Beneath the Dragoneye Moons

Chapter 571: Interlude - The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy I

The pebbles were thrown fairly indiscriminately, only Tympestshard truly ‘spared’ from Galdir’s rampage. A number of other ‘nations’ were also spared his casual mass-murder to divinity, mostly due to a lack of a major population center.

Both the gnoll tribes of Dairalt and the yetis of Tuvan would bristle at being called a ‘nation’, each tribe fiercely independent and fighting with the rest of them. Their lack of unity and greater civilization was their salvation, as Galdir didn’t find throwing a pebble at them worthwhile. The monks of the Bhutai Provinces were similarly spared direct attacks, but the shockwaves didn’t play nicely with the structural engineering the giants required.

Nime’s Pyongyin was spared in two parts. The first was the presence of other, larger cities nearby proving to be more tempting targets, and the Endless Waterfall that splashed down into the heart of the tiny nation, making an easy shot difficult.

They were quick to seize upon the moment, throwing a ‘grand’ military parade through the heart of the capital. A whole three dozen [Mages] were in attendance, and the spears and shields weren’t quite ready, the [Soldiers] boldly saluting the [Glorious Leader] with sharpened sticks.

As the troops marched past the mushroom-headed [Golden Grand Generals], each one showing their dedication to Spore upon their head, the [Glorious Leader] in question was giving a rousing speech.

“... this is clearly an Immortal plot to destabilize Nime! The foreign agents are working with Rolland to destroy and undermine our glorious and peacefully expanding nation! Our unity will remain unshaken! Our autarky is our strength! Even now, our armies are marching forth to fight the Imperial Forces, where we will exterminate them once and for all!”

Hyeong Sung’s heart swelled with pride at the words. He would do his job! For the Fatherland! He was a fresh [Spore Spreader], and had studied ants, of all things. There was this fascinating fungus that seemed to control ants and make them fight each other, and he’d tried to mash a couple of skills together the System offered to make it work on elvenoids. His [Trainers] had assured him that it would work, without a doubt, and Hyeong Sung had no reason to doubt that they were the best and the brightest, and completely accurate in their assessment.

He couldn’t wait to cast [Gangshi Plague] for the first time.

The order for the Poison Classers to dump thousands of gallons into the river made by the Endless Waterfall did cause a minor twinge of concern in his heart. His family lived in a little village by the river, and the Poison could do terrible things to them if they weren’t careful.

He banished the treacherous and execution-worthy thought from his head. Of course the Glorious Leader had thought of that! The evacuation orders must’ve already been sent.

Pele Manava drifted through her dreams as she drifted through the great tunnels of Pallos. She had started life as a mermaid, many, many, many centuries ago, but had been fascinated with Lava, watching with wondrous eyes as it shot up from underwater volcanoes, how islands formed from the rock. Her fascination and inability to stay away from volcanic eruptions had led to rapid levels and [Lava Spirit], culminating with her spending her life as Lava, before merging with the great veins that ran through Pallos. She sloshed back and forth, letting parts of her body erupt out, continuing to build life.

She was the majority of hot, active magma in a sizable fraction of the world, spanning hundreds of kilometers of stretched-out spirit. Her mind mostly drifted, her thoughts no longer resembling an elvenoid’s at all.

She barely remembered the little mermaid who’d burned her hands grabbing still-hot rocks in the water, or who’d scalded herself almost a hundred times before developing a skill to resist it.

The thoughts and memories weren’t entirely gone, and when she felt all life simply die in part of the ocean, she pulled herself together.

Both mentally, and physically.

A demon of Lava ripped itself out of the ground, towering up to the clouds as steam erupted from around her shins.

Immortal Wars moved quickly. A Classer with the right stats and skills could eradicate a city without proper protections in less than a minute, and mobility skills let them travel all over the world.

A desperate struggle.

An escape to the Mirror Realm.

A skill allowing for the attacker to pursue.

A quick escape through a dusty exit into an ancient treasury.

A flash of a sword, a falling drop of blood into a cup.

A flipped table, and the Everflowing Chalice was tipped over.

An ocean of blood.

Nimbus the kirin had the good life. None of this endless grasping for power, no large hoards, no dealing with all the nonsense that was the rest of the world. He had his solitude, and he liked it. Life was uncomplicated, and all the frantic rushing around, chasing a ‘better life’ seemed like far more effort than it was worth.

Peace, quiet, and a few clouds moving across blue sky. What more could a kirin want?

Over the years, a small little village had cropped up in the little valley near one of the mountains Nimbus called home, and the two had developed a mutual understanding - at least from Nimbus’s point of view. He was fond of the little dullahans, who left him offerings, and the kirin made sure monsters and other threats didn’t bother the villagers, who in turn properly respected his desire for solitude.

