Chapter 8-240: A Lesson in Scale

It took a second for the audience to realize what was going on, and then smirks broke out all around at the fate of the intruders. The kneeling Cleric was still trying to talk, and nothing was coming out.

Master Fred walked past me, gesturing to the Aruan Templars who were trying to keep smiles off their faces. He bent down, threw two limp armored forms over his shoulders, and grabbed two more by their armor and dragged them after him as if they weighed nothing.

The doors closed softly behind him as the two guards impolitely dragged the last two other Imprusar back out the door. The Priest left behind could only flush whitely.

I turned my eye back on him, and his jaw clamped shut. “Well, it does seem that an uninvited member of the Imprusar has managed to join us. This is an auspicious time. Master Dorrian, please take note of his presence for the remainder of this meeting.”

The half-blooded Shaman inclined his head slightly, his dark eyes cold and unmoved. The Imprusar was very much his opposite number, and they were not friends in the slightest. The Aborigines and Druids were scorning the political structure of the colonial powers, having their own government meetings out in the desert somewhere, and there was precious little that the colonists could do about it.

“Now is the time to be talking about true geopolitics. No, I do not mean politics between nations. I mean politics between Humanity... and The Land.”

I flicked up a Holo of Australia as I remembered it, zoomed in on the area we were in, with the black sphere of the Sydney Shroudzone sitting over yonder.

“A more relevant description might be between The Land and the mites living upon its skin, because that is the relevant size scale we are talking about. Indeed, it seems that the Religions of this place seem to have some difficulty grasping the fact of who and what they work for, and their obligations.” I raked my eyes over them all, coming to rest on Priest Brevington kneeling there. “Let us start with Imprus.” For some reason, he was not reassured by my eyes.

“Imprus is a deity of rulership, empire, civilization, and conquest. His mandate declares that He will rule over all, and His Church is the vehicle of that mandate.

“There is no secular rulership in the eyes of Imprus or His Church. Such things are merely stepping stones to be removed so He can take His proper place of power. Things like Parliaments and elections and politicking are, in the end, mere amusements to be swept away in the end by everyone taking their proper places in service to the Imperial God.”

He wanted to protest this, as everyone there sucked in a breath. Having that Doctrine laid out so bluntly was naturally extremely offensive to many.

“TRUTH.”

The power of the Word blasted across the ears of everyone present, and the Priest there rocked back, stunned and horrified at the power, and the knowledge that I was Absolutely Right; any objection he could offer was less than dust.

“Imprus is not a Human deity.” Eyes widened again at the statement. “Imprus is not the Patron of the Powered. Imprus is The Emperor. He values those who serve Him, and those with greater Talents He appreciates the most. If He could Cast His eye down from Axiom and see me here, He would instantly give me His entire Church upon this world if I would be His High Priestess here.”

The echoes of Truth made that Priest shudder as he stared at me, all his denials sticking in his throat.

“Your Church has twisted the Word of Imprus to serve its growth and the power of its Leaders. Imprus’ goal is to rule ALL; no more, no less. The humanist racism, the pandering to the Powered, the catering to the wealthy and elite... all of these are transient things to Imprus, for in the end, rulership is the goal.

“Oh, the tactics you have used are indeed used by Imprus. He sows discord among His Divine opponents, He is ruthless when He attacks, and to those who defy Him and refuse to bend the knee, He knows little of mercy, weighing only the costs and benefits of leaving his opponents alive. Your message is wrong, your Creed is twisted, but your methods... I cannot say that they are wrong, in the view of the Imperial God.”

He kind of blinked at me, wondering at what I was getting at.

“Unfortunately for you, He is not aware of you, cannot see you to correct your misinterpretations of doctrine, and will not be able to save you when the local situation explodes in your face. Please take note.”

My eyes lifted from him, and turned to Master Dorrian, who also flushed despite himself. “The Motherland of Australia who empowers the Druidic powers and Landbound sworn to Her is not actually a Her, but that will suffice. She is an aspect of the greater World of Terra, a Continent poking out above the great oceans of this globe, atop of which some manner of what we like to call organic mortal life, has managed to grow.

“Some of these tiny little things developed sapience, venerated Her, and by multiversal paradigms put into place, so Druids and Landbound have come about.” I clasped my hands behind my back as I faced the Druidic representative.

“Now, I am not surprised by your inaccurate and self-serving regard for Australia, given She can’t truly hear you, is mostly unaware of what goes on atop Her, and really, individual humans are so small as to be barely perceptible unless She uses the equivalent of a microscope to narrow down Her awareness. Just as the Imprusar can’t Commune with Him and find out they are going off-message, you are unable to Commune with Nature and realize just how small and insignificant you really are.”

The Druidic representative swallowed, and spoke up defiantly, “And what do you know of veneration of the Land? You are a Wizardess!”

I reached out a finger, and tap, tapped.

He convulsed in shock in front of everyone, his eyes nearly popping out as his Matrix shuddered at the Pulse I’d just let out. Every Caster in the room could feel something reverberate in the manafield, but only those with Druidic magic could tell I’d just pulled on it.

At Twenty-Five.

“I am an Elemental Theurge. I CAN talk to the Land, although it is dreaming and scarce responds to anything. Its scale of time and awareness are both vast, and it doesn’t even register my presence at all while we are under the Suppression of the Shroud.

