Chương 211: Chapter 285 - The Leyline Regulator

Freeing up the coastal route from Zhighua to Persama had been the last major hurdle. With the major shifts in each region tested, each of the Prophets began to refine their region over the next few cycles. Mirian tested and modified her strategy extensively. By then, Ibrahim had rejoined the Prophets. His wife now traveled with him, when she could. She was friendly, if a bit shy, though the way she seemed overwhelmed by everything that was happening around her reminded Mirian of Lily.

Mirian's work started in Torrviol, as it always did. The academy's professors, with their expertise in artifice and arcane physics, were critical to the effort. Then, she moved down to Palendurio, quickly assassinating the Corrmier brothers, Director Castill, and several members of the Allard family. She had Pontiff Oculo proclaim her, and then she made a sweep from the capital up to Cairnmouth. She ordered the various governors and generals about, but her focus was far more on specific groups.

She needed community leaders like Rostal. They could mobilize an entire neighborhood, and then she didn't have reluctant workers being torn away from their families, but whole families, willingly moving under a trusted leader. In Cairnmouth, Arenthia and Lecne gave mildly inspiring speeches to their local areas. In the depths of the Grand Sanctum, orichalcum production was ramped up to its maximum capacity.

With Oculo's support, Mirian purged the Luminate Order of corruption and sent priests out to spread her dictums. Priests were trusted by their congregations, and so their word held weight with the people. She used other authority figures, such as the Arcane Praetorians to spread the truth of the arcane eruptions. Mirian supplemented those speeches, calling together huge crowds and speaking to them. By now, she had given a lot of speeches. And when her rhetoric was weak, she supplemented her speeches with spectacle.

High above them, glowing with mystic energy, how could they doubt her? Meanwhile, Mirian moved in the shadows to cut apart the more sinister elements that would oppose her. She used her mastery of illusions to make sure her activities in the underworld couldn't be directly connected to her. The Westfellow Syndicate was just one of the criminal groups she hired; thugs could intimidate the less dedicated opponents. Assassins could kill the ones who couldn't take a hint.

She uprooted Corrmier's network of connections, made sure the Allards understood their place in things, and culled Deeps hardliners who couldn't be convinced. As entire neighborhoods emptied out and people overloaded trains to move east, the sheer movement of so many people attracted more. At a certain threshold, Mirian needed to do little. People didn't need to hear about the crisis from her; they could hear from their trusted friends and neighbors. A tide of material and people swept across Baracuel.

Meanwhile, she used the Elder Gates to begin stockpiling and moving critical materials. She had as many artificer shops and factories as she could making modular materials. Torres and Endresen moved to help assess and standardized production, training up other artificers that Mirian had identified as talented in previous cycles. The monetary system couldn't deal with it.

If physical silver or gold was needed to pay everyone, she'd encounter a crisis with the banks both at a political level and at the level of "the amount of silver needed didn't exist." She'd worked out a tactic to avoid that. Under her emergency dictum, farmers were directed to ship grain and harvests directly to kitchens that she established along the route, while entire herds of farm animals were also moved along the route.

Raw materials were shipped directly to the artificers and construction teams that needed them. Anyone participating was also given food and necessities, and had a freeze on all taxes and rent. The Allards and other prominent banking families, intimidated by the threat of losing everything, no longer attempted to delay these dictums in the judiciary. The Palendurio and Cairnmouth garrisons were practically emptied.

Army units moved along the road, killing myrvites and settling disputes, while less skilled arcanists and apprentices worked to repair the spellward barriers where eruptions had disrupted it. Occasionally, they would see a figure, flying high in the sky, moving fast enough she created a wind, and a cheer would go up. Their Prophet, sent by the Elder Gods to set things right. The strike force of Praetorians, distraught by the mysterious death of their leader on the 1st of Solem, nevertheless obeyed the new Prophet.

As huge crowds arrived in Alkazaria, the city overflowed, and Mirian had spoken enough of redemption and the forgiveness of past debts that she was ready to deploy another man.

Mirian arrived at her father's hideout. Down. Stay, she told the drake matriarch as she flew by, then blinked through the door. She used detect life to make sure he was alone.

"Dad!" she called. The old necromancer stepped out from his residential area into the catacombs.

"Naluri," he said breathlessly, as he always did.

"You're—"A Prophet, yeah. It's good to see you again." She gave him a hug. For a minute, the two of them did nothing else. Then she stepped back.

"There's going to be a lot to take in. Are you ready?"

"Then this isn't the first time. Of course not… Yes. What needs to be done?" Mirian filled him in on the details.

"Mobilize your mummy soldiers. We need them along the Falijmali-Mayat Shadr route. It takes a bit for people to get used to them, but if you order them to kneel, heads bowed, people are a lot more accepting of them. Also, if we call them 'dedicated,' people like that better. Seems stupid that calling an undead by a different name makes people tolerate them, but it does work. Then, you'll be working on this," she said, and conjured her spellbook to show him. Gaius gaped at the leyline regulator.

