"Forgive us O Goddess! Forgive Us!"
Last know words from an unnamed priest from the ancient race who lived in Yrithuan before All-Father took control.
Saa'ryu couldn't help but smile when seeing the waiting room for the new arrivals. Priests and priestesses of numerous Gods all looking at each other with curiosity and a sense of wonder.
A delegation of five Priestess representing Gods and Goddess of Education and Leaning. Another for Architecture and City planning, and a single High Priest representing the Merchant Coalition, the largest Divine union of the world comprising of countless gods both minor and greater.
It had been a month ever since the Silverbrand woman had left the Duchy. Soon Lucrezia would receive her blessings. According to Karl, who was hopeful Lucrezia wouldn't suffer from the curse any longer, Winter's End will be at its peak. The damn thing would evolve into a proper Blessing and it would be a great boon to the young ruler, as looks are a huge part of court politics down south.
"The Academy..." Saa'ryu couldn't stop herself from worrying about Lucrezia's journey there. By royal decree, any high noble was to be enrolled at the age of 18, and only in the very specific cases such law could be broken. Factor in the upcoming war with the first prince's punitive force will be sent after the storm blows over... Ill omens Saa'ryu knew, knew that they were coming.
It was that fear that made her break her self-imposed exile and contact her old master. Master Assassin Owl.
The maid couldn't help but fear for her life, she knew the old fart had a soft spot for her even going as far as calling her his daughter but she had fucked up a major hit. And forgiveness wasn't Owl's greatest point.
So when Saa'ryu woke up in her private quarters with no less than 5 of her old sisters all staring at her, all she did was pray and shake her head.
Yet the sisters didn't kill her, on the contrary, they all silently hugged Saa'ryu, who could feel their emotions vibrating from them. They wanted to speak and talk but they were on a job, and under special magic to not leak a sound. They all pulled a series of mirrors and chanted in a dead language only the Owl and his Assassins spoke, the room went dark as Saa'ryu stood face to face with the man himself.
The Owl was huge, standing at nearly 8 feet tall it was a wonder how this behemoth of a human even became the master assassin he is. But as Saa'ryu came to know when she first began training under him, magic could make up for many a shortcoming.
He took a good look at her and smiled like a parent would when seeing their after years being away.
"Ease up little bird, You won't die today" he laughed "Not after doing what you did, a coup? the killing of high nobility? I knew you were good Saa, but not that good!" Saa'ryu sighed in disbelief as she relaxed. she then spoke to him "And the contract I fucked it up?"
The Owl laughed again "the mark died a day later, a whore killed him out of blind rage. Far as I know you did your job Saa and this was just one long vacation you took, although some of your siblings won't like the news once they get out that you are alive, you were my best after all" Owl relaxed and said "I've read your letter and I must say it is quite the fortunate occurrence for we have received a contract to safe-keep your Lady from the other channel" he gave Saa'ryu a grin
Saa'ryu's eyes bulged "Do you mean a Fallen has taken interest in her?" a regular Fallen God wouldn't be bad news, many a noble kept them at arm's length after all. On the other hand, the big ones would earn Lucrezia wrath no new weapon could push back.
"All-Father above no, we don't deal with Fallen these days Saa, they went quiet after some war that happened in the last 4 months in the spirit realm, someone tried to usurp the throne from Augorius...Anyway, this was by Emot'ah which raised all kinds of questions back at the nest so I did some digging around" Saa'ryu only needed to connect the dots to finish Owl's phrase "It's the daughter of the Arch-Duke, she was blessed by Emot'ah and Lucrezia is moving to save her from whatever that vile Prince did to her body and soul"
The Owl patted Saa'ryu in the head "Sharp as ever Oh how I've missed these talks daughter of mine! Yes, you are correct that's exactly it. I've dispatched some of your sisters to aid you from the shadows should Galius call for the competition. They are under the usual spells so no R&R while on the job I'm sure you can understand" The Owl coughed "And I've heard you are training the young Duchess as well? get her to appreciate some of the arts maybe?"
