Despite the occasional brattines, the next few days were better with Delilah in the house. The other girls had come to accept her and she went back to trying to live her life even with people knowing she was a goddess incarnate.
Finally, the day came where Wraith returned from Callist with information for me about the Devil King, his army, and his domain. When I brought him upstairs, he saw Delilah walk by. “Who’s the new girl?” he casually noted.
“Oh, that? That’s my little cousin Delilah.”
“You don’t have a little cousin Delilah.”
“I know that!” I exclaimed, “It’s a long story. I’ll explain it over lunch.”
As we sat down to eat, I walked Wraith through all of the events that happened in the other timeline and brought him up to speed on the Delilah situation. In addition to that, I informed him about Stephanie and Anabel’s wedding and told him that he was invited if he promised to behave himself. Regardless, I told him that any actions we took directly against the Devil King, I wanted to wait to do until after the wedding, just in case something bad were to happen to me.
“Okay, so what did you find out?” I asked.
“A lot! Take a look at this,” he spread a parchment map across the dining room table of regions in Callist beyond the continent that I knew.
“See here? This is the Devil King’s domain. His armies are currently on the march in these regions here,” he pointed to a location near where we had been traveling in the other timeline. He continued, “The Devil King had four generals prior to your interference. Davol, whom he banished for failure to the desert near the Barbarian Lands, Apollo, who defected.
Then there’s two others. The commander of his shock troopers, the Black Knights, goes only by the name Beast Master.”
“I know them! That’s the one who killed you in the other timeline!”
“Well, they’re bad dudes. Supposedly they’re modified with Orc blood and other concoctions of monsters. But the last general is in charge of defending the Devil King’s borders. Her name is Priscilla. She’s a half demon. Her mother was a succubus and her father was a
Human Warlord. She’s not as tough as Beast Master but she’s cunning. Also worthy of note, the Devil King’s real name is Shagrath. He’s a magic user but he’s supposed to be a formidable fighter as well. Supposedly he modified himself with Ogre blood.”
“But he’s a human?”
“Used to be. His past is a little shadowy though. No one knows where he came from but they know he replaced another Devil King a long time ago that was killed by another world walker. Presumably one of your ancestors.”
“Well, just the same, I plan on defeating one as well,” I assured.
“So there you have it. We know who they have, what they have, and where we’re most likely to find them. With the proper preparations, we can organize an assault of our own against him.”
I nodded in agreement and added, “Yeah, if we could just find that Tome of Wisdom that the Oracle told me about.”
Wraith furrowed his brows and scratched his chin as he said, “Hmm, Tome of Wisdom?”
“What? What about it? You reacted that way before when you first heard about it from the Oracle. Do you know where it is?”
“It’s a long shot, but I have an idea.”
Wraith led me upstairs to the attic room where he was storing all his old stuff. Sure enough, he pulled out a tabletop roleplaying supplement called The Tome of Wisdom. We flipped through it. There was an entire section on making magic items and weapons.
“Oh my god!” I expressed, “Let’s go ahead and gather the others. But we gotta show this to Tolly!”
* * *
I decided to hold an emergency meeting in the drawing room. Everyone was present. It was time to discuss what our course of action would be to defeat the Devil of Callist. The first thing I did was show the girls the Tome of Wisdom and explained how the Oracle of Vale foresaw that it would help me find a tool that would kill Shagrath the Devil King. The only question was, which one?
Arduwan sat flipping through the book as we all talked about. She said, “if you enchanted my sword, we wouldn’t have to do anything different. I could just fight the Devil King like any other foe.”
“The bigger problem is going to be getting close enough to the king in the first place,” I said, “We can worry about what item is best once I talk to Tolly. But now matter what we choose, we still have two generals that aren’t just gonna let one of us walk right up and kill their master.”
“Is there some way to make, like, a magic barrier or something that makes you impervious to attack?” Emily asked, “If you could just make your way to his castle and no one could touch you that would be best.”
“True!” Wraith replied, “Davol did have that barrier when we faced him. But the flaw with it was that it only protected the side he was facing. Remember,I was able to stab him by jumping down from behind.”
They both raised a good point so I added, “Yes. A barrier like that one was advanced magic. I could probably temporarily make something like that. Not powerful enough to walk across multiple continents with though. Tolly told me that barriers that totally protected you from all but the most powerful of threats could only be conjured by divine magic, which he knew little about.”
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“So you’d need a cleric?” Emily asked.
“Right. Or help from a deity.”
There was an awkward pause before everyone slowly made a glance at Delilah, who had been quiet until now. Finally, Emily said, “Well, Delilah is a goddess isn’t she? Can’t she cast some kind of divine blessing or something?”
“Come to think of it. That’s a great idea!” I enthusiastically concurred.
“Umm, sorry there’s just one problem with this,” Delilah said, as she laughed nervously, “My divine powers don’t work in the lower realms. You see, I’ve been banished from my divinity until I pay off my karmic debt for helping you the first three times. Helping you again wouldn’t be possible.”
“You what?!” I shouted. I had taken her in under the assumption that having a goddess living here would be of some help. I knew she wasn’t all powerful anymore but I thought surely something had carried over.
She waved her arms defensively and said, “I can still help you with my knowledge! I’ve retained all of that. It’s just, I don’t have any powers anymore. I’m sorry.”
I was a little perturbed about this since she certainly had the power to eat all the food in the house. But I decided to go easy on her and said, “Well, it is what it is. No point in us dwelling on it. We’d just have to think of something else.” I turned towards Stephanie and Anabel and said, “I don’t plan on taking any big actions until after your wedding. So I’m going to use the time until then to get things ready so we don’t make some hasty big decision.”
