252. A Tree Plans for Starfall

252. A Tree Plans for Starfall

Year 253 (Part 3)

Unlike Jura or Lovis, I couldnt hold onto Hafizs soul. Not if he didnt want me to. A hero was a hero.

Instead, I received a [Titan Frame]. I could deploy up to three Titans, now. Keis, Hafiz, and one left from the three heroes of the earlier generation. Supporting three more titans, or five titans simultaneously wasnt a problem for me magically.

Titans. Useful for Comet, if I could get them there. I would deal with that later once I got my clone deployed.

The hero, Hafiz wanted release from his heroic duties. Like all heroes that were no longer shackled by their worldly chains, they sought to return.

He saw something. I could feel it, and so he didnt want to be here. I wanted to hold him here. With us, but he refused and vanished away. He was a hero, and he slipped through my grasp like a slippery eel, and back to nothingness.

Where I hoped the Gods fulfilled their promise.

Because back on Treehome, the survivors bear the cost of his sacrifice.

And in Colette, I saw Hafizs experience. There was a strange disquiet in her, and it manifested in her soul spring. I noticed cracks throughout the entirety of their normally pure white stone around their soul.

Colette stood quietly, alone in the wooden room. The Heros Journal glowed faintly on the table, infused with the will and magic of the heroes from times past.

Here, in a Giant Attendant Tree created solely to house the Heros Journal, she prayed. She wept. She injected memories into the journal, and it certainly felt like there was more unsaid than could ever be said.

Her partner, Prabu was with their daughter, Rohana.

Mother needed time alone. To mourn and to grieve for the dead. He told her. But even he could see the distance in his partner.

Hafiz and Colette were friends. Colette felt that way, at least. Not close, but friends. I listened to her talk to herself, as if she was talking to him. Things she wished she could say. She thanked him, quietly.

Before all of them drifted apart.

That was how their relationships were. They were allies of convenience and circumstances, brought together because they died together. It didnt mean much once the demon king died, and their different interests pulled them apart.

The hero class did nothing to keep the heroes together, beyond a shared purpose to slay the demon king. In the same way, the Valthorns exist as protectors against the demons.

Ken definitely had a point when he asked the question of me. What if you win? What if it really was the end, no more demons. What happens to all the things and structures that you and the Valthorns built?

Ken may have come around and accepted the purpose and direction of our role, but his skepticism of what comes after never faded.

What do you do when your purpose is lost? That decides whether you are benevolent, or just a dictator. I hope that what I see is true, that you will let go.

I thought about it, and certainly, my role as a tree is to ensure nature exists. The demons must be removed because there is no coexistence. But without their existential threat, Ken is correct to say we would lose a big part of our purpose.

Colette sat in the room. She was there the whole afternoon, sipping tea, thinking, and then checking the journal again.

And again. And again.

After a long while, she suddenly asked.

Are you able to remove our hero classes? Colette asked. The hero from a previous generation, Mirei, when you disabled her hero class, she suddenly dreamt of home. She dreamt of family. Friends that she has long forgotten. Like Hafiz.

Life has a way of coming around in cycles. Events rhyme with those of an earlier time. I looked at Colette, and saw a weary young mother, trying to remember what life was like before all of this. Before death.

Maybe Mirei would be like her, or she was like Mirei. I wasnt sure. They blend together, sometimes.

I think about Lilies, about how all the people, all the personalities seem same-ish after a while. There were only so many combinations of character traits. I remember why even a hive-mind like Lillies couldnt find it in them to latch and get close to individuals, to treat each individuals as unique.

Is it because after enough time, people really do blend together and you notice how the character traits blend together in slightly different ratios to form a slightly different individual? Just variations of certain base templates.

Can you do it to me? Not remove it, but, just suppress it for a while? Just to see what was there, what was before all of this? Colette said quietly. It was something Mirei would have said. I could imagine her saying it.

I knew the answer to the question. I think I could.

To suppress the effects of the hero class for a relatively short moment is certainly not out of the picture with my current strength.

But do I want to?

I had a flashback to Mirei from so many decades ago. She wanted death as a release from her duties as a hero. I looked at the mother of a growing baby girl and wondered whether I could impose this sin on myself.

