When I awoke I was laying in a fancy bed, in an even fancier room. I sat up and looked around while opening my spiritual senses to the area. I couldn’t believe my eyes, but I had no choice. Once I felt Lady Darkrose’s soul inhabiting the body before me I finally accepted that it was her, she was alive! She jumped into my arms, well sort of, considering I was still half sitting, half laying in bed. More like she jumped on top of me and we held each-other. I'm sure we probably both cried but we both fell asleep without exchanging any words.
I’m sure it wasn’t the first, but once we woke up it was my first time participating in the whole “I thought you were dead. Well I thought YOU were dead” conversation. And then the following catching up, you know things like “You had sex with how many women?!”, and the whole worn-out “but I thought you were dead!” excuse.
It turned out that I had been transported to the high-elf capital. Lady Darkrose explained that she had originally escaped the betrayers of the 4th kingdom. Those people had been chosen by Fate but they betrayed her and used her own gifted power against her, obliterating large quantities of raw universal energies. Lady Darkrose had no choice but to fall from their fortress in the sky, relinquishing her memories and powers for a chance to stop them.
She explained how her pet had rescued her soul from the necromancer, it was a winged horse or pegasus. It was forced to give up its body in order to save her. And the resulting fusion and subsequent resurrection of Lady Darkrose left her with a rather fetching pair of angelic wings.
She explained how she had protected me from the shadows until I was killed by Dash’s father. And after my death she had stalked the necromancer. It was her who had prevented him from firing another devastating energy attack during the battle. She was able to slay the foe and recover the armband containing her power that he had been weaponizing. But the shadow clone escaped and held something even more valuable to her.
The “necromancer” who had pursued her had come from the 4th kingdom in pursuit of the abilities she possessed. She decided not to equip her recovered armband right away, knowing the potential for it to return more latent memories that could possibly overwhelm her.
Afterwards the girls informed me of the results of the battle. Our sentinel had been pretty much destroyed when I pulled Lilith’s soul from it mid-combat. Thankfully, Dash was not seriously injured. I remembered the taste of her blood, the blood of a dragon and I was hooked. Of Course I would do my best never to feed on her again, at least not without her permission.
Soon after Lady Darkrose finally equipped her armband for the first time. She grew once again to an adult form, appearing about 25 years of age. She took some time to gather her thoughts. She seemed to handle them fine and began to explain. The 4th kingdom, and betrayers of creation had created her by mixing human and angel. They must have captured an angel somehow, probably best just not to think about. She was raised among the humans in the palace in the sky, but always felt out of place. She always had more talent then the other forsaken people of the sky kingdom, but it was never appreciated. She could feel the people around her using her constantly, but never truly seeing her. She was compelled to assist them in their debauchery of reality in the form of magi-scientific tech development.
They were given access to a rare magical crystal by Fate so that they could help her reconnect our universe Infinity to The Multiverse. They were instructed on how to properly utilise this energy, but soon discovered ways of pushing it beyond its intended capacity. The incredible boost in energy allowed them to crush the other kingdoms and even prevent others from escaping the planet!
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The method that the betrayers used to harness the energy of the crystals left them devoid of energies, and they mined the planet completely dry. The experiments they had forced Lady Darkrose to participate in showed her the terrible waste. And they wanted more, they planned to travel to other worlds and repeat the process to maintain their power. Eventually Lady Darkrose inadvertently heard references to “the nephilim” in reference to herself and began to grow suspicious. She requested books to assist in her research, and studied the history of the kingdom. That’s when she decided to stop them.
Finally Lord Woulfgang paid me a visit. I was already up and walking about but it seemed he had discovered my affliction. I guess if he saw the state I was in proceeding the encounter with the evil necromancer. While not really a necromancer at all, we called him by many names. The 4th kingdom came to be known by many names as well. As Fate’s first attempt at obtaining help from mortals, they were known by some as the proto-chosen. Many knew them as the betrayers or the forsaken. Or simply the lost kingdom. The man who had pursued Lady Darkrose was one of these betrayers.
Anyway, the king knew something more than simple magics had allowed me to make a full recovery, and in such a short amount of time. He was very powerful in the detection of magical energies, and he felt the alien mana resting where my heart should be. But I suppose he saw the good that I had done, and the opportunity to guide me to do more.
Murgil was incredibly grateful that we had cleared the scourge of the forsaken armies to the south, and even sent word to the elven kingdom to the south. Telling them that it was safe for them to return to the ancient battlefield once more. Evidently a few elves from that era still lived today.
Although the king was grateful, he thought we could both benefit from another endeavour he had in mind. He revealed to me one of the royal tools he had unlocked for his ring. Apparently upon reaching the lobby on the thirtieth floor of the dungeon he was granted a stopwatch. This stopwatch allows him to speed and slow the passage of time within his own royal pocket space. So you know I was all over that, the potential for an upgrade like that was mind-boggling.
So we prepared our party. We were restricted to a party of five, however it seemed souls contained within the same body, or within artifacts did not count toward that limit. So the party would consist of Woulfgang, Lucretcia, Dash, Lady Darkrose, myself, and of course Lilith & Junior would accompany us contained within their respective vessels.
We had played with the idea of leaving Lucretcia in Sanctuary and bringing Lilith with us but considering the state of her avatar, and her disdain for its capabilities.
Before entering the dungeon the king had ordered his troops who had been keeping the undead at bay to reclaim the area. He told them to recover the sentinel we had constructed and to return it to the kingdom. I guess they can’t all be winners. It seemed more often than not, less was more. Lilith described inhabiting the avatar as if trying to possess someone who was strongly resistant, or suffering from some sort of brain abnormality making it difficult to communicate with their body. I shared this knowledge with the crew in charge of maintaining our horses, and told them to get in touch with my R&D department.
I also decided to offer a few contracts to the orc kingdom through the adventurers guild. One of which was in search of an engineer willing to assist in the development of more efficient energy production. I figured that one would get the attention of a particular individual. Although I guess given the right information and standing orders, he could send any high-orc drone in his stead.
And after Dash had orchestrated the exchange of population within Sanctuary, finally it seemed we were ready to venture into the royal dungeon.