My dream that night was filled with memories of Earth and the life I'd lived there. I hadn't had one of those types of dreams in almost two decades, and what I could remember of the few I'd had back then had slowly faded. But coming to this world had stirred something in my psyche that made me remember. Remember that those dreams were real and that I had lived another life.
I still couldn't remember how or why I'd kept those memories from that previous life, or why they returned, but they helped explain idiosyncrasies in my current reincarnation. The most glaring difference between myself and other Sidhe that I'd never confronted had been Caraid.
I had no memories of a childhood, nothing before I ascended. I only knew that people believed, that I believed I was once Caraid and had been remade when I'd been forced into an ascension chamber thirty years before I should have.
Caraid had been a part of me for so long, that having him incarnate into a separate person who I could see, and touch had been jolting. I also thought his incarnation from the voice in my head to a flesh and blood person was the reason for my restored memories.
Not that I felt he had been blocking them, simply that, for whatever reason, he was a part of me, was also the reason the memories had faded.
Those returning memories would be helpful in this world, even though there were historical discrepancies. I had enough knowledge of that Earth, its history, and the myths and legends of Olympus and Asgard to make plans.
This Urt didn't seem to have followed the exact timeline of my Earth, but there were similarities. Olympus, Rome, and Caesar. Vikings, Sweden, and Ragnar Lodbrok. I seemed to have arrived at the height of Rome's power.
Ragnar Lodbrok shouldn't have been born for centuries. That he was, and that Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great also lived, pointed to a major occurrence that changed the timeline of either this world or Earth's.
I would have to do some research, but from the weapons, the army of Man was using, and the type of ships being used, I would guess the world's technology level to be at the early iron era, just beginning to use iron effectively. I wasn't certain if China had invented gunpowder yet, or if they ever would.
The Han Dynasty was currently in power and was heavily influenced by the duty one owed to ancestors and spirits. He was a profound student of Confucianism and required all of his chancellors to learn the Confucian classics before they could be promoted.
He had fostered an era of cultivation and practiced self-cultivation to better understand his role and duty as Emperor for his people. The Ying/Yang understanding of the cosmos, the interaction between these two energies, was instrumental in creating a cultivation method that allowed a practitioner to focus and control the world's Qi.
Understanding the differences between what I had learned about these figures, and how they actually affected this world, would help me navigate the political landscape I was about to overturn.
My musings were interrupted by the sounds of argument and industry. The rest of the council of Twelve that had been tasked with logistics and refuge relief had arrived this morning. And they were clamoring for attention.
Before I left the room I had borrowed for use as an office, I took time to enter the [Ring of Hidden Depths] to connect with the System and check the status of my quests.
I didn't want to get in the habit of transiting inside the ring to open my status screen after every event. I had never been the kind of person that obsessed over every incremental increase to experience gained. But it only made sense to check now and make sure I was on the right track. I thought I might have satisfied the conditions to fulfill two of the major quests.
My status screen had undergone a major change, I noticed. Instead of numbers informing me what my strength, agility, intellect, and will were currently at, the System had instituted a ranking system.
I could only assume the changes to the System were possible because the Sidhe and my grandson, Ryu, had successfully claimed Ijal. The first new planet to come under the influence of the Tuatha de Danann in the Talahm universe would be instrumental in allowing a System update.
I had to admit to myself I liked the changes to my status screens. It made it easier for everyone to understand where they stood, not only on rank but power level. The System had instituted an SSS through E ranking that reflected the [Ranked: Titles] we were familiar with.
F Rank – Commoner
E Rank – Knight
D Rank – Earl Rank
C Rank – Duke Rank
B Rank – Prince Rank
A Rank – King Rank
S Rank – Demi-god Rank
SS Rank – God Rank
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
SSS Rank – Titan God Rank
Of course, there were differences in levels possible for each ranking. A quick glance at my status made that clear.
Name: Teigh Mac de Beleros y Cyronax Rank: A+
Body: A
Strength: A
Agility: A-
Mind: A+
Intellect: A+
Will: A+
Skills: A
Weapon Use: B-
Healing Regen: A+
Melee Defense: A-
Melee Attack: A-
Aura Control: A+
Magic: A+
Spellcraft: A+
Fire Affinity: A+
Cold Affinity: A+
Healing: A+
Lightning Affinity: B+
Magic Defense: A+
Magic Attack: A+
Portal Summerlands: A+
Portal (Save Point): A
Astral: A
Psychic Affinity: B
Mental Defense: A
Mental Attack: A
Illusion: A+
Glamour: A+
Companions:
Caraid: A+
Tia: A
Ag: B
Meala: B
Once I was certain I understood what the new ranking meant, I opened my quest log to check on my progress.
[Quest Created: Help Athena, Loki, Set, and Coyote to foil Zeus' and Odin's betrayal.]
