Chopped Off (P70)

Year 83 Month 7

Alexis somehow fell back into ‘moments’ of that mental breakdown constantly. It seemed that whatever she realised really ‘possessed’ her, and it would trigger the [soul contract] almost every other day, even if she woke up. Since Alexis had entered into this state, Meela closed her Oakwood Hotel, to spend more time with her.

"Why does she keep relapsing into that screaming fit?" 

"I... I don’t know. Something kept triggering the [soul contract]"

"Stop it?"

"I can't. I don’t know how to."

Hmm. This seems to be a mechanics of the [soul contract], so I attempted to-

------------

[Assessing Soul Contract detailed menu]

[Master : TreeTree. Servant : Alexis]

[Current security setting : Intention to break contract and related causes are purged from memory (default)]

[Other security settings possible : 

Notify Master of rebellious intentionsWarn servantSuppress/Confuse rebellious intentions with other thoughtsPersonality mind-wipe (Levels and skills will be lost. Chance of possible ‘soul-crash’) Do nothingYou may also change the ‘memory purge’ period and targeting conditions.

Warning. Skill-Conflict detected. Alexis, [Laboratory Spirit] possessed the skill [Discovery Log]. Discovery Log records and collates all findings and important facts to produce hypotheses. [Discovery Log] is in conflict with [Soul Contract]’s purging attempt. Conflict is overwhelming servant’s mental & memory faculties. Skill modification not available. 

Do you want to remove Alexis’s skill, [Discovery Log], or suppress the memory purge?

----------

“Oh.” A fix is possible, but let’s talk to Meela. I’m not too keen on keeping Alexis anymore, temporary solutions are just unnecessary band aid. 

But before that, I took some time to look at the other items in this [Soul Contract]’s menu, such as the option to [undo form], and this will be useful for Eriz and Yvon’s future role as my servant. Next time, I should mind-wipe Yvon and Eriz, since as a newly-dead souls their level must be level 1 anyway. Then I don’t have to deal with this... loyalty issue. 

“TreeTree, this can’t continue.” Meela said, she pleaded. Obviously she didn’t know I have an idea how to fix her. “I... I can’t see her like that. I know we died before and all, but Alexis like that, is a fate worse than death. The moment she sees you, this happens.” 

Alexis screamed again. The conflict of skill and soul contract is clearly causing some kind of malfunction, and her tree-lab main-body transformed into this ‘haunted-tree’ like thing, the ‘relapse’ and ‘pain’ clearly affecting her presence. It is indeed unpleasant to have her like this around, and that ‘negative’ energy also affects the nearby trees. 

Meela said. “Can I take her place?” 

“What? No.” That’s worse. If Meela’s the one soul-contracted, and Alexis is free, Alexis will be vengeful. She’s clearly shown the ‘potential’ for retaliation, and I’m not giving her ‘just-cause’, however flimsy. 

"Then... what can I do to spare her from this pain?”

“Meela, will you hold it against me if I were to banish her, and return her to the reincarnation cycle? The gods of reincarnation will deal with what happens next.”

“You mean... kill her? But... why? Can’t you just free her?”

“She clearly has the means and motives to harm me. She has attempted that before. I cannot, in good conscience, free a person who has a high possibility of hurting me and my valley some time in the future.”

“I... I will stop her.” Meela said. “TreeTree, I offer to [soul contract] myself to you, in exchange for Alexis’s freedom. And, I commit, as part of the contract and without reservation, to stop her from ever attempting to hurt you and this valley.”

“Alexis will not accept that.” 

“She will. And if you free both of us, I will guide her away from you. TreeTree, there’s really no need to kill her. The world needs us. Me, and her. And you too. Together, we can do so much to reduce the destruction caused by the demon king. We can help the heroes, and help to break this ‘cycle’. That’s good for you too, if the threat of demons is reduced.”

“That’s...” It feels a bit like blackmail. 

“I’m not trying to blackmail you.” Meela said. I suddenly felt like she’s probably using a [skill] to negotiate with me. Is it her hotel-manager skill? “And yes, I am using a skill. It’s called [sense intent].”

Now that’s not exactly fair, is it?

“The best outcome is all three of us to split up, you do your thing, we do ours. I will find a way to  compensate you in the future, for all the troubles you have gone through to protect both of us. It’s probably clearer for you to kill Alexis, but please don’t. The long term benefits of retaining her as a force against demons outweighs the risk, and I will stop her. I am willing to enter into any kind of contract with you to prove that I will stop her from trying to retaliate against you.”

