The Power of Ten
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BECMI Chapter 128 – Waking from a Bad Dream
🕑 Added 2025-07-14 23:27:09 +0000 UTC« Chapter 127 | Index | Chapter 129 »
Princess Brittabelle’s /reply was soft. -That is horrible to contemplate. The Doom of Darkmoor, the Crimson Cataclysm… their cost in lives was horrendous!- Especially since it included elves, in addition to humans and dwarves!
-And not a single Immortal perished as a result of them, although many might have turned to other worlds and realms when their servants here died. This, in turn, allows them to blame mortals for their own destruction, instead of laying it at the feet of those truly responsible, themselves and their own peers.-
That seemed to have happened to the Immortal Patron of the dwarves, and the entire Sphere of Matter had been shaken up, even closing off non-humans from advancing in it easily in our own world, as if they were responsible for some of the things that had happened.
-Feirlunl has not even been born in this time and day, there are no Trees of Life tying elves to the ancestral lifestyle,- Belle /noted thoughtfully. -His entire patronage is based around elves continuing in our ancestral lifestyle, never growing beyond it or him.- That was a daring thing to say, but she lived in Zanzyr, and not being overly defferential to Immortals was very much a part of that culture.
-And all the elves who moved on here in Darkmoor to a higher culture coincidentally perished, while some hold-outs fled underground to become my own ancestors, and were snatched up by another Immortal who wants their faith and service, but outright lies to them about His goals and the costs of serving Him.-
I could feel her wince. -And you plan to do something about them. All of them.-
-I do indeed. I have no reservations about putting Immortals in their place and learning how to kill them forever. I fully intend to make them pay for the crap they have been pulling on mortals. And technology can totally reach a scale where it can really, really punish Immortals… which might be why they fear it that much.-
-I see why the elves of this era would have delved into the mysteries of technology,- Belle /admitted. -Not having to live as insects under the thumbs of Immortals would be a heady drink of freedom, once you are aware of such things.-
-In the end, Immortals consider striving for Immortality the only true ultimate goal of all living things. Technology interferes greatly with that striving by raising the floor for all, instead of the ceiling for the striving few.-
My datapad began to wink, noting hesitant log-ins starting to occur in numbers as the first wave of people released from status began to inquire for updates to the system… updates I had been composing right along to catch them up on matters before the plunge of the Barhund and afterwards, and probably in much blunter language than they were used to.
Time to start putting diplomacy to use.
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“I trust lucidity has returned to your cerebrum, Captain?” a magnificently smooth and cultured voice asked in exquisitely cool tones.
Captain Emeril blinked a few times, straightening up his chair, which had been rolled back for relaxation while he slumbered in it. He blinked at the native female standing in the middle of his bridge, noting, with some misgivings, that not a single member of his bridge crew was around.
Nor, he discovered, were his bodyguards… although the perverse relief he felt on not seeing them was actually somewhat surprising.
“Lady Edge, was it?” Her Galstandard was exceptional by any measure, and it fit her appearance so well. The cold alien beauty of her was certainly tempting, but the ruby eyes in the black sclera were looking at him and seeing far, far too much for his liking.
He’d met a couple powerful psions with stares like that. They’d been unnerving then, too.
“May I ask exactly what you did to me, Your Ladyship?” he asked carefully, reaching up to rub his temples. He felt… stress-free. So relaxed and clear-minded it was hard to believe.
“The energy field you scanned around this world can best be summarized as ‘magic’, Captain. Yes, exactly like all those video games you used to and still enjoy. I am a wielder of those energies, and applications of it you should consider ‘spells’ going forward, because that’s the simplest and easiest way to categorize them.
“You have been treated with spells designed to renew and recover mental clarity and relieve stress and anxiety upon your mind, along with at least three incidents of mounting mental disorders. You were a very sick man in the head, Captain Emeril.”
Having that told him by a primitive female should have been all kinds of humiliating. Instead, it felt remarkably clarifying of how he felt right now.
“I’ve done…” he trailed off, and then sighed and shook his head. “I’ve done some very bad things, Lady Edge,” he admitted.
“Unforgivable things, Captain?” she asked archly.
“I…” That was an interesting measure to go by. “The Federation’s regulations would certainly not let me off the hook or forgive such transgressions… but I’ve a feeling that such aren’t an issue anymore, are they?” he asked ruefully.
She slowly shook her head. He’d thought she’d dyed the ends red, but on closer look that was no dye, and the color much too bright. It also seemed to shift and shimmer if he looked at it, to where it actually seemed the ends were covered in fresh blood.
Magic, he repeated to himself.
“As I informed you, powerful beings brought you down, and they have trapped you here. They have designs for you, and there is no escaping them, nor will anyone be coming to relieve you. I have it on very good faith that not even with magic nor psionics can one leave this world and land on another planet in this galaxy. One can leave this dimensional plane, but if you return, it will be right back here, on this world and no other.”
He didn’t know that the lich of Benjamin Horst had tried many, many ways to escape the world, including a lot of dimensional travel, trying to reach another world, any world, and get back to civilization.
