Tree of Aeons

361.05

It was not hard to find Erasian Relics on a world made by Eras, especially worlds with incredibly long and almost continuous history. There were many things tossed aside over the centuries, and worlds like the Five Erasian Core Worlds, with their many generational and developmental layers, were definitely archaeological diamond mines. 

Here, on worlds where worship of Eras was strongest, the Descendants had to spend great effort to destroy old relics that went against their deviant teachings. 

"Here?" Edna asked, but at this distance, she could feel the subtly prickling of divine energy. Her enchanted pickaxe hit the rocks that covered the doors to one of the ancient buildings, hidden twelve layers underground. 

This layer, according to Gorkun, was at least one hundred and sixty thousand years old, though no one knew for certain. When Gorkun was made, records on some of the older layers were already lost. 

Or more likely, misplaced. The dwarves were very good at making notes and recording their history, and unfortunately for historians that came after them, dwarves were also very good at hiding their treasure. Dwarves would store things in places that only they remember and never tell anyone else. 

We came here because my roots penetrated deep into the subterranean layers, and I began to detect the presence of divine energy. That was usually a sign of the presence of relics, and the same detection method was also how we found many of the Sentinels. After all, Sentinels were just sophisticated, sentient relics. 

The door collapsed, and it revealed an ancient shrine to Eras. It was an incredibly simple place, plain colored walls, a single altar, and a stone pedestal. 

On that dust-covered ancient pedestal, there was a small steel chisel. Simple, unassuming. But made by Eras. An object made by a god and thus remembered.

"Well, look at that. A relic." Lumoof admired and picked up the chisel with a glove. From this distance I could feel the divine energy. It felt much weaker compared to the [Hawan Shieldbreaker], after all, that took a lot of faith points to create. Yet, it still felt solid, like a tool that would last an eternity. "A high quality one too."

"Do you think we can help turn more people into heretics with this?"

"If it has enough memories of Eras, we probably could." 

We needed more, if we wanted to counter the Descendants across all the worlds.

***

"It's practically unguarded?" Seva was surprised to find one of the many mind control and mental influence towers without many guards. 

It was, by design. 

After all, it was not hard for Lumoof, via the network of spying trees, to plant false information for the Descendants and the DoDA. Trivially easy for one of the roots and vines to pick up a report on the DoDA's desks and add in a few more statements that were not there before. 

Around the same time, the DoDA also received information that there would be an attack on a few other transmission towers, and naturally, there was a significant uptick in defensive personnel in all these locations.

We also needed to ensure that the DoDA was continued to be seen as a somewhat reliable source of information, so through our node tree, we shipped a group of disposable medium-grade golems and sent them to attack our 'false targets'. 

This ensured that the DoDA appeared as if they received correct information, and we wanted to lull the DoDA and the Descendants into believing that they were achieving small victories. It wouldn't last, of course, since none of the actual dwarves were at risk, so the spymasters in our service knew that the Descendants would quickly realize that their victories were 'false' victories. 

But it would be enough. 

Enough to buy us time.

Enough for a small window, for a group of heretics to sneak into the lightly guarded towers and hit it without them knowing.

The heretics were able to walk into the lightly guarded transmission tower and quickly took over the building. They didn't have much time, but they didn't need much. Half a day was all they needed. 

The towers, during normal times, were lightly guarded, with no more than five permanent guards. Very easy for someone with Edna's [invisibility] to put them to sleep and get all the necessary keys to the important rooms. 

It was so easy that Seva looked thoroughly uncomfortable at how well it went.

Edna could only tap on his shoulders. "When things go according to plan, sometimes they really are just this easy."

"What are you guys?" Seva said. The heretics largely understood us as a sizable external force, but these heretics had never left their homeworld, and so, they did not truly comprehend the scale or size of our military operations.  ɽàℕ𝐎ʙÈŞ

Our foes were higher level, but they were also widely distributed. 

Edna had already ensured that not a single guard was around.

Despite this, Seva and his team still felt nervous, and we noticed their hands trembling when they opened the doors to the transmission chambers. It was almost as if they expected to see Descendants waiting inside, like it was a trap. 

Lumoof said this was a form of emotional trauma and unsurprisingly common amongst many survivors of the peripheral worlds. Even the elven hero, Samahiro, still had to contend with momentarily relapses of their past trauma. 

The room was empty. 

Seva stared, unsure what to do. Edna walked in, she was already here a while ago to clean up the space. 

"We have about half a day. Right now the Descendants and the DoDA forces are engaged with a group of golems across four magical emission towers. Let's get to work?" Edna said, not because they didn't know it, but because she had to calm their nerves and remind them that they still had work to do. Not having to fight is just one of the advantages they had for the day.

Gorkun was the only one that reacted normally and walked in. "I'll get the relic ready."

They placed their prized relic, a silver toolbox made by Eras, at the heart of the transmission tower and activated the formation.

