Asheron's Fall: The Power of Ten, Book Six

“Huh. So, follow a god, ye likely inherit the same enemies as that god. Do they, like, wave their hand an’ kill off the servants of other gods?” the Mick asked me carefully.

“No. The instant that starts, it escalates all the way up, and soon there are no mortal worshipers left, and the reason you wanted them in the first place is ash and dust, while you spent boatloads of Divine power for absolutely nothing. If you want to gain mortal Faith and free will, you have to leave the mortals to do their own things, let their choices matter and have meaning, and work at being a Divine power.

“There are ways gods can aid their own. Returning Faith as Divine magic and subtle Miracles is the normal method. Striking directly against minions of another god yourself is very frowned upon, and the backlash is likely to be greater than whatever your own deed was. You can help yours, but strike at mine, and you pay the price.”

“That… would seem to be very biased against a good chunk o’ the gods...”

“Not all gods are dependent on Faith of mortals, or even care about it. They are more concerned about subverting the plans of rivals and making sure they cannot be attacked themselves,” I explained. “Take Skulos, for example. He’s the God of Death that stands opposite Aru, who represents Life and Light. What use does He have for mortal worship? He just wants us all to die, and He represents the force that does just that.

“Mortals being mortals fear death, and so give Him the lip service and respect He deserves, and no other gods contest His hold over Death. If He decides to make a church and demands a few mortals with power-hungry mindsets follow him, what are they going to do, oppose Him? He’s a cheap and easy way to power for some mortals who would never be allowed into such positions in a normal society that knows anything about Alignments. Said religions and churches then attract even more people who don’t fit in normal societies and are lusting for power or knowledge or the like, and fancy that taking it from the dead is a fine way to go about such a thing.

“But it’s a religion, not a cult. Cults are things that arise to serve non-gods, by definition. Fiends, Aberrants, Elementals, Fey, even Dragons sometimes, are things that generate cults. If they serve gods, however foul or twisted, they are religions.”

“So, this bunch of gods includes not just virtuous and holy-types of Heaven, but a whole bunch o’ other arseholes who ain’t quite so noble?” he asked piously.

I just grinned. “That is entirely correct. Most pantheons include a wide range of deities, because, surprise surprise, mortals are not all alike, we don’t all have the same mindsets and beliefs, and we go looking for gods that mirror our beliefs… or, perhaps, we call in or create gods that do. Matters of Faith at the Divine level and such.

“Deities who say they can take all souls under their umbrellas are usually distant and uninvolved in mortal affairs, trying to avoid the Alignment Wars with everything they can. Unsurprisingly, they are often self-contradicting in many ways, and so they start religious wars between their own servants on matters of which doctrine is correct, often nearly as often as that between rival deities. Unbending conflicts on doctrine and correctness between different branches of the same faith are often solved by the blade, and the deity themselves is usually fantastically unhelpful about the whole process.

“Thus, serving an Omnideity or supposed ‘Creator of All’ is usually a bad idea for the individual. The Alignment Wars aren’t going to stop just because there’s no gods to champion them individually in some tiny little backwater of a sphere.”

“All things to all people just dinnae work, aye? Should’ve explained that to me pa, way back when!” he observed ruefully.

“Everybody is put together differently. Some march to the beat of different drums, and some want to skin those drums, see what’s inside them, and make new drums out of those around them, just for fun.” It was how Heaven got along so well. A little thing called Tolerance!

“Aye. Some men are just devils in human skin, an’ just want to see the world bleed.” He looked like he’d met a few of those. “Are these gods of yours coming here? More like, do we want them to?” he asked directly.

“I do not know the answer to either of those questions from your standpoint. However, I will respond with this: If they do come, do you expect them to be worse than whatever entities got tired of their power fantasy story and characters with no true risk, falling into a repetitious rut of behavior by your tales, and decided to replace and start the story again with a gritty apocalyptic survival tale in a world of magic?”

He looked at me, I looked back, and he closed his eyes first. “At least we’d know their names,” he muttered to nobody in particular, and I had to look at the sky and whoever might be watching or listening.

Indeed. At least we knew the names of the gods…

-------------------

We packed in the rest of the scattered salvage we harvested out of the mansion and headed out come evening.

The trip was largely uneventful, as we basically just trotted along while the Mick pointed out the sights, we killed the local spawn points as we went by, and we took a tour of the peninsula's coast line.

We were also quite aware we might have another visit or encounter with the mad shades of Tou-Tou, but after the night before, we were confident we could handle them, especially with the advantage of Invisibility, which they definitely had not been prepared for.

