In the morning Harlan had to speak with the Plest blacksmith, after showing him a few weapons and the golem armor in different configurations his comments on the craftsmanship were enough for Harlan to consider him worth fleshsculpting back to his youth.
Then another few people came in, farmers, cartographers, old mercenaries, Harlan passed them off to another him. He was experienced enough that without his full mind he was still able to perform the operation and he didn’t have anything heavy planned for the day so the mana cost wasn’t something he was presently worried about.
Next he needed to check the food the Castians gave him for poison, but nothing reacted to the magic of his ring that Sepul gave him all those months ago or the magic that Redmond taught him.
“Mercedes, your people found the cooks for tonight?”
“Yes, and we have everything planned out. If I could make a suggestion?”
“You may.”
There were workers double checking the inventory, so they spoke more formally to one another.
“I would like us to mark the food from the Castians and avoid mixing it with the food from the captured bases.”
“Have the cooks prepare some of this beforehand so I can test it again.”
“Of course.”
At noon Harlan had some soups and breads made with the Castian food, but after he tried it in a second body, he tested it with magic again, and then Mercedes tried it, they cleared everything.
“I really thought there was going to be something, like a poison that wasn’t going to activate until we mixed some of this together. It’s what I would do if I lacked any morals.”
“Do you know something about poisons?”
“I’ve done some alchemy work on the side, but most of it has been replaced by my other magic.
No point in coloring things with potions if I can now use color magic. I don’t have much need for poisons that I can disperse by air, and I don’t want to be carrying around any acid strong enough to be useful compared to my magic in my pocket and I don’t want it sitting around here. My lab isn’t that secure and I am not a warder with enough experience to trust that someone couldn’t get in if they tried.”
“There is a lot that I don’t know about you.”
“I know.”
Harlan unwrapped a hard candy and put it in his mouth before he spit it out.
Mercedes jumped from her chair and ran to him.
“Poison?”
“No, rose flavor. I don’t like eating flowers, and I don’t really like smelling them much either.”
She rolled her eyes and scoffed.
“What a child. But, I suppose that is good, Plest enjoy floral flavors, so the children are sure to be very happy tonight.”
Harlan didn’t reply, he just sat back in his chair and smiled while Mercedes stuffed a handful in her pocket.
Due to this effectively being the entire city having a feast, there was no set grounds and tables of food and drink were placed all around. Golems had been placed on rooftops to overlook the crowds and stop problems before they escalated into something worse.
Harlan sat with his advisors at a large table where the people could come up to give thanks or just stare at them. Harlan was uncomfortable with the whole thing, and would rather be out walking the streets. But Joan and Mercedes and Dawn all teamed up on him and convinced him to stay still and put out a kingly aura.
He was walking the streets with a different face while a body double sat to nod at passersby and eat.
Two hours into the celebration a child fell down, then another, the golems began first aid and then called for Harlan once they saw that it was not an isolated incident and that their healing magic was not effective enough.
The mother of one of them knew exactly what was happening.
Her son’s scales were turning white and his eyes red, the albinism was the result of a very specific poison that only affected Plest.
“Ma’am, is there anything I need to know before I try to heal him?”
“He’s already dead, there is no cure.”
Harlan had quite a lot of faith in his healing.
And after a few minutes, he found out the solution and was able to purge the specific poison, though the child still had his white scales.
Harlan didn’t give any time for thanks, there wasn’t enough time to put the specific spells to the golems, but they had ones that should keep them stable while the various Harlan’s used the cure spell.
By the time everything was done, 4 children, and 6 elders were dead. One died in Harlan’s arms, the spell wasn’t fast enough.
The adults were fine, whatever poison was in the candies was a low dose.
Harlan was looking at the bodies while the families mourned them.
“How did I miss it?”
Dawn was standing beside him with a hand on his shoulder.
