“Stories are meant to be read, and I can use that intent to get around many of the sensory traps,” I nodded to him, recreating the room in Markspace for the scholars back at Coralost to salivate over and begin the intimate decoding. I could already see there were some subversive themes and boastful claims there that contradicted images I’d seen in other tombs. All was not happy peace and service in Undeadville here. “Vizier Jamandres here had rivalries with at least four other courtiers. The dead concubine appears to be his sister, Shawmi.”
“Shall I get everyone to retreat?” he asked, already stepping backwards. The ones who had dared to follow him had also stopped well shy, and grinned as they also retreated, having a good idea of what was coming.
I reached in behind the stones, where nobody could see and even the more irate Nobles dared not mess with things, lest they stir the Pharaoh’s wrath and be demoted to commoner evermore, little more than a mindless slave. Magical traps couldn’t be set there, and definitely the work wrought upon the stones was not going to be altered in the slightest, which meant I could play back there.
“That would probably be most wise,” I agreed, new Runes playing behind the skin of the room, snaking out as they were scribed beneath the existing traps. “This is a lot of raw boom.”
Archmage Obai turned around and called out, “To the hallway!”, pointing ahead of him. There was a chorus of laughter and rough acknowledgements from the Beasts also carefully inspecting everything, and then a quick rush for the way we’d come in.
---
Everyone was waiting patiently as I came zipping around the far end of the room five minutes later, turning and skidding sideways as I skated over the floor, hitching up against the cushioning hide of Moto, Injindri’s Firemane Lion companion.
The floor began to shake again, and out of the connecting passageway to the inner apartments behind me a blue-white eruption, chased with wild kaleidoscopic energies in three different spectrums, blew through the lesser internal walls in a wave of disintegrating matter and then splayed wildly over the main chamber wall opposite.
I lifted up the Wall of Force in front of me as the explosion filled the chamber, splashing across the transparent barrier in front of us as everyone watched with bemused interest as it scoured away massive hieroglyphs, self-portraits, vanity monuments, and sculptured idolizations of the former occupants
“Wooo!” a few of the younger Undead Hunters cheered, clapping for the show, with numerous Beasts looming over us also calling out enthusiastically at the display.
I bowed flamboyantly to them, which generated a few more cheers, everyone waiting as the sizzling, snapping, popping, and crackling from the massive audience chamber beyond settled down.
“He was an ugly hombre anyways,” piped up Chica, hailing from one of our Coralost Communities in Belize, and there were plenty of nods and grunts all around in agreement at that. The chamber beyond was now hissing red hot, although it was all venting away quickly, and absolutely none of the ornamentation had survived. Most of it had been magically imbued to resist time and degradation, which when a Spellflare-fueled wave of magic-eating destruction hits it did exactly the opposite.
I wove up a Holo of the sixth level for everyone to regard, highlighting our position, and pointing across the way to the hallway with Rune-emblazoned doors forced open and left hanging wide, now shattered and burning in unnatural hues. Humans and Beasts stared at it intently, all of them familiar with it by now. “The grand stairway is locked in the chamber on the other side there.” Eyes shifted to the double doors. Given that the stairway could shift between any of the eight inner chambers easily, putting it in one could be either a sign of favor or just whimsy. “The seventh and final floor is at the top of that. I’m fairly sure that most of the explosion we saw just now went venting that way.”
Everyone looked at the broken doors laying in that hallway we hadn’t gone into, and smirked understanding. Whatever direly formidable and resolute guards were in the place had run into every single damn spell and trap in this level venting its magic into them, fueling one another in an explosive orgy of arcane destruction. Only the Wall of Force combined with the edge of Dimensional Magic spatial-cutting had stopped it from expanding our way, to lethal effect.
“There are at least sixteen Noble undead up there, two half-Sages, and the Pharaoh itself. I do not think I need to tell you how dangerous that can be, especially if they’ve actually prepared for intruders in their innermost Sanctum.” Murmurs arose from everyone as they considered dashing headlong into thousands of years of traps erected by a Sage, and found their appetites for it not so high.
“That is the fool’s play, of course. I doubt the Pharaoh was so diligent as to do such a thing over its self-absorbed invincible reign here, but even a few months of concerted effort by its Nobles are something we really don’t want to jump into the teeth of.
“So, let me tell you what we are going to do, and how we are going to handle this.”
Everyone craned in with great interest to hear how I was going to sidestep all of this, nodding along as I explained what needed to happen, what I was going to do, and how I was going to turn all that stuff on its head...
==============
The United Kingdom...
The broadcast went out on the radio and nation-wide Sound and Psychic magic together. The Royal Bloodline was superb at reaching out and contacting everyone who needed to work together for a purpose, and this was a time that everyone needed to listen.
“My people and my subjects, citizens of Great Britain and the United Kingdom, this is Queen Diana speaking to you on a matter that will determine the fate of our great and storied nation.
“You have doubtless heard rumors swirling about of what we might do to forestall the invaders pounding at our shores, defiling our lands, and slaughtering our people. The Crown has been informed of our choices, none of which are pleasing, but we... I, have made my decision.
