Chapter 106

Chapter 106

Chapter 106

Dawn’s light had brought with it a flood of the undead, pouring over entrenched defenders like a tidal wave of death, bathing the northern city of Brightsville in blood when the two major factions present there clashed in the biggest battle yet.

And it had been short lived.

Allie glared down at Prophet’s second-in-command, an old wiry military veteran who’d managed to get a paladin class and cause grief for her forces numerous times. He now stood battered, beaten, broken and bruised blood dripping down his forehead and breathing out in ragged gasps. Her hand was through his chest, grasping his spine, and she gripped more tightly to hear the crunch of bone under her fingers.

The man screamed, and she yanked with a spray of gore to end him on the spot.

Tossing the vertebrae casually to the side and letting the man’s twitching corpse fall onto the ground, she turned and gracefully stepped over the dozens of corpses between her and the burning cathedral Prophet had once called home. Stopping not far off from Vin, the skeletal necromancers gave her a raspy chuckle and motioned for her to come closer.

“They never stood a chance!” Vin croaked, a crooked, bone finger pointing to where thousands of fleeing refugees were frantically trying to escape the onslaught of their forces across the plains just outside of Brightsville. Skeletons and zombies were in abundance, but there were occasional ghouls, blood golems, bone golems, skresh, and even a few ghosts that ran the crowd of screaming people down.

Allie watched her forces murder the families of the defenders with only a very small amount of guilt, but internally she knew this had to be done lest she endanger herself and the civilization she was going to build here. It was a great evil for a greater good.

“We didn’t catch him, did we?” Allie asked impassively - gazing across the carnage and the fields of corpses.

Vin’s smugness dropped, and he grunted an acknowledgement of her assessment. “Yeh, bastard got away with a couple hundred of his best fighters. They fled north across the plains to abandon these ones here.”

The skresh waved a hand across the fields stained red. “They’ve been long gone. But now this poses a question... What do you want to do with these ones?”

Allie’s eyebrow raised and she followed her lieutenant's gesture, seeing a couple hundred bound humans rounded up into an enclosure between buildings. Many of them were outright terrified. Some were young, some were old, while others were her own age. A couple of sentient ghouls had taken command of a group of minions and kept the humans in line while awaiting orders, and their dead eyes watched Allie with curious intent - waiting to see what she’d have them do.

“Why were they not already killed?” Allie asked flatly, shoving her hands and her wand into the pockets of her cloak.

Vin cleared his throat, or vertebrae, or whatever it was he did to make that sound happen. “They were not part of Prophet’s forces. They were a negotiating group, one that was being blackmailed and coerced into joining Prophet before we struck. They’d not agreed to anything yet, and this is confirmed by our spies.”

“Is that so?” Allie strode over confidently through the crowds of unholy creatures, the wave of them parting before her like the red sea. Coming to a stop before one of the bound men nearby. He was a huge man, thickly muscled and built like a bear with a long black beard and of Indian heritage. He was very bruised, but otherwise bore no wounds. “I hear you weren’t part of the faction who’d declared war on us. What would your plans be, should I let you and your people go?”

The man hesitated, glancing back at the people behind him one by one in unspoken conversations.

Allie looked left to the ghoul soldiers standing nearby. One carried a sword, the other a rifle and a machete. “This is the leader of their group, correct?”

She got two nods, and in turn she stared back down at the man again with piercing red eyes through the bone mask on her face. “Speak, I do not have much patience for this.”

The man gulped, then raised his face to the light. “I had not known you were the ones declared on, the man calling himself Prophet had told us that you’d gone out of your way to kill people just for being different from you.”

“I have done terrible things, but that sin is not mine to bear. I did not start this war, I am merely finishing it.”

Again the burly man hesitated, then he blinked a couple times and shakily exhaled. “We have no ties to the people you killed. Simply put, we will do whatever it takes to survive. The real question is, what would you have us do?”

Vin came to stop beside Allie, letting out a laugh when Allie hummed with contentment.

“That... That is the correct answer.” Allie stated simply. Turning around and speaking to the ghoul soldiers, she gestured with a hand to the prisoners at her back. “Free them. Find Mara at the tower, have her integrate them into our society one way or the other. They’ll be made useful, I’m sure.”

Audible sighs or sobs of relief escaped numerous humans and undead soldiers started to cut their bindings one by one, with many people crying or hugging one another after they’d been set free.

Allie continued to walk through the ruined compound, watching her forces dig through the remnants of Prophet’s belongings to try and find whatever treasures could be salvaged. No doubt he’d taken the holy book with him, but there might be other things she could acquire that he’d not had time to collect in the panic of her surprise attack that morning.

Irreverently kicking aside a corpse and plopping down onto a wooden bench, Allie took her mask off and set it in her lap. Pulling out the communication orb she’d linked to Riven’s own, she let her mind wander for a time - wondering what he’d say if he saw what she was up to right now.

But she was doing this for him. Great evils for greater goods, that was what this was all about. There was a good chance he’d one day find out about the things she’d done here, but she’d face it when that time came. No matter what happened, they would always love one another. Riven and Allie had always been inseparable, and just as she would forever support him no matter what he did - he too would never abandon her for the things she was forced to do here. It still made her slightly sick to think about how disappointed he’d be in her though, and she tried to push those thoughts away while wincing when the sunlight reached her eyes.

Riven gave Athela a half-hearted smile. “Yeah a bit, but let’s not talk about that now. I really am fine.”