Saa'ryu laughed "Lu would make for one lousy assassin father, her main weapon is an iron halo for the shadow's sake! No, I only trained her on the basics. Now she's under the Knight Commander to temper her battle lust"
The Owl rubbed his chin "Hm, extend her the offer then. I have a feeling she would benefit greatly from more in-depth training, the usual rates we do for nobles of course, and when she goes for the Academy she can come by the Dojo" he said while getting up " It was great to catch up with you Saa, but duty calls as you well know, should I need to talk with you your sisters will give you the usual signal, be well daughter of mine and good luck on your endeavors" the chanting stopped and the five assassins all nodded their heads and disappeared.
Saa'ryu couldn't help but smile, this reunion with her family finally setting in. It felt great knowing she wasn't made exile by Owl and that he had dispatched people to help her, her own spies in training now had pros backing them up from the shadows.
But Lucrezia as an Assassin? poor Owl must be getting senile, there's no way someone that fights like an orc berserker could have the grace for the job.
Right?
----------------------------------------
"Motherfucking fuck!" William said as his entire body radiated pain. He was mad, fuming in anger and seething in rage at the tiniest thing.
Writing the daily pages in his diary, an activity that usually put him at ease was driving him up the wall, but even after cursing up a storm (and thanking whatever god for not having a maid come in), he was feeling down as if he shifted from extreme rage to suicidal apathy.
" I was wondering why this didn't happen last month, guess those theories about magic messing with that time of the month were real after all. " Lucrezia said with a bit of mirth in her voice, watching William squirm was giving her some sort of glee he couldn't understand.
"Please don't play dumb William, surely your own sister must've told you how much pain she had to endure hmm? while you as a man has no such period pun very much intended. It is absolutely not fair, call me petty I don't care"
The pain didn't let him get a word in, but William did pick up that part where magic is supposed to blunt PMS so feeling like he had nothing to lose he began doing every mana exercise he knew thus far, from cycling it inside his mana channels to shaping it with his hands and without them. The manipulation of fine ice mist that almost turned into actual water and tiny sparks between his iron rods was a testament to his improved abilities and more importantly. Increased mana pool thanks to the curse/blessing.
Something he didn't think would translate one for one from the game but it did, even if he didn't have a game layer to give him a mana bar. Each Blessing an individual gets increases their base mana pool up to ten times, while the regular civilians might get one or two blessings in his lifetime individuals like him were know to have up to 5, rare was to break past it but there were tales of warriors and mages with 10 Blessings.
Of course, that paled in comparison if you had a Blessing of the All-Father, which makes you prime real estate for every God out there letting you get any blessing with all but a simple prayer to their name, sometimes a greater one if you do a quest for them.
"A power fitting for the protagonist" William whispered to himself the pain now temporarily blunted. He prayed Hope didn't discover about her powers before getting into the Academy, lest she gets sent to one of the monasteries of the All-Father to become a High Priestess, being in the school would afford her enough protection from them to not send her that early after all, plus William was sure she and the third prince would fall in love as well.
"Do you have any pills or potions for this? I remember my sister taking pills whenever the pain came up" William asked Lucrezia.
"The elven twins rescued the potion maker, didn't they? You could also ask Gabriel, don't think he's going to mind" She fired back not so smug now.
William relaxed in the expansive chair he had put in the room for his writings. It was getting harder every day he felt, hard to disconnect and not see the flesh and blood as his own and that terrified him to a deep level, one he knew Lucrezia was aware of it since they had talked about at length and she had assured him it was ok and that she didn't mind it.
William ever the paranoid on the other hand pointed out that this might also be work of the melding, whoever did it knew Necromancy, after all, learning Mind Magic was but a few steps away from it.
"It is clear that me being awake wasn't the plan William, stop worrying for five seconds before you have a stroke or something All-Father above..." was her response to his theory. A part of him whispered for him to let go of the paranoia, to embrace his new life and identity, and let loose but he kept that down hard via intense training both physical and magical. and burying himself with paperwork in between that, and when paperwork eventually ran out he was doing talks with the many priests and sages who came on the behalf of their masters.
Not only was he upgrading the city infrastructure, William decided to go the full mile and uplift the populace via education and culture. He knew that he would need a smarter workforce to further elevate the duchy. But this was not without heavy opposition from certain groups among the Divine. Gods and Goddesses of Learning were afraid he was going to turn learning into fuel for the war machine of the duchy. Dwarven gods mad he was the face of Magi-Tech and most important of all, the changing of the region's culture.
