Chương 186: BECMI Chapter 185 – Good People, Good Things

Anfonio completely missed the pale blue field of magic that flowed over his victim as he dove aside, and the roaring expansion of flames blew through his lab, scattering his supplies, material components, vials, equipment, and most importantly, his notes! He screamed in outrage at the clinging flames, the sharp reek of poison and acidic residues confirming stuff was burning that he had no desire to inhale.

He rolled to his feet, his arm over his mouth, and charged out the open door- Right into four set spears waiting for him. The misshapen, tortured hyn glared up at him with the five eyes they had left between them, hands missing fingers gripping the spears that were buried in his chest, punching through his robe and burning, twisting at him on the inside with terrible power.

He saw a line of dwarves standing behind the hyn, clad in full armor, with shields and axes ready, all staring at him with cold death in their eyes. Then Molly Redroots, half of one foot missing and without her left hand, half her the hair and skin on her head rotted and moldered away to one of his better formulas, somehow got up on those spears, clambered up to the gaping Wizard, and proceeded to start sawing his head off with a gleaming, very sharp blue-black dagger of distinctly elven design.

Those who were still conscious watched as the wizard's tower fell into the ground slowly, smoothly, quietly vanishing from sight. When it was below the level of the stone, the stone closed over it and sealed shut with no seam nor mortar, smooth and unbroken. Nature magic crawled over the ground here, driving away the filth in the stone and soil, and green began to ripple and grow from ground misting whiteness.

In but a day, the grass would be a foot high, and no sign that the tower of Anfonio Tranelli had ever been raised here would exist. His Wards and guardian spells were already fading, his prisoners had watched the last of his undead and constructs get hacked down by grim axes or flashing arrows, and nothing remained of what Anfonio Tranelli had wrought upon the world, save the victims who had survived him.

-He was responsible for at least thirty missing hyn, gnomes, dwarves, and humans, in addition to over threescore goblins and orcs. We mercied the latter we found, but we've sixteen former captives at the Innspot right now, awaiting treatment for horrific physical and mental trauma, - Number Two /reported to me. Loyal only to magic and country, not morality. I just shook my head, unable to find the words to be exasperated with such a blatantly unethical system of government and personal conduct…

but Heaven didn't let itself be defined by the laws of Axiom. If they weren't Good laws that the White would support, Heaven was under no obligations to acknowledge them if they were at odds with the proper tenets and conduct of Good! Even with Good suppressed, the Alignments conflicted! -Treat all you can and then send them on to their homes. Keep names quiet to protect everyone involved, not all our people have Scrying protection.

- The Casters could spend a Valence II or higher, of course, but that didn't leave much for the non-Casters except to acquire an Amulet or something… or to start feeding Karma to their Name-Rings for an Astral Ward, which took time and conflict and was something they should be working on regardless now.

My 'sleep time' was spent making an Oathring a day now, just like Aelryinth did, my people getting the benefits of being Sustained and started the slow multiplier effect that just built on itself over time towards getting things done. The dwarves in particular loved them, as getting six more hours of stuff done just made their workaholic souls shiver in joy. The other elves weren't quite as enthusiastic.

Trying to fill six hours a day with something that wasn't wasting time, and having even more time since they didn't have to worry about gathering food and cooking, typically meant to be idyllic. Getting them to engage in research, crafting, weapons training, and other more 'immediate' downtime activities required some motivation on my end. Well, it was what it was.

If they wanted the good stuff and not feeling like useless wastes of space who couldn't get things done, they had to apply themselves and commit to mastering both of the potential racial pathways of the elves. They could already ignore Stats here, which meant they were incredibly lucky as far as the greater multiverse went. Reaching Archmage and being able to Cast IX's without being a true genius was absolutely not possible in so much else of Creation.

Likewise, being an average physical specimen was not a road to being a master warrior. But here, on this world, with the loose magic, it could be done. Not that everyone didn't really appreciate higher Stats once they had them. I committed at least four, usually six Wishes/Miracles a day to raising the Stats of people now, while Belle committed to three.

The skill of reworking Valences upwards allowed her to combine a I+VIII, II+VII, and III+VI to gain her three additional IX's a day, without really impacting her overall Casting power. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Our combined ability to use Cryptomancy effects and sacrificing Valences so that we could spend the SLA's on higher-Level effects was also proving incredibly useful. Archmages doing cool things for the shiznits…

-Several have expressed interest in helping out with future raids like this, especially from the dwarves, who are all Ruk dwarves, naturally, - Number Two informed me. -They want to kill Zanzyran wizards, - I naturally /deduced. -Are they Tens? - -No, - was the prompt /reply. -Or doubtless they would not have been captured so easily. - -Then get them together, tell them the reasons behind the Zanzyr and Rukheim rivalry, and the true source and nature of the plague.