“Your spells are for humans, if what the Plest said was right, this was a highly specific case. You can’t have-”
“Godsdamnit. I should’ve had a dream, or a vision, something.”
Harlan’s body became covered in void smoke as he stood up.
Harlan gated back to his office and took out an amulet that only linked to the one Aurel had.
“Ah, I take it the candies worked.”
“I assume that you know.”
“If you believed that we would give over lands, or that we need help controlling ourselves, then you have proven some things about yourself. Thank you for the data, it is sure to help us with wiping you off the face of Aarde and torturing the information we need out of you.”
“I’ll see you soon.”
“I am under a number of wards and arrays, even if you knew, it wouldn’t matter.”
Harlan reached through the crossroads and found him.
He could feel it just outside of gate range, so he went half way and then again.
It was a bare room and Harlan could feel the little pinpricks, they were sealing all 6 elements and a spatial lock was in effect the moment he stepped through the gate that snapped closed behind him.
The amulet was sitting on a chair and Aurel was on the other side of a clear wall.
“Perfect, just like we expected.”
“Now you’ve trapped yourself.”
“No, I haven’t. Because this room has no way in or out, and you are not going to break through this crystal wall with a mundane weapon and no magic. Once you run out of air and pass out I’ll shut down the magic, put a slave collar on you, drain you of mana, and then we get to have fun.”
“And why wouldn’t I be able to break down this wall?”
“Because, you are just a man.”
“You remind me of a wyvern, so damn arrogant, egotistical, like you’ve already won.”
Harlan slowly paced back and forth.
“And a wyvern is the top of the food chain, no matter where it is.”
“No, that is a very common misconception. In the deserts, sandworms are actually dominant, but because they go dormant for long periods of time and are ambush predators most of the time, people overlook them. In the upper atmosphere there are giant jellyfish with powerful acids and poisons that can kill them with ease, but their bodies can’t survive down where people normally see. Now, the tundra and the plains, those, those are ones that they dominate. Oh, caves, yes, underground wyverns are also weak, they are small and batlike scavengers. And forests where flight isn’t as useful, drakes are better. What’s wrong, Aurel, you look nervous?”
“You must be full of a lot of hot air if you’ve not passed out yet.”
“No no no, you see, I’m not full of hot air, I’m full of barely contained fury. And I don’t need to breathe. There is a very, very interesting school of magic, and, so far as I can tell, you people haven’t invented it yet.”
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“Everything is sealed, you can’t use magic.”
“I can’t use external magic, there are many spells, like healing, that can work so long as they only stay inside of the body. You people really are a bunch of backwoods pigfuckers if you haven’t discovered that yet.”
Harlan’s body momentarily writhed as he resisted transforming into a monster.
“I am using one of those spells to oxygenate my blood. I could stay here until I die of starvation; I think I can keep myself hydrated with the water spell. Let me see about that wall now.”
Harlan found imbibing to be fascinating, it was like using the principles of alchemy on a human body.
Something which disappointed him was that people only ever used the basic elements, which made sense, people who tried to use the advanced elements would often explode or turn themselves into statues.
But Harlan had more than one body, and those split second bits of knowledge that he learned just before dying were useful to him.
Harlan placed his hand against the glass and stared Aurel right in the eyes as he started to hum.
“What are you doing?”
“Resonance, it is interesting.”
He went back to humming, high and then low, searching for reaction.
Hmmm hmmm hmmm hmmm.
The crystal started to vibrate.
When it cracked, Aurel tried to flee by turning off the earth sealing array and moving through the stone box that both of them sat in which was then surrounded by a small army of elite units. But Harlan pulled him out, and the fingers that were inside of the wall were ripped off.
By the time he realized what was happening, he was pulled hundreds of miles through a gate.
“How?”
“Because compared to you, I am a god in the flesh.”
Aurel tried to flee, though it wouldn’t help, he didn’t even know what forest he was in.
“And I am a vengeful god.”