Culture as a Sphere was a very complicated and nuanced topic, for eons it fell under the All-Father himself to rule over it but for reasons unknown, he decided to auction the Sphere of Power, something that had never happened before.
It came with a single but powerful downside, every 30 years whoever commanded the Sphere had to either sacrifice themselves to it, fuelling the Sphere's power for the next god, or cast their Godhood aside and become mortals in all but name. A grim reminder of the sheer power of the All-Father who could command such a Sphere without any side effect. Scholars to this day debate over such an arbitrary and deadly ruleset, and so did the players in the many lore threads William was a part of.
His personal opinion was one that many players shared; Generations usually last for 25 to 30 years on Earth, and their cultural footprint either has to adapt with the new Generation or suffer death by irrelevancy, but now that he was actually living in the world he didn't know if the theory held water.
The short exchange he had with the High Priestess ended when the current Goddess of Culture Inza decided to talk with him personally.
"Pure madness that's what I'm seeing in your realm Child, the North was never one for anything more than war and hardness, its songs, art, food, and voice always stuck by its roots and you seek to change it? to turn the North into some sort of new-age wonder with Magi-tech? Not to say these new instruments of music you created! It goes against everything right"
William knew antagonizing a God wouldn't be smart but he was this close to telling her to go fuck herself, as the mood swings were just starting to get worse when he had the meeting, instead he explained in detail his plans to it and left very clear that no one be it God or Mortal would stop him.
Inza left shortly after that, to which the High Priestess said.
"Forgive me, Duchess My Goddess is coming at the end of her term and things are always shaky when that happens" William had noticed the woman was an elf, so she likely had seen this happen many a time before.
"Are you done reminiscing? There's something I wanna talk about it?" Lucrezia said.
"Give me a minute, I need to check the reports for the underground city" William responded.
William managed to stall the talk for later on the day before they slept. He then began checking the many stacks of papers in his desk, mostly were about the ongoing construction efforts both underground and above, the retrofitting of the entire city's infrastructure to get the heat pipes on it, and that it is stormproof. More reports about the Dragonkin slowly integrated themselves with the Duchy and merchants' requests to trade with them.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Another report and one that William was happy to see was that Gabriel decided to open a druidic "school" just outside the city's limit, together with druids from the Diamond Reefs mermen. Another point for the relation between the two and one Lucrezia was just delighted to hear about it since she had a personal stake on this after all.
Karl's reports were also good ones, more and more were converting to Velkarius, he had even presided over the first Marriage in her name a few days ago. The Goddess even sending one of her crows as a sign of good tidings for the couple, sadly holdouts for Uumaries are still a thing and Saa'ryu had asked if William could give her the go head to discreetly whack them.
He was against the idea, too much blood was spilled already, He wanted to try to mend bridges not burn them. He knew how hard it was when it came to changing something you followed your whole life after all. Lucrezia also agreed with him on that point.
The rebuilding of the south district was going faster than what was expected but still slow, William had the week before made the decision of selling rare art material the Wulfgrem had hoarded in their vaults and got Silverbrand to hire workers from one of the 5 houses of the Kingdom, House Dariam was known for having built everything in the kingdom, rare was a big work done that didn't have a single of their people involved on it.
Their Knights were also some of the funniest characters William had met in the game. Most of them were into brewing alcohol and the house even had a saying about it “Walls in 5 days, Houses in 3 and wine in 1”
William was happy Silverbrand had broken the deal with them, he was afraid his reputation would make them say no but Alas all it took was explaining the project and they agreed on the spot.
Reports from both Sejrk and Erwin about the training with the Magi-Tech vanguard and the first steps of a standing army were also looking good, Alas it would take his Blessing day to finally be able to build the cannon. On the other hand training with the muskets was a resounding success, so big in fact workers were doing shooting competitions after their shifts and William was already hearing about Requests for the weapons to be used in the hunting season.
"Gotta draft a training regime for the canon operators, even if Idun can Magi-Tech the damn thing before Galius reaches us" William whispered to himself as he wrote a small set of instructions. His mind began to wander as he finished the letter and he pulled his diary and began sketching on it. While on Earth he was never one for art, lacking the finest and dexterity for it but Lucrezia's body was anything but that. The girl could draw with the best of them.
