Despite the itch to use the new ideas I had thanks to the ritualistic creation of the Grandmother’s temporary body, I knew that this wasn’t the time to experiment. No matter how big an improvement I might be able to make on my scrying constructs, the events that I wanted to observe were happening right now. There was simply no time, something I couldn’t change, no matter how much it annoyed me.
So, instead of trying to improve upon my previous work, I simply used what I had and could use. Scrying Constructs, formed from Darkness, anchored by small pieces of conjured Ice, interwoven with Wind Magic. These had probably done more for me than any combat magic, allowing me to gather knowledge without risking myself or one of my allies. They had their limitations, as every piece of magic had, but their limits were easy to accommodate and work around. They might just be the magic I utilised most by now, simply because there was no time at which gathering information was categorically the wrong approach. You could never know enough, as long as the need to gather information didn’t prevent you from acting upon incomplete information. As was the case here. No matter how much I wanted to improve my constructs, now was the time to act, not experiment.
Thus, a conspiracy of ravens took flight from Jademoon Tower, the different constructs largely controlled by the Spirit I had bound into the accessory I wore around my arm. By using the spirit, I could focus on directing the constructs rather than the mechanics of their flight, allowing me to spread my awareness across a much wider area. A part of me wondered if the sensation of wide-scale awareness and observation was similar to the experience I imagined the Gods to have. Could they simply observe the world from up-high, only interacting indirectly or through their constructs?
It would be interesting to learn just how the awareness of the different gods worked. Could they only observe something in contact with a part of their domain? It would explain why it had taken Sunna until morning to smite me, back on Mundus, when the Nidh?gg and I were wrecking the elven forest. Or was their focus even more limited, their observation limited to things close to one of their worshippers, possibly in addition to limitations thanks to their domain? Once again, I had so many questions, but I wouldn’t get any answers until I learned them for myself.
Answers to other questions, namely those centred around the Blessed City, were a lot more available. Practically on the tip of my fingers, ready to be plucked out of the fog of ignorance. Exactly what I wanted to do now.
My scrying constructs easily covered the distance between Jademoon Tower and the Blessed City. Their flight allowed them to ignore obstacles that would hinder any groundbound explorer, and their nature meant they didn’t tire, didn’t get distracted; they only followed my directions.
And, in this case, that meant that they allowed me to observe the Blessed City, and what I saw made me stare in disbelief for a second or two. It was almost enough to disrupt my connection to the scrying constructs; only experience and habit kept me in control. Without that, I would probably have lost control, possibly even disrupted the connection of the Bound Spirit, ultimately unravelling the constructs and causing their solid parts to fall from the sky.
From above, it looked as if the entire population of the Blessed City was concentrated in a single area. And, as large groups of people tend to be when in a very confined area, they were loud. My constructs were too high to make out anything useful, but I could easily hear the deafening noise, making it fairly obvious that this was one massive party.
A number of fires were burning, but trying to tell which had been prepared and set intentionally for warmth and which had started because someone had been careless was difficult. Hel, some of them might even have been set intentionally to cause destruction. Regardless, I could see two buildings burning, one that looked scorched, and a number of fires ranging from campfires to a massive bonfire, all with people standing around them, apparently celebrating. Some people were dancing, some fighting, others appeared to be talking, and a few might be playing some form of game or something like that. Lastly, quite a few looked to be fornicating, right there, out in the open and in the snow.
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That alone made me wonder, weren’t male parts supposed to shrink when exposed to the cold? How would that work when fornicating in the snow? Wasn’t the male part supposed to be sufficiently large, making shrinkage problematic? Or maybe the people down there in the snow were so far gone, possibly in the grip of the drugs Lia and I had unleashed, that it just didn’t matter, that they weren’t acting with any thought?
It was hard to tell, and if I was being honest with myself, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer. For once, my curiosity was tempered and stopped by the simple fact that I didn’t want to know the details, especially as finding them out would require me to investigate far too many bodies and their intimate parts. The only parts I wanted to investigate were Sigmir’s, once I brought her back to life.
The realisation that bringing her back to life included building her body, including those parts, distracted me briefly, causing one of my scrying constructs to drop in altitude a little too far. Realising that it would hit Sunna’s ward barrier any moment, I pulled back my mind. I even drew back the controlling spirit, letting the magic imbued fade away rapidly in an attempt to obfuscate my interest and presence.
A few moments later, I realised that the construct was already below the barrier’s height, meaning the raven should have been disintegrated by the powerful ward, the Darkness it was primarily composed of, burned away by Sunna’s divine power.
But nothing of the sort happened, as if the barrier was completely gone. The construct simply faded away as the magic I usually held together unravelled, but that was simply because I had dismissed it.
Needing confirmation, I let another of the constructs descend. It, too, managed to drop below the ward’s height and, again, nothing happened to it. I could see through it as usual, and now, I could even make out individual voices from the noise I had heard from up high. Mostly from a group of people who were, for some reason, singing Christmas Carols, their combined, relatively harmonious voice strong enough to carry up into the air.
But theirs was only one of many groups down there, so I continued to investigate. Only to find that this was one big mess. The people were completely out of it, their inhibitions completely gone thanks to the binary drug Lia and I had deployed, causing them to live out their desires to the fullest. How that interacted with the missing ward, I wasn’t sure, but I had a feeling that the ward, and its mind control function, had been a strong factor to keep cohesion in the Blessed City. Now that enforced cohesion was gone, leading to the complete and utter chaos I was observing below.
After observing the chaos for a few minutes, I decided that there was little sensible data I could gather. If I wanted to learn about the habits, mating or otherwise, of completely unrestrained humans, this would have been a prime opportunity. But those habits held little importance to me; there were other things I wanted to learn.
Namely, I wanted to know what had happened to Lorgar. I doubted that the alchemical concoction had been strong enough to subdue him, so he either had to be out and about, mixing it up in the mess below, or he was somewhere else, doing something.
Finding out what he was up to might just be the most important thing, if only because he was the nucleus around which the Blessed City had originally formed. He could very well be the reason why the chaos reformed into some form of order, though I doubted it. The people below, the entire mess, had all taken up a life of its own. To reforge the old order would take a miracle beyond even the Gods. It could only work if a large group of utterly chaotic and out-of-control humans collectively found sense and reason. Even without the drugs running through their system, I would consider that impossible; with the drugs, it was even more difficult.
Still, I wanted to find out where the stupid pony was while his city burned down around him, his people gripped in a frenzy of debauchery and excess. Chuckling to myself, I thought of the downfall of Rome, one of the original ‘Blessed Cities’, and the stories around its downfall. There was the tale of Nero, who had allegedly played the fiddle while his city burned, and there were tales of Caligula, who had planned to elevate his favourite horse to Consul. Here, we had a burning city, led by a horse.
Who might be playing the fiddle right now.
