“But,” I cut the speaker off completely. “Sidheduiche is powered by elven magic. Green, growing magic, based on Plant and Sky and Rain. Not on powers from the earth and stone.” Dread tapped upon the stone floor of the tavern emphatically. “The power in Sidheduiche comes from above, not from below. It is not of the Land, it is of the elves!
“Without the elves, Sidheduiche would wither and die in but a turn about the sun, Rockborn. It is as permanent as those who live there, and if they leave, it will wither and die and leave nothing behind.”
I’d done a lot of research on Sidheduiche, courtesy of the shadenelves. They didn’t have the background to really understand what had happened there, but having access to Erendyl sources of lore made it pretty plain that the elves had done something grand and magical, and it was likely tied to the Lumina Trees that seemed to be the heart and soul of every clan of fair elves.
I wouldn’t know how or why that was true until I went there, but I had already been introduced to the sight of the Erendyl Lumina Tree, if not allowed to approach it. It was clearly magical, sapient, and powerful, and elven magic was intimately tied to it.
“If this is true,” Revered Korgil began skeptically.
“TRUTH.”
Dwarves doubled over, clapping at their ears. Some spit, some bled out the nose or ears or eyes as the Word echoed in their skulls, tore open the lies they told themselves, and shone an uncaring and judgmental light upon them.
I said nothing as they tried to recover, those with the most hate and grievances inherited stumbling and even running away under the force of broken lies and beliefs, wailing and screaming.
“Accept Truth, and the pain stops as the lies burning you fade,” I Whispered to them all.
The cries and moans gradually faded, dwarves breathing deeply as they digested and were forced to accept that which they did not want to do.
“A Truthspeaker,” croaked Revered Kargil, the dwarf-priest managing to raise his head, his face a grimacing mask. “A horrible power you have, Lady Edge.” There was little but fearful respect in his voice now, realizing how dangerous I could truly be.
I inclined my head to him slowly. “It is indeed. But the most horrible thing is now to come.” I looked around at all of them. “You now know the Truth. It is a painful, dreadful thing. It flies in the face of what you have been told to believe all these years. It strikes at the heart of the vision and image of a noble dwarf, and those nasty, unclean foul mages in Zanzyr, and those secretive and oft-murderous skulkers in the depths.
“For as all of you know, you have no choice but to treat plague-bearers as what they are.”
The silence was painful, broken by more grunts and groans and gasps as denials died strangled on their tongues.
“If you ask your Patron, Revered Kargil, He may remain silent on this Truth, but more pointedly, He will know where this plague came from.” I let that sink into him.
Gravely offended by the very idea that they were plague-bearers, the dwarves had likely never bothered to investigate this subject!
“In my heart of hearts, I place no blame on the Rockborn for this plague. In your ignorance of it, nor should you.
“But now, now you know the Truth of the matter. What will the Rockborn do with this Truth?
“Will you hide it away, nursing your hatred and bitterness? Will you weaponize it, turning your knowledge of the plague into an axe that will fall upon guilty and innocent alike, reaving the children and elderly while the detestable mages you hate so much walk free?
“Or will you realize that the Rockborn have been duped and used, and it is time to take the high road and fight back against the machinations of those who would cause chaos and war in the world?
“Your shield of ignorance is gone, Rockborn. Prove to me you are the noble Rockborn, the heroes of countless tales… or the mad plague-bearing barbarians of other tales. One will now be true, and the other, the other will be a flat lie.
“But only you may decide that. Stand upon the Anvil of Truth, Rockborn, and either break it and toss it into the fire, or forge this into something greater.”
Magic swirled, and rose petals blew across the table. I was gone on the wings of Teleportation, leaving only an opened bottle of elven wine behind.
---
Revered Korgil silently rose to his feet and turned away, his face a mask.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
“Revered, what will you do?” Captain Hrogi asked urgently, his own face a warring mask of honor betrayed and conformity shattered.
“I go to pray. Pray to Clangyr and seek the truth of where this plague came from. Do not say you do not believe her words, Captain. We ALL believe her words, much as we might wish not to. If there is to be any honor to be salvaged from this ruinous truth, we will find it… and then, then whoever is to blame will know the wrath of the sons of the mountain!” His fist crashed down on the table loudly, his face a mask of wrath. “Making the Rockborn their plague-bearers?! We will kill them all for this stain on our honor!”
That earned dire rumbles of agreement from all the soldiers present, their faces twisting at the very idea… and for those dwarves still gently clad in white flames, staring at their hands or clasping their hands to their mouths in revulsion.
Plague-bearers. Butchers of children and the elderly. This, this was not what proud dwarves were-!
