“And you’ve been doing so alone, because part of your duties involve monitoring the Powered and everything we’ve been doing.” I waved the fact away. “Yes, I know it means you have a bias in your duties towards the Primos. It is not my concern.
“I gather the constant and steady Wishcrafting brought you here?” The combination of powerful magic and reality-twisting would have definitely got their attention.
Once again, they seemed surprised at my insight. “That is what that was? We are aware of the magical conflicts between the efreet in Yellowstone and the djinn here, but they basically neutralized one another...”
“Windgraf Mochtal has been using his Wishes more directly, as whatever power Bey Garar’azzar has been serving has stopped trying to use Wishes which were Countered as soon as they are made. The Windgraf will resume Countering the Bey as soon as his reserve counter-Wishes have been used up.
“In the meantime, he has been using Wishes to increase the base Stats of certain of the Powered, opening up their path to the future. The burgeoning feeling of destiny and magic you are feeling rising here is because of that.”
“That nexus of destiny seems to hinge upon you, Lady Traveler,” the hyn said, swirling his glass of wine. “At the same time, the tides of it are washing past you, and do not seem to be clinging to you...”
“I am Beyond Law and Chaos. Neither Chance nor Fate hold influence over me,” I replied. “I don’t think I have to explain to you what playing chronal-chess with timescryers is like, and I’d rather not be subject to them.”
“Oh, that sounds like a most interesting state, similar to our own... Void status?” The hyn dropped his eyes to the paper.
I slid across two more sheets for them to read. “Well, it’s much less powerful and very specific. Being immune to prophecy and foretelling can be good and bad, but I’ll live without timesight if my enemies can’t see me coming.”
They studied the details of Null and Source Forsaken with great interest. “That’s what those are!” the Firesword burst out.
“What?” the hyn asked.
“That lot of people being taught by that woman in upper Michigan, the one that looked like a martial school for young people I was telling you about, with all the ki techniques? They had those weird, solid auras...”
“Those were Nulls? Huh.” The hyn studied the notes. “Inert to magic. That sounds... useful? Dangerous to the Powered?” he had to ask.
“All the Forsaken are much more dangerous to Powered then the Primos are. All Primos, if they but knew, could have been, and could still become, Forsaken. They just have to hit Seven, somehow, if they didn’t make the choice at One.” I inclined my head at them. “It’s also the way to discover more Voids to share your work load, if you don’t know.”
They gave me That Look again. “You seem incredibly familiar with Voids, Lady Traveler,” the hyn admitted, pausing as Master Fred reappeared, this time with a plate of steaming smoked sausages for finger-picking, which he set down between them before retreating to his place. Hyn and human looked at one another, then grabbed some sausages despite themselves.
They weren’t Sustained, I noted, and set aside my study material as I began to Write more stuff for them. “Let me give you a bit of a backstory, Brothers, on the Brotherhood of the Void.”
---
I went into how the Brotherhood existed on other worlds, was known there, and performed their duties in accordance with the Will of the Land, acting as shooters of trouble, stabbers of trouble, and head-takers of trouble, at which they smirked. I reviewed the various Orders with them, how they were formed, what their general responsibilities were, and how they approached their problems, especially with the Powered around.
They naturally were dying to know how I knew all this, and so I informed them of the truth behind my status. They listened raptly, promptly Helixed me up and down to confirm all the crazy magical shit going on with me, made screwed-up faces at the existence of my Ur and Blighter Levels, and muttered sympathies about the baby boy, but that wasn’t their remit to handle, it was mine.
“This... psychopomp.” Brother Firesword had quickly embraced his name, in the interest of the transplanar organization of his kind, and had rapidly oriented on the main problem without me laying it out for him. “It installed you here, for lack of a better word. You said Divine servants cannot remember the Shroud, but it guided you here, to a world underneath one. That... is highly suspicious.” His instincts for magical chicanery were right on.
“That is correct,” I agreed. “It can only mean it is a non-Divine entity, yet powerful enough to reach past a Shrouded Veil somehow. I did not receive an impression of great power from it... but great skill may substitute for great power, if one knows how to wield it.”
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“So... you are saying this thing is dangerous,” the Shadowknife asked somberly.
“Yes.”
“And are its plans related to you?” the hyn asked to ask.
“Are you asking if I’m some sort of magical bomb? You should be able to tell more than I, but I do not believe so.” Both promptly Helixed me again, going up and down and through me, while I waited there patiently, ignoring how much it tingled and tickled. My Shroudbond seemed to be both afraid of and delighted by them. If it was reflecting the will of the trapped souls, they had to know that restoring the proper cycle of souls was one of the things that Void Brothers did, and so these two represented a very dangerous form of salvation. They’d either free the souls, or burn them all away and restore them to the cycle as raw energy.
Either was better than being trapped and tormented forever...
