Time went by, and while my eidetic memory let me perfectly memorize everything that was going on, when one day was just like the days around them, they all got lumped into the same book in [Astral Archives] and mostly forgotten about.
Three years. Three years we campaigned in the Han Empire, occasionally changing who we were contracted with, occasionally moving back to old generals and stomping grounds. The skirmishes were endless, and the pitched battles that were so great for levels were rare.
Throughout all of it, some scenes and events were burned into my mind, events I would never forget.
I was affectionately teasing Auri that she was in a ‘goth phase’.
She was going full-on black with her body flames. Gone was the colorful, bright and chirpy phoenix from Remus and the School. In were a dozen shades of black. Coal. Midnight. Ink and obsidian, sable and jet, soot and ash.
I was struggling to tell if Auri was genuinely sad, depressed, or down over everything going on in the Han empire, or if she was artistically exploring herself and different options. I tried to get her to open up about it, but she was strangely closed-off.
She was also playing with Inferno in other ways. Things burned nicely in the air, yes, but what about burning things underground? Melting rock and using that?
The Tears of Vulcan constantly erupting on the horizon was getting Auri thinking of Lava in all sorts of different ways, experimenting to see what the melting point of various types of rocks were, and if she could then throw them with her [Mage Hands], make them explode, and just generally fucking around and exploring her skills and abilities.
I approved.
“I’m always here for you, no matter what.” I told my goth friend. She nuzzled me back.
“Brrrpt!”
I was hanging out with Auri when a subtle scent hit my nose.
I was subconsciously parsing thousands upon thousands of scents every minute, trying to ignore the TMI. I didn’t want to know who was sleeping with whom. I didn’t want to know about poorly controlled diabetes. Please, spare me the details about a person’s last bath being three months ago when the rest of their line forcefully dunked them in a stream. I knew who wiped poorly and who wasn’t a complete savage.
Too. Much. Information.
I could destroy the Legion in a one-hour meeting, calling out everyone’s ‘secrets’. I had no social graces, no social skills, and had enough blackmail material thrice over to do it.
Broadly, I tried to ignore it all. When the smell of freshly cut grass hit my nose as a minor undercurrent though, I twitched, breaking off the conversation I had with Auri, letting the burning flower I was holding turn to ashes without paying attention.
“Brrrpt?” Auri asked, but I was distracted, sniffing deeply and suspiciously.
It was not freshly cut hay, and my mind spread out, checking the wind direction. I picked myself up in a flash.
“Never a dull moment. Come on, let’s go.” I told Auri, dashing over to the closest pair of guards patrolling the wall of the fort of the day.
“Announce a full Legion stand-up now.” I ordered them. The younger guard eyed me suspiciously.
“Who are-” He got two words out before the older guard smacked him over the head.
“At once, ah…” He trailed off awkwardly, recognizing me but not knowing how to address me.
“Bunny.” I winked at him. He saluted back.
“At once, Bunny.”
The stand-up call went out, but I didn’t go over there, instead choosing to intercept Katerina. She eyed me as I landed.
“This surprise yours?” She asked. My eyes flickered to her omnipresent followers, and I lowered my voice. They could probably still hear me, but the message of keep it quiet was probably transmitted.
I… I was getting better at this social thing. I had to run into every single fucking pole in existence between my starting line and where I was now, but I was getting it. Slowly building up an endless maze of rules that dictated how I navigated every interaction.
“Yes. I’m smelling ricin placed in the wells. I’m not sure how to handle a large-scale poisoning event like this, although I can try to track down the culprit. Just wanted everyone not drinking water while you sorted it out.”
I had to admit, ricin was a horribly effective poison to pick. The symptoms closely matched dysentery and other classical illnesses that ripped through armies. It wasn’t like people clutched their throat and foamed at the mouth, no. They just shit themselves to death, and with the rumors of an impending battle, it might ‘only’ weaken one side, not outright kill anyone. But kill three quarters of the combat effectiveness of an army right before a battle?
The battle would be over before it even started.
Katerina smiled and clapped her hand on my shoulder.
“Good work Bunny. Thank you for not making this a bigger mess. I’ll take it from here. Do you want Wren and his line if you manage to track down the culprit? Or are you set with your group?”
“Brrrpt!” Auri had a Target, a bundle of kindling that I wouldn’t object to her burning. A proper Bad Guy.
I knew Iona would go apoplectic at someone actively poisoning wells.
“We’ve got this.” I said.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to trace the culprit, her own skills at stealth and infiltration protecting her once again. The slippery target that had harried us now and then, managing to evade even Iona’s [Relentless Tracking].
