The Curse of the Sahara was famous world-wide. Wander into Sand Emperor’s domain, and you lost all sense of direction. Without line of sight, you would be hopelessly lost and eventually die of thirst or to the Beasts there, unable to find your way out without external help, a magnificently subtle and cruel way of guarding His borders.

That Curse was exactly what I was looking at now.

Unsurprisingly, it had little to no effect on many Beasts. As Reynard had helped me prove, alien Beasts weren’t lost, instead being pushed to the outside of the domain by the constant mental pressure that they were intruding on Sand Emperor’s lands and should leave. Native Beasts didn’t feel the pressure, although they knew they were in Sand Emperor’s lands, which was only reassuring to them.

The Curse really picked up when it sensed Human Stars, or Dark Mana, both of which were deeply intertwined in this area. The Pharaonic Deathlands were at the opposite edge of the desert, and Sand Emperor had been looking at the Undead there and the Realm Lords behind them for at least four thousand years.

The reaction to Human Stars also included any Beasts Contracted to a Human, so they would get as lost as a Human would entering the Sands. They were freed only when their Contracted Human died, perhaps at their own starving hands? Likewise, any Beasts or Creatures with Dark Mana lost their way as well, meaning any Undead or Shades roving into the Sahara would be lost until they could return to their home plane, or they were slain by servants of the Desert.

I was looking at the spell Sand Emperor had woven to do all of that, and just shaking my head as I did so.

It had probably taken Sand Emperor a hundred years just to Cast the thing, and the amount of Mana that was invested in it, and continued to be invested to expand it, was just unreal. The Great Flood could not encroach on the Sahara. Where they touched, the desert pushed into the sea, it was not buried at all.

Unsurprising, given the complexity and investment in the Curse that I saw in front of me.

I knew several ways around the effect, mostly because Sand Emperor had no true knowledge of Divination magic and thus couldn’t fully cloak the spell. Likewise, the right technology attached to trackers and stuff could still give those inside a direction to go in, although sticking to it was a secondary problem.

But without access to those things, intruding on the Sahara for anyone below a half-Sage was likely a death sentence without help or real physical care taken to allow you to retrace your steps, because you weren’t going to leave a trail or remember the right way to go, and the landscape would change both in reality and perception with every step you took.

Insidious and long-lasting, cruel and merciless. It summed up most of what was known about Infinite Sands High Emperor, who was the most anti-social of the three High Emperors. Even Ice Emperor dealt more with His underlings than Sand Emperor did, to the point where Africa’s Emperors didn’t look to Him for guidance, only interference they were helpless to stop.

I could devise something to bring His domain down, and more importantly, something else to restrain its growth. The question was what kind of reply it would generate, and it was probably something nobody wanted to confront.

After all, there was no Land Emperor who could defy Him alone; it would take a dozen or more True Emperors just to withstand Him, let alone beat Him. If they did not truly stand together, then He could just pick them off one by one easily.

It was... a problem I had no hope of addressing by myself, and only with great difficulty with a whole bunch of others. The amount of Mana required to cancel out His entire spell would take years for thousands of Archmages to gather, and fat chance he’d just sit there and let us do it. Even a Realm Lord was probably going to have to put in a lot of effort to dig Him out of His domain.

It wasn’t hard to deduce Sand Emperor’s ambitions, just looking at the spread of the Sahara over the centuries. Whether He decided to expand south into Deepest, Darkest Africa, or laterally into the Middle East, then up or east into Europe or Asia, there was nothing to stop Him from doing so. Unless many, many True Emperors, like the whole Court of K’un’lun, got together to resist Him, He could turn all of Eurasia and Africa into deserts with time.

If lesser Beasts could not resist Him, that was on them, not on Him. After all, He did not care about the green spaces where so many other Beasts lived, especially Humans...

Those expansions would also put many of the lands most populated by Humans under His influence, enabling Him to control our numbers with starvation and drought, forcing us into ever-smaller areas to live and into conflict with more and more Beasts, thereby reducing the amount of Dark Mana coming into the world, and the influence of the Lords of Light.

Trumping His Maze of the Sahara Curse would do nothing. We could slaughter the Beasts who lived there all we liked, we still dared not intrude on Him, and He was the only thing that was actually important. The Beast Tribes of the Sahara rarely ventured out of it, already living in an ideal environment. They basically warred with one another for internal territory, not the ever-growing borders that delivered more territory to them.

There was something I could do that would restrain expansion of the desert. It would be passive, and would not stand up to Sand Emperor’s personal attention... if He bothered to bestir Himself.

Pyramids would certainly do the job, but they’d take too long to construct to be really effective, and weren’t necessary, when it came down to it. If it was something that could be brought down easily, I wanted it to be something that could be put up easily.

It was time to ask the local Kings and Emperors if they’d like me to put up some Obelisks.

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War Talon Eagle Emperor inspected the Obelisk closely, while Kings Koga, Ironhide Treebreaker, and Cloudspike looked on from the side. Unlike the Emperor Eagle, the Ape, Elephant, and Rhino were Earth-biased, and so very interested in what I’d done.

The Eagle naturally towered over all of them slightly, Emperors being unduly huge like that, even given what kind of Beasts they were, and His power naturally suppressed them greatly. While He wasn’t Thunderbird’s equal, the Warrior Eagles of Africa were still a mighty and respected Bloodline. Many of the legends of Rocs in the world were actually started about the Commanders and Rulers of the Warrior Eagle lineage. Emperor Garuda was a cousin of War Talon, such as it was.