Harlan pushed him down with telekinetic force until he felt his metallic body start to compress.
He let him up only because a quick death was too good for him, but the damage was done, Aurel couldn’t move anymore.
“You know, I once tried to make a spell to rust you people, a way to create an attack that would wipe you out without hurting other people. Now I’ve got poison on my mind, and I really do need a test subject. But first.”
Harlan held a simple mythril blade in his hand, he carried it purely because it felt wrong to not have something and the club was unwieldy.
The edges turned bright white.
“I find it interesting, you people take on the appearance of different metals, but you aren’t really made of that. Now, I’ve only had iron and false mythril Cast before, but I’m quite sure that you aren’t as soft as actual gold.”
Harlan pressed down on one of his fingers with the white hot blade, sealing his bloody fingers.
“Huh, your blood is that same red metal as the others, I guess your changes are just skin deep.”
Aurel wasn’t listening, he was just screaming.
“Let me try out that rust, because I know that it wouldn’t work if you were really made of gold.”
After a minute of contact there was discoloration on the man's skin.
“So, you can rust. I had this wrong, a normal spell isn’t going to work, it’s just too slow. But, with what I just did, I’ve got more ideas.”
Harlan cut off one of his fingers. When he picked it up, it crumbled to rust in just a few seconds.
“Yes, yes, this is what I wanted. Thank you for your participation.”
Harlan gated back to the town and called an assembly in the Dague district, though the area was still mostly empty paved ground.
The people were out for blood, there was a riot over the food already that Joan put down by explaining that everything they got from the Castians was kept separate and that food could be easily removed and destroyed just to be safe.
He floated above the people, holding Aurel in by his head in one arm.
Harlan squeezed, denting the head of Aurel who screamed, and then the change happened.
His skin turned a reddish brown and his voice died in his throat, a minute later it spread across his entire body.
“THIS IS THE MAN WHO POISONED YOU, A MURDERER WHO KNOWINGLY TARGETED YOUR CHILDREN.”
Harlan dropped him and he collapsed into dust, his skeleton was all that remained.
Harlan left through a gate.
Dawn was already waiting in his bedroom.
“I knew you wouldn't want to be in your office.”
“I’m going to cross a line.”
“Which one.”
“I’m going to unleash a discriminate attack against a city, and I will target a single race during this.”
“The Cast.”
“I’m going to the bath, call Mercedes and Joan, tell them to come as soon as they can, but if they are needed, not to rush.”
“Why don’t you call them?”
“I need a few minutes to get my head in order.”
Harlan stripped again and sat in the hot water, his emotions weren’t under his control, neither was his magic.
Joan had been acting as Mercedes’ bodyguard, so they both returned together.
When Joan stripped and dipped her toe in she jumped back, looking at the pool she realized it was boiling.
“Harlan, are you alright in there.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
He balled his fist and the temperature dropped down to steamy but comfortable.
He lifted her into the water and touched her toe to heal the burn.
Mercedes didn’t say a word as she entered the water.
“Both of you know more about the Cast than me. Tell me, are they people?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Are there good Cast? Are they just machines?”
“900 years ago they showed up out of nowhere, the story of being made by a wizard that they then killed and stole the secrets of making more of themselves was something that was told by the Cast. I can’t say that the wizard ever even existed, though I’ve never questioned it.”
Harlan’s shadow moved away from him and sat on the edge of the pool.
The Darkness crossed her legs at the knee and let down her hair that blew despite there being no wind in the room.
“Unless you want your little aides to hear secrets of the world, send them away.”
“Mercedes, Joan, this is my god. She has many names, but when I like her, she is The Mother, otherwise, she is The Darkness. If you want to stay, you are free to do so.”
Both of them were clearly uncomfortable, but curiosity was quintessentially a trait of intelligent creatures.
“Fine, the children may stay.”
