The Mick’s expression took another downturn. “Aye, the sea...” He sighed, looking east, to where the broad bay spread out, doubtless once dotted by rafts and broad coracles for the fishermen who kept the city supplied with fish all along the shores, judging by the many buildings and stumps of rotting docks and basic wharves down there. “That, that all started with Grael getting loose...”
Princess Kristie tilted her head, indicating he should go on, her pale violet eyes sharp.
“Well, turns out the Empyreans an’ their predecessors aren’t native t’ this world, either. But they’ve been here for so long they almost might have been... except there are some natives to this world, an’ they didn’t particularly like the outworlders coming in, enslaving them, an’ pushing them around.
“The two main intelligent native races on the land are the monugas, and the Rushck.”
I sighed, put my hand to my forehead, and made another notation in the list of sapient native species.
“Grael was a warlord of the Ruschk, who was captured by the Dericost ancients an’ made to participate in their gladiatorial games. Long an’ very sordid story, he made a pact with some very dark an’ nasty powers, got turned into a living horror that almost brought down the Dericost Empire, an’ proved to be unkillable, so they couldn’t beat him, only Seal him away an’ hope his power would drain over time.
“The Ruschk seem to revere him as a great hero, an’ he was the loose stone that started the downfall of that whole age. The undead don’t bother the Ruschk anymore, afraid of what they might stir up, but then Grael started getting loose because of some other mistakes the undead made across the thousands of years coming to a head here... an’ we had to deal with it. Repeatedly,” he added, with an ironic smirk.
“He got sucked into the Summons system and enslaved to it,” I judged by his face.
“Aye,” the Mick agreed after a moment of consideration. “He cannae die, but he’s not the horror that brought down an entire empire of spellweavers that he was. He can’t leave his own labyrinth. I must have helped bring him down a score of times or more. He was a savage thing, an’ a good, solid fight, but not an army-rending fiend that the old tales seemed to infer.”
Kris whistled low. “That is an especially horrific fate for someone like that. Going from a grand rebel and toppler of empires to a casual combatant confined to your own dungeon, doomed only to be slaughtered in passing as a casual test after all your sacrifices...”
“He did manage to spread his influence through the system an’ remnants of his people, who inhabit the northern, icy islands to the northwest.” He blinked as I brought a Holo map of the island painting up for everyone to look at. “Aye, that’s a cute trick,” he murmured, staring at it in some surprise, then pointed out the area he was talking about.
“Ice-covered to subtropical with palms trees growing inside a hundred miles,” I muttered aloud, shaking my head, and Kris just snorted as the two men blinked after they realized the strangeness of it.
“Well, aye. Uh, an’d some of the Ruschk still get sucked into his philosophy, get twisted by the things Grael calls master. Grow extra arms, mandibles, and become all elemental-like...”
“The mukkir?” Kris asked, in a voice part scorn, part relief.
“Aye, them’s the things. Most of them seemed condemned to join him in, er, being held by the magic as, ah, Summons, as you called ‘em...” The terminology was furrowing his brow, making him think about things he really didn’t want to as Kris pointed at me, and I sighed as yet another Aberrant influence was confirmed.
“This place must look like a banquet of mana with all the things being attracted here,” I murmured. “Are there any other mysterious entities messing in stuff here?” I groused.
“Aye? Well, there’s the Rynthid,” I flicked my eyes to him, almost but not quite glaring at him, “and The Deep, and the slithis...” He managed to grin, enjoying the way my expression soured with each word. “Then the Dericost have dealt with some damned and unclean schite with the Book of Eibhil...”
I actually flinched as he said that. “What? That’s the source of the Summoning Ritual Xunidira got a copy of!” And it cost Devra al-Shamira her soul! “Your Highness, this place is bloody doomed...”
“What exactly are slithis?” was Kris’ only response.
