Chapter 19:
Sorry to intrude…
“The day is coming when a single carrot freshly observed will set off a revolution.”
– Paul Cezanne
* * * * *
The silver panels of the gate to Cali were laying in the dirt, a dozen metres away from where they were supposed to be, crumpled like pieces of cardboard. The ten metres tall and four metres deep majestic wall had turned into a pile of rubbles around the now gaping portal. The road however was unobstructed, as the debris had apparently been blasted to the sides when the doors had been smashed.
In fact, starting from about fifty metres on both sides of the ruins, the defensive structure regained its full integrity, as if the destruction surrounding the main entrance was an illusion of sort. It wasn’t however. Clearly someone had felt impatient to enter and hadn’t opted for the most subtle approach in forcing their way through.
Victoria walked up to the rubbles and picked up a seemingly random piece of rock. One of its facets was flat and covered with what at first glance looked like meaningless scribbles. But the dhampir knew better. Last time Elric had glanced upon one of the fortified towns of Erwyn, its runes had looked like very common protective runes…
“Common”, as in “covering a freaking impressive giant architectural artefact”, in a world where a haphazardly upgraded frying pan was considered rare and powerful… which was stupid, no matter how much dragon blood went into customizing it.
But, unsurprisingly, Elric was very uneducated in the ways of “common” sense, or in the sense of “common”. Victoria neither of course. And it really wasn’t getting any better now that she was starting to refer to Elric at the third person, while her own personality was slowly shifted away from Nicolas’ original one.
Schizophrenia was knocking, and the only reason it had not settled in already was that Nicolas, Elric, Victoria and Allan couldn’t come to an agreement on who was supposed to answer the door. Oh? Who was Allan? Allan was Nicolas’ imaginary friend. But he was rather quiet these days.
However, now that the runes were inactive, dead, so was the illusion which had dissimulated their true nature.
Har! Vee meet wonz hagain!
The Runes of Holy-fucking-ness!
The actual name was “High Ishtarian” though, a fact Victoria was perfectly aware of, but she didn’t care. “Runes of Holy-fucking-ness” sounded better, and since her head hurt like heaven every time she pronounced the word “holy”, the subsequent “fucking” sounded full of beatifically genuine annoyance on her sensually swearing delicate pale lips.
Also, High Ishtarian was a language almost exclusively made for the practice of soul magic, so the appellation… fitted? Probably not. But who cared? Victoria most certainly did not.
“You found something?”
The dhampir looked behind her, then up, to face the approaching tall human. Victoria’s raising gaze slowed slightly while passing over Athena’s lips – the memory of what happened earlier was still fresh in her mind – before meeting her eyes.
“Not really,” the ex-explorer answered. “I just got the answer to a question I had been wondering about for a couple months.”
She explained the functionality of the runic walls to Athena… who listened with the bewildered expression of someone who just learnt that ducks were actually fire-breathing immortal fishes… from outer space!
Contrary to the lunatic pale girl, the meticulous Goddess of Wisdom was very aware of the rarity of runic items. She had already been dumbfounded at Victoria’s utensil creation, but had accepted it because, after all, Victoria was also the first player she ever met who was able to use runes.
However, the existence of a several-kilometres-long, defensively enchanted, self-maintaining, illusion generating, runic RAMPART… This was a little too much to withstand for her common sense, which was already difficultly holding on.
“Thena? Thena~? Theeeenaaaaa?”
The stunned woman finally noticed the slender pale finger which was poking her armour at random angles. She wanted to answer, but her brain still hadn’t entirely recovered.
“Thena~, what’s wrong? Did you turn to stone? We fed your shield though,” Victoria called out, whining and pouting like a child pleading the corpse of her dog to stand back up and play. “Whaaaaaaa! Don’t turn to stone, Thena~!! You would make a much less fluffy pillow… AH! Right! Fluffy!”
