BECMI Chapter 41 – A Potent Future from the Past

“Lady Edge,” the dwarven priest Revered Cruxin began carefully, trying to judge my reaction and shore up his own, “we are having difficulties reconciling the facts you have given us with the tenets of our god. We do not believe that He would have misled us so badly, even if there were dwarves before the fall of this legendary Darkmoor you speak of…”

I gave him an odd look. “The existence of Darkmoor is not legendary, as you seem to imply. It was quite real. Cirrul has tales from her forebears.” My chin pointed to the dragon who was watching and listening to us as she ate. The dwarves looked at her, and the blue dragon just nodded slightly. “Elves from vastly different tribes know of it. Archaeologists and historians from a dozen human nations have empirical proof of records and items that date from it. It most certainly existed. Given their accomplishments in areas of great interest to the dwarves, I find your lack of knowledge of them

“Also, Immortals lie to their followers all the time.” Both dwarves engaged in a combination of bristling and gaping at me. “The Immortals of the tribes of orcs, gnolls, ogres, goblins, and kobolds all say to follow them, and they will conquer and dominate the world, drowning their enemies in blood and laden down with more plunder than they can carry. The shadenelves are told the souls of the unborn reside in gemstones so that will yield all such up to their priests for the god’s projects. The Immortals of the elves lie to them to stay in a lifestyle that will see them consigned to history as immaterial over and over again. The Immortals of Entropy promise power and authority to the mad and deranged, and deliver only death. The Immortals of humans lie and promise tribes ascension and power over other tribes, only to be ground down by war as their creeds clash.

“The Immortal Clangyr is known among humans as a Patron of crafting going back to the time of Darkmoor itself. His worship existed the history you claim. He is known to disdain magic that doesn’t come from the Immortals greatly, and prefers the power of the crafter and smith to transform the world.

“He has a clear and well-known agenda to deny you the magic of your ancestors. It is known that the dwarves of Rukheim have a great resistance to magic, and this has denied to you the magic of the ancients. It is in His interests for you to not know of this power and not question His words, so of course He would claim facts easy to explain and believe.

“But dwarves take the world as it is, not as others say. Without cold, hard fact and logic, one cannot be an engineer of any worth, or a smith of any accomplishment.

“I cannot wield the magic you do. It is dwarven magic, not elven magic. I am not teaching you what I know, I am telling what can learn. I can advise, but your magic will be different from my own. Mine is not born of artifice, earth, or fire.

“But I am a student of magic, and I do not like seeing such wonderful potential and skill squandered. It is like looking at a talented dwarf and instead of him pursuing his studies and learning to craft things of great function and beauty he prefers to drink, write bad poetry, and see if he can invent some new ways to skip a stone across the river.”

Their eyes flashed with understanding. Waste was waste!

“Why would Clangyr be so opposed to magic?” Prince Ukker asked carefully, warily even.

“There are several, many related to him being of the Sphere of Matter and not a mage himself in thought or deed. But the biggest is that magic is the power of the individual, but the crafter is the power of a community. Magic allows one to walk the world independently and alone, and in doing so removes the Caster and all his benefits from those who have it not.

“One can see that among the elven peoples readily, can one not?” I asked them both, and they nodded hesitantly. “All elves have magic. An elf can go where he wants, make a home under the open sky, fight, defend themselves, make objects they desire, and does not truly need others to get along in life easily. The more magic they have, the less and less they need others, until they can walk the world needing no others… and for many mages, that means caring for no others, too. When you don’t need others, they become worth less and less to you, and objects to be treated callously, not cherished and loved.

“Too many mages lose those connections to friends, family, kin, and kind, their morals fall off a cliff, and pursuing more power, more knowledge to do it all themselves, takes them over.

“Arcane magic does not this happen,” I emphasized firmly. “Elves, for example, think in longer terms of time, and so what others might see as flightiness and abandonment is just a short-term vacation. We tend to see the beauty and wonder of magic, and enjoy sharing it with others, not merely the power that is involved with it.

“But Clangyr is not an elven Patron. His views are how a crafter and warrior sees wizards, and he has seen a great deal of abuse by wizards, especially powerful wizards.

“Crafters and warriors cannot truly function alone. They require others, be it to make armor, weapons, to raise mounts of war, to provide the labor to raise walls, to raise the food, to brew the beer, to transport goods from one place to another they are needed. Warriors exist as part of an interlinked system, and not as beings who can do everything by themselves. Warriors do not make the magic arms and armor that empower them to kill the greatest of foes, they are merely the wielders of the things the crafter bestows upon them.

