Chapter Two

New Arrivals

“Who are you?” Martha asked the woman before her. Something had happened to Martha, but she wasn’t sure exactly what it was. One moment, she was in the multitude of her people, and the next, she was standing in a small stand of strange trees with no idea what had happened to her in between.

Her people, the connection to them? Gone.

The doors in her head? Gone.

And this world felt…wrong. Different from the one she knew.

Even the trees she had just walked out of looked different from any she had known before. She had knelt and felt the dirt beneath her, finding it weak and thin in a way she had never known. She had been lost, adrift in confusion, for a few moments before she saw it.

Through the densely packed trees with their strange, needle-shaped foliage, Martha saw the giant beast move in the distance. It was massive, a creature the size she had only heard of in legends so many years ago. She had seen it before, just a few minutes ago… in a different world.

It must have been him who did this. A desperate attempt to save his children with that filthy pixie. Yet, it would seem that he had failed.

“I see you,” she whispered to herself as she moved through the trees in pursuit. Weak as she was, all she needed was people—a few to start with, just like she had before. In no time, she would be able to rebuild her forces, and then… and then!

She had been grinning when she came out from under the cover of the trees, her new body looking almost human when she saw the hooded woman with a strange sword resting over her shoulders. Initially, she had been delighted. A new follower. A fresh recruit, and maybe even a better body than the one she used right now.

Then, she felt the strangeness of the woman.

It was like an energy radiating off her, and it was familiar to Martha. She had felt it from her own body and those of her followers often enough.

Killing Intent.

It was as clear as the red hair spilling through the stained hood, covering the stranger's head and leaving the face as nothing but shadows.

“Who are you?” Martha demanded again.

“Me?” Felicia grinned like a shark. “I’m the bad guy.”

Martha didn’t have time to run or even raise her hands to block the strike before the sword cleaved her head from her neck.

Felicia smiled to herself as she caught the falling head and swung it by the hair into the hard-packed ground until nothing but bloody hair hung from her fingers.

Dipping a hand inside her cloak, Felicia brought out a lighter and flicked it open. She took a deep breath, and a stream of mist flowed out of her mouth, igniting the flame from the lighter and enveloping Martha’s remains in fire.

She continued until nothing but dust remained against the blackened soil.

Her eyes turned to the distant shape of The Bower as it stalked its slow way across this new world.

She smiled fondly at the sight.

So much to see in this new world, and she got to do it without any distractions or rules to follow.

“What a delightful world this could be,” Felicia laughed to herself. “If only they had listened to me.” Crying and laughing simultaneously, she walked off after the distant village, occasionally stopping to talk to herself a little.

A girl could get lonely, after all.

==========

Many things changed once the brothers Order and Chaos decided to get involved in the life of one Mr. Bert J. Hudson. Such fundamental powers should never focus their attention on the life of one. They were intended to interfere only at a level where whole galaxies would be affected.

They were, in short, inexperienced with such fine work. As such, it is no surprise that they fucked everything up quite so badly, and the One Who Tends The Tree had to get involved.

In short, it was a patch job. As is the case with all patch jobs, it was messy and poorly done and only intended as a short-term fix until something much more permanent could be worked out. These kinds of emergency fixes are always going to have a fallout, and it is vital to keep in mind that attention to detail was not a specialty of any of the Great Ones.

Many lives were altered in the fraction of a second it took them to act.

Martha's willing and not-so-willing followers, for example, found themselves suddenly bereft of the classes and powers that had bound them to her will; many were suddenly standing, their bodies restored, in the middle of a territory they had terrorized, unarmed and armored; they died quickly. Some were more fortunate, finding themselves in the villages of those who also returned to their original state. They were able to rebuild what they had once lost in relative safety.

While in a city of the undead, the only other Waystation in existence was suddenly transported through the mists and deposited in a remote part of Earth, complete with the land beneath it, the customers inside, and a certain extremely pissed-off Lich-Lord named Percy.

His only comment was, ‘Bert!’

It was a reasonable assumption, after all.