Yang Duan He, The Lady of Death, had struck once again.
Struck - and missed, as I managed to smell the faintest trace of the poison before it could get to its lethal work.
Assassins were just rude. I woke up one evening to a half-dozen gnomes with empty crossbows in my tent, the clinking of half-dissolved bolts falling off me, and the echoes of a fading headache.
To their credit, they were professional. No screaming, just a terse codeword.
It was all they got out.
[Nova Lance] was faster than anything they could manage.
[*ding!* Congratulations! [The Dawn Sentinel] has leveled up to level 677 -> 678 +3 Dexterity, +24 Speed, +24 Vitality, +170 Mana, +170 Mana Regen, +48 Magic Power, +48 Magic Control from your Class per level! +1 Strength, +1 Dexterity, +1 Speed, +1 Vitality, +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regeneration, +1 Magic Power, +1 Magic Control for being Chimera (Elvenoid)! +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regen from your Element per level!]
[*ding!* Congratulations! [Butterfly Mystic] has leveled up to level 596 -> 598! +8 Strength, +8 Dexterity, +70 Speed, +70 Vitality, +70 Mana, +70 Mana Regen, +70 Magic Power, +70 Magic Control from your Class per level! +1 Dexterity, +1 Speed, +1 Vitality, +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regeneration, +1 Magic Power, +1 Magic Control for being Chimera (Elvenoid)! +1 Strength, +1 Mana Regen from your Element per level!]
“Ironside Brigade! Forward! March!” Katerina roared her orders, Reed amplifying them so we all heard what was going on. Katerina’s orders, what other people were saying, and nothing else, the Sound barrier around us protecting and preserving orders.
I was not happy with this engagement, to say the least. We were sieging a city. When it came to other people trying to murder my Legion, I was firmly on the side of the Legion. When it came to inarguable self-defense of the home and hearth?
I was once again conflicted.
The gates of the city flew open, a single man in colorful flowing pink robes sitting in front of a zither.
[Leader - 872].
Meng Ao’s clan member and relative Meng Tian wasn’t supposed to be here. The city wasn’t supposed to be held by the Qin. The man was famous for his cunning and tactics, deadly traps and maneuvers. If he was here, it was a trap.
The only question was, what was the trap?
His eyes were closed, and he plucked a single note on the zither. It twanged in the crisp morning air, utterly shattering all Sound-related protections the Ironside Brigade had. I could see everyone’s mouth’s moving, but couldn’t hear a word of what they were saying. The casual display of breaking our protections came with it an implied threat - he could mimic and fake as many orders as he wanted.
A second note rang out as the [Great General] began to play a tune. Faster and faster he played a song, and I could feel it. The marching army, the clashing battle, the song told a tale of waves crashing back and forth, triumph and despair. All while completely neutering dozens of Sound Classers in the Ironside Brigade alone, nevermind the hundreds in Wang Jian’s army.
His Sound manipulations weren’t deadly, nor did they stop our backup methods of communicating by flag and banner, a full halt being called. I clumsily ordered my line to stay put, and dashed back to Katerina and the rest of Command. Auri burning letters in the air was ironically one of our fastest methods of communication.
Via mime and pantomime, we came to the conclusion that, yes, it was a trap, but it was a double-layered trap. It looked too good to be true, trying to draw us in, but in reality we all knew Meng Tian had a reputation. He wanted us to think it was a trap, so the best move was to charge in and force him to reveal the army we had no intel or information existed in the area.
To be fair, Meng Tian had hidden entire armies before.
There was also brief wondering if Meng Tian was out for revenge. If he specifically wanted my head after I’d slain Meng Ao.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
A small cautionary force of a few dozen soldiers were ordered forward, a sacrifice from Wang Jian to see if he could bait out the trap. Meng Tian plucked a single high note on his zither, and the soldiers fell in half, cut cleanly head to toe.
No more prodding forces were sent.
We weren’t the ones to make the decision. Wang Jian’s [Messengers] made their way over with orders, and in a rare twist, a reasoning.
They believed Meng Tian was going a level further. He knew we’d see through the first layer of deception and believe a charge was correct, therefore, it wasn’t. The mind games were absurd.
We stared at the city in no small amount of frustration, and hidden relief on my end, before the banners finished transmitting the order to retreat.
We occasionally won a battle decisively enough to capture huge amounts of loot. Being mercenaries, we were in a weird position. We were bottom of the food chain socially and in many other ways, but the smart generals - of which Wang Jian was one of them - knew to pay us, and pay us well. The forms of payment got unusual at times, and my little book of memories of the innocent of the Han Civil War grew exponentially that day.
