Years Since Creation: 3993
Location: Significance Plane, Space System, Furin
“Final check!” Maroc’s voice boomed from his position on a podium next to a flickering teleporter. “Essence?”
“Prepped!” they all yelled back.
“Potions?”
“Prepped!”
“Gear?”
“Prepped!”
“Good, now I can finally brief you on the mission.” Maroc said, touching a white engraving in front of him to summon a video of dozens of man-sized rocks turning into black starfish and attacking a panicking Zhra. “You will be getting rid of the parasitic Starfish Mimic which has appeared on the rocky shoreline of western Adina next to the Petrified Forest. They are simple creatures, which are easy enough to kill, whose only unique ability aside from their expert camouflage is that they spread too easily to leave alone. Usually this mission is assigned to the legion, but I commandeered it so it will be up to you. Very nice of me eh?”
A couple uncertain chuckles came from the black armored pair of Zhra next to Vadim earned them a glare, clearly showing that they had no experience with Uncle Maroc. Though their skills more than made up for their social mess up. Can’t fault a scout who can summon dozens of astral bloodhounds, or an Enchanter who could spread a powerful memetic attack over a group. Especially seeing as they were going to be joining Vadim in his planar conquests.
“Aside from the mimics, you will be dealing with the various fauna of the surroundings itself, which means Hissings Seams and aquatic monsters from the shore, as well as thousands of different bugs from the petrified forest. That’s not to mention the infinite types of creatures that a spatial crack can summon. There can be anything from this plane to the next, which means that you will…”
On an on Maroc droned about the dangers of the planet, even though they had long been prepped on all the types of creatures Furin could throw at them. At least the known ones. Glancing to his right, Darvon saw Saria zoning out as well, her black scout armor flickering with the black light of spatial essence with a couple weapons hanging off the sides. Its simplicity was slightly jarring when compared to his own, which was filled with dozens of different types of poisons and bolts spread throughout. They were well kitted out, bearing the full scout regalia which they would receive upon invading the new plane in order to get some field practice in the gear.
Twitching a little to get Saria’s attention, Darvon ordered his eye nanites into a configuration which sent out the message Repetitive much?, to which Saria smiled and sent a winky face back. Which meant she had received his message, which was a relief.
It had been a week since they had sworn partnership, and upon returning to the compound she had immediately given him dozens of exercise to improve his control over his nanites, with sending eye messages being just one of the more basic forms. It was an excellent way to secretly communicate between the two, which had allowed for some fun inside jokes during statecraft classes which Darvon knew would have never gone through on the previous Saria. Forming a bond had released the ever-present kidnapping tension that no amount of faked happiness could hide. They were officially partners.
“Are you not paying attention Darvon?!” Maroc screamed as he slammed his fist through the podium, startling Darvon into stiffening his back and slamming his hand into his chest in a perfect military salute.
“No sir! Sorry sir!” Darvon yelled back, knowing it was futile to lie in this situation. “Was thinking of my new hardware sir!”
“You had hours to think before the mission! Get your head out your ass and in the zone!” Maroc yelled louder, which prompted Vadim to start chuckling only to freeze as he realized what he did.
“Did you just laugh at me boy!” Maroc said, Vortex rising in a stream above him.
“N-no sir!” Vadim yelled panicky, yet already a stream of blood had grabbed him and lifted up into the air.
“Well either I’m going deaf, or you are lying. And since I got a top-of-the-line scout body altered by Sovereign Fina herself I rather doubt the failure stems from me.” Maroc said, slapping a black tentacle over Vadim’s mouth as he went to talk more. “Shut up! When it’s time to go on a mission, even one as routine as extermination, I expect complete seriousness and truth. Do you understand!?”
“Yes Sir!” Vadim choked out. “Never again sir!”
“Good.” Maroc said, tossing him towards his teammates before turning back to the shattered podium. “You will have three days to kill every mimic you can find using a specially designed compass from the legion, at which time you must be back to the forward base we are teleporting you to. Is that understood?”
“Yes sir.” They all yelled out.
“Then get to it.”
The moment Maroc stopped talking a wave of logician legion personnel ran up to them and began checking their gear for any defects or missing resources. Both of which they pronounced to be in perfect condition.
Once that was done, they were hurried over to the portal, where a paragon level Azeta teleporter was casually giving tips to Vadim’s team. Seeing them approach the expert waved them to stand in the now lit up circle and began radiating a palpable sense of power.
“The only other people at the base camp are a teleporter and a legion squad. Neither of whom will interact with you until you are ready to leave in three days. So the moment you arrive, get out of the building.”
