The Power of Ten

Demon-dragon-fertility goddess, eat your heart out.

I took a look around at the drow city, the elegantly creepy architecture that paid homage to bugs and webs and demonic aesthetics, and reflected that it would be good to get out of here.

“I’m going to be using some powerful magic with your mother now, and we’re going to take you away to a place with the stars and the moon that is your birthright, even if you can’t see them right away. However, it’s going to be very bright there, and different, and there will be more elves like me there, waiting to help you all.” I reached out my hands to the two oldest of them, and at Legion’s reassurance, they took them, gasping as Silver Magic sparkled over them. “Let’s get you all out of here.”

They all felt Legion and I pouring magic into the Rune under their feet, the sheer volume and holy power of it making their white hair flutter in a wind fresher than anything they’d ever smelled or felt before. The power of Good was new and alien and weird and dangerous... and it had a rightness to it that the demonic power could never have.

It was hope, in a realm that had no hope to give.

Jet and silver magic swirled in toruses around everyone, and suddenly they were all rising out of the stone, miles above, in the chamber I’d Shaped out of the stone there to receive us as we Earthjumped in.

I could have ‘lifted’ us all up through the Strata, but that would have taken a good hour to Shape that much rock, and I had juice to spare. The Earthjumping Patterns were already in place, as was the two-foot-wide tunnel I’d come down through the Strata.

Up my Lived-Line through the Strata, and plenty of room left to reach the surface with my Caster Level being what it was.

It was night-time, but still very bright for them, and they all clasped their hands to their eyes for a moment to adjust to the desert ‘brightness’, which only people who lived mostly in darkness would call that. Sure, there were glow-lights and faerie fire and phosphorescence and ceiling fires, but mostly, living in the Felldeep was about gloom.

They still gasped as they looked up and saw the Haze above, forming a patchy fog for what lay beyond, and the fact that it extended from one edge of the horizon to the other, a bigger cavern than the children had ever imagined in their lives.

The sand beneath everyone flowed and shifted under their largely bare feet, firming up and forming yet another Pattern for all of them. Guided by the whispers in their heads, they took their places inside the circles filling with silver, ready for another jolt, as the magic rose up again.

This time it wasn’t conducting them along and through the earth, but along the Veil, tracking back through time and space to reach all the way up to Ælfheim, where I had already arranged for some non-fighting elves to meet us.

We swirled into the cavern gently, but their heads still swam and they still fell down, trying to mute their own cries as they did. The babes and toddlers cried a little, but were quickly shushed by the gentle voices in their minds, and a reassuring touch and presence.

I’d spent half an hour carving out living quarters for all the new haror out of a rocky hillside, enabling them to have their own rooms and spaces, or share with others. There were common rooms to assemble for eating, there was a jungle gym room with slides and ramps and swings and teeter-totters and other things, all made for children and not something any drow would ever do and have.

The twenty elven men and women were amazed despite themselves when they saw all the black-skinned, white-haired haror children, who looked back at them and their pale skins and hair of gold and silver and black and brown and auburn and green, especially those with eyes of blue and green shades, in equal fascination.

Gentle voices told them to take the hands of the other children, and those of the elves, and go to another place where they would get new clothes and food and a wonderful warm bath, and they obeyed silently.

Mother was right with them, after all.

Legion handed off the infants and the toddlers to ready arms or Disks, the elves all smiling and taking up the duty knowingly. Elves didn’t have a high birth rate, averaging one child a decade on average, but since they physically matured at half the speed of a human, and mentally even slower than that, it was no great stress on a culture quickly developing around having extended processes to do that.

It also meant less stress on their women, and so it wasn’t unusual for an elven woman to actually have quite a few children, just spaced out much further apart than those of humans.

---

Sleipner was waiting for me outside, ready to start our daily mapping after a quick Teleport back to Australia. Legion withdrew most of their demonic appearance, pausing for a moment to acknowledge the glowing and subtle lights of Runes all over the unicorn cycle, and sighed in relief.

Legion got on before me, and I gently swung on behind. They made no attempt to touch Sleipner’s bars, and actually just leaned gently and fully back into my arms, even as the magic came up and sent us off to Australia.

Eeesh. They were as tense as steel. A single touch, and I could feel the Wrath seething inside them.

They hadn’t let the children see them, and indeed they were veiled in the Markspace right now, because a seething black swirl of corruption was all around them, heavy with the deeds and sins of the drow they’d Consumed. It looked like fourteen thousand miniature demons in a swarm trying to eat them, burning with the cleansing power of their Wrath.

Consecration and Hallow rose up around Sleipner, creating a portable Holy space around the motorcycle while the Alicorn was plugged into it. Sacred energies began to hum as my own mediocre Wrath, still not enhanced much, was loaded into an Atonement VIII,Heaven Attend the Shriven Soul, wrapped around with all the Holy Metas at full power to boot, and I sent it into them.

