Chương 328: AF Chapter 327 – Prodigal Children

"This is a Baneskull displaying Banefire of the creature type it is made of, in this case being any and all forms of the undead, including skeletons, ghosts, and mu-miyah. Banefire is always the color of the blood of the things it is anathema to," I informed Candeth Martine across from me.

"It is a spell that can be Cast upon a Weapon, yet take form in multiple manners. It is not quite as powerful as the Slayer effects are, but it is still potent in its own way.

"We seek to bring the Slayer effects down to the same common origin, and we are very close to doing so… for Matrix Magic. Isparian Magic simply does not work the same way. There is a possibility that Void Magic might actually allow something like this, but we aren't going to feed the Shadow in the Void any more of that nonsense."

"Matrix Magic…" he repeated in fascination, although he did not pick up the Baneskull, eventually flicking his fingers and indicating I could put it away.

"I have heard tales of the sheer variety and breadth of the magic you have displayed to others and allowed them to learn. Indeed, your establishment of the Seal Focus, the ability to Teleport, and things as mundane as both the Disks that seem to be replacing wagons, and the strange white mistfire that consumed the dead…"

"Unwhite mistfire, Lord Martine. I am aware that it is not 'white'." He blinked, and actually smiled slightly with his scarred lips.

"Indeed? I doubt most people realize it… but of course you do. The Virindi have no true knowledge of it, although I admit to feelings of great wariness looking upon it."

"Any virindi who has died in the presence of it has been consumed, and their minds do not return to the Quiddity, nor their power to the Singularity. They are dead and Feeding the Land. The same fate awaits Summon Burned up by it, and undead slain by it.

"Deathstones, the Summoning of the System here, and whatever custom revivification method used by the undead or others, it is all the same. If they die, they are destroyed, and their spirits move to the hereafter. They are not coming back, at all."

"So that is a form of True Death. Things like that are truly strange to the virindi," his stereo voice rasped cautiously.

"Even unclean virindi, corrupted by emotion or outside sources, return to them, although they are cleansed and purified away, their experiences erased and all that they were purged so that the Quiddity remains pure. The virindi do not die, and consider it a weakness of lesser creatures."

"Well, the virindi I've killed are gone forever. If they thought they were above death, they simply weren't confronting the endless appetite of the Mortal Plane for things that think they are special snowflakes. The Land has a stomach that has never been filled, in my experience. It will always eat more."

"It sounds like this style of magic would be dangerous for me to use," Candeth Martine muttered, somewhat discontent.

"With virindi energies, that is true. It will also be something you would have to actually learn on your own with mortal teachers, not simply be given. You will actually have to understand and comprehend the magic and what it does, as humans do." I half-closed my eyes under his stare.

"That is an incredibly precious thing to someone like you, Lord Martine. Your mind is expanding in directions dictated by the virindi and later by trauma. It is time to take the step of learning magic in the direction of a human mind and soul, bringing you back to us and away from the aestral realms tempting you all the time." For a long moment, he just regarded me silently, the blue-purple of his power spilling out a little brighter from his eyes, roiling and curling in reaction to his inner thoughts.

"You truly are very insightful," he complimented me with a trace of ruefulness.

"I am not sure if that is a good or bad thing in regards to me…"

"I am not sure how you regard turning into something that has more in common with the virindi than with humanity, but the chance to become something the virindi could not imagine should be worth learning such minor tricks… which can grow to become quite major tricks."

"That… seems like an extremely useful alternate use of my time. Learning magic like a normal human instead of… the Prodigal Human the virindi turned me into," he admitted after considering it solemnly.

"Another use of your time also beckons. The Prodigal Banderling has also broken free of the virindi, claimed a kingship over the banderlings, and is ruling over the remains of Ayan Baquar and its surroundings. Moreover, the banderlings have accepted him, and he is actually looking out for them.

"His path is doubtless going to lead to conflict with us in the future, and although he might well be the toughest of you Prodigals, he will die if that conflict should come to pass." Martine nodded slowly.

"Yes, he died many times to the blades of Isparians before the Fall. Perhaps he has realized his mortality with his freedom…"

"As Harraag is the Toughest and has come into his place, so has Hea Rheaga. The Prodigal Tumerok forsook all the violence and combat and has instead opted to explore the potential of universe the virindi opened to him. I would certainly name him the Wisest of the Prodigals, even if he is not anywhere so gifted in pure power as you, Lord Martine." If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"Interesting. What exactly are you proposing, Lady Magos?" he asked, interested in where this was going.

"I also believe the Tusker King might be amenable to discourse, and I am not sure about the Prodigal Mosswart, or if such still exists. I believe the Mosswart Cynics may well be students of his, and the mosswarts' enduring presence in the Blackmire Swamp is because he is working with them against the superior strength of the burun." He smiled thinly.

