Cloven Hoofs

Cloven Hoofs

Year 227

There are times when nothing seems to happen, and I generally enjoy these periods of time. Its not to say nothing happened, but its more that the events that happened were largely small to me.

On Treehome, my roots and vines finally crossed all the necessary oceans, and weve reached all the continents. I was now able to spy on everyone in the world.

But there was nothing worth spying on.

The temples did not hold secrets of communicating with the ancient gods, or if they did, it was lost to time. The kingdoms were embroiled in endless politicking and jostling for power, what little power they had. The common folk, well, theres really not much to gain from spying on them.

Again, it comes back to my two main objectives. The first main objective for expansion is the gathering mana and resources, which does not require my direct control of the land. My subsidiary trees are able to hide, and camouflage, such that most people dont notice them, and they, connected to the rest of the trees, generate mana.

The second was talent. There was a valid argument for the expansion of my cities into the other continents, to have a wider pool to gather talent. It is also true, just as Raph correctly noted, that my reluctance to control these other lands meant they were lawless, and many of these young, potentially talented children would encounter a demise before their time.

On this aspect, my spy networks in the other continents help serve as my talent hunters.

Talent is an ephemeral quality. It emerges in some, and doesnt in others. Ive known this through my decades, almost century old training program. Some people bloom early, some people bloom late, some never bloom at all.

Some thrive in a structured, safe environment of the Central Continent, some thrive in the lawlessness of the kingdoms fringes. I tried to recreate similar chaos by letting go of the kingdoms of the central continent. I allowed them to fight each other.

Chaos. Conflict. Its all natural. Order is stifling, and worse still, the frustration created by order eventually causes the general populace to turn on the force that applies that order. Every few years, my Valthorns had to step in and quell some smaller actual rebellions, some small pockets of dissatisfaction that somehow turned on us.

We catch most of them before they turn into larger rebellions. My minds keep tabs of their general mood, and try to ensure that their frustrations are aimed at each other, rather than us. Sometimes, my spymasters accelerate the collapse of certain incompetent kingdoms, just to ensure that the frustrations are focused on them, than us. We step in when they do something.

It is a slippery, slippery slope.

Lumoof said to Raph that we are wardens. That is my goal. But in practice, there are flaws to this ideal as well.

If the lion were to hunt the last surviving gazelle, would we not intervene? We would, because in the interest of diversity, I should retain these rare species. Yet, the natural way is to let it collapse. The strong survive, that is nature.

When are we wardens, and when are we zookeepers and conservationists?

Natures diversity is hinged upon every species finding their niche. A species that does not find their niche thus dies.

Is that how we do things? Is that how I want to do things?

The cities of Treehome have grown larger, the sheer concentration of our power meant resources, infrastructure and facilities have made the Six Ports, Freshka, and the many directly administered cities of the Valthorns into large, sprawling city-monstrosities.

The decades of peace have created a huge accumulation of people in these large centers of economic activity. It also made it easier to find talent, because there was bound to be talent in a larger pool of people.

Like it or not, the Central Continents incredible prosperity is an outcome of decades of Order. By my artificial minds measures, the Central Continents population has increased by a factor of ten since a century ago, all because of significantly higher food availability, and significantly lower death rates.

The resurgence of the lizardfolk, Centaur and treefolk populations were also a big factor, and it was all possible because of our presence, to create order, and to protect those I saw as worth protecting.

But it is not fair. The Valthorns have our inbuilt biases.

If the lizardfolk or treefolk were inferior, by the order of things they should be extinguished. So, though we claim to be wardens, we are not very good wardens. We step in.

We made changes. We elevated some lizardfolks and treefolks beyond their natural state and made them into wardens. But the very fact that we made it possible, informs the others of the height that they could achieve.

We protected some, and encouraged certain populations to grow faster.

Honestly, were hypocrites.

We apply order, and intentionally create chaos. We impose our rules. Our rules were drafted with a significant bias for choice, for self-determination.

Its hypocritical, because if we really wanted to be wardens, the nature of Treehome should be a state of anarchy. The kingdoms should be able to fight each other to the death if they wanted.

