Chapter 14 Brand New World
Essylliss was remarkably passive the entire Godswar. He willingly followed me and stayed around as I worked on my projects. I knew I was officially his champion, but I hadn't expected this level of support.
Then I realized he was already working on his own project. It just didn't take too much time. Sure he had avoided looking too closely at my memories, but we had talked quite a bit when making our bargain. He had been interested in avatars and the bhaalspawn in particular.
Combining that knowledge Essylliss was creating his own future champions. Essylliss was fathering an entire generation of the new lizardfolk. He wasn't as powerful as Mystra or Bhaal so he was going for quantity. I hadn't even noticed Yesk and the other clerics arranging it ahead of time.
At least he wasn't making actual bhaalspawn. Even if his creation methods are similar, Mystra used a similar technique and she got the seven sisters out of it. Although ironically now is when Essylliss chooses to reveal to me that I'm a bhaalspawn. Or at least was. He had used that divine spark inside me to fuel my powers.
By Ao I was glad to have escaped that fate. If I had to be connected to a diety, Essylliss was definitely one of the better ones. He was pretty laid back, just gave me a goal and let me loose. Being a bhaalspawn with their need to kill people regularly would have been nightmarish.
Sure I could have set up a base, but getting to that point would have sucked. And being hunted by other bhaalspawn. And wizards who want to experiment on me. And crazy cultists. Damn. Bhaalspawn had a really rough life. I really do owe Essylliss.
Sadly, while I'm not a cursed bastard of a god who radiates pure evil, I am a giant terrifying lizard dragon person. Which means adventurers look at me and think something along the lines of slay the monster. It seems there's always a drawback.
The drawback of Essylliss's goal was the cost to his host. Even with our improvements, mortals were not meant to burn that bright. Essylliss was killing my brother just by being inside him. Two months. That's how long he lasted before crumbling into ash. And then Essylliss jumped into the next one.
If the Godswar takes too long I may lose my entire family. I wonder if something is wrong with me that all I fell is irritation at their potential loss. Shouldn't I be sad?
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Five months. That's how long the Godswar lasted and how long it took for the world to change. All of reality heard Ao's proclamation. Gods are now dependent on their worshipers for power. Which means if they're forgotten, they die.
Churches are recruiting like never before. Promising all kinds of things in return for joining. After the chaos of the Time of Troubles though no one seems willing to launch any crusades. It makes sense. After all any fighting endangers your own worshipers.
In in those five months I lost three brothers. The price might be worth it though. I lost three siblings, but Essyllis fertilized over three thousand eggs. One hell of a population jump from the fifteen hundred we currently had. And most of those were still children.
They weren't bhaalspawn. Essylliss made sure to point out that none of the eggs possessed any trace of a divine spark. Instead, like he did with me, he used it as fuel to improve them further. Not quite as powerful as me, but better than normal.
My best guess would be equivalent to an Advanced Template. Powerful, but nowhere near as game changing as my Paragon template. And if the seven sisters are any indication, they will be a bit more attuned to their parent deity.
The rest of the world is also only now reacting to my moves. It seems quite a bit of traffic had slowed, if not halted, during the Godswar. Waterdeep had also come under attack and bunkered down. Between the two merchants were only now discovering the expansion of the Mere of Dead Men.
Mechanisburg was quickly discovered. Not that it could hide. I hadn't been able to resist and had added three industrial chimneys to the city. Not that they were belching out real smoke. I wasn't burning any coal or oil. Instead I had a modified eversmoking bottle spewing out vast quantities of hot smoke. Since it was magical, it harmlessly dissipated within a minute.
Since I disliked wasting opportunities, the smoke poured through a massive smokehouse. The dry heat wasn't the only change I made to the bottle. Very subtle flavorings could be added to the smoke by adding different tree saps to the stove size bottle.
Koger was already hard at work expanding Mechanisburg. He had asked me for a few dozen skilled workers and I had Herask just buy him a load of slaves. Since the first floor was pretty much a merchant's district and the bottom floors were being used he went up.
The first floor was only thirty feet high. Twin spiral staircases were set periodically throughout the place to the next floor up. Mild pain wards steered traffic to only use one side for going up or down. The upper floor was a residential area. It was build apartment style and was currently pretty small.
Since I was not about to bother with fuel concerns I have communal kitchens. Anyone can use a booth and cook what they want. A large slab of iron had a permanent harden and heat metal on it, serving as the stove. It also lies on the water pipe that runs to the baths. It's amazing how easy plumbing and sewage is to manage with just a single Decanter of Endless Water.
Well that and the myconid colony on the bottom floor. Can't emphasize their usefulness enough. So useful and so easy to recruit. Hell, they consider leading a horrible job. Perfect minions.