“I am Shroudbound. Does it surprise you that when the Shroud rolled across multiple worlds and sacrificed all that lived, including the spirits of the worlds themselves, to Death, that there were some very powerful Druidic souls caught in the Shroud?”

Master Dorrian swallowed, and slowly shook his head. “I... did not know that, Great Lady Traveler. But it does make sense,” he admitted carefully.

“It is good that you believe so. Let me make this very plain, for the benefit of every single person in the room.” I held up three fingers. “Without actually manifesting an Avatar and bringing Herself down to the level of a dust mite on your skin, Australia is basically only aware of those living upon Her in three ways.” My fingers shone for attention, the Holo repeating my words behind me.

“The first is Sapience. She can determine the difference between intelligent, self-aware beings, and those of animal intelligence or less. This is because the thoughts of self-aware beings affect how She manifests and is interpreted by mortal life, the same sort of power which drives Faith, Duty, and Loyalty.” The point spelled across the Holopoint presentation behind me.

“Two, She can determine if you are born of Her soil, or of another.” They all blinked. “Yes, if you were born here and raised here, you are made out of Her.” Despite themselves, a few of the people in the room swallowed, including Priest Brevington.

Given the lack of migration since the Shroud fell, pretty much everyone in Australia had been born here now, and so was ‘of Her.’

“Three, She can determine if you are Powered or not, and naturally enough if you have been tapping Her power if you are... or if you are tapping Something Else’s.”

That all caused faces to change as they thought about that.

“You are all intelligent mortal beings with Free Will. The onus is on you on how to interpret how you are going to deal with your life here, and the obligations to the Land from which you sprang, and to the entities who control your soul in the hereafter.

“Perhaps you think that one is important, and the other is not.” I simply looked over them all, one by one, and all the eyes, even the most fervent, found themselves looking away. “You are all fools, if that is so, and that is a shame, because the two great channels of Faith, the Divine and the Lands, do not choose fools.”

They all winced at the cold and slicing note in my words.

“As of right now, in my professional estimation, the natives of Australia, and especially Her Powered, have been very, very lucky... and you are still headed for disaster. It gets even worse because you fools have been contributing to the disaster that is coming.”

The map of Australia zoomed in on the Sydney Shroudzone... and the grey ring around it. Perhaps it was not a coincidence that Master Fred chose that moment to lever one transport atop another outside in the pile they were making, generating a nice crash that made people jump.

“You all may or may not know that the entire Shroudzone is Blighted. Oh, a minor issue. Oh, to be expected. Oh, we can deal with it later. Oh, it’s not important.” My voice had dipped down into low, heavy tones that rippled with danger, and it was raising hackles on their necks. “Oh, it is someone else’s fault, someone else’s responsibility, someone else’s problem.”

My eyes fell on Master Dorrian, who swallowed despite himself. “What, what are you saying? We have always killed Blighters as soon as we discovered who and what they were!”

“Because there is no way to cure Blights... except there is. It is a Valence V spell, available to Druids and Clerics of non-Evil Faiths, called Hallow. It restores the flow of natural energy and returns life to the land and soil in the area of effect.”

Master Dorrian straightened excitedly. “But that, that is wonderful news! We will be able to restore Blighted areas we have been unable to, once we take advantage of the methods you have proposed, and finally reach Nine!”

His bubbling excitement dimmed as my stare didn’t get any lighter, nor my expression any brighter. He shrank a bit and decided to shut up until I was finished.

“The reason you are all so very, very lucky is that every dead Druidic Caster who was caught in, killed by, or sentenced to the Sydney Shroudzone by idiotic parties,” I snapped my head around at Priest Brevington, who went white instantly, “becomes a Blighter!

“A Blight is formed when a Blighter rips the power out of the Land to empower false Druidic magic, desecrating and Tainting it, destroying all the Green and lower life forms therein, destroying or banishing any Nature Spirits in the area, and stopping the flow of natural mana through the area entirely.

“A decent enough analogy is a writhing mass of dark cancer forming on your skin.” They all looked at the back of their hands reflexively, picturing it. “And it is growing!

“The size of a Blight is dependent on how much greenery and elemental mana there is in an area to take. It should come to you as no surprise that there is remarkably little of either under a Shroud. It may come to you as a surprise that the effect of a Blighter ripping away that power is conducted throughout the Shroudzone.” The image of the Sydney Shroudzone, and that grey ring around it specifically, zoomed in. “Every time one of the undead Congregants enslaved to the Dark Druid of Sydney renews their powers, this Blightzone grows. If the ground is poor... than the Blightzone grows even faster! If it reaches the desert...”

I let it trail off, and the quick-witted among them pictured the effect, especially as the Zone in the picture began to grow, and bulge out to the west, devouring more land faster...

“You... have been lucky. Very, very lucky. The undead aren’t taking spells every night, they aren’t Blighting every night. Part of that is because you have been feeding them undead and bodies, growing the Shroud instead.

“But, if they start tearing the power of the Land free, they can grow that Blighted area very, very quickly, indeed. I estimate between one and two hundred meters a day in fertile areas. In a desert or arid region, that could be ten to twenty times greater, instead!”