“What plans for the Fire Seed, Healer Fae?” War Talon Eagle Emperor asked curiously, his great gold and black eyes examining the flow of Mana with great interest. The two Nodes inside the Obelisk were quite apparent to him for what they did.

“Your Majesty, I was hoping to save those for the local Humans who agree to help protect the Obelisks and work with the Beasts. The Node is only configured to generate a Soul Seed, unlike the Earth Node, which progressively builds a basic Spirit Seed and improves it to a Soul Seed over the course of a year, allowing it to be used for younger Warriors and Servants, or allowed to accumulate for Commanders or Nobles.

“Most of the Fire Beasts of Africa have actually moved into the Sahara and are minions of Sand Emperor, although I think there’s a couple of the Avian Fire Tribes represented here and there. Regardless, in their numbers I don’t think they will be effective in oversight, and I doubt they want to dwell near Sand Emperor’s domain.”

The great Eagle trilled thoughtfully at that. “Can make Obelisks for other Elements?” he asked with great interest.

“Of course, Your Majesty, but the areas about them will be unsuitable for the creatures who want the Seeds. Here, the Obelisks will be directly drawing off the slowly-spreading power of the Sand Emperor’s Maze to stop the Curse and accelerate the process of making Seeds. Making an Obelisk to generate Air Seeds would involve putting it in one of your favorite places to absorb Air Mana, drying it up entirely so you could make Seeds.”

“That is not what the structures you made for Fire Phoenix and Thunderbird do,” he pointed out.

“No, Your Majesty. Those are Pyramids, much larger and far more powerful. Just as that abomination of a building in the Elephant’s Graveyard is more powerful than this in how it channels the power of the Netherworld, those Pyramids help bring the right kinds of Mana into the area about them and establish an Elemental Domain for the Emperors.”

He hopped from claw to claw for a moment, no doubt thinking eagerly about having an Elemental Domain of His own. He didn’t have the same kind of territory established that was a good fit, however, and there would likely be conflict with some of the Inner Emperors if He were to set one up that they objected to.

He was not, after all, a True Emperor.

“And you will build these all around the domain of Sand Emperor?” War Talon Eagle Emperor chuffed at my cheek.

“That is my intention, yes.”

The Emperor Eagle actually looked back at Ironhide Treebreaker Elephant and Koga Golden Mountain Ape. “Firemane Lions and Lava Apes?” He asked.

The two Kings glanced at one another thoughtfully. “Torchmane King is proud and not a Vassal of Sand Emperor. Dislikes sand,” the great Elephant King with steely tusks noted.

“Moltenfist King not like Sand, either,” the great Golden Mountain Ape King Koga agreed.

“They have territories on the south side of the Sands? That would work out wonderfully if so...”

“Crested Tyrants,” huffed the stoic Cloudspike Rhino King, drawing all our eyes. “Tribe of Auric Tyrant Emperor. Of Water and Fire.”

I pointed at the rather dour alabaster Rhino King. “VERY good, Your Majesty! Helping out Auric Tyrant Emperor’s Tribe is a wise idea. A steady source of Fire Seeds for the younger members of the Tribe should be appreciated. I trust you can all arrange other Beasts of Earth to share in the guardian duties?” I asked of all of them.

“Earth has many Beasts,” King Koga rumbled knowingly, the sixty-foot Ape growling, Rhino and Elephant indicating agreement. “Easy to spread word. If no Beast Tribes, Humans take Seeds, yes?”

Everyone looked at War Talon Eagle Emperor, who fluffed a wing in agreement. It was a minor issue to Him, who was of Air and Thunder.

“Excellent, then. I should be able to make one of these every single day without too much issue.” The Great Beasts considered the two hundred feet of black granite extending out of the ground, clearly not natural, but also somehow fitting into the scenery without intruding. Their advanced Awareness could clearly feel it leeching Fire and Earth Mana from about it, but the majority of the flow came from the north, where it impinged on the growing power of the Saharan Curse and drained it away.

A line of these Obelisks doing the same thing would basically constitute Infinite Sands Emperor helping feed the other Great Beasts of Africa, while keeping His sands at bay. If He chose to object directly, well, nothing anyone could do about that.

However, what just might happen is the Obelisks might become something territorial, a prize for the Beasts to fight over. A continually refreshed source of Seeds was valuable enough to do so!

So, creatures of the Sands might leave the desert and come down to claim the Seeds, and the outside Beasts would have to fight them to keep the Seeds for themselves. Whether or not the Sand Emperor’s Vassals would consider the Seeds or the expansion of the desert more valuable was anybody’s guess, however, but the Nobles of the Beasts outside the desert definitely knew!

An Obelisk was a big, towering hunk of rock, but I could Shape thousands of cubic feet of stone with cellular precision now, so putting up the massive thing was only the work of an hour or so. I just needed the right area, a connection to stone somewhere, and to be uninterrupted for a time. I didn’t need to do it in blocks like a Pyramid, I just needed to keep the total format in mind as I was building it up and up and up.

Really, Shaping stuff like that was relaxing work now, stuff I could do while doing plenty of other stuff. Erecting Vivic Eternal Light Braziers around the area was basically automatic, of course, and I caught all of the Kings contentedly huffing from the Braziers from time to time, a habit they’d picked up from the posts I’d put up all around the Elephant’s Graveyard to keep the leaking Dark Mana contained.

That had naturally led to me putting some up among various lairs, egg chambers, dens, roosts, nests, and so forth, but that was hardly unexpected, either.

An Obelisk’s draw radius was only ten miles, however, and Africa was not small. I had months of work ahead of me, but that was hardly a surprise...