by G. Akella
***
Something soft touched my cheek, followed by a breeze, and then... A crow alighted on my shoulder, stirring me back to reality. At least I thought it was a crow—I knew no more about birds than I did about mushrooms, that is to say, less than nothing. In fact, any quest giver would be a damned fool to send me off into the forest with a basket for mushroom picking. Also, if memory served me right, crows were usually grayish-black in color, not pitch-black like the color of the bird presently perching on my shoulder. That and the beast was close to twice the size of any crow I'd ever seen.
"Careful, dar! That's no simple bird!" Vaessa yelled behind me.
Uh, no kidding. It wasn't like birds landing on my shoulders was a regular occurrence. I waved to the magus reassuringly, then cocked my head to try and get a better look at my strange guest. It didn't work very well—for all my achievements, I hadn't yet learned how to rotate my head a hundred eighty degrees a la The Exorcist. But then the birds hopped off my shoulder and onto the back of Gloom's neck, spread its wings and shifted its feet a few times. Comfortably settled, it cocked its head in return and fixed me with its black beady eyes.
"Can I help you?" I inquired, not particularly hopeful for an answer.
The bird studied me intently for ten seconds or so, then cried something in what I presumed to be its crow tongue, and took off in the air to attend to its crow business.
????????? ?? ???? ???????? ??????? ????????? ?????? ???????? ???????? ? ?????????? ???????? ????? ? ????? ?????????????.
Hart! I swore to myself, looking at the lines of question marks suddenly populating the system log. Is this how things will go from now on? The deeper the rabbit hole, the fatter the rabbits?! Is the world changing faster than its programming allows? Have I gotten so far that the game's AIs' brains are starting to melt?
"Anyone know what that was about?" I asked my companions, following the bird with my eyes.
In response to my question, Reece put on a solemn expression, then stuck out his tongue, stuck a finger in it, pulled on his right ear lobe, made a throat slashing gesture with the sharp of his hand, shrugged and spread his arms. This one will never change, I shook my head, holding back a smile.
"Morrigan the Swift and her companions are known to appear in bird form," said Kan, riding on my right. "I'd never seen it myself, but I remember Lars and Altus mentioning it. Having gotten to know you, prince, nothing surprises me anymore."
Hmm... Morrigan, the Goddess of Stealth and Military Cunning. I perused the chronicles, then drew a sigh. Now what did this one want from me? Of course, it was entirely possible that this wasn't her... Anyway, I was no Sherlock Holmes to rack my brain over all these mysteries. If she needed me, she knew where to find me and tell me her wishes. Or at least crow them in a more or less intelligible manner.
As we drew closer to the capital, the road became significantly more lively. I saw peasant wagons, lone riders and small groups of fighters in striped black-and-white coats. The average level of the local populace exceeded that of Ashtar and Rualt dominions by a considerable margin, which made sense given that barbarian lands had been designed by the devs as the equivalent of Erantian frontier. Except nobody could have predicted that this world would up and start living and developing on its own terms.
We overtook a caravan carrying barrels of every conceivable size and shape. Growing bored, I opened my inventory and proceeded to examine the Overlord's presents once again.
Ahriman's Fiery Weakening
Unique item. Scroll.
Duration: 90 minutes.
Effective range: 50 yards.
Effect: No creature in the Realm of Arkon can resist the Alcmehn's Overlord's magic. Your opponent suffers a 50% penalty to their attack speed, casting speed, movement speed and damage output.
Aim at your target and break the seal to use.
Holy Myrt's Tears
Legendary item. Potion.
Instant cast.
Effective range: 60 yards.
Effect: the Supreme God of Erantia's magic is particularly potent against spawn of the Gray Frontier. All undead targets in the spell's area of effect suffer 50,000,000 damage.
