BECMI Chapter 117 – Deathly Bequests

The Iberon Emperor had taken the requests from the north to send help as rebelling against his commands to hold to the death, for instance. They were supposed to fight and pay their taxes, and if they could not do so, that was treachery and they had to be punished! The invasion of the Khirifi, on the other hand, was literally of no consequence, an excuse for rebellion, as no mere barbarians could possibly pose a threat to eternal Iberon! He was a batshit lunatic, but I wasn’t here to set right a fading empire’s problems and take over everything. In fact, I might be the person that put a bunch of nails into the grave of the thing, although I certainly didn’t need to. The Ruin was coming, after all. But now I knew the location of three Entropic Artifacts. Not exactly stored for safekeeping, but known in case they had to be retrieved for use… and as tests for the ones seeking them. An Artifact of Energy was something for others to worry about, but Entropy, Entropy’s stuff I could totally get behind destroying. The First Mask of the Medusa, The Harvesting Talons of the Hag-Queen Shemelea, and The Shadowed Skull of the Revenant King were all waiting to be retrieved in some dark and dire places. I needed ways to keep busy, those were definitely places to do so… and to bring friends along to have fun with. The lads needed some experience with dire Dungeons, truly foul creatures, and exposure to some of the unremittingly Evil things of the world that the Immortals just didn’t give a shit about, and left around for us to deal with and prove our heroism about. Just as soon as I paid a visit to the and its erratic captain, which was the next item to check off on my list. As for the late and unlamented Egranzier the Manifold, I was going to leave his skull in a safe place for a certain Immortal to pick up, and that self-important and clever individual could ask His own questions of the dastard and get what He wanted out of them. What He would do about the layers of treachery He was going to find out was His business, of course, but Thanatos had put a lot of levers into place, and without Immortals taking personal action, it was totally likely it was just not possible to save the place now. Egranzier picking off the heroic and noble characters who had been trying to stave off the fall of the empire certainly had not helped matters. Entropics striving for Immortality, trying to do what they did best. Really not liking it when it was done unto them, however. ------- “And so I left the Empire behind, back here to see how everyone was doing.” I finished my tale by taking a sip of the ruby wine here in the camp, up in the mountains bordering the Weirwood Court. A quiet camp was hosting Belle and the lads in some merry trouble-making among the beast-men clans that raided frequently from caves in the mountains. It was a fine place to practice the traditional martial skills of the elves: scouting, guerrilla attacks, raiding and setting ambushes against raids, stealth infiltration, and use of both ranged and close combat in light armor as needed. Princess Brittabelle shook her long golden locks, braided up and hanging out of the way behind her at the present. for improved Stats had rapidly improved her physical conditioning, and the martial combat she avoided at home had been good for her demeanor and poise. Her people at home were going to get quite the surprise when she returned from her ‘short excursion’, as she definitely looked like a warrior queen now. “Immortals and demons taking actions against mortals, playing us all like pieces on a chessboard,” she sighed in resignation. “I can see why Zanzyr is so adamant about keeping out priests and their churches…” The way my eyebrow lifted stopped her words, which she considered carefully. “Ah. Let me guess. Thaum is an actual Immortal, and doing the same bloody thing…” “You really don’t think that a magocracy that discriminates against priests would come into being without Immortal help, do you, Belle?” I asked her archly. “The hallmarks of Immortal involvement is creating radically different cultures in close proximity to one another. Look how very, very different all of the nations you know of are from one another, radically so. “There is a magocracy sitting next to a plutocracy of increasingly advanced humans, which are next to a barbaric tribe of horsemen whose ways haven’t changed since, well, this time period, next to a nation of orcs and other humanoids, next to the democracy of the Shires, next to a basic monarchy of humans, next to a human empire that hasn’t changed how it does battle for a thousand years, next to a conservative dwarven kingdom in the mountains, next to the raiding kingdoms of the Northmen, next to the isolated tribes of the fairly primitive Atruaghin, next to a mercantile island kingdom, next to a tropical tribesman island kingdom, and just across the ocean is a sprawling magocracy run by archmages from another world entire.” She blinked at me, having never considered how strange all of this was. “In one area, you somehow manage to have a powerful house of flamenco elves, a strong nation of fair-skinned elves… and down deep, pale-haired elves who are entirely different from the other two.” I waggled my black-nailed, crimson-tipped fingers calmly. “All with different Immortals looking out for them. “Neither House Colorajo or the Shadenelves have anything to do with Lumina Trees, but they are essential to your culture, which is centered on Corellin… and they do not exist in this time and age, clearly a later invention for when Corellin and Feirlunl Ascended together. