[Warpworld] Ch 42 – Plans within Plans

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            I watched the elven archmage ruminating as he watched my magic in the thaumaspectrum, doubtless finding that aspects of it extended beyond his senses and ability to emulate.

            It was very dangerous to wield Aligned energies, Divine powers, and Primal might without the permission of the Forces backing them. They weren’t just descriptors and minor alterations to your magic you could just tack on, ‘holy’ a mere term for a different subset of magic. True Holy powers drew power from Heaven, and you couldn’t wield them without Heaven backing you.

            I had very little doubts that priests of all Alignments called their powers ‘holy’ just to muddy the waters about what was and was not actually Holy, attempting to confuse the issue and make Heaven seem judgmental and hostile for not allowing its powers to be used by all and sundry, thus driving arrogant and power-hungry Casters to more permissive deities.

            Expected, and all a part of Alignment politics. The fact Truth could sort out those kinds of mistakes quickly meant they could be rectified easily, but then, you needed a certain type of person to be able to voice Truth, too.

            This place would really try to kill such a person quickly. Case in the mirror in point. Holy energies really tore up creatures of the Warp, and just having the backing of one of the local Divinities wasn’t going to do the same thing.

            I could feel the Warp Gods messing around, mostly because they had to spend a lot of energy to do so, and it was causing reverberations in the Warp here and around the Rift itself, although it was not something most Casters could sense. Random flailings weren’t going to stop me, or even slow me down at this point, so directed energies naturally gained my attention.

            There was a riot of mortal activity going on across the world as the Warp spurred ambitions and dreams of conquest and battle among its servants and those of others, fanning the flames of ambition and greed to set things churning into violent motion. Gods were clashing instead of working together, different races were at one another’s throats or coldly aloof instead of cooperating, and basically the forces of the Warp were united by a fist of strength and purpose while their enemies were fractured and muddled.

            Ah, facing Chaos without sufficient mental protection was always fun. Fanning the flames of racism, specism, bigotry, magic-hate, and religious persecution were surefire ways to make the job of taking on Chaotics more difficult, and they loved to use them.

            Wasn’t a problem with me, however. I had no stakes in this game. Indeed, if the world were to explode, it would probably be easier for me to get out of here.

            But that wasn’t who I was, and sticking it to the Warp Gods was definitely the reason I was here. The way they played with mortal souls meant they were among the most malevolent of Entities, and punishing that lot was always a great and Good thing to do.

            Earned you a LOT of Karma, too.

            “If I may ask, what endgame plays are you putting in motion for dealing with the Warped Moon from falling on us?” the elf finally asked softly, golden eyes on the swirling vivus that was forming a constantly churning sky.

            “I do not mean this as an insult, Elder, but as a wielder of this world’s magicks, you do not have the wherewithal to truly guard your thoughts and desires from jRaztl’s senses and foresight, even if you try to play the game against him. Delineating what is obvious is nothing, but if you can’t see what other things I am doing, then definitely neither can He.”

            He took that with grace, seeing my point and the sincerity behind it. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell him, but that doing so might foil the point of it.

            The making of the Walls of Fire was all part of it, setting up a convection current and a rotating temperature differential that was already starting to build up a vortex and a maelstrom of sorts as it expanded and grew.

            The elves and saurids had seen it, but didn’t realize its significance. Such funnels naturally were murderously intense on their outskirts, but their insides… were empty and hollow, and in this case, led right back into the Warp!

            The Warp Gods were going to bring down their gibbous Warped Moon. They were going to find it remarkably easy, almost instinctive, to guide it in this direction. Why? Because their dome of the massive Rift here was being spun up and out as the funnel began to form, reality hardest at its edge, near impossible to pass… but welcome emptiness in its middle, a ‘weak spot’ that something as massively alien as a Warped Moon would naturally be forced toward, especially as it Burned.

            But the only place that zone of empty reality led was back into the Warp, not into a detonation here… delivering enough raw Warp material on vivic fire directly into the Warp that I had no doubt that the impact was going to cause some tremendous havoc there.

            I hope they found it entertaining when they blew up their own domains and Realms, what with their powers bound so intimately into the initial expulsion of the Warped Moon, doubtless using it as an anchor for incarnation after incarnation of this world, looking down from a gibbous sky with its ghastly eye on the mortal world, corrupting and influencing everything. The only hope to avoid it was literally to stay inside as it spread its malevolent, mutating influence across the world, working on sapients most of all, but animals and plants were definitely not immune.

            It was the primary vehicle of delivering Warpstone directly to the planet wherever desired, and exposing the minds and souls of those who gazed upon it to the gods of the Warp.

            Now, it was going to be delivering unto them a moon’s-worth of vivus, and we’d see how they liked being on the un-mutating side of things.