Suddenly disinterested in her Soulbound’s fate, the Progenitor took out the large blood red pillow, Fluffy Dawnbringer, last survivor of the furniture of Bluerose! Guardian of the Nightly Slumber! Harbinger of Dreams! Bearer of the Ultimate Softness! Exiled Third Prince of the Pillow Kingdom and sole living heir to the Bed-Throne! Also illegitimate hidden son of Hiki, goddess of Sloth!! HERO OF THE PROPHECY OF SLEEPIPAPUSH!!! AAAAAAAND-
*cough*
Most of this was just Victoria’s delusions though. Fluffy was just your average, inoffensive, inert, slightly dusty high-class pillow…
…
…
…
…for now.
MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! *thunder*
“Seems like it’s going to rain,” Athena commented, looking up after having finally snapped out of her stunned state.
“Is that so?”
Victoria’s gaze followed her friend’s towards the sky, which didn’t look any different than it was a few seconds ago… which meant it was dark and clouded and that rain was likely to fall any moment.
“Maybe we should find shelter in the town?” she suggested.
With a last glance at her beloved pillow, the Princess yanked it back in her inventory.
I really want to add some runic embroidering… Would it work though? Maybe with some unicorn hair? Ah. But I’m out of unicorn hair. I used the last batch for master’s new broom, along with [King Treant “Yggdrasil Junior”]’s wood… I hope he liked the gift. Anyway… What to do? Oh, well, I’ll just replace the stuffing with angels’ feathers. That’s bound to have some effect! Ah… but no way to the Heavenly Realm had been found yet…
Yet?
“Kukukukukukuku… Wait for me birdies…”
Athena frowned worriedly at Victoria, who was giggling suspiciously while rubbing her hands.
* * *
In a room of immaculate whiteness, where the walls were but arches and colonnades opened to the outside, where the eternal daylight was always sunny and bright – horrible to sleep but you get used to it after a couple centuries –, and where the tiles flooring sparkled with holiness – and also thanks to Gabriel’s flawless mastery of the mop <1> –, there was a large emperor size bed – because king size was way to small – on which slept a three metres tall, six-winged, bald, androgynous humanoid.
One could say that the being looked old, but in truth their face was ageless, and the impression of ancientness came from the absolute wisdom oozing form their traits. Unfortunately for their image, they were sleeping very unsightly on their stomach… But cast the first stone he or she who ever managed to sleep on their back with six giant dove-like wings protruding from their collarbone!
Suddenly, the being’s peaceful visage distorted, their body was agitated with spasms and, in a flurry of white feathers, the glorious seraphim fell down the humongous bed on his hoy bottom, pulling the white blanket with her.
*BANG*
“Oh, what the heaven!”
Alarmed by the sudden noise and shout, four similar creatures, but with only four wings each and slightly shorter – though still way past two metres fifty – made irruption in the room, flying though the arches so fast they looked like three beams of heavenly light who suddenly materialised at the foot of the bed.
“Your Holiness!” “Your Purity!” “Your Whiteness!” “Daemon Bro!”
“Silence, Emanuïel, Arthuriel, Bernardiel, Brothiel, you bloody fools! I’m alright! And Brothiel, how many time did I tell you: DO NOT CALL ME BY MY FIRST NAME!! It’s disgraceful…”
Daemon the Seraphim stood up, draped in their dignity and their blanket, and also wearing a pair of pink shorts embodied with pastel blue winged unicorns. The four cherubs were donned in white togas.
“Sorry Sis, I always forgot you don’t like your name. Just because Dad is friend with the Insect Goddess yo-”
“I said: SILENCE!! And stop with the ‘Bro’ and the ‘Sis’. If you must persist with your disgraceful use of slang, chose one!”
“But Sis, we’re asexua-”
“I said: SILENCE!! …AND STOP THAT BLOODY HARP!!!”
Bending down, the seraphim grabbed a penguin shaped fluffy slipper and threw it through one of the arches. The beautiful sound of the heavenly harp abruptly stopped with a crashing sound and a high-pitched angelic yelp of pain and mostly surprise.
“Better. Tsk,” Daemon clicked his tongue. “For the love of Father, it’s already difficult to take a nap around here with all that never-ending day bullshit and the utterly idiotic absence of walls. Why must everyone think I like hearing music all the time?! Damned!”