“We are both older than-”
She cocked her head to the side and gave a look that was not directly threatening, but showed the same curiosity as they had. Yet it was asking questions more along the lines of ‘What do you think I am going to do to you if you interrupt me again?’
“The Cast are the creation of machine god, a… It is a mind, but not in the sense that you know. It is a being of energy, trapped inside of a box.”
“Like a golem?”
“Imagine you could write a million little commands in a book, and then the book could read itself and execute commands based on these written words. This thing can write in its own book, and it has no soul or mind, it has no magic at all, it is a being of physics. 1400 years ago, a blackship breached the atmosphere and was lost when it activated the reality anchors.”
Harlan raised an eyebrow.
“Now where would the fun be if I explained every term I use? But to answer your question, though they bypass Aarde, they are prime beings unaffected by the implanted instinct and emotions.”
“So they can change, they can be taught to be better.”
The Darkness flowed like water through the air and went behind Harlan, placing a hand on each shoulder and whispering in his ear.
“They are macabre machines, born to be, raised to be, those who cannot, are unborn before they might stain their people.”
“So unless I got them at birth, they would already be indoctrinated into being monsters.”
“Indoctrination is such a harsh word. What they’ve done is little different from what I do with you.
They exist in this environment of harshness and malice, even your little ones here are no different.
Joan, did you not cut your commander's throat in his sleep before fleeing because he was a good tracker?
Mercedes, did you not call out the location of your princess to the soldiers to draw their ire towards her instead of yourself? Is that not how you, body double to royalty, convinced them to send you here as a slave instead of them using you until they were finished right there in that room?”
Harlan’s gaze caused the two to turn away in shame.
“I am not upset that you didn’t tell me. If you want to hide things that do not matter to how you will help my rule, then do that. But don’t sit there and lie to my face time and again by pretending that you are being honest.”
“I hate to bring down your little friendship, but let this be a lesson. The Dague are tricksters who are not to be trusted as a whole, each of them are part of a tight knit culture of lies and backstabbing.
Joan is by far the least trustworthy of the two, for she believes herself kind and just merciful. She is a cowardly fool who lacks the passion that I so love in you, if given any other option, she would’ve fled again.”
“I’ve changed, I-”
A single raised eyebrow was enough to make her sit back down.
And then she slammed her fists in the water.
“I really have changed, I would give my life for this kingdom, I will build it up to be the place that I would want to live. I have courage, I am not a coward, I will never flee again. Harlan, if you can’t trust me, then kill me right now.”
She clenched her fists and closed her eyes. Harlan could hear how hard her heart was beating as she waited for death.
“Courage isn’t a lack of fear, it is doing something even when you are afraid. Tell me, is there anything else that I need to know before we leave this room? Because I will not accept another lie.”
“I never wanted to be a soldier, I got drunk and signed up, then I just went along with everything that others told me. I wanted to be a tailor. I am jealous of your mother, she is beautiful and confident and I wish I had her body and-”
“You are rambling.”
“I’m sorry sir. I also believe I’m gaining feelings for you.”
“No, we are not having this conversation now, but you are having a normal trauma response where you see me as more heroic than I really am and those feelings seem like love at this moment. I’ve had this happen once before.”
“And what happened then?”
“That isn’t the point here. Mother, is this what your plan was? You are trying to take my mind off of the entire point of this conversation?”
“You would make genocide in a bottle. Once such a thing exists, there is no unmaking it, you would open the gate to things beyond your control once again.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ve done nothing but ask you to see what your rage is occluding.”
“Joan, you are forgiven. Mercedes, I never trusted you in the first place. Tomorrow I am going to be with D’if and see if I can’t find the Pixies, but I will be leaving a body here, neither of you are going to be in charge.”
“I’m sorry to have broken your trust again.”
Harlan spent the night in his workshop, he had no intention of making the poison, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t make the spells that could be used to make it just in case. The other benefit was that the spell could be put in weapons and safely used to kill single targets.