Sigh.

“Undo her [research tree], and seed her into a wooden body or a seed, or a beetle, and put it in my body. I... I can arrange to move my hotel out. I have a special one-off skill to move my body. Please, TreeTree. The world needs people like Alexis. This demon king cycle isn’t going to stop itself.”

“I won’t release the contract.”

“Why?”

“I won’t release her [soul contract] because it’s my only way to prevent her from ever harming me. And, I will need you to be in a [contract] as well, to agree to stop her. If you agree, then I will let you both go away and roam, under the conditions of the [soul contract].” I have very little faith in the promises of these heroes, so I think it’s best to bind both of them.

I considered my options, in the ‘long run’.

One. Kill both Alexis and Meela. Pros - I won’t have to deal with them for a while. Cons - I have significant uncertainty about the mechanics of this reincarnation system. I am unable to conclude whether killing them actually sends them to another world, or, they will somehow ‘reincarnate’ and come back into this world. Particularly Meela, since her god told her to stick around for a thousand years or so. If so, I may end up having to deal with two former heroes in the future. 

Two. Free Alexis, but Contract with Meela. Pros - Meela’s more trustworthy, and Alexis’s the one with a desire to escape. Con - Alexis clearly isn’t going to let that slide, and her being free, would mean she can acquire all the means necessary to retaliate. Rejected.

Three. Free both of them. Pros - honestly none. Cons - Alexis is clearly suspicious of me, and this ‘fragment’ thing seems to have somehow ‘cemented’ her perception, even despite the restrictions of the [soul contract]. My act of goodwill may not be reciprocated, and the long-run risks outweigh it. Rejected.

Four. Free them, but hold them onto contract. The contract is my insurance. Clearly it’s good at knocking them out, like what it did to Alexis, and I do realise I can ‘make’ her experience a headache if I so desire. Considering the ability to trigger a mindwipe, I could trigger that at the very end of their soul contract.

“If you do that, when we die, we will both come back to you. Do you really... uhm, want to see us again?”

“Yes. That’s the point. Only you can stop her, that’s why you need to be in a [contract]. If you somehow move on and reincarnate, while leaving her here in this world with me, I will kill her so that she moves on too. So. It’s best that no matter what happens, the fates of you two are intertwined like married trees, forever.”

Meela paused. “That... makes sense. Not the deal I would hope for, but... but yes. Fine. I, Meela Adams, agree to be [soul contracted] to TreeTree and vow to stop Alexis from ever attempting to harm TreeTree and the valley.”

The contract sealed. I also insisted that they never speak of my fragments ever, ever again.

And I unmade Alexis’s form as a soul fused into research tree. 

This strips her of all her levels and experience, and she’s back to a glowing soul in my [soul realm]. Then, with [soul forge], I fused her into a small beetle. Then a beetle moves that small sleeping beetle to Meela’s hotel lodge. I chose a beetle because... it’s a choice between beetles and spiders. I didn’t want to give her that dryad body, that’s mine. 

I recall that there is a ‘restriction’ or ‘cooldown’ for re-fusing souls into new body forms, but it seems heroes and former heroes are not subject to such restriction. 

“Thank you, TreeTree.” Meela’s Oakwood hotel started to change shape into a gigantic peashooter, and it shot out an absolutely massive seed-like thing, containing a ‘disassembled hotel’. “This peashooter is able to send us anywhere around the world, so we’ll be on another continent, and we will not bother you anymore.”

“Where?”

“The North!” Meela said. “Where it’s cold!”

“Is this the best time to do it, with the demons everywhere?”

“I... I know a place. We’ll be fine. See you, someday. I’ll handle Alexis.”

In a flash, the peashooter expanded and then shot the massive ‘seed’ across the skies. Then the peashooter ‘decayed’ and ‘withered’, it’s purpose fulfilled.

They’re gone now. Is that the best way to separate? Will I regret this decision someday? 

[Alexis’s experience as research tree has been converted into experience, similar skill seeds and class seeds]

[You received Class Seeds -  Magic Researcher x 4, Pyromancer x 2, Schemer x 4]

[You received Skill seeds - Magic Researcher x 11, Pyromancer x 5, Schemer x 10]

[You gained one level. You are now level 140!]

