The blight was cleansed, but like a sore pustule, it left a scar behind. The land was dry, barren, devoid of all life. Even insects, microbes, bacteria, everything.
I hovered over the desiccated corpse that was once the nation of Windemere. I'd defeated the Elder Black Dragon King, a mouthful of a designation, but it was a Pyrrhic victory. With his dying breath, he condemned the entire nation to undeath, a fate worse than death. Trust me, I know enough of both.
One thought didn't leave my mind. This was orchestrated. Planned. I bet a group of very unhappy people will enter Windemere and plummet my happiness score. I closed my eyes and sunk into a meditative state. I needed to think, use the information I had to plan the best course of action.
Not all my geasa broke. I could still fee the connection, the burden that came with having a person bound to your will. Several, indeed. I followed them and it led me west, to the nearest Kingdom. I couldn't tell who it was, but I intended to find out. I flew over the stone gatehouses at my borders, unmanned. The roads, deserted.
I paused. There was a smarter way to go around that. I went around all the people that I'd placed a geas on. I didn't remember about the bandits but I doubted they were the source of my uneasiness. The nobles. I went over them one by one, placing contracts on them.
A wicked smile spread in my face. Most of the blue blood assholes were alive. And exactly in front of me. I placed contracts on them and dashed down the road. So focused on getting the truth out of their bleeding assholes - maybe literally - I was that I didn't use the fastest method of travel through the trees. Instead, I flew, blasting over the air like a screaming chromed bullet in my gothic plate.
Hours later, I was getting close to my contracts. Tracking them was way easier than the vague feeling of the geas. I wasn't surprised when I found them inside the Royal castle of my neighbor. Ghostly, I crashed down through the walls and into the throne room.
The King was holding court. The escaped nobles from Windemere were kneeling in the middle, flanked by the local nobility and a host of priests of Bundeus.
----------------------------------------
King Vanagon was listening to the refugees from Windemere. The whole country was cursed by a plague of undeath and these brave souls came to warn them. The usurper King Robin of Locksley awoke a great evil in his thirst for power and doomed his nation. Bundeus had warned them of that, but Vanagon regretfully didn't listen. Now he couldn't even look at his childhood friend, the archbishop of the local chapter of Bundeus' church.
He was about to issue a proclamation declaring the usurper a heretic and enemy of the nation when a figure clad in shining metal crossed the throne room roof and wards as if they were nothing. He {Appraised} the figure and despaired.
> {KIng}
>
> Level 137
"Who are you, that dares intrude my throne room?" Vanagon asked, knowing very well the answer.
The metal figure didn't answer. He landed and swiveled his head left and right, before issuing a command. "Kneel and don't act. Move or talk and die."
His ring broke. Vanagon looked at his hand and saw. The enchanted ring that prevented [Assassins] from putting a bounty on his head broke. He felt the power of that order washing over him, but nothing happened. {Royal Order}, maybe? There was a wave of burning anger in the intruder's voice. It felt as if death itself was at his door.
He killed the Duke and former Queen of Windemere with a lance that looked like Force magic. Then he looked at the air over the corpses and waved a hand as if to dismiss a servant.
Then it happened. Vanagon's MP started to drop and burn his health. Every other person in the room suffered the same thing. A haze in the air, a fluctuation in the magic. It burned. The mages and priests were the most affected. His Knights tried to react and fell down, convulsing and dying. It took mere seconds.
Vanagon prayed to Bundeus for deliverance. He received none. The last thing he saw in life was a System message.
> You died.
The pain stopped. Vanagon looked down and saw his corpse slumped on the throne. Around him, the ghosts of all the people in the throne room. In the middle, the most beautiful sight he'd ever seen. A shining soul. It was warm and cozy. Inviting and heartening. It was the intruder.
He saw their souls. The Duke and Queen nodded.
King Locksley said.
It was instinctual. Vanagon knew the souls couldn't lie. The aura emanating from King Locksley prevented them from becoming true undead as much as his presence prevented their souls from passing on their own.
