The next two years were momentous ones and there were many things that happened within them that would still be discussed in the halls and homes of the rich and poor alike, for some time to come.
Chief amongst those subjects was the rise and establishment of the seventh Great Kingdom. The BTR, the Bone Tree Republic. A power that emerged suddenly and forcefully like a leviathan from the darkest and deepest of Monde’s seas.
Making waves that shook even the oldest ‘boats’. Sinking the ancient and august Seven Sons Society and forcing the others to give way.
For a while it even seemed that both Lloyd and Albrecht would succumb and be swallowed whole by them and great tumult would take place. A war that would dwarf all the others that were currently taking place on the continent. A world shaking war, a war to end all wars.
That’s not what happened in the end.
Instead Meallan was bribed into an enthusiastic acceptance of its powerful new neighbor and the Ministry of Public Order took over the recovery efforts for what was left of Albrecht after the new nation and Albrecht’s other neighbors had made sure to take their share.
Lloyd still kept close tides to the new Great Kingdom, but that was for the sake of maintaining its own integrity. Nereida and Albus were on distant but friendly terms with the new power. As for Gweneal, the rich and haughty, the lack of shared borders meant that it and the BTR were ostensibly free to ignore each other.
Thus there was peace, yes, more than a few territories that had technically belonged to other kingdoms had been and were being, slowly absorbed by the new power, but it was peace all the same. Peaceful by Argus standards, at the very least.
Tense with a sense for quiet foreboding, for the kingdoms whose lands were being swallowed up, but still relatively low in violence, which was what mattered most to the common folk.
A peace that had not been seen in ages, if only because the new nation acted as buffer between the kingdoms. Ending many of the feuds and old disputes that lay between the nations by directly sweeping the contested territories and properties off the table. Cutting conflicts short, by adding an extra, obstacle for any fools who would seek to start something.
Second amongst the subjects that were discussed during in the passing years was talk that a new age of heroes had been started. Monde’s aether levels had risen. All over the continent, all over the planet really, new talents were sprouting up.
Enough so, that new martial schools were starting and old schools were forced to expand. Monde had always been a world of practitioner but now the number had jumped tenfold.
Whatever had happened on the night that the skies exploded with silver gray light and the world, had strengthened the leylines and deepened the aether in the air. It was now to the point that a common farmer could just naturally rise into the peak of the material layer just by living long enough to for the aether to accumulate within his body.
As for the elites of the world, many who’d previously been frustrated, or found their cultivation halted, suddenly found their power growing by leaps and bounds. The number of individuals breaking into higher realms skyrocketed.
Opinions over all this was split. There were many who it as a good thing, there were many who said that this was a new age of heroes. A new time of glory for the people and powers of Monde. On the other hand there were some who saw the bad in it.
The humanoid races weren’t the only one’s who suddenly found it easy to cultivate and gain strength. The number demonbeasts was at an all time high. With rumors of new beast kings being muttered about amongst the hunters and COG freelancers of Argus. Even more fierce than the beasts, were the men. Not every improved cultivator was a ‘hero’.
Some the newly empowered wild youth, were turning to banditry. Scouring the lands as they tried to cut out new dynasties for themselves. The kingdoms could hold them off, but the sheer number of emboldened fools was taxing for public order and had a negative impact on trade.
The horde of empowered raiders, made life hard on those commoners who didn’t live in well protected cities. With the issue exacerbated by the fact that the standards for what counted as well protected had changed as the raiders grew stronger. Most notable of all was how this changed the Mondian practitioner societies, especially on Argus.
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All over the continent their families that were rising out of obscurity. Bearing their fangs at those who’d knocked them down. The heightened level of aether awakening countless ancient bloodlines.
Creating opportunities for enough successful young scions to rise that some folk were thinking that it was only a matter of time till the current balances of power between the various practitioner family, societies and factions, needed to be totally redrawn.
Finally there was third subject biggest subject, and the second, as far public knowledge went, that could traced back to the famed Bone Tree Company. Near the center of the continent at an off angle of the BTR, where absolutely no one lived and the laws of time and space seemed to have become strangely skewed, a tower being built.
Taller than any tower in the world. Taller than any mountain in the world. Taller than anything in the world period. One could see it a distance, from almost anywhere on the continent and a few bored Sorcerers who had experience with mathematics, hypothesized if their ratios on the spatial skew were correct that tower could quite possibly be taller than the planet itself.
