“Giving Soushi to the Aun as a settlement, and them allowing the Hea settle amongst themselves was a very good idea.”
“We don’t have the people to settle or hold territory north of Hebian-to as yet. Leaving the plains to the wild tribes for now works best. A bit of discourse with them to get them organizing themselves… although they’ve been stuck at warband level for eons, rovers and takers, instead of builders.” Princess Kristie shrugged, but her pale violet eyes danced. “We just have to make sure we claim territory and hold it, and let them know it.”
“Or skulls will be cracked?” I asked, Kris’ unique diplomacy with banderling chieftains well known.
Her knuckles popped with a flexing of her fingers. “Indeed.” She eyed the preparations being made.
The tumeroks were a resilient people, in the end. Catastrophe was not unknown in their tales, and they picked themselves up and carried on as they must. If there were fewer hunters to bring in prey, that just meant more trapping and fishing for the now, as the remaining elders once again passed on knowledge to the young to raise them into hunters, as well.
If most of those elders were Aun, and the serious-faced youngsters Hea, well, it was what it was.
But that wasn’t what was going on here. The trappings of the Ritual were mostly complete, being fine-tuned in accordance with the ancient Hea totems of Earth and Water and Sky… which had new additions among them for the Eye Beyond the Sky, which the tonk called Hehvun.
Who had not felt that force riding the clouds, Silver shining inside the roiling black? Had they not seen the Thunderbolts ringing like bells as they came down, full of condemnation for Sin and Evil deeds?
There was no doubt whatsoever that I was representing some great and profound force and power, and the Hea and Aun were naturally interested in knowing more of it, especially as it was an entity of the soul, not of the elements.
The Power of Ten approach to worship was largely based on single gods, yet the Church of Heaven, which backed ALL the gods of Good, was definitely an institution, and the most widespread of all the Churches, if only because a follower of any Good god was welcome at any and all of them.
This distinction was pretty important, because the highest levels of Healing magicks that I had to teach my students were all involved with Divine energy, not just arcane Life Magic and its variants.
That meant getting the attention of Heaven and its deities, realizing the Alignments were totally real and totally able to reach out and touch you, and the powers they granted were intertwined with Faith and the fates of mortal souls.
It was a big leap, it was basically tossing religion on its head… but if you shatter one set of beliefs, it opens the way to others, and people desperately wanted to make sense of the world after catastrophes.
Divine Magic was also Eminent in its domain. You could replicate what it did with other energies, but you couldn’t truly surpass it, or even truly rival it. While I didn’t have access to the gods to truly establish such Eminence, neither did anyone here have access to something that might think it could compete with them.
There weren’t any other Nines capable of Casting Divine Magic around, especially the enhanced Healing Magic. Support Casters were long seen as secondary types to the more aggressive War Mages, but I’d just turned that on its head and made sure they exploited Support Magic to the fullest. Vulns and Imperils meant everyone on the battlefield followed their lead, which meant they had to know what, where, and when to target something to make it dead, playing into the greater tactical situation and setting up their comrades for success.
If said comrades tried to take control and bull forward to showcase themselves, they had to shut those people down, sometimes aggressively, and bring them back in line.
Teamwork players in a Fellowship or a squad, not adventurers able to do it all themselves. No Rending or Cleaving Wands letting them skip the debuff portion of attacking now, teamwork ruled the day.
Support Mage mindset was Life Mage mindset, which was a proper Priest’s mindset.
Cults couldn’t do what they were doing, and the political position eclipsing the faith positions in a Church was not how the Heavenly religions worked, although the Neutral and Evil faiths often loved them some lethal politicking, they did.
Lots of acolytes and the first few Divine Casters were coming here to help with what we were doing, with the shamans of the tonk looking on in great interest as we all took our places.
Hea Kugurus sat in the middle of the Formation, weary but composed, frankly ready to die if things went wrong here, a model and test for his people. As the first words were spoken, he did not open his eyes or even glance about, just waiting patiently for his ending… or a new beginning.
The mana coming in had to be attuned to the Divine, and without powerful Divine Casters, that meant it took more time than normal. Thankfully, the Ritual only had a single target today, and I was here, which simplified matters a great deal.
The Melody I Sang today was the Chorus of the Spheres, specifically Aligned to Good Magic and building it up in power and potency. It swirled and danced in all the Rainbow Colors of Heaven, more specifically the Chaotic side of the Empyrean, and it slowly converged on the motionless wine-skinned Hea tumerok waiting at the center of the formation.
Colors danced across his skin, and found things they didn’t like there. Sparks of purple-violet light spit and fractured and looked to be repulsing the Colors, who seemed to take that as a personal challenge.
Notes became sharper, clearer, wilder as the tone of the magic changed. Heaven was gentle until it was provoked, and then, like all the Profound Forces, it rose to the fight!
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Swirling Chaotic lights descended on the waiting Hea chieftain, and he twitched and jerked as the plumes of imbued virindi magic seemed to erupt from inside him, throughout him. They were smashed apart and hounded relentlessly by motes of light that looked increasingly like little fey spirits chasing eagerly after their prey while mounted on kaleidoscopic butterflies and dragonflies.
