Finally we made it to the location of the crater fortress. It was less defended than before, but more well fortified. And judging from the dropping portcullis, it wouldn’t be as easy to get a peek inside this time. Dash offered to scout out the central structure for me and before I could object, she was enveloped by a glowing light. Her feminine form began to shift and before I knew it she had transformed into a moderately large dragon and taken to the skies.
Knowing we had already alerted the orcs of our presence I figured I’d make myself useful and draw the attention of as many of them as possible. I started by expending a little of my mana on large flashy spells that looked impressive but were purely for show. Next I charged the gates with Luseal defending from projectiles in her shield form. And once I neared the keep I drew my katana from my sheathe and held it above my head. With no sign of Dash in the skies, I instructed Lilith to draw as much soul essence from the area as she could.
Lilith responded laughing in irritation and informing me that she needed far more effort on my part if I expected to see any significant results. So like an idiot I sat atop my roaring pale horse, sword held high; Doing absolutely nothing. So I concentrated my embarrassment and frustration into a symbolic sword strike and focused it on a single orc atop the wall. Opening my mana pool for Lilith to draw from, I swung my blade.
As I reached the apex of my swing, I felt a surge of energy originate from my symbiote as a dense aura of energy formed on the edge of my blade and slung from my weapon in a blur. The swift projectile drank in the light around it and upon striking its intended target caused the orc to stumble and seemed to disorient it temporarily. Then was immediately followed by a burst of energy returning to me from the victim.
So, still with no sign from Dash I did the next obvious thing, and began to swing wildly at the troops manning the battlements. The subsequent attacks were not quite as powerful, but with the increased frequency of the attacks it decimated their already thin formations. Just as I began to relent Lilith informed me that the soul energy present within all of the orcs was the same, and was growing weaker across every orc as my attacks persisted.
Just as I was beginning to consider conquering this location Dash finally appeared from behind the wall. She fling several orcs over the side as she approached, and seemed to have blood covering parts of her dragonic form. She descended as she grew nearer and galloped to a halt. Just as she did, she began to emit that familiar glowing light and return to her former eloquent appearance. Still mounted aback Lightning I swiftly closed the distance between us and threw her onto the back of my steed quickly making our way to a safer distance.
Once we felt we were out of harm's way Dash began to describe the scene within the crater. It turned out that there was no longer anything located within the central structure. She had grabbed a few more high-tech goodies, but she said it was clear that anything of true potential had already been salvaged.
We decided to find a safe place to set up camp and because it was nearby, we chose to head back toward the canyon where I had encountered the forsaken necromancer. Again once there we never encountered anything but the decrepit grand hall made a pretty good place to make ourselves comfortable.
Using Lightning’s forge and anvil I opened a portal to Sanctuary and we were set up. Several inhabitants of Sanctuary decided to exit the pocket dimension to “stretch their legs” in a sense. And while everyone else made themselves comfortable, Dash and I headed for a well deserved nap.
In my slumber I communicated with my companions. Lilith revealed more detailed information in regards to the orc soul energy. The Chi from the orcs seemed to be flowing from a single spark, one source. And from what she could tell it was in fact originating from the denser high-orc territory. And Dash was even able to show me images of what she had seen within the crater the previous day. It was just as she had described, the field of energy containing the frozen orc was gone. And it appeared as all the other components of interest were no longer present either.
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The increased population of longer-term residents within Sanctuary seemed to have a profound effect on the world's prosperity. The fields seem to nourish the crops within at an incredible rate, accelerating their growth and perhaps more.
As I was swept away in Dash’s dreamscape once again, my symbiote contacted me. It seemed communication with him was not compatible with the nature of dreams in my reality. Each night I entered Dash’s dreams, he was left alone. But this was not a problem however, for he found that within Sanctuary many people had “dreamless sleeps” where he found energies unclaimed by Sanctuary herself (Yeah I guess I might as well personify this hack of a dimension, despite its clear lack of will).
So I was planning to form an attack squad but Luseal was able to convince me to join her as an envoy instead. She hoped we would be able to establish diplomatic relations with the orcs. So we packed up camp, loaded all the un-needed individuals back into Sanctuary, and headed toward the orcish heartland.
Our initial party consisted of Dash and Myself and when we grew near the first of the smart orcs, I accessed Sanctuary so Luseal and Lilith could grab their respective avatars. This time they wore impressive customised armour. I made a note with Dash to begin construction on more M-tek steeds. She revealed they were already under construction but had not yet met her standards. They required a more suitable power source, due to the unique properties of the orc p/s installed in the Mk. IV Steed. So I decided to have Luseal ride Lightning, because I thought having her mecha avatar riding a matching horse would look pretty badass.
Upon returning to reality Lilith led the way to where she felt the source of the orc soul essence was located. We began to formulate a plan for how we could manipulate the orc chi in order to establish peaceful communication. We figured by mimicking the orc’s resonance we could manipulate the orcs ourselves, but Lilith was confident that it would be impossible to alter our own souls enough to be indistinguishable from the original source. However my symbiote was confident that he could analyse it enough to assist in breaking the language barrier; Much like the method used to learn the vampiric language at an accelerated pace.
With Lilith and Junior collaborating together preparing to assimilate some orcish speech, we headed to the nearest small encampment we could find. When we first spotted a scouting party they quickly began to chatter among themselves, then abruptly sent one of their numbers swiftly travelling toward the settlement. The group stood their ground, sizing up our party and studying our group’s behaviour.
We decided to try to look as unthreatening as seemed reasonably possible, Luseal dismounted our mecha steed (and entranceway returning to Sanctuary if needed) and as I stepped forward Luseal moved to stop me, pushing me back and walking ahead of me. I still wore the pendant capable of manifesting her cloak or shield forms, but it still seemed she felt the need to protect me further. Little did she know I was more worried about the threat to her avatar than to anything else. I reached out and placed my hand on her shoulder, firmly holding her back. When she turned around I mentally instructed the pendant to assume its shield manifestation, and I handed it to her.
Her eyes lit up and the looser cloth attached to her armour began to flow around her body, as she accepted the shield it began to alter its form. The face of her avatar began to resemble the appearance of the metaphysical avatar she originally chose to inhabit within Sanctuary. The shield grew in height and width, but took a strange shape. It appeared as it was specialised to protect others. But it never stopped there, next she began to emit a pure energy coalescing both; as her cloak manifestation, appearing already hanging from her shoulders, and also forming what looked like hair flowing from the head of her mechanised avatar.
After the show we decided to make haste with our attempt at peaceful contact. Dash took my arm raising her shield before us, and we began to close the gap between our two groups. As our distance from the orcs shrank, our distance from Lilith and Dash grew. I received a mental ping from Lilith that my katana was beginning to become too distant for her chi to reach her clone style avatar. So, as none of the orcs from their small group had yet split off from its companions to meet me; I stopped advancing toward them.