater cause.

Belief in the dawn of a new day, and powers that always responded with a simple blessing for those who faced east and saluted them.

The Dawn Blessing from the Pyramid had made the land and seas around here the most prosperous in the world. Add on what the use of mechanical planters and harvesters could do in both clearing land and massively increasing the efficiency and yield of fields, and there was more food around than ever before, which meant supporting a larger population, bigger families, and spreading the wealth around as less labor per food meant people could pursue vocations that didn’t involve not starving far more readily.

The better standard of living meant there were a lot of people who wanted to immigrate here, looking for opportunities. Many of them were, well, opportunistic, but that was fine. There was a lot of land to open up, and the schools always needed more people of Good heart.

Neutral hearts, not as much, especially the spies continually trying to woo those students away from here with offers of mountains of gold, and when that didn’t work, actually trying to kidnap them in many instances.

There were mission reports serialized in adventure novels as to the lengths to which we went to get back our people, and punish those who thought to take them. The names were quite accurate as to who we went after, if not who was actually sent, with stand-in pseudonyms. Retrieval teams were quite elite, quite motivated, and the speed and effectiveness of the response bled down into the lower-ranked soldiers, many vying to be members of that elite and close-mouthed fraternity.

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“We still don’t know what broke them,” I shook my head, nabbing one of Master Lalo’s bite-sized sandwiches. Lalo was perfectly aware neither of us really needed to eat, so exquisite small things were appreciated more than volumes of good food. “All that is known is that elves and dwarves definitely arose after the point the prior human civilization was destroyed, and its destruction and erasure was far too thorough to not be powerful and magical in origin.”

In other words, the Immortals had come down and crushed them for some reason.

“The emergence of magic,” he nodded at the common guess for things.

We’d gone back to the Fungi Chamber, specifically looking at the surviving technology records there for any and all historical data we could mine from it. Although the tech was roughly at par with the Federation, technomagic could bypass a lot of password protections, regardless of the algorithms behind them or the fact it should literally be impossible to unlock anything.

Finding traces of the prior civilization turned out to be a mutual obsession of King Antius and Captain Emeril, and the two men had a fine team of archaeologists and explorers carefully investigating what hidden and buried ruins I could suss out for them.

Exciting times, with technological defenses of all types, and often magical monsters or fell mutants set to guard over them. Lots of blaster fire and explosions and stuff, for Science!

“Have the instigators been poking around?” he asked carefully, assembling a mix of crackers and cheeses with delighted speed as I finished slicing the six small blocks of cheeses very thin with a crimson blade coming off my left forefinger.

“Two have infiltrated the city and are taking classes at the university.” I accepted a rye and Sylfun-milk offering and nibbled on it primly, holding out my fluted glass for him to gallantly pour a light greenish wine from the Etherwood Court for me.

His light smile didn’t fade, despite the seriousness of the words. “With impeccably untraceable backgrounds, of course. Do you know who they are?”

“Nifl and Thanatos,” I replied calmly, taking a wheat cracker with a rabbit’s-milk Ankoro cheese on it next.

His nostrils flared, knowing very well what Sphere those two were in. “No doubt they would be very discomfited to know you know who they are. What are they involving themselves in?” he ask in resignation.

“Genetics, with a focus on disease and vaccination, and computer programming.”

He leaned back in his disk chair, tasting his own assortment of munchies. “She is looking to unleash a plague on us? And he is, what, going to sabotage the computer networks from within?” He was a seasoned coder himself now, as Artificing technology stuff required a broad array of skills to gain greater empathy with the material, and if you wanted to upgrade a plasma pistol, you better know how its electronics worked!

“Yes, well…”

“Ah, the frightening Lady Edge ‘cool dismissal’ tone, where she has thought of that and the ten steps beyond, and you were defeated before you even decided to be clever.” He nodded wisely at my impassive face. “I have seen you smile honestly, you know. Even if it was just the once.”

That would have been the day the Heavenly Pyramid came online, and the quiet streams of Faith began pouring into it. I had been very happy when it did so. Didn’t need Immortals who weren’t going to do shit to save us stealing Faith we could use.

“I did something suitably stupid and subtle, going broad instead of targeting. It’s kind of a Curse on anything with Immortal Power interacting with technology,” I admitted quietly. “It always skews the knowledge gained towards the Sphere’s inherent tendencies, accelerating it into imbalance and self-destruction. So these Immortals working to pick up scientific knowledge are going to continually get it wrong, fumble things, and mistake this for that with other magical knowledge they are already certain of, conflating the two in ways that don’t work as their own power makes them muck things up.

“Among other things, Entropic Avatars will find their higher-science projects dying suddenly or losing power; Matter Immortals will find stuff hard to work, non-conductive, and with enhanced friction; Time Immortals will find stuff breaking and wearing down with increased speed, their best finished projects always looking worn and half-arsed at best; Thought Immortals will find it difficult to get the same results on any type of variable project, resulting them in being unable to repeat their successes or errors with any reliability; and Energy Immortals will find their stuff tends to blow up or burn out spontaneously.

“If they use magic to try and stabilize things, overcompensation will happen in the opposite direction, to similarly hilarious results.

“The only skills they will be able to use successfully are the mundane skills and basic alchemy they’ve allowed mortals to develop in the wider world. This superscience is going to seem like some cheap trick they can’t quite get the hang of.”

King Antius was smiling widely as I finished up with my explanation. “Oh, oh my.” He clapped his hands together excitedly. “I look forward to deducing who those Avatars are simply by their sour reputations and reputations for disastrous results following them.”

“It isn’t going to stop them from doing what they want to do,” I said to him grimly. “And they are patient and are willing to wait a long time to infiltrate and spread their poison.”

“Personal grudges aren’t going to help, and the Immortals of Iberon have already proven completely unhelpful,” he just sighed. “Of course, we are not confiding in them, which doesn’t make it easier for us.”

“The fact I’ve only seen distant interest in them and no sign of personal visits means they are sitting back and watching how we’re going to ‘destroy ourselves’. Letting their opposites do the job since they’ve nothing invested here to bother themselves with… and the closest thing they are bothering themselves with they are also letting die.”

Five years ago, the Iron Graf had chewed a path from the north to the south of Iberon, looting, pillaging, recruiting… and then heading straight west, as I’d instructed him, getting away from a land that might be buried under a new North Pole, and if not, buried under the waves, in a few short decades.

What he made there was going to form its own legend, but he was staying away from Darkmoor… although Darkmoor was becoming known everywhere regardless, as shuttles of explorer teams were going around the world, documenting stuff, finding what was memorable and unique and trying to preserve it.

Spreading the name and word of Darkmoor, as was supposed to happen…