[Be Gone] Ch 23 – Further Discussions

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I smirked at nothing. “My Young Monarch and lieutenants are probably in a tizzy right now, having to deal with all the stuff I normally do.” I took another sip. “Good learning experience for them.”

            “Aye, they can’t rely on the old goats forever. Are your kids in line to take over? It’s really hard to get away from hereditary positions here, and the Empire wants a hand in naming my successor, too.” Along with likely all sorts of other ambitious sorts wanting a pawn controlling a powerful force.

            “No, none of my kids want my seat. They are growing up in a world where we are fighting just to keep shit off it we don’t want to get established. There’s always fighting going on. It is damn hard to protect a whole world. There’s a fuckload of ground to cover, and way too many ways for shit to sneak in.

            “They have to take over that fighting defense, while us tired old farts start going on the offense against the senders.

            “My grandkids, now, they might actually be able to expand out and start reclaiming ground for actual settlement, if my kids do their job right and prevent shit from getting established.

            “Mithar and the Archmage really fucked up someone’s apocalypse storyline. Humanity would have been hammered right back into barbarism without the Game, and that’s if the planet would have survived at all with the mass undead. Having all of us there, Seniors with Levels and Depth, was such a massive paradigm changer. There’s no way the Primos could have Leveled up at the speed and power they did without us.”

            “But apocalypse storylines are so fun to reeeeead,” Korbald wheedled, and we both laughed grimly.

            Fun to read, Hell to live...

            “You’ve got years on us. How are you dealing with the aging problem?” I asked him.

            “You mean the fact we aren’t aging, dying, and leaving things to our kids?” he asked knowingly.

            “That’s the one.”

            “From the Empire’s standpoint, it’s not an issue at all. The koros have a hundred-year generation spread, and can live to be five hundred. The elves aren’t even mentally mature until they reach a century, and generally don’t start Fading until they hit four hundred. Their elders are known to reach a thousand years.

            “Humans reaching adult age in two decades is almost mind-blowingly fast to them. They are already talking about how we’re going to overrun this world with our numbers, and must have fled our own world due to overpopulation...”

            My hand twitched visibly. I sighed, low and dangerous. “If any say something like that in my presence, I’m going to put their hands on Mortus and let them live with the consequences.”

            “Oh, that’s why it radiates so much death. Mnecromonics?” Korbald put his glass down and stretched his hand out. “Give.”

            I passed Mortus Dius over silently.

            He took it, and I waited there in silence as the deaths began to scroll past his mind’s eye.

            All those slaved dead. Wailing, tormented, chained, enslaved. The Damned occupying the corpses of the slain, hating all life. The Congregants, screaming the praises of the things that had Enthralled them.

            Monsters and fell magical beasts. Aberrants and the spawn of aliens beyond the rings.

            Extradimensional invaders of forms humanoid and not.

            Dragons. Lots of dragons.

            Cultivators. Thrice-Damned and quadruply-Cursed Cultivators...

            And not a few Fiends, of all levels of power, including the most recent ones.

            The trick to enduring mnecromonics was to not have much harmony with those slain. Even trapped and enslaved undead were a step apart from the living, and ‘killing’ them was really setting them free of torment.

            If you were of anything resembling a similar mindset to the dead, then living through the deaths of so many things or beings just like you was an utterly terrifying experience.

            Korbald watched it all pass, the only break in his expression early on, when a single tear fell from his eye as he watched the dead and undead of Terra flow past in all their millions, watching the enslaved go free, their stolen corpses purified and burned away.

            A tiny little tithe of the billions we’d put down...

---

            He sighed when the review was done, and handed Mortus back to me. I took it back without comment, and let my Staff stand alone once more next to me.

            “Generations, right. Humans naturally have faster cycles than the other races here. Regardless, the other races want someone older at the top, so I literally can’t step aside. The hybrid kids we have also take longer to mature than humans do.

            “Effectively, we’ve got multiple lines of education and maturity going on. Everyone is Awakened and Leveling if at all possible, and that helps with some extra years, but not everybody has Talent or drive... or the Stats.” His face had a complicated expression. “I’ve got a son who is totally average, no Stat higher than 12, and a Null. He looks like he’s my dad now.”

            That meant he was a Two at best, and his Con and Wis had to have been below average if he was over fifty now.

            “I have something for that, but go on.”

            “We borrowed a Polynesian tradition of coming of age, and ‘retirement’. The old guard gets conservative and set in their ways, which doesn’t change even if our years increase. While I’m the daimyo to outsiders, and my word is basically law, in real terms the younger generations run things day-to-day.