Over the centuries, he’d grown fond of the little village, and was vaguely aware that they considered him a good-luck icon of sorts. His image was carved into wood, and Nimbus made sure he flew overhead at least once a decade or so - they all got so excited when that happened!

One day, the village was a flaming wreck, only a single melted body recognizable.

Nimbus didn’t rage. Didn’t go on an obliterating rampage. Didn’t swear vengeance and try to track down those responsible.

Nimbus simply wept, and the skies opened up with him, dropping heavy black raindrops for miles.

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The [Black Tear Rain].

Nina’s current mission was up in flames.

Literally.

A hundred scared and panicked town folks were looking to her for reassurance and guidance, as everything was falling apart around them. A small family broke and ran away from the group, and Nina couldn’t be bothered to chase them. Trying to keep everyone together was a fool’s errand, and Nina didn’t dare claim or believe she had the best answer.

Their lives on the scale versus everyone else was easy.

“We need to secure food and shelter!” Nina shouted to the frightened crowd, aware that the city burning behind her lent more weight to her words. The crowd and her authoritative figure, along with the recognizable wings on her helmet, drew more people to her.

Nina chewed on her lip, the illusion she was casting hiding it.

Fuck. She could keep a family or three safe, but the crowd was rapidly swelling to numbers she couldn’t dream of handling.

How could she keep so many people safe? Where could they go? How would they eat? Forget safety, that didn’t really exist, not if an Immortal decided to smack them down.

It enraged Nina, how casually one would wave a hand and set a city on fire, pausing to casually kill tens of thousands before moving on.

Why!? It served no purpose.

Nina’s mind went over the maps as she slowly spoke to the crowd, describing how shelter would be easy, and how they would need to… ah ha! Follow the river until they hit some large fields to the north, then start growing-

The skies rumbled with rapidly approaching black storm clouds, and Nina paused her speech and looked up, along with everyone else.

The first black raindrop fell and sizzled straight through a man, dropping him dead where he stood. There was a moment of stunned silence before the second drop fell, sizzling a hole into the ground, and all hell broke loose. The crowd surged wildly, instantly turning into a panicked riot.

Nina barely managed to survive being trampled by the crowd, and in an ironic twist it saved her life. Too many bodies were piled up on top of her for the lethal rain to reach the kitsune.

“This is a great honor.” The fauns told Faylin. “You will protect our people, and be honored and venerated for generations.”

The gag stopped Faylin from protesting that she’d never heard of anyone else who’d gotten this ‘great honor’, and had some significant reservations about the whole thing. Her struggles were futile. She wasn’t sure if they picked someone as young as she was due to a lack of connections, or because it was easier to keep her contained.

“It is the only way to wake O-Kyodai, the true guardian of our people.” Another faun said as his hooves went from clinking on stone to the wooden struts of the pit. Faylin stopped struggling - any fall at this point would just fling her into the pit, and what was the point then? She did her best to cry more, somehow finding a few more tears to squeeze out.

Faylin was thrown onto one of the planks and kick-nudged to the edge. A few pointed spears barred her path from rolling back, and it only took one exploratory poke for Faylin to recoil back.

That hurt.

The elders began to chant in a language Faylin didn’t recognize, and her mind raced as she tried to find a way out of the situation, trying to free her hands and legs. The only word she knew was O-Kyodai, who was invoked more and more frequently.

Then they dramatically paused and Faylin had a moment of hope. The ritual had failed! She was free!

The thought had barely flashed through her mind before she was ceremoniously kicked into the pit, an enormous glowing snake eye the last thing she saw.

“Elder Chen. The years have utterly failed to quench the fires of your arrogance.” Elder Li stroked his long beard as he contemplated his hated foe. Ever since they’d been young, the two had feuded, and instead of coming to terms and becoming sworn brothers, like all the elders had expected them to, their enmity had only grown more bitter over the years. When the Treaty of Kyowa essentially dictated that they go into hiding, each one had assumed the other had died.

“Elder Li. Today, Lin’er will be avenged!”

Two cultivators traded blows at the end of the world, uncaring at who was implicated by their actions.

Bathor raged.

“Once again we all go to war!” He complained. “Once again, everything’s going to collapse! Why!? Can’t people see how it all goes wrong!? Why it all goes wrong!? It’s just so EASY to set things up in a way to prevent another Immortal war from ever starting! Why can’t people just BE GOOD? Fuck!”

He threw a priceless goblet at a vase, shattering both, uncaring of the spilt wine. His sister shrugged.