If they want to join the nifloid-killing teams, get them trained and accept them. They have to EARN the right to go wizard-killing. It's a dangerous job. - -Understood. - -If they can't let go the grudge, well, they're going to be working with Zanzyrans, so it would be best just to send them home and let them work out revenge on their own terms. - There was a pause on the far end. -There is something of significance you should know.

- Sims didn't really have emotions, but they could analyze and deduce, and they did have most of my Stats. -Oh, this sounds like its going to be fun. What is it? - -There were multiple letters corresponding with Prince Drakker von Jaggenfels, wondering how his research was coming along, and to keep him updated on the results. The… language was scholarly.

I presume he has familiarity with this because of that Doktor who is reputed to be such a good friend of his is a renowned alchemist, albeit with specialization in Construct and machinery. - The Grand Marshal of Zanzyr, the Master of the School of Dracology, and Prince of House Graffburg, Prince Jaggenfels was probably the second or third strongest mage of Zanzyr, at least among the non-elven nobles, and by far the most experienced in war, combat, and dueling of those.

He was an endless proponent for taking Zanzyr's mage-heavy army and going out a-conquering, especially against the stinking hordes of the Tukhman Khanate and the human horse nomads who lived there. He railed constantly against the Golden Khan who led them and advocated for a first strike, as the Khanate warriors would certainly raid into Zanzyr were it not for the sterling magical defenses of the nation! Which was actually true.

For all their savage and barbaric nature, the Tukhmen revered the Immortals, none of whom were allowed to be worshiped in Zanzyr, which deeply offended the nomads. They would certainly come racing in on horseback behind rains of arrows and slashing sabers, looking to kill all the demonic mages who lived in Zanzyr if they could possibly help it.

But the other force the Prince loathed, who also had a big grudge against Zanzyr, was that nation of dug-in, dirty, rock-grubbing, plague-bearing, wizard-scorning, and sinisterly magic-resistant bunch of gold thieves known as the dwarves of Rukheim, who were actually located right next to the Tukhman, and would be passed by if the Tukhmen were to ride to invade, with the dwarves cheering them on and maybe even marching out to help!

The Shires, they just had some equally magic-resistant hyn, but they were little bandits and thieves, of scarcely any real interest in the world, and could be preyed upon at leisure in their charmingly quaint and bucolic little nation as the needs of the moment were met. All of which meant this kidnapping of human test subjects was being aided, abetted, and encouraged by a Prince, as Number Two transmitted the contents of the received letters to me.

Prince Jaggenfels was coordinating and guiding the network of mages who experimented with such things. Most of the humans were Zanzyran peasants, their lives to be used as their wizardly masters saw fit, but the hyn and dwarves had to be taken from outside the nation. Backed by a Prince, the letters were basically a declaration of war with two of Zanzyr's neighbors, and the kidnapping, experimentation upon, and murder of the subjects of other Princes!

-Keep those letters safe in a div-warded location inside Innspot at all times. Lead-lined and buried within at least two feet of rock. We will be making use of them in the future. - He kept up an Astral Ward of his own, so I couldn't Div him, but this kind of behavior was firmly in the camp of a Ruby bastard who didn't care about the costs others had to pay for him to get what he wanted. They just had to agree and obey and do what he told them to do.

There was also a pretty good chance that the heads of Cirru's parents were hanging in Prince Jaggenfel's trophy room, among the many, many other dragons and other monsters of the mountains around the Principality of Inclu that were hunted by the natives on a constant and ongoing basis. A good chunk of the proud martial mages of Zanzyr came out of Inclu, arrogant sorts with sticks up their bums and overbearing personalities, as eager to be bullies with magic as nobles elsewhere would be with their blade skills.

The first one who'd tried to bully me had his feet swept out from under him with my Staff, smashed his face into the wall, and somehow his own dagger impaled him in the butt as he rebounded off the wall, leading to quite the embarrassing situation. His fellow classmates who'd tried the settle the score for him grew inexplicably clumsy around me, dropping wands, spell components pouches, daggers, coin purses, and losing track of other such personal belongings with frankly humiliating regularity.

In the end they made a point of staying as far away from me as generally possible, which worked out the best for all of us. Well, not for me. It was a convenient source of extra income, selling off their belongings or ransoming them back to them. A little telekinetic sleight of hand was so good at relieving them of their possessions, and their personal security in their apartments just was not up to the challenge of preventing me from going through them as I wished, after all… I considered the position I was in.

The only Prince of Good Alignment was the one I'd allied myself with straight off, one of the two elven Princes in a largely human nation otherwise. The other elven noble House used to be in charge of the fair elves, the Sidhe kicked them out, and now the flamenco elves of Colorajo considered them rebels and traitors who had abandoned their proper rulers, leading to a very long-lasting grudge. The Sidhe, for their part, barely considered the Colorajo elves at all, which definitely did not help matters...