In a twist of convergent cultures, the Han had a tradition of metal wedding rings. Gold, as it was neutral to the innate metals of the dullahan, and the Tears of Vulcan produced trace amounts of it that didn’t get used in the vast war engine. They were common enough that only the poorest farmers couldn’t afford a band for their beloved.
Gold was common in jewelry, and occasionally used in coinage to make a pretty backdrop for the true value of the coin, the gem inside it. It was heavy, and not terribly easy to move around or sell, so Wang Jian ‘paid’ us with it at one point, after once again driving the eternal pest, Yang Duan He, away from one of her camps. The nimble raider gathered loot almost as quickly as she lost it.
Crates of wedding rings.
Crates upon crates of wedding rings. freewebn(o)vel.com
I hadn’t needed to say a word at the sheer scale of the atrocity. Katerina was just as pissed at the sheer disrespect needed to make such a grisly trophy, nevermind pay us with it. The Legata had murder in her eyes as she ordered Auri to melt it down before it even got through our gates, and from then on she explicitly asked for Auri to always hang around her.
“Just in case.”
Surprise visitors in my tent in the middle of the night was never a good thing.
Unless it was Iona sneaking in, wearing a wink, a finger to her lips, and nothing else.
Then surprise visitors in the middle of the night were great.
A pair of silver-masked Wardens appeared high in the sky. One had a cat-faced mask, the other had a dog on their mask. The magic and enchantments around it prevented me from seeing any true details about them, although they seemed to both be elves.
We were at Kun Ming, the Sealed Forbidden City, where we were located alongside a dozen other armies. How the hell we’d marched so far west outside the Wei territory, deep into the Chu, I’d never know. I did know we were trying to take control of the capital, and everyone and their brother had come out on three different sides. It was possibly the densest population of people in the entire empire.
Between the two of them they held a prisoner. An elf, beaten within an inch of his life, was limply hanging between the two of them. I started to slowly drift his way, sworn to heal everyone regardless of circumstances. Regardless of pissing off the Wardens, the powerful Immortal organization dedicated to deal with Immortals screwing around in mortal lands, to people violating the Treaty of Kyowa.
Like me.
Mostly like me. My age weighed on the scales, my accomplishments sorta doable by someone in ‘only’ a mortal lifespan. Barring the whole ‘creator of the Medical Manuscripts’ thing.
The prisoner was already inside my range of [Cosmic Presence], and I could already see his injuries fading, his eyelashes fluttering as life was slowly restored to his body. I wasn’t the only one noticing this, and the Wardens were no idiots.
“Aldaron has been found guilty of violating the sacred Treaty of Kyowa, building endless homes in his path.” The dog-faced Warden announced. “Immortals are not to interfere with the business of mortals.”
With that announcement, a pair of silver scimitars flashed, and Aldaron was turned into a thousand tiny chunks of flesh, the individual pieces so lightweight that the breeze scattered them across the watching armies.
Wren, of all people, threw his arm around my shoulder.
“Elaine,” He stressed my title and name. “This is deeply traumatizing and extremely troubling. Why don’t you lie down and rest?” He didn’t wait for my answer, steering me to the nearest tent.
It clicked half a second later what he was trying to do, and I went along with it.
If the Wardens properly caught sight of me, if they realized who I was and what I was doing, I’d get the same treatment of poor Aldaron, whose only crime seemed to be building houses for people.
The Ironside Brigade politely declined to participate in the siege any further, and quickly found ourselves a new employer.
Zhao She, again of the Wei. At least we weren’t branded as traitors? Tall and beautiful, she had long, light hair, tied into a high ponytail with blue eyes. Long blue robes with a fur collar completed her look, and I never saw her wearing anything else.
Like how I’d been taught, there was no honor in warfare. Artemis would approve of her philosophy that there was no such thing as an underhanded tactic. Rumors swirled that she regularly kidnapped family members of opposing armies, aiming for the vulnerable middle ranks. The [Great Generals] were close to immune, but not the 500-man and 1000-man leaders. Nobody would duel her, not after she ordered her army to open fire on an opposing general once she’d lured him out.
I found out the rumors were true.
We didn’t win all our battles, but thanks in part to my presence, we rarely had significant casualties.
There were countless gods and goddesses in the great pantheon. The big five - Life, Death, Change, Order, and Chaos, were the undisputed most powerful. A number of gods were fairly ‘big’ - Lunaris and Selene, goddesses of the moons, were in the second tier of divinity and power. The third tier was the most populated, filled with gods of minor aspects.