"This is…"

"The single most complex piece of spellwork and artifice anyone has done in human history, and that includes the Triarchy ritual to do whatever it is they were trying to do to the Ominian. We have five more months to build it. A contingent of Zhighuan crystal mages are already working on growing the conduits. Your job will be to scribe the energy transmutation sequences, as well as several critical runes."

"Gods above. Naluri, you designed this?" She smiled.

"I had a few decades, and some damn good teachers." She put a hand on his shoulder.

"Five months," the necromancer muttered.

"It doesn't seem possible."

"It isn't. Not yet. But I have a good feeling about this one."

Gaius's soldiers began their march eastward to take position on the road. They met with representatives from Falijmali who were then given command of the undead to position them along the route. Then she and Gaius flew south, and her father got his first glimpse at the processions.

"It's like an army," he said, gazing out at the long lines of people and supplies snaking through the desert.

"One mobilized for peace and life, not war and death." Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

"You… did all this?"

"As I mentioned, I had some help." Mirian checked in at the camp points. There, low-skilled arcanists, many of them students from Great Cairn Academy and the Spires Academy, were erecting travel obelisks, while apprentice nagual were planting and growing cindergold blooms to create places of relative safety.

Myrvite migrations weren't as massive as they would be soon, but there were still broods of drakes and nests of roaming lightning scorpions, and too many people for arcanists to protect along the hundreds of miles people were routing through. Already, semi-permanent camps were set up at intervals of one day's walk. The most labor-intensive part of the process was digging deep enough wells to provide water, requiring either specialized geomancers or more powerful arcanists.

The kitchens were easy to set up, and the chefs had plenty of people who were happy to help out with food preparation. Waterless cleaning spell engines were still being moved into position along the route. Right now, sleeping mats and blankets were being cleaned by hand. Since there was a constant flow of people, there were people occupying any tent that wasn't actively being cleaned.

A person who started their walk the night before would arrive at dawn and sleep, replacing someone who left at dawn and walked throughout the day. Mirian had leaned heavily on Baracuel expeditionary army units and their logisticians to organize moving so many supplies and people. Right now, some of them would be training up more volunteers. Commanding people had its limits. Teaching them to self-organize under an effective framework had worked far better.

The winding snake of people became fragmented the further south they moved. Mirian left the route and flew with her father west of Mayat Shadr. She wanted to check how Gabriel was doing now that he was moving so many new people from Zhighua.

"Gods above," she heard her father swear as they flew into view. The line of people and goods moving across the desert was even thicker than the one coming from Falijmali. Tens of thousands of people, from Akana to Zhighua, were making their way through the desert. They could see bustling people in the camps set out along its length. The line of people stretched as far as they could see.

"It stirs my heart," Gaius said, taking a moment to watch.

"Or, well, you know what I mean."

"I do," Mirian said. This is what it had all been building towards. A singularity of purpose. A tide of unity, sweeping away borders, sweeping away old grudges and infectious prejudice. A deep pride swelled in her: pride in humanity. They flew east. There, the construction was already under way. The ruins of Mayat Shadr were being renovated.

What had remained of the inner city had been cleared out, completely, and a combination of geomancers and laborers were now digging the ten kilometer circular trench in the center of the ruins as well as the six trenches that would meet in the midpoint. Already, Jei's task force of arcanists were beginning to grow the six massive conduit crystals that would line the spoke-trenches using Elder artifacts Mirian had pilfered from the Labyrinth. She could see the starts of them, glimmering in the sun.

Each crystal would be roughly three meters high, and over a kilometer long. The trenches and area around them were swarming with people. There weren't enough spellcarts to go around, even if they could get as many as they needed across the desert, so most of the work was being done with wheelbarrows and shovels. Thousands of people were already swarming the area to move all the sand and rock. Most of the workers were Persaman miners who it had been easy to convince.

The work they were doing now was far less dangerous than the work they'd been doing to unearth fossilized myrvite. Their expertise had significantly improved the speed and stability of the excavation she'd seen in previous cycles. Mayat Shadr itself was also swarming with construction workers and sorcerers who worked to reshape the ancient ruins into homes. The half-collapsed buildings either needed to be demolished and rebuilt, or reinforced so as not to collapse.

There was plenty of sandstone, brick, and solid rock to work with, and with more Zhighuan crystal mages arriving each day, the sand that needed to be moved anyways could be put to use by filing cracks and damage and then be recrystallized into stone. Already, dozens of buildings were ready. One of the major shortages right now was bedding and blankets, but as more herd animals arrived, weaving engines could be put to work to turn their wool or fur into the needed textiles.

