[Be Gone] Ch 20 - Sitting Down with Old Heroes from a Past that Never Was

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“So you saw the moon come down on us. We thought the Great Seal would protect us from a pre-emptive strike...” Mother Bea shook her head sadly.

            “There were a lot of things going on with that moonstrike,” I informed her calmly, hands flat on the stone table, my Staff Mortus Dius standing by itself next to me. “As you guessed, it wasn’t random chance. It might have even broken the Great Seal, which would have been bad, as that was the Great Seal of Dimensions, basically reinforcing the Veil about the world. Cracking that would have allowed invaders to come in far more easily than they have... and they haven’t stopped coming, even so.”

            All five of them breathed out at the news. “It sounds like you have been busy at home, Ael,” Bronze mused to me.

            “It goddamn never ends. There’s the deadly shit that will build up and overwhelm us if we let it go; there’s the existing magical shit that has to be continually monitored and cut down; there’s the internal shit from the traitorous, ambitious, and downright insane; and then there’s the incursions, which are basically happening every day as random forces from who-knows-where get invited into Terra-Luna to occupy the depopulated lands and make their own little kingdoms for whatever pet god or pantheon is sponsoring them.” I just threw up my hands. “The last one was basically from an abomination so vast and powerful, even the gods don’t know it is there. A Shroud of Undeath, spreading from world to world, conquering all that lives, Animating them into Undeath, and then marching those undead into new worlds after slaughtering their own and turning it into a Shrineworld to undeath.”

            I couldn’t even bring up any Holos to accentuate all this right now. I felt like a horrible storyteller.

            “Wasn’t there a massive undead event on Earth first?” Tread asked, blinking.

            “Yes. It took us over a full year to slaughter the billions of people and beasts who had died, and those who were already dead. Guess what happened to that Shroud when it found itself facing the responding armies reacting to its incursion who were optimized against Undead?”

            Despite themselves, the ex-gamers laughed. There was a huge gap between being optimized against something and being generally effective. The Ironskulls themselves had been examples of that, specializing in taking down Jotuns in their server home, and only later branching out to other foes as need forced them.

            “So, how did you get here?” Rapman asked, eager to hear that tale.

            I went into the invasion by the Shrouded undead, how they were massacred, and how we tracked them back to the dead world of Pantera where the invasion had come from... and then we counter-invaded, before a full-scale attack could come from multiple Death Gates in multiple locations.

            Unable to mass all their forces quickly enough in one place, the Shroudlords of Pentara had been defeated in series, the massive undead forces made from the beasts and sapients of the world set to burning in vivus, and the soul of the world itself was rescued from annihilation.

            The assault on the Shroudmaster was the climax, and when I took the Death Curse of the Death Titan Demi-lich, they all gasped, staring at me like I’d grown a second head.

            “How did you survive that?” Mother Bea asked for all of them. “Especially from such a powerful Caster?”

            I pointed to the Scarab riding my Sash. “Scarab of Protection, save against no-save spells. Energized tremair gems at IX, Immunity to Curses up to X.” The jeweled eyes of the Scarab twinkled. “Moment of Perfect Clarity, Concentration modifier +80 or so from the Sage of Focus.”

            “Mithar!” Korbald blurted out, slapping the table and making it ring. “Very impressive, Aelryinth!”

            “And crazy Geared out,” Rapman added a bit enviously.

            “The dissolution/never-exist paradigm of the Curse was bent into only hurling me away from there. Somehow,” I looked up and shook my hands about theatrically, “I ended up here. Total coincidence, I assure you!”

            They all laughed grimly, knowing it was anything but. That naturally led to the next question...

            “Can you get back?” Tread asked softly, and the room went quiet.

            “Of course I can,” I replied instantly, and went on in the silence, “I’m a Fifteen. I have the dimensional coordinates. It’s a long, long way from here, and I definitely can’t do it in one jump. But I can build a Pyramid, charge it up, and hopscotch from one world to the next and create a road home.

            “But that’s not the question you want to ask, is it?”

            They all sighed despite themselves, and even Korbald looked grimly expectant. “Could you take us with you, Aelryinth?” he asked formally.

            “I could probably take up to ten others with me, given the limitations of the magic,” I answered calmly. “But I’m pretty sure that you wouldn’t be able to make it to Terra-Luna.”

            Their eyes all opened very wide, but Korbald held up a hand before anyone could blurt out anything. “Why not, Aelryinth?” he asked carefully, not rushing to a judgment.

            “Every single person Sworn to the Archmage or in Allegiance to him was sent from Terra-Luna at the same time as you. I can give you the names of at least forty who were not at the Great Seal with you.

            “Likewise, there are literally scores of people who worked for the Archmage, but were not Sworn to him, who remained behind. Ryogos, for example.”

            They all trembled in recognition of the name, a cheerful and friendly fellow who’d been one of the server techs for the game. “Explanation, if you have one?” Korbald asked in a no-nonsense tone, the Voice of a Monarch... which, everyone noticed, slid right on by me.

            I might not have had my people here, but I was still a Monarch, and being able to ignore his Prestige meant I was not a small one...