A minor god was still powerful. The god called down on the Formorians was a ‘minor’ deity.
What went around comes around, and I found my throat going dry one day as the sky split above us.
“Retreat in good order!” Katerina immediately ordered. “Prepare for impact!”
The tranquil sky twisted into a vortex of deep purples and angry blues, and Katerina’s [Shadow Legion] grew and became more defined. The crimson glowing split in the sky enlarged, a zipper revealing the realm of the gods. A pair of burning yellow eyes stared at us with pure hatred, nothing like Lun’Kat’s indifferent gaze. With a deafening roar, blinding arcs of lightning and fire descended upon us, the ground heaved, and the world turned to chaos.
That was on the edges of the main event, the wrath of god utterly scouring the land.
Broken and battered, we retreated, hunkering far down in enemy territory. We almost left the Han Empire in its entirety and returned home, but the Wei were desperate for troops, while having recently won a great victory at the Tears of Vulcan. Flush with fresh armor and weapons, eager to have experienced troops to wear it, Katerina negotiated one hell of a deal.
We continued.
“Elaine Elaine Elaine! We found an Immortal cache! We met Sigrun! She’s so cool! She’s got this HUGE dinosaur, and she just goes zap like that and…” Nina was excitedly bouncing around me as I landed next to the pair. She’d grown up in the three years here, and I privately thought that spending her formative years in a war zone was going to be terrible for her mental health.
It was far better to spend formative teenage years with a merry band of government sanctioned Rangers, solving problems via excessive violence, then pushing oneself to their utter mental limits while surrounded by much older Ranger candidates.
… yeah I didn’t have a leg to stand on when it came to criticizing upbringings.
“... and she said I was good enough for the Order! Good enough to become a fully fledged Valkyrie!”
All of it was interesting, and I wanted to know more.
“Sigrun? The… head of the Valkyrie Order? That Sigrun?” I asked the two.
Iona nodded.
“Wanted to talk with you about that as well.” She said. “Turns out our home is the only semi-permanent structure in the Order, with everyone else taking the ‘wandering’ part a little more seriously. I said it would be a fine place to drop mail off, since getting in touch with each other would otherwise be impossible. Hope you don’t mind?”
“A bunch of heavily armed warriors stomping around can only be good for security!” I joked. “Yeah, sure. We discussed how our home might end up being a center for the new Order, mail just sounds like the first step.”
Ah, right! Emotions! People! Big accomplishments called for recognition and praise!
“Nina! Congratulations! Are you waiting for anything in particular to class up? You were going to merge your two 256 classes into Storm and grab Mirage, is that still the plan?”
Nina bounced up and down in her enthusiasm.
“Yeah! We’ve been looking, and I think I want to model myself after a derecho!”
I scrunched up my eyebrows, unfamiliar with the term, but familiar with the idea of having an ‘elemental theme’. [Butterfly Mystic] was heavily involved with sunlight themes, for example, while [The Dawn Sentinel] didn’t quite land on any one idea. A minor thematic narrowing could result in more power, and I was all for it.
“Derecho?” I asked.
“They’re super cool! Super rare! They’re this great big windstorm that just hits like a tempest, then it’s gone. A quick, brutal hit. It’s perfect for how I want to fight!” Nina enthusiastically regaled me stories about derechos. They sounded neat, but I was just a little worried about her confession that she’d never seen one before.
I wanted to read more, and would probably check out some books once we got back home to Sanguino. Another part had me curious.
“An Immortal hideout?” I raised an eyebrow at Iona. She nodded.
“Yup. Feels like the one we found in Exterreri. Wanted you around before we checked it out. Want to come?”
With a pitch like that, there was no way I could say no.
“Brrrrrpt!!!” Auri sprinted off into the distance, wanting to be first in.
We all traded looks, and I sat down on a rock.
“We’re standing on it, aren’t we?”
“Yup.”
“How long until Auri figures it out?” I asked, and a brisk betting pool was set up.
Fifteen minutes later - Fenrir won - Auri was back, complaining how we were ‘so mean’ for not telling her sooner.
Iona showed us the way to a deep underground base, and it was frankly a little disappointing. I’d grown up on stories of trapped lairs and deadly dungeons. The reality was so much less fun.
Nobody wanted to live in a trapped environment. People were living there. Stepping on the wrong stone and getting peppered with a thousand darts was no fun. Same with maintaining the traps. Things rusted, levers broke, the cistern leaked.
People weren’t Pekari. We just strolled right in, [The World Around Me] revealing the occasional skipped corners in construction, but otherwise not finding any traps.