Golden purifying and cleansing magic joined the burning storm about them, and their bones pulsed visibly right through jet skin, swirling over the cloud of silken hair that wasn’t getting in the way at all somehow.

They relaxed somewhat, letting go and trusting, and little wisps of golden steam began to rise from their pores, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and horns and frill. I could see the blackness of congealed Sin oozing out and burning from them, as a whole damn lot of holy energy came down on thousands of lifetimes of Sin, and they began to Atone for what they’d done.

It was a lot of Sin, a lot of burning, and a lot of pain. There was no doubt at all that the drow would never have gone through this process of themselves, but now they were, and only the Cohort wasn’t participating fully in the experience... but even they were daring to take on some of the load, understanding that the tempering of it was really going to be something useful. They had their own sins from life too, after all, and ritual Cleansing was part of almost every culture and religion.

This was how the Heavenbound did it, but never quite this intensely... or with Hellfire accelerating the process and making it that much worse.

But, they didn’t scream. They just sat in my arms and suffered as souls burned in repentance, and Australia rolled on by beneath us and was painted into The Map for miles and miles...

--------

“You can see on The Map the approximate locations of the other seven major drow settlements.”

Legion was taking long, deep breaths. It was time for me to go Pyramid-building, and they were stepping off onto a high mesa in the middle of nowhere in Australia, a further Consecrated and Hallowed ground prepared for them to keep at it.

“Yes,” they replied after a long moment, sighing, bones pulsing gold inside their skin, enduring the pain. “We will endure this, it is of our choice, but we may not be able to do this again.” They paused for emphasis. “The Sin of Yvradimyae was focused on Lust, and while they did horrid things to one another, it was generally acknowledged as the safest and most open of the eight cities.”

I winced. Ouch! They were basically saying those were the nice drow!

“I would rather wipe them now than when they can call on demon princes for back-up. How you choose to participate, if at all, is your choice.”

“Thank you.” Their eyes closed, little wisps of burning Sin rising up from them constantly. “We would make some Fiend very happy and fat with the Sin we are addressing.”

“I almost feel like releasing one of those succubi so you could gorge them on it, but I understand that defeats the purpose of what you are trying to do in the first place.” Sparkling diamonds with angry black centers swirled above my hand. If I stared at them hard, sets of lovely yet angry eyes in a variety of burning colors glared back at me.

It wasn’t for being trapped. It was for being taken out of Legion, because they definitely wanted to stay there, even if it meant going through an Atonement which would literally burn away a great deal of who they were.

“Ladies, we are going to be talking shortly. Be patient.” I stowed the twenty-five diamonds and their contents in my Masspack, and nodded to Legion. “I’ll be back in eight hours to help with what little I can.”

Legion nodded, gliding back and sitting down on the small raised stone there, swirls and mists of purity and rainbow rising from the Formation on the ground all around them. Their cloud of silken hair began to drift in the breeze of sacred power, bones pulsing gold inside jet skin, six scattered eyes above the Mask on the eyeless face shining in all their hues at the same time.

Sleipner was left behind on silent guard, the unicorn spirit’s natural Aura contributing to the sanctity of the place, while the wings of Teleportation sent me skipping along the Veil and the track of my life to a space folded between the lines of reality, where a lot of stone waited to be Shaped...

I had approximately twenty-two thousand blocks to make. At the level of quality I desired, it was approximately one a minute to execute roughly a thousand cubic feet at a QL of 70.

Sixteen hours a day, 960 blocks. Twenty-three days of work to put together over 4.5 million cubic feet of integrated runetech circuitry at a mind-boggling level of perfection. Focus of the Imperial Artisan came down, Concentration integrated with sculpting stone, and I got to work. Tons of waiting gold and platinum unwound in the finest of threads and layers of foil, integrating with the refined stone I shaped into perfect crystalline purity and alignment, and my endgame play went on, two miles below the Pattern to call down the end of the world above.

----------

Bard/6 (10). Witch/6. Magus/6. Binder/6 (10). Monk/6. Artificer/6 (10). Alchemist 6 (8). Grenadier/5. Expert/6, and finally my Warlock Masteries started coming in, almost on the eve of the New Year.

For whatever reason, the Witch Level let me take the first d6 of Wrath Mastery... probably because Witch was so secondary to my Wizard Class now there was nothing appropriate.

Then Expert/6 assigned the Delimited Spell-like Ability Feat to Warlock Wrath, raising the damage cap by five, and purchased Warlock Wrath/2, to +2d6.

The end of the calendar year arrived, although there was devoted talk to moving the calendar enough so that the Winter Solstice was the last day of the year, as was most appropriate, and the New Year started afterwards. The traditionalists and conservatives naturally argued against it, but the Churches of all kinds were basically in favor of it, as well as most of the spellcasters, who equated it to pure stupidity that the calendar year didn’t match the magical year, and was instead based on archaic religious days from centuries ago...