The Fall Of The Tribes

by Philip Read

  For to see a spirit creature disguising itself as a man is to be seen by that creature and it will know how hollow and pointless its efforts are. It will know the fear of the possibility of banishment as you walk passed and it will hate you for that fear you induce within it. And if ever it builts up the courage it will lash out.

  “How soon can you get the charm completed?” I send, still at the edge of panic.

  Being spiritually defenseless is not something I had ever thought would happen to me again, and I’m finding I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit.

  “It will be ready by when next your delegation arrives for negotiations.”

  So two days, I will be unprotected and vulnerable for two days. Unless I go to the temple, spirits don’t go there with any malicious intent. But to get there I’d have to travel through the city and there are multitudes of spirit creatures possessing people, possesing objects, free floating and pretending to be people or feeding off them like parasites that will want a piece of me.

  “In the meantime send someone to come ward these rooms against spirits and their influence and to give me a temporary charm.” I send, getting comfortable with the link between us and the ease with which it makes distance communication.

  “Yes Master.”

  I breathe a sigh of relief at that and stand to survey the room. My o-katana Razor still in hand, I calm down and come to terms with my current weakness. It only scares me because of knowledge I’ve acquired through the years, I used to live my life oblivious of the danger I was in before developing my spirit abilities and it’s just the knowledge of what’s out there that spooked me for a moment.

  So communication with a summoned creature is easy and instantaneous, does that mean I’ve had a line to home all this time?

  “Katya.” I send and I get a response almost immediately.

  “Yes Master.” She says in her humble tone but with a hint of excitement, eager to please.

  I jump up and down in my rooms in excitement. I punch the air in victory before calming myself down again but even with everything going on I can’t help the grin on my face.

  “Tell me what’s been happening with the family, leave nothing out.”

  “Yes Master.”

  *

  Nikita is very clever for her age and has been undergoing special tutoring to hone her special gifts of learning and understanding. She is the most serious of my children in public but playful and loud at home, a trait she is mimicking from Kuyoki her favourite mama. She doesn’t know who her actual birth mother is neither do Hannah and Ikigai apparently and just take all my mates as their mother and sometimes Shea as their father when in his male form.

  Hannah is completely superficial and mischievous, prone to tantrums that only Aurora can manage to withstand or control. Hannah and Aura are as thick as thieves and inseparable most of the time even with the age difference. Hannah is also most sensitive to ether around her and has a tendency of making friends with nature spirits.

  Ikigai has a very strange sense of humour and has already shown signs of going into the Rage. She loves to fight but always cries when her sisters bully her instead of defend herself. Outside against other children she is a terror though and her viciousness is inspired. She likes to follow Saya around when Saya is back from the Den Compound.

  That’s another thing, my now 16 year old little Saya has long since graduated to the Den. Achieving such a level of competence and deadly grace that the masters at the Academy acknowledged her potential. She apparently joined the mercenary wing of Proelium as a soldier, I’m not sure how I feel about that but I know I’m proud of her.

  Aurora is fast becoming a known mind healer even before any form of Awakening. She can sooth any emotional disturbance in people and help them through it without being overwhelmed by it. She can also use her abilities offensively by making people feell what she wants them to feel if it’s originating from within herself.

  Dishna is turning into quite the lover of beasts and beast taming. Taking an active interest in riding and combat from horseback and archery. Strangely she is yet to show any signs of the Rage at all even after going through the grueling training of the Academy as she also is now a full member of the Den. She also has a serious boyfriend from Pangaea courting her, a serious young man by the name of Browly. One of the youngest sons of a minor lord with 30 other children or some such.

  The mothers approve of him and have been inviting him over often, he has two older sisters that are also part of the Conclave. One of whom has taken an interest in Soal but the enigmatic man will have none of it, using the little coin he has to buy to go to the newly established whorehouse down on the underside.

  Vuyo has had another son by Om they have named Boyka, Kiera is yet to have any children and there seems to be a lot of friction going on there. Om has also been training like a madmad, barely home with his mates both of whom now live at the Den together with the kids. He has taken to visiting the library as well and is said to have rejected an invitation into the the Proelium, Katya isn’t sure what’s goingbon with him nor has anyway else judging but what people are saying.

  My mother is pregnant again, will wonders never cease? Dee and I are the only children she has for years and years to gossip and being bad mouthed by the other women that saw da as deserving of a second wife and more children. Now all of a sudden when I have kids ma decides to join me and confuse my children as to what to call the new arrivals.

  Eldrich my aunt Helen’s son is turning into a known name when it comes to combat. He weilds a longsword and wears heavy armour and has been decimating all his peers in his training group. The first Barbarian to west heavy armour and as Wes had said, unstoppable when he goes into the Rage with that mentality of moving despite taking wounds.

  The Proelium guys are trying to train a Barbarian heavy armour division but of course there are some Orcs, some Mare, some normal humans in that. His little brother Cyrus is turning into the sneaky sort, he will probably join the Survey division of Sovereign though, the explorers.

