[Warpworld] Ch 43 – I’d Rather a Rantha did It

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            Supposedly the Sama of this world had gone off to the western coast to intercept another arm of the Rot God’s people. She actually had made her name killing off legions of Tainted ratmen, the normally amiable anthros twisted and corrupted by the Warp into rapidly reproducing, gluttonous, and treacherous things that ached to take over the world.

            She’d put uncounted thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of the creatures, to the sword, making her name as the incarnation or avatar or something of the south’s patron Goddess of War Nikosa as she did so, a thing she had just rolled with and used to her advantage. Certainly being an avatar would explain her incredible strength, toughness, speed, and raw talent with a blade, right?

            Now she had to save the great city of Henron from plagues and demons and things, and lo, the odds the ratmen she knew of were NOT involved somehow was miniscule, so off she went to cut down more of them and their understanding fellow lovers of disease at the same time.

            “Any idea where to next?” Elisia asked, looking around at the new Markspace shared with the native pair. The two had a very small and restricted Markspace, only those personally Marked by them actually informing what was going on. Those people were exceptional by the standards of the locals, were educated quickly and kept themselves well-informed, but, well…

            “I miss satellites and worldwide, system-wide, galaxy-wide intelligence operations,” Patrick bemoaned their situation theatrically. There were small uprisings and words of doings of the Warp in multiple locations, but in sufficient force to warrant their attention?

            They both eyed the Mark connection to Aelryinth, but it was grayed-out and actually had a Ward sitting in front of it, a warning that he was actually in the Warp Zone at the North Pole, and communicating with him via the Marks was probably a very bad idea. There was little doubt that jRaztl could eavesdrop on such telepathy piercing the Domain boundary there.

            A Power of Ten mage of that caliber with Divination magic could totally have told them where to go…

            There was a boom, of something crossing the horizon and detonating in the sky above them with a streak and bursting of light. They both snapped their heads up to look at it, enhanced eyesight reaching up to see a dark point miles up in the sky plunging down towards them.

“Riding the Light,” Elisia noted. “I… think that’s a higher Valence effect. Not only did he not transport himself, he followed the curve of the world instead of line of sight…”

            “Competent Casters are so fun to work with,” Patrick grinned, crossing his thick arms and waiting for the thing to drop out of the sky. Four miles up, it would take a couple minutes. “What do you think it is?”

            “He hasn’t really had time to work on magic items much, although that could be variable, and we don’t really need that kind of help. I’m guessing… information?”

            “That’s a different kind of courier if so. Actual physical mail, delivered magically. Inert container around a protective shell, so you can’t see what’s in it using magic?” Patrick theorized.

            “jRaztl would be so frustrated,” Elisia nodded, also anticipating what was coming. The people around were also looking up at the sky, wondering what the two of them were looking at. “Especially since He can’t Timesight us with you here.”

            “Pity Him,” Patrick said blandly, glancing at the corpses of the plagued things Burning en vivus all around them. “I feel so bad.”

            Some of the local commanders were trying to work up the nerve to approach the pair of them, but glances from Elisia and abrupt cuts of her Sword Forth kept them back for the moment.

            A dot of blackness grew, but the humans who finally caught sight of it barely had the time to shout in alarm as it plummeted down, a streak of motion…

            That stopped abruptly a foot above the ground, and became a gentle fall as struts snapped out of the front of the bomb-like casing, allowing it to settle easily to the ground not fifteen feet away from them.

            The locals stared at it agape. In their eyes, it definitely looked like something delivered from Heaven, and given who it came from, that wasn’t a bad way to think about it.

            Undeterred, Patrick stepped forward, gave the fins on the back of it a turn to unlock them, then swatted left back and right forward, spinning the screwed-on fins off like a top with a buzz of motion. As it hopped free of the threads, he idly caught it up and lifted it away, while Elisia reached in to grab the contents.

            Her black-nailed hand came out with a simple metal sphere, wound all about with some intricate Runes of strange greenish metal the two had not seen before, and a single button painted bright red on the top of it.

            They glanced at one another, and Elisia pressed the button.

            There was an insubstantial flicker, the Runes lit up, and a Holo attempted to form. The two reined in their Forsaken Auras to allow it to manifest, and it materialized in great detail.

            “You were saying something about world-wide intelligence?” Elisia smiled widely, and Patrick had to fight down a smirk of his own.

            “He’s using some sort of magic to monitor our positions through the Marks,” he said, because the winking double dots of their location on what was now an extremely-detailed map of the world was very apparent. The local Sama and Briggs were also clearly indicated with their own sword and hammer icons.

            Much, much more importantly, there were a whole bunch of floating Runes of various types and colors around the map, and they extended around pretty much the whole world at this point.

            They were in the colors and vague symbols that were not chosen Runes, but definitely clearly indicated the powers of the Warp.