He felt his cheeks grow hot and turned to the mirror, his face beet red and deep sensing of curiosity and shame coming from inside. William sighed and placed the notebook down, the bird he was sketching halfway done in the paper.
"Stop poking around there for christ's sake Lucrezia" William shot to the interloper, he heard a small gasp and a curse.
"Stupid fucking curse blessing whatever ugh" Lucrezia's feelings became muted as she calmed down and William resumed his sketching.
"Look it's not my fault there's an entire library of the stuff down here, that stupid dragon keeps whispering begging me to take a peek" Lucrezia said after a while " It is no wonder we got a Greater Blessing, the amount of material down there would be enough to elevate us to High Succubus on the spot. Godsdamnned Terrans"
"It is hard enough keeping a lid on it up here, please don't make it worse" William said as he stopped drawing the bird again and sat down on the ground to meditate. The peace and quiet lasted only for short bursts but it helped him focus.
God knew he needed it
----------------------------------------
"Put your whole weight on it!" Screamed Sigrún while William fended off three Senior Knights with his new weapon, the ax made out of dragon bone was quickly becoming his favorite. His iron halo is only being used as a way to sneak more hits in instead of a melee weapon. This translated to having more mana to burn in regular spell singling and Together with Wilson he had learned many useful spells.
Still, a long way to master then according to the new court mage but that was coming along just fine William thought as he parried the spear blow and landed a punch in the Knight's stomach. The elven woman had her feet taken off the ground as he boosted his strength with Magnetism and landed a kick right as she came down.
The other two Senior Knights charged in and one got a good blow in his left side. With a snarl of rage, William slashed him with a mighty swing only for the other Knight to jump in and tank the hit with his tower shield.
"Damn you!" William bellowed and kicked the shield 4 times before the thing caved in, he grabbed the Knight's arm and twisted it, then proceeded to attempt a chokehold on him, he felt the other Knight punch him in the ribs but the high was already settling in. William felt that oh-so-familiar heat in his face as his vision began to fog up and he got more and more lost in the feeling.
A blow to the head knocked him off and he was back in the real world again.
"Control yourself Lady Lucrezia! If you keep this up any duel you take part in the Capital will end up with soiled pants!" Sigrún said from her chair laughing, William bowed to the Knights and apologized but they took in stride. The elven one was a bit harsher with him but he let that slide, he had kicked the poor woman in the belly after all.
His training partners all bowed and went away as the Vice-Captain came walking towards him, her Kitsune tail wagging in the cold wind.
"You are bottling in too much Lady Lucrezia, the others can't feel it but it is like waves on a seawall. Little by little, they will erode it and the backlash will be ugly." She said giving William his bottle of the potion Gabriel had made.
"And yet I have the feeling you aren't like one of the many prudes that shun the Goddess if you don't mind me asking my Lady. Why do this? why hold yourself so much?" Sigrún asked William as she stared right into his eyes and him hers. He could feel the slight allure of her Succubus nature pulling at him, to ease him into a sense of security so he could open up to her.
Willam dug his nails into his palm, the skin just slightly breaking and him using the blood to pierce it deeper dispelling the allure. If Sigrún noticed she didn't mention but he walked up to a chair and sat, speaking after a minute of silence.
"I can't, not now. Once things settle down after the battle with the prince maybe but not now" He said then drink the bottle of potion, the liquid clearing the leftover feelings of lust he had yet to flush out of his system.
"My Lady the longer it goes the worse it will get. Trust me on this" Sigrún said with a worried look.
"I know" William answered defeated.
----------------------------------------
Lucrezia was pacing around the Monolith waiting for William to go to sleep, he was in the middle of a string of reunions with multiple Gods and Goddesses talking about the overall progress of the rebuilding efforts. she tapped out really fast and went back to her room.
Watching movies and TV series was how she enjoyed most of her time when she wasn't sleeping if that was even sleep in the first. Lucrezia would often get flashes of William's memories sometimes she was him she wasn't.
In one of these dreams, she saw William's ex-girlfriend and it felt so real she couldn't believe how much he loved her. It was his first love and it felt so pure, so sincere, and most importantly so consuming everything else was but an afterthought. It drove him to reach heights he never would've imagined. and that feeling burned in Lucrezia as she was the one in those memories, she was there for his first kiss. It was her!