  Da and Uncle Brian have been supervising the construction at Eldritch. Keeping Master builder Kree company and making sure no expense is spared spending Shea’s money. Shea herself is no stranger to the site and keeps bringing additional planes for room designs and partitioning.

  The actual whole was dug 60m deep, stopped by an immoveable bedrock with has become one the foundations of the house. I say one because the was also a tunnel dug around the bedrock and another huge room was dug under it, and that is where the bunker of my house is to be.

  The skeleton of the construction is now completed, the same wards used in constructing the Compound have been used in the frame of my house. Wards against spirits, wards against curses, wards against distance eaves dropping, wards against scrying, wards Katya have never heard off before that the others haven’t mentioned in her presence.

  The stones making up the skeleton of the six story deep building, seven if you count the story under the bedrock are all enchanted. The is apparently the really expensive part, more expensive than the warding or the building. Every single stone has to be individually enchanted for strength reinforcement and self repair.

  The second enchantment being the most expensive to the extent that the walls that separate are built around the current frame and that separate the rooms won’t have the self repair enchantment. How Paradisum was built wholely with both enchantments per stone I don’t know. In fact where the money came from to build Paradisum I’m not sure but there was a lot of unpaid labour there.

  Or maybe the celestial ore we traded off to the fae is just that valuable to them. I still have some ore horded away that I was planning on saving for my children when they want soul forged weapons but maybe I could trade some away and see if I can’t get a time dilation chamber…

  Cicilia has a boyfriend, I’m not sure how I feel about that but apparently ma put her foot down and declared no Barbarian woman is owned by a man. So yea, my wife to be has a
boyfriend and is having sex I assume. I feel sort of relieved to not have to deal with another virgin but I also really want to beat the kid that she is seeing to a pulp.

  Kuyoki has been using Katya for sex almost a year now. First secretly but now openly as she is used by the family on a regular basis now, Katya declares happily. Kuyoki, Mira, Shea, Saya, and to my eternal surprise Ingwe use her sexually almost on a daily basis after her ‘lessons’ at the Brothel. I didn’t actually intend for her to have lessons more than help healing from some the abuse I’m sure she has endured through the years but I’m also getting hard imagining what she can do.

  Apparently Shea and Mira are having sex as women on a daily basis. Sometimes just together sometimes Katya joins, other times Shea watches as Mira has sex with Rigdris but all in all there has been no heterosexual intercourse between them. A distinction I find amusing because really sex is sex but I bet they think they are respecting me by placing the boundary, which is cute.

  Mira has become infamous at the Spiritus enclave for her apparently new abilities to hurm spirit bodies with her magic and her zanpakutō. Instead of being banished back to their plane spirit creatures that face off against her are in danger of dying a permanent death. Something I think is a result of the djinn within her finally waking up.

  She is also apparently a mana leech, meaning she can syphoned off mana from individuals she bleeds or manages to get wrapped around her chain. How she can also use air magic is a mystery because all known leeches are unable to cast magic.

  I feel naughty listening in on the going ons of my family while I’m away, I bet this is what gossips feel like when talking about people. Every little snippet of information Katya sends me is interesting and leads to it’s own set of questions that get me off track from my initial query. The daily lives of my children, the daily lives of my mates, the daily lives of my friends and extended family.

  The construction project is slower than I had imagined if only the framework and only the load bearing enchanted pieces are only up. But according to Katya the whole is apparently wider now than it initially was when they started digging while I was around.

  Though they didn’t manage to dig down ten stories like I envisioned, they dug deep enough to make seven solid stories with vaulted reinforced ceilings high enough to accommodate a 4m tall creature for each floor comfortably. And wide enough that each floor can have multiple sets of rooms and house about 50 people when cramped.

  The orchard under Vahe and Svensonsen have been keeping their end of the loose bargain and taking care of the plant seeds Vevina gave me. The family apparently has a stable diet of fruit imported from the Foothills now returning the seeds to be replanted and produce more trees. The orchard is sustaining itself and under fae supervision is a danger of turning into a woodland, then a forest, then a jungle.

  Their study of Katya have been mostly noninvasive with only two accidents to date where she nearly died. I frown as she says that but I don’t stop her eager tirade of information. Apparently some of the fae that came down with us have been integrated well into the Conclave community, finding other interesting things we short lived are experimenting with.

  Apparently someone claiming to be my master has demanded that rooms be built for her in the palace I am building which she has dubbed Deep Keep. No one seems to be willing to argue with the mad woman, even Shea who is known to be the most powerful member of my household.

  *

  Listening to Katya talk has calmed me down greatly and everything is coming back into perspective. Honour is far away somewhere and I can’t summon her back to my side because I have no spirit energy.

  My spirit energy is being syphoned off by Keir to heal and sustain him, hopefully the drain will decrease when he is fully healed. Some in smaller quantities is distributed to my katana Razor, my small axe Katya, Honour is syphoning some where ever she may be. Katya is draining a little, then there is this dark sport where the rest of my spirit energy should be.

  It’s just gone, and it isn’t regenerating at all. I thought I had vast amounts of spiritual energy after my Awakening but apparently I had no true reference of what ‘vast’ really is. Maybe it’s cause of my use of it in the spirit plane, maybe the creature Zillah. Whatever it is, there are other ways to compensate for a loss like this.