He looked at the archbishop, his friend in life. The ghost shook his head,
The luminous soul waved a hand and the host of priests were bathed with purifying energy and ascended into Bundeus' realm. The feeling of peace coming from them enticed Vanagon. But he felt his time was not over. His heir was still too young.
Stolen story; please report.
----------------------------------------
While Vanagon talked to his ghostly subjects, I purified the ghosts of the priests and nobles from Windemere. Surprisingly, all the nobles from Saegalla decided to follow Vanagon's lead and become my servants. I'd make silk bodies for them later. My Manastorm was set to affect only those inside the throne room. No way I would devastate a circle a kilometer in diameter on a whim, no matter how angry I was. I'd declared war on the church of Bundeus.
A necessary evil to exterminate a greater evil. Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
The fuckers played their hand and lost. Now it was payback time. I materialized King Vanagon and wove an illusion of him alive over the ghost. ThenI stored the whole throne room, corpses, tapestries, furniture, and everything else my item box could pick up and walked out.
We found the young prince and Queen having a very intimate mother and son moment. We didn't barge in but the dead King ordered a maid to warn the Queen she will have a visitor in a few moments. After a minute, Vanagon's ghost opened the door and barged in. I followed.
"Elena. I need you to listen carefully," the spectral King said, "As we don't have much time. This is King Robin of Locksley. He's here to grant a boon to our son."
The woman looked at the King. "You have no authority, Vanagon. You're dead. I've seen the notifications. That man behind you is a murderer. He shall have nothing to do with the Prince. As Queen of Saegalla, I declare war on Windemere."
I half-expected a notification, but these disputes weren't mediated by the System.
"Come on, murderer. Kill a child and his mother in cold blood!" She taunted, looking at me with airs of defiance. "Bundeus has promised to protect us!"
And then I understood. The God of Butts needed to go down. Deicide was on the menu.
"What should I do, Vanagon?" I asked.
"Don't hurt my heir. This adulterous wench, you can do what you want to her."
I shook my head. Queen Elena looked surprised. "You knew?"
"Yes, Elena. But for the sake of the Realm, I couldn't discard my strongest knight Without proof. Now he's dead and he has no reason to hide it from me. You will not poison my son with your vile words."
I bound the shoulders and head of the Queen and the maids listening in to our talk with a construct of force magic on each body part and twisted the head part. Their necks broke instantly and I sent their bodies to storage.
I reached the cradle and picked up the baby.
"This is my son, prince Gorgie. Grant your boon, my liege," Vanagon said.
I spent fifty thousand SP on the young prince, granting him the {Head Start I}, {Exp Boost}, and {Poison Resistance} perks along with the freebie {Fairy Godson}. I also granted him a Fate.
"I'll raise him in Windemere. When he's ready, he'll retake his throne. His road will be harsh but he'll grow in character and wisdom with each trial."
"So shall it be."
I looted the whole castle following the King's directions. I let Vanagon carry his son as I went out of the now empty and lifeless castle, jumping from roof to roof until the temple of Bundeus was in sight. I surrounded the temple with a cylindrical wall of force. Then I imitated the spell the Elf council used on me, increased in scale.
"{Force Siege Hammer}!"
Like mortar and pestle, the hammer crushed the temple without scattering debris around. Once the shockwaves settled, I melted the debris with magma and returned to Windemere. After the main temple, I went for every single temple or shrine dedicated to the God of Butts and repeated the deed.
After I was done destroying Bundeus' worship in the capital of Saegalla, I returned home. I shifted into a dire pelican and carried the prince in my throat pouch.
----------------------------------------
During the next weeks, I worked to revive Windemere. The fanatical refugees were brought back to the capital and they could the house they wanted to live in. I converted the nobles' estates into farmland and that was the first area I revitalized. With the dryad perks I bought during my last level up, I had each field of crops ready for harvest in three days. It cost me million each of MP and SP, but that was negligible at my level.