In the realm of the Watchers, a Moth-Man named Larry sat on the steps of the closest thing the First Generation had to a government and wept at the death of the Watchers. Not a single Immortal had been spared. He, himself, could already feel the march of time. His endless existence suddenly had an endpoint somewhere out there, rushing toward him with every passing second. His niece had gotten her wish, something forever broken. His race, as it was, forever changed in a manner he could not understand. Stunned and traumatized people wandered around him, staring at their own bodies in horror, while others held the corpses of friends and family, weeping at a loss they could not have understood mere days before.

A race destroyed by the rage of a single young woman who would not bow her head to the old ways. Who wanted more.

The moment it was done, his niece and her people scattered to the winds. His last glimpse of her showed him something impossible as she vanished into the mists.

She had a class.

Felicia (34)

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Mistwalker

It was impossible, and yet it was.

In a realm that belonged to the Gods and Goddesses of all worlds, a young Death climbed the steps to visit the first of his kind.

The Death of Deaths.

The End of All Things.

The Heat Death of the Universe.

The Reaper of Souls

Before the greatest of all Deaths, this young Death fell to his knees and made a plea. For even a Death may know the power of Love.

The greatest of all Deaths nodded once, and a portal opened to a world that held his daughter in a strange living vehicle.

A step through the portal, and a God became a man.

Benedict Hudson

Reaper (150)

On and on, the dominoes of a single bad decision rolled across the universes of the One Tree.

The Lords and Ladies met in urgent conclave in the land of the Fae. The topic was the newest of their number. The endless Fae were feeling something they had forgotten they could feel.

Fear.

The wars of the Fae were legend. What would this new Court do when they learned what had been done? War almost started that night as the Courts argued and bickered, but it was avoided, at least for now.

========

“How did it go?” Benedict, a former Death, now a Reaper, asked Felicia as she caught up with him. He, too, followed The Bower.

“Easier than I expected,” Felicia smiled at him. “ Without her people, she was just a woman.”

Felicia was not the same woman she once was; she knew that. It was reasonable to assume she was somewhat insane, at least. Her obsession with Bert had been a mistake that took her a long time to admit, but it was all for the best. Really.

If she hadn’t been obsessed, Felicia would never have realized all she had. It had taken love to open her eyes—a love unrequited, it was true, but a love nonetheless—a love for the ages, a love out of legend.

“You’re doing it again,” Benedict commented idly.

“Sorry,” Felicia flushed, embarrassed she still got pulled down the same old thought patterns that had made her so wrong in the past.

Now, she was much clearer. Bert would never love her. Ever. It was sad, but it was nonetheless a fact. So many things she could have done differently. She should have been smart. Been a friend first, a help, not a demanding bitch.

Still, done was done.

Of course, that didn’t mean she had to be apart from him. That would just make everything she suffered pointless. So, she had to change. Felicia had to change the story.

“I’m the bad guy,” Felicia said idly to Benedict.

“I know, you said,” Benedict smiled. You don’t have to be.”

“It works for me,” Felicia shrugged.

This would be a better story anyway. Much better. The villain of the piece was the real partner to the hero anyway. One could not exist without the other; everyone knew that. So, she would start as a villain. Not to him, or his, but to everyone who dared to threaten them. The villain who saved his people.

That villain got to be a part of their lives, and eventually a friend, then family, then she–

“Stop it,” Benedict said with a sigh.

“You can’t read my mind,” Felicia snapped.

“I don’t have to,” Benedict laughed. “Your face is clue enough. Every time you think about getting him in the end, you have this certain smile on your face.”

“Triumphant?” Felicia asked.

“More deranged,” he laughed at her offended expression.

“You can die here, you know,” Felicia warned him sweetly.

“So can you, doll,” Benedict changed for a second, a second figure taking his place, black cloth and bone in the bright sunshine. “Try it.”

“Maybe later,” Felicia huffed. “Why don’t you go see your daughter or something.”

“He protects mine, so I protect his,” Benedict shrugged as if it was obvious.

“They don’t need you; they have me,” Felicia pointed out.

“Let’s see if this new you lasts first, shall we?” Benedict said, not unkindly.

“Thank you,” Felicia whispered. “I don’t really want to be alone.”

“I know,” Benedict said with a smile. “I know.”

=========

A new reward appeared in a dungeon deep underground and staffed by undead Fae. It was a silver orb. Other than that, it wasn’t very remarkable, but still, it was not there, and then it was.