The other part to finding hidden lairs is if I wasn’t the first one there, there was nothing.
However, all that to say, I wasn’t going to ruin Nina’s fun, nor Auri’s. I zipped through the place, noting a disappointing lack of secret passages behind bookcases - or maybe the people who’d come through before had removed the bookcases, hard to tell - and finding only one very interesting item. It was so interesting I didn’t see the need to seed the place with little gems, old books, or other fun ‘loot’.
“Place is clear, have fun!” I told the two, and they were off like a shot.
Iona knew me. She gave me a look.
“Might want to poke your goddesses, there’s something really interesting here.” I quietly told her.
Her eyebrows went up, and she strode in through the door, her armor flowing around her.
Screams of excitement told me when the interesting item had been found, and I was there a few moments later.
There was a sword in a great slab of stone that extended far into the ground, one that gently radiated divine power. On the stone was an inscription.
Only the Worthy.
Iona’s mouth was moving in silent prayer as Nina and Auri were staring in open-mouthed shock.
“I’m pretty sure that’s a divine artifact.” I told them. “Not sure which god granted it, but hey, here it is.”
“Aelion, God of Valor.” Iona absently replied, her hand twitching towards it then stopping. “Selene and Lunaris really want it.”
She seemed to struggle internally for a moment before shaking her head.
“Why don’t you all see if you can use it first? They’re fine waiting, and it’s strong.”
If we could use it?
“BRRPT!” Auri had seen plenty of fighting, and the idea of having her own divine weapon seemed Just Right to her. A pair of [Mage Hands] wrapped themselves around the hilt, and started futilely pulling on the blade.
A ‘bead of sweat’ formed on Auri’s forehead - she was doing it herself, the brat - and more hands joined in. She started hovering higher and higher as she strained to pull the blade out, but nothing happened. One moment dozens of hands were trying to lift the sword, the next they all vanished as Auri ran out of mana, the little hummingbird collapsing to the ground. She kicked up some dust in frustration.
“Brrpt BRPT!”
Stupid sword, not even made out of fire, only good for…
“Mind if I give it a go?” I asked. Nina’s ear twitched at that, but Iona nodded.
I felt voices whispering in my ear as I put my hand on the sword, transmitting concepts instead of words. War and battle, valor and honor, all sorts of things I just didn’t like.
I gave it a few half-hearted tugs, noting that it should be loose but wasn’t. I shrugged.
“I’m clearly not worthy.” I joked. “Iona, want to see if you can brute force it?”
Iona grinned and cracked her knuckles.
“Oh yeah, you better believe I want to show the sword who’s boss.”
Iona started off casually trying to pull the sword out of the stone, seeing if it would cooperate. The gently radiating divine power took on an ugly note, fiercely rejecting the paladin of another goddess.
Iona narrowed her eyes at the blade.
“Fine then.”
She took a stance around the sword, her mallium metal flowing around her hands, arms, and the sword to get a fantastic grip. She wiggled, getting herself into the proper position, then heaved, her muscles bulging as she applied her full force, the veins in her neck popping out as she exerted herself.
The sword didn’t move.
Everything else did. The entire place shuddered, and the very foundation cracked under Iona’s pulls.
“Stop stop stop!” I yelled, waving my arms. “You’re going to bring the whole place down on us!”
Iona glared balefully at the sword, which seemed to be smug of all things. She gestured from Nina to the sword.
“Alright Nina, you’re up.”
The ginger kitsune took a stance near the sword and wrapped her hands around it, her nine tails fanning out in a circle around her. She suddenly looked regal, like a [Princess] or [Queen], and the little factoid that the Nippon-Koku ruling family had nine tails suddenly seemed really important.
She pulled.
The blade shifted a fraction of an inch.
With a triumphant roar, Nina pulled more…
… completely unbalancing herself and toppling over as the blade slid back down into its groove. Cursing and swearing, Nina picked herself back up, kicked the sword, and tried to pull it out with all her might.
Ten very embarrassing minutes later of Nina cursing, swearing, and pulling at the blade, and she called it quits. Iona hugged the tearful squire, patting her hair.
“Hey, hey, it’s alright.”
I smirked at the two.
“Iona’s about to get revenge on it, watch.” I said.
That cheered Nina right up.
“Yeah! Go kick its ass!” She yelled. I wasn’t sure if the blade trembled at that or not, and Iona grinned evilly and walked up to it, putting her hand on top of the pommel.
“Selene, Lunaris, by right of discovery, by right of possession, I dedicate this gift to you.”
The blade vanished in a sparkle of divine power.
