From the outside, my days were long and booooooring. After all, I was spending twenty-two hours a day running across the ocean, mapping out things that wanted to avoid my attention.
They didn’t know they wanted to avoid me, but as undersea settlement after settlement ghosted across my Commune and was painted into the database, there were plans being drawn up, and assets and men moving.
Oddly enough, riding along on an Eidolon as advanced as mine with Horseshoes of a Zephyr was perfectly suitable for working on Items, and of course, I always had stuff to do with the Allegiance and the prepwork going on, monitoring things elsewhere in case I was needed. I was advising, allocating, planning and changing plans as new things happened.
I was doing a lot of design stuff on the steampunk side, since it was the most advanced tech that could be made without tripping stuff, and even then, you had to very careful on the power sources. Still, Gearsmiths and clockwork-makers were now officially in vogue, and there was a LOT of training going on as the whole paradigm shift of technology began to dumb down and shift from what simply would not work to what would.
It meant a lot of very smart people found that the knowledge bases they’d been working on for their whole lives were being overturned, made useless, or were simply inapplicable. There was absolutely ferocious resistance from some of the people being made irrelevant that way.
But in the end, money would talk, and lamentations would walk. Math was math, and if quantum physics was a total dead end, the world still needed engineers. Retrain and be relevant, or just be useless.
It was harsh, but we hadn’t made the situation, we were just trying to solve it. If you didn’t want to change with the times, that was on you. You could always be a janitor.
My main problem was the sheer amount of mileage I had to cover to get this done right. Two hundred miles an hour was pretty slow for a swathe of territory ninety miles in radius. In real terms it was a lot of area. In relative terms to the two hundred-some millions of square miles out there, it wasn’t very much at all.
As a result, there was a lot of number-crunching going on, determining where ships had been attacked, and so giving me swathes of area to concentrate on. It was just logical that ships would be attacked closer to where the things lived, and so databases were assembled, charts drawn, dots made, and I was given higher-percentage areas to sweep through.
Finding a Deep One settlement in the middle of the Baltic Sea didn’t make anyone happy, but you know, Europe had nukes, too, and didn’t want wild magic events.
I first swept around the British Isles, noting a lot of shipwrecks here and there... as well as camps of aquatics. Then it was up the coast of Europe, tracking and charting, into the Baltic, making a complete run of the place and noting some excitable sea serpents and stuff within it. Then I Waterjumped out of it back to the mouth, turning north and up along Norway, until turning towards Greenland and Iceland and past them, straight down the Atlantic Coast.
Alerts popped, here, there.
There were a lot of dangerous things living in the sea that shouldn’t have been there, and if they were under two thousand feet, I could actually and very accurately kill them from the surface. Unless they were sealed in caves, they couldn’t hide from me if I actually went looking for them down there, and this was totally true of the undead.
Certain Detects have extremely high ranges outside. Detecting Undead or Aberrations outside is very easy and has a very long range. If you are aware that something is nearby, Locating Plants, Animals, or various Creatures also has an extremely long range.
Those ranges were enough to send out Seeking Shards to follow up. Parking over an open wet base two thousand feet down after Locating Deep Ones meant target practice and a wipe of the area if they didn’t have a Div Ward on the place... which normally they didn’t, or I wouldn’t have known it was Deep Ones down there, only that something was blocking the Commune.
A Deep One wet base in under five hundred feet of water was just passing target practice, and basically dead before they really knew what was happening. If they were swimming along, I could wipe an entire strike force of them in passing, and regain a lot of ki while doing so.
Accordingly, I had a lot of tungsten steel with me I was Energizing into adamantine, one ounce per Caster Level at a time. Hundreds of dying Deep Ones became hundreds of pounds of adamantine slowly but surely as I moved along, rebuilding the reserves of Heavenbound Hall, and then some.
I’d been doing something similar in India, splitting my time between gems and metals, while also Shaping gems into being, of course.
Multiple thought streams helped so damn much.
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I was just starting to head for the Bermuda Triangle when The Mick called up, asking for a ride for a lot of people.
Huh...
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The gathering point was in a meadow to the north of the city of Limerick. There were over a thousand people gathered there, all of them looking both nervous and excited... and clad in some very old-style and well-preserved armor, along with carefully maintained old weapons, along with a fine scattering of firearms of sorts.
Goblins and Tomb clansfolk. Quite an eclectic mix.
My eyes raked over all of them scanning their Auras, and I watched them all flinch and shiver as I did so. The Tomb Clanners especially couldn’t take their eyes off my mount, and I saw a sort of awed respect in their eyes that I would so casually ride something that looked so unnatural.
Hrn...
I pointed. “Windwise, go talk to the Land, if you would.”
The Warlock Grandmaster had an odd look in her eyes as she looked past everyone there. Technically, given how many people she’d Consumed and where at, she was from basically everywhere by now, but I noted that taking an Irish name for her preferred form probably meant something in these times.