But we dont allow them to. In the interest of saving the innocent, and sparing the continent from the fallout.

The philosophical difference between myself, and Raph, was actually really just on the spectrum of our intervention. We advocate a light touch, yet we occasionally intervene, sometimes heavily, thus we suffer the consequences.

Raph would, by the sheer nature of his philosophy, need to consistently intervene. That, to me, was an untenable position. I did not like that.

Initially, my framework for intervention generally considered whether there was an extinction event (such as the last gazelle example), large scale unnecessary death, a unique or special resource, or if the intervention could significantly alter the direction of the world for the better.

It occurs to me that the framework was structured so wide that it is effectively useless as a framework. What is significant? If one subscribes to Chaos Theory, that small events have large ripples, everything is accordingly significant, and thus, like Raph, I must always intervene.

That is not where I want to be.

I want to end the cycle, and these days, any intervention is filtered through whether it could lead us further along that path.

Again, still very vague, and not exactly useful. How would you know that a person could someday be the future savior of the world?

It was something that still stumped me, and so, for now, Im going with my gut. Which is mostly, my roots.

***

Managed to get the crystal computers to work? Kei looked at the flashing crystals with great interest.

They work, but all this computational power is not very useful. Alka was frustrated. We now had the equivalent of computer chips, and Alka is now literally a walking chip foundry. The issue was making that computational power do something useful. What was the worlds greatest supercomputer, if there was nothing that required that sort of computational power?

Creating a language and operating system for the supercomputer was a challenge in itself, though they were not entirely working from scratch.

It was fairly easy to adapt runes and runic carvings into supercomputers, and that was their first instinct. There was a language already native to crystals. Runes.

However, it was soon clear that runes were not appropriate. The human-heroes, of course, had some ideas of their own thanks to their earthly origins, but Alka wasnt convinced. The crystals had the ability to comprehend certain queries or statements without having to resolve them through a series of Yes-No questions.

If the crystals could inherently maintain and process statements directly, Alkas first idea was that they were essentially artificial minds, but in crystal form. So, we combined them with my suit of living wooden armor, to augment our Valthorns in combat.

This was actually the first useful application, since the supercomputer-crystals could function as the home of the artificial minds. We then combined the artificial minds, the supercomputer-crystals, and the demon kings core. Stella referred to it as the Void Chamber, and it was our first full scale attempt at supporting Stellas attempt to look further and deeper into the demons map.

The story of the Whisperers claims that the relic had lost power. That our ancestors had overused it! Even with the centaur-heros energies, the relic is incomplete! Another centaur chief of the outskirts was quick to share the tales from the grapevine. The centaurs were strangely very, very gossipy, though we did eventually realize there was quite a bit of horse shit.

Arjan and Eudoxus, both played the role of traveling centaurs from a faraway village, nodded. I hear there is demonic corruption in the vast steppes.

The spy-group consisted of six centaurs, all from Treehome, and they melded seamlessly with the centaurs of the fringe.

Yes! The centaur chief looked upset. That has never happened in our history! The Great Patriarch and Matriarch must let go of their position for their failure!

Arjan prodded. Is that something that would be offensive to say?

Eh. If thats offensive, the Patriarch will not be able to hold his place. The villagers responded, half drunk on some kind of fermented milk-alcohol.

Soon, the great vote will be upon us. The centaur chief said. And the Patriarch will be challenged to defend his position.

And would you challenge him? Arjan asked.

No. But I hear of those who will. The local chiefs shared names of at least six who have thrown themselves into the ring. It all sounded foreign.

***

Back home, we had a discussion on what weve discovered.

There are lands not owned by any faction. Roon said. These lands were located in the far south, near the edges of the deserts of the Sandpeople, and the edges of the land held by the humans and the Crystal King.

The only reason they were not owned by anyone, was because these were unproductive lands. They were a littering of overly cold barren deserts and a smidge of uninhabited canyons. There was no food, and the weather was too darn cold.

There were also no animals, and the place had atrocious weather.

We could take this, if just to claim territory. Lumoof had surveyed the land earlier, and didnt like it. Ideally, getting somewhere with a magical ley line was best. But given my ability to spread trees anywhere, it doesnt actually matter.

