BECMI Chapter 497 – Immortal Falling Out

The former Immortal Thaum literally did not know what to say or do. He… still seemed to have much of his Immortal conditioning and prowess, especially his Intelligence, but without Immortal Power buttressing him, he had lost many of his defenses, especially against other Immortals!“I see,” he sighed in resignation. “Have you come to kill me?” he asked in resignation, aware he could little to stop it, even against what looked to be a mere Temporal.

“If I had wanted to, you would already be dead,” Tek assured him, not friendly, but not overly hostile. “Your nation needs its Grandmaster back, hopefully this time more focused on mortals than on Immortal schemes. You have been a pawn of greater Immortals than you or I, but that is done now, as is your time with the Nucleus.

“I will take control of it now as I did before magic messed with it, and rest assured that the foolishness you and those Immortals watching you perpetrated will not happen again.”

“Who?” Prince Jean-Arc asked quickly. “Who was manipulating me?” he wanted to know.

Tek merely looked at them. “Without the Nucleus, you have no way to harm them now, unless you think to defy them with the tools available to an Overmagus. Furthermore, the Pulse carried their power around the world, and Warded all of Nown from them now. Not a one of the fools who made this all possible and enjoyed the show can ever manifest in Nown again, send an Avatar, and can barely look down from Nexial upon us. In due time, with them unable to act here, their faiths will wither and die, and they will find other worlds to inflict their pettiness on.”

The Grandmaster of Zanzyr looked at this alien, come to this world thousands of years ago, possessed of knowledge of science and technology his crude studies of the Core had only barely touched on. They weren’t comrades in arms, or in viewpoints, he could tell this by the way the other moved, clearly a man used to doing things hands-on, not manipulating the world with magic. But the way his eyes flashed from one display to another, clearly knowing what everything did and exactly what was going on, displayed that he had deep secrets of his own.

“You are the Patron Immortal of Eismark. They must be using some of your technology there,” he reasoned out, although he’d not personally investigated such, his time being centered on Zanzyr and the Nucleus. “Will you be moving the Nucleus?” he asked, knowing that was highly likely.

“No, actually. Doing so would naturally reduce Zanzyr’s background magic, and the Secret Schools which can only be learned here. The Radiance has been changed and limited by your Pulse. No other being can ride it to Immortality again, which removes much of the hostility of the other Spheres toward it.

“Quarxion himself came to investigate it, but the wild magic and drain of Immortal Power drove him off. He knows who was responsible for it, and even if he can do nothing to them directly, he knows that you were but a pawn before them and has likely forgotten about you already, as is his nature.

“There are a great many other magical events that were set off across the world and beyond by your Pulse. You obviously are not the cause of them, and with your removal from Immortality, you are no longer their concern.”

“But… Zanzyr, my school, my people-!” he began to say.

“The greatest danger you have now is nomads potentially invading from east and west. Delpha as you know of it is no more. Its lands are sunk beneath the waves by your Pulse, only scattered enclaves of them surviving. Three-quarters of their Ruling Council is dead about Zanzyr City, killed by the Pulse or the fall from the sky that followed, or caught up in the destruction of the Empire as the ley lines tore it apart when they fled.

“The rest are scattered and of no danger to you now. I suggest you return to the surface, and finally begin to take some control of your nation, instead of letting Chaos and Evil breed while you denied they were there entirely.”

It was a dismissal. Prince Nathanael Jean-Arc looked around the chamber he had spent so many years in, divining, testing, learning its secrets, and knew it was the last time he would likely lay eyes upon it… at least without the permission of another.

Well, it would be a new era, then… different from back when he was a mortal, scrabbling for power and more secrets.

He’d had the power, wielded the secrets, and now he was back to a more mundane existence once more. Where had it all gotten him?

“I will be trying to regain my power, you understand,” he said quietly, more for his benefit than Tek’s.

“Given the events you put into motion, the only Immortal Patron you might find will be those of Entropy, congratulating you for the massive destruction you unleashed and the obliteration of the Delphan Empire. I don’t think you need to imagine your fate if you accept their blandishments,” the unworried alien Immortal replied with a rather frustrating lack of concern over the issue.

Nathanael was quite certain there would be a specific alliance among the Immortals and he would be hunted down and killed, Immortal Law or no. Likewise, even the Immortals who had been on his side in this disagreement about the Nucleus were unlikely to extend a hand to him after what it had done, basically justifying all of the caution and predictions their rivals had made about the device.

