Johan Bladetusk blinked as he found himself standing beneath the harsh sun after several days spent indoors. He looked around and found himself surrounded by a mixture of wood and concrete buildings covered in verdant jungle overgrowth. He watched carriages and cars wander by, and spied upon the handful of passing, on-foot orcs, and goblins that noticed his gawking.

“Is this…?”

It seemed that the strange man had told the truth. Not only sending Johan to a place near the Fangspear Valley, but literally dropping him off a few blocks away from his home. Dropping Johan off in the part of the valley that should be controlled by his family, the Bladetusks. Johan took a moment to figure out what to do next. He’d had all these plans to try and sneak into the valley unseen by his traitorous kinfolk.

It wasn’t hard to get back to his home, the Bladetusk clan estate. He entered through the back, for fear that the traitors would be watching the front. He found his father standing in the garden.

“Johan?!” said the Bladetusk Patriarch. Sounding both shocked and relieved. Looking a bit worse for the wear.

“Father!” said Johan.

“Where’ve you been…Your Uncles said that you were attacked by jungle beasts,” said the Bladetusk Patriarch.

“Tch, of course, they’d say that!... There were no beasts. They were the ones who attacked me!” said Johan.

“What?! But they’ve been out there for the past few weeks, helping me search for you!” said the Bladetusk Patriarch.

“More like spending the past few weeks throwing you off the trail…They nearly killed me…Or more like, maybe they did kill me? I don’t know…But never mind that for now, father. I have to tell you what I saw. Some of our tribe are in cahoots with the Nightclaw tribe! They’re planning to betray the valley!” said Johan.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

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Elsewhere, while the Bladetusk clan and the Fangspear Tribe were thrown into a tumult, a certain man on the moon sat staring blankly into the stars. It was a lovely evening, and there seemed to be some kind of conjunction of the stars going on, because the heavens were arranging themselves in a fashion that almost seemed on purpose, and I was getting all sorts of interesting data.

“Hey, sweetie,” said a light, low, voice at my back.

I tilted my head backward and saw Jack, or at least one of her quantum-duplicates, standing at my back.

“Hey, hon,” I said.

“Did you just get off work?” I said.

“Yeah…I had to kill off an annoying fake-hero that one of the local deities had created and lost control of,” said Jack.

“Oh…Bummer…Hold on. Did you kill them off, or did you secretly recruit them?” I said. Noticing a certain mischievous twinkle in Jack’s eye.

“I can neither confirm or deny that statement…Based on our Empty-Society’s agreements with the native gods of our many territories, I would naturally be obliged to wipe out any disruptive elements and agents…That being said, you know how hard it can be to tell one mortal from the other…Mistakes happen,” said Jack.

“True…Those pesky mortal do tend to look alike after a while…” I said. The two of us nigh-omniscient beings pretending we were too old, too near-sighted, and potentially just a bit bigoted, to be able to tell one mortal apart from the other.

“Beautiful night, isn’t it?” said Jack. Changing the subject, tilting her head up, and turning her attention to the stars.

“Uh-huh, and it seems I’ve gotten some beautiful company too,” I said.

Jack snorted and shook her head.

“Cornball…” said Jack. Blushing. Tucking a lock of flyway white hair behind a finely pointed ear.

“You know you love it,” I said. Smiling. Feeling oddly confident this evening.

“Tch…Maybe, I do…Maybe I don’t…” said Jack.

We made love that night. We usually did whenever she found time to visit me in my little sanctuary. We did so twice. First doing so through our clone bodies, and then doing so again, through our main bodies in our private realm. It was an enjoyable way to kill a few weeks' time.