BECMI Chapter 448 – Conversion and Commitment

There was a rather momentous crack, and across Shadow Kheper, everything lurched and lost its balance for a moment. Reality bent, shifted, and there was a sensation of rapid and abrupt motion, like something being squeezed out of hole it suddenly didn’t fit.The world spun, although nothing moved. Reality shifted under the pressure of Immortal Power, and Shadow Kheper was forcibly shifted up the folds of reality as its alignment and affinity with the energies of the multiverse changed.

While everyone was face and back-planting, I kept my eye on the connecting archways.

Resonating spells worked into the Portal network that led here reached from one to the next, burning more Immortal Power, but also wrenching every single one of the connecting planes up in their reach, like a whip being cracked and stabilizing into a new line, with Shadow Kheper forming the far end of the line, and the Prime Plane on the true Island of Kheper forming the new anchor point.

The mirror image effect of the two Khepers made it all possible, reaching out to the Prime Plane and forcibly snapping the connecting planes into closer alignment with it, tapping the oppressive firmness of the mortal world to bring these lesser demi-planes into alignment with itself.

It meant all those intermediary demi-planes all became habitable, as soon as they were cleared of undead and dangerous creatures. Which was a clear deed to task to the natives of Shadow Kheper, be it with armies or adventurers!

Tek’s foundries and forges were all coming up, the existing mines were being excavated, and he was also conjuring up the first real seeds and crops as he chose his first clerics from among the former slaves now being freed and rising up against the undead if they could.

As far as secure bases of operation, the Mick’s band first tore its way back along the river they’d followed up to the temple and rampaged through Shadow Thasophyt as insane werespider mystics and clerics were busy trying to kill all their rivals and take over the position of the head spider. The Mick was happy to weigh on their various good and bad points, and after some rapid consultations with the rest of his band, judged them all to be not worth keeping alive and the squad slaughtered all of them without the slightest reservation.

Being Tomb-Tainted actually helped the natives during this time, as their flesh and blood was extremely unsatisfying to the spiderfolk and the undead alike, not much different than eating undead themselves. Without the Mother Spider to grant them spells, the werespiders were soon starting to starve, and amazingly, the best things around to eat were one another!

Cannibalism amongst yourselves is not a good way to keep your strength. On the other hand, when the Mick came on the scene, they were automatically the best thing to eat, and attracted ALL the attention. That was both problematic and very effective at getting all the werespiders and undead to come at them. Austere the Morning-Priest spent a lot of time Turning undead and blowing them to ash as everyone else held the stronger undead off (or slaughtered them first, starting new Master-conflicts among the weaker undead…).

It was a very energetic time for the Mick’s team, first setting up a base for freed slaves to flee to, get equipped, and then start reverse expanding to claim more territory. Many of the creatures were far too powerful for most of the slaves to take on, even in great numbers, but that was fine. They were there to deal with the lesser undead, often made directly from their own dead relatives, and also the creatures who were generally their overseers and slavemasters.

The former slaves were more than happy to return the favor with extreme violence, and enthusiasm after learning how to fight them better.

They had a lot of killing to do, so I left them to their fun. I had a lot of stone to purify and move, and what I was getting out of this whole affair wasn’t going to interfere with what they were.

Of course, what was best was what was going to happen in about two minutes.

I waited up atop of the foundation of the floating Pyramid I was building, while Tek was atop the White Obelisk, the highest point of the island.

The sky of Shadow Kheper was always the same murky black with a pale ghoulish moon, with only the rare white star of some bursting dimensional membrane or dying star visible. But all that had changed now.

It didn’t have a star or a sun, but it didn’t need to. For whatever reason, its dimensional membrane looked out on somewhere else in the universe.

That pale ghoulish moon was gone. Now, in its wake was something new and very different indeed.

“PEOPLE OF THE LAND, FACE THE LIGHT AND REPEAT AFTER ME!” Tek’s voice rang out over the entirety of the island, helped with a little Immortal Power.

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Tek roared with great enthusiasm.

And for the first time in its existence, dawn came sweeping across the island of Shadow Kheper.

Adjusted to the night, the Tomb-Tainted couldn’t actually tolerate the light, even as they marveled at the color, repeated words of ancient legends passed down to them by distant ancestors. Still, for that moment before they had to turn away, they looked upon the sun, felt the warmth of Aru, and Hope filled their hearts the way it had not been able to for thousands of years.

More to the point, the undead couldn’t take the light, either. The strongest undead lost all their powers or could even go inert under the sunlight, and the weakest undead fled it as instinctively as did the stronger ones.