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“You are not on their side, either…” he remarked at the last, finding it within himself to smile slightly as he turned away.

“No, Grandmaster. If the fate of Darkmoor, the Crimson Cataclysm, and this whole War of Empires tells you anything, it is that you cannot trust the fate of mortals to Immortals. They will blow it to Hell and gone, accidentally or deliberately, every single time…”

Nathanael Jean-Arc could not find it in him to dispute that, especially when he was guilty of exactly that himself...

The Eismark airship appearing directly between the armies of Siricil and Delpha’s invasion force was very unexpected, as they’d played a very neutral role in the fighting, to the point of disdaining both parties completely if they kept trying to rope them in. Attempts to commandeer their property likewise had gone horribly poorly, to the point where the initial examples of dissuasion were all that were required to inspire the Empires to leave them alone in the future.

Or rather, one attempt by Delpha to seize an Eismark ship resulted in three destroyed Delphan Airships, and the Eismark cruiser and its cargo was blown to shreds, taking out a heavy Carrier and all the attacking troops who’d boarded her at the same time.

Delpha hadn’t bothered to get arrogant about owning the air after that time, and had directly obeyed the rule of not closing to within a mile of Eismark ships quite prepared to blow them out of the sky.

The quite obviously had its cannon out, and the Delphan Airships moving to bombard the Siricilan legions from above were understandably wary about daring their range.

“This is Commander Briggs of the Eismark Federation speaking to all Imperial forces of both parties upon this field.

There was a slow and measured pause, while the forces below stewed at the words, torn between trusting the words and trying to disregard them.

With ominous grace and speed, the spun easily about in midair, and headed back towards the north it had come from. Many eyes watched it go, wondering why it had intervened now, and the reasons behind it.

Many other eyes were scrambling to verify the information it brought, and the consequences it would have in the future if the most powerful nation and empire in the world was just GONE.

There would be a great many changes in the future, and to the quick went the rewards… but who among them was going to be the quick? The ones just finding this out, or the ones who had informed them?…

Emperor Magni’s personal coterie was the first to step forth from the disciplined ranks of legionnaires and advance out into the no-man’s-land between the two armies.

A few minutes latter, a flitter detached from one of the airships overhead, dropping down and also sweeping towards the middle of the field.

General Owlaendry was a warhawk and long an advocate for reconquering Siricil, this time forever, a veteran of the very conflict which had once punched all the way to Siricil City and as a consequence placed a famous gladiator upon the imperial throne of the Siricilan Empire.

He was also a very dutiful man who could raise none of his superiors, and every shocking image he’d just witnessed painted a picture that was, if anything, worse than what Commander Briggs had just related.

Delpha’s retreat from the field would be swift and unimpeded, and in return they would raze nothing of what they had already conquered and were leaving behind. The great war that had started because of the small nation and the wills of Immortals who wanted a grand fight between empires ended with neither army fighting to a proper conclusion, and leaving many seeds for the ambitious to exploit who was to blame in the future…

“Both sides are calling for third-party arbitration for a lasting accord, implicitly agreeing that the Federation can stand with either of them,” Briggs rumbled contentedly.

“Which, since it is absolutely true, is nice of them to acknowledge,” Sama purred back. “With only one major city surviving, and that one underwater, Delpha’s power and influence here is crippled forever. How many Overmagi do we have confirmed as surviving?”

“Thirteen remain on the surface.” Of the thousand that had dominated the world as part of Delpha’s Ruling Council. That was beyond catastrophic for a magocracy! “Similar survival rates among the clergy, as well. At least, that the survivors here know of.”

Many of said clergy were scattered across Meandrel’s skylands now, free to develop their own little theocracies and further dilute the chances of a Delphan Empire ever rising again. It also happened to annihilate almost all of the influence and power of the Delphan Immortals upon Nown.

One Overmagus who had not survived was Cleossa’s arse of a son. Emperor Maphus had survived the Wrath and the Pulse, but he had not survived Sama hunting for him amid the chaos. His father’s underwater kingdom of Uryissa was the only major surviving Delphan power left, and currently overwhelmed with the humanitarian needs of the shattered empire and in no position to elect a new Emperor. All signs pointed to the extremely disillusioned Overmagi breaking up and setting up their own little kingdoms in the ruins of the old… if they were allowed to do so.

“Our Forsaken are very, very keen in going home and doing something about the direction of the Empire,” Briggs pointed out for us.

“How many are Thirty?” I asked coldly.

Sama grinned broadly. “Not a one,” she admitted.