“Likewise, the crafter is dependent on the miner, the farmer, and the drover who brings their raw goods to them to be turned into something usable to others. An interwoven net of community that is the beating heart of what it means to be Rockborn.

“A wizard threatens all of that, and thus Immortal Clangyr does not like wizards.

“Too, magic empowering the individual means that magic is sought by the mad, the insane, and the power-hungry. Where the damage such individuals can do is limited if they are a warrior or mere thief, well, the potential of magic to wreak harm is much higher than one warrior with an axe. So, it is also a safety measure.”

The dwarves were silent as they stared at me, doubtless considering what they had seen of me.

After all, I obviously did not need them or their help, or likely that of the humans, yet here I was, uniting and leading them all.

“And yet you think we should take up this burden Clangyr Himself disapproves of,” Revered Cruxin challenged me.

I shifted my gaze to his dark orbs easily, keeping his stare without effort. “I think dwarves know how to use tools properly, and magic is but one more tool to them. Dwarves make wizards who show other wizards how to be proper wizards, and not renegade fools. Dwarves take magic, stand athwart the world, and build something great and grand and good, they do not tear it down in blood and conquest.

“What brought down Darkmoor in fire and ruin I have no idea of. I believe it to be an accident of some kind. But I also believe that the greatness it rose to was on the backs and wills of dwarves, for who else could use magic to such collective greatness?”

“Not the elves?” Prince Ukker asked wryly.

“No,” I said calmly, rather startling them. “My people learn magic as individuals, it is in our nature. We inspire others to learn magic. We display its power, its potential, its beauty, and its wonder better than any other people, but we do not lift our people collectively the way dwarves do. If some choose to follow the example we set, well enough. If not, equally well. It is their choice as individuals.

“Dwarves see a dwarf-mage embrace greatness, lifting up all around them, and they want to follow in his footsteps, are encouraged by their parents to do so, and the whole community grows stronger.

“Humans see a fellow human achieve power, and their motivations are as varied as them: fear, disdain, disgust, hate, appreciation, envy, desire, ambition, lust for power, and occasionally even real admiration. But what wins admiration for a wizard from humans is not their magic, but their conduct without magic entirely. It is the quietly restrained wizard who is most admired, while those who throw around their magic the most, for good and ill, stir up the greatest feelings of resentment.

“The choice of how and how well you use your magic is your choice as a people, not that of an Immortal. The fact Clangyr’s other peoples have made some poor choices does not mean that you will do the same. Magic is a tool, and dwarves are most excellent tool-makers… and tool-users.”

I let the quiet extend as they finished their meals, and I mine.

“There is also a second consideration, which the humans and hyn have already been informed of,” I began again as I pushed away my plate and sent it floating off to the kitchen with that of the two contemplative dwarves. “Rockborn, please gather around. I am going to inform you of something called the Rule of One, Warrior’s Magic that is going to change your lives…”

Half of the thirteen dwarves had active Artificer potential. Their Prince had a Bloodline which allowed minor access to spells of Fire in addition to wielding Geomancy, or Earth magic.

Whether they chose to embrace magic or not was their choice, and I would not force the issue. Plainly the prince and the priest feared what wielding magic might lead to, and my words about Clangyr hadn’t helped with their brutal honesty.

This place had far fewer restrictions on gaining Levels than the Power of Ten, but I’d known that for a long time. Elves could reach Ten on just a few points of Karma a week, given how long they lived, and intelligence was no restriction on what spells one could learn.

Dwarves tended to emphasize the warrior’s path, and to a lesser extent, Faith and Divine magic, although the latter was not in any of the tales I had read of them in the old days, probably another of Clangyr’s alterations and redirections of their heritage.

Regardless, they were with me, and I’d try to improve the resources at my command, even if I was to lose them in the future.

It was fine. Even if all they did was improve their foundation, that would be quite an upgrade over time.

The main problem was going to be after tonight, because if that carried through, there was going to be nearly a month with no Portal at all, and we were all going to be stuck in this place for a solid month, which was going to make everyone stir crazy.

Well, I could do something about that, too. Magic, solving so many problems for everyone if you had the spells and knew how to apply them.

I bent to my Infusing for the day, Gear improvement, one day at a time. and got theirs in combat, but everything else was out of combat and ate up goldweight steadily and completely.

Good thing jewels didn’t take up much space, and I had plenty of goldweight to spare.

Pity they didn’t have masterwork Weapons overall, or I could have introduced them to Naming Karma, although that might have really slowed down their own Leveling…