            And they were all over the place.

            In the distance, Sama and Briggs paused in what they were doing as Patrick and Elisia shared this view. It was noteworthy that there was a winking Rune of multiple colors coming down from the north in the direction of Briggs’ position, and there was a rotting symbol near to the city that Sama was heading towards.

            Elisia took two fingers, put them on either side of the sphere below the multi-hued symbol, and spread them apart.

            Much like a computer screen, the view zoomed in rapidly, the multi-hued symbol rapidly splitting apart as they moved in closer to the display, showing a massive force of multiple champions and forces of the Warp. It was moving slowly towards the lands of the humans on this world, including a winking symbol that was larger and more important than any of the others, polychromatic and not aligned to any single Warp Power.

            “Well, well, well,” Patrick mused, staring at that and his knuckles cracking ominously. “I think we just received some intelligence on where to go and who to kill.”

            “Do you imagine they might just be surrounded by hordes of underlings and not all that hard to locate from a distance?” Elisia wondered in singsong fashion, her eyes bright with carnage to come.

            “You know, one of the funnest things about the Warp is their excessive reliance on cults of personality to lead their armies. You take out those personalities, and the infighting that instantly results is hilarious to see. Unified Chaotics, my arse,” Patrick mused, staring at that symbol and its multi-deific army.

            “Oh, a Chosen of the Warp Gods, leading a combined horde forth to destroy all the lands of the civilized races,” Elisia smiled, while the faces of the very interested locals and soldiers nearby paled in horror at the implications of what they were seeing. “I think we know where Briggs is going to be going, right?”

            “He’ll have to hurry to get to that pass, and strip the Empire of everything to do it, but yeah, he’ll be able to hold them there,” Patrick agreed. “Faith, steel, gunpowder, and a Warlord who knows his fucking business? He’ll do it. Sama will drive everything she can up to aid him, too, although, damn, that is a LOT of rats.”

            Their eyes all turned down to the south, with rat symbols all over the place in the lands down there… and further south, across the sea there, and to the east, were even more of them!

            “That is a lot of rats,” Elisia agreed. “Kind of poised to hit the dwarves from all sides, it looks like.”

“And the beardies are split up like plates at a buffet table, easy to pick off in series.” Elisia shook her head, just looking at all the stuff that had to die. “Wow, this is a lot of work to do, Fuzzy.”

            “Yeah, gonna keep us busy for some time. We’re definitely going to need some help and to coordinate a lot of stuff that is going on,” he agreed. “Damn, didn’t think I’d have to do any Warlording myself, but it doesn’t look like there’s any way to avoid it here. There’s just too much stuff.”

            Elisia turned around and set her eyes on the locals. The bravest of them, about to raise a question again of the pair, went absolutely silent as both sets of eyes turned on them.

            “Decent material. Need training. But, yeah, we can train them up into people capable of kicking the shit out of these things,” Patrick agreed slowly, making them all swallow as he looked them over… and in spite of themselves, they felt a thrill start to run through them as he said that. “Gotta start working fast, however. There’s a whole lot of crap coming this way.”

            Elisia’s grin was totally predatory, eight canines gleaming, clearly carrying something that no normal person had.

            On the other hand, it was also very, very infectious, and startled smiles started to break out among those watching and listening to her.

            “Who here would like to be the sort of soul who can kick the arse of all these Warp-licking dastards and Feed them to the Land?” she crowed, and if a whole lot of eyes lit up at the question, well, that was entirely to be expected.

            Rantha Hags were Warlords, too…

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            I technically didn’t have a lot of time to make magic items, and something like an orb that could track living concentrations of Warp energy across a planet was definitely a hugely powerful toy.

            So, I’d put some restrictions on it, which I was sure they’d figure out quickly.

            One, it was a fixed once/day effect, updating at Natural Renewal. So, as the world turned, the positions of the champions of the Warp Gods would be updated as the world took note of them at the dawn of each new day.

            It meant the locations could change a lot if the Warped moved somewhere magically, as it wasn’t a real-time update. They’d notice that when the symbols for the Warped of Riggibuhl didn’t go away until the dawn.

            Two, it had to fully power up, which took time and permission. Happily, I’d made it out of the metals of the Creators here in the Warp Zone, already super-saturated with magic, so it was more a case of the Runes I’d used settling in and powering themselves up, as opposed to needing someone poring over them and filling them up with juice.

            Three, until they did, I was supplying them with the information via a Commune with Continents, Widened and washing out across the whole world, letting them know who and what was where as each new day stirred the Land.

            If I just so happened to put knowledge of some important mineral deposits in on the map, albeit only visible if you had really good eyes and zoomed in, well, these things happen. Ranthas had good eyes, and would be zooming in to study the terrain, so there it was.

            Giving them some advantages just seemed par for the course.

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