[You gained a passive skill - Forest of Giants]

[Forest of Giants causes the trees around your main body to experience significant growth, resulting in the creation of a valley of gigantic trees. Their size will be equal to your own. Produces giant-timber]

[You have gained a new skill - Giant Attendant Trees x 100]

[Giant Attendant Trees are supersized version of Subsidiary trees, with 10 times the [customisable branch] space, and 10 times the [customisable roots] space. They also have a root-network that is 10 times larger, and also expand the communication range by 10 times. They also retain a larger % of the main tree’s auras and passive, but this is capped at a max of 50% of the main body’s aura and passives.]

Wow. 

Well, at least she gave me a farewell gift.

-

With that over, I turn my focus on the southern walker. The heroes should be there soon, but it seems they took the scenic route, fighting demons after demons, helping town after town with their demon problems. That’s fine, that’s what heroes do, but I think something’s messing with them. 

Still, my trees are not far behind. I have a vested interest in following them. After all, if they die, and my trees are nearby, I get a [Titan Soul]! And I can’t wait to try one. Too bad I didn’t get it when I unmade Alexis, but meh. 

The southern areas of the continent’s ravaged, it bears the mark of many battles fought, some between kingdoms, and lately, against the demons. The Gila Kingdom’s recent use of [hexbombs] meant quite a few ‘impassable’ terrain, thanks to the corruption of the hex. 

I wonder if hexbombs get used too often, will this world end up like kind of nuclear wasteland, ala fallout? I mean... the hex spawns alien-ish monsters, hostile to everything. 

The heroes didn’t look like they plan to attack just yet. 

-

Lausanne received something from me this month. I had an idea while working on the [soul contract], that, I wanted her to have a special [weapon]. All heroes have special weapons. Thor has Mjollnir, Iron Man has his suit, and Captain America has his shield. 

So, I made a wooden staff with the largest gem I have in it, and I fused an [artificial soul] into it. Jura has Bamboo, so, I thought Lausanne should get one. 

“This is Thorny. It’s a level 1 [living staff]. If you practice with it, it will get stronger.” I wasn’t very creative with names. 

Lausanne looked at it, and twirled the staff around. To me, it didn’t look any different from another staff, the fusing somehow made the large gem melt into the entirety of the spear, but Lausanne could feel it. I sometimes forget they aren’t used to voices other than my own. 

I chose a staff, because it seemed to be a common equipment for druids, since she took the [druid] class fruit recently. ‘Compatibility’ with the [possession of the devoted]. Maybe she’ll do something cool with it. 

I would still want to provide more ‘training’ but I think I would need more... powerful [dream tutors].

Maybe it could be like... another world-in-another world. Or a ‘VR’ experience via dreams?

Year 83 Month 8

The heroes defeated the walker. A hard fought battle, with plenty of deaths from the coalition army. But a victory nonetheless. 

Also, this is when I realised all the heroes have some kind of summoned army. 

Perhaps it's the theme this round, maybe the gods are like the designers for Magic the Gathering where they design ‘block-mechanics’ and all the heroes of that ‘block’ share the same mechanics. 

Or are they just rolling the wheel, like how I rolled mine?

-

A few days later, after that walker was slain, the two other walkers, one of which swam across the seas... combined. 

Like fucking Voltron. 

And then I detected it. 

“Magical bombardment detected!” Trevor literally shouted. “Coordinating [magic sensors] and [shield generators]. 

The magical projectile flew overhead. It wasn’t aimed at us. 

So two walkers combined into a long-range magical artillery cannon. A stationary bombardment weapon. It’s like the Big Bertha from Total Annihilations!

It shot again. 

“Can we stop it?” I asked the artificial souls. 

“We need more subsidiary trees in that direction, so that we can ‘triangulate’ the magical signatures and coordinate the shields to intercept accordingly.”

It shot again. 

“What the hell is that flying overhead?” Some civilians finally noticed as the magical projectiles flew past, like a giant comet glowing in the sky. 

If you ask me, it feels like the demons are now able to retaliate against the ‘blood ritual’.

Then it stopped. Three shots, and the combined ‘demonic supercannon’ seemed to be ‘recharging’. I wonder whether it is recharging, or it’s just waiting for new targets.

“What if that thing fires at us?” Jura asked, worried. 

“We can stop it. Thankfully the projectile isn’t very fast, and I can detect it coming.” Despite this, I created more subsidiary trees in that direction, and a few [giant attendant trees]. The giant attendant trees can act as a ‘shield’, after all they share a lot of my toughness and auras. Better safe than sorry.

