[Be Gone] Ch 12 – What the Hell is Actually Going On?

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The hairy native soldier looked ahead of us, the landscape sliding by with breathtaking speed, yet passing with a flowing grace over the ground that no horse could possibly emulate. Feature easily slid around or above any obstructions, cutting through anything living that got in the way with ease, and that was without me having the Wrath up waving a bright shiny flaming sign that we were coming... and burning anything in our way to death.

            The other troopers there had started to enjoy themselves, despite everything. As I’d said, they couldn’t fall off the Disks, so even the sharpest swoops, falls, and turns from riding this living roller coaster didn’t throw them off, although they obviously knew they should have been sent flying.

            They were still screaming out sometimes (but mostly in glee) as Feature enjoyed himself zipping along the ground, his scales rippling to black so that those on the ground couldn’t see us coming so easily or discern what he was. He stayed in dragon form for the extra benefits, however, and if he had to exhale a 20d10 Breath of Doom ™ to clear some chaff out of the way, he was far from reluctant to do so.

            In normal circumstances, I would be handling this, and he would just be riding along in Tattoo form, watching. I usually didn’t need him out, and I didn’t want to endanger him most of the time.

            Getting those tables turned meant it was time for him to show off, and he was plainly happy to do so. I only had the one living minion, as the rest of my intelligent servants were my two main Rings and Staff, so he got to be all the muscle when I required it.

            “The Shadowlands are moving at the call of one of their lords, we aren’t sure which one, nor which section of the Great Wall they will strike. Given their numbers, it could be a front dozens of miles long.

            “We were sent out to get an idea of the numbers and breadth of the invading force, but were surprised by the sheer width of the incoming bakemono, who stumbled upon us and managed to sound an alarm before we could flee. Demons moved in ahead to cut us off, and we were trapped and only able to make a final stand on the hill.” Taicho Uverhua snarled in hopeless anger at the memory.

            “Lose many? I counted twenty horses, at least.”

            “Half my force.” She looked very unresolved at the sudden loss. “They probably would have returned as undead in the coming army, had you not set them on fire.” I nodded slowly. More than enough Taint around to do that, which was another reason I’d done so. “The main force seems to be moving on Shatterfang Fortress, but they are drawing from at least four different Domains, and there seems to be a firestorm or something in the Black Plains, driving forth demons in great numbers, which they are taking as a good portent.”

            I lifted an eyebrow. “I set the Plains on fire. I personally saw tens of thousands of the beasts there die, killed one of the Grass Elementals, and ran many, many of the creatures to death. The fire spread behind us very eagerly. I imagine by the time you scout it, there won’t be anything but ash left of the place, and that for many years.”

            “That...” The taicho trailed off, looking back at the red on the horizon. The fires were only spreading wider, as it were, the vivus feeding on the Sin there and sprouting more Elementals to keep the holocaust moving and expanding.

            “There weren’t any bakemono living there, so I didn’t drive them out after you, if that’s what you are wondering. I imagine they would just be fertilizer for the grass there...”

            “No, the bakemono came from the Endless Warrens; we recognized the clan signs, limited though they were. The Howling Lords of the bakemono are sending out many of their kin, and from great distances, to join the coming fight. There will be a fight as has not been seen at the walls for generations!”

            Uverhua’s voice carried, and drew rousing shouts from her kin, promises of revenge for their fallen, and death to those who walked in these dark lands!

            Well, they definitely had a martial culture. If they had a place like this as neighbors, I could see why.

            But her words also meant we should be on the fringe of the troop movement, and near the head of the wave, so we should be passing the front of it soon enough.

            “So, all the humans you know of belong to the House of the Tiger?” I asked calmly.

            “Yes. They, like you, came from out of the Shadowlands many years ago. There are not a lot of them, perhaps only a thousand or so, but they fight like devils!” Her voice was very respectful as she glanced at me, then at Feature undulating so smoothly through three dimensions while carrying us to safety. “I had not heard of any of them taming a dragon, however...” she managed to add, as if afraid I might take that as a loss of face.

            “Tamed is a very harsh word for a very good friend of mine,” I warned her, and she made a hasty bow of apology to both me and Feature, even looking somewhat relieved at my sharp tone.

            “If you continue on this course, you will come out into the Fens of the Dead. Past that is the River Corpus, and the Great Wall stands beyond.”

            “Undead in the fens, or is it named that just for the smell?” I asked calmly.

            She opened her mouth to reply, then hesitated. “Both?” she finally conjectured. “It is said that when the Shadows fell and swallowed the lands here, a great army perished at the site of the fens, and they rot beneath it to this day, sometimes rising up as undead to plague the living.”

            “And the River Corpus?”

            “It cuts off much of the Shadowlands from the lands of the Empire, but it accumulates a great deal of Taint in doing so. Those who drown in it come back as powerful undead, and as the Taint accumulates, the water runs black until it reaches the sea.”

