Chapter 12-338: Dreams of the Irish (1/2)
“Give it a spine.” They all turned as Traveler descended from above calmly, and even the shoggoth was turning nine eyes on her. “You’ve given it organic structure, not a firm structure it can cling to, which can purify it and remove the unnaturalness of its origin. The vivus is soothing it, the Life Spiral in the blood is giving it guidance. Give it something firm to hold onto, as Smior is doing.”
Briggs considered that, and raised an eyebrow as a narrow grey tendril extended tentatively, and touched the head of Endure gently.
“You want a spine of adamantine? You’ve got good taste!” Briggs stated affably. He looked over the bulging mass calmly. “A chain, six meters long, links twenty millimeters thick. Trav, I’ll probably need the whole reserves of Heavenbound Hall for the moment. Can you go get them?”
“On my way.” She vanished in a flicker, Dim-dooring back to her Lived-Line, and then ‘porting back across the sea to the exotic materials storage area in Heavenbound Hall.
“<Master Burble, here’s what we are going to do>,” Briggs informed the creature in Aklo. “<We’re going to make you up a Spine, a thing of Runes and Metal and Law, that you can bond to and use as an anchor. You will decide what exactly you want Bound to that Spine, so you can hold onto it without effort, and finally have a base form that is yours, and not some constantly morphing shifting of patterns and structures of broken dreams and errant programming by those who considered you their slaves. This will be your form, your function, decided by you.>
“<There’ll be no binding upon it, no traps, nor tricks. You’ll watch as I make it, and you alone will choose what the Runes upon it will mean to you.>
“<Is that good for you?>”
A dozen small mouths and organs formed in a ripple, and spoke out in a discordant, “<YES.>”
A Forging Disk rose up out of Briggs’ Masspack, and he looked over as Traveler came skimming along the ground from down the road, a Disk with slabs of dark metal upon it trailing behind her. Runes began to glow hotly on Briggs’ Floating Forge. “Alright, then. Let me get out of this armor, and get to work. I’ll leave you all to clean up the rest properly.”
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“That was gods-damned brilliant, Lord Mick,” I said, still a bit in disbelief despite myself. “You’re making me feel guilty for everything I did in Antarctica.”
“Aye?” he smiled slightly, but it ran away as he watched Burble, who had a dozen eyestalks watching everything Briggs was doing with great interest. The ongoing changes were as slow and steady as a heartbeat, and if unnatural, didn’t actually look or sound so offensive now.
“What gave you this idea?” I had to ask, shaking my head. There was no hammering going on here. Briggs simply reached into the molten metal, his flesh glowing white-hot, his bones visible inside his hands, and drew out a handful of the heavy metal. His Vajra wrapped it around his fist, and he molded and cooled it with big fingers. Wisps and strands of Runework wove through the rapidly-cooling metal, with ridges and curves that conveyed some absolute geometric rigidity at the same time as indulging coordination and representation of forms.
The first link was in his hand as he dunked it in the molten metal again, and began to weave the next link through it, joining them together directly, no sign of a weld.
There were a bunch of people looking on, splitting their attention between the great vivic bonfires of the krakens blazing out there in the water, the scattered pieces of Deep Ones burning down and away all over the place, and the animated blob watching the huge smith molding molten adamantine with his bare fists.
There had been wounds, and nearly a score of near-deaths. Near, if I had not been there, and Cure Mortal Wounds had not reached out and saved them, while a convenient flight of Shards made sure their killers weren’t around to keep them dead... and recharge spent ki, of course.
A Healing Trap took care of most of the light injuries, and Morningglory had Healing Reserve, rapidly attending to the remainder.
It was a great victory for them, and even if it was barely false dawn, the people of Shannon were still incredibly excited at what had gone down here. They could sense that they had participated in something great and unprecedented, and of course, Glory Awards were always huge rushes, even if you didn’t know what they were.
“I saw the sights ye passed on down from the cold hell. Those things screaming out all lost and mad and not knowing a way. Aye, monstrous and fell and alien and crazy powerful, and I thought... they may be alien, but that’s their land, the only place they ever called home. All their life they were slaves; they rebel, they win, and they are still slaves in all the ways.
“They were made to become any tool, any machine, any device for their masters... so, why couldn’t they become a device that would make them sane and free?”
I nodded slowly at his words. “And you thought blood would do the job?”
“Aye, backed with vivus, an’ magic, and a people’s tie to the land. Give it a structure it can cling to an’ feel, but isn’t required or commanded to. Give it a structure... aye, an’ I thought, it has no structure, that means it has no name. With no name, can it ever be free?
“An’ so I thought of this, and one day, when I went down to the Pole there, I was going to test it out. Then this all took place, and I realized that here was a place that blood yearned to be free, and it was the time.”
Something caught in the cold, callous grip of undying, uncaring masters. Perhaps only a Blooded could empathize with something that monstrous. I’d only calculated the best ways to get rid of them to maximize my Karma...
“Is that when you decided you were going to be King?” I inquired softly, and both he and Amaretta looked at me in surprise.
“How did ye...” he began to splutter.
“You found your heart in the screams of creatures doomed to insanity forever. I’m guessing you saw a bleakness at the end of a long road, and you realized you were heading in the direction of your Elders, whether you liked it or not, and it was time to break free of everything they intended for you.
“You’ll be a fine King. The last godsdamned thing the Land needs is some undead thing’s idea of a Bloodline determining worthiness to take that Crown.”
The Mick sighed, and looked at his lady, who nodded silently. “Know ye Amaretta’s tale?”
“All I needed to know is that she’s a Blakhamar.”
The pale, dark-haired beauty straightened despite herself, chin raising proudly. “And proud I am to hold that name... but it was not the name I was born with.”
“Tarantkov Clan?” I asked calmly, and she blinked. “Hey, I do my research, all the time. I’ve basically got two people looking up stuff for me all the time so I can read it out of their Visual Files. Do you think a good picture of the Tomb Clans was NOT a good thing to learn?” I asked archly.
“More.” The Mick smiled fiercely. “Meet ye the granddaughter of Czar Nicholas II by Nyovo Tarantkov. ’Twere not like a human could resist the wiles of a Blooded seductress back then.”
I blinked. “You’re a Romanov?” I had to say.