You know there is something to be said about a good book. Or even a series of good books. One could open up their content and just get lost in whatever world the writer wishes. Hours, even days can pass and you wouldn’t even realize it.

But there were downsides to this of course. When you finished the book or book series that you were completely engrossed in you were left aimless. You want to start something new but you would never be able to get into it cause your mind is still brimming with excitement and thoughts over the current books.

It was especially moments like these she wished she could sleep. Sleep seemed to reset other beings' minds, making it easier for them to start something new. Plus she’d be able to dream too.

Imagine being able to dream up whole stories that you don’t know anything about but you still participate in. It would basically be what she was doing now except far less work, effort and time.

But all that aside. What happens when you finish reading all of the books you had planned to read? What happens when the books that you had brought with you were done. You finished all the ones that you were seriously interested in.

Even with the agonizing several hour wait for your mind to reset you finished all the books you wanted and then you were just left empty. Nothing to look forward to. Nothing to distract you. Just you sitting there in an endless abyss of boring agony.

This was where she was right now. Lying on her flying carpet staring up into the sky in sheer utter emptiness. The books she had brought with her were finished. Read. Complete. And hardly enough time had passed for her to go back and reread them either.

She started to even curse a bunch of gold and jewels she still had left over if for no other reason then she enjoyed the irony of crafting curses while she was cursed to sit here in agonizing boredom.

The only brief moments of entertainment she managed to get was when she would occasionally check in on the Necromancer Girl and The Maid.

She had largely been doing that in between books to get her mind to reset and it had been entertaining. Apparently Necromancer Girl was starting some kind of underworld war. It was entertaining as hell. But it also had a lot of lull moments and she seemed to keep catching the quieter moments as opposed to the more fun action oriented bits.

Sure she could scry on other people but she didn’t want to spoil her story and wanted to let things play out as naturally as possible.

But now that left her lying on her carpet just being alone with her thoughts. Nothing to distract herself.

This wasn’t even her fault! If SOMEBODY hadn’t screwed up the invasion and screwed up the opening act, she’d still have at least a few more books left. Easily enough leeway to grab some more books at the capital and perhaps even place orders for books from other continents.

But Noooooo! She just had to summon a Demon Lord who couldn’t even properly destroy one teeny tiny VILLAGE.

It had probably been a few months by now? Maybe? I mean how hard was it to march an army over some mountains. She even told The Failure Of A Demon Lord to move quickly too. At least… She thinks she did.

…Ugh… She really hated being in this state. She never liked where her thoughts started to drift off too. Brief memories of her siblings and the creator came to the forefront of her mind and she very quickly suppressed them.

Bastards the lot of them! She found herself grinding the teeth of her vessel and forced herself to stop. It would seem she was adopting more human traits the longer she was around them.

Even in the previous material world she stayed in, she always kept everyone at an arm's distance. Never got too close to anyone. They were nothing but a headache anyways. Always distracting her from all the really important stuff with trivial bothersome things. And those were good ones too. The wizard council was especially annoying, always telling her what she could and couldn’t do. And even they paled in comparison to Holier Than Thou JerkFace! Pretentious prick!

The silence was the only thing that greeted her rambling thoughts

“Maybe I should-” She suddenly stopped when she heard bells echoing out from below where she lay

She quickly snapped up and looked down at the VILLAGE below. People the size of little tiny ants from this distance were scurrying around frantically. Many headed toward the walls.

Though she did see a few that seemed to be leaving the other way. Likely runners. But that wasn’t important. What was important though was what was coming in from the mountains

Her gaze slowly lifted up towards where the mountains began and saw a hoard of creatures moving towards the VILLAGE.

Finally! Her patience had paid off! It was time to get this proper story started!

The army that was charging towards the VILLAGE was a much more impressive number than the previous version. Plus it looked like they were being led by 5 of The Failure Of A Demon Lords kids. Hopefully they would be more competent than their previous sibling, or at the very least have their numbers to make up for it.

She smiled (or she would if she had lips!) And looked down at the VILLAGE to see how they would be reacting to their upcoming doom….. There seemed to be even more soldiers there than last time… The walls seemed much more heavily fortified too.