“Well, they came along with The Harbinger...” Our blank expressions made him purse his lips, and he coughed at our stares. “They are kinda like spiked tentacles that hide in the earth, and come out to impale ye. We aren’t exactly sure what they are connected to, mind ye. Digging down t’ find out didn’t seem too wise...”
“Tentacles coming from below...” I closed my eyes and sighed, not liking where my thoughts were heading. “The Deep?”
“Ah, that thing,” the Mick said with affected wisdom. “Well, when Grael was bound, it seems they also Sealed the island he chose as a base, an’ drove it down to the bottom of the sea, wise old undead letting someone else deal with their problems in the future. When he got free, his territory was pushed back to the surface bit by bit. First Vissidal Island came free, but it were but a gateway to the Black Isle there, so named fer the tainted energies yet running through all the soil.
“When it came up, things of the sea came up with it, caught on this side of the island Wards, and, well, they, er, got trapped in the Summoning, too, methinks?” He clearly wasn’t sure how to grapple with the wording. “The Deep is nominally their lord, an’ was a bit incensed that they were basically now guards for Grael’s territory. I dinnae think it understood that they couldn’t really die, as it would pay us fer killing off the betrayers, as it were...”
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He coughed again as I closed my eyes and shook my head. “Status of it?” I simply asked in a low voice.
“No idea. No one’s been up there in a generation. The Portal Magic commonly used t’ get there doesn’t work, nobody wants t’ take the time t’ try t’ power up one of the old Portals there, an’ those Portals are all in very hostile territory, now. The undead might know, as they were watching the island fer more signs of Grael getting loose, but they’re split an’ factionalized, happy as pigs in mud to kill us on the one hand, an’ t’ pay us t’ kill for ‘em on the other.”
“And to tempt us with dribbles and drabs of knowledge that lead us straight into damnable things, no doubt.” Kris’ mobile lips twisted in a deadly sneer. “You mentioned Asheron’s Protection, before. Who was Asheron?”
A mix of emotions passed over the Mick’s face. “He... was the one who set up the Portals to bring Isparians here. The most powerful of the Empyreans, a grand old archmage with incredible power, unequaled by those who came before him. The undead had some grand an’ powerful old corpses among them, an’ the shadows too, aye, an’ the virindi supposedly have some true monstrosities. But only the latter two might have rivaled him, from what we knew. His power held the others at bay, an’ set up the Protection which stopped us from fighting one another, arranged the lifestones...” he trailed off as our expressions remained unimpressed, and coughed once.
“We’re pretty sure he’s dead now. When the Fall came, survivors from Eastham reported a massive explosion from his island, and it looked like his entire castle were blown apart, at the same time as the Lifestones exploded an’ his Protection went away.”
“But no body, so there are many myriad ways he could have survived, but his magic and control of the island’s ley line network was overloaded and erased, and it reset to a default state of sorts,” I judged, and the Mick nodded hesitantly at the explanation. “To be seen as a peer by the undead and ageless things like Aberrants and the Shades, he was likely ageless himself.”
“Aye, he was said to be hundreds or thousands of years old,” the Mick confirmed readily. “Someone more interested could probably find his birthdate in some of the old records, as he were a noble or royal among the Empyreans.”
“The ageless have different perspectives on time passing, as death is not looming over them to spur them to act sooner and drive them to get things done. It’s especially true when they are nigh-immortal and can just return from what we call death with impunity,” Kris sniffed. “A day, a year, a generation, or a century can all seem as one, and they get jaded with the passage of time, sniffing at all of us who are running around like ants getting things done, knowing that we’ll just grow old and die and be but dust in the time of a short nap.”
“And then they bring their thousand-year dead rivalries and hatreds up for us to deal with,” I spat knowingly. “All of Ispar, just a convenient source of slave labor to deal with problems they didn’t want to, anymore. Rynthids, what are those?”