That may seem like something that happens all the time in dungeons, but the opposite was supposed to be the case with this dungeon. The Lich in charge of it, Daracktain, was the meticulous sort and would have no amateur approaches in his small realm. The loot table was to remain fixed, or how would people learn of the wonders of his abode and be tempted to visit?

The keeper of the loot brought it to him for his inspection.

“It appeared?” Daracktain asked. “Where there twinkly lights and a small chiming sound?”

“None!” The fairy, simply called Keeper, chirped worriedly. “I even checked the spells. Anything from the loot table should appear with both chimes and twinkly lights. Lots!”

“I see,” Daracktain drummed his skeletal fingers on the arm of his great stone chair with wonderful skull and bone motifs as he thought. “The one who found it?”

“I had them killed, of course,” Keeper said indignantly.

“I shall check my designs then,” Daracktain sighed. “The orb must be fighting back.”

Keeper nodded and fluttered off, leaving the orb with its boss.

Daracktain brought up his spell displays and checked all of his circles thoroughly. The dungeon orb should be fully suppressed by his will after all this time, but the strange orb suggested at least a little struggle was left in it after all.

His project was, in his humble opinion, a public service. Did anyone even appreciate how difficult it was to be undead as a Fae? Their entire nature pulled them to the Summerlands at death. He had spent years practicing before finally managing to pull it off. Admittedly, it had not worked quite as expected. There was, after all, a Daracktain in the Summerlands right now.

They had talked, and both decided they were the original. The other was obviously mistaken.

Obviously, both were a hundred percent sure of that.

Therefore, Daracktain the Fae-Lich had started the project that he had longed to complete.

Ever since he was a young Fae, grinding dungeons to level on many worlds, it had bugged him how loose and unorganized they were. Some had rooms linked with tunnels, some were challenges, and some were even like small, self-contained worlds of their own.

Messy.

As far as he could ascertain, the loot he got from a dungeon could change from one run to the next without rhyme or reason. He once spent over a hundred years running the exact same dungeon over and over to build a complete list of its loot table, only to have the entire dungeon change over seventy years into the study.

Disorganization grated at him. The study of said dungeons was the starting point for his designs for a new system—a better system. He had intended for the fae to adopt the ‘Daracktain Standardized Dungeon Plan,’ yet they had refused him. Apparently, his fellows failed to see the advantages offered by a reliable, repeatable dungeon experience. So, he created a mobile, synthetic dungeon as a demonstration piece. Naturally the orb was weak, little more than a power source, but he felt it offered a good demonstration. His people disagreed, saying they could simply make a training area, as that was what he had done. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t a dungeon.

So, for his next demonstration, he and his people moved into a dungeon and spent a good few years refining the spells to control it. When it was almost ready… they ran out of mana. The Fae, the source of mana in the multiverse, was unable to live in a dungeon for more than a few years. Something about the pocket dimensions the orbs created slowly eroded their ability.

That was when he came up with the Undead Fae hypothesis. Undead did not need to create mana; instead, they fed on that around them. An Undead Fae should, therefore, not need to generate it to live.

Now, after centuries of trying, he was on the very cusp of completing his work, only to hear his own people, the Fae, had abandoned large areas of the planet, and worse.

It was ridiculous, irritatingly badly timed, and also an opportunity. With them gone, the local Fae Touched had started to venture wider and discovered his customized dungeon. Everything had been going swimmingly, with his strictly tailored encounters and formal, classic layout.

Then this.

What had changed?

Examining the orb minutely showed something else quite worrying. The orb itself was not created by the dungeon, yet it dropped here?

Or did it merely appear here?

The spells on it were incredibly complex, not to mention detailed, and used a type of magescript and runework he had never seen before.

“Do we close the entrance?” Keeper returned, “Only we have a new party approaching.”

“No, no,” Daracktain waved his hand. “Let them come; I think this was merely a lucky aberration.”

Keeper nodded and flew away.

Daracktain summoned a fresh roll of paper and began to jot down some notes.

“What a wonderful puzzle you are,” He said, stroking the silver orb with one gentle finger. “I do hope there are more of you.”