How can I use magic to connect a series of pyramids thousands of miles apart?

Question

This setting takes place in a time equivalent to the ancient world. My kingdom needs an unlimited energy source that doesn't run out and cheap to manufacture. To do this, I have captured a Golden Wyrmm, a massive creature with magical properties that can be used for powerful rituals. I have enslaved it to my service, binding it underground to a temple which I have build my entire society around. It has been defanged, with its teeth used to create special daggers that are magically linked to its source. Its magic power was then used to bind the souls of living creatures who die in a large radius of the creature. On "Holy Days", a number of innocent people are selected for the sole purpose of serving as human sacrifices in order to sustain the creature and the soul binding magic built into the structure of its temple The instruments of sacrifice will be those daggers that were fashioned from its teeth.

My armies then go forth into the world, conquering kingdoms and taking their lands. They take control of their civil societies, enslave their population, and use them to build a temple in each settlement that will be magically linked to the First Temple. Everywhere a temple is built, some locals are sacrificed in a ritual that takes place simultaneously in the new settlement and in the First Temple. This day marks a new, local, Holy Day, and the ritual must be repeated annually for that temple to retain its power and link to the First Temple. The souls of the living creatures that die within that temple's area (an equal radius as the First Temple) will be bound, and transferred to the First Temple.

I now have what is effectively a nuclear plant, started by a magical beast that simultaneously serves as a fuel storage unit and reactor, storing and burning all of the living souls that die within the vicinity of the pyramid system. The problem is that even though these temples are linked, they still have to be connected through some means, and are limited by certain factors:

1. Magic in this setting is limited to the user's vicinity and cannot extend over great distances, as its effect would weaken the further it gets.

2. The continent is similar in size to Eurasia, with many different biomes (jungles, deserts, savannas, etc). Much of this is difficult terrain to cross.

3. Breeding Wyrmms aren't a viable option, since they aren't born naturally and take centuries to reproduce.

4. I must also take into account rebel armies and their attempts of sabotage.

With these stipulations, how can I link these pyramids together while taking all this into account?

Answer 1

Since your system captures magic and sends it to and from temples, it would seem that the way to channel the magical energy would be to send it via magic.

Ley lines are hypothetical alignments in the landscape which channel mystical or magical energy. They can often by found by looking for unusual alignments of landmarks (or alignments between unusual landmarks), systems of megaliths or other man made structures designed to channel magical energy, or, frankly, whatever you like.

Connect the end points

If your Empire is building Roman roads through the wilderness, they may possibly serve as ley lines provided the engineers used the proper materials (perhaps a quartz layer under the pavement to channel magical energy), or a priest casts the proper spells on the road.

Cross section of a Roman Road. Some sort of magical wave guide or a special material in the fill might work

Or if magic is unconstrained, then the top of each temple has an "antenna" to broadcast the magic, and a series of relays are spread across the landscape to pick up and rebroadcast the magic to the central temple. This sounds a bit like Nikola Tesla's infamous "Wardenclyffe Tower"

"Are you sure the temple is built to spec?

Since magic is undefined, you can make it conform to whatever works for your story or scenario. If you really want to be "technical", you could include ideas like magical circuit breakers, priests employed as "linemen" travelling around and ensuring the Ley lines are not being tampered with, or people are not digging up the roads for the quartz and so on. You could even have linemen doing upgrades, like putting down heavier layers of quartz to handle increased amounts of magical energy being transmitted.

"The priesthood's a good job, they said. Everyone respects priests, they said. Good, steady work, they said......

It simply needs to work with the story you are trying to tell, and be internally self consistent.

Answer 2

Wireless Connection

You have magic, so use magic. A common practice in most magical practices from human history have had the concept of there being a metaphysical connection instead of a physical one (a great example is the practice of voodoo dolls). So your conquering army builds monuments to the mystical energy beast that contains some small part of it inside as well as the magical machinery of storing and sending this energy. You have already kind of looked at this concept with the idea of your daggers made from it's teeth. So obviously these energy beast tooth daggers are already capable of collecting and broadcasting this energy back to the beast but they obviously have a limited range. So lets compare this energy to radio signals.

A radio network roughly works like this. Central high powered broadcasting source can reach long ranges, outside of this broadcasting area you rely on less powerful portable units like walkie talkies. But if a walkie talkie is far outside the broadcasting zone and cannot receive the main signal nor send one back you need a repeater station to act as a middle man. This repeater station is far better at picking up the main signal and acts as an amplifier for the walkie talkie. In this manner you can relay broadcasts over vast distances. These repeater stations add power to the signal and boost it.

So your energy beast is the central broadcasting station, your daggers are the walkie talkies, your sacrificial temple complexes are repeater stations, and the sacrificial victims are the power source used to boost the network's signal. Instead of sending radio messages they are broadcasting this magical energy signal. I might suggest that the energy beast routinely regenerates its teeth like a shark so that the supply of these magical dagger's is still limited and valuable, but not finite limiting your expansion to an arbitrary number of locations.

Disclaimer

Now I know you are looking for a plausible way of physically connecting these things without resorting to waving your hands and saying "spooooooooky maaaaggiiiiic." I did not want to just lazily compare it to a telegraph and having you lay easily attacked and destroyed copper wires all over the place, or build infrastructure so big as to be unbelievable. I felt this was the best explanation. You did mention the beast can collect this mystical energy from people being sacrificed in the area around it, so to me it makes more sense that your evil empire has simply figured out how this energy transmission works and found a way to repeat and amplify its effects. Kind of like how telegraph turned into radio after the proper methods of amplification and broadcasting were developed.

In addition it also adds to potential lore, since you could have the early days of the empire's history revolve around how they were limited by fragile weaker powered short distance wired connections, but that the development of the soul relay and amplification system allowed them to explosively expand.

Answer 3

they still have to be connected physically through some means. ... The continent is similar in size to Eurasia, with many different biomes (jungles, deserts, savannas,etc). Much of this is difficult terrain. ... I must also take into account rebel armies and their attempts of sabotage. What is the best way to link these pyramids together while taking all this into account?

Think of something a bit more reasonable, like transporting the still beating heart of a sacrificed willing virgin.

(Not that transporting the still beating heart of a sacrificed human is actually reasonable, but -- given magic -- it's a heck of a lot less complicated than physically connecting temples hundred of miles apart of very rugged terrain. Besides, transporting those beating hearts require Quests Journeys with which to flesh out your novel.)

Answer 4

Cut the Wyrmm. Each new Wyrmm is the same Wyrmm.

https://animalcuriosities.wordpress.com/2013/11/15/planarian/

Put the new Wyrmm in the new pyramid. Feed it,. When it grows up, each new Wyrmm will know what the old Wyrmm knows. They are not really new Wyrmms.

They will each also remember how you treated them / it. Some may be in a better position to free its other selves and take their / its collective vengeance.

https://now.tufts.edu/articles/total-recall