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Saho was reluctant to leave his friends.
Rio had decided that he would smuggle Fuyuko with him into the dwarven queendom, where she would pose as a recently acquired servant of his. Rio had assured her that he had no intention of actually treating her as such, and had even dug her old daggers out of his pack for her to keep.
Fuyuko had tried to convince the remaining servants to come with her, but most decided not to. The elder goblin had elected to smack Rio’s 𓇉𓄿𓁶 𓇋𓆛𓈖𓌰𓅓𓁸 before sprinting into the nearby forest. Neither Fuyuko or Saho had laughed so hard since before their trek toward the Demon king.
Eventually however, it was time for Saho to depart. He said his goodbyes, gave both of them an enormous embrace, and returned to the Grand creator’s palace, vanishing in a cloud of white mist and golden light.
His arrival was not uncelebrated by the angels that had been watching from. . . wherever they watched from (angels, he had learned, were practically all seeing, especially with their sheer numbers), and they quickly bombarded him with questions in child-like wonder.
His patron was still away, and didn’t seem to be coming back soon.
More time for him to craft an explanation, he supposed.
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Yuuki halted as she passed through the star system.
She had been on a restless wander ever since Hifumi died, moving from planet to planet, galaxy to galaxy, doing the motions, careful not to neglect her duties as crown princess despite the ravage to her mind.
She had seen a lot. Species that were in perfect harmony with each other, and species that seemed like they had almost been designed to be at constant odds. She had even seen a whole galaxy that seemed to be moving at almost a hundred thousand times faster than the rest of the universe.
But she had never seen this before. A massive obelisk of black stone that seemed to protrude from the very fabric of reality. She could sense the care and work that had so clearly gone into its construction, the careful tendrils of will that its crafters had given. It had been buried, whether on purpose or by nature, she couldn't be sure, but now it stuck out from where it stood, carvings of strange letters and figures almost watching her.
Instantly, she knew that it was not of the Grand creator. It held not her touch in it. The material might have been made by her, but she had since been removed from it. This was an artifact of her antithesis. An object created perhaps by the Dark one’s followers, and saturated by their belief and will.
She paused. The Dark one was responsible for the creation of plenty of evils, including the Demons that had ravaged Asyke. But before the swarming animals there were dealmakers, which could alter reality to their will in exchange for whatever they wanted. If anything could bring back her sister. . .
The air around her suddenly stilled. The ambient noise froze. The sky darkened, and a lack of sensation spread over her.
She did not notice.
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It was while Saho was contemplating what to tell his patron that the weight of his act struck him suddenly.
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He had banished them from existence. Sent them to an empty void untouched by the Grand creator’s hand. It was a punishment that no other monster but the worst enemy of his patron had been given, until Saho had done so with the orc-god.
The orc-god.
It was not unusual for gods to be born from belief– most were in fact– and even those that weren’t sometimes found themselves changing as the beliefs of their followers changed.
But never had the beliefs of the dark races spawned a god before. Saho wasn’t even aware they worshiped gods other than their own creator, whatever it was (and it was firmly not a god).
To be honest, Saho wasn’t even sure if the orc was a god or not. It had the power of one (a young one), and its. . . unique personality could be attributed to its violent birth and the beliefs of its followers, but such things did not necessarily mean it was a god. It could’ve been any number of things. A demonic possession, magical overload, etcetera. He was just too focused on how dangerous it was to think about it thoroughly.
He’d explain as such to his patron when he got the chance.
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The planet of Iocli was as average a planet as could be. It was neither particularly large nor particularly small, with a mixed atmosphere of nitrogen and carbon dioxide.
Where it became special was in the condition of the surface, and life forms that lived there. Because of the planet’s lack of a moon, the surface was under a near-constant bombardment of meteors that rendered it utterly unlivable on the long term.
Because of this, life on Iocli evolved to be tough and resilient, and lived underground, where it was relatively safer. The few Ioclian races– namely the short, hairy, but deceptively strong dwarves and the equally small, less hairy kobolds– had been at “war” with each other for as long as they had existed, as resources were scarce. Rarely did their battles actually involve killing one another, usually being equivalent to a gaggle of children playing keep-away instead.
Most members of their respective races didn’t particularly care about the war, too worried about finding enough to live another day. Among the hundreds of towns dug into the ashen stone of cave walls, Ortou was one of a number that was inhabited by all the races at once, having been expanded into a tangled wind of passages and rooms of varying size and design, leaving even the most competent of navigators often lost.
Feilim was a dwarf, a rather short one at that. His small body was coated head-to-toe in blonde fur, only his face and hands uncovered. His head was the usual Ioclian dwarf shape, somewhat axe-like, with eyes on either side to ensure that no predator could sneak up from behind in the winding passageways. His hearing-holes, located just below his eyes, were slightly larger than average, allowing him better hearing, and his short, vibration-sensitive tail had a small puff of fur on its end, which would eventually cover the whole thing as he aged.
Beside Feilim was his best friends, a kobold named Effie and another dwarf by the name of Shay.
Effie was slightly taller than Feilim, though not by much. Her neck-fur was thick and soft to the touch– though if anyone tried to touch it they would quickly find themselves missing a hand, or an arm, or roughly half their torso. Her scales were a soft red, and her fingers were longer than average for an Ioclian kobold of her age. Her head was flat and angular, ideal for squeezing through crevices that larger pursuers couldn’t, and her tail was long and serpentine, containing plenty of sensory organs for vibrations and smells.
Shay was slightly shorter than Effie, with gray fur and a longer head than Feilim. He had thicker fingers and powerful arms, perfect for digging through the stone, and short legs that lent themselves to excellent traction. If his legs were longer, he would have easily been the tallest, but fate had it differently.
They had met when they were all young, Feilim being hairless and fresh, Effie being only slightly older than him, and Shay older than her. Together they made for a team unlike any other, being able to steal, distract, and do it all over again for as long as it took for a merchant to realize that they couldn’t be stopped or caught.
There were few that they could trust, but just each other was enough.
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Hungry.
It couldn’t move. It couldn’t hunt.
Hungry.
It could only watch as its host went about its actions.
Hungry.
Its host would fall asleep soon. But until then, it waited.
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