            It would have been fun to flark off and wipe the key figures heading up the forces of the Warp. Their forces were always hugely centered on individuals with the favor of the gods leading them, so wiping the handpicked champions would immediately throw whole armies into turmoil as those eager to ascend to the same position started competing for the attention of their god, both by killing one another and killing rivals serving other gods to further his glory. Even if it defeated their overall purpose, the Warp Gods loved the pageantry and desperate struggling so much they’d let it go on for some time out of pure enjoyment, often leading to their own short-term defeats because of it.

            Most people would have trouble reaching an overlord or army commander. I was not one of those people. The Dreadskull of an Avatar of Klaw on the top of my Staff confirmed that for me.

            A million Warped between me and my target were just a couple hours of Shardcasting away from obliteration, and I was very, very happy to administer that to them. Warped held very little difference from undead in my eyes, and I definitely didn’t want the former becoming the latter, or getting evolved into daemons for the pleasure of their gods, either.

            That being said… Chaos and Evil being united was always a very temporary condition, and completely unnatural. The divisiveness they sowed among their opponents at the same time made it work even better. It really was only fair to inflict the same back upon them and get things back to status quo.

            I just couldn’t spare the time to do it myself. I had to close this hole down and see that a Warped Moon became a catastrophic explosion in the face of the Warp Gods, fuck ’em all forever.

            On the flip side, there were some individuals here on the planet who abso-smurfly loved giving the bad guys exactly what they deserved, and they were really good about doing it, too.

            I only had to give them a little bit of guidance, and lo, things were going to start coming apart. Sources and Nulls were REALLY good with fucking up the best-laid plans of demons and gods, after all.

            Some Divinations on my next break, and a couple improved Sendings, and we’d see exactly what kind of nasty mischief the Ranthas could get up to.

            I expected some gods-blessed and duly anointed Champions of the Warp Gods intended to usher in the apocalypse were going to get abruptly dead, and then exactly who was supposed to be in charge of their efforts was suddenly going to be up in the air.

            All of their Chaotic and Evil tendencies to turn in on themselves were going to make the divisiveness they inflicted on the mortal races look like a day in the park, and their grand invasion was going to hit internecine conflict levels that were definitely going to take their own efforts DOWN to the next level.

            Phaselocking Shards speared into the Warp, carrying Reality with them, and Holy Vivic Walls of Fire feasted on the energies of the Warp, turning it into food for the Land and steel bars reinforcing the Veil.

            Like crashing waves, the Weight of the World boosted by the saurids and elves smashed into the holes, widening them further and making them stick around longer.

            Inch by inch, the Warp Rift was receding, Reality filling itself back in, and the speed was only increasing.

            I smiled, watched it all Burn, and anticipated the Warp Gods doing the same thing as their pet world finally rose up against them… after receiving a little outside help.

            Fuck with mortals and the true gods who protect them at your own peril!, I thought, knowing such sentiment was largely wasted on people and races who only had their own racial deities to turn to, beings so limited in power and scope that the Warp Gods could easily surpass and bedevil them, and likely had great fun in doing so.

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            He had been one of Riggibuhl’s great Champions. He had been given the authority and power to Summon Greater Demons of the God of Plagues and Virulence, to command warbands of the god’s followers, and to create merry capering havoc with demons and the demented in the mortal world in anticipation of the end times.

            He was supposed to have corrupted the magic of the city of Burue, located on its defensible plateau, turning the Healing magic against its practitioners, damning the mages who wielded death magic, and otherwise ripping apart the foundation of the city as the poor and downtrodden were haplessly recruited by gleeful promises of revenge upon those who had looked down upon them.

            He was a Burning mass of corruption going away and feeding the Land under a massive Hammer. Patrick Briggs kicked the corpse with a sniff, the frozen grimace on the corpse looking pretty forced around the crushed remains of the upper skull of the fellow. Patrick looked over to where a massive mound of ectoplasm was still writhing in its semblance of a mortal body, all the organs and meat bubbling and Burning en vivus. The soul of an elder demon was going away forever, along with quite a few of its capering and jolly lesser demons, spread about the area like little bouquets of whiteness for the Land to sniff and admire.

            Got rid of the stench in the air pretty quickly, too.

            Elisia Rantha looked over their work, and was satisfied. Getting rid of the tough stuff basically broke the back of the attackers, who’d been absolutely sure no mortal forces existed here who could defy them. Alas for a loss of actionable intelligence on their part.

            The locals were looking at the two of them as if they were divine, which, given the display of brutal power they’d just put on, wasn’t all that surprising. The demons and cultists of the Warp hadn’t just been killed; they had been slaughtered, and with tremendous prejudice!

            The Briggs of this world had been both happy to see them and happy to put the two of them to work, sending them right over here at speed to confound the machinations of Riggibuhl and stop some crazy stuff right in its tracks.

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