Time went by, and while my eidetic memory let me perfectly memorize everything that was going on, when one day was just like the days around them, they all got lumped into the same book in [Astral Archives] and mostly forgotten about.
Three years. Three years we campaigned in the Han Empire, occasionally changing who we were contracted with, occasionally moving back to old generals and stomping grounds. The skirmishes were endless, and the pitched battles that were so great for levels were rare.
Throughout all of it, some scenes and events were burned into my mind, events I would never forget.
I was affectionately teasing Auri that she was in a ‘goth phase’.
She was going full-on black with her body flames. Gone was the colorful, bright and chirpy phoenix from Remus and the School. In were a dozen shades of black. Coal. Midnight. Ink and obsidian, sable and jet, soot and ash.
I was struggling to tell if Auri was genuinely sad, depressed, or down over everything going on in the Han empire, or if she was artistically exploring herself and different options. I tried to get her to open up about it, but she was strangely closed-off.
She was also playing with Inferno in other ways. Things burned nicely in the air, yes, but what about burning things underground? Melting rock and using that?
The Tears of Vulcan constantly erupting on the horizon was getting Auri thinking of Lava in all sorts of different ways, experimenting to see what the melting point of various types of rocks were, and if she could then throw them with her [Mage Hands], make them explode, and just generally fucking around and exploring her skills and abilities.
I approved.
“I’m always here for you, no matter what.” I told my goth friend. She nuzzled me back.
“Brrrpt!”
I was hanging out with Auri when a subtle scent hit my nose.
I was subconsciously parsing thousands upon thousands of scents every minute, trying to ignore the TMI. I didn’t want to know who was sleeping with whom. I didn’t want to know about poorly controlled diabetes. Please, spare me the details about a person’s last bath being three months ago when the rest of their line forcefully dunked them in a stream. I knew who wiped poorly and who wasn’t a complete savage.
Too. Much. Information.
I could destroy the Legion in a one-hour meeting, calling out everyone’s ‘secrets’. I had no social graces, no social skills, and had enough blackmail material thrice over to do it.
Broadly, I tried to ignore it all. When the smell of freshly cut grass hit my nose as a minor undercurrent though, I twitched, breaking off the conversation I had with Auri, letting the burning flower I was holding turn to ashes without paying attention.
“Brrrpt?” Auri asked, but I was distracted, sniffing deeply and suspiciously.
It was not freshly cut hay, and my mind spread out, checking the wind direction. I picked myself up in a flash.
“Never a dull moment. Come on, let’s go.” I told Auri, dashing over to the closest pair of guards patrolling the wall of the fort of the day.
“Announce a full Legion stand-up now.” I ordered them. The younger guard eyed me suspiciously.
“Who are-” He got two words out before the older guard smacked him over the head.
“At once, ah…” He trailed off awkwardly, recognizing me but not knowing how to address me.
“Bunny.” I winked at him. He saluted back.
“At once, Bunny.”
The stand-up call went out, but I didn’t go over there, instead choosing to intercept Katerina. She eyed me as I landed.
“This surprise yours?” She asked. My eyes flickered to her omnipresent followers, and I lowered my voice. They could probably still hear me, but the message of keep it quiet was probably transmitted.
I… I was getting better at this social thing. I had to run into every single fucking pole in existence between my starting line and where I was now, but I was getting it. Slowly building up an endless maze of rules that dictated how I navigated every interaction.
“Yes. I’m smelling ricin placed in the wells. I’m not sure how to handle a large-scale poisoning event like this, although I can try to track down the culprit. Just wanted everyone not drinking water while you sorted it out.”
I had to admit, ricin was a horribly effective poison to pick. The symptoms closely matched dysentery and other classical illnesses that ripped through armies. It wasn’t like people clutched their throat and foamed at the mouth, no. They just shit themselves to death, and with the rumors of an impending battle, it might ‘only’ weaken one side, not outright kill anyone. But kill three quarters of the combat effectiveness of an army right before a battle?
The battle would be over before it even started.
Katerina smiled and clapped her hand on my shoulder.
“Good work Bunny. Thank you for not making this a bigger mess. I’ll take it from here. Do you want Wren and his line if you manage to track down the culprit? Or are you set with your group?”
“Brrrpt!” Auri had a Target, a bundle of kindling that I wouldn’t object to her burning. A proper Bad Guy.
I knew Iona would go apoplectic at someone actively poisoning wells.
“We’ve got this.” I said.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to trace the culprit, her own skills at stealth and infiltration protecting her once again. The slippery target that had harried us now and then, managing to evade even Iona’s [Relentless Tracking].