This culminated in the Mick and Kris conferring, and deciding to take a quick scouting trip up the beach and through a narrow pass through the hills bracing the road that eventually led to Tou-Tou.

Everything was absolutely fine until we came out of the narrow pass. Our target was one of the nameless settlements that had once housed the adventuring population of Dereth. Nameless, because this settlement had never had a Portal that led to it, and so had never been gifted with anything resembling a formal name. ‘The nameless Tou-Tou cottage place with the nice little park and water fountain’ was about the extent of it.

If it worked, we might as well cut our trip off right there and not go around the peninsula as planned, which I couldn’t argue with. It would cut at least a couple days off our traveling, depending on how much sight-seeing there was.

We did stay close to the hills and off the main trail, which was good, as it turned out they were busy.

There were Shadow Zefirs all over the area. Spells of fire and lightning had smashed into everything, gouging and scoring things, searing the ground and anything that looked like it was alive. The area was blackened by all the War Magic Bolts that had gone off on everything that hadn’t looked blackened enough, at least judging by how the damn hell-sprites were energetically having fun.

“There’s about a hundred of them active in this area,” I told the two watching spells go off here, there, in a constant cycle, little streaks of darkness moving through the night to our Devilsight.

“What?” Princess Kristie asked, startled. “That many?”

“They are shooting off Silver through Pyreal spells, you can tell by how vivid the colors are. But they are recharging between every spell. That’s ranging from five to twenty minutes or so, depending on their mana conversion skills. So, you’re seeing a lot of spells from a lot of zefirs, not constant spellcasting from a few of them.

“Furthermore, these are identifying as Deranged Shadow Zefirs, not the Shadow Flyer that accompanied the group from Tou Tou we saw. These are much less powerful.”

The Mick’s eyes lit up. “I think I can tank these, then, if yer Healing is on par for emergencies!”

“Eighty percent fire and lightning usage, Force effects for the rest,” Kris said narrowly, definitely paying attention to that important detail. “What are you looking at for Health?”

“From what I can Assay at this safe distance, it’s staying within ten percent of 250. Way below the thousand-plus of the one you Rubied yesternight.”

“They should have a boss,” the Mick remarked with the air of experience. Although he looked eager to get into the fray and test out the Soulfire edge of Bunita and the new Mauler’s Gauntlets gleaming blue-black on his hands, his natural caution was checking him.

“I am not doubting you, but I don’t scan one in range,” I informed him, Detect Evil ranging out and looking for something more powerful. “The ruins of the settlement are out of reach, but you can be sure that if they see other lights in the area, the whole flock is going to converge here with speed.”

“Unless they are Summons, and that leader dies. In which case this energetic activity will abruptly cease as they return to their spots and wait patiently to be picked off,” Kris grinned.

I gestured again, Invisible eyes lighting up with specific Vatic magic-reading vision.

“You are correct. Eighty percent of the motion I am seeing has Summoning magic attached to it. There are really only a handful of the real things there.”

Both of the fighters grinned and chortled in anticipation at that revelation. “Are each of the real things leading flocks of Summons?” the Mick asked quickly.

“It appears that way. A flock of four Summons zipping around the location of a real zefir,” I confirmed.

“I am aware that you might even be able to one-shot one of them, or at the least knock it out of the air,” Kristie told me. “But your magic is showy and will draw attention if we do that. Do you have Faerie Fire memorized?”

“I do. Memorized it in case of the Mick needing to target something, or picking out specific targets. It’s not an offensive spell, so I can even Cast it and remain Invisible.”

“Highness, wouldnae this be the time fer some proper sniping?” the Mick asked, completely willing to not charge in, even if he seemed reasonably sure he could survive what was about to happen.

“Yes, it would. However, I’m not a proper sniper,” Kris admitted readily. “I’d have to get within thirty feet, and I don’t have a proper weapon to do it with.”

“Oh, you didn’t take Sniper’s Shot yet? For shame, Your Highness!” I chided her. It doubled the range at which Sneak Attack damage and Ruby Hand death attacks were viable.

“I do, but for Sharding attacks. Which for some reason I find myself reluctant to unleash upon these things.” She rolled unseen eyes at me.

“A wee bit flashy, aye.” She had demonstrated them for the Mick, whose eyes had stars at the very thought of his melee Weapon also being a ranged attack Weapon. “Lass, I think tried and true grim efficiency is the name of the game today. We shall patiently and bravely hold back as ye creep up on the gallivanting pixies of screechy doom, the fair mage will highlight yer target in happy fires that won’t draw so much attention given how many are lighting off all over the damn place, and permit ye t’ Ruby it down.”