            I winced. It wasn’t an insurmountable problem, as the oceans were truly vast, and Taint would dissipate away from its source in time... but that sea and the river’s delta was probably a nasty place.

            Well, nothing that a lot of vivus wouldn’t solve.

            Which brought a subject to mind…

            The Walls of Fire once paralleling us to the sides blazed up once again, making the korobokru riding along flinch, at least until they realized they couldn’t feel anything from the electrum, black, and white flames, which were also crackling with a bit of lightning.

            Vivus feasted on the Taint of the Sin in the ground, and a long white trail began to extend behind us. The wedge of flame only covered the first fifty feet of Feature’s length, but that was more than enough to tear a burning holocaust through anything in our path, killing any minions in a swathe a good sixty feet wide. Feature simply ran over anything tougher and removed it from life.

            We were going to pass the front of this horde, anyway. No need to be subtle about it, now that I knew a huge army wasn’t waiting ahead of us.

            Taicho Uverhua looked at the flames in admiration, while her subordinates had some trouble doing so. As Blues, that wasn’t unusual in the slightest, while her partial Silver at least allowed her to look on the power of Heaven without a problem.

            She could also see the Runes flickering under my skin as I maintained the power, and Mortus Dius was also pulsing with the energy going through it, especially as it lent its power to the Wrath I was putting out.

            I, on the other hand, had oriented on the word ‘Empire’. It was not a title claimed lightly, as the function of an emperor was to be above kings, and united largely by conquest. I didn’t know what it portended, but they had let the other humans in, who, by their numbers, were clearly refugees, explorers, or colonists from somewhere else, adapting to the circumstances they had been found in and making a name for themselves.

            An empire was usually forged from disparate peoples, either conquered or brought together by an outside force that threatened them all. I didn’t know what to consider about it, but eh. I didn’t intend to stay here long enough to get wrapped up in Imperial politics, which if history was any guide, were as convoluted and merciless as heck.

            But, it seemed I had been brought here in time to meet up with a demonic invasion. Oh joy and rapture, especially in the condition I was in.

            That said, I was a very well-equipped high-end Casting Warlock, and wouldn’t be too out of place in a good scrum. The way Aelryinth was disposing of shreds of horrific Curse Magic in the Wrath for the fun and jollies of anything following our trail didn’t hurt my offensive ability any, either.

            I didn’t know how long it was going to take Aelryinth to start re-establishing our Matrix, but it would be at least a couple more days, as Purity/5 was too nice to let go.

            “If you’re not too busy, tell me about this empire I’m heading into. I wouldn’t want to make any lethal mistakes in etiquette, or something...”

            “It would be my honor!” Taicho Uverhua replied cautiously.

------

            An Elven empire, founded on the opportunity gained when the Shadows Fell upon the lands we were now in.

            The korobokru were of two peoples, one being the human-sized, brawny, and very hairy sorts traveling with me, who had always dwelled on the plains with their horses. Their cousins, who currently formed the House of the Bear, had been dwellers in the mountains and the hills, lands now turned into the Hungry Hills and the Endless Warrens of the bakemono.

            Their cousins were shorter, broader, and almost hairless. Regardless, they were still one people, and could interbreed, children being randomly of either type, and even true breeds occasionally giving birth to a child of the other.

            It was why the Horse Clans were out here, scouting for the Bear Clans. One defended, and one ventured forth.

            Their people had been driven into the lands they currently held, which had long been claimed by the elven peoples there. Doubtless acting very opportunistically, the elves had allowed them to settle there, probably due to low demand for the lands among their own kind, and basically used them as a buffer against the Shadow, taking the brunt of the fighting and only occasionally having to intervene themselves.

            Their favorite occupation seemed to be intrigue between their Great Houses and making intermittent war upon one another for trivial reasons, and occasionally upon the other regions of their empire, for causes real or imagined.

            The elves had Great Houses of the Cranes, the Lions, and the Serpents, also called the Imperial Houses, as the emperor or empress and the Imperial Line was descended from them. The House of the Green was also elven, but rarely involved itself in Imperial Politics, and the House of the Phoenix was made up of spellcasters from all the Houses, although they were primarily elven.

            Up in the North, the House of the Pangolin ruled, and by their description, seemed to be gnomes. Their hills and mountains were mystical places, and even the elves didn’t invade there often.

            The Jade Empire had been around for a good thousand years like this, fractured within, only to come together when it was really needed to repel invaders who threatened the heartlands, like Shadowland armies that managed to bypass both the Great Wall and the fortified valleys of the Bear.

            Mmm. Elves, masters of the primitive martial-magical lifestyle, keeping things at their level through constant conflict.

            Each of the Great Clans had lesser families and houses, of course, although their leadership generally descended through one main clan.

            Into this static mess had come a bunch of humans, and, it seemed, in the way that all humans seemed to do, they had started causing waves.

            I sighed despite myself. Humans, designed to live a short and violent forty years and then fade away, coming into a land where the average sapient could expect to live at least two hundred years. Granted, gaining Levels changed that, but still.

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