The scroll was a veritable atomic bomb, explaining why even gods and Elder Demons preferred not to mess with Ahriman. The difference being, he could cast this Fiery Weakening as much as he wishes, while I only had the one scroll, and enemies up the wazoo: Vill, his two still-living companions, the three-headed dog guarding the White Dragon, other dark gods I hadn't encountered yet, and the three brothers Vaepar, Valeph and Halephos for desert. Of course, the scroll was essentially useless against the titans anyway, what with the dark gods being capable of instantly healing their wounded brother, who, in turn, could deal massive amounts of damage even with fifty percent attack power. Let's just hope they were still sound asleep with no intention of waking anytime soon. With my luck, there would be nasty surprises aplenty even without the Ancients' getting in the way. No, let them sleep for as long as they could.
Ahriman had also mentioned about running into someone by Vaedarr. Figures—Urgam the soul catcher was human in that vision, so if he were hiding somewhere nearby, the area would surely be indicated on the map. And that meant a visit to the human capital was on the agenda. After tracking down and having a few words with that douchebag, I would set out to the orcish lands in search of the third and final one.
Holy Myrt's Tears... I groaned at the pompous name. I recalled images of the deity from the game's literature—a stern-faced, bearded hulk of a man armed with a massive staff—and struggled to imagine him crying. Not that I cared either way whether he was a crybaby—all that mattered to me that the vial could be pretty damn useful. Not against serious foes or anything, but it should turn a whole bunch of regular undead to ashes in the blink of an eye. One could wonder how a legate going into battle against demonic legions could have procured such a potion, or how it had preserved after said legate's death? The first question might be answered along the lines of any good commander always having a set of potions for every conceivable scenario, or that some suspected that Vill and Syrat might defect to Velial's side. As for the second, I supposed that the demons resurrected by Velial wouldn't rise buck-naked, but retain their equipment and inventory. Anyway, what mattered was that the vial was now in my possession.
I took out the other accessory issued by Ahriman, and set to studying it. The gold medallion was decorated with several small rubies and boasted the engraving of a wolf's muzzle. An envoy's badge. Similar to the courier's badge in function, only several times better. This baby guaranteed me access to just about any ruler in the upper plane; moreover, with their consent, I could create the first stationary portal linking Demon Grounds to Karn by breaking it. Unfortunately, the actual journey to the upper plane would still need to be done the old-fashioned way. And the other portals would be built without me—surely Ahriman didn't want for diplomats. The first one, however, could only be built by a player, confirming my long-time suspicions that the devs had planned from the start for the commander of the clan that had completed the continental event to meet the Overlord. Except the way it all went down couldn't have been foreseen in anyone's wildest dreams, but whatever. Were I a player in the traditional sense of the word, and were the world still a game instead of whatever it had turned into, I would probably be squealing with glee right about now. But as it was, this quest was just another pain in my ass. Still, refusing my father-in-law wasn't an option: firstly, my father-in-law just wasn't someone you could refuse if you valued your life, and secondly, the portal had to be built anyway, seeing as without it I wouldn't be able to return home afterward.
"Take care of Lita, kid!" Saad Khor chuckled, gave me a mighty slap on the shoulder, and opened a portal to Laketa's environs.
Curiously enough, I didn't feel any animus toward Altus' killer. On the contrary, I quite liked him. Perhaps it was because the archmage had perished in a fair and glorious battle, fighting for what he believed in, just li
ke the general? Or maybe it was Jaelitte's warm attitude towards him in my conversations with her, often referring to him as uncle? Anyway...
Ar-Iraz wasn't in Laketa, but I did find Daressa Valtar instead. Surrounded by a half-century of Astarot's punishers as her retinue, the woman escorted me to a string of wagons stationed on the border.
What was there to say? The sight of my new citizenry made me groan—and for good reason! It was one thing to read about global resettlements of various peoples, but to see it with your own eyes was quite another story, despite the conditions of this realm being far more bearable than back on Earth, where lacking sanitation alone could result in prodigious loss of life.
