“It IS rather nice, and makes up for my shortcomings in Mana compared to other Sages,” I agreed calmly at the Dark Daughter’s assertation. “Starting at eight times the amount of power they have for their Sage spells gives me an edge they are generally not prepared for.”

As in, my Sage spells were almost the equivalent of a Ritual Spell against a normally Cast spell. Add in Seeds and Blessings, all of which I could stack into my one Starfield, and yes, I could totally be overwhelming with a Typeless Universe.

Since my Seeds stacked with one another as long as I added the appropriate Mana to a spell, it got sick fast, and wasn’t something an Elemental mage could equal, although the Meshing Method could certainly help.

“So, let me summarize,” Ruronalee interjected smoothly, sensing opportunity. “All of us are supposed to be trapped in transit right now to the mortal plane, and are beyond the sight of the Lords of Light and the Netherworld.” I nodded at her, amused at her attempt to assert control. “All of us need to cleanse an Element and reduce it to Typeless to free ourselves of our ties to those Realms. You’ve given us the time and means to do so by bringing us here.” She paused as I nodded slightly. “Will you give us access to the Vivic magic, too?”

“You cannot add Vivus to a spell without being a wizard, unless you are wielding an Implement. Furthermore, engaging in outright slaughter just to harvest Soul crystals for yourself will immediately draw the attention of Beast Rulers and Emperors, and they will snuff you for it, and likely immense numbers of other Humans, in retaliation for such effrontery. It is an improved consequence of existing conflicts and battles. If you use it to justify and motivate additional fights, the Emperors will respond exactly in kind, and you can kiss most of the Human population of the world goodbye.”

The ambition and greed in her eyes were checked a little, and in Mok Fan’s, too, although Gabriel only nodded agreement.

“If you want Soul Crystals, the best place to get them is in the Dead Zones, now that the littoral raids around the world are done, and even the standing Littoral Zones are quiet after the civil war in the deeps.”

“What was that about?” Mok Fan promptly blurted out. “All we’ve heard is that the creatures of the seas were fighting one another!”

“Oh, I gifted The Sea Emperor an Obelisk which purified the Manafield and Waters within a mile of it of any Dark Mana. It just so happened to reveal that several members of His Court were users of Dark Magic and had been tempted and corrupted by the Netherworld.

“It turns out that the second most corrupted set of Beasts in the world were the Aquatics, and there was some pretty hefty Dark Mana use down in the depths of the Oceans. Who knew?” I had such an innocent expression as I shrugged and raised my hands helplessly.

“Oh, my. And the Sea Emperors are so arrogant, too...” mused Gabriel aloud, quite delighted by that turn of events.

“And now they are buying a million Vivic Braziers from me to purify the oceans, and likely millions more once they realize just how big a job it is,” I added calmly.

“Buying?” Ruronalee gasped at me. “You... got the Aquatics to PAY for something, after everything they’ve done to humans for the past five years?”

“Well, you didn’t think I was just going to give them the things, even if it’s to help save the world, right?” I replied from the wrong angle, momentarily wrongfooting her. “The slaughter of the Aquatics the Netherlords lured over did absolutely nothing to change our future. The Netherlords are after human souls, they really don’t care much about the Beasts at all. If all the Beasts in the world died abruptly, it would not change the actions of the Lords of Light or Dark one iota.

“I think that particular move brought us a lot of lives and goodwill for the Church of Heaven, which helps our efforts, but it didn’t delay what was happening in the metaplan basically at all.”

“What... was supposed to happen?” Gabriel asked hesitantly.

“The Synod was finally going to get off its butt and pitch in around Europe, trying to reclaim some dignity and faith. Unfortunately, they were about three days too late as they were mobilizing, and their enemies all evaporated first. So, they only earned for themselves reputations as fence-sitters and isolationists unwilling to help their fellow humans. Stacked onto the fact they actually created the whole situation, and faith in them is plummeting like a rock.” I sent another glance at Gabriel, who looked very perturbed and unhappy at that. “I don’t like kicking on your beliefs while they are down, but I have records of the things the Synod and Church of Light has done over the past two thousand years.

“Do you know that they’ve killed more humans than any other force in existence during that time?”

She blinked, started to open her mouth to auto-reject that, and I just pursed my lips, stopping her voicing her words. “That...”

“They were going to sacrifice a faithful, loyal, loving, and devoted servant so her husk could create the prophesied Savior, trading off the good image you’ve worked hard to earn to do so. They’ve tried to assassinate me numerous times, and slaughtered over fifteen thousand people in trying to do so, even working with invading Aquatics and trying to manipulate the Black Curia to do so.

“The Church of Light is not what you think it is, and the Synod is a collection of heartless bastards who will wipe out entire human nations in the blink of an eye if it furthers their cause. They are only better than the Dark Curia in that they operate in the light... but they have used that to justify the literally tens of millions of deaths they are responsible for, covering up their massacres by blaming others or simply squelching all news related to their atrocities.