The four cherubs let out a startled gasp at the utterance of such a vulgar past participle.
“Bro,” hesitated Brothiel. “Father will get angry if you say such things!”
“Father can go to Hell!! Actually, I’m pretty sure He already is, fucking that Dark bitch!”
Daemon was not wrong actually. Contrary to Chaos and Order who actively hated each other – though Chaos didn’t care most of the time – because their elements had much more inter-destructive natures, Lucian the God of Light and Umbra the Goddess of Darkness had a much more ambiguous relationship, each unable to exist without the other, enclosed in a cycle of mutual inter-creation in which…
...
Okay. Let’s say it bluntly, they spent most of the day fucking.
Most of the night too, obviously.
All the while hurting each other unwillingly.
Not that they minded though.
They were a kinky pair.
Of course mortal religions were unaware of that fact, and the leaders of both Heaven and Hell made sure it remained that way. Thus of course, most of the inhabitants of said otherworldly realms were aware of that blasphemous reality – though could it really be called blasphemous, considering it was performed by the divinities themselves? – but chose never to broach the topic and wilfully ignored it.
As such, the four cherubs were startled once more to hear their dignified ruler reference this shamelessness in such crude words, a feeling they proclaimed in relative unison:
“Bro!” “Your Innocence!” “Your Sincerity!” … “Your Immaculacy!”
“Oh, nice one,” Eamnuïel applauded politely.
“I think.” Bernardiel bowed slightly. “At first, I was going for ‘Your Abstemiousness’, but-”
“I. said. SI-LENCE!!”
The cherubs snapped to attention and Daemon began pacing back and forth, still only clad in his white blanket and pink underwear. Arthuriel’s face was actually a little red from the display. This one had a slight crush on their mighty *cough* leader.
Suddenly Daemon stopped and turned to face his four subordinates and siblings, and said with dreadful seriousness: “I had a vision.”
The seriousness spread to the seraphim’s interlocutors. Oracles from the most powerful being in Heaven were no joking matter, regardless of the aforementioned being’s getup.
“More like an intense foreboding in truth…” the seraphim corrected pensively, then their eyes hardened. “But there is no doubt that a being of great evil…”
Somewhere in the mortal place, a dhampir sneezed.
“…is plotting to bring harm to our holy siblings! The vision was unclear, but I saw a snickering figure in a dark place swirling with evil mana. A figure who I felt was undoubtedly female.”
“Your Perspicacity?” “Your Clear-sightedness?” “Your Clairvoyance?” “Sisbro, you don’t mean…”
“YES! DEMONS!!”
“Why do you shout your name, Brosis?”
“I AM NOT! You sinister imbecile! I said ‘demons’. DE-MON-SSSS!! With a ‘S’ like sodomy.”
“Oh… Wait. What?!”
“Of course, Your Cleverness!”
“Those unholy creatures! How dare they even entertain the thought of harming the followers of Your Amazingness?!”
“We shall smite them, Your Handsomeness!”
“You guys sure are motivated. And are we really going to ignore that last sentence?”
Despite their parents' frenemy relationship, angels and demons hated each other. Or maybe it was exactly because of said relationship, each group accusing the other’s divine genitor of having corrupted their respective procreator.
Incidentally, Lucian and Umbra were yet to succeed in “procreating” together, because their children systematically self-destructed upon conception. Opposites attracted each other, but rarely mixed well. Demons and angels were the offspring conceived by the primordial divinities with lower divinities of the same affinity. And, thankfully for the world, Chaos was currently too entertained by a certain ex-knight to look into the matter of this infertile godly union between Light and Darkness.
Daemon clenched her fists and hatred coloured his wise androgynous face.
“Yes, an evil female entity whishing us ill from a dark place swirling with obscure magic. I see only one possible culprit! You won’t get away this time, Angela!!”
““““…””””
The cherubs glanced at each other, whispering:
“That’s the Queen of Hell, no?”
“Yeah.”
