BECMI Chapter 499 – Immortal Implications

“Three thousand years is a very long time for someone as busy as yourself,” Sama pointed out, just a little cruelly. I sniffed at the jibe. Elves were supposed to be the time-wasting indolent fey pleasure-seekers, having a fun time going through life!“I admit it. I find the completion of grand magical devices and centuries-long plans coming to fruition more fun than endless idyllic evening revels,” I huffed back, and both of them just grinned.

“Will there be fallout?” Briggs pressed me. “You have to be doing some Timesighting, now that you’re post-mortal and can endure the stress. I don’t even want to think where your Chronomancy is at, having to mess with an Eternal Source and Null locking Time down for you.”

“It’s not my timesighting that’s the issue, it’s obfuscating YOUR Source effect on time,” I informed him, pointing at him for emphasis and making him frown. “You can’t be seen when Immortals go looking at the future, nor can Thor or anyone he affects, and both of you affect a LOT of people.

“One of the things I’ve been having to do is falsify futures Immortals are looking at, trying to find some leverage. I am talking spells Cast at XX on up to XXV, creating believable futures that aren’t going to ever exist, keep missing key details, and have to mislead arseholes trying fourth-dimensional bullshit on us.”

“I imagine they first thought we were being protected by a Patron Immortal. Then Tek showed up and wasn’t strong enough to do it…” Briggs pondered at the implications.

“Thankfully, I can now leave it to the gods,” I breathed out in relief. “I still use the Valences, but Dame Adama, Helos, and Lunia are implicitly involved in each spell and I don’t have to direct or invent such things now. They also are aware of the beings who are reaching out in those directions. I can tell you both that such inquiries have increased suddenly in the last couple of days, because nobody saw this coming.”

Briggs’ grin was very, very pleased. “So glad to be of assistance!” he chortled, pounding his chest once proudly.

I bowed my head to him. “Of course, if they had, it never would have happened. The same directions of inquiry point repeatedly to certain Immortals triggering Doomsday events.”

Both of their gazes instantly sharpened. “The Annelids? The Bugs?” Sama instantly hissed.

I shook my head. “That would generate instant Immortal counters, as it would take Immortal influence to unleash both of them. The cost to themselves would be ruinous, and vengeance for other Immortals dying isn’t their way, striking out at those that threaten them is. Mortals aren’t threatening them. After this series of events, they know something is out there and coming after them.

“They are looking, now. But the Entropics in particular have mads on, and want someone to pay… and the Eismarch, sitting pretty in the middle of all this destruction while thwarting what is going on, is a very good target, as is Zanzyr.”

Sama drummed her fists on the table. “They want something with complete deniability, something that has to be unleashed by mortals, perhaps Master Aspirants poking where they shouldn’t, setting off Dooms and stuff of their own volition.”

“And we have so many ‘Immortal Aspirants’ among our numbers,” Briggs nodded solemnly. “The only ones with more were the Delphans, and miraculously, the Delphans have been almost swept from the board. Basically the only ones left behind are those who are NOT Aspirants.”

“Nown is quite clever that way, giving all those mortals with grandiose ambitions their own little slice of sky to worry about and make a legacy from,” I agreed with ironic cheer.

“Shattering them and setting them at odds while removing them from proximity and unity. Very good planning,” Briggs agreed respectfully. “Does that include the ones in the Hollow World?”

“Yes. If they had even a whiff of Immortal involvement around them, Nown sent them off to Meandral. The ones in the Hollow World are the boring conservatives who hit Overmagus and just want to enjoy the rest of their years at the top of the ladder. They are going to be so busy now they don’t have time to think about Immortality, and after this colossal mess, have even less desire to go adventuring about and dying like their peers did.”

“So, it is likely this masterstroke is going to fall on the Other Shore, which gives you foreknowledge of it coming to us. But it could happen at any time… and certainly within the next three thousand years.”

“Gut calculations backed by divination say when Lunia reaches Greater God status, the planar complications will be impossible to hold back, the very multiverse will react to a being of such power. The Immortals will go quietly apeshit at the threat represented, deduce that the faith of mortals is the key, and try to react in a way the gods can’t prevent. I presume they are going to offer an innocent adventure somehow that turns into a colossal disaster… but I don’t know where it will be coming from.”

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They both stared at me. “That means you could totally fail over there,” Sama breathed out.

“Yes,” I confirmed. “That was why building the bridge here was so important. Even the relatively minor trickle of Faith would be enough to sustain Heaven until the alternities are in alignment and the Pantheon can manifest here.”

Both of them looked quite grim. “Are you anticipating losing?” Briggs asked softly, almost in disbelief.

“Everything I’ve gone through with Dame Adama indicates that almost all mortal life on the Other Shore will be eradicated. The Immortals aren’t going to set into motion a plan that will not work. They’ll try to wipe the planet of life and then start over, without the gods being able to stop the wipe.”