Taller and wider, big enough to fit, at least the Monde’s within itself. Most didn’t believe that, after all, how and why would anyone build such a thing? Still two things were obviously true. The first was, that the tower was still yet unfinished and the second was, that once it was done, it was going to be positively massive.
*****
Over at the structure that the Bone Tree Company’s senior staff, simply called the tower, two individuals stood huddling in the shadow of the massive structure.
Or rather they weren’t really huddling in the tower’s shadow, they were merely standing behind a windbreak, trying to fight off the strange biting cold that seemed to affect only this particular area in the republic. Hands gripping two piping hot, steaming cups of coffee. The two were just on break.
If they were in the tower’s shadow it was just due to the fact that the shadow the creature cast was just that large. Stretching for hundreds of thousands of miles and submerging everything in the affected regions in a near permanent night.
The two Bone Tree Employees stood watching the head supervisor, a slightly girly looking fellow who was one of two employees could swear looked strikingly similar to a guy, who’d spontaneously combusted a few years prior.
They watched the Head Supervisor as he gave orders to a large group of shade laborers and issued instruction to the other Bone Tree Company staff. The shade laborers were dextrous, muscular many-limbed, unnumbered, that looked a lot like a cross between an octopus, a security camera and a professional weight lifter. Their tentacle laden bodies dressed in drab gray jumpsuits.
To an extent all of the Bone Tree Company’s employees were supervisors, save for those who worked in the fields of specialized production like alchemy and enchantment, most, raw labor was done solely by shades.
Still there was a need to have human eyes overlooking things. While the shades generally seemed to just know what they needed to do and how to do it. The human staff were liaisons between management and the shades. Ordering the creatures about, and keeping them on task, since they tended to just drift, and do ‘whatever’ if left unattended.
Sometimes even simply disappearing from the site. Seeming to fade out of view. The Supervisors were mostly around to communicated changes in plans and intention, as in the end, it was only the Senior Executives and those that they trusted, who could wordlessly, and completely bend the shades to their will.
For those not off that select group how much control one had over the creatures largely depended on where would stood on the corporate ladder.
One of the two employees looked to the other, and then he looked at the tower.
“Hey...any clue, what it is, the bosses are actually building?”
His friend looked back at him, wearing a wry expression.
“....A tower.”
The first employee snorted, narrowing his eyes at his friend.
“Smartass….I’m asking what kind of tower.”
The second employee shrugged.
“Dunno...it’s whatever. They don’t pay us to speculate man. Just build the damn tower.”
The other man’s face turned cloudy, he turned and stared up at the tower. Craning his neck up at the structure, leaning back as he tried to take it all in at once.
“Hey...You don’t think the boss is gonna, like, try and use this thing to blow up the world, or whatever, do you?” said the first employee.
The second employee’s face scrunched up, and then he gave his pal a light pat on the arm.
“Come on, man. First of all you’ve heard the talk, do you think the bosses would need to build some kind of giant gizmo if they just wanted to shake things up around here? Second of all, even if this is a weapon, who do you think its going to be aimed at?”
The first employee thought about it and then his face cleared up as he answered like a true Mondian. Not out of loyalty, though he did feel that, as a well treated BTC employee. Given generous pay, countless benefits and opportunities. Assured of certain things that made him think it might be a good idea to bring the rest of his family out of Maellan and into the Republic. Not of fear, thought though he felt ‘that’ too. Slightly uncertain of the true intentions of the company's mysterious Senior Executive Board.
The answer came from a simple Mondian desire to always be on the winning side. A desire born from knowing first and second hand, the desolation that came from losing.
A desire that was met with the simple understanding, that for whatever reason the BTC was a group that didn’t seem to know defeat. Crushing everything and everyone that stepped in their path.
As well as a very Mondian expectation for what all that would bring to them and theirs.
“Not us…?” said the first employee.
The second Employee nodded as he finished his coffee, smiling as he looked up at the tower, with a gaze that was almost proud.
“Not us.”
“Mh...I guess it’s fine then.” said the first employee with a shrug, finishing his own coffee.
The two stared up at the tower a final time, before looking inwards at their phone-constructs, thinking of their loved ones and their children and the lives they'd built working for a company they didn't really know anything about and decided it was time to get back to work.
“Right in one, buddy. Now let’s get back to work.”