“But that name…”
“Well, you know, it’s because Dad and that woma-”
“SI-LENCE!!! Ready our forces! We won’t remain silent in front of such ill intent!”
Nobody moved however.
“Eeeeh… Should we remain silent… or not?” Brothiel hesitantly asked.
“AAAAAARRH!!!” Deamon, scratched his face. “What did I do to deserve this… Prepare the legions! Today we go to war! Just wait, Angela! This time I’ll… and then I’ll… and that too!!!”
While Deamon was ranting on her own, the cherubs were muttering again amongst themselves.
“He really doesn’t like her…”
“Quite the opposite in fact. You see, they were childhood friend, but… well…”
“He? With that bitch? But she is a…”
“Deamon Bro takes after Father after all- OUCH!!”
The second penguin slipper was casted upon Brothiel’s head.
“GO GATHER THE TROOPS!! NOOOOOOOOOOW!!”
““““YES!!””””
The four four-winged beings darted outside, leaving Deamon to his solitary ranting.
…
That day, a floating gate suddenly appeared amongst the clouds right above the city of Noluk, where the portal to the [Demon Realm “Hell”] was located. And from this gate flooded out thousands of angels, archangels, principalities, powers, virtues, dominions, thrones and four cherubs lead by a very pissed shouting seraphim.
For a brief instant, the sky was filled with winged humanoids, occulting the sun. The surge of holy aura in the surrounding atmosphere was such that all the creatures, players and NPCs which had even the slightest affinity with darkness bursted into white flames, their eyes exploding and gory fluids in combustion splattering all around, igniting devastating fires throughout the city.
Ironically, the city where the gate to demonland had opened was right in the middle of the [Altor Theocracy]. After the original city was destroyed by the demons’ invasion, it had been rebuilt and became the siege of the Inquisition.
On that fateful day, after the legions of heaven raining from the sky disappeared inside the lower portal, leaving hundreds of charred corpse in the surrounding burning city and a giant opened gate floating above it, this meaningful phrase was uttered by Cardinal Zozeph, head of the Inquisition:
“What the Hell just happened?!”
This event became known as the Incomprehensible Tragedy of Noluk.
* * *
Several dozen kilometres away, totally oblivious to the cataclysm she had caused by inadvertence – But then, who told the denizens of Heaven to be jumpy warmongers, uh? – Victoria continued to laugh suspiciously like a tax official smelling a fraud, and began happily skipping towards the destroyed gates.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Athena followed while looking around as usual, analysing everything and her shield ready.
“Are you sure it’s safe to enter?”
The dhampir stopped cackling and shrugged without looking back.
“Nope. But the damage looks a bit old, don’t you think? I doubt whoever did this is still around.”
“It makes sense,” the Shieldbearer agreed, having also noticed the vegetation already starting to grow over the lower fallen stones and the lack of footsteps in the dirt road. “But that doesn’t mean they aren’t in the town anymore.”
“Maybe, or maybe not. We are as likely to run into danger inside the town as outside, so we should just stick to our plan, no?”
“…”
Intrigued by Athena’s sudden silence, Victoria this time turned around and made a puzzled face.
“What?”
The tall woman looked a little stunned, but she shook her head like to get rid of something. Her copper hair jerked sideways, following the movement.
“Nothing. I was just surprised to hear you use the words ‘stick to’ and ‘plan’ together.”
“HOY!! How dare you?! Can I hit you too?”
Victoria had meant her outcry as a joke, but Athena hung her head down.
“Sorry… I didn’t mean to insult you.”
“No… I… Aaargh! I can’t deal with you! That’s cheating to always be so aggressive whenever I do something stupid and then look so meek whenever I make you a reproach… I can’t stay angry that way… I want to pet you… Bow!”
The Soulbound complied and the mighty Progenitor used her right hand to caresse the wavy metallic-coloured locks with a blissful expression. Victoria really liked the feeling of hair between her fingers – which was half of the reason why Nicolas kept McLeon as a pet despite the cat’s unruly personality – and Athena’s blushing face was a non-negligible plus.
