ATWinPC-18

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==Chapter 18 - A Toreel Wizard in Prince Davion's Court==
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===Taking the road less traveled===
Jumpship Hank Morgan
Jump Point
Euschelus System, Taurian Concordat
October, 3025
~about an hour later and a jump point away~
Doug rested his head in his hand when the message finished playing.
"That bad, huh?" Rick asked from over at his station.
"Let me put it this way," Doug said. "They're already on their way back, but they'll be a bit late because they're going to have to coast for about half a day. Not enough fuel."
"They couldn't even get a refuel?" Rick asked. The cranky little tub they'd been using, or rather the cranky little tub the could afford for this ridiculous expedition, didn't have much in the way of tankage. The intention had been to top off on planet. Even a water poor world that could support a population of twenty thousand could spare enough water to crack into hydrogen fuel. And normally, even Taurians would sell fuel to Davions passing through, particularly if they could gouge them for it. So... "What the hell happened?"
Doug sighed. "According to them, Chim 'helped out,'" he said. "And we've probably been flagged as pirates. So we need to keep an eye out for any angry Taurian patrol boats that might turn up." Fortunately, there wasn't much chance of that. Euschelus didn't have spaceborn infrastructure or any permanent naval garrison. But better safe than stumbling blindly into another catastrophe. 
"So, taking the alternate route then?" Rick asked.
"We're sure as hell not passing through Amber Grove," Doug replied. Unless they wanted to head back the way they came, they'd still need to make one jump through Taurian territory before crossing into the Federated Suns. An actual inhabited world, though, was a terrible idea. Fortunately, there were a lot of options that weren't inhabited. "We'll jump to Masterton once they're back. After that... how do you feel about hitting Hyalite's L1?" 
Rick shrugged. "I've done it before, and all the necessary date's in the jump computer. It shouldn't be a problem."
Doug nodded. "Good. The sooner we've got AFFS guns close by, the better I'll feel about this whole thing." He sighed again. "Great adventure", he said. "Strike out into the unknown.", he said."
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===Never say Never===
G-class cargo carrier dropshipIn Transit
Euschelus System, Taurian Concordat
October, 3025
~about a day later~
This body was more intact than the charred skull they'd used last time. Celia had taken him down with a single clean strike from her sword to the neck. Not at the right angle or close enough to remove the head, she hadn't been close enough for that, but it had severed the artery and opened his throat. The man had died messily. 
L'heo hadn't objected to the spell, but he had pointed out that this would pretty much use up their supply of diamonds. He didn't think the man had deserved to die and have his soul cast into the oblivion that lay beyond life around these parts, but... well you couldn't save everybody. 
Still, Chim could save him. A presumably good person had died because of his superior's fear, and because Chim hadn't realized that was even a possibility. So the least she could do was make it a little bit right. Though if she was honest, it wasn't just altruism. 
If this worked, L'heo would object to what came next.
"Not that I object to you calling upon profane power to spit in the face of God's creation and defy death itself," her 'prisoner'... Bert?... said. "But he's not going to come back as some ravenous zombie or vampire or something?"
Chim gave him an annoyed look, but didn't respond.
"We don't talk about the whole undead thing around, Chim." Polly said from his spot next to her. "She's sensitive."
Chim stuck her tongue out at Polly. 
"It's also not the same kind of magic," L'heo said. "Either your friend's soul will come back and restore the body to life, or nothing will happen. If it works, resurrection is a bit physically draining, but mentally they should suffer no ill affects."
Like before, a crowd had gathered to witness things. Everybody not currently necessary to run the ship (all of two people) was currently in the cargo bay keeping a respectable distance from the corpse and the small pile of diamonds next to it on the floor. 
"You shouldn't get your hopes up," L'heo said. Chim wasn't sure if this was directed at Bart or at her. "It's... not likely to work."
Yeah, Chim reasoned. That was the working theory at least. The last one had been dead for less than an hour. This one had been gone for over a day, maybe far too long to expect a soul to survive in that mindless chaos outside the material.
Except... Chim was beginning to wonder about that...
"Even if it does work, what next?" Bob asked. "I'm not saying you're not the most polite captors or anything..."
"Normally we would have stuffed you in an escape pod and sent you home already." Trisha (Captain Trisha!) said. "But this piece of shit tub doesn't have escape pods. We'll drop you at our next port of call and you can try to arrange passage home from there."
Okay, enough banter, Chim started casting. It would only take a few seconds, but when casting at this level, it always felt longer. In her minds eye she was reaching into the void to grasp the raw threads of creation. Raw magical energy warped and shaped to her will, bent into familiar forms, in this case made to emulate powers normally denied of students of the arcane. It always felt just a bit thrillingly transgressive to mimic the powers normally reserved for servants of the Gods.
And she could see it too in her minds eye, out there, in that maddening void, a bright spot sailing through it, alone, and yet not alone. Very much intact, maybe even alive. "All right," she muttered breathlessly, "come on home. Your friends will be missing you." 
She released the power, and the universe responded. The wound on the once dead man's neck closed, color began to return to his once pale and lifeless body. If you looked close enough you could see the sudden twitch in his neck as his heart abruptly started pushing blood through his arteries once again. His eyes snapped open as he sucked in a breath.
