298. Contemporary Considerations

298. Contemporary Considerations

Gigantadragon

Gigantadragon was freed from it’s demon king, and it was the beginning of our ‘occupation’ of the peripheral worlds. We would need to hold off the demon kings until Hawa could fulfill his end of the bargain, and so Lumoof wanted to take our battle to the demon kings. We would now plan to remove the rest of the demon kings, and gain levels in the process. T/his chapter is updated by nov(ê(l)biin.co/m

From this battle, Lumoof and Edna gained one or two levels too. Their experience gain was slow, and at this point, they needed the hero fragments. The subject of hero fragments did feel a little sensitive. I didn’t want the heroes to die, they were a force I could deploy quite easily with Lumoof functioning as a mobile warp gate.

“Y’know, I never quite realized how overpowered you two are.” Roon said. His contribution in the final battle against the demon king was decent, but largely, the battle was fought by myself, Lumoof, and Edna.

Lumoof laughed. “It was the right set of enemies. Aeon did the bulk of the work.”

“I genuinely thought the demon king looked quite pitiful, when it struggled against Aeon’s big ass roots. It felt like the demon king was a whale struggling against a gigantic kraken.” Stella quipped, easily amused. “But boys, let’s clean this up, and we have more to do.”

With the demon king out of the way, the domain holders and heroes quickly swept through the rest of Gigantadragon and eliminated all the remnant demons. There were still demonic spires all over the place and this process took them about six weeks.

But, the demons were gone, and we saw the pathway through the void sea linked to a demon world crumble. These days, with Stella’s upgraded abilities, she could get a ‘code’ on the demon’s rift, so we could still locate these worlds.

“How many more levels before you get your level 200 ability?” Lumoof looked at Stella.

“A lot more. I’m about to hit level 180. Hopefully I will get a decently strong [domain ability] then.” The void mage continued. I knew we needed her at level 200. Given how strong Level 200 abilities are, it’s likely some of the drawbacks of the void mage classes could be mitigated with her higher levels.

Gigantadragon was beautiful. Without the demon’s presence, the natural weather of the tail-half of the planetary dragon returned. The demonic spires no longer drained away the magical ley lines, and instead, those ley lines returned to their natural state, and transformed into gigantic magical sculptures. The ground beneath them transformed just as quickly, as the space around the ley lines were warped into doorways that led into dungeons.

The tail half was the ‘frontier’ for the dragonlings of Gigantadragon, at least, before the demons conquered it. Now, there were a few ancient cities buried under the demonic sludge from a time long before the demons.

The domainholders had to keep moving. There were three more worlds to go.

***

A switch flipped in the minds of both Wira and Rajah when the demon king died, and suddenly, they seemed normal. What was an almost crazy obsession with the demons vanished, and instead, both of them looked thoroughly exhausted. As if their minds were forced to maintain a high level of performance for too long that now, the sudden emptiness just made them unsure what to do. In a way, we contributed to that. We defeated the demon king, not the heroes, and so, they lacked the sense of achievement.

They were now willing to travel with us back to Treehome, to visit the old hero journals, and for once, have a normal life.

They actually seemed keen.

So, now that Lumoof could function as a mobile teleportation pad, all he needed to do was touch them, and I could send them to Treehome.

***

Their visit went pretty much as expected. The heroes experienced a little culture shock to see Treehome now resembling a solarpunk version of their human cities. It made me feel happy to see how excited the existing heroes were, to introduce the two newcomers to Freshka.

Freshka was pretty much the most advanced city we know of, with many magical equivalents of facilities known to man.

Freshka is the central node for transport between the worlds, and also the political headquarters of everything related to the Valtrian Order. Naturally, this meant a need for embassies, and various support staff associated with such diplomatic events.

The confluence of diplomacy, and the high amounts of youths receiving education in the multiple colleges throughout the greater Freshka region led to the rise in entertainment and consumer options similar to the heroes’ own homeworlds, and a vice network that we controlled.

It was a guided development, primarily driven by our intelligence department. Such entertainment and vices meant these officials and embassies were lulled into a sense of familiarity and comfort. It loosened up their guards. It was easier to obtain a favorable agreement when it was whispered to their ears by a charming companion. Theaters, plays, concerts, bars and clubs, forums. Nobles everywhere were mortal after all, and we used both carrot and stick to get what we wanted.

The heroes were wined-and-dined, and treated to entertainment options that reminded them of home.

The change happened so slowly over the years that the existing heroes didn’t notice how they were now sucked into the entertainment culture and lifestyle.

Even Kei didn’t notice, until Rajah and Wira both looked at her and asked. “Is this- is this all really okay? It’s fine for us to get free entry and reserved seats at these entertainment areas?”

Since most of the entertainment options in Freshka were indirectly controlled by the Valtrian Order, we set up special rooms meant for ‘unique situations’. This meant private viewing balconies, special guestrooms and all that sort of thing, for my domain holders and also for the heroes.

Kei paused, and that was when it hit her that we were now doing what the churches did to her peer, Alvin. She gulped. “Yes. It is.”

***

Thirteenth - Khubor

The World where the Dead Do Not Move On

Roon, Johann and Ezar frowned when the portal placed them right in the center of a mountain of bones.

“Man.”

There were bones everywhere, and they watched as the magical gray clouds rained bones of different shapes and sizes around them.