“So go do something about it, instead of complaining.” The beautiful elf said.

“I will.” Bathor spat out, slamming the door shut. He peeked his head back in a minute later.

“Hey, I need competent people to run my empire. Want in?”

Uilien snorted.

“Only if we call it New Remus.”

Sir Pendragon was another who’d quietly retired off to a farm, an Immortal protector of Rolland. He swore that he would return in Rolland’s hour of need, and given the mushroom clouds over Lyon, he figured that was today.

“Kestrel, dear chap, I suppose we must be on our way.” Sir Pendragon stretched, popping a half-dozen joints.

Kestrel snorted a pair of smoke rings, his star-studded blue robes screaming[Wizard]. Which he was. His preferred flavor of Immortality was living backwards, getting younger every day until he paused the skill, at which point he’d start getting older again.

“Yes, yes, one moment…” His eyes drifted south, and he started to take huge wheezing breaths, coughing on his pipe.

“Blasted thing!” He swore, shaking it out and half-tripping over a bucket. “Balderdash!”

He huffed, he puffed, and then took a deep breath in, the whole world seeming to inhale with him.

Then he blew south, towards the border, towards Nime, and the trees blew with him, sending a mighty gale down that way. Kestrel snorted a massive amount of phlegm, then spat.

“Ah! There we go! Right, where were we, oh yes…”

Nime’s Classers had pumped endless hazes of Miasma, aerosolized Poisons, and clouds of Spores towards Rolland, intent on finally eradicating their hated rival.

Kestrel’s gale blew it all right back on them, the army screaming and clutching at their throats, frothing at the mouth as their own weapons were turned back on them.

Hyeong Sung died quickly, with a shocked look on his face.

His carefully designed spores did not die with him, and while they were conjured, the spores they generated were not. Designed to spread quickly and control bodies, Hyeong Sung was the first gangshi to ‘rise’ from the dead, the spores puppeting his body in an attempt to find more to spread to.

Queen shuffled her cards in her hands, a perfect poker face hiding both her worry, and the dark glee that threatened to cross it.

She was one of the very, very few people that knew exactly how the Guardians operated. She spread the story far and wide of how Manadhion, The Nightmare, had given her a talking-to about her cards, and how they were getting a little too powerful. A nice deterrent, an excellent story that raised the mythos of the Sentinels, and the best smoke and mirrors for what happened next.

Namely, Night and Arachne reading her into exactly how Guardians operated and detected problems.

A single too-powerful card was a problem.

Two dozen cards, just under the threshold to summon a Guardian on a lazy day and physically stacked on top of each other? The ‘ripples’ they created overlapped with each other, and unlike true waves, didn’t amplify each other. If the cards were too far apart physically, the game would be up, and Queen had been careful.

One card to destroy a city? No good.

Twelve cards, each one capable of destroying a quarter of a city? It went unnoticed… and was more than enough to wipe out a city.

Queen flicked through them again, trying to decide which combination she’d use against the army arrayed against her, her [Legate] at her back, her old [Seneschal] at a familiar place to her right, all while a second thought process plotted and thought.

Nearly everyone had given her grief over using the royal We. Except Queen was once again finding herself in a position where she’d be ruling over a stretch of land and people as a monarch, and why bother yo-yoing habits when it was easier to just keep them? The wheel would turn as usual, but Queen was betting that she could push deeper into the woods this time, perhaps use the rubble she was about to create as building supplies, and when Exterreri - or whatever they called themselves next time - came knocking around again, their territory would be expanded once again.

Yes, yes that would do nicely, and Queen was looking forward to becoming a ruler once again. Queen of the Leaves? Queen of the Forest? Ah, the options were endless, and the pageantry involved spectacular.

She flicked out a half-dozen cards towards the city, and a full sixteen towards the coming army of elves.

Dinen panted as he sprinted towards Ithil, none of his footsteps even cracking a twig, his passage not disturbing a single leaf.

I have to get there. I have to get there.

He was going to be late. Being late was synonymous with being dead.

Dinen burst out of the trees around Ithil, not even pausing as he saw the majestic spires glinting in the sunlight.

I made it! He triumphantly yelled to himself, continuing to [Sprint].

[*ding!* [Sprinting] leveled up! 30 -> 31]

A desperate skill for a desperate hour, but the urgency and situation was feeding it levels. One foot in front of another, Dinen sprinted at top speed towards his city, leaping to land inside.

Ithil phased out of existence right before he landed, the city and all its inhabitants electing to wait out the Immortal War in another plane of existence.

Dinen cracked his horn as he landed badly, turning up to the sun and wailing at his poor fortune, screaming and crying and tearing at his clothes.

“Noooooooo!”