Yang Duan He, The Lady of Death, had struck once again.
Struck - and missed, as I managed to smell the faintest trace of the poison before it could get to its lethal work.
Assassins were just rude. I woke up one evening to a half-dozen gnomes with empty crossbows in my tent, the clinking of half-dissolved bolts falling off me, and the echoes of a fading headache.
To their credit, they were professional. No screaming, just a terse codeword.
It was all they got out.
[Nova Lance] was faster than anything they could manage.
[*ding!* Congratulations! [The Dawn Sentinel] has leveled up to level 677 -> 678 +3 Dexterity, +24 Speed, +24 Vitality, +170 Mana, +170 Mana Regen, +48 Magic Power, +48 Magic Control from your Class per level! +1 Strength, +1 Dexterity, +1 Speed, +1 Vitality, +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regeneration, +1 Magic Power, +1 Magic Control for being Chimera (Elvenoid)! +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regen from your Element per level!]
[*ding!* Congratulations! [Butterfly Mystic] has leveled up to level 596 -> 598! +8 Strength, +8 Dexterity, +70 Speed, +70 Vitality, +70 Mana, +70 Mana Regen, +70 Magic Power, +70 Magic Control from your Class per level! +1 Dexterity, +1 Speed, +1 Vitality, +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regeneration, +1 Magic Power, +1 Magic Control for being Chimera (Elvenoid)! +1 Strength, +1 Mana Regen from your Element per level!]
“Ironside Brigade! Forward! March!” Katerina roared her orders, Reed amplifying them so we all heard what was going on. Katerina’s orders, what other people were saying, and nothing else, the Sound barrier around us protecting and preserving orders.
I was not happy with this engagement, to say the least. We were sieging a city. When it came to other people trying to murder my Legion, I was firmly on the side of the Legion. When it came to inarguable self-defense of the home and hearth?
I was once again conflicted.
The gates of the city flew open, a single man in colorful flowing pink robes sitting in front of a zither.
[Leader - 872].
Meng Ao’s clan member and relative Meng Tian wasn’t supposed to be here. The city wasn’t supposed to be held by the Qin. The man was famous for his cunning and tactics, deadly traps and maneuvers. If he was here, it was a trap.
The only question was, what was the trap?
His eyes were closed, and he plucked a single note on the zither. It twanged in the crisp morning air, utterly shattering all Sound-related protections the Ironside Brigade had. I could see everyone’s mouth’s moving, but couldn’t hear a word of what they were saying. The casual display of breaking our protections came with it an implied threat - he could mimic and fake as many orders as he wanted.
A second note rang out as the [Great General] began to play a tune. Faster and faster he played a song, and I could feel it. The marching army, the clashing battle, the song told a tale of waves crashing back and forth, triumph and despair. All while completely neutering dozens of Sound Classers in the Ironside Brigade alone, nevermind the hundreds in Wang Jian’s army.
His Sound manipulations weren’t deadly, nor did they stop our backup methods of communicating by flag and banner, a full halt being called. I clumsily ordered my line to stay put, and dashed back to Katerina and the rest of Command. Auri burning letters in the air was ironically one of our fastest methods of communication.
Via mime and pantomime, we came to the conclusion that, yes, it was a trap, but it was a double-layered trap. It looked too good to be true, trying to draw us in, but in reality we all knew Meng Tian had a reputation. He wanted us to think it was a trap, so the best move was to charge in and force him to reveal the army we had no intel or information existed in the area.
To be fair, Meng Tian had hidden entire armies before.
There was also brief wondering if Meng Tian was out for revenge. If he specifically wanted my head after I’d slain Meng Ao.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
A small cautionary force of a few dozen soldiers were ordered forward, a sacrifice from Wang Jian to see if he could bait out the trap. Meng Tian plucked a single high note on his zither, and the soldiers fell in half, cut cleanly head to toe.
No more prodding forces were sent.
We weren’t the ones to make the decision. Wang Jian’s [Messengers] made their way over with orders, and in a rare twist, a reasoning.
They believed Meng Tian was going a level further. He knew we’d see through the first layer of deception and believe a charge was correct, therefore, it wasn’t. The mind games were absurd.
We stared at the city in no small amount of frustration, and hidden relief on my end, before the banners finished transmitting the order to retreat.
We occasionally won a battle decisively enough to capture huge amounts of loot. Being mercenaries, we were in a weird position. We were bottom of the food chain socially and in many other ways, but the smart generals - of which Wang Jian was one of them - knew to pay us, and pay us well. The forms of payment got unusual at times, and my little book of memories of the innocent of the Han Civil War grew exponentially that day.