“Your ties to the magic of the Shroud are... very strong. This remnant Death Curse upon you seems to have made it truly firm. The conjoined power of the Bloodlines you burned also strengthened the tie...” Brother Firesword said thoughtfully, seeming a little intimidated, despite himself. “That is the most complete and powerful Matrix I have ever felt,” he complimented me, and Brother Shadowknife nodded agreement. “However, I couldn’t feel anything dangerous.” The hyn also shook his head. “Yet the creature clearly planned for you to be here, so it wants you here to do something.”
“There is only one thing that would have happened that it could be sure of when I was sent here, and it even questioned me ahead of time in a roundabout way, to see what my attitude for the task was. It wants me to kill all of the undead here... or rather, it wants me to frighten the undead as I start slaughtering them.”
Even Master Fred was hearing this for the first time. “Please continue,” the Firesword asked in interest.
I inclined my head slightly. “I have indeed been chewing over this problem. Consider if you were a would-be Dark Hierophant on this Shrouded Earth. You are marvelously attuned to the Shroud, your weapon against the interference of the gods. You can sense the presence of your rivals, the other Dark Clergy, mere minor players who have no background, and who cannot hope to match you, as they know nothing, coming from this isolated world of no-magic, fat with souls and corpses to make your servants.
“And then suddenly, those future servants and their dead start vanishing.”
Both of the Brothers blinked, and suddenly looked very thoughtful. I prompted them with an eyebrow.
“If someone were killing my rival Dark Clergy, and repeatedly... that means they could kill me,” Brother Shadowknife thought aloud. “And I, I am stuck here, inside my Shroudzone, incapable of escaping, and can only await the fate coming to me...”
The Firesword looked back and forth between us. “They would be looking to escape, but they cannot. So, they would be seeking another solution...” I nodded slightly, “and the fake psychopomp has a solution for it!”
I lifted an index finger. “But although it looks ideal, it is not a solution for the Dark Cardinal there. It is a solution that benefits it. Indeed, the solution must come from a source that is outside the Divine, in order to pierce the Shroud!”
“From Outside Creation... a thing of Mythos...” the hyn whispered grimly.
“Furthermore, it must be something that the Dark Cardinal is capable of bringing here, but the creature is not. It needs the Dark Cardinal to initiate the process, and provide the power for it.”
“Some sort of mass Summoning Ritual?” the Firesword hazarded instantly. “The amount of power under the Dark Cloud of Russia is IMMENSE. What could they Summon with that much power?” he had to ask.
“Something capable of destroying the world, because that’s what the undead want to happen, and they can probably confirm that,” I answered. “What, precisely, I don’t know.”
“But... that seems to be redundant. The goal of the Dark Cardinal is to slaughter all and become Hierophant, according to you. Why not simply arrange things to make that happen? Break the Curse of the Sun binding them to their Shroudzones, as it were?” the Firesword asked, seeing the illogic in that.
“Indeed, that would be the case, if that was the goal...” I agreed with him.
The child-faced hyn looked at me, seeing the sleight of hand at play. “The goal isn’t to Summon something to destroy the world. The goal is to Summon something...”
I tipped a phantom hat to him. “That... is what I believe, as well.”
Master Fred stepped forwards. AND THEN... DO SOMETHING TO THAT ENTITY?, he asked suspiciously, getting everyone’s attention.
“That is also what I am thinking.” I gave him a thumbs-up for a suitably treacherous frame of mind. He was pretty familiar with treachery...
“So, you are meant to be a clueless pawn with power, doing the hard work of getting the undead motivated to perform this Ritual, while it uses the Ritual to its own benefit...” The Firesword sighed. “I hate dealing with extraplanars.”
I gave him a thumbs-up, too. “Wise!” His grin was a little bleak.
“I have to ask... given this artificially strong connection to the Shroud... what do you think will happen to you when it goes down?” the Shadowknife asked.
“The situation I am in is... unique, to say the least.” I flicked up a fan of flames for them to peruse, nigh-invisible Helices swirling out to taste it, and both their eyebrows rose.
“Wait, that is Druidic power... but not, it’s mixed with arcane power?” the Firesword asked. “But... I don’t sense the residue of you eating power the way a Blighter would...”
Which meant he’d sampled that before, meaning he’d met a Blighter before, and said Blighter was probably not around anymore. “Elemental Theurgy merges Druidic and Arcane power. I can draw on Druidic power through Arcane channels, I don’t have to take it from the land. Only my first Valence, of course, I have yet to take it to Five.”
Both of them were astounded. “That is extraordinary!” the Firesword complimented me.
“Not really. It’s all just magic to you, right? I imagine not being able to mix it is almost counterintuitive to a Void.”
His mouth opened, closed, and he looked rueful again. “It is not easy to have secrets from someone who has read so much about us on another world!” he half-laughed.
“That is true. I know mystery is one of your strengths, but perhaps it is time you should be extending a little trust to those reasonable of heart. Not all Powered are out to corrupt the world for the sake of power. Some of us are actually trying to save it... and even the Druids can go off their rockers. It’s about people, not being Powered...”