The herd animals were also providing another critical resource: manure. Xecatl's contingent of nagual had arrived, and while their hybrid myrvite plants and spirit constructs had yet to be perfected, they were doing trial runs to make sure several varieties of plant could be grown in the harsh conditions of the Persaman desert. The sand was insufficient for most plants to grow. It needed to be turned into rich soil, and only then could nagual begin to properly accelerate the growth of the target plants.

Even now, there was a menagerie of herd animals being guided along the outside of the circular trench, which the nagual would then need to work their magic on to get a proper soil composition. In the meantime, several greenhouses were being constructed under Viridian's direction. There, potted plants and cuttings could be kept healthy until they were ready to be planted. The other ingredient needed was water. Even now, mages were digging wells all around the ruins.

The same aquifer that fed the Mahatan Oasis would be their salvation here. Just outside the ruins, the Luminate Order was working with Baracueli industrial workers to set up a large orichalcum foundry. Mirian's designs called for an entire ton of orichalcum wire. As animals were slaughtered for food or myrvites hunted out of self-defense, accompanying priests would be storing the souls in holy censers.

Meanwhile, bronze ingots were already being unloaded nearby, ready to be melted and infused with the requisite soul energy. Another section of buildings was being converted into artifice workshops. Loads of supplies were being taken off packbeasts. Nearby, marusaurs like the ones that had accompanied her through the Jiandzhi were sunning themselves. It was funny; Mirian had once dreamed of opening up her own artifice shop. She'd thought, perhaps, with years of hard work, she might be able to do it. Now…

They descended towards the workshops.

"Sacred One!" someone exclaimed, and several of them knelt. Mirian didn't like them kneeling, but it was expected. She would play the role they needed to see. Right now, they thought they needed a leader. They didn't realize how much of what they were doing was leading themselves.

"Rise," she said, and assessed the progress.

"This is Atrah Xidi, and he is the second most accomplished artificer on Enteria. He will be heading all celestial rune inscriptions for the energy transmutation arrays and can help provide sacred energy for all runes. He has bound himself in obedience to me." They were worried, she knew. Gaius wasn't using his illusion, and it was obvious who he was to anyone who knew anything. However, when they saw his dedication to the project, they would gradually change their minds.

Without a narrative being reinforced of his evil, they would begin to doubt what they had been told. She looked around. The general trends were what she needed, but the details would always change. Now, she would need to fix them up.

"Assessor, take note," she told a mage with a notebook.

"Recheck conduits five, eight, and nine. If a geomancer can't fix them, call in a Zhighuan crystal mage. Sequences 201 through 217 look… adequate. Sequence 301 and 307 need rescribing. Those both came out of shop seven, correct? Hmm. This kind of glyph fracture means there's impurities in the drake catalysts. Replace the alchemist making them with someone from Persama who has more experience with the local myrivtes. Assign that alchemist to the seluride alchemical production team. Next…"

For the next few hours, she made corrections where they were needed. Several of the workshops were using poor tools, and she used her own expertise to adjust and upgrade them. Then, it was on to the regulator itself. She checked the purity of the aluminum powder going into making the large conduit crystals, then on the spell engines projecting an elemental shield that made sure nothing that wasn't pure aluminum blew into the cart holding it. Work on the fourth trench was running into problems.

The bedrock there was deeper, and the geomancers had run into difficulties keeping sand from refilling the trench as they dug. Mirian cast her own spell, parting the sand and then turning it into smooth obsidian walls. To get them back on track, she then lifted several tons of the offending sand and levitated it to outside the city where most of the sand was going. Gasps followed her as people pointed and stared. She let them. The small distraction now would help inspire many of them later.

The mounds of sand and rubble forming a circle around Mayat Shadr also would provide another benefit to one of her contingency plans. She jotted down a note in her notebook about the tonnage and approximate composition of the material.

On the 28th of Plenith, six full months since the start of the cycle, it was very nearly done. The massive structure of steel and stone glowed with tens of thousands of glyphs and runes. Huge amounts of copper and orichalcum wire twisted through it, while mana cycled through hundreds of thousands of sequences. Everywhere, conduit crystals glowed with mana pulses, and the six conduit massive crystals that were the spokes of the device were resplendent as huge amounts of leyline energy was stabilized and conducted.

The colossal structure was encircled by a huge garden, and as night fell over Mayat Shadr, electricity and arcane energy crackled from leaf to leaf like ocean waves shimmering in the sunset. The air shimmered with faint colors. Mirian hovered high above the structure, wings of arcane energy spread out as she held a divination device. The stabilization rate was higher than she'd ever seen. It didn't matter. Her device showed her the entropic field disintegrating above.

Below the surface, leyline energy was still spiking. The colossal eruptions began. Below, some people hid. Some people enjoyed their last moments together. Some prayed. Mirian looked up, silver eyes calm. Fire bloomed across the sky, and the moon came crashing down again.