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Mechanisburg isn't the only thing that's discovered. The Eldar are quickly found as well. Particularly the toll bridge and road in Stalingrad. Given how massive it way, I was actually surprised no one had run into it earlier.
I named the fortress Stalingrad because I decided my Eldar were going to speak russian. Tolkien elvish would probably have fit better, but unfortunately I didn't know elvish. I did know russian. I liked the soft rolling sounds and as far as I could tell, no one else spoke russian on Abeir-Toril.
I was glad I had pushed to complete so much of the Stalingrad. While the Umbarran swamp hadn't overtaken the road yet, people were still seemed to prefer the safety of my toll road. And of course I did have the only bridge within fifty miles across the Delimbiyr river. I had even considered dredging it to it couldn't be forded, but it wasn't worth it since I wasn't about to let ships pass through the Lizard Marsh.
While I was definitely using dread warriors for my soldiers, they also do not interact well socially. So I needed something more intelligent for that role. Or at least more socially adept. Which is harder than it should be. Since I'm avoiding any links to any of my other projects I can't use lizardfolk, nimblewights or slaves. Which doesn't really leave me with many options.
I feel a little bad when I raid the Amnish circus. Not for the people running it of course. Despite my own actions, I still dislike slavers. Especially ones who abuse their slaves pointlessly.
No, I feel bad that Gorion's ward will never have the chance to meet Aerie. Well, unless he travels a lot further north than any of the games let him. Besides, it won't really be Aerie anymore either.
For one thing, she still has her wings. I had rescued her well before they started to rot. Although they were a bit atrophied. For another, she was dead. If he did go north he'd only meet a spawn of her. And even then she wouldn't be recognizable when compared to the game character.
One of the first things I had done after the Godswar was over was to kill something. I crushed a turtle, closed my eyes and concentrated.
Nothing.
No surge of power. No sense of getting stronger. I might as well have crushed an acorn.
I guess Ao really did change things. Which I had expected. I had felt the change sweeping across reality and within me upon his proclamation. And long familiarity let me gain an impression of just how Ao has changed the nature of my soul.
Experience is no longer vampiric. Rather than from a surge of energy it's now like a muscle. Except stress, determination and triumph substitute for exercise, food and rest. All things that enrich the soul. It kind of makes me want to hunt down an illithid to study what kinds of experiences work best.
Except I guess already know. Challenges. Combat and danger are just some of the easiest ways of getting meaningful ones. Personal drive and focus means more than anything else though.
Hell one of the Magisters becomes an archmage without every fighting anyone. Just lots of studying. And not centuries either. A decade or two of concentration and ninth level spells. For her it was the wonder of creating new spells and the challenges of figuring out arcane secrets. Experience now really does mean just that.
Still, Aerie is still low enough level that even weaker creatures can pose a threat to her. Since fear doesn't create the personal drive needed I use magic. Charms and suggestions motivate her to push her training forward rapidly.
Without divine restrictions and an unfettered soul, Aerie quickly levels into a mixture of wizard, rogue and bard. She wasn't being trained for combat, but for a social role. Not that she would be helpless. Pitting her nearly fatal tests multiple times ensures that much.
Still, she's only fifth level when I feed her to the deepspawn. I regret it, since spawn can't level up, but I just couldn't afford to wait any longer. I had been using a nimblewight so far, but it was only a matter of time before someone realizes what it is.
Aerie's spawn is a perfect success. Spawn have much more muted emotions compared to the original. Or rather I should say, they pale in comparison to the loyalty they feel. And since the deepspawn had been mentally broken, the spawn were just as loyal to me.
Still, I was surprised by just how well it worked out. Aerie's clingy personality with it's slight air of desperation was now replaced with a calm serenity. You could almost feel her inner peace. At least until you got to know her and realized it was apathy.
Of course I wouldn't make such an investment for only a single representative. So to differentiate them I had them apply small, random dye markings to their wings. Still, that's still limited when their wings are identical.
So I have them tattooed. And not the normal boosts to combat stats. Shimmering prismatic glamours over their eyes, hair and wings will help disguise them. As does their armored robes and face mask.
Even that much proved to be a challenge. Midnight it seems has begun the process of standardizing the rules for magic item creation. And while they will prove very useful later on, right now they make it hard for established crafters to make anything. She has also started screwing with the Weave, making it harder to use Evocation and Necromancy.
She may call herself Mystra, but she's not following through. The whole point of keeping the name was to reassure everyone that she won't change anything. Which is being revealed right now as one massive lie. Hopefully the whole Cyric trial happens soon and I can work on my heralds.
My Heralds, as I've named the Aerie spawn, were not actually put in charge. After all Aerie didn't have a tactical mindset. No that was left to the watchghosts. After all, dread warriors aren't the only thing I can make from their bodies. And a watchghost isn't mentally crippled the way the dread warriors are.
