The Immortal Thaum was the other guise of Grandmaster Nathanael Jean-Arc, the jealous guardian of the Radiance and Patron Immortal of Zanzyr, the main backer of its magocracy. He had organized the cultural revolution that restricted nobility to wizards, barred clerics from Zanzyr, set up the Secret Schools, and then claid the top spot in the country with his Avatar, all without being beholden to anyone else and unsuspected by the mortals around him.
He was already Immortal, and so the Day of No Magic could not impede him. Likewise, anyone who walked the Radiant Road to Immortality was imdiately beyond caring if they left the world weaker behind them. They could always go find another mortal world to work with, right? If their Testimony fell to dust behind them, well, they were already Immortal, so it did not much matter, and if they really wanted to, they could just spirit their faithful away to another world with magic, leaving this one behind as a sacrifice.
Sotis being smart and magically aware was incredibly burdenso. There were no ‘gods’ that I could feel about ANY of the lands I had gone through. There were only these Immortals, who possessed power of their own and did not truly need mortal worshipers for anything but Immortal projects, treating them like cogs in a grand machine, to plug and play in the manner desired.
There were a LOT of these bloody Immortals around.
Of course, they were Immortal. They didn’t die of age, only to obscenely powerful things powerful enough to actually kill them if they were foolish enough, or if they gave up Immortality for further enlightennt.
They also tended to stick to their motivations and cultures from life, only moreso, and had a horrible habit of restricting the evolution of their own followers, or abandoning them if they strayed too far from thousand-year-old ideals that didn’t apply to a current age, instead of updating with them.
That was the problem with Iberon. The pantheon of Immortals that had helped it rise to power had expected them to adhere to everything that had driven their rise to greatness, and instead of actively correcting them as rising empire beca mature empire and then beca decadent and dying Empire, they had begun to ignore them when they didn’t stick to the sa standards, despite the fact that tis and attitudes naturally changed when young and striving beca mature and stabilizing, then falling and grasping.
They played gas with mortal souls and societies with impunity, because there was no standard to hold them to account, save their own superiors chastising them or their rivals checking their actions.
It was a completely corrupted Alignnt system based not on goals, not on mindsets, and not even on power, but on who belonged to what.
Sure, a Pantheon could cross Spheres. But it still had no moral or ethical obligations, only acts of support for their Spheres, all of which were at best Neutral, and which Entropy was basically Evil personified.
Being a good Immortal was backing your Sphere and carrying its obligations forward. Not being a good Immortal could an forcible demotion, but as everything was earned by your own efforts, it could be earned back.
Enforcent by strength, and since everything was earned by one’s self, with only occasional gifts or bonuses from one’s superiors, they were the very embodint of Independence, without any moral compasses to guide their overall behaviors, or at least ones without any teeth.
I was very outnumbered, my opponents were powerful enough to reshape a world on a whim with permanent expenditures of Immortal Power, and I didn’t have any viable allies who could assist .
This… could be bad.
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As the Immortal finished up, my eradication of the Khirifi long done, I nodded once at him.
“Two additional questions, both related. One, what is the Land, the planet, to you? Clearly it has the power to grant magic as an Immortal.”
He hesitated a mont, probably wondering whether he should reveal such a thing to . “This planet, called Tera by mortals since many ages past, is known among Immortals as Nown. It is a galith, one of the largest and greatest beings of Matter, and a natural bearer of Immortal power and energy. Such wondrous beings are often used by Immortals to host mortal souls upon their surfaces, protecting and nurturing life as is their way.”
Huh. Not just the ecosystem, the planet was actually an Immortal being itself. Important!
“Second, why have there been no additional travelers from future? What is the prohibition against traveling to the past?”
Okay, that gave him pause. He opened his mouth to cover for it, I frowned, and looked away before he could say anything. “You don’t know,” I interrupted him. “Am I correct that you cannot successfully change the past? Only create a new tiline that disappears as soon as the creating Immortal leaves it?”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not ant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He stared at as if I’d grown another head. “How could a mortal possibly know that?” he asked archly, as I once again exceeded his expectations.
“Likewise, attempting fifth-dinsional travels up the tistream results in nothing concrete manifesting off the main tiline, which refuses to be locked down and indeed seems to actively avoid a future any Immortal has witnessed?”
His expression as he stared at was incredibly strange. “You are touching upon great mysteries of Ti, things neither they nor we of Thought are fully cognizant of. Where did you possibly learn of them?”
“You are aware I co from four thousand years in the future, are you not?” He paused, then nodded slowly. “By your own definitions, I must then also co from an alternate tistream, one where soone like does NOT co from the future to save the King of Darkmoor. The tiline of my future does not intersect the tiline of this reality, and likely deviated from it the mont a being from this ti was sent into the future.
