Chương 502: BECMI Chapter 501 – No More Elven Idyllics

"The Nucleus means it will always have something powerful and unique to draw others in," I agreed with her.

"It's viable, just have to determine how so. Maybe resonating with ki and Soul Essence, too? Nobody wants to try psionics in the slightest because it instantly draws Mythos attention, from all reports, and the Immortals start hunting you fearing you're going to bring in Cthulhu or his buddies." Sama leaned forward.

"Are they expecting Mythos entities to get involved?" she asked seriously. I just sighed.

"Dame Adama was quite pessimistic and believes the Immortals will set matters up to invite them in if things start going poorly for them. Always with mortals doing the stupid things, of course."

"Fuuuuuck!" Briggs and Sama cursed in well-practiced unison.

"Aberrant Baneskulls… we have to go hunt more beholders!" Sama added on grimly.

"Always a Good thing to do," I agreed seriously. I had a nice collection of Dreadskulls from Delphax's Sons, such as it were, and had no doubts they would be seeing some usage soon.

"Alrighty, let's see what sort of short-term goals we can hit while you advance the Other Shore in relation, and we prep everyone to help with a disaster in the making…"

The Herriatar Valleys, the Hollow World… Their ongoing panic only heightened when the great mass of the airship - no, two of them! - hove into view over their isolated mountain valley. The air defenses weren't working! Their sidearms had lost all power! Their light swords and disruptors did nothing! They, they didn't even have basic weapons to defend themselves, other than kitchen knives and sticks and rocks! It was humiliating, it was terrifying, it was very galling!

The Liberty touched down right in the middle of their settlements, scaring the shit right out of them, as they had no way to stop it. I could have gotten here with Immortal magic, as the Pulse had disrupted the Spell of Preservation, not undone the changes to magic here… yet. It would only take a flexing from Nown to do so, but that would probably be noticed in its effects immediately, whereas the Spell of Preservation only kicked in swiftly if a culture was about to be destroyed.

It had only been two days, but that was enough time for the Liberty to make the plunge through the polar opening, its props powered by a magitomic generator that thumbed its nose at the anti-magic field and easily flew right on through it without any problems, making it here in rapid fashion.

Hovering there a foot off the ground, the hundred-meter length of the sleek cruiser looked much more dangerous than the more tub-like build of the accompanying Fortitude, which was nominally a cargo vessel, not a warship, although it could certainly defend itself. A side of the ship detached and folded down to form a long and fairly wide set of stairs from the deck.

All of the native elves were up in the trees or in houses hiding, but watching from cover as I set foot upon the stairs and slowly and obviously walked down them. Behind me marched a dozen elves in techno-armor, glowing force-leaves instead of shiny plate looking quite artistic and immaculately elven, rifles with glowing blades attached held at arms, very obvious blasters holstered at their sides, and prismatic sabers strapped high on their thighs.

I, of course, was in crimson red skirts with black coat and trim, a crimson rose in my hair, and a bat with a hat perched on my shoulder. I naturally stood out, and I could feel a lot of eyes on me as I came down to the foot of the stairs, moved off far enough to allow my honor guard to spread out around me, and waited long enough for all the eyes who could see us to fixate on their gear." To the elves of Herriatar here, I am the Lady Edge.

I have come to evacuate you to a proper sanctuary after the collapse of the Spell of Preservation." You might have noticed that all of what you used to call technology is failing to work now. That is because it was not technology at all, it was custom magic designed to emulate the sciences of your ancestors while actually not using any science at all." Cousins, fire at the sky, two volleys." The elves there, finely trained by Briggs, snapped rifles to shoulders and fired bright blue beams of light into the sky.

Heads were popping out more obviously all around us now." Main cannon, target those orcish riders at the entry to the pass there and fire." Elven heads snapped around as the rear cannons of the Liberty cycled around. Said entry was five miles away and not visible from the ground… but the BOOM of the cannons most definitely was, and a moment later, so was the dust cloud rising in the distance, and the crackling and crumbling of the pass there. This story has been stolen from Royal Road.

If you read it on Amazon, please report it" You are on the edge of extinction, elves of Herriatar," I informed them coldly." The Spell of Preservation which powered your false toys and fake technology is gone. Also gone is your protection from your neighbors, who would like little more than to see your little valley of indolent, directionless selves slaughtered and enslaved to get rid of you." You have perhaps a week before your food is gone, and you start to starve.

I imagine you are already starting to smell because you've lost your running water and don't know how to wash your clothes or build a proper latrine."