Briggs and Sama were the kind who fought until the end, never saying die. The admission made both of them hiss in outrage.

“And the Eternals there?” Sama asked sharply.

I clawed my nails across the table there, metal protesting softly as I etched trails in there. “Have utterly no fear that we will fight whatever is unleashed with everything, and if any of us survive, than there is no way the Immortals can start over, either.”

Sama leaned forward. “You will be using us as an escape passage again,” she deduced firmly. “Just like the Doom of Darkmoor. Only this time even worse.”

“And amusingly enough, an entire continent just lost all of its peoples due to Immortal machinations, resulting in a LOT of living space,” Briggs noted thoughtfully. Sama glanced at him, then at me.

I just tilted my head. “Dame Adama is an arsehole,” I admitted softly. “I am also the only Eternal who can take the Portal, as it is tied to me. So the Eternals of Nown live and die with the planet on the Other Shore. We can still vacate survivors, but the numbers will only be a fraction of the populations. We will save who we can.”

“The Hollow World there?” Briggs pressed.

“All sapients expected to die in the slaughter. The ancient beasts will likely just be food or biomatter or whatever. We don’t know the nature of the threat, but it will definitely be something the Immortals believe can do the job.”

Briggs looked down, planning and calculating. “You need to start sending through cultural representatives now. We don’t have the manpower to prepare the ground, especially if starting in the remnants of Delpha from scratch. Tek can upscale production facilities in raw materials in no time, and those time-accelerated planes can help with food production, but both can be Interdicted and access severed from the Prime without Immortals ever needing to come to Nown to do so.”

I just nodded. “We can Mirror them to the new islands to settle in and prepare, but the very need for colonists means time will be moving on the other side and shrinking our temporal advantage… plus doing so will inevitably accelerate the potential Slaughter on this side.”

Sama’s heaven’s-blue eyes were staring off into nowhere. “I do NOT like doomsday scenarios,” she muttered, snarling. “I would prefer to kill them all first!” she stated firmly.

“I could probably take a Hierarch on in a fight now, with proper preparation and no Truenames. Note that it took me personally a thousand years to arrange to get Thanatos’ Truenames and put the tools into place to kill both of his alternates during this Masterstroke.” I looked back and forth between them. “There are over fifty Hierarchs between all the Spheres.”

I held up one finger, then pointed at myself. Both of them had very ugly faces as they grimaced badly.

“And if the gods attempt a purge, the Immortals will be alerted to them, figure out the anchoring power of faith, and initiate a Purge, possibly under their own power, instead of a tool, if they are attacked directly.” Briggs pinched the bridge of his broad, flat nose to deal with the headache. “Which they might even have done in the past, to get rid of the first colonists.”

“There are numerous ways to set up a Purge, and then they only need to prevent the gods from stopping it. I don’t have enough time to discover all their True Names and make them vulnerable, and I can’t harvest their names by force without them knowing and spreading the knowledge that I am grabbing Truenames. I’ll be hunted down and dead before I can accomplish anything.” There was no other reason to take the Truenames than to take down the Immortals with them, after all! I just shook my head. “Killing them all independently is not an option. It won’t be done in silence, it will rouse them all, and then everyone dies. If the Immortals can’t kill the gods, they will just wipe out the mortals who allow them to exist instead.”

Metal creaked as Sama’s palms pressed against the table, distorting the metal even without her clawing at it. “Dammit!” she hissed. She wouldn’t have any better luck, being about equal to a Temporal, the lowest tiers of the Immortals. Sure, if one was stupid enough to stick around and fight she might be able to kill an Avatar, but its true self? She didn’t have the power to threaten a whole plane, and an Immortal could move at literally miles per second if they desired to. Truly catching one was almost impossible!

“So, what is the final way to deal with the Immortals? Even if the gods win in the end, this scenario barely costs them anything!” Sama demanded to know.

“You are forgetting the existence of a Greater God,” I pointed out to her, and both she and Briggs blinked in surprise. “A Greater God can actually rewrite universal laws… such as the nature of the relationship between an Immortal and mortals.”

Both of them bent towards me with predatory looks on their faces. “Oh, this sounds much, much more fun,” Briggs rumbled in anticipation.

“We simply need tie their links to a world to mortal’s memory and belief in them. Without such, the Immortals lose all memory of the world. If that is the only place they wield influence, they would fade right from existence. If more logically they have worshipers in their home realms, they would lose all connections to places they do not have said worshipers, like Nown, and the gods could bar them as easily as they would demon lords and Mythos entities. They would be hostile Outsiders at that point, not ascended natives or anything of the like,” I informed them with icy confidence.

The relief on their faces was palpable, even as they considered the implications. After all, that happening required the deaths of every mortal on the planet, which was much, much less desirable!