"Well, what's supposed to happen?" One of Seva's teammates asked. His face looked unnaturally pale, which he claimed was all the walking up the stairs. Edna knew better. They all did.

"Nothing. At least, not immediately. This thing should transmit memories and messages to the Erasians. It's how the Descendants kept us believing in their false god." Seva said, but he was still sweating.

"So, is it working?" 

"Honestly, I don't know." Seva said as he looked at Gorkun for an answer. Gorkun merely stood, and poked the formation some more. The golem rechecked the formation, checked the other attached artifacts for their magical records and then touched the relic. The relic glowed. Another pulse of magic burst forth and flew outwards. 

It was barely visible, like a small spherical wall of light, and would be almost invisible once it escaped from the room. The lower leveled heretics all momentarily saw a vision of Eras from a time long ago. It would be something everyone felt, including any Descendants nearby.

"That should do it." Gorkun said, clearly affected by the same magical transmission.

"Will the Descendants know?" 

"Only if they see the visions, but it looks like the formation already excluded them. So, not likely. This is why we need to sneak into these places undetected." Seva said. "Gorkun, how long do we need to wait?"

"Not too long. Let us just send three more bursts, and then we can run." 

They sent three more bursts of a new 'spiritual vision' through the formation, at an interval. Everyone except Gorkun and Edna looked nervous as if they were afraid of getting caught.

"Relax. The DoDA is having a good time defeating the golems." 

Seva's face was one of utmost horror. To him, golems were valuable resources! Gorkun continued to manipulate the magical formation and waited for the things to activate.

Edna shrugged. "Don't worry. I'll wake up the guards once we get out."

"Won't the guards figure out that we were here?"

"They would, but these guys slack around and as long as none of you left anything behind, we'll be fine." Edna answered. Personally, I was relieved that these magical worlds didn't have cameras and that sort of devices. Magical recordings and remote scrying did exist, but they remained so prohibitively expensive and complicated that they'd not made them into small surveillance cameras. That said, if they had something like my vines and roots or the White Statue's assortment of statues, we would not have been able to pull this off. "They'll just all say that they had a long nap."

"Got it."

"Don't leave anything behind, or take anything. The Oracles can still find us if there are certain types of personal identifiable items." Gorkun reminded the heretics. 

***

Elsewhere

Krena-Ra's gigantic hounds tore through the golems. The golems attacked in the cover of night, when there were only supposed to be a few guards. 

But there was a leak. The DoDA got a tipoff of some kind, it came from dwarves that spotted a group of golems massing close to a few of the mind alteration transmission towers. It suggested there was an attack, and so, the DoDA placed forces to react.

Battle. 

It was hard. The golems were actually quite strong. But no match for the demonic hounds, powered by a [Warlock]'s enchantments. 

The defenders successfully destroyed all the golems and began to dissect the remains.

"These are strange." One of the dwarven agents said as they inspected the remains of the golems. "Where are these golems being made?"

"Do they have a factory somewhere?" Another agent suggested. "It seems they have enough to launch attacks on four towers at the same time!" 

Krena-Ra's hounds began sniffing, and the hound's unusual reaction was telling. It didn't have a lead. It just wandered in circles as if the trail of where the golems came from led nowhere. It only solidified suspicion of a traitor. 

The dwarves began to go through the remnants of the golems, and it was immediately noticed the high quality of these golems. "Fairly certain these are not made in shacks. These metals are so perfectly formed and look at their joints. Perfectly lubricated and fused. These are the kind of works we only see from the Forge of Eras."

On another, they found a set of wonderfully high quality steel knives and blades. The investigators were quick to examine the remnants. "There's no way anyone in this world can make these kinds of high quality weapons. It needs a kind of high purity steel and specialized forging methods used in the Giant Forgeworks."

As they tore through the golems and found their shattered internal structures, it was increasingly clear that the golems could not be made with currently known facilities in the library.

"Let's assume that the heretics found some ancient relic that allows them to make these golems, then we should have someone look into large amounts of metal purchases." The investigators said. 

"Got it."

"Then, there must be a way they moved all these golems to these positions over the past few weeks. We can use these locations as the start of our search area."

But Krena-Ra stood around and continued to wait for his hounds to react. They didn't. 

"I don't think these were made recently." Another investigator countered. "These bronze parts appear fairly weathered. They might be shipped here."

"Shipped? How?" The group of DoDA investigators debated with each other. 

Another Descendant present at the battle came over and approached Krena-Ra. "What do you think of the dwarf's ideas? There's someone moving between worlds and using the Forge's factories?" 

"Who can move between worlds freely with no restrictions?" Krena-Ra asked. 

Each of the five core worlds' Descendants lived in their own cliques, even if they were 'working together'. They were allies of convenience. If not for their overarching goal of reviving the Reviver, Krena-Ra was fairly certain the Descendants would just claw at each other.

The other Descendant shrugged. "I don't believe that there are traitors."

"And yet?" 

"And yet, here we are."