If my voice held a lot of schadenfreude, harshness was everything they needed." Your fake magitech is not going to return. You don't know how to survive, you don't have the spirit or training to do so, and despair is going to take you and shrivel you dead within a month, if the orcs of the lowlands don't come up here, slaughter you all, and eat you." Yeah, feel that dread rising in the air." We are here to evacuate you.

The Fortitude has enough room to fit you all in for a trip to a land with creature comforts you might find rather shockingly familiar, although the difference is that you're going to have start working for them, rather than just being handed life on a silver platter with no consequences for your laziness and indolence." I know exactly how many of you there are. I know exactly where you all are, so."

Shocked cries erupted all around as suddenly every single hidden elf here could feel me looking down at them as my image appeared in the sky above and glared coldly down at them, obviously seeing each and every one of them, speaking directly to them, and visible right through leaves and roofs and branches and everything!" We are not wasting time here, cousins. Grab one pack, what you can carry in it, and present yourselves for evacuation. Any we leave behind will be dead within a month, and good riddance to you."

All that I have said is TRUTH." Screams drove the watching elves out of hiding, some barely clinging to the trees they were up in, others stumbling out of cover. They were all in loose and colorful robes, shirts, and pants of smooth, glittery fabrics, showy and stylish and fashionable, done for looks and comfort and not function… and most of them looking quite a bit rumpled and worn suddenly, as if the magic preserving them was failing.

The lack of weather control alone in this night-less Hollow World realm of eternal day had probably shocked them, too. They didn't expect to get rained on during the day, and the nights to suddenly be so cold… Images suddenly filled the sky as my Panoply of the Heavens covered it and began to show images, first concentrating on a lovely blue and green world spinning in the void, zooming in on a continent thereon, one literally on the other side of the world from Zanzyr.

We zoomed down in on that, more and more elves coming quickly out of hiding to start up at it in wonder, awe, and easily-distracted escape from their woes." Three thousand years ago, your ancestors built a fine realm built upon science, advanced enough that they ignored their own magical gifts in the favoring of it. In doing so, they angered enough Immortals that said Immortals conspired to bring your fine civilization down."

It was not the first time they had done so, but this time they did it with magical attacks from raiders, magical plagues, invasions of extra-dimensional monsters, and natural disasters. When the last of them was about to be made extinct, they were transported here, from the surface."

Above them played out that exact history, hundreds of years passing as the elves built a great and noble realm up from more primitive roots, grasping the basics of science as shown them by emissaries from distant Darkmoor long before, and raising it up. Airships, prismatic blades, blasters, works in steel and crystal, anti-gravity… it was all there. And then the devastation began.

Invasions, earthquakes, tsunamis, tailored diseases resistant to science, abandonment by elves who didn't trust science and wanted to return to the old ways… It all compounded to kill off their civilization until only a handful were left… who were mind-wiped and then transported here, to this tiny little handful of valleys in the nightless realm of the Hollow World, their culture preserved as an example of what should never be allowed to happen again.

Even their technology was not, a mere imitation of it powered by a quasi-magical field of Immortal power, the devices that allowed them to live without working and defend themselves without actually knowing how anything functioned, it just did, and they could just live without a care and try to amuse themselves… While secretly living in absolute terror of leaving the valley, for their technology did not work outside this realm, and they did not have the skills or weapons to survive out there.

They were canaries in a cage, a living zoo, preserved by callous Immortals preserving them only as a lesson of what NOT to allow! But the Spell of Preservation was shattered now, and with it the mental blocks against leaving and changing themselves that the spell forced upon the natives of this realm.

They looked upon that image of themselves in a gilded cage, their idyllic lives and purpose-less existences mocked and derided by the shadow presences all around them, whispers noting they had not amounted to anything for thousands of years and never would… Truth drove the daggers of that straight into their souls. They were whimsical, feckless, transitory, never needing to commit or be serious, always safe, always pampered, never needing to learn or do ANYTHING to exist as they did.

They were infants to the world, and now the pampering hands were gone. They were going to die. They saw the world beyond, filled with great dinosaurs who would eat them as readily as any other prey, and countless human, orc, gnoll, and other tribes, ready to sweep up onto them and kill them all.

There was no magic to save them now, they would just die as their soft and lovely fabrics woven of magically-sustained fibers fell to rags and dust upon them, and they died dirty, naked, and defenseless before the gazes of the Immortals who had done this to them and the things which slew them just as heartlessly. The Panoply returned to my face looking down at them all. I looked coldly heartless, my beauty formidable yet slightly alien because of my bloodline, and yet still elven.

They couldn't look away if they wanted to.