            “The sole exception is war, where Levels are everything because they have to be. Formalizing the divides between generations was a little rough but necessary. Allowing them to make mistakes, realize the fact, and fix things themselves is a lot harder than just doing it for them, you know?”

            I hummed agreement. “We’re not quite at that point, as a full generation hasn’t passed and grown up.”

            “How many people in your Allegiance, Ael?” he asked, a loaded question for him.

            “Ten million or so citizens.” Children not counting, of course.

            He twitched in shock. “No shit?” he gasped.

            “About thirty-two million people survived the Fall. I was the first and fastest to start Leveling those not in the game. Word spread, and people wanted to serve under me, especially if they had to move anyway.

            “I was American, most of Michigan is my territory. North America’s survival rate was the highest in the world due to the game, but most of my population isn’t actually American. The other strong Monarchs out there are also mostly American, established their territories, and their civilians stuck with them.

            “We sort of hold the heartlands of North America, and we aggressively defend the rest of the continent, but we don’t have the numbers to resettle it in the face of everything out there. There are no truly human lands left anywhere else on the planet, just some islands we haven’t let things settle on by dint of killing any who try.”

            “You run an Allegiance of ten million people? Gods in Heaven,” Korbald muttered. “I thought I had it bad!”

            “Your Allegiance is much more concentrated, and you are closer to them. You have, what? Ten thousand?”

            “If you include the non-combatants, yes,” he admitted. “And all the natives are Powered, without exception.”

            “Meaning your Forsaken are terrifying to them,” I mused aloud, and he grunted and smiled.

            “Weaponizing not having magic was indeed a rude shock, especially to the elves.” He paused. “What about that problem?” he asked pointedly.

            I rolled up my left arm sleeve with Magnus, stood up and turned around to present my tricep to him. He leaned forward to examine the Mark there closely.

            “That’s Holy energy, but... a demonic Rune?” he asked, squinting at it.

            “Very good.” I shook my sleeve back down and sat down again. “Remember Sama Rantha?”

            “Who could forget the only person who could keep a ship going to Coralost on time?” he asked rhetorically.

            “She slaughtered a whole bunch of succubi, including some lilitus, after forcing them to Bless her, and then fed them to the Marks with Tremble.”

            He stiffened. “That’s a Succubus Blessing Mark?” he asked in astonishment.

            “+4 typeless bonus to Intellect. Telepathic contact with originator of the Mark. Works across basic planar boundaries, although obviously not this far out, and in real time.”

            He was ex-Marine, and a gamer. He knew what a typeless Stat bonus meant, and effortless telepathic coordination. “Restrictions?” Korbald asked softly.

            “Tattooing Skill to make it. Top end requires a 36, and 32k goldweight equiv Investment for the +4. You feed it Karma, either goldweight or conflict. Everybody but a Null or Primos is restricted to one Mark. A Primos might get up to Three, based on Human Level. A Null can potentially have all nine, based on their Con being high enough.”

            His dark gray eyes were almost glowing. “Damn, I thought you had all those Tattoo Artist Ranks and mods for Soul Tats...”

            “I do those, too. But the Marks are the biggest thing. Coming of age and Swearing into the Allegiance gets you your Mark, and access to the Markspace.” At his glance, I explained, “Think of it like a telepathic virtual space run out of the back of the heads of the smartest members of the Allegiance, who can spare a thoughtstream for making the connections between people. It runs separately from Allegiance magic, but harmonizes with it effortlessly.”

            He took a deep breath, considering the implications. “Mithar...” he murmured softly. “Do the other Allegiances have anything like it?”

            “No. A Null Forsaken has to anchor the whole thing. It’s not that they don’t want one, but hooking into our Markspace, well...”

            “They end up Swearing under you?” he asked knowingly.

            I shrugged slightly. “I’m the highest-Level Powered on the planet. Sama is the highest Null. Briggs is the highest Source. We have the largest population under us. Argos and Mulcaster are under me. I’m basically considered the most eminent Sylunar and Druid on the planet, and the Senior Heavenbound.

            “Even Sole is under me, and he’s The Warlock Grandmaster.

            “Justin Songblade chairs the Council and has more influence among the other Monarchs, but in terms of personal power, I’m tops.”

            “Are you looking at making a play for power here?” Korbald asked politely, not without reason.

            “If I was going to stay here, it would be inevitable, especially if a Markspace goes up.” I smiled slightly. “More to the point, if you get the Pantheon going here, that brings this world into their Domain, and they can certainly bring it in close enough to at least get into Sending range or something with Terra-Luna, right?”

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