“I... I’ll get the men to expand the underground hideouts and sewers.” Jura breathed a sigh of relief, but there is an undercurrent of concern. 

It didn’t fire for a week, and we traced the arc of the magical projectile, to find that it was aimed at Gila. 

Half of their capital city has been vaporised by the projectiles. 

Two days later, another city in Gila retaliated with one big [blood ritual], and it sacrificed 1,000 souls for it. 

It hit, but the demonic supercannon created a massive wall out of demonic flesh that blocked most of the damage. 

Is this it? 

I can’t help but feel like this is the beginning of a ‘thermonuclear war’. The ‘threat’ of mutually assured destruction to maintain a fragile peace doesn’t work here,if one side is a race of trigger happy demon. 

The heroes, as I follow them, changed their targets for the demonic supercannon. They would have to backtrack, since the Demonic Supercannon is located a distance away, to the north. 

For me, if two walkers can do this, why isn’t the demon king bombarding the world to death? Can’t it do that? Surely, with the demon king’s ability which is supposedly one order of magnitude higher, it can shoot projectiles like that all the time. 

What’s stopping it? A lack of... imagination?

A lack of bullets? Does it need to tap into some kind of magical leyline to power the supercannons beyond what they are normally able to do?

Oh well. Or maybe it’s some strange systemic limitations that are imposed? 

I sometimes feel the system’s rules don’t really apply all that well for those in the higher rungs of power. I wonder whether it’s like my home world, where money allows one to get away with rules that those with limited resources can’t. 

After some thinking, I felt it won’t go anywhere unless I could interview the demon king, so I stopped thinking about it.

-

Closer to home, I focused on Lausanne, the Valthorns and the Valtrian Order.

Meela’s Oakwood hotel is gone, and that left a ‘gap’ in the hospitality business. Eager to fill it, I created an artificial soul and merged it with the Tree Lodge to create a similar thing. Still, the gap is far too huge compared to Meela’s level 70+ hotel.

Oh, I called my new artificial soul, Treeveller. Travellers, Treeveller. And the business is called Pine Lodge. 

It had complaints on the first day.

“Who’s this pathetic person running this pathetic establishment!”

Well, I had to intervene, and quickly re-hire the treefolks that Meela used to employ, and pay them slightly more to make up for the ‘gap’ she left behind. It’ll take some time before Treeveller even becomes a decent inn-manager, but, a business is a business.

“We need a chef! Lady Mika used to cook great vegetarian dishes!” 

“Uh...” 

Well, in a roundabout way, it was Emile who volunteered to cook for the kitchen. She didn’t have any [chef] classes, but I have [chef] and [cook] class seeds from the many many dead people’s souls I collected over the decades. I’ll also need a [barkeeper], but that’s for later.

-

“Aeon.” A group of fifteen children stand around a circle, around a [tree of prayer] in Jura’s courtyard. An old lady leads them, she’s one of the caretakers of the orphans. There has been more... refugees this month.

Even though the heroes have been out helping to squash the demons, there are still way too many demons crawling around the continent. The demonic supercannon really messed up a lot of defensive strategies, as armies need to split into smaller detachments to avoid total loss. Yet, with the [message] network down, this means the separated armies need to rely on old school means of communicating. By couriers, or riders. 

It’s a strangely effective strategy. Split up the large armies, and with the communications down, pick on whichever force that’s lost. 

Anyway, the old lady bowed. The fifteen children followed. “This is Aeon’s many, many bodies. He is everywhere in the valley, and he watches over us. Are you ready, to be the next batch of Valthorn Initiates?” 

The fifteen children, aged 6 to 10 nodded. 

“Good. You will receive a familiar from Aeon, this is a test, if Aeon sees you worthy for the first step.” 

All of them get a familiar. It really wasn't a test, but nobody needs to know that. These children are young, and the intention is for them to be forged in the flames of battle. 

This is because I decided to expand the Valthorns significantly, and expanded it to a group of 100. The minder's use is rather limited, and yes, it is useful for me to observe the levels and skills they acquire, but I will use the minders on people that are more 'sensitive' and with special gifts. 

In short, the regular kids will become regular warriors with familiars, though they will have the Valthorn title, and the truly talented will be observed using the minders.

The fifteen children walk back happy. For many of them, this is a great gift, and they are eager to test it out. 

So far, I have not lost any of the Valthorns in battle, but I believe... some of them will die over the next few years. It’s just inevitable.