The size of the camp was enormous! I saw many children and the elderly, but also plenty of able-bodied women and men, and two huge herds of livestock... I shuddered to imagine how Prince Ritter had managed to get this veritable horde to the border, then reprimanded myself for my stupidity. The caravan had three and a half thousand soldiers, each of whom was probably capable of sending their own family to the border, along with their wagon, cows and sheep in tow.
I didn't see any guards near the camp. Hell, Ritter hadn't even bothered to strip the rebels of their weapons and armor! What was that about? Yet another expression or gratitude or simple indolence?
After chatting for an hour with Dar Unill, the tifling charged with supervising the camp, I realized that I was going to need a few good bottles of liquid courage before even attempting to deal with this "boon." But though I had plenty of cognac, I had no desire to drink it. Instead, I went the tried-and-true route: ordering the caravan to cross the border and make for Suonu, poaching three of Unill's deputies, then crossing the border myself and taking a portal to Craedia. I had talented and experienced "demon resources" there that shouldn't have any problem taking over the management duties of this resettlement project.
Everything was fine back at home. Though only a month had passed, the castle had been transformed so radically that I feared for my next return it would resemble something from a Disney cartoon. Evidently, Schen's advanced administrative skills enabled him to intuit what I might like or dislike. And indeed, I now had my own personal chambers and reception area. A fireplace, a writing desk, books on stands, art and weapons on the wall... Clichéd, you say? Screw that! Was I a prince or what? If so, let me act accordingly. Now, sure, there were only four books in all, two on each stand, but that was all fixable. Once the borders were open, I would order a whole wagon's load of books and other useful stuff, maybe even dictate some books to the guys myself.
The princedom as a whole was also doing well. The farmers had been resettled, and the troops were getting a lay of the land, practicing on the perpetually rising Irstad undead and level 200 stone golems that abounded the foothills south of Craedia and Tehran-Asha.
The first thing I did upon my arrival was to make my private room mirror my chambers in Craedia, preferring to avoid any visual dissonance. Then I handed over to Schen all the junk filling up my treasury, tasked him with "handling the migrant problem," and sent for my officers. While waiting for them to arrive, I took a leisurely stroll around the castle before being cornered by my quartermaster and forced to listen to his three-hour-long report. Now I knew why Louis XIII was such a slacker, at least according to Dumas. And really, why would anyone want to bother with all these calculations? How much leather to order for hunters to craft saddles for the legion's getare, or where to set the quota for metal production in each of the princedom's twenty four mines? Praise the gods, my demons didn't need to be taught anything, as otherwise I might have gone completely mad, lousy teacher that I was. Not even the game's absolute memory was of help here, since virtually nothing outside of basic algebra was applicable to this realm, and I wasn't entirely certain about even that. Economics? The game's economy had changed beyond recognition after RP17's antics. The upper plane was probably full of former economists and lawyers struggling to put their earthly education to use. No, once all this was over, I would take Alyona and Max, and all three of us would start apprenticing with Schen, Elnar and Gorm. Yes, apprenticing, instead of thrusting our noobish noses into management. My last job may have been in America, but I was still Russian to the core, and us Russians have really taken to heart the concept, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!" Better yet, keep your innovations to yourself, and it'll keep working for a long, long time. This was my personal philosophy as well, explaining my general strategy of listening to others with an air of understanding, and nodding whenever the situation appeared to warrant a nod.
If anyone here thought that assembling nearly two dozen sentients over a territory enormous by even Earth's standards was a matter of five-ten minutes, they would be dead wrong. Despite the fact that every one of them was capable of building a portal to any point within said territory in one minute flat. Take me, for instance—as a kid, I used to live exactly four minutes' walking from my school, yet how often would I actually show up to school on time? But I digress... By evening all of my darlings had finally pulled up, and it was awfully sweet to see the unbridled joy on their faces. The prince had returned! Or so they thought...