Both of them smiled at me and Stephanie said, “Then maybe the best thing for you to do right now is go find Tolly and get that weapon made. Since he knows that world better than any of you he may have some ideas about how best to approach this matter.”
“Right!” Arduwan interjected, “And we can go to my village and see what my father and the other Barbarians can do to help out!”
That settled it. Arduwan, Wraith, and I would go into Callist immediately and talk to all of our allies to see if we could rally together against the Devil King before he commenced his invasion. If we could get enough support to take on his army then I’m certain my crew and I could get close enough to him to take him out. Once a plan was in motion, we’d come back home long enough to spend some quality time with the girls and have the wedding before pulling the trigger.
* * *
Hours later, I found myself at the edge of Arduwan’s village. Before me was King Ardu and over a hundred barbarians all kneeling at once. Apparently, because they had sworn a life debt to me in the other timeline, it had carried over to this one and they too remembered everything that had happened.
“Alright, alright. Everybody can stand up. I’m glad you’re on my side though. Can we count on you to help us mount an assault against the Devil King?”
“Of course, Sir Noble,” said King Ardu, “We barbarians shall fight to the last man in your honor.”
“Your majesty!” Someone from the crowd interrupted, “Why do you pledge yourself to an outsider?”
It was Throd, the barbarian Chieftain who helped lead the expedition to fight the Devil King in the other timeline. Why was he acting so different?
“Bow your head boy!” the King insisted, “Do you not remember the life debt you have sworn to this man?”
Throd gave a disgusted expression and said, “I have sworn no such oath!”
What? How could this be? He was one of the chiefs Ardu had gathered after I awoke the village from their curse of stone in the other timeline. Ardu hand picked him to help cross into the Devil King’s domain and attempt to destroy him back then. He gave his life for me in the others in an attempt to scout ahead where the Black Knights had been. What could have changed? But then it all came to me. The pieces fell together. Ardu said that Throd had recently replaced his father as chief of their clan when he had been killed by a spy of the Devil King’s. Throd claimed to have discovered and killed the spy. Also, when Throd went ahead to investigate who had burned that village in the continent to the west of us, he never returned. We had assumed he was killed, but never saw his body. In fact, when we found ourselves attacked by the knights, it was almost as if it was a trap. They had been advancing on us from the front as well as from behind. It all made sense…Throd was the spy!
Arduwan stopped forward and said, “Throd! How could you? Do you not remember fighting and dying in battle at Sir Noble’s side?”
Throd looked around confused. It was clear to him that everyone around him with the exception of Wraith but including me and King Ardu, carried the memories from the other timeline. In a panicked state, Throd took off running towards his horse.
“Seize him!” King Ardu ordered.
Throd shoved two pursuing barbarians down just before he got to his horse. Arduwan let out her infamous Call of the Wild, and summoned a horse of her own. Her and I quickly mounted the steed and went in pursuit of Throd.
“I don’t understand? Why is Throd doing this?” Arduwan asked me, while spurring the horse forward.
I held onto her tightly as we picked up speed and said, “Throd doesn’t remember anything because he never swore a life debt to me like the others. I believe he’s a spy of the Devil King. I don’t have time to explain. But we can’t let him get away or our plan will be exploited.”
Throd drove his horse away from the village, deeper into the Barbarian Lands. Slowly but surely, we began to catch up to him.
“Arduwan,” I said, “I’m going to try and hit him with an arrow. Try and maintain an even pace for a minute.”
With that, I grabbed my bow and an arrow and reached one arm around Arduwan’s neck to take aim. Once I had a clear shot of Throd, I let loose and struck him in the shoulder. He fell off of his mount and the horse ran off into the wilderness.
Arduwan began to slow our horse down and I prepared to dismount. By the time I got on solid ground, Throd was already back to his feet and ran into me with a clothesline attack before I could even draw my sword. Arduwan had not yet come to a complete stop.
I was hurt, bad. A full swing arm across the chest from a barbarian was devastating, no matter how tough I had gotten. I couldn’t beat Arduwan in our little wrestling matches back home, much less take the blunt force of an attack like that and be able to stand afterwards.
Throd stood over me and started to stomp down at my head. I managed to muster up just enough strength to roll out of the way just in time. Thankfully, by now, Arduwan had dismounted and drew her sword. Just as she moved to engage with Throd, he broke the arrow off at the shoulder, leaving the arrowhead stuck inside. He drew his own sword and proceeded to fight with her. The battle was fierce. Arduwan was the toughest of the barbarians from what I had seen up until now, but Throd appeared to be no slouch. The wound I gave him from the arrow seemed to not slow him at all.
By the time I had caught my breath and made it to my feet, Throd had delivered a debilitating blow to Arduwan by cutting her left thigh. She fell to one knee and dropped her sword in pain. Throd held up his sword and started to move towards her to finish her off.
“Splash!” I shouted, casting a bucket full over water on the ground right in front of Throd’s feet. “Chill!” I followed it with, as I touched the ground and froze the puddle of water. This sent Throd tumbling backwards as if he was on roller skates. I knew I didn’t have much time before he would get back up so I held my hands above my head and used what little MP I had left by casting, “Fireball!” And threw my hands downward, causing a massive blaze to engulf Throd’s horizontal body.
“Ahhhh!!!!” He screamed out in pain. He wasn’t dead, but he definitely wasn’t in good shape.
I was pretty depleted of magic, but I managed to stumble over to his burning body and drove my sword down into his chest before collapsing onto the ground next to him.
I woke up a few minutes later to Arduwan helping me up. Her leg was pretty badly injured, so once I was up on my feet, I had to help her more than she could help me. She wrapped her arm around my neck and used my body as a crutch as we slowly hobbled back to her village.