Seeing them nod, the Azeta snapped their finger and they all vanished in a flash of black light as they flew through space for a mere split second before arriving at the other side.
It was go time.
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Darvon stumbled to the floor upon landing, a little disoriented from the teleport, only to be quickly dragged up and forward by Saria who had long grown used to it. Looking up he saw they were in a bare bones cube structure, with only a ritual circle on the floor, some crates next to it, a set of cots on the wall, and a group of six people silently staring at them while pointing towards an open door.
Getting the hint, Darvon took a shaky breath to recover and jogged past the exit with Saria and Vadim’s team trailing behind him. He wondered what he would see.
What greeted him was a blast of salty humidity, and light. Rising before him was the edge of the massive star of the Space system, while directly in front was a rocky shoreline leading to a beautiful ocean which stretched out beyond the horizon with only the occasional massive monster fin letting him understand the distance. Which considering the skyscraper size of them, proved to be of incredibly magnitude. Turning back, he saw that behind them was a stretch of massive black petrified trees stretching up a hill and into the distance, each filled with hundreds of different bug creatures. It was rather horrifying and had him hoping they wouldn’t have to go in there, though he wasn’t holding his breath on that front. All over the sky flashing black tears formed and dropped off dozens of different types of creatures, and materials before vanishing. It was wonderous, and dangerous.
“Alright, so we take left, and you take right. How does that sound?” Vadim asked as he took out a gold compass who had a red needle pointing directly to a pile of rocks a few meters from shore. “That way we don’t get in each other’s way.”
“That works great.” Saria said, looking at her own compass as she did so. “Good luck!”
“Like wise.” Vadim said with a smile, summoning a hammer as he and his team approached a nearby pile of rocks. “We will be taking these ones though.”
Taking the chance, Darvon sunk into the Significance Realm and stared at the rocks to see that even there they blended seamlessly with their surroundings. The only real tell was that they were at the doyen level and had a few interesting striations on their Image. Seemed he would have to rely on his third eye’s ability to sense power more than the specific Image. Which was fine considering it would have been a pain to focus on otherwise.
As Vadim approached, his teammates pulled out their own abilities. Ethan’s eyes began to glow pink as she sent out a wave of light which infected the rocks causing them to sprout grey scaled stumps that attacked their neighbors. Yon summoned his familiar, a massive astral hound who with a howl created another ten smaller companions and had them all attack the confused bunch. Not to be left behind as his companions destroyed the pack of ten mimics, Vadim teleported in, and slammed his hammed down in an explosion that destroyed a mimic and propelled him to the next.
Within just ten seconds the battle was over, and the team stood there panting for a second before waving at them, who seeing they were doing fine started heading down the rocky pathway towards a group of odd-looking stones in the distance.
“So should I lead or you?” Saria asked, fiddling with a mace which had a set of runes much like Vadim’s on her side.
“Let’s go together for the first group, and then we can take turns later.” Darvon said, altering his bolt setting to acid as he walked.
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Nodding to him, Saria put away the compass into a pack on her back and with a few jumps to limber herself up, ran towards the set of strange stones ahead of them. Once she neared the closest one, its exterior seamlessly twisted into a grey stump which with a powerful force slammed towards her only to miss as she teleported away. Appearing next to another of the creatures, Saria slammed her mace down with a blast which destroyed their inside while dodging another’s attack.
Not letting her take all the glory, Darvon summoned Clot to his side while having both Kaiser and Vigil stream forth to grab ahold of three of the awoken creatures’ minds. Vigil had its stumps deflate to the ground, while Kaiser had them slamming into their own bodies. Clot meanwhile was having the time of its life in lamprey form, digging into and through creatures like they were butter. Darvon himself had nothing to do, and so instead focused on providing the occasional command to the elementals to better their teamwork. He had no need to assume direct control.
After a dozen seconds of combat and seeing his elementals had mopped up his six enemies Darvon turned to see Saria panting a little as she dug a golden dagger into the center of her last mimic killing it in one burst. All around her were blown up corpses, or intact ones aside from a single incision. Seemed she could handle yourself.
“Pretty good Saria, though you should have included Indigo in your attacks. You need to get in as much practice with her as you can.” Darvon said, sucking his three elementals back into their homes as he did so.
Nodding along to him, Saria took out the compass and began walking while whipping her dagger on the sand with her other hand. “Thank you, and you are right. Maroc did say live combat was the best way to bond with your elemental.”