While the base in the Mere of Dead Men won't go public for awhile, the Whalebones can't be hidden. I've already named it Moscow and have plans for it. Much like Evermeet, it's going to be incredibly restrictive.
It's also going to be the source of quite a bit of wealth. Isiros had been more than willing to help me with my latest project. Jursa had even joined her once I explained how this could potentially affect hunting
What they helped me create was a fang golem. But not a normal fang golem. It cost a staggering amount, almost a full hundred thousand gold pieces, but it was worth it. Crafted from fang dragon infused animal parts. Specifically teeth, tusks and narwhal horns. All of which are ivory.
The true benefit of the twenty foot golem was it's ability to generate and launch spikes. Spikes made from itself. Thick spears of solid ivory. Thirty of them every day.
It was placed in the heart of Moscow, surrounded by a dozen watchghosts. Further to disguise the true source of ivory I captured and altered a number of walruses. And not just altered, I crossed them with seals. After all it would be wasteful to not use their hide. And seal fur is much more useful than the thick skin of a walrus.
I named them tusked seals. And with a bit of sympathy magic made the Whalebone Islands their preferred living area. With the reefs and walls of stone to shelter them, Moscow provided plenty of space for them. And while they wouldn't eat it, troll meat served as an excellent means of attracting and sustaining large numbers of fish.
The buildings on the small islands don't take up much of the beaches, so the walruses have plenty of space. A few area sensory wards and they won't really bother anyone who isn't sharing the beach with them. And I have a renewable source for fur, meat and ivory.
I can even use their skulls for stone beasts. Which is more useful than I anticipated once I remembered pumice floats. While it does make them more fragile, using pumice means they can retain their swimming ability. Even better it can also improve all the reptilian stone beasts I'm already creating. Not to mention making breeding sharks worthwhile. And not only for their teeth and skin.
Given a few years and between tusked seals and sharks I may not even need the fang golem anymore. Not that I intend to stop using it. But redundancy is better.
I use more watchghosts to protect the area. After all the tusked seals are a valuable resource. Given the reefs though natural predators weren't the issue. What I was worried about was more intelligent enemies.
My excuse for the watchghosts was that they were bound to the remains of the ship. Which also meant I needed to quickly and sneakily bind a few to the remains of my bombing sites. Well, maybe not all of them. It'd be suspicious if Luskan started sprouting ghosts.
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Despite her aid, Jursa was not happy with me. The way I was warping entire ecosystems really bothered as a druid. The fact that the changes were contained and self-sustaining didn't matter. And she really didn't like my use of constructs and undead.
I can kind of see what her point. She is a druid and all about the balance of nature. I'm not about to stop though. This world is harsh and I need every advantage I can get. Besides, most of the environment has been unnaturally reworked at one point or another. I'm just the latest. And at least I have an ecosystem. Even if it is ridiculously artificially inflated.
Still she had quite a few supporters. After all she was one of my siblings and as such had taught many in the second and third generation. I don't feel like dealing with her though. So I exile her.
Well I say exile, but it's move of a colonization. The swamp on the Winding River has taken hold nicely and aside from trolls didn't possess any sentient life yet. Even better the mountains sheltered it from the north winds, meaning it stayed relatively warm even in the winter.
One of the major benefits of my move into the Mere of Dead Men was how much I worked with black dragon essence. And while normally dragoncraft items required body parts from a true dragon, I had found a work around.
It wasn't as comprehensive, but a creature already attuned to the element and enhanced into a half-dragon of the appropriate type, could sometimes be used. For example a behir combined with blue dragon blood, could be used to craft dragoncraft armor and weapons, while a shocker lizard could create a hide mantle.
Giant ants, despite using acid, weren't quite attuned enough to do the same with black dragon blood. At least without a little help. One of the types of grafts was to implant the organ that grants a breath weapon. It also has a side effect of affecting the host's teeth. Ant's use their stingers for their acid and so it was the stinger that became the focus for the energy.
Add a ring of regeneration, and a few curses because I was merciful, and I could endlessly harvest the stinger to create daggers, darts, javelins and spears. All of which deal acid damage. And while as a druid Jursa wasn't comfortable with my methods, she did accept the massive armory of acidic weapons to help her conquer the swamp.
I don't let them take any of the new eggs though. I end up executing one of the mothers who wouldn't listen. Essylliss had fathered them personally. If Silvanus wanted souped up lizardfolk he can create his own. Several of her followers change their mind at that point. Not enough to stop her though.
I check the ones who change their mind carefully. I'm not chancing any of them trying to sneak away later. And while none of them seem treacherous, I still post guards over the eggs.
I was a bit sad to see her go. After all she had helped me create that giant fang golem only a few weeks ago. It was a shame, but at least it didn't turn into a civil war. Hopefully they're happy down there.