No no, it’s fine. The horde coming should be able to over run this VILLAGE. If for no other reason than they would probably drown from all the dead bodies….

She kept the scry orb on monitoring her chosen Hero watching him carefully while silently hoping that the horde would overrun the walls. She didn’t want to watch cause of spoilers but damn was it hard to keep her eyes (well eye sockets) focused on the orb.

But as she watched the future hero huddled with his family. They seemed safe, secure, and as day turned to night. The sounds of battle slowly dissipated. She slowly and reluctantly raised her head to witness a massacre.

A sea of corpses completely littered the land with hills of bodies piled up at the walls. It seemed every single one of the Oran… The Bunny-like creatures died trying to assault the village…

She took a metaphorical deep breath and looked down. Uttering a quick spell, teleporting her soon to be hero out of the village to the forest nearby. Then, as calmly as she could (Which is to say not calm at all) she pointed her finger towards the VILLAGE below her and with a single word “Burn” set the entire place on fire.

Gods was that cathartic. She had wasted another two months because of incompetent minions and ruining the very start of her story. But it was fine. She would try to figure out how to work this into the narrative. Maybe she would say The Failure Of A Demon Lord did this when he underestimated the VILLAGE strength and personally came to deliver a mighty and devastating blow to the kingdom. Gave the soon to be hero a more personal vendetta which was always nice. She’d have to workshop it.

Either way she was just going to sit back and enjoy the light show. That’s what they get for wasting her time and not following the narrative. She couldn’t help but let out a satisfied little giggle

* * * * * * * * * * * *

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Jacobs' surroundings suddenly shifted around him and he found himself in the woods just east of Haven. “Wha???” He whips his head around not sure what had just happened before his stomach suddenly lurched and vomits the dinner his mother had made.

He didn’t know what happened or how he got here. He was hearing the bells signifying the battle was over and was eager to look out over the battlefield but then he was here.

Thankfully he actually recognized where he was and knew that Haven was close. Quickly rushing through the bushes and trees till he broke through and saw Haven maybe a 30 minute jog away.

His relief though was short lived as a suddenly bright orange light lit up the scene before him followed by an intense heat that felt like it could searing his skin.

His mind couldn’t quite register what had just happened. One moment the city of Haven stood after having just fought off another invasion of the monsters, the next it was completely on fire.

His breath caught in his throat as he stood there shocked, unable to understand what was happening before panic shot through him he started to run towards Haven where his life was.

He didn’t get any more than a few steps towards Haven before he felt something grip and yanked him back causing his head to swivel to see who it was

Erin gripped his collar and as he stared over at the burning city “Dammit Jacob, don’t be stupid!”

Jacob didn’t bother to listen and quickly tried to charge around the man only to be gripped again and held tightly “Let me go! Everyone is there! Mom, Dad, Claire! Everyone is still in Haven!” his eyes welling with tears as the fire torched the city. He could vaguely hear the cries of anguish and pain through the sound of the raging inferno before him which only made him struggle and sob more against the Man who held him.

That’s when he heard it. Between the burning flames of Haven and the screams of its denizens he heard a twisted laughter that seemed to echo through his ears.

Slowly looking up he saw a small humanoid figure up in the sky. While he couldn’t make out any details he felt it. The terror and malice the monster seemed to emit was almost suffocating. A being that upon seeing it gave him a strong sense of wrongness, like it shouldn’t belong there. The terror became too much and his consciousness.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Cathryn looked over the map of their continent with Marrow and Ignes. Riez felt a little too under the weather to join them today. Unfortunately his age was making it harder for him to do much of anything anymore in the physical sense.

A circle drawn over a section of unsettled land deep in the mountains to the east of their country with another circle over the city of Haven.

“According to the tracking stone I placed in her bag when I passed it to her before she left. She seemed to have teleported to roughly this area but was only there for less than an hour. Her location then jumped again and stayed in Haven for a couple of months.” Marrow gestured towards the map and pointing towards the circle in the mountains

Cathryn nodded, she had been over this before but was still trying to figure out what her plan was. “After those two months. Haven was attacked by those creatures. The moment the attack failed her location jumped back to roughly that same spot but again for less than an hour before going back to Haven.” She looked at Marrow who seemed just as troubled as she was before her eyes went back to the parchment of paper.

