[Be Gone] Ch 35 – Spiritual Support
Added 2025-03-29 02:11:34 +0000 UTC« Chapter 34 | Index | Chapter 36 »
“It cannot be returned to what it once was, can it?” the Earth Dragon finally sighed deeply.
“All life is change, and that includes Eternal lives such as your own. Fate and Chaos had this Realm to themselves, such as it was, but Evil decided it wanted a part of it, and now Good has made its way here, too. They aren’t going to go away simply because someone likes the old way. What the ants want is pretty much irrelevant.”
I wasn’t apologetic about it. It was what it was. Mithar didn’t put us Terrans here for no reason, and if we couldn’t do the job, something else would be sent here... likely with more hard glowy Light behind it.
This old fellow could resist, he could stand by, or he could help the process. Neither Fate nor Chaos wanted Evil or Good here, but they didn’t have the power to truly keep them out. If he wanted Balance, to simply to oppose Evil, OR to obey the will of the Mother Land, the choice was pretty clear on what he had to do.
“How may I aid you in this endeavor?” the Earth Dragon finally asked. That I had better be careful with my request was left unsaid.
“In all honesty, I’m not sure what you are capable of doing to contribute, Elder, so I would go with this: make sure the korobokru have excellent harvests so they can feed their fighting folk, and make it known that attempting to subvert the effort to get rid of Jigoku is going against the will of the Land and the Elements themselves.” I paused significantly. “The elven Houses are already planning ways to undercut the fighting so that they might seize the lands of the korobokru’s ancestors for the Empire. Their scheming is not appreciated.”
He looked thoughtful at my request. “That is all?”
“If there is more you can do, I would assume you would know better than I, Elder. Those are merely the most useful things that I can think of at this time, as I do not expect you to personally contribute to the fighting.”
Killing oni would send their Taint clinging to him like nobody’s business, and Cleansing him would be quite difficult... and he might very well resist, or Fall, and wouldn’t that be a nasty thing. Supposedly one of the Great Dragons already had, becoming the Shadow Dragon, and its fate was why the Great Dragon Spirits didn’t dare take direct action against the Incursion.
“An easy enough task. Your restraint is commendable for a mortal,” the dragon replied benignly.
I had to smile. “I am not requesting anything, but...” I waved my hand, and a Holo list of 114 potential requests came up on all sides of me, “it is not that I didn’t have ideas.”
The Earth Dragon blinked, reading them all very quickly, of course. Despite himself, his mouth quirked up in a half-smile after seeing all of that. “Very restrained, I see... and yet, still nothing for yourself.”
“The gift of speaking to and hearing the Spirits was a momentous gift all of itself for me, Elder. I will take it with me and enjoy it for the rest of my life, while taking nothing from you that others might use here better. If you truly wish to reward me for my efforts,” I tilted my head, considering, “... well, when my tasks are done and this Incursion is gone and returned to normal and you judge my deeds fitting enough, add a jewel to this Crown of Fire I seem to have.” I waved my hand through the spiritual manifestation the Dragon could certainly see. “I think that will be reward enough for me. The rest I will certainly earn myself in the trying.”
The Earth Dragon slowly sighed again. “Of these foreign gods, which do you serve?” he finally asked after some contemplation.
“I serve two first and foremost, although were any of the Gods of Heaven to call on me, I would answer and serve as they would need, as I have in the past. I serve Sylune, called the Silver Queen, Patron of Silver Magic, who is commonly depicted as thus,” an image of an elfin with skin like the night sky, and hair, eyes, and garments of silver, the Scepter of Moon and Stars in Her hand, showed up next to me. Her Holy Symbol of a crescent moon on a background of the night and stars was of course part of the Amulet I wore.
“I also serve Mithar, called the Silver Son, Heaven’s General, the Patron of Paladins, and the Grand Master of the Gods.”
The accompanying straight silver sword, point-downmost, on a plain field, accompanied my words, but there was no image of Mithar. Everybody pictured the Grand Master in their own way, giving Him leave to appear in any form. A blurred figure in silvered armor over a massive board of chess played in multiple dimensions at once was vaguely how I pictured Him, a Game going on against uncounted shadowy foes all at once, and the Dragon hummed in appreciation upon seeing it.
“A master of strategy, then. Was it He who sent the Tigers and yourself here?” the Dragon inquired, considering the image even as it faded away.
“That is my belief. He saw a weakness here, a threat of Evil ascending, and with it came an opportunity. He moved to redress the imbalance with mortal agents, but whether it develops into something greater is up to them... and whether the forces here are so unwise as to move against Him.
“He is a magnificent ally in all the right ways, and a dangerous foe in all the right ways, too.”
“What of honor?” the Earth Dragon asked critically. “The House of the Tiger is infamously ambivalent about honor.”
“That’s because Honor is a function of Axiom, not of Heaven, Elder. It is perfectly possible to be an honorable person and a totally cold, cruel, and heartless bastard. It is also possible to be a very good, holy, and sacred person, and not care about someone else’s implied code of honor whatsoever.
“In general, my people prefer to follow Heaven. Even those who adhere to the Silver, such as Mithar’s Own, will also reiterate Mithar’s Maxim on Honor: You return the honor you are given.” I shrugged at the Dragon’s expression. “And what you might consider honorable behavior, we might well consider blackhearted bastardry of the darkest sort. What Honor is varies immensely even within Axiom, let alone outside it, and we are under no obligation to let our lives be defined by an outside party.
