[Hlaeth] Ch 13 - To the Palace we Go

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            Slowly, Commander Tellusian nodded. “That… is relative between our peoples, but none have sought to truly contest our strength for over three hundred years. We have not forgotten the lessons we learned back then, but it has indeed been many seasons,” he admitted.

            Mmm. No way to keep a true edge without actual combat, and dueling and sparring didn’t do it. He’d probably only advanced a few Levels in all those centuries.

            “If I may ask, what is the story behind this exceptionally strong Veil on your world here?”

            Dragons and riders glanced at one another. “The Silence of the Gods came upon us nearly five hundred years ago,” the Commander began carefully. “What caused their silence, we are not sure of, although there is some belief that one of the human empires delved into something they should not have, and triggered it,” he said carefully. “In the space of a day, the gods stopped answering their followers all over the world, and that empire went mad. Even speaking its name seems to attract foul attention.”

            I not-blinked. “That sounds quite ominous.”

            “None dare those lands, or even scry them, for fear of disturbing whatever was roused there,” he went on sternly. “Our people retreated from the mainland and have only watched from afar as much of the civilization there collapsed into madness, tainted lands, and endless petty wars between the surviving states.”

            “And you had to rap some knuckles so they didn’t drag you into their messes or think you a pretty flower to be plucked at will.” Yeah, the mindset was easy to understand in a Biggest Fist Makes the Rules world. “I will need the name of that Empire, and its approximate location. I expect that is a matter I need to address before I can return home.”

            The elven commander eyed me for a moment as if I was a bit daft, but then gestured up an illusion with a crude and somewhat fanciful map, doubtless taken from memory and embellished, having the look of an artist’s rendition of truth as opposed to, say, a planetary surveillance.

            “This was the area of their Empire,” he pointed out on the map, indicating a broad area in the middle south of the continent that was there. “Here are the islands of the Aldari.” Way out west in the ocean off the continent. “Its name was spelled thusly in their language…”

            He wasn’t going to say it out loud. I watched as he scripted out the word, and Comprehend Languages translated it for me without knowing the base language.

            Houme.

            Just thinking the word set something off on my Divinatory senses, as if I was poking at something that would be very, very wise not to bother. The weight on it was more than mortal… this was a Divine Mandate, designed to cause fear in whatever was contemplating that empire!

            “The gods didn’t want anyone not capable of handling it messing with that place,” I nodded to him as he quickly let the word vanish. “So whatever was done there did have mortal origins, and the gods would be fighting one another if some tried to interfere.” I just shook my head. “Fools do what they do.”

            “The gods do not interfere if mortals are to blame?” Commander Tellusian asked, somewhat shocked.

            “You can invoke the gods, you can call on the gods, you can bring the gods in… but the power they can act with is directly tied to the power calling on them. It’s an unspoken rule. Otherwise they’d simply directly act whenever something contrary happened, which would be all the time, then another god would act to cancel them out, they’d butt heads, then they’d start fighting, then the planet blows up and whatever they were fighting for is gone.

            “So, if mortals really mess things up, mortals have to really un-mess things up.” I waved my hand at the Veil, and space trembled around me for a moment. “That is definitely a Divinely-boosted Veil effect, making it hugely hard to pierce from within. I’m basically trapped here until I can bring it down, which means I have to solve whatever problem first put it in place before I can leave.

            “I was possibly pointed here by Divine guidance, sure enough, but my means of entry and interference to what was going on were of my own doing and power. Completely hands-off, no signs of Divine influence.”

            The dragons and elven commander were all listening in fascination to this analysis. “You… deal with gods often?” Wurdtrue asked with great interest.

            “I’m considered a priest of the Heavens. I will work with any Good god that requests my services, if I am able. I’ve spoken to a LOT of Celestial servants, and I’ve seen a lot of Divine machinations at play, from the levels of mere posturing demigods to planes-shattering greater deities.

            “Some gods don’t learn the lessons, and so they never graduate to the big leagues, or they end up killing one another off, or Falling to Evil and heading Down.

            “My own homeworld is currently in a state of spatial flux. This Veil removed and put there would actually be very much appreciated, because there are gods pointing at us and trying to move their peoples and followers to my homeworld to establish themselves, and the last thing we want to put up with is trans-pantheonic rivalries on our homeworld.

            “So, it’s less that I deal with gods directly, and more that I can see what they are doing, understand why they are doing it, and see what I might do to help or hinder them.”

            “And what does your experience tell you of our world?” Wurdtrue asked gravely.

            “This world is a cage.” All of them blinked. “Something is locked to this world, and in becoming locked here, it was likely neutered and crippled in its power. This Caging was designed to equally punish all the Divine for interfering, so there could be no favoritism or calls of one benefiting over another. They are all locked out, and only mortals can free themselves.

