BECMI Chapter 307 – Shadows of Immortal Lies

I justand looked away, my expression cold and unyielding. “I don’t speak to His reasons, mother. I have doubts as to His sanity as it is. But if you go into His Pyramid, down to the forbidden levels, past the Wards and the traps and the locks, you will come upon a great chamber.“Within that chamber is being assembled a fusion reactor, a thing of technology not seen since the Doom of Darkmoor, its key components being assembled from the rarest of minerals, gemstones, and of course, the Soul Crystals that are donated whenever a Priestess is promoted to a higher station or dies. The work goes slowly because the priestesses have no true understanding as to how such technology works or functions, but the Core of Gaebrel is over half-completed.

“It does not even need to be done for there to be a carelessly arranged accident, doubtlessly by helpful enemy Immortals, causing a Crimson Cataclysm to detonate once again, and scour Sternvult from the Deeps forever!” I continued as my mother grasped the table for support, her lips quivering in disbelief. “He is . He built a fusion bomb in the middle of our greatest city, in the heart of our people, where if something went wrong, it would have the most devastating effect possible! He is merging magic and super-science in ways He doesn’t even understand, and expects nothing to happen!”

I lowered my eyes to hers, mine probably glowing with wrath. “And the worst part of it is, He doesn’t need us to do this! He is an Immortal! He could go out, gather the components Himself, refine them Himself, and put them together Himself, all a thousand times faster than we can do so! The Shaden don’t need to be involved in this insanity at all, but He put it right in the middle of our people, as if offering them up for sacrifice once He turns it on!”

Aye, Gaebrel was fruitcake obsessed and a lunatic.

“Edgina…” my mother whispered, “just how far in time did you go?”

“There were many stops along the way, mother, but I ended up in Darkmoor, some fifty years before the great Doom that our ancestors fled from underground,” I answered quietly, letting some of my wrath fall away, and peace come over my features. The fright on her features was also telling, “More lies, mother,” I told her quietly. “I spent a great deal of time there, even knowing what was coming. Perhaps because I knew what was coming, and could not stop it.

“Darkmoor was the finest example of what could happen when the mortals of the world join hands to explore it and understand it together, without making war upon one another. Elves, dwarves, hyn, and humans were all there in ancient Darkmoor, all working together to uplift one another, learning secrets of science and magic that have not been equaled since.

“Our tales whisper of the arrogance of humans, of elves abandoning their roots, of dwarves building things no sane being should, of hyn going places and stirring up powers best left undisturbed.

“Darkmoor was none of that, mother. The elves kept the science grounded with their ties to the land. The humans applied their endless energy to a thousand projects that benefited all, and made war only when intruded upon, showing the benefits of knowledge and working together. The dwarves provided a pragmatic foundation that anchored us to what is real, and yet pushed the boundaries of what could be achieved through sheer craftsmanship. And the hyn, the hyn valued nothing that did not help the people, called stupidity what it was, and pointed out all the fallacies that could see us through.

“Darkmoor was not the height of arrogance and pride of our tales, mother, nor did it fall to some human poking fingers in secrets of the universe left uncovered. Darkmoor was murdered by Immortals jealous of what it had accomplished without them, and fearful of what its success might mean to their dominance.

“It died in fire and fury, and lies were spread across the world, trying to ensure that something so noble and uplifting never happened again. Humans blamed elves, elves blamed humans, and dwarves and hyn lost all knowledge of that era entirely.” I lowered my eyes to meet hers.

“I was there, mother. I saw it all. All you know are lies,

My mother took a long and shuddering breath. Truly, this was a day for shocks to the very heart of her beliefs.

I had been in Darkmoor! It was like saying I had walked in a world of gods and demons, so fanciful were the tales about that time! The meteoric rise, and a fall so devastating it had changed the entire world as it drove our ancestors underground.

“By the stones, Edgina, this is truly a day for terrible revelations. And, and you have not even mentioned the price the Radiance demands…”

“Do you truly wish to know?” I asked kindly, but my gaze was firm. “That cost is horrific, and motivates a great deal of what I do.”

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She took a deep breath. “I trust in your words, but I also believe that if I investigate personally, I will lose all trust in my king. Your words make me question the very sanity of the Immortal who has protected and guided us for so long. And this… will be worse?”

I could only nod.

“Then let my disillusionment be complete. Tell me.” She visibly steeled herself for what she was going to hear.

She hadn’t had much to eat, as Shaden don’t eat much normally, but I still waited patiently as she retched in the other room.

Consuming the magic of the world with the use of the Radiance.