            “You were energy dumps for the moonstrike, which could have cracked the Great Seal. I believe Terra-Luna grabbed you all via the Allegiance links, and vented the entire amount of magic and energy that was supposed to destroy the Great Seal to instead send you across the dimensions... and the remainder to finish powering up the Great Seal to make sure you got there safely, more than likely with a certain Silver Someone helping in the background.

            “I think if you attempt to go back to Terra-Luna, that magic is still going to be there, and you are going to go for a random wild ride again, somewhere.” I paused significantly. “Consider the amount of power it took to just send me here, from a ‘shorter’ distance. How many of you ended up here? 

            “And we don’t know where the rest of the Archmage’s Faithful were sent to, with their families. I know that number was at least three thousand people.”

            Korbald closed his eyes and sat back in his chair, followed by the others. “So, we cannot go home, although we could get closer to it...”

            I raised my hands. “Maybe if you made Eternal you could, but by then, it would just be another place to stop by, like going to the old park you used to swing in when you were a kid.”

            Korbald flicked his bare hand in a dismissive gesture. “Racing across the multiverse, only to not be able to make it to your destination, is basically just randomly exploring things on the way.” He clasped his hands together, sighing. “This is not welcome news, Aelryinth.”

            “Well, to be totally honest, Korbald, I’m the only one who really knows. Everyone else thinks you are dead.” That didn’t make him any happier.

            “Is this merely a calculation on your part?” Rapman spoke up for all of them. “Could you be wrong?”

            “My Spellcraft check is in the neighborhood of +60. I’ve rerun what happened every time it has improved.

            “On top of that, it was one of the questions I asked the Archmage’s holoshade. He agreed with me.”

            That burgeoning hope was crushed flat. I hadn’t said that to keep them off our homeworld. I’d told them because they needed to know before they got there... and utterly failed when they tried to go home.

            “I will not attempt to stop you if you want to depart with me, of course. Believe me or not, as you wish. But I also believe you must know this ahead of time.”

            Mother Bea turned to look at Korbald, and reached out to pat his arm. His mouth twitched, and he relaxed suddenly.

            “We thought it was a sign when we started Leveling again, and then, when you called, for a time, the years all fell away...

            “But no. We simply aren’t going home, are we?” Korbald finished for all of them, and they all nodded in sad agreement.

            “The Karmic system in the Power of Ten works off akashic awareness. The only Human Akasha is that which you brought with you... your Great Book, as it were. When I came here, naturally I brought my portion of the Akasha with me. That also includes satisfying the conditions for breaking Ten.”

            They understood what had gone on instantly. “How Deep are you?” Bronze asked directly, shaking himself out of his fugue with grim purpose.

            “I was Rank M when I left the game. I’m a Fifteen now.”

            They blinked, then blinked again, and then they all stared at me.

            “Forgive me, Ael, but all I know of you from the game is that you were the Ringlord, and were still a Nine then-?” Rapman had to ask. As the Minstrel, he would also naturally be the Herald of their Court.

            “I completed the two greatest Grand Quests in the Power of Ten before I left the game, about a month before the Fall, and I also opened the way for the expansion of the game, if the Archmage turned out to be wrong. The Karma I gained was enough to send me to Rank M.

            “Since then, it’s been a helluva ten years.”

            “Damn. Rank M!” Bronze muttered, slapping the table repeatedly and managing a small smile. “Uh, you got that all Assayed proper-like, right? We are gonna have to expand the Book...”

            I snorted slightly. “I’ll happily make you a copy of my Levels and Feats and whatnot for your Great Book, sure. But right now, I don’t have a working Matrix. I had to chop it all apart, and am still doing so, getting rid of the residue of the Death Curse which is still trying to wipe me away. I’m grinding it down slowly with the Wrath of Heaven, but I have no Casting power whatsoever.”

            I flicked up the Wrath, and a Windfire Dart opposite it on my other hand. “This is basically my offensive power right now.”

            “But those Shards you were spitting out-!” Rapman blurted out.

            “Wand charges,” I reminded him, and he cuffed himself, a-duh! “Which reminds me to ask again... do you have any starter Wands of Shards? Doesn’t matter how many charges. I can turn each charge into eightscore dead goblins or minor oni.”

            Korbald’s eyes narrowed intently. “That... is a VERY efficient usage of a beginner Wand, Aelryinth.”

            I had to smile despite myself. “And so the demons have been finding out for the past four days!”

            “If we can’t find a few, we should be able to get some made quickly,” Bea said smoothly, putting her hand to her temple. “An extremely useful thing to spend minor Valences on, given what is coming.”

            “What about that music you were making? The one that made the ley lines sing?” Rapman pressed. “It was buoying everyone’s magic, like a Heartsong for Casting, instead of combat...”

            “That is the Sublime Chord, Rap,” I answered him calmly.

            He stiffened, as did Bea. “You, you found the Sublime Chord?” he squeaked in shock. “How did you do it? Everyone was looking for it in the game, and even since-!”

            “Full Archtheurgy and Theurge Mastery in Arcane and Heartsong. Some Skill reqs in Spellcraft and Musical Lore.” I let that linger in front of him as his face twisted. “I am The Master Archtheurge of the Seven Traditions. Since Doctors Strange and Fate aren’t around, I guess you could call me the most powerful spellcaster of Terra-Luna.”

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