Roon stared at Johann, and Johann stared at Ezar. “Who was it that said worlds can’t get any weirder after Lumoof’s giant dragon? Here, exhibit one. A world that rained bones.”

“Where do they come from?” Ezar looked at the rain of bones smashed into his magical artifact. The bones were surprisingly hard and smashed into the ground. The ground itself was covered in bones.

“Magic, I bet. Or some Core shenanigans.” Roon said.

The ranger picked up some of the bones that rained, and noticed they weren’t actually animal bones. They were just shaped like bones, and made of the same stuff. There was a kind of magical cloud above them that produced these ‘bones’.

“It is probably more appropriate to call them bone-stones, than actual bones, since they are just bone-like, but not actually the bones of an animal or monster.” Roon said, as he examined them in greater detail.

“Fair, fair. That’s probably a better way to wrap our heads around it.” His fellow domain holder said, as they kept exploring. The clouds of the world were a storm of magic, they could feel the intense magics coming from their bonestone-creating-clouds. “Well, think we have living beings to see-”

That was when a spirit, a wight, appeared before our very eyes.

“You three are far from the lands of the living. Return to the lands of the living, the deathlands are not for you.” The spirit’s voice was like the whisper of the wind.

Roon looked at the wight. There were a million things he wanted to ask, but decided not to. “Could you point us the way?”

The three nodded, and Gideon’s wife, a beautiful mature lady with golden blonde hair, followed their kids into their room.

“You’re not from here, are you?” Gideon said frankly.

“Yes.” Roon sat and nodded. “There’s sort of two reasons why we came, so we’ll get right down to it.”

Gideon sipped his mug of water. “Well, sure.”

“One, we’re recruiting heroes. We’ve formed a coalition of heroes to fight the demon kings across worlds, and we’d like you to join us.”

Gideon stared at Roon, and sipped his mug again. “So there are worlds other than this one that also have demon kings?”

“Yes.”

“How many have you recruited?”

“Seven. Well, five, but two’s new and maybe they’ll join us.”

“That’s a lot of power in one team.” Gideon said.

“True. But there are even more worlds.” Roon said.

Gideon paused, and then sighed. “Honestly, you came a little bit too late. I’ll tell you why, but what’s the other one?”

“You’ve been to the deathlands?”

The hero stared at Roon, this time seriously. As if judging him. “What is it?”

“What’s in the deathlands?”

Gideon paused and shook his head. “Why?”

“We sense something unusual in the deathlands. It is as if souls were captured and unable to move on. There’s a strange emptiness in their lands.”

“I see you already have an inkling. What is in there, is an undead demigod. The Osroids.”

Roon leaned forward. Both Johann and Ezar looked around, as if anticipating a sudden strike. “What else do you know about them? We hear some really fascinating tales about the deathlands, and we want to know what we are dealing with, and whether it is friendly.”

Gideon frowned. “Friendly? It’s an undead god that turns corpses into spirits, vampires and zombies.”

“And yet it’s undead seems well behaved.” Roon asked, a little puzzled.

“The dead need the living to replenish its souls and spirits. This is the balance of the world. If they didn’t need the living they would have invaded us and killed us all. This peace exists entirely due to the ancient agreement by the church and the deathlands to sell corpses to the deathlands.” The hero said with a sigh.

“What about the demons?”

“Just an enemy of my enemy.”

Roon, Ezar and Johann glanced at each other. “Well, I suppose only Lumoof can handle such a thing.” Roon then turned back to face the hero. “Well, last question, why won’t you join us?”

“Simple. The Osroids gave a simple way to destroy the demon king. It ripped a portion of the [hero] class out of my spirit, and used it to make a bomb.”

All three domainholders were stunned. It took a good thirty seconds before Roon’s shocked face turned into a smirk. “Oh boy, Lumoof’s gonna have a field day with this one.”

“Why?”

“I think our patreon god probably has a lot of similarities to these Osroids. And so- you have an incomplete [hero] class?’

“Yes.”

***

The three met outside.

“What the fuck’s going on here?” Ezar cursed. “That dude’s a half-hero or some shit?”

Roon nodded. “Not what I expected, but I suppose so.”

Johann looked around. “I think, what’s really important to know, is whether the Osroids are some kind of threat to us.”

Ezar looked a bit bewildered. “I am guessing it’ll be yes. It’s some death-manipulating domainholder with some soul-type shenanigans.”

“Let’s- let’s not pass judgement so quickly. Just because it’s using death power doesn’t make it bad. What it’s doing now seems fairly proper. It trades for corpses, uses souls from corpses to create it’s people, and used the hero’s class somehow as a weapon.” Roon countered. “I- I think we should let Aeon decide on this.”

“I don’t get it. Hawa clearly considers this world to be a peripheral world, and it ‘loses’ faith points sustaining this world. Yet it clearly doesn’t seem like it needs help, if this Osroid can use the hero class to destroy demons.”

“It still needs the hero class to make the weapon, and that costs faith points. I reckon the act of summoning is what drains most of the faith points.” Roon countered.

“So, the way to ‘save’ Hawa’s faith points is to blow up demon kings before new heroes are summoned.”

“Yea. Pretty much.”

“Then we’ll need to make an agreement with this death-god in the deathlands.”

Spaizzer

Next week I'm on break.