Chapter 11-331: Lighting up the World (1/2)
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“I can Commune with Nature in a swathe ninety miles across. Nature happens to include the oceans and the seas.” Circles spun up around those lights. “Sahaug canyon-cities. Eel-folk drift-shoals. Probably a Rift-nest of the Demon Rays.
“Deep One undercities.”
Areas on the Pacific and the Atlantic lit up in pale green. “I intend to map the seas. It is not something that will be done overnight, as I can only move two hundred or so miles an hour while doing so.” A swathe of magenta moved down the east coast of America, swung out into the sea, swung back... and more question marks began to pop up here, there, everywhere...
“Gentlemen, if you allow the hostile undersea races to stay intact after the Shroud goes down, you are utter fools. Now, while you have the technological edge, is the only time you are able to engage them on superior footing. You simply have been unable to find them.
“I am going to find them for you, and then I want you to blow them to Hell.”
Admiral LaSalle’s eyes were almost glowing with fervor. “You can find their cities?” he blurted out, and I looked at him, tamping down his enthusiasm.
“Yes. Probably fairly quickly, too. They need to be shattered and broken before the Shroud falls, or the people of the world will literally get chased back from the oceans, and never dare to venture out onto them, save to fight.
“The more of them you can kill, the better. If you can shatter their major dwellings, the tritons and the mermen may be able to do something against them.
“You are going to lose all your atomics to wild magic eruptions, unless you Disintegrate the core material. Using them before that happens should be a no-brainer.”
The generals were looking at one another with barely restrained excitement, and turned to the President and Prime Minister there, who were also very intent.
“We have been wanting to strike back against the Sahaug and the Deep Ones for a very long time,” President Havier breathed, and even the Druid there didn’t voice any opposition to the idea. “But...” he hesitated, “won’t the deaths of so many generate another Shroud?”
I shook my head before he even finished. “Not if we include simple vivic flames in the eruption. The environmental effects will be no worse than an underwater mudslide, and the Land does not care about either species in the slightest. Neither have natural origins.
“If you like, I will even pay the goldweight costs to add Vivic to every one of your atomic weapons.”
The two national leaders looked at one another, conferred for a moment, and then turned back to me, eyes gleaming.
“Lady Traveler,” Prime Minister Tioz smiled, “I can say that we would be very happy to bomb the total shit out of those bastards who have been preying on our ships and our coasts for so many decades. You will have all our cooperation in dealing with them.”
I nodded at them, and at the various generals all looking eager to get in on this. “I have a great deal of Cultivator slaughter to still undertake in Pakistan and points west, as well as in Nepal. When that is done, I will be doing some very long rides on and across the ocean.
“I would like you to start getting those atomic assets into place, under cover of operations to dispose of them, as you are doing your nuclear fuels for civilian power plants. When it is time to drop the bombs, it should be done as close to simultaneously as possible, instead of one by one, which would give the enemy time to disperse into the waters and flee.”
They all nodded at the idea. The absolute bloodthirstiness of it was totally appealing to them.
I wanted them dead, or we’d never sail the seas. Granted, we wanted the skies more, but the point was there.
The meeting didn’t take much longer after dropping that bomb, as it were...
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I turned after the Blackfoot Medicine Man called out to me. “Hierophant?” I answered.
He was clad in fairly traditional Native buckskins, feathers and beads and all, and the genetic lines of his heritage gave him an air of wisdom that helped in dealing with politicians. The occasional feather, bear claw, wolf fangs, and ornamental scrimshaw on his garb were actually talismanic Tools, although their true power as potential focuses for Animal Summoning spells naturally didn’t work under the Shroud.
“Lady Traveler...” I hadn’t really spent any time talking with any of the Neutral Faiths, and really didn’t have a lot of respect for them. They were survivors who didn’t want to commit, in the end, and that included most Druids.
He had paused to center himself, feeling the Aura of magic around me, which naturally reverberated on the wavelengths of Natural magic. If my Blighter effect was active, I would have repelled him in terror at the depths of the corruptive magic I held, but since I could access all the Druidic magic via ki or Arcane paths, the only time I used that power was when I actively Blighted something, and that was for special cases only.
I lifted an eyebrow to prompt him, and he chuckled despite himself. “My apologies. You are... extremely imposing for your age, Lady.”
“The benefits of doing good deeds, no doubt,” I replied calmly, and watched his eyes flicker. “What do you want, Hierophant?” That he was the highest-ranked Druid in North America, a true Seven on his own merits, didn’t impress me beyond the fact that he was truly devoted to the Land and had pulled off something special to break Six without the Double Helix Method.