That feeling reemerged once more. That moment after Hafizs death when I felt something brewing within Colettes soul.

Is this something you really want? I asked.

Colette looked back at the journal, closed her eyes and seemed lost in thought for a moment. That feeling strengthened. Dissatisfaction. Discontent. Anger. It was as if Colette radiated chaotic energy.

When she opened her eyes, she nodded. I thought I saw her resist some pain, or it was a wince. She quickly picked up the cup of tea and drank everything.

This is all that damned trees fault. They must have planned this or in cahoots with the demons. The Dwarven King wasnt quite happy about returning to what was a destroyed landscape. Most of the original dwarven citizens of the capitol cursed as they surveyed what remains of the home.

Foul magic still lurked here, some of the demon spiders escaped, perhaps squashed or hidden underneath the rubble, waiting to strike anyone who discovered them. As with all prior demon king-deaths, the place was filled with the remains of the demon. Daemolite.

Ruins. There were craters everywhere. Old buildings, alll destroyed. The explosion at the end burned and left dark marks in the soil itself.

The people were unhappy, and the King could sense it. Some kings gained skills that give them an innate sense of how loyal their people were, the rough tones of their populaces emotions.

There was no good outcome when a city is lost.

Let us help to rebuild. Some of my Valthorns from Branchhold reached out to offer assistance.

The dwarves themselves got to work. It would be some time before the city would be a city once more. The general populace lived in tents. In temporary housing. Long-term temporary housing, at least for a few years until the city could be properly reconstructed. The wealthier dwarves moved to other cities.

Even if the Capitol was rebuilt, the people who lived there would have changed, and a lot of their bustling energy and magic would have gone far away.

The King, although he seemed glad not to die in the battle with the demon king, the anger of his population meant he had to find a target. Someone to blame.

Conveniently, the target of their frustration was the heroes.

Indirectly, we were caught in the crossfire.

***

Year 254

The heroes were trouble I didnt want to deal with. Instead, I focused on Lumoof on the Demons Comet.

Only one more year before my Clone was ready, and already, the Demons Comet drifted out of range of demon turtleworld. We didnt even ship all the bombs we made, so that was a waste.

My Valthorns relocated the bombs to Lavaworld, a process that would take a few months because we shipped so many. Shipping these bombs without proper storage could accidentally trigger the bombs, and we had some of our crystal bombs exploding during one of the Demon Comets daily flare ups.

The next intersection in six years, by Year 260, and we really needed to make our time on this place count.

***

Whatd you get? Stella looked as Alka placed another magical probe on the ground. It would be destroyed if the flares activated, but it was one of the best ways of scanning the Comets structure. They all looked exhausted, even if the rotating system meant they all managed to get some rest.

Those eight nodes- there seems to be a chamber around it. There are rocky parts located throughout the Comet.

We know that. Stella clicked her tongue, a little irritated.

The flares come from the nodes, but because they radiate outward like a fanning wave, these rocky parts are deep enough to be out of range of the nodes.

So well just have to dig down the rocks, deploy Aeon there?

Probably the best chance to get a somewhat safe place. His probes and scanners still couldnt figure out what was at the core. Until we could deploy my clone, I couldnt start creating my digging titan.

Its still pretty damned deep.

Not all the way to the core, just a quarter of the way. Alka thought as he looked at the team. We should start digging. A tunnel that far down should take us a year.

If the Comet doesnt collapse on us.

It wont. Alka said. These crystals are pretty damned solid.

The Comet was made from a magically resistant material, so the best way to dig down was to hit it physically. With pickaxes and hammers. Its a good thing some of the Valthorns were more physical in their talents.

Dig.

Based on whatever data we had, we built a model of what we thought was the most efficient way to reach the rocky areas beneath the crystalline comet.

Wed have a year to dig. One of the plans developed by the Valthorns over the past year of data collection was essentially to dig deep, and plant the bombs there. Trigger an explosion from within, disrupt whatever magical bonds that held the comet together.

This should be one of the better ways of destroying the comet without actually destroying the materials of the comet. Once the comet loses its bulk, whatever damage it could deal would be survivable.

Should.

***

Spaizzer

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