"My apologies. Was I supposed to make the bargaining of your sacred flames a mundane and easily-made deal of some kind? Perhaps under threats of death, slavery, bodily transfiguration, mass slaughter, Possession, Summoned demons, horrid weather, that kind of thing, to help your mental processes along?" I replied to Mistress Bessana archly. "It's not my normal style, you understand, but if you want me to start in on a horridly overblown rant on how you all best be quavering before my power, well, I do have some practice at that."

They really didn't know whether to be angry at me for buying into all the tropes, or to laugh at how little I thought of those tropes.

"What are you offering that we would even consider doing such a thing for you?" the probably ex-pirate Master Krisnedge inserted smoothly, showing that bargains were indeed a thing, even with such important belongings.

"I thought I'd build you a Pyramid."

Chairs scraped on the floor as I moved them and the hyn sitting in them back out of the way Telekinetically with Funf, opening up the middle of the room, unnerving them with my casual ease in doing so.

"A Pyramid is a form of Wondrous Architecture. It can be made in several forms, and this is not the relatively smooth version popularized by ancient Sythia and its mage-priests. I would not be building that design. Mine would be more analogous to the ziggurats in the older style and pattern."

A square of stone blocks fit itself together in Holo in mid-air, drawing their fascinated attention. They were black with crimson Runework, naturally enough, and they first fit together in a line, then a second line meshed sideways onto the first, and this was repeated over and over, until a square of conjoined blocks was formed.

Then a second line began, became a somewhat shorter one than the previous, formed a square, and the whole process sped up and stacked rapidly on top of one another to form a rote twenty-stepper Pyramid.

Fully formed, with a hollow temple at the top, and optional rooms and passageways showing inside the holographic schematics as I rotated the view for them… and then zoomed in to show it to scale, drawing gasps of amazement as I put hyn on the shelves of the ziggurat and they realized the blocks were twenty feet high!

"The primary purpose of this form of a Pyramid is defensive in nature. Normally, such things are built with the purpose of denying magical abilities that would present security issues. Such an edifice radiates, in a number of miles equal to twice the number of its tiers, a Pyramid Power Field, which typically is used to form a Stillflight and Interdiction effect by default.

"Combined, these two magical effects prevent beings entering them from displaying any form of unnatural flying ability, defiance of gravity, or the like, and they completely stop any form of dimensional travel, Summoning, Conjuration, or immateriality.

"This has the very useful effect of depriving hostile spellcasters of a great portion of their arsenal of mobility, and instantly hobbles the most dangerous of magical beasts, as they won't be able to fly within the PPF. They will be unable to Summon in attackers and defending beasts, they will be unable to Teleport in or out to evade guards, to turn ethereal to bypass defenses, and they cannot take to the skies and fly away from those they have done wrong."

A map of the Seven Shires, as it appeared from space, hove up before them all, and they gasped in delight at seeing it, especially as the slightly curving form of it was overlaid with the roads and national boundary divisions all around it.

The Pyramid I'd made triplicated itself, and shrank down into positions in the west, center, and east of the Shires on the map. Two transparent domes swelled out to the sides, buttressing a larger central one, and between them effectively covered the entirety of the Shires.

The hyn murmured in wonder at the sight, even as they grimaced at the idea of what it would take to gain something like this.

"The real surprise comes from the Pyramids' use as a temple, naturally enough, and the ability to radiate a single spell of relatively low power throughout its Power Field to all under its umbrella. This is generally set to Resist Disease, resulting in a great uptick in the general health and welfare of the land, its people, animals, and vegetation. But it could be adjusted to, say, Bane to Gnolls, turning everything in the entire area deadly to gnolls… including the gnolls themselves."

The hyn Masters swallowed at the implications, their eyes dancing as they considered everything they might be able to gift people with using such a power.

"Additionally, the interior of the Pyramid can be configured for multiple purposes. An emergency shelter, emergency stores, barracks, living areas, a temple… and of course, magic is flowing through the entire thing.

"I could, for example, even place a Lumina Tree into such an edifice, and configure the Pyramid there to enhance its power and life-force considerably, resulting in more ease of harvesting wood and leaves from it. Even a Dwarven Forge of Power could be fit inside one, and the amount of earthpower drawn to it magnified, so I imagine setting up chambers to magnify and enhance the growth and effects of your shadowfire would not be too onerous to accomplish… after sufficient study, of course."

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

I let those words hang as they stared at the idea of a protected nation and people, a place where wizards couldn't infiltrate at will, and couldn't flee as they liked, either.

It was a very attractive, seductive idea to any and all of them.

"You cannot, of course, pay me enough to do something like this. I am likely the only one on this entire planet who could make something like this, and it requires a substantial amount of my time and concentration to erect.

"As I say, trust is an issue."

The Holo collapsed into little motes of light with sad cries from a few of the Masters who watched it go. Quiet grew in the room as the hyn considered what I'd said and what I'd shown them.