Or we could come in at the invitation of the other factions.

Or just place our trees and spread invisibly? Roon countered. With Aeons [camouflage] abilities, how hard is it to hide?

It was a strange thing to even consider, whether a tree had the right to place itself and grow anywhere it wanted. Having rights to land in itself was a great advantage, since it meant no one could take it away from us, but in reality, they couldnt enforce the claim.

In fact, once I had my seed planted on this world, I would be spreading my trees everywhere without any care for legal rules. I didnt care for legal rules back on Treehome, why should I care here?

Maybe I shouldnt care all that much, and just look for someone far away from the three, just to avoid conflict, and spread my trees anyway.

But at least one of them had a domain, which meant they might be able to sense my presence.

It was a risk. Was it worth it?

In my mind, yes. But Ill do so after contacting the other two factions. There had to be one faction willing, or at least, is a bit more cooperative than the rest.

***

Arjan and Eudoxus arrived at one of the largest centaur gatherings, in their largest city, Hoofhall. They had somehow convinced some centaur merchants to take them along, and the group of six centaur spies had established themselves as merchant bodyguards.

Centaurs raided each other, and raiding was a fairly common affair in their society. As a result, theyve developed some norms, in order to prevent loss of life. Centaur raiding leaders would often battle it out with the head of the bodyguards or the local militia, and if the bodyguard or militia lost, they would surrender their wares, but usually, no one was killed. If they won, the raiders would leave.

Towns and cities even had their own raiding parties who did the same to the other cities. Brutality was generally frowned upon, despite the sheer machismo that centaur war leaders had to display in combat.

Arjan was a level 136 [Spear Saint], and so in combat, there really was no contest. So, usually it was Eudoxus who took the role of the head, as Eudoxus was a level 87 [Spymaster] and level 50 or so [Hardened Warrior]. It was easy for him to fake his strength as a spymaster.

As they rode through Hoofhalls gates, they immediately noticed the strange markings on the land, and Lumoof, hidden and camouflaged in the wagon, saw the lines of magic immediately.

The entire city was overflowing with a kind of magic not unlike the shamans or the lizardfolks magics. A blend of runic power and centaurs folk magic.

Folk magic was a milder blend of soul energy and their own energy. Like how shamans and witch doctors could somehow use a limited array of soul-linked magics, like how the rituals of priests could also touch the soul. The folk-magicians and spiritualists of the centaurs were developed in such similar concepts.

The centaur-guards shuffled them in after reviewing some documentation. It was fairly easy to forge, but they didnt need to. The centaur chiefs of the outskirt villages were more than happy to issue them new papers.

The guards instinctively stepped away from Arjan, he was the strongest of the Centaurs present, and his presence still rippled through the system, even if he tried his best to hide it.

The challenges will begin soon. Eudoxus quickly shuffled away to get information of whats next.

Challenge? Arjan asked.

The challengers challenge the Patriarch for the title? Eudoxus explained.

Should we? Arjan would defeat the Patriarch if it was a straight combat.

We dont know anyone, its best we lay low and build our network. Ive given them a decade or two to build a realistic faction within the Centaurs, with the goal of lobbying the Centaurs for friendly terms. With our power, it wasnt impossible.

We were the equivalent of an extraterrestrial power funding and influencing a faction, and meddling with Centaur politics. When I put it that way, what Im planning to do really sounds distasteful.

I need the mana, because I dont know what the future holds. If I could get it on favorable terms, which mostly just involved non-interference, that would be sufficient.

Eh.

I wonder why I care.

I should just plant my tree clone and be done with it. Fuck whatever these people say. Roon clearly agreed with that approach.

But legitimacy would smooth a lot of issues. Argh. I am just reminded that I despise politics.

It would be easier that way, in the short run. But all itll do is sow the seeds of conflict over the long run. If any of these domain-tier or relic holders can be swayed our way, that will save us a lot of bloodshed in the future.

We are aiming for the demons heart, and we best have our foundations safe. It would not do to face nibbles from unfriendly natives at our roots.