"I trust this is not a thing you want shared with Bonecrusher, then."

"He only developed a ferocity that drudges do not have. Bonecrusher is already dead, it is simply a matter of when Princess Kristie and Lord Mick go up there and collect his head."

"That woman is… quite intimidating. I did not think I would ever have said those words about a non-Empyrean after what was done to me, and especially a non-Caster like herself. Her and that towering man of hers make a distinct impression, especially when they are together…" he remarked to me.

"She is the rock, and he is the sun. You are feeling the edges of destiny moving about him, a force that the virindi like to imagine does not exist, or that they may manipulate as they please from their higher state. They are wrong. Attempting to manipulate Fate and Luck to your advantage will always, always rebound on you in the end. Neither force can be manipulated easily by the finite."

"The finite." He seemed to chew on the word.

"You have started new religions and even churches among the Isparians, and even the Aun and lugians acknowledge their power. It… is very unexpected. The descriptions of the gods as non-finite, and the furthest thing from racial deities…"

"Racial deities, in the end, cause racial conflict, even if they are goodhearted, by their very nature of favoring their patronized species. If you want to have some form of interracial harmony, you must have gods that embody a concept, rather than racial powers that endorse a viewpoint.

"They also tend to be far more limited in their scope, power, and capabilities, because the scope of what they can draw on is far less than gods who are not so limited. Their focus may help them or hinder them, but it is definitely a hindrance when working with gods of other races, as they seek advantage regardless of how well their aims converge. These are weaknesses that are easy to exploit, and the virindi, among others, exploited that racial pride very, very well."

"For all their inability to understand emotion, they understand desires and benefits very well, indeed, and their measures of value are not what ours are," Lord Martine agreed slowly.

"They understand fully that a little knowledge can be a very dangerous thing, have seen the effect of knowledge on mortals before, and are very good at manipulating them through releases of knowledge that are, in the end, of only minor importance to them."

"Like the treatment of Null Aluminum into chorozite," I nodded calmly, while he lifted a wispy eyebrow.

"Virindi are energy beings who do not dwell in a material plane, so chorozite is ultimately useless and unimportant to them. However, to warriors who want to battle back against magic, it is a precious thing. Virindi won't take it with them, so the knowledge became leverage and a tool… plus the Gotrok couldn't enchant crap themselves, so making basic weapons and armor for them also put them in debt, even if only in terms of trading."

"Null Aluminum?" Martine repeated.

"Oh, right, you don't have formal alchemical training." He blinked at me.

"Did the virindi have a periodic table of elements among their information stores?" I flicked up a Holo of the basic periodic table for him, and he leaned forward in fascination to study it and likely commit it to memory.

"No, I cannot recall such a thing being arranged this way. The virindi tend to categorize things based on elemental structure and characteristics, and then cross-compare such things between realms with different physical laws where their properties can change. Quicksilver, for example, becomes nearly as hard as steel in aestral space if brought there, for some odd reason concerning interaction with time."

"Interesting!" I filed that away as something to store in addendums for characteristics of base materials on other planes.

"They have no high-end physics background is the reason why here. What you are looking at is what happens when you take the objects of the material world, like a coin," I flipped up a standard pyreal coin, "and you go way, way, waaaaaay down on it." A Holo screen of magnification started on the coin, quickly zooming past the level of carvings equaling canyons, down to levels of crystal, and then lower and lower yet, as molecules and the atoms that made them were lined up, and then we went into the atoms themselves.

He held up a hand.

"The virindi see these things as bands of energy that are highly mobile and never still, and are extremely difficult to study and measure with magic at that level. Simply looking at them with magic is often enough to disrupt and dissipate them."

"Quantum destabilization is a hallmark of magic." He looked shocked and impressed that not only did I know of this, I was confirming it for him!

"It is why magic works. You are messing with reality, and something as small as an atom naturally isn't going to survive the process of reality's laws getting bent around it just so a living energy field can take a gander at it." I pointed at the image of the atom as it blew up and was rendered into the model of an atom outside a quantum state, the classic electrons, neutrons, and protons.

"Welcome to science, the non-magical side of alchemy, the study and learning of the universe as it is, not how it can be bent.

"This is gold, chemical element number 79. Although there is some variation, it has 79 protons, 79 electrons to counterbalance them, and the most stable form of it has 119 neutrons. Its neighbors on the periodic table are platinum and quicksilver to either side, silver above it, and the very unstable, basically artificial Roentgenium below it.

"All of the endless numbers of materials that the virindi know are made up of atoms found on this table… and then, alternate energies are applied to them and infuse the quantum state of the atom, turning gold which has been infused with the essence of air, into what we call pyreal." He saw the pale blueish energy swirl into the atoms, and suddenly the base color of the metal displayed in the Holo altered from metallic orange-yellow to the familiar green of pyreal.