“Well, I were told they were counterparts to the Virindi, but like on the opposite side of the mental hill. The Virindi are like all logic an’ law an’ thought an’ discipline, an’ really don’t like any departure from their group structure. Apparently, they fought a really long war against the Rynthids some time ago, as they are things of pure emotion, an’ the Virindi despise them as a result, uncontrollable an’ unpredictable an’ what-all. They could get into the minds of things an’ drive them mad, especially the Virindi, but it worked on all sorts of creatures, including humans.”
“Chaotic emovores and Lawful hiveminds. What a marvelous fight to bring here. How utterly wonderful of them,” Kris snickered. “And I’m assuming there’s more?”
“Uh, well... the Deru Trees?” the Mick hazarded after a moment’s thought.
His great uncle had been silent, but now piped up, “Hell of a thing to forget, lad.”
“Aye, but she wanted enemies, not friendlies.” Our waiting expressions didn’t change. “There’s some, uh, intelligent trees about the lands. Hidden if they want t’ be, guardians of the lands an’ the like. There’s a couple in scattered places, an’ one’s been growing on the Vesayans since the Fall, as did one of old. The keepers take as good a care of it as they can, all things considered, although it’s nothing like the big fellows who’ve been around since forever.”
“And one of ‘em raised up some dragons!” the undead ex-pirate exclaimed cheerfully. “Honest t’ Pwyll, real dragons flying about there!” he repeated for emphasis.
“Those gromnie wyvern-drakes grow up into something?” Princess Kristie asked archly, her face as unsurprised as ever in the face of the two men’s glee. The Mick looked back and forth at us, saw that our quotient for wonders was significantly higher than his, and looked like we’d rained on his big pre-planned parade.
“Aye,” he confirmed, a bit disgruntled. “What we call gromnies are actually baby gromnatrosses.” He spread his arms wide. “The adults, the Empyreans said they grow t’ the size of whales, with wings that could shade a good-sized barn, just like dragons in all the fancy tales and stories back home! They are supposed to be real rare, an’ considered among the noblest of noble creatures, intelligent, patient, and kind, unlike what they are as basically babies.”
“Noted,” Kris said crisply. “I take it these dragons have not been seen around, either.”
Both men slowly shook their heads. “No, the clutch of ‘em were the guardians of the Viridian Rise Deru Tree. They’ve not been seen since the Fall, either. I’ve tried to reach the forest area where the Tree rose, but were not able to. The lands were very dangerous to begin with, an’ they’ve not grown any nicer since we’ve lost the Lifestones.”
Princess Kristie finally sighed. “Deathstones,” she corrected him quietly. “They weren’t Life stones. Those crystals were linked to your deaths, and fed upon the power of you dying, powering a Resurrection protocol and siphoning away the excess mana released. In effect, every time you perished while tied to the things, you were a blood sacrifice to whatever the stones were feeding. Part of that energy was used to bring you back, so it wasn’t a massive surge like a true sacrifice, but I imagine you kept feeding yourselves to it repeatedly, over and over and over again...”
The Mick stared at her, then over at me. I just nodded slowly. “Ye’re speaking truth?” he asked uncertainly. “That woman, Nuhmudira, she said the same thing about Asheron and the Lifestones, and not to use them, and even... made her own...” he trailed off slowly as he considered the implications of what he was saying, and what we’d said about her.
“So, Asheron was using your deaths to power something, and she would have used your deaths to power something else of HER own design.” I just shook my head. “And naturally she was not going to tell you, any more than Asheron likely did.”
“Well, that were not true.” I lifted an eyebrow. “He said it was used to sustain the last of the Empyreans in stasis, after he whisked them away from the olthoi hordes of the true Olthoi Queen,” the Mick said defensively.
I inclined my head slightly. “I don’t know the mechanics of that. It might be possible, and it might be true. But I do know this, and note that I’ve not seen a Deathstone active. Were there three metallic or crystalline objects holding it in place?” I threw up a rough visualization of a bluish crystal, with three tripodal prongs supporting it, having no idea what it actually looked like.