The Minds of Almantha

[Landis963]

OK, take three. Don't fail me now, server.

It's not an idiot ball if he honestly had no choice. "Gimme your spot, or your civilization is charcoal", is a pretty decent threat if you're an Ancient Red Dragon. Arrusif was kinda noble for doing what he did.

The switch was Arrusif's idea, and to be fair he didn't have much choice (His spot as Mind was his only real bargaining chip, and Arrusif knew that any other thing he could give would only result in slavery or crispy annihilation (Or slavery ending in crispy annihilation, for that matter). Thus Arrusif began to plot the downfall of Obsid. Plan A was much more direct than the roundabout Lich conversion plan, as a matter of fact it was the "Why don't we just kill him" plan. After several things went wrong (the first being "oh s**t he heard us coming" and devolving in a hilarious, Aeon-Fluxish fashion (the cartoon, not the movie w/ Charlize Theron) from there), Obsid was holding court a few hours later, gloating that intruders were like "dinner and a show" for him.

Plan L (for Lich) was when Arrusif was getting desperate; no plan to stab, poison, or otherwise kill Obsid had panned out, the day of ascension was approaching (it had to be then; there was a Day of Hollow Moon approaching in Revien, which meant that it would be bathed in power for a day, all of which would go into the ascension ritual, and too much energy had already been expended to let the opportunity slip away). Saala, once she learned of Arrusif's deal, refused to allow him to go back on the deal, not least because if he didn't, that's an already ancient dragon ready and willing to wreak havoc when all four of them would be at their weakest (all four would ascend into their nexi at the same moment, and wouldn't sense much beyond their nexi until they were returned to their cities and could begin to hook into the ley of their lands ( nyar har)). Also, not only would the newly minted Mind of Obsid be able to sense an attacker as he struck, it would also be dishonorable (something intensely grating to a highly lawful person). Saala was sorry for Arrusif's predicament, but there wasn't much she could let him do and still remain true to herself. She left the group in tears, returning to work on the flying city that would house her Mind and her people. Arrusif then met with Dekon and Aqua (both of whom were willing to help him and were shocked at Saala's abandonment), and this last chance at a long-term plan took shape. Arrusif, once he had taken a poison to make it appear as though he died in his sleep (this was part of the mind switch gambit that would put Obsid on the throne), would be carried to Dekonio in state, where Dekon would begin work on the vine-muscles Arrusif would use. Aqua would start work on memory systems so that Arrusif would have something other than short-term memory loss (this eventually led to her wetware project at the bottom of the lake). This necessity was found by Arrusif's own necromantic experiments, when he found that when dead souls return, they remember everything they remembered in life, but constantly forgot what they learned after death. These experiments also led to the ritual that would bring him back and encase him in his own remains. Dekon later added the controls for the vine-muscles, and Aqua keyed the incoming soul to a phylactery (a tank of water oft-mistaken for a fish tank; to complete the illusion Arrusif bought some beaconfish (a glowing jelly-like invertebrate often found attached to rocks by a single tentacle) and stuck them in there) Saala, in an attempt to make amends, edited the ritual so that the disparate elements worked as a cohesive whole.

The day arrived, Arrusif took the poison, his body was puppeteered by Aqua into a carriage that took him to Revien, into the chamber reserved for their ascension (Obsid had flown there by night, and had been hooked into the system while the other Minds arrived), and then laid to rest by Dekon beneath the ascension floor. The time arrived, the power flowed into them, preserving and preparing their consciousnesses for installation into the nexi, and the deed was done. Chosen attendants (who had been prepared for most of their lives for the honor of protecting and escorting the nascent gods to their thrones to unlock their full potential) entered and packaged up the nexi. Then they gathered up royal carriages of their elements (Obsid's attendant rode home on a fireball, Saala's used Wind Walk, etc.) and escorted the Minds to their homes, and facilitated their installation.

At this point, Dekon got to work. He grew a single root all the way back out to Revien, where it wrapped around Arrusif's coffin. This root then began to recoil beneath Dekonio, pulling the coffin (in Revien) slowly along with it. Aqua held her breath and tried to distract Obsid whenever she suspected he might be nearing the truth (She needn't have bothered - Obsid thought that Arrusif was out of the picture, having seen his dead body enter the ascension chamber then fall down dead). Meanwhile, Dekon did some distraction of his own - verbal meddling, some slight reworking of the weave of his branches, not enough to interfere with the steady progress of the coffin towards the Dekonian forest, mainly for the benefit of those already living in Dekonio. Once the coffin was under the tree and safe, he began the work in earnest. Dekon had already tried enlisting Obsid's help in casting the spell, but he had proven unresponsive. Mainly because he wasn't a complete idiot - Obsid bore Arrusif no love, and all the Minds knew Arrusif had tried to kill Obsid in the past. They couldn't trust the fire mages (can't have the risk of a well-meaning assistant blabbing it by mistake, and besides the newly-formed Ominak Industries sold smart security systems as well as constructs), and so Dekon decided to hide the creation of a magic-using race within the creation of a gift to Obsid, to buy his good will. This led to the experiments with creating life, and the eventual creation of the goblins (Dekon's aim) and the nomon (Dekon's published aim). Once the process was perfected and the goblins willing to cast the spell to bring Arrusif's soul back, Dekon had everything he needed.

Wow this took a long time to get out. I'll put Obsid's gambit in the next post, then Arrusif's reaction, leading up to the present.