The dhampir’s little piece of heaven was however intruded by a whimpering raucous voice, calling out in the ominous silence.
“Eeeeeh… Sis… If we’re going, can I stand up now?”
Victoria frowned and glared at the archzombie, who was bend backwards in a very gymnastical bridge position, with his head twisted one hundred and eighty degree. Einstein would have looked extremely intimidating, crawling like that, if he had not looked so pitiful. True, he could not feel pain. But keeping positions his body was originally not made for was somehow extremely uncomfortable and nerve-wracking on the long run.
“Nope!” The Princess stuck out her tongue with a dark unhealthy glitter in her eyes. “You’re grounded!”
“But I really am innocent… I swear…”
“No whining. You are presumed guilty until proven otherwise.”
“Sis… I’m quite sure it’s the other way arou-”
“Shut up Einstein.”
The jaws of the moving corpse slammed shut with a cracking sound, although inarticulate wheezing sounds still permeated through the gaping hole in his cheek. Sitting next to the abused Einstein, a little plush puppy was snickering woofily, glad not to be at the bottom of the totem pole anymore. After all, if one could not move up in society, they could still find solace of the hardships of the more miserable.
Victoria smiled at her newest familiar’s pleading blind eyes, which were still dry though. Dead man shed no tears.
“I love this absolute obedience feature.”
*ting*
[Sadism] has levelled up.
“Hehehehe. It’s training. Trai~ning, I tell you! Hohohoho!” she haughtily giggled as she finally released Athena from her petting “punishment”. The Progenitor truly had no notion of impartiality in dealing with her entourage.
While whistling, she once again began to skip down the dirt road, completely ignoring the pair of quadrupeds behind her and only gazing in wonder at her surroundings and sometimes at the tall copper-headed woman still standing where she left her.
The Shielbearer glanced at the awkwardly crawling zombie, a complicated expression on her face, then she shrugged it off and followed her friend. She wasn’t quite sure what she had against their newest companion. It wasn’t like Einstein had ever done anything to wrong her, beside the repetitive confusion over her gender.
However, even if she refused to admit it in virtue of her own self-worthlessness, Athena most likely felt that this new addition to their team was infringing upon her time alone with Victoria. Admittedly, there had already been Toto, but he did not count. Never mind that he technically was a mighty dragon… or used to be. The plushy was barely more than a mascot now. A high-level flamethrower of a mascot, true, but a mascot nonetheless.
No matter how murderous they were, no toy could ever be taken seriously… ask Chucky.
Anyway, since her mind was unable to actively resent the undead, Athena had settled for reflexively ignoring Einstein, while Victoria pushed onto him whatever her derailing moral compass suggested.
“You would not believe your ey~es ♫
If ten million firefli~es ♪
♫ Lit up the world as I fell asleep…
*whistle*
~♫ ♫ ♪♫♩~
♩ 'Cause they'd fill the open air
♪ And leave tear drops everywhere
You'd think me rude ♩
♫ But I would just stand and stare… ♩”
Twirling, impersonating a plane and kicking pebbles, the merry dhampir blissfully continued to skip past the crumbled wall, singing an old tune from the lost days of 2009 <2>, in complete discordance with the drab atmosphere of her surroundings.
Inside the outer rampart, what the group came upon was not a town, but fields filled with various types of cultivable foods, like wheat, tomatoes, and corn, or turnips and rutabagas – which were two totally different vegetables, despite what some might think. The lack of trees around allowed to see far and wide, and the weather sucked wherever they looked, which did nothing to dip into Victoria’s good mood.
“I'd like to make myself beli~eve ♩
♪ That planet Earth turns slo~wly~
♫ It's hard to say that I'd rather stay~ awake when I'm asle~ep
'Cause everything is never as it se~ems ♩”
This agricultural section was actually why the inhabitants of Erwyn had been able to survive despite the rather unfriendly neighbours. Even if the royal family still officially ruled, the “kingdom” was now barely more than a collection of autarkic city-states. The town itself was a few kilometres further down the road, enclosed in a second inner wall.