Athela crossed her arms skeptically then abruptly shapeshifted into her spider form. Clambering onto his lap, she nuzzled under one arm and stayed there. “I’ll pretend you’re telling the truth. I suppose my next question is: do you feel good enough to get this greenskin deal over with?”

Riven’s smile turned warmer, and he started scratching the spider’s head like he would a dog’s. His body became less stiff, more relaxed, and he felt his shoulders slump slightly with an exhale of air under the tree’s shade. “Probably not that good. I want to be in top shape, apparently they still have their elites at the orc encampment - ones that didn’t come with the raiding party. Give me one more day of rest from our last battle and I’ll go.”

“You know... there is one thing I agreed with your sister on.” Athela blinked her red eyes from where she rested on his lap, hesitantly looking up. “Ethel is definitely using you. As long as you’re aware of that, I’m fine with it. You can use her back and it’ll be a fair trade, but I don’t like how she was so manipulative.”

Riven’s expression soured, but he did give a grunt of acknowledgement. “Can’t say I necessarily blame her though. Imagine finding yourself in that situation. Wouldn’t you do something similar if you could?”

“I sure would. I’m just trying to point out the obvious in case you weren’t aware.”

“Oh I’m definitely aware.”

“Want to play rock paper scissors for a bet?”

“What for?"

“Well, if you win then I don’t kill Elder Preen. If I do win, I go with your sister’s plan to kill the old fart today. Then I’ll eat him! That’ll solve ALL of our problems!!! Well, some of them anyways.”

Riven stifled a snort. “Rock, paper, scissors shouldn’t be how we decide life and death events. Plus, I wouldn’t get anything out of it if I won. We’re already not killing Elder Preen.”

“Yet. Not killing him - YET.” Athela corrected with a spider leg waggling his way. “5 platinum says we kill him soon.”

“I’d prefer not to come off as a murder-happy type of guy to the rest of the village, which is why I haven’t seriously considered it yet. I already look the part.”

“Wah wah, goo goo gah gah! That’s an impression of you, by the way. Let me bust out the sad violin music so Riven can wallow in self misery!”

“Hey!” Riven cackled a laugh when Athela started rubbing two of her limbs together, no doubt referencing the act from back on Earth when people mimicked playing the ‘world’s smallest violin’. How she’d known about that reference he didn’t know, but he definitely found it amusing.

A strong gust of wind caused the trees of the village to shake and rustle. The chirping of birds was momentarily hushed and the sun’s rays glinted off the lake nearby.

Athela burped and readjusted herself on his lap. “Do we know where it is?”

“Where what is? The orc camp?”

“Yeah.”

“No idea. I’ll have to ask Elder Bren, but he said he’d send a scout with us to confirm our side of the bargain.”

“Bargain? Oh, you’re talking about citizenship and the...” Athela gave Riven another little nudge and a chittering smirk - head bobbing over to where Ethel was kneeling below them on the ground, next to Len, and talking in hushed but stern tones. She, like many of the other elves in the village, was wearing only a thin two-piece garment of stitched leaves and furs that were quite revealing. “The hot babe!”

Riven’s hand karate-chopped hard into Athela’s back, sending the spider into a laughing gasp. “Shut it.”

Riven did manage to spare a glance up at the woman though, barely having enough time to reflect on her long tanned legs before she swept her blonde hair over her back to glance upwards his way. He immediately averted his gaze from Ethel to avoid detection, and then went back to looking out at the lake. Now was not the time to get distracted with things like that, the world of Panu was literally in danger and he was a key player in at least 1 of the 6 world quests. He needed to get stronger, and he needed to do it fast. 5 years may be a long ways away in some aspects, but not in the realm of needing to finish world-spanning events. He had to assume Panu was at least 3 times the size of Earth if all of those planets had been incorporated into one another, so there was little wiggle room in terms of a timeline.

“Have you looked at the Guild & Faction System, the cortex, and the leaderboards yet?” Athela’s voice carried to question him while he stared off into space.

Riven immediately paused upon hearing the question. He’d nearly forgotten after all the things that’d happened concerning that jackass Elder Preen, or in his short bursts of craving directed towards Ethel. And by craving he didn’t necessarily mean physically, but moreso meant it in terms of blood. He was getting hungry again, and despite having had warg meat last night as well as some cookies that hilarious little she-devil Len had baked for him - he was wanting blood too. He’d already made a morning trip to where the goblins were held down at stakes on the other side of the village. The goblins were stinking, disgusting creatures and though he’d already feasted on one that day - but it only satisfied his hunger and not his taste buds. Despite his disgust for the action that he’d performed in dungeon Negrada, he still remembered what human tasted like compared to goblin... and it was a stark difference. The taste of it, the smell, the satisfaction of a human was far more enticing... Even the corpse of the human back in the hospital that he’d scrounged up had been incredibly appetizing, but each of the elves here gave off an even better aroma than humans did. It made his mouth water just thinking about it, and though he hadn’t brought up feeding to Ethel just yet - he was certainly going to have that conversation sooner rather than later. She’d literally volunteered for it, so he didn’t have many reservations holding him back. It wasn’t like he was going to eat her, he’d never even consider it, he just wanted some of her blood in small amounts from time to time so that the cravings would go away and he wouldn’t go insane.

And he really, REALLY didn’t like the taste of goblin.

He shook those thoughts off. Then opened up his status page and scrolled, finding the three new options listed at the bottom.

Guild & Faction System (Currently Delayed)Panu CortexPanu World Quests