“The first choice was to continue this fight alone. What allies we have in Europe and America are likewise imperiled and can give us no aid. Even the welcome surprise attacks by the Redshore Marines and Sages of Ireland, relieving some of the pressure from Manchester and the lands about great London, have merely allowed us to evacuate and save those who would have died, they have made no true progress or lifted the siege upon us.
“If we continue to fight alone, we will die alone.” There was a long and solemn pause as the Queen paused to let that fact sink in across the whole of the silent, unmoving island listening to the words of their ruler. “The numbers that surround our islands are but a tithe of the forces of the oceans, and they outnumber us five to one at this point. Even were The Great Flood to break before we did... that will not mean anything to these forces and the success they already enjoy.
“The islands will be swept away, and our nation, all it has built, and all its deeds and history will be swept to the bottom of the sea and buried in blood and silt by the claws of the sea.” There was another long breath.
“That is the choice the Synod of the Church of Light wishes us to make. It is the choice the Dark Curia wishes us to make. It is the choice the foul Rulers of the abyssal deeps wish us to make. But it is not a choice I can make. I will not consign my people to oblivion to satisfy the hate and prejudice of others.”
She took a long breath of hardening resolve, the emotion flitting across the airwaves, mindscape, and in the air as all three modes of communication aligned together magically.
“The second choice is to evacuate. We have been given the means to pull out all of our people, and take with it as much of our heritage as possible before we are overrun. There is land enough in Australia to accept all of our numbers, and the forces of the sea cannot assail it as they have our islands.
“Our people would live, and with it our nation. Some may call this cowardice, but they are fools. We will merely be exchanging one fight, one shoreline, for another, while also battling to resettle our people, raise the food we need to live on, and raise our defenses against those that will be certainly coming for us, even if it is on the far side of the world. It will be a battle for the survival of our nation and people... but if you, my people, survive, then Britain survives in one form or another, and one day we may, perhaps, return to reclaim what we were driven from.”
Hesitant heads nodded at that logic, especially those whose eyes fell on their children.
“The last choice is to learn from the wisdom of our ancestors, and to finally throw off the shackles of those who seek to claim our souls for their own. I have thought very deeply on this matter, and I can see no better way forward.
“We have exactly one great potential ally in this battle of ours. The world knows that the Beast Emperors of the Land have decreed that this is a time of trial, and they will not intervene to save us from the fangs of the deeps... but that is not true of the Emperors of the Sea.
“Of exactly one Emperor of the Sea in particular... the Greatest of the Whales, Emperor Leviathan.”
Breaths hissed out and sucked in all across the islands at the power of that name. All Humans who had attempted to defy Leviathan had perished, and preying on the Whales had rapidly fallen off once their Emperors had been stirred. There were still some few who set out for the precious oils and flesh that could be harvested from Whales, considered a brave and somewhat mad lot on the face of it.
“Once the scattered peoples of these islands had Totem Beasts, great and powerful Beasts who we lived in harmony with and who protected us from the trepidations of others. Some of them were benevolent, some of them malevolent and who considered us little better than cattle.
“It is our unique position as a tribe dwelling upon an island to declare our fealty and territory to be part of the demesne of a Land or Sea Emperor.
“The True Emperor of Europe cares nothing for Human lives, let alone ours, and will watch without pity as we are swept away by the forces of the Deep.
“But the Whales... they share the same enemies as we. They do not desire our lands, our territories, or our lives... but they are opposed to the same vile creatures as assail us now.
“The Whales are not our allies, and they are not our friends, but they are also not our enemies. They, too, will watch us die, for that is their way, much as we have looked on from afar as they battled against the deeps, glad they were being attacked and not us.
“But if we, the Humans of these islands, do what our ancestors once did, and bend a knee to an Emperor worthy of the title, then we do not become a people of these islands. We become a people of the Seas, of the Oceans, and part of an Empire upon which the sun has never set since before our forebears stood tall beneath it!
“I, Diana of the House of Windsor, the Shining Sage and Queen of England, have accepted that for my people and our nation to survive, and these lands to remain our own, that I will bend that knee to Emperor Leviathan, and swear my tribe to His service!”
Murmurs of disbelief, and much swallowing at the depth and iron will of that choice. The sheer humility of being forced to Swear to a Beast to save themselves-!
“But my word means little, my people. It is an empty promise if my tribe does not back me, and Humans, Humans are well-known to the Great Beasts to be fickle, and to defy their Rulers, to abandon them, turn upon them, and fight one another for dominance.
“I have been told... that Leviathan is listening.” Hairs rose on the arms and napes of everyone across the island nations, looking at the sky for some sign of the greatest of all Whales, feeling nothing, but somehow knowing in that second that it was truth. “He is not listening for me. He... is listening for you.
“He is not waiting to hear MY Oath. No, He is waiting to hear YOURS. Not the nobles, not the Sages, not the great Mages, the generals, the mayors, the wealthy. None of those distinctions mean anything to Emperor Leviathan.
“He will know your heart, and He will hear your words.”