“Yeah, so how about you go ahead on the first march while I keep watch for spatial summons?” Darvon said, doing exactly that by keeping an eye on the air around him.
“Sure.” Saria said, sending out Indigo in its halo form to go attack a group of three mimics off in the distance, forcing them to destroy each other as they did so. “Say, any chance I can get a few more elementals of my own after this is over? I wouldn’t mind a mini army of my own.”
Shaking his head at her as they walked, Darvon sent a Clot whip to destroy a passing dog sized ant from the forest nearby. “I wouldn’t recommend it if I am being honest. You should always try to match what you wield to your path, and while Indigo as a command elemental matches yours any physical one will likely go against it. Only reason I can have so many is because I have been following the path of external implants my whole life.”
“What about Old One laws, won’t that interfere?” Saria said, only to raise her hand for a bit to teleport ahead and destroy a set of four mimics before reappearing next to him. “And what about my own weapons? Why don’t they mess up my path as well?”
“I am of the personal belief that Old One laws are at their core external, with the main focus being adding on things to others, things that another Old One can get rid of. Admittedly that kind of falls apart on my altering myself to appear more like them plan, but to be fair not everything has to perfectly match your path in order to work.” Darvon said with a smile as he thought back to the dozens of different powers he had been analyzing with the Azeta. “As for your weapons they are merely temporary tools for your use. An Elemental Binder implant comes with a companion that I would hope you wouldn’t abandon and is thus a much more permanent alteration.”
“That’s fair.” Saria said, vanishing again to destroy a set of ten mimics with Indigo providing support. She flickered around like it was no one’s business, vanishing and reappearing in the perfect position always. She was a beast with that blade, though a bit wasteful.
Once she reappeared next to him, Darvon started pointing out flaws in her style. “Try to avoid spending spatial essence as much as possible, you need to get used to managing your resources better. Also make sure to have Indigo aid you in battle, not simply freeze enemies for you to kill later. You need to work less like a machine, and more like a person, which brings me to…”
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They spent hours killing mimics by the thousands, with almost a full tenth of the rocks lining the beach having transformed. Darvon even got to see the actual process live a few times, with a mimic crawling over to another rock and injecting its center with a translucent egg that infected and absorbed the rock. Worst part from seeing that was the realization that they don’t even need any real resources to expand, just the wind and some water from the ocean plus a suitably hard host. Most of them ended up being boulders, though he had seen a few made from a dead bugs bodies, but those were in the minority and quickly dealt with by either them or another hunter like a Hissing Seams who got annoyed when a mimic tried to intrude on their territory. Which was a terrifying sight all on its own.
Hissing Seams were fist sized translucent sharks, who travel in packs of sometimes millions all over the ocean. Each one can teleport to any other of its species in the same planet when attacked and are all part of a very simple hivemind which is focused entirely on reproduction and survival. They are proof of what happens when you leave a spreader species unattended, as the ocean of Firan was literally full of them, to the point that it is impossible to get rid of them without destroying the entire ocean itself. They are not that dangerous to the truly powerful sea creatures, but bad enough for the rest like the mimic that was being devoured in front of them right now.
“Truly horrid creatures.” Saria said as she fed command essence to Indigo who had shrunk down to head size after a few hours. “It’s little wonder that they have us doing these kind of missions.”
“I know, though it still is amazing that they can even figure out which summons will be a problem before they actually becomes one.” Darvon said, doing the same for each aside from Clot who had in fact grown from the excess corrupted mass. “I hear it’s a mixture of Qrumin bargains, and special planar laws. Otherwise the whole planet would be just one big war between the leading parasites.”
“Yeah, though not all of them are that bad.” Saria said, craning her neck upward towards the sky where a faint translucent dot floated. “I quite like the look of the Cloyful Bear.”
Ordering his elementals to keep an eye out, Darvon looked up as well, enhancing his eyesight with nanites as he did so.
Straight above them was a van sized slug like creature made up of immaterial substance which seemed to be eating the light around it. Its stumpy legs kicked at the air, drifting it ever towards the setting sun.
“They are pretty, though the real problem is that they are completely indestructible. Which is fascinating in its own right.” Darvon said, trying to use his third eye to see their Image but it was too far. “I would love to study one up close.”
“Well maybe tomorrow we can fly up there.” Saria said, jostling his armor to get him to see a completely clear area in front of them. “How about we get some rest first though?”
“Good idea.” Darvon said. “You set up the tent, and I clear the area?”
“Sure.” Saria said, grabbing Darvon’s pack from his back, and emptying out her own as well.