They cut the virindi magic from Hea Kurugus, bit by bit, singing and dancing in swirls and whorls of Light and Hope, and the tumerok began to change.
His vaguely scaley skin softened in places and began to bristle, the sight spreading more and more as the little pixels of color hunted down the remnants of virindi magic ruthlessly, swooping right through him as they shaved off the bits, impaled them, chased them around and burned them in flashes of Silver and Gold.
Bones creaked audibly, transformation magic long-settled began to reverse and restore as alterations to the very Life Spiral were wound back and unmade. Flesh rippled under gently furred skin as the body of Hea Kurugus altered back towards its racial paradigm. All the Axiomatic virindi magic imposed upon him was sliced apart, falling away, undone as pixels danced around the Hea in celebration for his return.
His dark eyes opened, watching the spirits playing around him in joy and wonder and celebration. If what he saw caused his eyes to suddenly tear, the low cry that came from his transformed chest and jaws only made it clearer that something momentous was happening.
The humanoid neck and skull lengthened and extended, tusks becoming more prominent, his head narrower. His build lengthened as his feet went from humanoid to digitigrade, extending his legs, while the vestigial tail behind him lengthened and extended a good two feet.
The spirits of Light danced before him, welcoming him back to what he had been, to what he truly was, and he reached out with fingers that now sported longer white claws than before, as if to touch the gathering of motes.
Two of them seemed to split themselves from the mass and alight on his extended claws for a moment, staring deeply at him. Then tiny spears were raised, and as the Song reached a crescendo, the motes and pixels whirled about him, rising towards the sun on a beam of Light that washed over him, inside and out, as he stared upwards and bared himself to it.
The magic stilled, and the Ritual fell quiet. Many were the expectant eyes as Hea Kurugus lowered his eyes. Then he brought up one leg, then the other, and rose to his full height, standing proud and tall as the Hea tonk he had not been since he was a fresh young hunter on Marae Lassel.
He was half a head taller than he’d been before, a true and noble Hea tonk as had never quite walked these lands before.
“The spirits of my ancestors, they have welcomed me back to who I was.” His voice was rough but still recognizable as his own, even if all else had changed about him. He held up the clawed hands that had not been his for nearly two generations, worked lips around tusks an inch longer than his had been not long before, and his tail switched nervously.
“THEY WILL WELCOME US ALL BACK TO WHO AND WHAT WE WERE MEANT TO BE!” he howled, spreading his arms wide and raising his face to the sun, standing taller than he ever had in his life, and the roar of acceptance from Hea and Aun alike watching from all around us indicated they were more than ready to cast off this last great chain of the virindi and rejoin their ancestors, too.
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To me, it was a combined Ceremony to Revert Shapechange, Dispel Magic, and administer Atonement.
To the Hea and the Aun, it was a Miracle of Hehvun, a show of the power of a new and benevolent entity worth the effort to worship. The Eye Beyond the Sky joined the elemental Totems they had long paid heed to, their naturist magic accepting a new Tradition that was more philosophical than practical… but it was but one more road to the tonk, who had come far from their great and distant moon-world to here.
The Hea had already been forced onto a road unwanted, while the Aun had to find a way and alliance with new species that were not banderling, mosswart, or drudge, an agreement built on peace and mutual benefit, as opposed to who was stronger.
New roads of life built by Good weren’t roads for conquest, they were roads of exchange and understanding. We’d see where this new road took the Hea and us in the future.
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The Mick lifted up his left hand, hissing at the sensation as he wiggled the ring finger there.
The finger he’d lost on the day of the Fall, when the ring given him by his long-lost lover had exploded, along with so many others, and taken a promise to be forever together with it.
“’Tis pink,” he murmured, and poked it carefully. “An’ sensitive!” he complained.
“It will take on the characteristics of your other fingers quickly, it’s the nature of the magic. Likewise, you’ll be recovering your muscle memory of it, too, so you won’t feel awkward not compensating for it again.
“You should probably still put in about a hundred hours of swordwork to get back to truly feeling proper, right?” I glanced at Kristie, who had a wide smile on as Lord Mick slowly clenched his hand and opened it.
“Aye, you’ll feel a bit off until you put the time in and your grip becomes second-nature again. Rotating ki through it constantly and doing katas will really speed things up,” Kris agreed.
He grunted, looking at his right hand as he carefully made a fist, and then slowly and more carefully did so with his new left.
Ki rippled under his skin, Ocean style, and he broke into a flowing combination of punches and palm strikes with smooth efficiency. Kris tilted her head as he paused.
“Aye, still compensating for it. Be a bit,” he acknowledged, complex emotions in his voice. Then he turned to look at me, and bowed slowly. “Thank you for this, lass. I’ll not be forgetting it,” he promised. “I imagine ye’re off to see the kings, then?”
Although he’d a crude magical arm to replace the one he’d also lost during the fall, Borelean’s handicap was actually one of the reasons so many followed him, his loss reminding everyone of what they’d all lost. Kresovus’s loss of a hand was similar.
“There are a lot of people going to be getting something back soon enough,” I told him, and that was truth.