Furthermore, no moon meant nothing was there to help power up the Curse of the werespiders, which certainly wasn’t any great help to them. While their insane frenzy faded and some of their reason returned because of it, it didn’t help the yawning void within them of having lost Mother and moon together.

This island was not going to be a friendly place to them now.

I smiled and got back to work. Clearing the island would be easier, but unless it was some vampires who couldn’t get to cover, the sunlight wouldn’t actually kill much of the undead, if any.

It did mean that for half of each day, the slaves didn’t have to worry much about any undead overseers. Just what kind of mischief might they get up to during that time?

A year had passed.

Shadow Kheper had been long cleared. My Pyramid was long completed, beginning the steady work of helping normal agriculture take root and grow. Vivisizing the undead and the few remnant Fiends had helped with that, as had the sudden peace that fell after all of the Mother Spider’s minions were finally dead.

Used to working like dogs, the Tomb-Tainted were enthusiastic about using their efforts to benefit themselves. Tek wisely focused on consumer goods for his production areas, and when the first brightly-colored bolts of cloth came off the presses, the people almost cried at the sight of them.

Seeing some of the things Tek showed them, his Immortal Aura and benevolent presence was more than enough to win them wildly over and get them started on the Great Plan.

The first part was now done, securing the island. The Shadow Pyramid was complete now, its Domain helping protect the island. The farms and ranches were either in place or spreading swiftly, Tek using their Faith energy and achievements to and swiftly introduce basic livestock of all kinds to the island, while fisherman could now pull out healthy sea life to eat from the waters around the island.

The next steps were generational in nature, involving teaching the younger generation of technology and magic, advancing up the curve to improve their standard of living, produce what was needed to support them, and then move out of Shadow Kheper almost entirely, building new settlements and cities in the areas on the way back to the Prime Plane.

Any imbalance in Elements, no matter how small, made it very hard for a mortal creature to attain Immortality on such a plane. These demi-planes were definitely not balanced in all aspects, and likely couldn’t be by their nature, even with some Immortal pushing.

I didn’t know if that applied to Eternals, and I wasn’t going to test it out here.

Also, the kidnapped entourages of the Prince and Princess had included other Delphans, who carried the Forsaken gene, and there were a substantial number of them among the Tomb-Tainted, which was an extremely valuable resource!

Tek had a great time organizing them all, and despite his sacrifices, built up enough Immortal Power to make his first Avatar, which he could leave here full time to continue the mission and guide the people. With little fanfare, the Mick’s party and I departed through the portals with the first wave of scouts and explorers going to set up a settlement and strong point around the Portal there.

“As ye expected, Lady Edge,” the Mick said in impressed tones, looking over the Tainted who’d come through the Portal after Tek dropped in enough Immortal Power to leave it open for a few hundred to come through.

Said Tainted looked much less like something dead than they had before. Unnaturally pale and waxy skin had firmed up and become a bit ruddy, they didn’t look as emaciated or with skin hanging as loose, their eyes weren’t as red, hair as greasy, or nails as dark.

Even their gums had firmed up and their teeth didn’t look like an old corpse’s now.

“Lady Edge, what is this?” Crimpos, the leader of the Vanguard team asked, even as I started to up walls at the edge of the area they’d be guarding by the Gate. He was a gruff and no-nonsense fellow whose portly build had looked corpulently obese, with a markedly black tongue that had actually been considered fairly attractive by his fellow Tainted. Now his tongue was turning pinker, while some of his fellows didn’t have any sign of Taint on their tongues at all!

“Long, long ago, when your ancestors were brought through the Portals, they were altered as they came so that they could survive in a realm so closely tied to Death. That function still exists, but now you are moving in the opposite direction.” I gestured to the Mick and his human companions. “You see them? Those are the normal skin tones, eye colors, and hair shades of active, healthy humans. They are how you and your children are supposed to look.

“It’s going to take years of time and adjustments, and me making more Pyramids to lock in this effect, but we should be able to ensure that all your children are either returned to or born into their proper forms of your ancestors.”

They of course had thought themselves perfectly normal, but now, seeing us, they knew it was anything but.

“Let me get the basic structure of this base up, Master Crimpos, and then I’ll start focusing on getting up the needed Pyramid as Lord Mick and his team start dealing with any dangerous creatures in this area. We’ll also get a road blazed and laid to the other Portal point as we do it.”

“Yes, ma’am!” he saluted quickly, and turned around to start barking out orders of where to put the wagons and Disks of supplies being hauled through the Portal.