“They are the weapons of the Lords of Light, Miss Afione. No more, and no less, and they were going to burn away your soul and make your body into yet another one of them, and that is nothing but Truth.”

It was only an echo of the real thing, but they all still flinched at it, helpless to do anything but to believe my words were true.

The former Archangel Gabriel closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “You have records of what they have done?”

“Oh, yes. I’ve heard many, many tales from Emperor Beasts about them and their slaughters and shaping of Human civilizations, which the Emperors have watched with great interest. The heroes who have died at their hands, the innovations silenced, the wars fought, the massacres and the murders.

“Of course, I had to verify many of them for myself, getting the names, places, and details down. It would probably not surprise you to learn that such a thing was not very difficult for someone with access to the Time and Divination Elements.”

“Divination Element?!” they all squeaked together.

I reached into my Pocket and drew out a pretty hefty tome, nearly the size of a man’s chest, and thicker than my bicep. It was of new design and construction, if all natural components, and I hefted it easily.

“There are electronic records elsewhere of the deeds I recorded in here, of course, but I wanted a record that wasn’t susceptible to technology crashing. After finding out just how badly the Kabbalists were misled and redirected, I went all the way back and spent a lot of hours in my downtime just looking at events of the past, often with Emperors giving me directions on the when and the where to look, even looking over my shoulder as I did so.”

I set the weighty Tome down in the middle of the table, and let go to regard it with the expression the poison inside it deserved. “While not as truly vile as some of the things the Black Curia did and came up with, the Curia never did manage to equal the death tolls of the Synod. They were truly efficient in their killing, and the Curia made superb scapegoats.” My eyes glittered darkly. “At least a third of the events you’ve heard as the Curia being responsible were set into motion by the Synod, including some of the greatest abominable deeds of human against human in history.”

Ruronalee was staring at the book with the gaze of someone who wanted to know, and was realizing the implications of knowing. “Did... the Goddesses of those times know?” she asked after a moment of just staring at the book.

“Of course they knew. The Acropolis has many, many connections on both sides, and this last Great Mother of the Hall of Muses was not the first high-ranking member of the Acropolis to serve as a Dark Cardinal or the Black Hierophant of the Curia.” Ruronalee flinched, any internal visions of the sanctity of the Acropolis left inside her crumbling at that confirmation of the missing Great Mother’s status. “Yes, the Curia reached deep into the truest bastion of White Magic in all the lands, and leeched eagerly off of the Acropolis and its influence. The framing of your foster father was merely one more such ploy, Miss Ruronalee. They’ve never managed to corrupt someone who held the Soul of Hera, of course, which is one reason why they wanted to get rid of it so badly, leaving the Acropolis wide open as a sweet fruit to be plucked.”

“I have to read that,” Gabriel said softly, and I nudged the tome over to her with a flick of a finger and Zeben’s TK.

“We aren’t expected anywhere for eleven months,” Mok Fan repeated, to be sure of things, and I nodded back to him. “Show me what we have to do. I’ve got two Dark Elements, so I’ve got more work than either of them. Let me get to work.”

“Well enough. Gabriel, why don’t you share with Ruronalee, I’m sure you’ll both find it fascinating to read. When you’re done, I’ll show you how you can help one another get rid of your Stars by playing the energies in each against one another.”

The looks the two young women gave one another were thoughtful, and both of them nodded. If it would make the process easier, more cooperation was certainly not outside the bounds of possibility...

---------

Two Castings of Widened Continental Commune to wrap the whole world.

My range on the spell was over a six-thousand-mile radius, doubled by Widened, meaning among other things that I could look right down into the heart of the planet and study all the geological features that scientists had worried about over the ages.

I Cast the spell from the northern end of North America, near Thunderbird’s territory, and from the southern shore of Australia. The areas of the spell overlapped, as the combined range exceeded the diameter of the Earth, and I could look at it all.

Not even the High Emperors could look at the entire planet with quite as much detail as I was, although they had similar awareness of the Manafield and its flows above the mantle.

Given this was Natural Magic, the works of Humanity and their artificial nature presented blots of interference to the spell, but those weren’t what I was looking for.

In the space of twelve hours, I filled in dark spots on the Map of Markspace to a level of detail nobody alive had even considered possible. Most specifically, of the oceans and seas of the world.

The seafaring nations of the world had rough ideas of the territories of the Sea Tribes, especially the powerful ones that were not afraid to harass or sink Human shipping. However, those were merely rough areas, knowing where to travel between territories so as not to disturb them and draw attacks from them.

I gave the Markspace a perfect topological map of the underseas, including very, very precise locations of the lairs, dens, cavern systems, and underwater cities and the like of the Sea Tribes.

I also gained a complete and very accurate picture of the Manaflows, Ley Lines, and ocean currents of the entire world, including the primal Earth and Fire Mana constantly oozing up out of the core of the entire world, and the systems and interactions relevant to the Light and Fire Mana streaming in from the void between us and the sun, with an acuity that rivaled or exceeded that of the Emperors.

But now I knew where the lairs of the Aquatics were, as well as some other surprises...