The looks on Falling Leafs face is a great look on her. She looks at all the rifts in spacetime and some of them look back. The further in she goes, the less proud and noble she looks, rather severely intimidated by what has happened here.
The Soldiers on the other hand are rather unflinching. They sent their elites, and it seems not to negotiate. The truth seeker on the other hand is led by Falling Leaf like an elderly with care. Not that I know what they are thinking to bring someone that fragile into a battle zone, but I have some Ideas, what they try to do.
“NULL! Show yourself and explain why you send that horrible Miasma into the woods!”
So that is the reason they try to frame me with. Miasma got pushed right out the tunnel when the space broke. Should have known that would happen, with such a strong reaction. Not that I am sorry for their loss, as I am working on destroying those pesky rifts.
“This all happened, because you have send those humans to attack me.”
{Truth}
Obviously it is the truth. Maybe just in my opinion, but it did not matter if it is only my believe, that is the truth I believe in. The Voice sounds young under the hood. Maybe 50 or 60 years of age as Elf. Slightly feminine, but females have the highest rank as also the highest burden, so it does not surprise me, she had chosen that life.
“Those were not our People and have nothing to do with us!”
{Truth}
Well as truth seekers only can see truth, they will answer on every sentence, that can be weighed as true or false. So I can use their own lie detector against them.
“Oh, is that so? To keep me in the dark you killed my wolf and led them travel to your oh so precious Forest. This shows how you only let them do what they did, you even encouraged this outcome. Do not talk sins, when you did borrow the dagger that did this!”
{Truth}
“We do not know about your Wolf.”
{Lie}
A slight twitch on Leafs face, but she holds her composure, as she still believes I can not understand elvish root.
“And those People just wandered the Woods, we did not know their purpose or reason.”
{Lie}
“What is that blind Elf always talking, when we discuss? Rather, why are we talking anyway, as you obviously came to fight me.”
{Truth}
“She is one of the victims of your attack on the forest, we want to show you, what happened because of your Miasma.”
{Lie}
Wow, she thinks I am that stupid, so lets play along.
“To be honest I am rather tired of all of you.”
{Truth}
“Because of you letting those people in, they stole the statues sphere, and all this happened.”
{Truth}
“Now you are holding that Sphere like a trophy and think it will protect you all from the nightmare of this Crater, but is only a stopgap that maybe holds for a few years before stopping to work.”
{Truth}
“You clearly think of me as an Enemy, so I will treat you like one too from now on.”
{Truth}
“And either way, the Root will all die. If I win this fight from my wrath and revenge by releasing more Miasma and corroding your oh so precious Forest. But if I lose you will die by the thing, that wants to break a hole into this reality to conquer it.”
{Truth}
In my Monologue Leaf wanted to talk in between but did not gave her time. By now she is rather white and is not that composed as before.
“So when you die, you mean Miasma will flood into the Forest?”
“No, I mean when I die you will have maybe ten, maybe fifty or maybe a hundred Years, before something will break the barrier between Worlds and invade your cozy dimension to destroy everything.”
{Truth}
“Nonsense! You just believe that, but have no proof!”
“I have more proof than you think.”
{Truth}
“I have SEEN the Invader!”
{Truth}
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
“I KNOW what it wants to do, to come here!”
{Truth}
“And I can see from the signs of this Crater, that it is not coming in friendly intention.”
{Truth}
“Still you will not evade your sentencing for breaking our treaty.”
She still thinks I give a damn about their mockery of a treaty?
“You never wanted the treaty to begin with, and just wanted to delay for an opportunity to remove or eliminate me.”
{Truth}
“I was honest with the Treaty. The whole non aggression was already being signed by the Queen!”
{Truth}
Oh? They did really want to have a non aggression? That does not explain their behavior with my Wolf and also not why the Mages were let trough.
“That does not make any sense. How did those Mages go through…”
Well that is an inopportune time or maybe an opportune time for a rift to spew something out?
What came out can only be described as a void slime. Black as tar with mouths, eyes and tendrils all over. It is rather weak and I can take care of it easily, but it gives me an Idea.
“You oh so mighty Elfs should try to kill that. It might devour your whole precious Forest, if it breaks out.”
