The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2
Chapter 120

Part 18

"Damn. When I put the spell in the stone, I assumed that I'd cast it on me first, and I knew I'd be able to cast it on anyone else after that. It's set up so I can take it step by step without having to be in the big overpowered brainstorming Link to do it. But unless my brain is that charged up and I'm in a Link that big and that good, I can't modify the spell to be able to cast it on someone else first."

"May I Father?" Val asked as she floated over and held her hand out for the stone. "We have the brain-charging spell now, and with four of us in our Link, I might be able to figure it out." "Sure. It's the big one marked 'God Spell'." he told her as he handed it to her.

She concentrated on it for a moment, then frowned. "There are now two spells that I've found that are so weird that I just can't get it, they're obviously closely related, and if I didn't know better, I'd judge them to have been designed by The Triax. They're that weird. The first was the blessing you made from Alilia's curse, that can re-integrate you after you've been blasted to dust. And there's this. Okay, now add the other thirteen spells in here that you did in the big Link after you separated from us.

"I mean wow, you really got stuff done after we separated the Link, Father! This is beyond brilliant! I mean really, I can't even get what some of this stuff does!"

"Me neither." Mark shrugged. "I knew I'd understand them after I cast The God Spell, so I didn't bother making them as easily usable when I'm not charged up. It just goes to show that all the intelligence I got from the charge and the Link didn't give me any extra wisdom. I made a few short-sighted mistakes. When I was that smart, it was too easy to forget how stupid I'd be normally, and I never anticipated changing my mind about how I was going to do this."

"Well there's one thing we can do for you that might solve this, and we couldn't do it for many." Val assured him with a smile. "But I'm pretty sure we've got a good enough feel for you to do it for you, and you have the capability to use it. We can give you the brain-charging spell. It's pretty safe, and it only works when you need it."

"Hold on. There's some important issues that will need to be addressed." Six briskly stated. "The gods have a very longstanding policy that no god will exercise direct political rule or military command over mortals. I don't think any of them have ever done that, not even when their religions were powerful and influential. No god was ever a king, or an empress. Or even a prince.

"Yet many of your potential gods are presently rulers or senior members of ruling councils, including you, Mother, Alilia, Povon, Kragorram, Yazadril, Emeroth, Osbald, Senchak, Tithian, Somonik, and Empress Honey.

"So either gods must be allowed to be rulers, or we are about to experience the most sudden and complete political upheaval that this world has ever experienced.

"Now, it hasn't been decided by the Assembly yet whether the winners of The Governors' Tournament will actually get to rule, and if they do, we may have to deal with a political upheaval anyway. And most of the best contestants are also on the potential gods list.

"One way or the other, unless gods are allowed to rule, Kellaran is about to lose most of it's most capable and powerful leaders.

"And if it's decided that gods are allowed to rule, then most of the existing gods should join the tournament, as I've said. Though that would be changing a policy that's been in place for hundreds of millions of years, as long as there's been gods on Kellaran. If it's decided that gods will still not be allowed to rule mortal nations, then all your presently ruling candidates will have to abdicate in favor of their heirs or regents, and it'll take a while to get all the transitions done and get things running smoothly again. At the worst possible time.

"Furthermore, there are a lot a fairly important people in the time-bubbles right now, and they should have a chance for their voices to be heard on this.

"Besides, as you say, the new gods can have more time in more time-bubbles to get used to their new state. If we all work together, old gods and new and us, I'm sure we can find practical ways to increase the ratio of extra time in the bubbles, and increase them in size, and do it with less of the gods' resources.

"I suggest it should take at least seven weeks to fully decide these incredibly momentous issues.

He paused with a triumphant grin. "In conclusion, I am lodging a formal objection to the immediate Ascension of any ruling monarch or senior council member, including you, until these issues have been debated and decided by The Assembly and The Pantheon of Kellaran, in my official capacity as Governor of Hiliani. For whatever that's worth."

Mark grinned. "Thanks, Son. That's more than valid enough for me to delay the Ascension and satisfy my conscience about it, without having to admit to the world that I just don't want to." "Anytime, Father. For anything." Six grinned.

"Thanks. And by the way, which one of the prerequisites did you kids miss out on?"

"Well," Fire interjected rather forcefully, "We got instantaneous interplanetary communication, instantaneous interplanetary Translocation, world-encompassing awareness and the mental capacity to use it in real time, true immortality, restoration of the dead, world threatening power, and multiple simultaneous manifestations. And we're really rather proud of it all.

"Freedom from physical manifestation is the only one we couldn't get. We think some of the gods can exist as pure energy, or exist as an ongoing and self-powering psionic pattern, or exist in the Translocation medium while projecting their consciousnesses here. And they can do that without losing any of their other abilities, with no physical manifestation at all, then go back to being physical when they want to. We couldn't figure out how to do any of that, so we still need to have at least one physical body somewhere to anchor ourselves to, so to speak.

"We're not sure about teaching all of that to a lot of people, or even announcing it to the public. Mind you, The Prerequisites of Divinity aren't exactly secret, so anyone who researches them knows most of wha we figured out, they just won't know which one we didn't get."

"Amazing. So how do you know you're not gods, since you're only missing one prerequisite and you have other abilities of divine magnitude?" Yazadril asked.

"Well, we haven't made any real change in our state of being," Fire explained, "Which seems to be a fundamental part of becoming a god, according to the literature. We still breathe and bleed and sleep and so on. There's also the fact that to the gods, the Prerequisites are somewhat inherent abilities that they can call on at will at any time, the same way we can see and think. They don't have to consciously cast any spells to do any of that, they can just do it. We still have to cast spells for it."

"And we can't restore someone from the dead unless we've taken a new and complete kind of Reading of them before they died." Val added. "And they'd be restored exactly like they were when we Read them not like they were when they died, and they might be completely different by then. It basically does the same kind of Restoration that your Blessing does, but it works completely different. Ours isn't as weird as yours."

"I see." Mark chuckled, almost bursting with pride and love for his children. "Well as you said, you kids also really got stuff done in the Link. Those are absolutely incredible accomplishments!"

They shared a quick hug, then Mark let them go with a nod and a smile.

"Let's go back. We've kept them waiting long enough."

With that he Translocated himself back to the center of the podium, and the rest of them back to their place on the floor.

Quewanak was still waiting patiently for him on the dais. Mark gave his answer.

"My son; Prince Markhan Reginus Longstrider the Sixth, Governor of Hiliani, has raised a valid objection to the immediate Ascension of any serving ruler or senior governing council member, on the following grounds..."☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐

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