Horst had failed utterly. Regardless of where he ended up, when he randomly sent a Gate or Portal or Vortex or anything back to the Prime Material Plane, he came out on this world again, albeit randomly dropped somewhere around the globe.
“And I find myself believing you,” he said, straightening slowly as he stood up, tugging his uniform a bit tighter. There was a tingle as the circuits in it straightened and freshened it up for him. “Unnaturally so. More magic?” he wondered, able to discern that believing everything someone said could be very dangerous, as it led to obedience without questioning, and that led to tyranny.
The road he’d been firmly on.
“I am a Truthspeaker. I do not have to speak the truth, but you will know when I lie. Such as when I say I find the Barhund overwhelming, humbling, and a magnificent achievement that surely no primitive magical arts could rival.”
He flinched as the lies jerked in his head and his ear, almost painful to hear. “I… see,” he nodded at her warily, redrawing his assessment of her quickly. “I will keep that in mind going forward, Lady Edge.”
“Ah, learning wisdom already. You should know that I took the liberty of opening all the stasis pods for your crewmen, and informing them of the situation they are now in, including the fact that they have been forcibly marooned. Some of them have elected to move to the settlement of Darkmoor to join the university there as teachers, while others have begun the design and prefabwork for a working settlement on and around the outside of the Barshund, in accordance with long-term colonization protocols on a regressed former member world of the Federation. There was discussion of setting up along one of the local waterways, but I prevailed upon them that security considerations for the Barhund fairly required an inhospitable location, as that would be unfriendly to the more barbarous and power-hungry of the natives, and so would be a wiser idea.”
Captain Emeril sighed heavily. This was a direct circumventing of his authority, but different protocols kicked in when colonization became an imperative, and his authority as a naval captain did not have the same aspect when applied to terrestrial governance.
“They have already started elections?” he asked, quite sure his name was not on the ballots.
“They have,” Lady Edge agreed, gesturing toward the doorway out. He accompanied her as they headed out of the command center, which was currently empty. “It was agreed that you would remain in charge of the Barhund, its defenses, and most specifically its power core. A rapid assessment of resources is being made now, while your most glaring security exposure is being addressed.”
He considered that. “The… dragons?” he asked warily, somehow not discomfited by any of this. It was out of his hands, and the stars knew he’d made enough bad decisions.
“Your samples of selected flora and fauna not native to this world or the Federation at large. They are being euthanized, dissected, genetically sequenced, and disposed of. The probability of interference with the stasis chambers and the subsequent freeing of your samples into the wild is well-nigh absolute, given the behavior of the entities which have stranded you here.” She paused significantly. “It is most interesting that the schematics for fabbers that could replicate the parts most needed to repair the Barhund, or make a hyperspace-capable vessel that could reach the Federation, seem to have been in the datacores that were lost or damaged when the ship came down. Truly a remarkable coincidence and tragedy.”
Captain Emeril’s mouth turned down grimly. “They strand us here, they won’t let us get away, they definitely don’t want any help arriving for us… why did they not simply destroy us?” he had to ask, both shaken that there were beings with such casual power and finding them an excellent target for his anger.
“Drama. Entertainment. Chaos. Unpredictability. A new resource. Research, new options. A nice sad story of an advanced species landing on a primitive world where they thought they were the superior lifeforms and dying tragically as they failed to adapt to their unforeseen circumstances.
“I will ask because I believe if anyone would be read in on data which is not in the ship’s archives, it would be the captain of a vessel. Are you familiar with Immortal creatures out in the greater universe?” Lady Edge inquired dispassionately.
He paused, unsure how to answer for a moment, then realized that privileged knowledge suddenly seemed much less privileged and very, very pertinent to his current circumstances. “There are beings, entities, that we know are not mortal as we know it. Many of them are of dark and alien natures and forms, and hail from other layers of reality. Dealings with them have been… poor, as I understand it.”
They had passed several crewmen who gave them, and him in particular, curious glances, but the recognition in their eyes showed they all knew who Lady Edge was now. He dismissed any thoughts of retribution for such casual behavior, understanding that most of them didn’t even consider themselves crew for the ship any more.
“One of those may be active here. However, the ones on this world might have, instead of arising from unknown alien races, risen from native humanoid races and beings, including the local humans you seem to be genetically related to, and my own species, among others. So, there is not open hostility… but we are ants, and they are ant farmers.”
His knuckles popped at her words. “We travel the stars, we build starships greater than the cities on this world, we leash the atom and ride the quantum fields of higher space... and they consider us ants.”
“Science can be grandly powerful, but it is a power of the many overwhelming the power of the one. Magic is the power of the one contesting the power of the many. Without its foundation, science can collapse very quickly, indeed, and affect a great many people without individual power when it does. Magic, not so simple to cripple, dispersed and reliant as individuals as it is.
“This world has lost its science foundation, and had it forcibly replaced with magic at some point in the past, likely at least three thousand years ago.”
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Comments
Caleb McLaren
prefabwork for a working settlement on and around the outside of the Barshund, (it -> in) accordance with long-term colonization protocols
Robert Drouin
It's just bad math, right.
Mal_gaz
"and not being overly differential to Immortals was very much a part of that culture." It should be deferential not differential.
