[Be Gone] Ch 40 – Marked for Greatness

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            -I imagine they know you have a form of uncanny awareness of your people, although they are probably still unaware of just how extensive the Allegiance system is,- I /mused to Korbald, who nodded in the distance.

            -It’s an amusing fact that they have no choice but to politely ignore me never receiving all the messages and notices and writs and declarations they send to me. The fact they can’t actually plant any successful spies among my civilians and advisors really disturbs their spymasters, too, although I can’t do much for those among the wandering ronin and merchants.- Using their own hidebound etiquette against them, as it were.

            -As the originator of the Marks, you define their Markbox. If you don’t want them to see the whole, they won’t be able to.-

            Korbald sighed as he watched his formerly-gimped son Edward cutting his way through one of the elite teams of rock goblins. Eddie now looked like his younger brother instead of his father, finally, and Korbald could only smile in relief at the sight of the new Seven going for Depth, his Soul Tats blazing with Soul Essence as he plied his Glaive Persistence unrelentingly, blackish-green blood flying in burning arcs of vivus as he hewed screaming goblins down, smoothly transitioning between short and long grips as his Glaive’s haft flicked back and forth in length.

            -Kinda defeats the purpose, right?- he /said, off-handedly cutting out with Titanfall. A scything arc of lightning swept out, and dozens of goblins and the ogre astutely leading them from behind exploded as they were cut in twain and electrocuted at the same time.

            -Yes, but if they aren’t prepared to deal with you...- I /trailed off. -Well, probably the best thing to do is not give them any choice in the matter, and to hit Twenty.-

            I could feel him blink in surprise. -Seriously? I know there’s a shitload of Karma here, Ael, but that’s just crazy.-

            -You can do it if you Ironskull. Matter of fact, if you do that, you’ll likely hit Eternal, and can bring the gods in with just your status.

            -Remember, I’m here to charge up the Pyramid so I can head on home. I’m not going to be here for the final clearing. All the bosses and the Glory Awards are for you and yours. I’m just kind of going to bulldoze the road there.-

            Korbald smirked as he idly cut out with a couple Shardings and encouraged some goblins to not try and get around him. They could go forwards and die, or they could run and die, but they couldn’t go around him. -Generous of you.-

            -I have a feeling I’m going to have to be doing more nasty crap on the way home. You’re The Ironskull. You led the way to Ten. Lead the way to the Eternal, and show us a Road!-

            I felt his fist clench, and the blooming of something long suppressed in his head and heart.

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            The Road to Adventure. To a new frontier, leading the way to greatness.

            He’d done it once, in the Beta Test for the Power of Ten. Why couldn’t he do it here, out on the true frontier once again? He’d stayed in one place for fifty years... wasn’t it time to start doing something more once again?

            He’d been a daimyo and the leader here for fifty years. It was too long; others should have had the chance to be in charge, and it was calcifying the hierarchy of the Allegiance, leaving the younger people with no place to go but out on their own if they wanted to succeed and improve their station.

            Shouldn’t that be what HE was doing? Instead of lording it over the kids?

            Korbald didn’t want to become as hidebound in tradition as the Jade Empire, which basically treated their kids as resources to be chewed up in pointless conflicts with one another... which was required, or they’d wind up pitted against their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents, instead. Those who survived were allowed to succeed their elders who died in such conflicts, while those at the top of the scale rarely had anything to worry about... except if they tried to stuff the positions around and below them with their own family members, which tended to generate waves of duels and assassinations, hyperaware of clan and family power as the elves were.

            Korbald had already made multiple changes to how power was moved, and in truth, civilian control and authority rested pretty much in the hands of the younger generation now. So did most military training and control. The older generation of Tens were required to divorce themselves from the normal power structure, and give the young something to attend and aspire to, their elders moving onto private goals that didn’t involve power over others.

            Yeah, they still had personal power, but any control or political offices and the like went to the younger generation until they, too, hit Ten or something equivalent, and it was generally time to move on to greater things and their own personal future.

            It was an alien mindset to the elves, who would devote literally centuries to being the best courtier, rice farmer, or bonsai grower, and thus become true masters of their specialties, instead of pursuing other roads and freeing up places for the young to grow into.

            The gnomes often followed suit, and were even more obsessive about it at times. The korobokru weren’t quite as specialized, but in matters military and political, ended up pretty much the same because of having to deal with the elves all the time, and the fighting demands of opposing nigh-Eternal demons. Having to deal with elves with two centuries of political experience basically required high-Level courtiers of your own... or, at the least, some way to make some very high relevant Skill Checks against them.

            The elves took great pleasure in the contest of skills, rather than worrying about getting anything actually accomplished. It was ridiculous what they could achieve when they worked together, as he’d seen several times, but too often it was a contest of skills and stations, vying in the only way left to them to do so. Maybe it would spark a duel or assassination that would free up a higher station to finally move upwards and onwards...

            Trying to drag him and the humans who relied on him into the lethal mess of Court politics was one of the duties of the elven Tens, and making sure it didn’t happen was a cold-blooded affair that did indeed open up vacancies in the elven hierarchies rather frequently.