I imagined the holy dark fires of their people didn't seem quite as precious and sacrosanct as they had not too long ago, judging by the expressions on their faces.

"Is this… something we could make ourselves?" Mistress Bessana asked hesitantly.

"I have no ideas of your current capabilities, arcaneotechnic learning, understanding of high-Valence spellcraft, or Artificing know-how, along with familiarity with crystal dynamics, sculpting skill, and Rune integration design and execution. So, if I can do it, surely you could LEARN to do it, could you not? Perhaps if you made a pilgrimage to one of the great Schools of Magic in Delpha, they'd teach you some of the fundamentals of Wondrous Architecture there and you could make an attempt at it. Say, with multiple Masters over multiple generations putting all the disparate elements together, and then motivating a workforce of thousands of hyn with the appropriate grandmaster-level sculpting capabilities to work for dozens of years on the project, after you've learned what you need to do?" I reasoned out logically. "In the meantime, what WILL those thousands of sculptors and stonemasons do for a living? Make garden elves while they wait for the day they rise up to carve up massive blocks of magical stone, lever thousand-ton blocks atop one another somehow, and do so for years while presumably getting by on the taxed coin and support of their fellow hyn, who probably won't really see the point of something that will take so long to build?"

They really didn't have the best expressions on their faces anymore. After all, I hadn't said no. I just said the kind of effort it would take for them to do this.

"And how long would it take YOU to do such a thing?" Master Krisnedge asked pointedly, the former pirate obviously seeing the hidden knife in my bland replies.

"Certainly no longer than a month, and potentially much shorter," I answered easily. "There are some new techniques I'd like to try out while doing this which might vastly accelerate matters."

That earned a shudder from all of them, imagining the Shires being home to the experiments of a Zanzyran-trained spellcaster.

"Are there alternatives?" Mistress Bessana went on calmly, as if it was all irrelevant.

"In payment? Not really, no. You have nothing I personally want… other than your eternal subjugation and unlimited adoration as my minions and servants, of course!" I dinged them expressionlessly, causing another round of amused smiles despite everything at the outright lie. "Defensive measures? Obelisks would do the same thing, but would be much easier to sabotage or destroy than a Pyramid, and would only have one of the defensive measures involved. They also lack much of the style and dominance of a Pyramid, and certainly the loss of benefits in comparison is substantial.

"I mean, it is possible to ring the Shires in a wall of Obelisks that prevent wizards from Teleporting in or out of your lands, and I presume you could get them up in only a few short years… once you know how to do so."

They all winced, because naturally they did not know how to do so.

"And we do not have anything to pay you with otherwise," Master Ondello sighed.

"I tend to charge exorbitant amounts of gold for employment of my talents, because, honestly speaking, I can excavate from the land more gold than you are capable of paying me in the same amount of time it would take me to accomplish something for you. Thus, we are exchanging time and favors, and for those, the accounting of goldweight takes a back seat.

"It rather seems to me that you are putting undue weight on the sanctity of your shadowfire, even knowing that I could simply go in and take what I desire from you, and you wouldn't even know I was there or how I did it. I would merely… not have to respect your privacy."

Which was just about the mildest of things wizards did, and which they were certainly guilty of doing themselves.

"I would also like you to put something in perspective." I tilted my head as they tensed. "Your very protective Immortals were once mortals themselves." They blinked. "At one point, the elves had no Lumina Trees. They had to gain an Immortal Patron of their own people, who made the Trees under His own power to empower and guide His fellow elves.

"You are mortals still. Immortals counter other Immortals, and that is the primary goal of your Patrons. You survived without shadowfire as a people for thousands of years, and I am not taking it away from you. I am studying it as to its other uses. It breaks your monopoly on the power, it does not break the power itself… and I did not say I would not share what I would learn with you.

"Allow me to reiterate the benefits of merely three Pyramids to the Shires." I considered them all, and waited for them to reluctantly nod.

"One, Interdiction. No form of dimensional travel into or out of the Warded area… except powered by Primal magic, such as your own. No more Teleporting, Blinking, Dimension Dooring, Ethereality, Planeshifting, Conjuring monsters, Summoning monsters, Gating monsters, or such shenanigans within the area, as an absolute effect.

"Given the nature of the incidents which brought me to this point, I would think that is a highly significant protection."

They nodded reluctantly again.

"Two, Stillflight. No flying other than by natural means. That means spells of flight, devices of magical flight, monsters that are too heavy for their wings to support, levitating beings will need to touch the ground, shapechanged beings in smaller forms – Yes, Master Nightswift, I am looking at you – and similar effects simply will not work. Anything that comes to threaten the Shires will be on the ground, or based on works of science, not magic… which meaning I leave to you and the gnomes."

That raised another grimace from them. No griffons, dragons, manticore, chimeras, rocs, or any other over-sized monstrosity coming in to prey on the hyn, in addition to no more wizardly flying engines or taking to the sky to avoid the slings and blades of vengeful hyn!

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