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. “Corellin likely has not even been yet.” She frowned slightly, looking away towards the mountains. “That may well be true,” she conceded. “Elves live closer to their Patrons than most races do, I think, though the Priests of the humans and dwarves will likely debate that fiercely.” “A futile line of endeavor, doing nothing but stirring racial pride and animosity.” I waved it away as I refilled my glass with the delicate and tolerable Weirwood vintage of elven make. A human would have found it a complex, tart flavor with many subtleties and no real character to it… and likely gone tipsy after but one glass. “I have a question you may understand.” Belle pointed with her glass at the mountains in the distance beyond us to the west. “Why… are there no orcs here?” she asked, frowning. “It… the beast-men have all manner of appearances, from scarce the height of a hyn, to larger than trolls in some cases, but there is no rhyme or reason among them in skin coloration, builds, heritage, or anything. A yellow-skinned brute with the head of a bird and taloned feet might have a brother who is squat and porcine and colored purple, while their mother is a slender scaled half-lizard with a coiling tail and a three-foot tongue, or something. “There are only tribes based on relationships, and as you might imagine, they implode regularly, scattering and reforming somewhere else when their numbers fall. They seem to have no tribal heritage at all, yet we see nothing like them in our own time?” “Mmm. Well, the first thing you have to realize is that having randomly endowed children who inherit nothing from their parents is very unnatural, and can only occur one way,” I began calmly. She paused, I raised an eyebrow, and she sighed again. “Immortals, again?” she asked in resignation. “If I am correct, Lord Equavus probably has tales from his grandparents that indicate the race of beast-men did not exist before the last thousand years?” “I am not certain, but I shall inquire?” she nodded, her deep blue eyes thoughtful as she drank again. “And I told you of the nature of both the Ruin and the Crimson Cataclysm, the nuclear radiation that mutates and kills… and seems to interact with magic. It is entirely likely that the magic that twists them so was altered into non-viability by the catastrophes. “Add onto that the fact that their numbers probably interbred with humans, giants, and elves over time, and, even diluted, their lineage would stabilize, especially if their creator lost interest in them and stopped enforcing the randomness in their birth. “On top of that, you know there are Immortals worshiped among the anthroids of our time. The tribes and species we know were likely the original appearances of some of those Immortals, and they naturally locked in that heritage among their servants, in effect creating tribes of their descendants who actually looked like themselves.” “That… seems reasonable, on all levels,” the princess admitted, considering the facts. “So, if we could eliminate them in this day and age, we could stop orcs, goblins, and the like from ever existing?” she asked with a spark of loathing in her voice. “Technically, yes. Practically, no. As long as they don’t breed true, that means there’s an active Immortal Patron backing them. Since they came out of nowhere, what are the odds you can get rid of them permanently?” I asked without judgment. She pouted a little bit. “I could… only delay them,” she said after a few minutes. “Still, a worthy thing to do?” she asked me, fishing for permission. “They fall into Evil behavior remarkably quickly, as if programmed for it.” I let that hang there as she frowned. “That means no Free Will, if true. Chaos runs through their veins, pushing them to violence and might makes right. They might have the potential for enlightenment, but the influences against it are incredibly strong. “I think that they are another Immortal Project by some spectacularly uncaring Immortal, likely of Entropy. Their fate, judging by our own time, is to spread destruction, chaos, and conflict wherever they go, and glory in it. There may be individual exceptions to the matter, but…” I trailed off, shaking my head. “At the very least, I believe that if they were energetically, competently, and ceaselessly warred upon, to the point of extinction and minimizing their own effect upon other societies, they would be abandoned as an unsuccessful experiment and so be MUCH easier to deal with. Whether that would justify later extinction is a thornier moral problem. Certainly, if they cling to the auspices of Evil and adhering to that manner of behavior, even Heaven itself would see no wrong in eliminating them. The War against Evil is eternal, after all.” “You mentioned that their heritage would be stabilized by breeding with captured humans and elves.” The anger in her eyes was unfeigned. “Mmm. But not how you think.” She blinked at me. “It is because of my mother’s people.” “You… really are shadenelf?” she asked. “Your Transyvian accent is so convincing…” I held up a finger, rolled my eyes once, and said in a Shaden accent in Elven, “Thank you. I took great pains to move away from this accent. It is uncomfortably akin to talking like mice and bats… although Duum finds it quite fetching.” She couldn’t hide the amusement on her face even as she glanced up at my Familiar up in the sky, giving a casual ride to a very happy Oswald Brandybuck… and keeping an eye on the open ground to the west, too. If something decided to come out there to challenge him, it was probably going to get a very unwelcome surprise, unless it was an Elder Dragon. “That… is indeed a Shaden accent, although I’ve only heard it thrice in my life.” “Infiltrators exposed?” I asked archly. “Yes. We are… not so easily fooled by intrigue as our cousins in the Sidheduiche, as Zanzyr is replete with such shenanigans, as I know you are aware. Some have tried to enroll at the Great School claiming ancestry from us, others to hide themselves among us as survivors of raids or fire or other occurrences, with no witnesses to their lineage to be found.”