This parchment was written a few hours ago by one of the shadows they had stationed in Haven trying to find Captain Gates. At the top they were informed that the monsters that attacked them two month earlier were attacking again. But expressed confidence that while the army might have over run what they had before. The fortifications and reinforcements Cathryn sent after the first attack would be able to repel this second attack.

The second part in the middle of the parchment was saying the battle was won with minimal loss with high morale among the citizens and troops.

Then a third part was written shortly after and had been quickly scribbled simply saying. “Everything burns, city is lost. Long li-” and it stopped there.

She looked at Marrow “was your tracking rune destroyed?”

Marrow simply shook his head “No, we are still getting a rough signal from where Haven is. I will keep monitoring but I believe Captain Gates is still alive.” he said with some relief which caused Cathryn to narrow her eyes

She then turned to Ignes. “Any word on the rangers we have sent to the location in the mountains the tracking rune briefly showed”

Ignes shook his head “Not as of yet but they should be near to its location so I expect to hear a report within a few days of what may or may not be there”

Cathryn glared at the map. They had already dispatched relief soldiers towards Haven the moment they got a report with a larger army being gathered right now. But the dispatched soldiers will take a couple of weeks to get there if they rushed.

She hated sitting in the dark like this but she also couldn’t help shake the feeling that this ‘Captain Gates’ was behind all of this somehow.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Jacob woke up on the ground staring at a cloudy haze in the sky. No, not clouds.. He gasped and jerked up looking around wildly before his eyes landed on the smoldering ruins of Haven. Tears started to form in his dry stinging eyes as he took in the scenery.

“Finally awake huh?” Erin sat next to him grimacing as he sat looking over Haven as well. Tear streaks were visible from his dirty face as he seemed barley

“Has anyone…” his throat tightened up and he couldn’t force himself to say the next words

Erin simple shook their head “We have seen nobody leaving the city”

That was when Jacob noticed a few other rangers were with them. They all seemed to be in equal amounts of shock as he was, a few crying, a few staring, all looking over the city.

“We were all posted in the forest to monitor a potential flank towards Haven. Or at least that is what we were told.” His tone betrayed that he clearly didn’t think that was the reason

“ We were on our way back to the city when the fire suddenly erupted across the city… None of us knew what to do..”

He looked down to the burnt city. “A few of the other rangers are down there looking for potential survivors. I plan to join them… Was just waiting for you to wake”

Erin slowly stood up and began to head towards Haven. Jacob, not really sure what to do, slowly stood up and followed. Some vague hope that maybe, just maybe his family had survived. Any thought that tried to tell him they were dead was quickly squashed. He would not entertain such a thought. He could not.

The walk to the remains of Haven was painfully slow. The silence didn’t help at all either. But he had no idea what to say and he was pretty sure Erin felt the same way.

Eventually they reached the chard crumbling walls of the city and passed through the gate. Erin looked thoughtfully at Jacob before giving him a nudge. “Go to your house, I’ll come by in a bit to check in…”

With that he turned and went in the opposite direction leaving Jacob who slowly turned and headed towards his house. Everything felt like a blur until he finally reached his home or what was left of it.

Trembling he started to move the burnt ruins of everything till he finally found what he had been dreading. Three burnt corpses. The smell of burnt flesh twisted his stomach and felt himself heave. He would have thrown up if he had anything left in his stomach.

The corpses of his dad, mother, and sister. He couldn’t even see a single distinguishing feature of any of them. Just charred bodies that seemed to have been screaming in pain.

He fell to his knees and cried. Everyone he had ever known was dead. Burned to such a degree that you couldn’t even identify their bodies.

That was when he remembered. The figure floating above the sky who he could only assume was the one who conjured this fire that engulfed Haven.

The malicious laughter, the seemingly overpowering magic. All of the power he had sought. His goal to achieve power that no one would ever dare boss him around or disrupt his life.

It meant nothing compared to what he just saw. A being that could wipe him out without so much of a thought. What could one do against such overwhelming power… What could anyone do against such evil… What could he do.

With trembling hands he pulled out a dagger he had been gifted by Erin for his latest birthday. He said it would serve him well in the years to come. He slowly lifted the blade up to his neck. It all meant nothing now.