  Maybe it’s time I started adding charms, rune tattoos, and that armour Wes mentioned to my arsenal.

  Chapter 124

  Sachihiro

  We spend most of the day walking around the gardens and socialising with each other with chalices if wine in hand and empty smiles for one another. All pointless to me but none the less we do it, I listen to the nobles of Atopia go on and on and I start to realise why these people are being controlled by cults. These people are lost and the cults will probably do them some good but of course I remain civil and well mannered.

  Then its into the court hall and ‘socializing’ while watching Erena sit on a chair for over an hour. I’m wearing a charm necklace around my neck that may break against the slightest spiritual attack. I’m hoping no creature takes the risk it’s a trick to catch them red handedly attacking me. I’m wearing both Katya and Razor and a boot dagger today because never before have my weapons felt so artificial to me, I feel I need more than I’m used to carrying to protect myself.

  The connection between them is there and they have spirit energy retained within them as they strengthened, there is just no feedback from me. I may as well be carrying mundane steel weapons for all I can feel them and the feeling leaves me feeling naked.

  I write a letter asking if Nyye would be willing to come train with me during the assignment I’m currently in. It’s unorthodox but I am desperate to find out how I fair using ‘mundane’ weapons against the green skinned nature elf. I’m hesitant to hurt or be hurt by Erena’s Awakened royal guards and of course the princess gives her blessing for me to train freely.

  Nyye arrives within the hour, I don’t know how the elf is a priest of Eros since I’ve never even heard of him partaking in any sexual act and he is almost always available to spar. The boring court entertainment turns into a spectacle of these nobles and guards watching me face off against Nyye in a serious sparing match though.

  I don’t even mind the audience, that’s how worried I am its the connection I had with my weapons that made me able to move them so quickly and efficiently. We face off in the sparing yard, Nyye wielding his part mythril enchanted short swords easily in his hands. Twirling them around as we cicke one another.

  I have Katya my short throwing axe on my left hand held in a solid grip and Razor my single edged razor sharp o-katana in my right held lightly. There is nearly any weight on my feet as my knees are bent and I’m on my toes, the weight distributed around and away from my feet until I’m ready to launch.

  I usually don’t like people I may someday have to face and kill knowing my moves, knowing the way I fight but today I don’t care. The eyes, the senses, the examinations of the audience wash over me and eventually fall in the periphery of my awareness. There, but not focused on, my focus is fully on my opponent.

  Razor is a traditional samurai sword and what I should have been made as I graduated from trainee to samurai by the Hito people. It is made from celestial ore using finely sanded iron grains and forged by the master sword smiths of the Hito people. With a 70cm long blade it is just outside the edge of being a medium sword for me but would be a normal sword for others.

  As though we have come to a mutual agreement we both move to attack and there is a pound reverberating ring as we clash with bladed weapons testing each other’s strength before separating and clashing again trying to cut each other. Other blades meet and our bodies swerve and dodge and jump stabbing slicing retreating attacking.

  I parry I counter, he parries he counters, I deflect I shoot I foot forward, I’m blocked I duck under an elbow. Our weapons clash as we move around each other, in constant motion and at high speeds, yes I haven’t lost my speed.


  I spin and revser and block strikes with my axe I shouldn’t have been able to see coming, I strike and my Razor curs the air but is stopped cold by the short, pointy eared elven man. We aren’t using auras or other abilities, this is a straight up sword fight and the man has enough strength in his body to stop a strike from me cold in it’s tracks. Elves truly are more than they seem.

  We clash and fight this way for a while, hardly giving each other any options or openings but fighting all out. No single move is intended as a killing blow and with no one honing their weapons only a complete decapitation or a blade through the heart will kill either of us so we don’t hold back.

  It eventually becomes a battle of endurance as we seem to be evenly matched in terms of skill and our styles. I have more cuts on my body than he does, but that’s mainly because I am less practiced duel wielding than he is. My blood is on the floor, the are shallow cuts all over my chest and shoulders but there are also cuts on him as he keeps underestimating the reach of my axe.

  The loss of most o my spirit energy doesn’t seem to have affected my fighting ability as it is. We clash to sparks and separate, both mutually ending the spar with panting breaths. Awareness of the rest of the room slowly comes back to me and I notice our audience of ‘nobles’ is slack jawed but some seem to have followed the entire thing without issue.

  I bow to Nyye thanking him with a sending and asking that he come tomorrow if possible. He affirms with a bow of his own, faces the princess and bows to her as well before walking out of the silent chamber.

  My spirit weapons can still face off against his mythril edged steel without chipping, I realise as I check my edges. Which mean they really are retaining their spirit gained toughness. They have retained the level of resilience they have scaled to from the day I acquired them until now.

  My Razor came out of the forge a grade A rare quality weapon, now it’s at the cusp of breaking into legendary aspects. My Katya came to me as a grade C rare quality weapon but now is of grade A quality. Light clapping destacts me from my musing.