Chapter 179: Volantis (2)

Chapter 179: Volantis (2)

Volantis remained quiet, as if pondering what Aldrich said. Then, after a small

spell of silence, the living armor spoke again. "An orc? Even I find that difficult

to believe. I had always thought orcs as vile, simple, brutish creatures.

I myself have drenched my hands in their blood many times. Few I have ever

found worthy to add their bones to my collection."

"I'm almost completely sure about this," said Aldrich. He put a hand to his chin

out of habit as he continued to think and remember.

There was almost no doubt in Aldrich's mind: Volantis had been an orc.

Orcs in Elden World were generally regarded as gruff, unintelligent, barbaric

creatures by other races due to their bloodthirsty warmongering ways that

sought conflict seemingly with their every waking moment.

Many races looked down on orcs because of this, and Volantis himself, with his

memories erased, saw them as brutes. But it was simply a difference in culture

and circumstance. A matter of perspective.

Orcs did not care about building towering cities or longstanding civilizations

that would last through the test of time. The Shatterlands from which they

hailed from raged with routine devastating storms that would wipe out any

attempt to build a city.

Hence, the orcs were nomadic, but this also meant they were mocked as

uncivilized.

They did not have grand archives that told thousand-year histories of their

people. They moved far too much to ever have a place to store any kind of

document of their lives.

Instead, the orcs told their tales through stories passed down from generation

to generation, causing other peoples to believe they lacked any real sense of

culture.

The orcs did not worship a god or a pantheon of gods, for as a people, they

were too scattered, too fragmented in countless different nomadic tribes, to

ever ball up their faith enough to sustain a proper god. Nor could the orcs who

lived for the moment, for the present, ever stand the often intangible nature of

more major gods that shared their presence only with a precious few priests.

Instead, they worshipped what they could tangibly see around them every day

—nature. But this also meant some peoples, particularly the zealous followers

of the goddess Amara, believed the orcs to be godless heretics.

Orcs loved to battle, with the thirst for the fight wired into their very blood,

and thus they were perceived as bloodthirsty brutes.

But that trait kept the orcs alive in an ever changing yet constantly harsh

environment. Their culture reflected this reverence and desire for the fight

with their penchant for taking bones as war trophies. A sign of respect among

their ways, but to other peoples, such an act screamed of horrifying barbarism.

Volantis's striking obsession with fighting powerful enemies and harvesting

their bones likely came directly from this orc practice.

But then who was this leader that Volantis had followed? This leader that had

influenced Volantis so strongly that he retained vague memories of them even

through the forcing process to become a Living Armor. A powerful forging

process crafted by demons meant to wipe out any memories of the original

soul.

That level of soul manipulation was outside the boundaries of even Legion

Necromancers. It took a Lich at the minimum to get there, showcasing just

how advanced the demons' smithing process was and how strong this memory

must have been to linger in on Volantis even through all that.

"Then the leader | followed was also an orc?" said Volantis. "It cannot be. For so

long, I had thought of orcs as simple creatures to slaughter. You are to say that

I was one of them?"

"Yes, I'm pretty sure that's right," said Aldrich. "You mentioned leaving the

steppes and going into forest and snow and fire. That indicates you traveled

across huge swathes of land, far beyond the Shatterlands that the orcs called

home that's mostly barren steppes.

I know that at a certain point, orcs started to unify every so often under a

warfather or warmother, creating great hordes that traveled past the

forbidding mountain ranges and even the stormy seas to other lands in large

scale raids.

You must have been a member of one of these hordes."

"A..horde...2" Volantis spoke slowly, as if he himself was trying to understand

what he was hearing.

"You left the steppes, into forests, deserts, snow, and fire...am, not many

warfathers or warmothers could have made it that far. That should narrow it

down, but who was it exactly..." Aldrich, absorbed in his thoughts, continued

to parse through his memories of Elden World's rich and extensive lore.

The reason Aldrich needed to focus so much to recall this lore was because of

how Elden World was structured. When it came to lore, Elden World was

incredibly hands off. The player had a main goal - to defeat the Howling Dark —

and that was really it. How they approached this goal and how much of the

world they explored in doing so was entirely dependent on the player.

For example, for a Necromancer like Aldrich, one of his final boss fights

involved the goddess Amara sealing the Death Lord in the Nexus to defeat as

the 12th and final Trial Quest. After defeating the Death Lord, the player

character received a huge buff to their strength which they then used ina

climactic final boss fight against the Howling Dark and its minions.

But that was the endgame for the Necromancer. There were various other

paths for Warriors, Priests, Assassins, and so on and so forth to the point that

Aldrich himself, even with his extensive playtime, had only scratched the

surface of the secrets in the game.

What his familiarity with the Necromancer class did do, however, was force

Aldrich to explore the world considerably. It made him pay attention to small

things like item descriptions, the appearance of environments, and seemingly

unimportant pieces of NPC dialogue to find out exactly where to find the best

creatures to raise.

Because of this, and because Aldrich himself had a strong interest in finding

out lore, he had a very solid understanding of the parts of the world that his

class could explore. It was not a perfect understanding as there were surely

countless other secrets known only to those that did playthrough with other

classes, but it was still extensive enough that Aldrich knew a good amount

about everything.

"Fire..." repeated Aldrich. "Ah, right, the only land of fire is Helith, the home of

the demons, and it is incredibly far from the Shatterlands to the point where

only one Orc leader has ever reached it. Warmother Thela.

Or, as other races would have known her, Thela the Conqueror. Her horde, the

Golden Horde, had a serious shot of building a serious empire if she hadn't

been assassinated by demons.

Does that all ring a bell?"

"Thela...? I-I don't know," began Volantis, his voice cracking

uncharacteristically.

Aldrich immediately perked up in alarm. He sensed the metal of Volantis start

to rattle around his body of bones. "Volantis, is something wrong?"

"Thela? Warmother? Conqueror?" Volantis spoke almost as if in a trance. "I

should not know this, and yet, why does this sound so familiar? This..should

not be possible. I should not remember-I cannot remember. Gh...gh!"

Volantis instantly opened up his armored body, separating into countless

strands of metal that peeled back to bare Aldrich to the open air. He instantly

rolled forwards, the dark grey bones of his Lich body clattering against the

metal in the Null Box.

Thankfully, the Null Box was such an insulated space that Aldrich doubted

anything going on inside of it could be heard outside.

Aldrich watched Volantis with green light flashing in his eye sockets.

Volantis's form was still opened up, but all around the black metal of his body,

both inside and outside, there were countless odd red sigils gleaming with a

burning intensity. The shade of red emanating from them was unmistakable —

these were demonic runes.

Aldrich did not understand what was happening. He assumed he had triggered

some kind of mechanism embedded within Volantis, one embedded from the

demons that forged him, the prevented him from recalling his past.

Volantis's voice echoed out from his peeled open form, but the voice was not

directed to Aldrich. When Volantis spoke, his voice lost the smooth, elegant

tone. The voice that had made him sound almost robotic sometimes, like a

perfect Al.

Instead, this new voice came out with a far rawer timber. The voice was deeper,

more guttural, and laced with a permanent growl.

"Thela...they left you. They let the demons do this to you. What do I do? Without

your dream? All I am...all Iam is a monster. You were the one that showed me I

could be more.

But...if a monster is what they want, it's what I'll give them.

Orcs...humans...elves...dragons...demons - I'll take their bones...

I'll take...

And take...

And take...

Until there is nothing left..."