When I wasn't growing plants, I was weaving silk bodies for the ghosts. I made a set of specialized enchanted amulets and rings that granted me twenty points on the relevant Skills along with some Attribute boosts, which allowed me to craft five bodies per day.
After I'd bound all the ghosts from the group I'd rescued from undeath and those I brought with me in their living silk bodies, I broached the subject of my mission with my Queen. I was about to embark on a dangerous journey, one that could end Rosewise's existence. But Bundeus couldn't go unpunished for the mass murder he'd caused.
"I don't want you to go," Lorna said with moistened eyes. "But they were my people too. Just promise you'll come back."
I hugged her. "I will. I'll just destroy every church, temple, or shrine to the murderer in this continent."
"I'll be with her," Nenandil added. "Between Rosewise's magic and mine, there isn't much in this continent that can oppose us," She bragged.
"Take care," she whispered and kissed my forehead. "And Nenandil, please bring her back to me."
----------------------------------------
It was a bad epoch to worship Bundeus. Throughout the entire Auvanini continent, temples to the Bundeus, God of War, Humans, and the Sun disappeared. Not even ruins were left behind. Grand cathedrals, temples, any space dedicated to Bundeus vanished. His priests disappeared without a trace. Hushed whispers told the tale of a God that murdered a nation. At first the faithful scoffed at these rumors as heresy, but when there was no priest to conduct the rites, offer healing, and no temple to worship, they started to doubt.
The few surviving clerics went into hiding, performing their rites hidden from the Light of their Lord. But those were also quickly found as if the perpetrator of such atrocities had the power to sniff them out.
Two years after the nation of Windemere all but vanished from the world, there was no place to worship the Sun God. Not even a chapel or a roadside shrine. Holy texts also vanished from libraries and private collections. The few that clung to their faith feared even the knowledge that their God existed would vanish. And yet the pantheon was as silent as their patron.
The Sun withdrew His grace from Auvanini, those bold enough to talk about the impending catastrophe said. War did vanish as well. Kings found their vaults depleted, their supplies, pilfered. For a year, Auvanini experienced peace. No wars were fought, only small localized skirmishes.
The Kingdoms had no money to fund a war. That was half the reason. The other half, which no sovereign dared speak out loud, was that War was Bundeus' domain. Waging war might draw the wrath of the one erasing the faith from the continent.
Travelers arriving from other continents were warned upon arrival. Too many priests that came with the mission to rekindle the faith in the Sun Lord vanished soon after landing.
Until one day all temples received the same oracle. All the gods warned. The "Age of Eclipse" was upon the world. The oracle heralded the death of the Sun.
----------------------------------------
"I lost another of my children to your ill-devised plans!" The Broodmother roared at the Sun God.
Bundeus scoffed. "It is not MY fault that your dragons can't kill a mere mortal. He had to wait for the necromantic spell to go off then kill the Anomaly."
The Mother of All Dragons roared, shaking Bundeus' Divine Realm. That should never have happened but Bundeus was severely weakened from the destruction of his temples in one-third of the world. So weakened he was being bullied by an overgrown lizard.
"You go down there and fix your mistake!" She continued. "Kill the Anomaly with your own hands! Or I swear my dragons will finish your gaudy clergy in the other two continents."
"That would mean war!" Bundeus threatened.
"Yes, it would. Why, O God of War? Are you afraid of a little skirmish?" She threatened back.
The stupid System balances all races. Most stupidly, Bundeus reckoned. Compare any two species. If you add the power of all individuals on both sides, it should even out. A race with less than a thousand individuals like the Dragons gained ridiculous perks, like a hundred times the Exp gained, or increased Attribute gain.
"You should go down there, and kill the Anomaly. Show me what a true God of War can do. That continent forsook you, Bundeus," She teased and enticed. "Do not worry about the deaths of those apostates."
Bundeus screamed, shaking the foundations of his Realm even further. Then he stormed out.
If he knew about draconic expressions, he'd see the Broodmother smiling.
----------------------------------------
[1] - MDW: My poetry might be worse than my already bad prose. I beg your forgiveness if I made you cringe too much.