However, these second fortifications had been built several centuries after the outer runic wall, so they were much more fragile – relatively speaking, big ass walls will be big ass walls – and thus there was little to no hope they had resisted to whatever creature had bulldozed through the front gate. Victoria and co. were yet to get a clear view of the town they could spot in the distance, but they already had an inkling to what they might find over there.
On both sides of the dirt path, the fields had been trampled by a stampede of bodies. The reason why there were no visible footsteps was in fact less due to their actual absence and more because they overlapped each other in a way that blended with the uneven ground.
The undamaged portion of the crops looked neglected. The man-made fields had not yet returned to wilderness, but clearly no one had been around here for a few weeks to a few months. Neither Victoria nor Athena could be more accurate time-wise, because farming – ironically – was not their domain.
Hither and tither, scarce human silhouettes were wandering aimlessly around. But when one of those lone wanderers actually stumbled closer, it became obvious that he or she was not very fresh anymore. Victoria nonchalantly exploded the [Lesser Zombie]’s fleshy skull with a [Lightning Bolt] – a more focused version of [Lightning Strike] – before continuing her merry way.
The pebbles she was playfully kicking were in most cases human teeth scattered along the road.
“♩ ‘Cause I'd get a thousand hugs
From ten thousand lightning bugs ♫
♪ As they tried to teach me how to dance…
A foxtrot above my hea~d ♩
♩ A sock hop beneath my be~d ♫
The disco ball is just hanging by a thread…”
*tap*
*molar rolling*
“Ah!”
Possessed by a sudden desire for β-carotene, Victoria abruptly interrupted her singing and rushed off the road. Then she bent down and tried to pluck a carrot off the ground…
She failed.
FEEEEEAR THE MIGHTY PROGENITOR, RULER OF THE VAMPIRE RACE!!!
This is getting ridiculous… Or are carrots my nemeses? Wasn’t it supposed to be garlic?
She could almost hear the buried root laugh at her. It was most likely her imagination though.
“Thena…”
Her teary pout got an indulgent sigh out of Athena, who uprooted the recalcitrant vegetable for her physically impotent friend… then repeated the action a dozen times on Victoria’s insistence.
As the mighty Progenitor stashed the orange items in her inventory, Athena sighed again. Even if the dhampir was supposed to be the older one, the tall Shieldbearer had more and more the sensation of dealing with a little kid, or maybe a capricious kitten.
Had any of the people who knew Elric heard Athena’s thoughts right now, they would probably have doubted the woman’s sanity. But of course, Victoria was not entirely Elric. Even if you couldn’t judge a book by its cover, physical appearance still played a role in shaping someone’s personality.
Elric had been playful and random, but he liked to look overbearing and epic when dealing with people. He also generally stuck with his roleplay as a kinda-righteous pseudo-paladin of Light, despite the legions of players – mostly people from Dragonheart Flower – who might have disagreed with that last claim.
Victoria had no such qualms or general goals however. Playing the game with Athena was enough of a purpose for her right now. Thus she let her whims drive her body on unrelated matters. Even then, it was doubtful that anyone in UT, beside the Soulbound, would have seen in Victoria Sangbleu something like a devilish kitten.
Athena had yet to see how heartless her friend could be when dealing with people she disliked.
Oh, the Shieldbearer had some suspicions about what the sociopathic dhampir was capable of. Just the glint in her eyes while she tortured Einstein was enough of a hint. However, it wouldn’t be until much much later that Athena would truly measure what angering the Knowledgeable could mean.
* * *
“Mmmmh… I feel like there’s something missing…”
“The gates perhaps?”
“Oh! The gates indeed. Good eyes Thena.”
“I don’t think anyone would miss it.”
“Well, I’d say it is much more difficult to spot the absence of something that is supposed to be there rather than spotting something that is actually there.”
“Maybe… But not when the ‘somethings’ are four metres tall city gates!”
The inner entrance was actually much less damaged than the outer one… In fact, the gates had been so thoroughly and surgically obliterated than not even dust remained, while the adjoining walls looked untouched. Truly a clean job, like the perpetrator had this time wanted to preserve the inside of the town.