"Fucking whore Goddess," Lucrezia said to no one, another symptom of the meld was her usage of foul words, something she rarely if at all did before was now way more common. Sigrún was right, Lucrezia wasn't a fan of Saal'Xhir and that was a common sentiment among many a noble and even now with the Goddess "support" she still felt it was a bitter potion to swallow.
The boy on the other hand was a fan, and she knew why. The sheer amount of "Material" he had locked away via gods know what sort of mental gymnastics was a beacon of impure thoughts and lewdness, a veritable hoard waiting to be claimed by that dragon.
She still couldn't shake those feelings of love and heartbreak Lucrezia found out, just how in all that is holy did William even manage to live on after breaking up with the girl? and the reason still eluded her, she searched high and low and all she found was that he got a call and that was that. William's sister who often showed up in her dreams tried to pry more information but she also got nothing,
As far as Lucrezia knew, the reason was that William's ex-girlfriend simply didn't love him the way he loved her and she tapped out. Was he blinded by his first love to not see the signs? or maybe she led him on? Lucrezia couldn't make head or tails of this and it annoyed her deeply because her mind kept wandering to these topics as the weeks went by. That and another feeling kept her on edge.
Jealousy.
While Lucrezia herself never had unrequited love or crushes, she felt a deep-seated, dominating Jealousy that consumed her very being. She wanted to control it to put her foot down and hold it for herself and let the whole world know it belonged to her and her alone.
And that something was William.
It started as an honest desire to safeguard the young man, to let him know that she would be there for him even if the whole world turned against them. Something that at first freaked Lucrezia out due to the fact she thought the soul melding was the one doing it, turning her into a part of him or something of the sort without merging her soul to his. After all the bloody thing wasn't working as intended right?
Yeah right.
It only got ugly after the training sessions, Sigrún teasing him every time with that allure of hers made Lucrezia seethe in rage. She snarled and screamed to herself that he belonged to her and her alone! or when Saa'ryu got too close and touched him that also drove Lucrezia up the blasted wall and she knew the why of it. It was that godsdamned curse twisting her feelings.
It hurt her pride to admit she would fall for someone who by all intents and purposes stole her body and life but Lucrezia wasn't dumb enough to blame him for something only a God could do. So she enacted to do something her mother had told her long ago when she was but a small child. She would hide those emotions and feelings just as he does for his lust and desire.
It wasn't meant to be after all.
She saw him walking up the road to the Monolith and cleared her thoughts.
"Hey, you doing ok?" he asked giving her a nod and a smile, these talks they had every day gave her a clear picture of who the boy in front of her was. Resolute and poised but lonely and paranoid, waiting for the approval of parents he no longer had, longing for a sister he would never see, and the sense of duty he had for the people of the Duchy who in an earlier talk he had them compared to an anchor.
"Same old William, same old now let's go" She spoke and began walking to the movie room which was her favorite place so far, they walked in silence for a few minutes before arriving there and getting comfortable on the couch.
"Loads of emotions today, What ails you Lucrezia?" He asked while resting his head with eyes closed, another part only Lucrezia got to see was just how tired William got thanks to playing King. Sometimes they would just sleep side by side as he was too tired to even talk, those were always a highlight for Lucrezia as she got to feel his emotions without him manipulating them.
Guilt and Sorrow were the most common ones, self-loathing and anger as well. William blamed himself for stealing her life and body even after assuring him she didn't blame him for it.
"It's the curse" Lucrezia said after a while.
"Of course it is the goddamn curse..." he fired back in a low tone.
"godsdamned William, gods" she corrected him.
"Yeah yeah, it's a habit as you ought to know" he sighed "What part of the curse is worrying you Lucrezia?"
"The entire godsdamned curse worries me, you daft clown" she threw her hands up "It's the blasted flesh warping. I've already noticed that its effects are happening"
William nodded "And you are afraid I'll turn your body into some hyper-sexualized mess because of my personal tastes? So that's why you were poking around that place huh"
Lucrezia lowered her head in shame "...Yes"
"You don't have to worry much Lucrezia, at most you will get a bigger uhh" he stumbled on his words and looked up to the ceiling
Great Lucrezia felt, now they were both knee-deep in this cringe-worthy mess "Don't finish that sentence I know ok!" she spoke with a little more force than normal "Just promise me I won't turn into a Succubus" Lucrezia said while her face burned in shame.