            “The only reason they would do such a thing is if there was a dire threat, so substantial that it would require direct Divine interference to stop. Such interference would come with a hefty price… which was probably the underlying purpose all along. Stop the great and world-ending evil now, but be banished from this world for a thousand years for daring to interfere and save the mortals who chose their own doom! While you are away, our power will grow among them, and we will claim this world as our own while your name falls into obscurity, and none will remember you to be grateful that you saved them from their folly…

            “And someone refused to play that game. They closed a door, locked it, and threw away the key. In doing so, I imagined they cut off whatever was supposed to happen from the source of its power, trapping it here.

            “Mmm. I imagine if they were really clever, the effect is centered on whatever entity is responsible, and the isolation of the world is a happy side-effect of how neutered it has become. Kill it, all effects and evidence dissipates, and we return to a status quo.

            “Are there orcs on this world, native to it?” I asked, fully aware that ‘orcs’ spanned many body types and sometimes fantastically different species.

            “There are,” Commander Tellusian informed me. “I do not know how they have been doing without their gods. Not well, I would assume, as the other races often have arcane magic to fall back on, and the orcs have always made horribly poor arcanists.”

            Being beefy sots with penalties to Intellect and Charisma in many Magic Systems, that wasn’t unexpected at all. “So this might have been a ploy by the orcish gods to get back in contact with their followers here. They may have blamed the elven gods for cutting them off from their people, and so decided to strike directly against you.

            “Someone else saw this as an opportunity to get an agent into play, I coincidentally stumbled across the invasion, and now I am here. Punish the orcs, earn a favor from the elves, and then tie up the loose ends the mortals here don’t seem to be getting around to taking care of properly.” I made a string out of light and tied it into a nice glowing ribbon bow tie in front of me elegantly. “Clean, efficient, and twice the reward for no real effort. Win-win all around for the gods of Good, I’d say.”

            “And do you believe you can deal with whatever Entity was brought in to start this madness?” Wurdtrue asked probingly.

            “I know that I’m not getting home until I do, and I don’t believe my god would throw me into a situation where I couldn’t deal with what I had to do. I may have to play things very smart and cautiously, and I definitely have to find out what I’m dealing with, but I’m pretty sure I can handle it, even if I have to do a bit of work to do so.”

            “Ah, so no charging in like a valiant Paladin of legend?” the dragon mused aloud.

            Ho, he has probably never met one, if the gods were sealed away before he hatched, I thought, rather amused. “Magos, as a general rule, prefer copious amounts of foresight, preplanning, contingencies, and other prep-work to charging in pell-mell to the fray. Which isn’t to say that can’t be a very useful strategy at the proper times, or, most tellingly, at the improper times.”

            Not giving the evil masterminds time to mastermind was an art all on its own, as it were. Anti-divs and countering timesighting were necessities for playing at the highest levels of the game, so sometimes you really did have to just say ‘Fuck It All’ and charge on in, hoping you were good enough to carry it through, and the enemy really wasn’t expecting spontaneous idiocy to lead the way of an assault.

            Definitely not the way to play without save points and Control-S handy, I thought to myself, considering the problem that was revealing itself.

            It had been enough to bring down a magical human empire, and force the gods to bar themselves from the world to stop it. Obviously it hadn’t taken over the world, or these elves would be having problems, and not speaking of random warlords doing battle on the mainland with the disdain of safe onlookers.

            “I have a question that may test your loyalties.” Dragon and elf looked at me intently. “Your High Mages wanted me to go to the capital, presumably into the area of Wards or Fields or similar things that would serve to interfere with my magical abilities and allow them to overpower me with ease.

            “I understand that I have the protection of the dragons, and have no fear that I will uphold such protection honorably.

            “However, I do not want to fall under the limitations that they will doubtless seek to impose upon me while I am there. The very name you invoked assured me that I am dealing with a force of far-reaching powers and capabilities, and stoking paranoia is one of the best means to manipulate all manner of beings, especially those that are xenophobic and convinced of the primacy of their race before all other concerns.

            “I am not reluctant to say that the High Mages are biased towards what is best for the Aldari specifically, elves in general second, and everything else is a distant third.

            “I don’t want the dragons to be forced to act if the High Mages find an excuse and pretext to do something, and if you know anything of courtly life, manufacturing excuses to do something out of nothing is an artform.

            “Thus, I need a guarantor of my own ability to remove myself from such situations. Is there a way to cast spells normally under the Wards of the Court? If not, then I will set up camp outside the Court and the Court can come to see me there.”

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