Deflecting the corruption from using the Radiance into the children of the Shaden, then leaving those children out in the tunnels to be raised by the nifloid tribes, who they’d interbred with, and then come back in later years to attack the Shaden with their own descendants.

It was entirely probable the blood of the Shaden was responsible for stabilizing the goblins and hobgoblins into the forms they had today.

That, and sending out the elders of the Shaden to die in the dark… or to be recruited by darker gods once He had abandoned them, thinking they would just do as they were told and fight the enemies of the Shaden until death.

Gaebrel was either mad or so colossally insensitive to his mortal followers and inept it was hard to believe.

I had met his old human self on the Far Shore, and suffice it to say he was a very socially challenged individual, someone who found it very hard to relate well to others. He lived in his own little intellectual world, had extremely hard times displaying his emotions, and had all the empathy of a computer bank.

His Immortal self was probably protective of his flock of elves, but thought of them as primitives in need of firm guidance who would do whatever He told them to, and so benefit from it. The fact the Shaden had survived for nigh four thousand years because of Him only solidified His opinion of himself that He was doing the right thing, and had no clue that His ‘children’ were growing beyond Him and desiring more than He could give them.

How a genius in fusion engineering managed to become Immortal was absolutely beyond me, as he definitely had not achieved any of the great feats necessary to do so, and he had the combat instincts of a goldfish.

Heck, he wasn’t even very good at video games. His characters in Exudar IV tended to end up becoming pack rats with, eh, questionable fashion taste, always looking for strange niche applications for their powers, instead of pursuing any kind of real xp or combat builds.

Building a technomagic fusion reactor to double or triple the consumption of the world’s magic, that was a sane choice, yessir. Why He built it here, in the middle of the Sternvult, and why He had elves without a technological bone in their bodies doing the work made absolutely no sense to me.

I could do it, but that was because I had years of education in the Federation’s super-science and an Intellect most Immortals would love to have. I also had no personal reservations about learning science and reconciling the laws of reality with the Rules of magic here, something that could actually really mess with the heads of some magical folks, for whom existence was all one thing or the other.

My mother Keffe came back into the room, look quite wan and upset. She had served with the militia, as did all the Shaden (save me, I had exterminated the nifloids on my own) and while not a huntress, she had seen death and battle and was ready to fight with magic and sword for her people.

Finding out she’d been killing descendants of the Shaden among the accursed humanoid raiders coming down from the higher tunnels had still shaken her to her core. The knowledge that innocent children had been forcibly bestowed the corruption of the priests and then sent to the humanoids to be raised, and I had almost been one of them, had also shaken her to her marrow.

Her disillusionment was complete, and she looked entirely miserable… but the fires of wrath were smoldering deep in her eyes.

Our tribe was the Shaden, and we did not back down from fights!

“Daughter, tell me what you are going to do, and what I can do to help you,” she asked me with as much calm as she could muster. “For example, tell me why they will believe you when you speak to them?”

I nodded once. “Because I speak Truth, Mother,” I told her, and her whole body shook as every word I’d spoken to her, and all the lies spoken to her in her life, stood in shattering contrast within her.

What was true, what was lies, impossible to confuse, obvious as night as day in the upperworld before the power of a Word of Creation.

A trickle of blood came out her nose as her whole body shook, her eyes rolling up as hundreds of years of memories were scoured, truth was raised up next to lies, and there was no mistake about them.

She gasped as she came out of the trance several minutes later, but this time, anger replaced the quivers, purpose replaced loyalty, and her pale eyes were alight with the desire to repay the advantage that had been taken of her, and of all our people!

“Yes,” she breathed out, and it was almost a snarl as she nodded at me. “Yes, daughter, they will indeed believe what you have to say. Why don’t you relate to me some particulars, while I, I locate some old friends and we get into position to do something right for our people…”

The Illusion was pretty massive in scale, if pretty simple. It wavered in the ‘sky’ above Sternvult, the city built on the ceiling of a great cavern with an inverted gravity incline going through it.

From above, the settlements about the lakes below looked their own version of winking stars about a great gloomy well, something vaguely like a moon and stars when seen from above.

This illusion was on the sky directly above, rippling across the gravity incline, replacing darkness and reflected lights with the fading colors of dusk, with clouds… and in the incoming beauty of the nightly stars revealing themselves for the word.

The brightness of it brought all the Shaden out to see it, many having to shield their eyes at the brilliance of it spilling across the city above and the villages below, far too bright for eyes used to the Underdark, yet too wondrous and beautiful to be missed.

The show was about to begin!