"That won't happen and you know it, the Goddess won't just turn us willy nilly like that. I know you know this, it takes a lengthy ritual and everything" William was going into another of his explaining moods but Lucrezia cut him off "Let's just watch some movies ok? I wanna forget we had this conversation"
William laughed and said "Ok, your the boss Lucrezia, pick one"
----------------------------------------
"FIRE" William screamed and the trainees fired their muskets into the targets. He had already picked the naturals and hunters among his nascent army for sharpshooter units, training the rest was a matter of daily drills and war exercises.
Of course, he hoped that by the time the prince gets his army into his lands, he would have the canons ready and fully automated as per Idun's designs. Hopefully, he would also be able to build mortars and howitzers to fully dominate the battlefield.
"As long the Arch-Mage's daughter doesn't come with her boyfriend It should be easy pickings..." William whispered to himself from his command post after finishing off the musket drills. Every day more and more troops were going around with the weapons and more people joined Idun in making them as well. Still, the trusted martial weapons hadn't fallen off favor and it was common watching Castle Guards or Knights teach these newly trained individuals a trick or two of the sword or spear.
"I never thought I would live to see war in my lands. It's been generations now of peace and quiet" Lucrezia spoke to him in a nostalgic tone.
And yet war was his calling. William knew the first prince would have to be killed one way or another, he would save the Arch-Duke's daughter after all and she would talk, and when that happens civil war will break out. All he's doing is accelerating the schedule.
The map in front of him gave him the perfect battlefield for the coming fight, the Frosted Valley with its small villages would be the stage and William was already working with the druids to set up traps and poison around it, not to kill outright but to weaken the mercenary hordes the first prince would no doubt hire as shock troops since he couldn't move the entire Royal Knights without other powers taking notice.
William was aware of the hypocrisy of his plans, to use shock and awe tactics to force the enemy into a rout and decapitated Galius and his crew with alpha strikes so he could avoid the hundreds of deaths on his soul. But he would do it gods be damned if he could spare the lives of these sellswords he would. Many were just regular people not some crew of mustache-twirling villains.
The Knight detail he would bring also worried him, William knew Lucrezia's old friends from the capital were in Galius's faction, And worse, some of the Knights were characters in the game. Skill teachers or trainers who unlike their Noble rulers didn't mind teaching the commoner protagonist.
William felt his hands shake in fear, could he Kill these people he "knew"? the fear of developing PTSD was like a ghost with its edges yawning at his heels. Combine with the general fuckery of the Curse and William was legitimately afraid of his decaying mental health. But something drove him forward. like the gentle push of the wind that kept him from losing momentum and crashing into the reality of his actions.
Lucrezia believed it was the melding, she saw herself as a driven woman after all and William couldn't help but agree in part. But he also felt that someone or something was pulling his strings ever so slightly.
He also was taken back to that dream in the ocean of blood he had long ago. In the game lore, the Ocean of wrath was a regular body of water if a bit turbulent due to the Rage-that-Dwells spirit. The words he heard sounded familiar yet didn't.
Lucrezia found it strange how he didn't believe there could be gods on Earth, and if that was real then it raised questions William frankly was afraid to even ask! he was a teenager for christ's sake, not some bloody philosopher!
Staying on what he knew was the best way to deal with this, Lucrezia had agreed with him on that point, the academy and capital would give the two of them every tool necessary to fix this fuck up. William had to assure the girl he wouldn't be mad if he had to get stuck as a lich or some sort of soul entity. Of course, the plan was to get the right permissions to make a homunculus so William could transfer himself to it but failing that plan B and C were not that bad.
Lucrezia often questioned him on this point and William couldn't give the young woman a satisfactory answer on why he felt so strongly to right this wrong, he only felt it was horrible to steal the life of someone the way he did, even knowing it wasn't his fault.
But it would take time, time and sweat, and blood to arrive there, this road will be paved with sacrifice and William was ready to see it through its grim end.