In the secrecy of her mind, Victoria discretely clapped her hands at the display of talent. She knew how hard it was to obliterate stuff with subtlety.
“So… Let’s?”
“I’m taking the front. No objection this time.”
For once, the dhampir did not complain at being protected. She even allowed Einstein to stand back up on his feet. She had never believed him to be the culprit anyway. She had access to his stats and skills list after all. The archzombie was a squishy stealth-based character. Blasting a runic gate was vastly out of his abilities.
Athena thus entered first, shield raised and combat mode switched on. On her armoured shoulder, Toto was perched like a turret ready to fire. Very terminator-like, if one could make abstraction of the turret’s cuteness. Victoria followed closely, looking unusually careful and serious… though the overall effect was a little spoiled by the two carrots – one half-eaten – which she was holding menacingly in reverse grip. Einstein staggered behind them, still trying to twist his head back in the right direction.
Soon they disappeared inside a town where unknown dangers awaited them… probably.
* * *
As the absurd fellowship stepped warily into Cali, a dark cloaked figure rose form the midst of the carrots. The being’s face was shrouded in the darkness of a large hood and the two sleeves of the cloak were joined. Not even a speck of skin was visible, making it doubtful whether there was even skin to begin with.
A slow emotionless voice whispered in the silence: “So… that is… the… Progenitor. To be… able to sense… through… my camouflage… How… impressive… But that is… still… not enough… Come!”
The hem of the long cloak flapped like under the effect of a gust of wind. Yet the surrounding vegetable leaves did not sway in the slightest. From the revealed darkness under the cloak, four orbs of shadow flew out, rapidly growing and taking the appearance of four giant black skeletons. Each wore a black set of heavy armour and carried an intimidating broadsword on its back. All four were kneeling to the faceless being.
“Go… Cover… each entrance… If the… Progenitor… comes out… capture... her. Kill… the others…”
Without a word, the four dreadful [Death Knights] stood up and scattered in the fields, mercilessly spilling the blood of innocent tomatoes in their wake. They were slow, but these undead were not made for speed. Instead, their power was beyond compare and their resilience brought despair to their opponents.
Truly monsters worthy of being Jafar Judrasputin’s creations.
“Soon… Progenitor… Soon… you will be… master’s… slave…”
The foreboding whispers floated in the air, but the hooded figure was already nowhere to be seen.
“Soon…”
* * * * *
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<1> Well…
Spoiler :
http%3a%2f%2f33.media.tumblr.com%2f7f7cbd28f627b...o1_500.gif [http://33.media.tumblr.com/7f7cbd28f627bab00108cff994e1ff45/tumblr_mjb37by41p1rns4m7o1_500.gif]
<2> Owl City – Fireflies:
Spoiler :
----------------------------------------
Changed the synopsis. I had thought for some time it was a lil’ too long. Anyway…
This time, we had:
Petting.
Punishment.
A distant war which may or may not be relevant to the plot.
Carrots.
And an ambushed enemy who had been waiting amidst the vegetables since the end of the epilogue of volume zero… SEE! I TOLD YOU THERE WAS A PLOT!!
Quick reminder:
> Quote:The undead Lord glared menacingly at the wrinkled old half-beastman before him, a ghastly green orb hovering over his curled up phalanxes. Then he ragingly threw the [Necroblast] at the chained lich, who howled and arched its back in pain, before turning towards the silent Faceless.
>
> “Take four [Death Knights] of my personal guard and go to Cali. If the Progenitor shows up, watch from afar but do not intervene if she approaches the seal. If she leaves the town, with or without the key, capture her. If she is not alone, kill her companions. Only the Progenitor matters.”
>
> “Yes… Master.”
Poor Faceless… Subordinates of evil magesterminds are always overexploited. And they don’t even get paid. Nor do they get vacations or retirement. Truly a sad existence.
So, thanks for reading and see you next chapter… which will hopefully be out faster than this one… probably…