-----
Okay, that was probably going to set off a storm in Rukheim, but them’s the breaks of dealing with a Truthspeaker who would rather see misunderstandings put to rest rather than cause war and conflict between those who should not be fighting.
Between those who SHOULD be fighting? That was a completely separate thing!
My Sims were already busy preparing the Thisbean Inn as a private wizard tower, repository, and place of study, a home away from home. But that would not be truly applicable unless I secured the one remaining means of ingress and egress.
Number Five was on the upper floors being worked on and expanded. With two additional vertical floors and four times the floor area of before, I had a great deal of space to expand and build upon. The rote plans were in place, there only remained to acquire the supplies to build everything up… and basic shelving and tables wasn’t hard, while I could move my alchemy lab from the Sternvult to here easily enough.
“Going so soon?” Number Five, another adult Sim with a variant appearance from me, asked as I picked up the finished item there. She had immediately begun working on expanding my Rune repertoire, able to do all the initial research and find the base form, which I could then quickly revise to applicability.
“I am in a situation where I may be called before extremely suspicious and powerful beings, and cannot take the risk of being discovered. It is time to do this,” I nodded, picking up the Rune-carved Cone of Temporal Silver from the table. It wasn’t Cryptomancy, but it didn’t have to be.
The Temporal Beacon was my ticket to traveling the temporal Rift in the basement, and getting back to my own time.
No matter how long I was gone, I could up-Cast Find the Path and find my way back to this Beacon, returning immediately after I left, no matter how long that took… if I wasn’t motivated to take the long way back, i.e. actually living those years, or coming in a hundred years early, or something.
“Good luck, and please don’t die in the past. It would be boring staying here indefinitely working on the same projects!” Number Five smiled, giving me a wave before turning back to her assigned duties.
Sims, there to leverage time and effort!
---
I headed downstairs.
Amusingly enough, the basement also had two floors now, as I’d been forced to extend the stairs and raise the original stores of drinks and foods back up to the level the stairs came down to, supporting that floor while building another level underneath it. Not much of a bother, really, as I could work in stone down here instead of wood, and Shaping Stone could handle a lot of that kind of work per spell.
Primus’ main job was Elemental Command, and Shape Stone was actually not one of the daily powers of a Ring of Earth Elemental Command. I really did not care and put it into the Ring, and was unrepentant in boosting the utter crap out of it.
It was going to take me months of work. I couldn’t Weird the Widen Metas I wanted to inside an Item, and the Caster Level required was a 17 minimum to allow a Twice-Widened Stone Shape, a IX spell, to work in my Ring, as well as costing a raw 153k in gold, over three hundred goldweight-equivalents.
If I gave up the other spells of Elemental Command for now, eh. It wasn’t like I could make the true Rings I knew of here, anyway.
Doing so would get me to a minimum of 1728 cubic feet per use, or 12×12×12, usable all day and constantly.
If I could get the Caster Level to equal my own, that number could be significantly higher. I doubted it would reach the 8000 cubic feet I needed to make a 20’ Pyramid block, at least for some time, but eventually I would get there, regardless of how much it cost.
Nothing but time and gold, as it were.
The Rift was currently closed, but tonight was the first night of the full moon, and it would be opening.
I looked around the basement a moment, amused that none of my expansions were visible. A whole section of wall could move out easily, but if you didn’t know how to unlock it, it was as thick and immovable as ever.
I reviewed the spells I’d chosen, mostly for dealing with surprises. I expected to meet a lot of creatures who had come into the Inn in the past, and either set up shop or fled further into the past, all of them ostensibly dying there… except there had been precious few signs of that.
Well, the fact was I could probably save them. Maybe. We’d have to see.
The contacts I’d made in Wahrsherz meant I could start buying things there, add them to the stores in the Inn here, as well as start on the purchasing of fine woods, furnishings, and the like.
I had the room to build up a really good wine cellar now, was expanding my selection to a bunch of modern cheeses, and the place needed a better collection of fresh fish and seafood, as well as pasta and a wider variety of spices.
All I had to do was go far enough into the past to find a Portal coming forward, which had to exist to create a looped field of time. I could keep going back, back, and back until that happened, and if it took a little while, well, that was fine.
If the trips took multiple months, I could leave the Inn, wander around and earn Karma, check up on the historical aspects of certain areas, then return when it was about to open again, perhaps work on a lot of magical items during that time.
I was bringing a fair amount of jewelry and stuff to work on, along with other things, expecting a lot of downtime if the Rift went down between moons.
My Sims could handle a lot of stuff, and there were whole lists of stuff to do in case it took me a long time to get back here… not that I couldn’t just find whole bunches more...