            But... Ironskulling up. Taking out those bosses, while his people dealt with all their helpers, aides, minions, servants, and slaves.

            If he didn’t go Deep, yeah, it was totally possible.

            Taking Dragon Warrior to Twenty-One, and Eternal. The Guide to Twenty that Ael had given them had little beyond general rules for post-Twenty, gained from talking to Celestials. It was totally unknown territory so far, possibly because everything was possible, and if you made mistakes getting there, Twenty was where you ironed everything out and retrained if needed to prep for stepping to Eternal.

            Korbald’s fist clenched again. He wanted that, and suddenly he wanted it so hard he could taste it!

            That attack that had taken out the Onisu. How many layers deep had he made that, to do what he had done?

            What about when he had to face things, like the true bodies of similar demons back in their home realms, instead of the avatars they had to inhabit here? True demon Princes, in their own Domains, commanding Onisu like mere palace guards?

            They were coming here, to the mortal realm, just so they could fuck with mortals, cause havoc, and generally have the equivalent of a demonic vacation. Mortals, not gods, had to grow to the point that they could do the same thing right back to the Fiends and other non-mortal shit that thought the Mortal Realm existed for them to have fun in and do as they pleased.

            That meant becoming Eternals and playing on the higher stage.

            He was almost ninety years old now. In a ‘real’ world, he’d be long retired and doting on his great grand-kids while waiting to die. Hells, all of those who had come here with him would be retired or long dead.

            The native spouses they had taken didn’t really understand that, of course, at least not until their hybrid children had started growing up, maturing much faster than elf or korobokru. It wasn’t that elves and the koro didn’t get to functional physical maturity quickly, but they were kids running around in teenaged bodies, and simply didn’t become adults in mindset as quickly as humans did.

            There weren’t a lot of human children here, but they ‘grew up’ faster than any of the hybrids, shocking the natives at the speed vs their own half-siblings and cousins.

            They also aged and died faster, which had been the sad fate of the normal spouses who hadn’t Leveled. The human children of Powered couldn’t become Powered, so Forsaken was all that was left to them if they wanted to live as long a life as their siblings.

            The Marks were thus bloody life-savers. That potential +4 to a Stat was helping even the most average of the kids finally make progress and have hopes of making Ten they’d all but given up on.

            If they’d known about the Human Racial Class back then, things would have been so much simpler, but alas. Expanding universe, they couldn’t know everything... or even use everything they had known.

            Aelryinth’s arrival had thrown open the gates. All those Class Levels. All those Feats, all those Masteries... and the spells he was still churning out for them every day, making all the Powered giddy with what was becoming available to them.

            He was still amused that his ex-Cobra wife wanted to marry one of their daughters to Aelryinth as a reward for all he was doing for them... and in doing so create a link between their families. It was the elven way, and his halvyri daughters were indeed very attractive... as well as totally embarrassed at the idea of going from virtual princesses determining their own fates to being second wives to a blind man, Favored of Sylune or not.

            Aelryinth had thought it pretty funny, too. He wasn’t actually much older than they were, and had lightly dismissed the idea, which conversely had left Korbald’s proud daughters miffed that he didn’t find them worthy of being even second wives?...

            Women, Korbald thought to himself.

            Korbald swept out with Titanfall one more time, and some goblins on their mangy half-lizard, half-rat mounts were chopped in two as they tried to get around him, inspiring those behind them to pull up suddenly and consider their life options.

            Several of the Archers helped them out by punching them out of their crude saddles with unerring accuracy. Their mounts astutely ran away once their riders were dead.

            Aelryinth, in the end, didn’t care about the demon bosses, the Tainted, and these lands, especially if Korbald could handle them. He was plenty willing to leave all that for Korbald to deal with, while Ael throttled and brought crashing down the planar linkage that made it all possible.

            Korbald considered how much Karma someone going as Deep as Aelryinth would take to make Eternal, and knew he’d have no problem beating Ael there, even if crashing that Conjunction of Planes was worth a whole lot.

            The Tainted area the demons were leaving behind was huge. It would take decades to properly purify and Cleanse it with the Duty of Fire, if not longer.

            What would he find, if he managed to step through that doorway to the next level of Existence?

            Korbald was dead-set on finding out now...

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A month later...

            Xiong Tikoto, the Daimyo of the House of the Bear, the Iron Bear of his Clan, stepped out to the edge of the wall, and looked out at the lands below him with a mixture of awe, disbelief, and deep satisfaction.

            The homeland of the ogres was no more. Literally, no more. No devastation or destruction that his people had ever managed to inflict on it could possibly equal it being reduced to the rolling mass of greenery that had now claimed it, in total defiance of the Shadowlands. There was nothing there to indicate a city or dwelling place had ever dwelled there, to the point that whole cliff-sides had collapsed and tumbled, and what might once have been a warren of caves and tunnels was now cloven cracks and yawning holes leading to shattered pits deep into the mountains.

            The vivic fire was hungry and thorough...

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