There was a flicker of darkness as she Rode the Shadow away, and the Old Steed trotted up casually to The Mick, Amaretta, and the ones gathered there, easy to pick out because The Mick had Raised a Banner there.
Crimson red, with a white diamond in the middle, and a green shamrock in the middle of that. Simple, direct, forceful.
Ireland at the heart, my motives are clear, but there will be blood.
Putting it right out there for you.
But he was Sworn to me, and he’d not add all these new Vassals without my approval, especially given who some of them were.
“Lord Mick,” I greeted him. “Time to increase your Allegiance Rank, I see?”
He tipped his hat to me with a smile. “Well, I told ye once, suddenly being an upstandin’ citizen o’ high society looks good on me, Lady Traveler!”
“It’s true,” I played along, to which he and Amaretta beamed. I looked over the gathered forces there. “You’ve an... eclectic mix here.” My eyes wandered over everyone, and settled on the Wrapped matriarch and those behind her.
Despite herself, that one’s breath caught in her throat.
“I do not know your name or your history, but your anger and resentment tower over your soul like a tinderbox ready to explode. You’ve no loyalty or belief in The Mick, and you’ll not be able to swear Oath to him without the Heavens coming down and smiting you for False Oath.” She shook despite herself, glancing at The Mick, who seemed totally unsurprised by this development.
“On the other hand, there’s the Warlock Grandmaster, who is currently talking to the Land and adding Her to her revolving Landbound Pact. She’s extremely powerful, she’ll treat the children of Ireland fairly as a Landbound, and you’ve no grievances against her. If you need her to beat you all up at the same time, she’s perfectly willing to do so to earn your respect.” I waved my hand. “Just stand over there and she’ll pound you all down together when she returns.”
The Wrapped blanched despite themselves, especially when they saw The Mick nodding cheerfully. “That’s the Cherokee Warlock?” their matriarch asked carefully. “I’ve seen some vids of her...”
“Oh, have you now? Does she need to administer any lessons, toss you over any buildings, or rip anyone apart with her bare hands?” I asked all of them.
Heads started shaking quickly. “Well, then, you’ll find she’s a fine person to serve under, very experienced and knowledgeable... and about as merciful as a hurricane.” That got their attention, but I didn’t go further into it. I surveyed everyone else, and nodded slightly, flicking my hand.
Pretty much all the Wrapped, and perhaps a score of others, lit up with purplish lights, startling them. “All of you, kindly step over there and wait for Windwise.” A Banner erupted from the ground, and grew to thirty feet high instantly, rivaling The Mick’s. Those so limned moved over hesitantly, some startled at being singled out, some suspicious, some regretful. Since they probably would have died swearing False Oath, I was saving their lives, but they probably didn’t want to believe it.
“Now, The Mick’s Allegiance is currently underneath that of Commander Briggs. That will change in the future, but for now, it allows him to stay in command of the many American Tomb Clanners working out there. In effect, they are pledged to his Banner as a Warlord.
“I believe you’ll be pledging to his Banner as your Lord. There are distinctly different benefits to doing so, among which are Duty and Loyalty... but you’ll know those soon enough.
“Lord Mick, the Words.”
He raised his hand, and letters of crimson wrote themselves into the air, glowing softly and fluidly. He did love his Spell Thematics...
I, fillinyerbloodyname, do pledge my Oath of Fealty to Mickal McCallister of the Blood of the Irish, Vassal of the Lady Traveler of The Jet and Silver, as Vassal to Liege and a Child of Ireland, on this day, before Gods and Mortals.
Slowly, under my watching eyes, goblins and Tomb Clanners took a knee, old ones with advanced Bloodlines and younger ones who looked more human alike. The oldest of the batch, a White wearing a symbol of Harse, spoke up first, loudly, leading them all.
“I, Kregor Graveston!” he called out emphatically.
Voices rose, naming themselves.
“Do pledge my Oath of Fealty!” he continued, and waited for them to repeat. “To Lord Mickal McCallister!” He added it in of his own, and everyone repeated it. I could feel the invisible crinkle in the air of Loyalty starting to converge at this concession and acknowledgement. “Of the Blood of the Irish!” the old White called out, also feeling the magic converging, his voice rising and getting stronger with his sincerity. “Vassal of The Lady Traveler, of The Jet and Silver!” That acknowledgement flowed and swirled around me, and eyes darted my way in shock as they suddenly felt the Allegiance Magic swirling with real force.
“As Vassal to Liege, and a Child of Ireland! On this day, before Gods AND MORTALS!” he finished triumphantly.
There was no flashing fall of fire to smite anyone swearing False Oath as they repeated his words, and the Oath was upon them.
“People of The Jet and Silver! Welcome the Blood of the Irish to our ranks! Show them in darkness, there is light!” I called back to them.
And the roar of welcome of the Allegiance came down upon them all.