The prolonged dinner flowed into a five-hour-long council meeting at which I recounted to my friends all my adventures, omitting only the true reason for the Overlord's sudden shift in disposition toward me. I didn't want anyone to celebrate prematurely over gaining a mighty ally in an Elder Demon. Considering that said demon was presently locked inside a ring or some kind of pocket of reality, the extent of her aid amounted to an occasional boost of morale in yours truly—more often, a loss thereof. So, when Vaessa posed the expected question, I went with the "dumb boss" defense a la, "Yeah, I got hitched. Sure, I'll be happy to introduce you all later at some point."
The fact that I was only taking Reece and Vaessa with me was accepted without argument. The development of the princedom had to be seen to, and having Reece loitering around while his own Kjier lay in ruins was helpful to no one. As for the necromancer's daughter, she was under orders from her mistress. In the end, I decided to take a small team to Cathella, and only summon the knights and mages to help upon reaching the city. They wanted to escape this plane just as much as me, so let them work for it.
Kan, who had become a "wolf" like everybody else by then, volunteered to come along, citing his being unaffected by the princedom's curse, though his real motivation lay somewhere else entirely. And there it was now, his true motivation, looking like a proper biker in leather and a black beret, riding just behind me. All that was missing from her getup were metal chains and silver skulls, even though my companion's expertise in skulls of every stripe far surpassed any biker's back on Earth.
As I indulged in memories, the terrain around me changed drastically. Though there were more riders and wagons, gone were the fruit trees and the grass, and the road had turned in the direction of mountains that rose so steeply I couldn't begin to estimate their true height. I was heartened by the fact that we had a guide who, at least theoretically, knew exactly where we were going, and shouldn't lose his way.
Two unresolved issues had remained with respect to our upcoming campaign. The first issue was resolved when Raena, a master of both Ice and Life schools of magic who was present at the meeting along with Saverus and Gerat, volunteered to be our healer. But the second issue... I hadn't expected that mountains on a map and mountains in reality might have, shall we say, very little in common. The distance from Craedia to Cathella measured to just under two hundred miles as the crows flies, two thirds of which would have to be traversed over these very mountains. And though Arkon merely simulated Earth's natural laws, mudflows and rockslides happened with realistic frequency, and the last thing I wanted was to lose twenty percent of my levels on account of my own idiocy. Besides, the actual journey through unexplored mountains would likely slow us down by an order of magnitude. It was for the above reasons that we were presently riding to Mycana, the capital of the Snow Leopards, with whom I was on frie
ndly terms.
The commander of the century that met us on the border ended up being "one of ours"—in addition to being part of the same order, the tifling personally knew the chieftain's son I'd saved, including the particulars of the rescue. According to him, finding a guide to the Effervescent Peaks—the name of the zone on my map with the highlighted symbol of the Spectral City—was only possible in Mycana, since sane demons would never venture into that area. Indeed, you needed to be either without fear or without brains—this was his exact quote, the bastard. I presumed he attributed us to the former and not the latter, unwilling to entertain the notion that a party led by a captain of the Warrior God could be nothing but a bunch of cretins, only the aforementioned captain might himself argue to the contrary, particularly in light of the events of the past several months. In the end, we did find a guide to take us to the capital and help track down Alsar, and for the better part of the week now we'd been on the road to the barbarian capital, since it wasn't accessible to us by portal thanks to the bloody rules of what used to be a game but was now a fully formed, albeit fledging world. The reason being that building and using a portal in these lands was only possible after imbibing from the holy spring of Arrakas, the patron God of the Snow Leopards clan, also known to others as the Irbis peoples. I wasn't even sure if the commander of the century that had met us was capable of building one. According to him, such an honor was bestowed upon the chosen few, seeing as imbibing from the holy source could garner the attention of Arrakas himself. Personally, I couldn't care less if he did—I wondered if there was even a spot on me free of some god or other's "mark." Just as long as I was allowed to complete the ritual, for if I had schlep back the same way, I'd probably lose my marbles. Assuming everything would go well—and for some reason I didn't doubt that it would—we'd take a portal to the Effervescent Peaks, which was a mere twenty five miles or so from the destination marked on the map.