{Truth}
“You bastard use unholy summons to fight? Come out yourself to die in honor before we find you and kill you!” {Kill that beast!}
“You misunderstand, that is not one of my creatures. It is something living between the void. If you can kill this, maybe you have a chance against what is trying to invade here”
{Truth}
Well I hope she did hear it. What happens next was arrows pelting the Slime, but the only thing it does is wailing while devouring the roots growing inside of it. And wailing it does. Like hundreds of baby voices modified with some kind of distortion module. And it is LOUD!
Some try their luck in fighting that thing in close range with living blade weapons. Bad luck as they got just stuck and devoured. One was got by the tentacle and shoved into one of the maws with razor teeth. To his luck it was head first, so he might not have lived long enough to feel too much agony, but then again, it is a void Creature so he might be stuck inside it now.
…
“ENOUGH! I will take care of that useless thing. Order your men back Leaf!”
{Get back! Defensive position around me!}
At least she kind of has a level head. She might not believe me, but it shows she notices the futility right away. Magic, Arrows, Weapons, nothing works.
Using my Presence, I engulf the now humongous slime and invade. The thing was rather persistent, as it had already been in this World for half an hour, so I have no choice.
With my presence still over it I pull my Portal out of the floor and start funneling it into my Realm. In there I can start crushing it way more effective.
The Eyes and arrows are now aimed at the Portal while the Slime howls in some kind of Agony, while being dragged into the Portal bit by bit.
Five Minutes later the thing is gone. The Portal goes back underground out of sight.
“What was that Null?”
“My Magic”
{Lie}
Argh, the damn truth seeker is still here, I forgot. Whatever, if I do not want to explain, I will not explain. That is all.
“What was that thing? You know it, so it must be your machination!”
{Lie}
Even she does not believe her own words. She just wants to blame me for the deaths of the Soldiers.
“You know very well this thing was not mine. Those Rifts are unstable and random. What comes through is mostly vermin living in pockets of space or weak entities, that can fall through those tiny pinprick sized holes to escape the Void. The thing, that is trying to Invade is different, as it waits for the opening from this side and aims to overtake this World”
{Truth}
“Lies. Nothing will come, when you are gone. Everything will be back to normal.”
Is it a coping mechanism? She heard the truth seeker, but still denies it.
“Then we are back at square one. We will now fight to the death, and if the winner is me, I make all Roots pay the price, and if you win the whole World will pay the price. Ready when you are Leaf. Call the start of the slaughter!”
{Truth}
“…”
No word from Falling Leaf. She is sweating bullets.
“Do you think you have a chance? How many people do you have on your side?”
“I am alone.”
{Lie}
FUCK! Forgot Snow.
“Well I have a Rat at my side. She is rather cute, and might not help much, but I will try to protect her for the time being. So we are two exactly.”
{Truth}
“Either way, I have a rather good chance to win. It will take a while, but you all will die and after that I will just start anew.”
{Truth}
“How…”
“How what? More talking?”
“How are you so knowledgeable about what is going on here? Why did you come here, and why did you do all this?”
“Oh, you want my Story before the killing. Alright, I humor you. The short version is, I was discarded, thrown away like garbage, then got touched by the void and it changed me. It ripped so much from me and left me nothing. I took the name Null, as I do not have any other Name. In my Language it means ‘nothing while expecting something’, as it is fitting.”
{Truth}
“While I did not want to come here, it was my only option. If I did not came here, I would be dead or worse. By coming here, I foiled the plan of whatever that thing is, that wants to invade your little World and destroy it… or whatever it wants to do with it.”
{Truth}
“When I came here I was nothing of my former self. I tried to build up strength to go back to where I came from, when Eastern Redwind just came in and killed my Monsters I preciously needed for the time”
{Truth}
“So I killed him. Not only that, I ravaged his brain. I took every memory and learned about your species.”
{Truth}
“Not only do I know how you tick, I know how deceiving you are and how you would rather kill me, than have another Neighbor to worry about.”
{Truth}
“And especially I know this:” {Your Language is no secret to me, and I can not only speak it but understand how often you lied to me through your own truth seeker.}
{Truth}
Well that made her shiver. She should now know what she has angered. It is a bit too late for that though, as right now…
rumble
...the escape tunnel is caved in. Obviously by my doing.