“So, I imagine the Tigers took one look at the local code of honor and just laughed at it, especially the stuff that forced certain behavior and allowed others to manipulate them. They then began poking holes in it to illustrate how ridiculous parts of the code are, while staying true to their own moral code.
“Honorless by your standards might be fine. Immoral by ours is certainly not.”
“It is that code of honor that has held the Jade Empire together for over three thousand years!” the Earth Dragon stated sternly.
“Ah, I wondered why the Empire was so small. There you have it.” The Earth Dragon’s mouth twitched in a wry smile once again as His verbal defense was abruptly turned into a mighty weakness. “Ongoing mass butchery of one another over idiotic pretexts is a hallmark of Axiomatic societies. It’s probably why they haven’t managed to chase off this little incursion. Too busy killing one another, instead of the real threat.”
I turned my head back to the east, gazing there with empty eye sockets as he considered my view of the thousand-year invasion of demons, which was far less moved than even his own. “You are not the favored Dragon of the elves there, I imagine. They don’t have much reliance on strength, the endurance of stone, the patience, and the eternal will to overcome. They blaze with fire, they race with wind, they flow with water, but they don’t stand if they have any alternative otherwise.
“The korobokru do, and they have long venerated you. Perhaps you might turn your personal attention to the race that favors you most. After all, the Jade of the Empire behind us is not your sacred stone, but that of Water. Earth has always favored crystals and gemstones, but the Empire values them as geegaws and adornments, not little stars shining with the Earth’s own power.”
The Earth Dragon considered, and perhaps the future would take a different course as the mighty Spirit pondered what might happen in the days to come.
“With your leave, Elder?” I asked, rising and looking south. “I am being beckoned, now.”
The Earth Dragon was amused. Normally, it was the Dragons who came and went mysteriously, but this human was leaving behind an opportunity many mortals would risk their lives for, intent upon his task. “Of course, Master Aelryinth.”
---
The Great Dragon watched the mortal race off on his magically-transformed Familiar, picking up speed until the mortal was literally moving as fast as a good arrow, trailing unwhite fire and a long, garish trail of purified soil behind him.
There was fighting there to the south... the human would be there in minutes.
The Eye of the Mother Land was moving with the human. She was watching him and what he was doing...
The Earth Dragon thought on that and was about to depart when something caught His eye where the man had been sitting. He moved over there with a thought, and bent to pick it up from where it hovered somehow, just above the stone here.
It was a statue, carved from Earth and Holy Energized Jade. Just by materials alone, it was a sacred thing any mortal would have paid a small fortune for, but this...
He stared at it for a long and quiet moment, feeling something shaking inside Him as He looked at the statue, carved so perfectly, the echo and feel of the stone so pure, the crystalline purity so in resonance that it felt like a part of His hand.
It looked like this mortal form He had chosen to appear in, and yet, when He met the stone eyes, all He saw was Himself, standing beyond it, staring back at Him with weighty eyes that had endured the millennia past, and would endure more in the future.
He was not sure He could replicate such artistic skill and insight Himself, let alone how a mortal could do such a thing. Spellbound, He realized that the human had left Him a peerless gift, one truly fit for a Great Dragon, whereas He had given the man nothing save words.
Precision of the Eternal Sun: Sub Conc check for Skill check with at least as many Ranks.
Diamond Heart of the Sun: +1 to a skill check every minute, until taking 20 on it.
QL check of a carving of a Great Dragon: 104, modified by material...
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I kept advancing south across the Land, slaughtering as I went. The natives thought it was incredible that I could sense the Tainted and Taint and head right for the thickest Auras of it, be it living things or corrupted portions of the landscapes; demons, undead, or Tainted living things, including Imperials who had fallen to it.
I could have told them that Detecting for Evil was a very simple way of finding the stuff in such natural settings, as raw as it was, but they could only feel for Honor, not Evil, so it was kind of moot. A dank pool of vomited black rot on the ground had nothing to do with Honor.
I left all sorts of unwhite flames burning on bubbling pools of ooze and rocks weeping Black Blood, consuming stands of twisted plant life and reaching deep into ground leaking poisons and foul gasses to feed on whatever death lurked below.
The creatures I faced died singly or in droves, whatever was needed to kill them all fast and efficiently. I was without mercy, or perhaps all of mercy: these were born Tainted, and would die that way. There was no way to Purify them and allow them to live, as their bodies just broke apart as vivus ate away at them, nearly as lethal as true flames, and their corpses ignited like dry tinder, nearly as quickly as the undead.
For whatever reasons, the greater demons at the heart of the Shadowed Lands here didn’t seem to be all that eager to come out to play. Oh, they sent out their less powerful cloned spawn, mere shadows of the originals they were created by, and I slew them all to feed the Mother Land more.
Her appetite was large indeed, but every Tainted thing vivisized was more strength to Her, more power sapped from Jigoku, and more land reclaimed from this Incursion as the border of it continued to retract... and the Obelisks of the Tigers continued to extend forward, anchoring the landscape fuller and deeper, and creating more stress on the system’s planar disruption here.
I rebuilt my Matrix slowly, day by day, annoyed at the pace that I had to take, but unwilling to rush the process that had cost me so damn much to undertake. Given how much I was relying on my Warlock kit, as more Valences opened up, I could Write more spells, and I spent all my Valences every day on Rep Counts of one form or another.
Rep Counts never lose importance; you just switch to a new spell and start again!
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