“Which tiline is the true one is ambivalent, as they are all true. But the reason the Soul Eaters could not touch the souls of and my comrades is not because we are souls not yet born, as that Prophecy seed to dictate. It is because we are souls that never will be born in this reality, and so are beyond Entropy itself.
“The Ti Portal in the Thisbean Inn is not a Portal across this world’s ti. This ti and place is a single connection to an alternate reality that anchors the loop of the Ti Portal’s existence through a closed temporal circuit. Any attempt to exit the Loop anywhere but one’s own ti, including a jump into the future, will result in temporal pressure wiping them.
“Thus, your ti-traveling Dynasts can only jump forward in ti, and never return to the past, if they wish that future to remain part of the sa tiline. Exactly as if they went to sleep and woke up in the future,” I remarked, barely paying attention to him.
He was eyeing in amazent. “You have deduced this all on your own?” he asked incredulously.
I wasn’t about to tell him that my ntal Stats, especially Intelligence, were at very non-mortal levels, and I possessed plenty of outside knowledge that he did not… and he would likely happily take apart to learn for himself. “You have long deduced all this, and it is completely obvious if you know what to look for in temporal chanics. A few hundred miles from here is a starship from an advanced scientific society, which is part of an interstellar federation of many sapient races. Any one of their more advanced theoreticians could have told you the sa thing.”
He glanced in the direction of the FS Barshund tellingly.
“Were you one of the Immortals who sabotaged it and brought it down?” I asked coolly. “The evidence of Immortal involvent is obvious.”
“?” he asked, a bit startled. “Of course not! That level of interaction with mortals is above my tier…” he trailed off, watching my unmoved expression, and he sighed. “I really want to et your Patron, Lady Edge. They have an incredible Aspirant on their hands.”
“As an elf, I have to make it to Twenty to beco an Aspirant. I’m just motivated, Elder,” I replied in a flat voice that didn’t sound motivated at all. “I will dispose of this Egranzier for you, but I am not going to make it obvious so you can use it. I believe evidence of his activities will be found by securing his skull for questioning, which I can then deliver to you.”
“His defenses should be exceptional, as he is a Conjurer, after all,” he deigned to warn .
“Summoned creatures make him exceptionally vulnerable to , not better defended. Has Elder never prepared to fight a Summoner before?” I asked, my voice dry as bleached bone.
“Er, yes, of course,” he answered as smoothly as he could, rembering that he couldn’t dispel my teor Swarm earlier, and the very, ah, eclectic appearance of my magic. “I will leave such matters to you, then.”
I just huffed. “The Khirifi are fleeing to the ho valleys they abandoned a long ti ago. There they will dig in and beseech Gulguz to save them from what is coming. Are you going to allow Him to intervene to save them? Things might get exceptionally pyrotechnic if you do.”
His eyes flashed with a brightness that wasn’t mortal. “Will your patron intervene if we do?” he smiled. “We will identify them then, most certainly.”
“Interesting. Allowing violations of Immortal Law in order to violate more Immortal Laws. It appears your laws are rely conceptual words, rather guidelines, a general code, so quaint old traditions, ceremonial fluff, interpretive rules hashed out over burning souls and the ruins of empires and the like?” I inquired blandly, and his smile faded away. “I admit to so morbid curiosity as to how big the explosion is when a true Immortal dies, but I would rather not discover that first-hand, Elder.
“I will be about the task you bargained for when I am done with my current one.”
He sighed again. “Such a vicious tongue you have for a mortal. Have you no fear of Immortal grandeur whatsoever, Lady Edge?” He was probably getting ready to pulse a little Immortal Aura at to awe into submission, or at least impress .
“The only things I’ve seen Immortals associated with at the current ti is ruination and destruction, and my definitions of grandeur tend to be less on the destroying the local landscape side of things, and more about hope and promise of brighter days. Mmm, perhaps fear is correct, but grandeur is the wrong word to use. I’ll indulge in fear when it is productive to do so. I understand the truly craven are expert backstabbers and all, among other things,” I nodded to no one in particular as I turned away. “By your leave, Elder!”
He tamped things back down with a long-suffering look on his face. “Very well, we shall make sure Gulguz doesn’t appear to rescue his people, nor will there be any other Immortal interference.”
Which didn’t bode well for the last of the Khirifi, but I wasn’t feeling magnanimous, even if this horrible defeat and lack of deliverance would likely crush their faith in Gulguz forever.
Nor did I believe they’d stop Him from trying to rescue them if He was suitably subtle about it all. So, cheating was definitely going to be on the agenda.
That was fine, as I was really good at cheating. Did they really think that soone who could Linejump and Teleport without Error was really just whizzing around flying after them?
The Khirifi were already dead, they just didn’t know it. After all, their ultimate flight destination was obvious. Did they really think I wouldn’t go there ahead of ti and prepare the place for my arrival?
Runes make for really good ways of striking at things ahead of ti, after all…
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