The rush was such that Chim found herself dropping into a sitting position, unable keep the grin off her face.
Because she'd finally 'got' it. "Gods I'm dumb," she said, then looked over to L'heo. "You too. Gods are lazy you said. The most obvious answer right in front of our face and you went with the Gods were lazy."
"Chim," L'heo said calmly. "You're being manic again."
"I have a right to be!" Chim replied. "I know how she did it. Rasma!" she shouted at the overhead. "You magnificent transcendent being, I read your book!"
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===Welcome Back===
Brett was checking on Recruit Bensiger while the little Wizard was ranting at ceiling lights. 
"How're you feeling?" he asked the trooper, who seemed to be still adjusting to the idea of being alive.
"Last thing I remember everything was fading out and my Mamma was telling me it was time to go," Bensiger said. "Mamma's been dead for years..."
"Well... yeah," Brett said. "You were... umm..."
But the girl interrupted. "Exactly!" she shouted excitedly. "See L'heo?" 
The old guy shook his head. "You hallucinate when the brain shuts down," he said. "We both know untethered souls don't have that kind of cognition. How much do you remember from those times you were dead?"
The girl waved it aside. "That's not the point!" she protested. "You're not getting what I'm saying!"
"It's because you're not saying anything coherent," L'heo replied.
Recruit Bensiger looked over to Brett. "So I was dead?" he said.
"Yeah," Brett replied, secretly relieved that the guy got there on his own. "The raving little nutcase over there brought you back."
"Brought me back?" Bensiger asked. "Like a doctor, like zap until the ticker beats again?" He reached up to his throat. "No scar, no stitches." He looked around himself. "And this looks an awful lot like a dirty warehouse. They did emergency surgery here? I've got so many questions."
That's when the realization hit Brett. Bensiger and Tolles had been watching the ship when it all went down. There was no way he'd know about anything that happened. Or just what they'd found themselves in the middle of.
"It's... complicated?" Brett said.
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===I'm helping in bring joy and mirth!===
Trisha was beginning to understand why Doug always looked like he was on the brink of a migraine. "Is there any point in me asking you what the hell you're talking about?"
Chim looked over to her. "We have Gods back home, like actual Gods. Not a metaphor. I've personally met most of them. The oldest one is known as Rasma, maybe the oldest living being in the universe... or at least we thought so until we found out your part of it stretches literal eons beyond it. We didn't even have a concept of eons before we met..."
"Chim, focus," L'heo said. 
"Right, anyway. Rasma rules over the plane of judgement. People die, their souls journey to that plane, where they're judged by their deeds and shunted off to an outer plane appropriate to their alignment." The girl's eyes glistened with a manic glee. "These planes aren't just built as a final reward or punishment, they are literally made up of those souls, shaped by them, defined by them. They are entire life bearing realities shaped by the souls that compose them. People don't find peace in heaven or suffer punishment in hell because of divine will. It's just the inherent nature of these realms."
"Okay," Trisha said. She wasn't sure what else to say, really. She was pretty sure she was following the basic concept of what Chim was saying, but not why it would cause the girl to start ranting like a lunatic.
Chim looked a little frustrated at Trisha's reaction. "Rasma didn't create our higher planes," she said. "And they didn't always exist, either. She created places to store souls floating freely in the beyond, then she created some sort of sorting algorithm to sort those souls by their nature. The combined quintessence of so many like minded souls together in one plane is what created each higher plane!"
"So..." this was apparently a big deal for Chim, but Trisha still didn't see the point.
"So," Chim said. "I need to borrow a closet you don't need for a few hours." 
That.. uh... almost sounded like something that finally made sense to Trisha (excitable young people trapped on a ship with no outlet and all that), but the look of alarm on L'heo's face told her that maybe she was still missing something.
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==Chapter Notes==
*;Author's Chapter Notes : Reader Question 1; Rereading and I'm a bit suprised by how little ... consequences? the abduction of the Captain and members of the crew when they jumped universes has had. Should the Arch Mage and Celestial Being be investigating, trying to track what happened and working on a way to rescue them? It seems like everybody just shrugged and said 'oh well, stuff happens, what are you going to do?' and moved on.I mean sure, there a good chance nothing can be done, but no seemed to even try.Author Answer; The Arch Mage wasn't abducted. She volunteered to accompany them as part of a diplomatic mission. She even named someone to stand in for her while she was away.I haven't gotten much of a chance to go into what's going back home, but I hope to in the future. In the meanwhile, I'll say that Polly is sending regular short reports to his superiors and "oh well" is the furthest response from their minds. Author Comment; Funny thing is that, working from the Pathfinder cosmology, the time limit might not apply the same way.The planar handbook says that the absolute limit on high level resurrection is actually because after that point the soul has reached the boneyard and is awaiting final judgement or has passed on to its final resting place. Up to that point it's fair game for recovery.Of course lower level spells have a shorter time limit, so it's clearly harder to recover a soul the further along on its journey it is.Long story short, Chim isn't sure how long the time limit is on this side, whether souls bounce around forever or eventually fade. The only way for her to determine that will be by repeated experimentation.
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