[Quest Created: Defeat the Olympus Goddess of Time and steal Zeus's lightning.]
[Quest Created: Avoid Heimdall, Enter Asgard, and steal Odin's Eye.]
[Quest Created: Repair the World Tree by planting and creating a new Sithern.]
[Completed]
[Rebuild the Sidhe, and appoint a Ruler, Claim the position of Ruler, or form an effective council to rule.]
[Completed]
Satisfied that I was right, and I had accomplished two of the quests I had been tasked with, I exited the ring and left the office I had been using to begin directing the cleanup efforts post-battle.
"Have the Abhaic scour the beach for fulgurites. The constant bombardment of lightning should have been enough to fuse the silica and quart in the sand into some pretty impressive formations. The glass can be refined into some devastating weapons that splinter once they enter a body," I said, directing those that had gathered and waited for my attention.
"You need to task the Loan Maclibuin with gathering every scrap of iron left behind. There are iron alloys that we can use that don't burn or poison us. Gold and Iron make Antanium, an alloy suitable for armor. And Iron and Silinium make Silirion, an alloy able to create weapons that the user can enchant to hold more than one shape."
"What is Silinium?" Angus mac Og asked. I wasn't surprised. His connection with earth meant that he had an understanding of metals and ore that was on a par with that of the Loan Maclibuin and Abhaic.
"It's a living ore," I explained. "It can be encouraged to grow like plants, and it has some rather unique properties. First, it remains in liquid form, once smelted, until a magical charge triggers a reaction, hardening it and locking it in place.
"That form can be reworked countless times without risking spoiling the metal. The Silinium can be made soft and hard repeatedly until a perfect blended alloy is created or a weaponsmith is happy with the results of his smelting.
"Second, is that it is also the best conductor of magic known to exist, better than silver or gold, more useful than Mythril or adamantium. As such, it allows for the ability for teleport magic to be reduced to formula and geometry.
"Third, it is rare.
"So rare that the only known deposit on the planet will be found in the Sithern or any Sithern that we create from this point on."
I had embedded the Sithern with a few seeds of Silinium during its creation, an opportunity I took every time I was involved with a Sithern's creation. The metal was simply too important and useful not to seed areas of Sidhe control when possible. It was slowly being spread across the planets of my universe, on every world that allowed me to create an embassy using a Sithern.
The economic implications of a metal so useful had helped to free the Sidhe from the yoke of Odin's and Zeus's subjugation. Without Silinium, the interplanetary portal systems would have become cumbersome and prohibitively expensive.
"Are you planning on creating more Sithern?" Lleu Llaw asked.
"I am. But not on this island. I think it's time to claim new lands and territories for our people. The armies of Man have taken much of our former territory. We need a new place to grow and prosper," I said.
The lands that would come to be Scotland, England and Wales had been lost. It was time for the Sidhe to replace those losses, and with my knowledge of this world's real geography, that shouldn't prove a problem.
"Underhill affords us vast tracts of land. Why would we need more?" Titania asked.
"Have you noticed the number of children born decreasing?" I asked.
"Underhill is a place of magic and wonder, but it is also a place lost to time. A place of dreams where innovation stagnates and personal growth atrophies. No one advances, no one gets stronger, and no one bothers having children because the realm wasn't created for that. It subtly influences those that live there and discourages change of any type.
"It's a place of idyll wonder. A place to retreat and heal. But Underhill was never meant to be a permanent home for the Sidhe. It lacks the immediacy that the world forces us to embrace. The rapid changes that give life, even the long lives of the Sidhe, meaning and focus.
"In that place of perfect timelessness, there is no personal drive to succeed, no reason to learn new technologies or magics, and no spark of creation. Underhill kills all ambition. And if we are going to not only survive as a people but thrive, we need to increase our birth rate and rekindle our own divine spark of creation.
"We, too often, lose ourselves to the glory of our past deeds and accomplishments. You have made decisions for our people, hoping to keep some of that glory, to be hopeful, even satisfied, to rest on the laurels from the past. That is a mindset that needs to change, especially considering some of the reasons for that decision are one of entitlement.
"You have become entrenched in your positions of royalty and Sidhe, believing you are smarter, better, stronger, and more deserved to be the Kings and Queens of our people than others. You have made decisions as much to keep your positions as to protect the dwindling glory of what our people once were.
"By playing it safe, you have doomed our people to fade into obscurity. Even worse, if we do not change, if we do not begin to expand and grow, we will be doomed to fade. We will become nothing but myths and legends.
"We will be lost to time, faded memories remembered only by the bits of broken crockery we leave behind as the age of Man asserts dominion over Urt," I said, warning them of what might happen if we followed the script they had devised.
It was time for the Sidhe to rewrite history, to change the future so that the Sidhe of this world, before we are doomed to become nothing more than the muse for writers of Man in the distant future.