Darvon meanwhile had Clot in armor form and used him to fly straight up a couple hundred meters to get a good viewpoint.
To his left the rocky ocean extended for kilometers away, most of half destroyed by him and Vadim’s team, the latter of which was fighting a wave of mimics in the distance. To his right was the same, and in front was the eternal ocean which would usually attract his attention due to its mystery, yet it was behind him that he turned. The petrified forest was a place conquered by bugs, yet there was no single type ruling it. No there were thousands of different species all constantly fighting it out, two of which he could see were in the middle of a massive battle with thousands of meter high grey mantis’ destroying an equal number of dog sized green beetles.
Waves of black and green ichor fell from their bodies, with each insect filled with a crazy rage which drove them to battle. Sinking into the Significance Realm Darvon could see that there was a line of pink extending from each bug into the distance, which likely meant a Queen was nearby. He would have to be careful to avoid these nests, for while killing a couple individual bugs from them would be no problem, crushing a wave of warriors might spark a resolute manhunt.
With that in mind Darvon lowered himself and went to the edge of the forest where he cleaved a couple of the petrified trees in order to create a desire path that would lead a couple hundred meters away. He then set up some pre charged alarm units which would screech upon reacting and only then returned to camp where Saria had already finished setting up.
Legion camp standard was made up of a simple expandable stone umbrella which created a dull seven-meter-wide shield around a simple living area made up of a couple sleeping bags, and a stove. Saria was currently heating up some water while sprinkling in some dried meat and spices to create a broth.
“Any dangers nearby?”
“There are two nests nearby who are battling, but otherwise no.” Darvon said, sitting down cross legged on a collapsible mini chair while sniffing at the food in front of him. His enhanced nose already let him know that the meat and spices were alchemically altered to provide all the nutrients needed for a base Zhra body. “Smells good.”
“Yeah, I was surprised at that. In my home plane the military tended to sacrifice comfort for convenience, so they had some truly disgusting field goods.” Saria said wrinkling her nose. “We once were so low on rations that I had the bright idea to steal a month’s supply from the local garrison. Let me tell you that was the most miserable month of the whole rebellion. Katia never let me live it down.”
“Katia?” he asked delicately, seeing the faraway look on Saria’s face.
“Yeah, she was my second in command, though honestly I always considered her a co leader, much as she hated that title.” Saria said, absentmindedly filling a couple bowls as she did so. “She was a fierce woman, with more passion in her pinky than in my whole body. She was the main reason I even decided to actually try to overthrow the whole system.”
“Sounds like you were close.” Darvon said, sipping on his delicious broth.
“We were.” She stated, stopping for a whole minute to savor her food while staring at the lapping waves. “Before the final attempt when she…” Saria choked a little, her eyes teary. “We were dating, had a whole plan to get married the moment we won the rebellion. ‘Course that never happened, but it was a beautiful dream.”
“Seems like she was a wonderful woman.” Darvon said, thinking back to his own parent’s loss in order to dredge up some empathy for her. Yet he couldn’t. Grief was barred from him.
“She was. She really was.” She said, handing Darvon her empty bowl which he cleaned with some basic water elementalism before placing back in their pack and collapsing into the sleeping roll next to Saria. “It’s a pity you guys never met. You would have really liked her.”
Humming in agreement, Darvon stared at the ocean next to him lost in thought as he considered how much just one person could experience and feel. How deep a well of emotion lives inside of everyone. Touching at his grief rings which he still hadn’t taken off, each filled with the loss of someone Darvon couldn’t help but wonder what it meant for him to be pursuing the path of Old One bargains. Would he one day have to take Saria’s grief from her? Would he have to hollow her out in order to give her power? Would he be able to? Did he have a choice?
He always knew that power came at a cost, but after seeing how touched Saria was over her lover’s death, he couldn’t help but feel frustrated at his own lack of feeling. For the first time since he acquired QE, he asked himself if it was actually worth it.
With those depressing thoughts filling his head, Darvon slowly closed his eyes and fell to sleep, joining Saria in heaving steady breaths. All around them the only noise was the slow lapping of the ocean hitting the rocks, the faint noise of battle from the nests in the forest, and the hum of the shield next to him. It was a truly peaceful minute.
Of course that was the same moment that a massive black tear followed by a huge bellow echoed out, as the portal released a beast that destroyed their shield with a mere touch. Before Darvon could even process the chaotic destruction around him, he opened his third eye and reached out to feel the monsters power level, and promptly had his whole face go white.
Peak Paragon.