In a twist of convergent cultures, the Han had a tradition of metal wedding rings. Gold, as it was neutral to the innate metals of the dullahan, and the Tears of Vulcan produced trace amounts of it that didn’t get used in the vast war engine. They were common enough that only the poorest farmers couldn’t afford a band for their beloved.
Gold was common in jewelry, and occasionally used in coinage to make a pretty backdrop for the true value of the coin, the gem inside it. It was heavy, and not terribly easy to move around or sell, so Wang Jian ‘paid’ us with it at one point, after once again driving the eternal pest, Yang Duan He, away from one of her camps. The nimble raider gathered loot almost as quickly as she lost it.
Crates of wedding rings.
Crates upon crates of wedding rings. freewebn(o)vel.com
I hadn’t needed to say a word at the sheer scale of the atrocity. Katerina was just as pissed at the sheer disrespect needed to make such a grisly trophy, nevermind pay us with it. The Legata had murder in her eyes as she ordered Auri to melt it down before it even got through our gates, and from then on she explicitly asked for Auri to always hang around her.
“Just in case.”
Surprise visitors in my tent in the middle of the night was never a good thing.
Unless it was Iona sneaking in, wearing a wink, a finger to her lips, and nothing else.
Then surprise visitors in the middle of the night were great.
A pair of silver-masked Wardens appeared high in the sky. One had a cat-faced mask, the other had a dog on their mask. The magic and enchantments around it prevented me from seeing any true details about them, although they seemed to both be elves.
We were at Kun Ming, the Sealed Forbidden City, where we were located alongside a dozen other armies. How the hell we’d marched so far west outside the Wei territory, deep into the Chu, I’d never know. I did know we were trying to take control of the capital, and everyone and their brother had come out on three different sides. It was possibly the densest population of people in the entire empire.
Between the two of them they held a prisoner. An elf, beaten within an inch of his life, was limply hanging between the two of them. I started to slowly drift his way, sworn to heal everyone regardless of circumstances. Regardless of pissing off the Wardens, the powerful Immortal organization dedicated to deal with Immortals screwing around in mortal lands, to people violating the Treaty of Kyowa.
Like me.
Mostly like me. My age weighed on the scales, my accomplishments sorta doable by someone in ‘only’ a mortal lifespan. Barring the whole ‘creator of the Medical Manuscripts’ thing.
The prisoner was already inside my range of [Cosmic Presence], and I could already see his injuries fading, his eyelashes fluttering as life was slowly restored to his body. I wasn’t the only one noticing this, and the Wardens were no idiots.
“Aldaron has been found guilty of violating the sacred Treaty of Kyowa, building endless homes in his path.” The dog-faced Warden announced. “Immortals are not to interfere with the business of mortals.”
With that announcement, a pair of silver scimitars flashed, and Aldaron was turned into a thousand tiny chunks of flesh, the individual pieces so lightweight that the breeze scattered them across the watching armies.
Wren, of all people, threw his arm around my shoulder.
“Elaine,” He stressed my title and name. “This is deeply traumatizing and extremely troubling. Why don’t you lie down and rest?” He didn’t wait for my answer, steering me to the nearest tent.
It clicked half a second later what he was trying to do, and I went along with it.
If the Wardens properly caught sight of me, if they realized who I was and what I was doing, I’d get the same treatment of poor Aldaron, whose only crime seemed to be building houses for people.
The Ironside Brigade politely declined to participate in the siege any further, and quickly found ourselves a new employer.
Zhao She, again of the Wei. At least we weren’t branded as traitors? Tall and beautiful, she had long, light hair, tied into a high ponytail with blue eyes. Long blue robes with a fur collar completed her look, and I never saw her wearing anything else.
Like how I’d been taught, there was no honor in warfare. Artemis would approve of her philosophy that there was no such thing as an underhanded tactic. Rumors swirled that she regularly kidnapped family members of opposing armies, aiming for the vulnerable middle ranks. The [Great Generals] were close to immune, but not the 500-man and 1000-man leaders. Nobody would duel her, not after she ordered her army to open fire on an opposing general once she’d lured him out.
I found out the rumors were true.
We didn’t win all our battles, but thanks in part to my presence, we rarely had significant casualties.
There were countless gods and goddesses in the great pantheon. The big five - Life, Death, Change, Order, and Chaos, were the undisputed most powerful. A number of gods were fairly ‘big’ - Lunaris and Selene, goddesses of the moons, were in the second tier of divinity and power. The third tier was the most populated, filled with gods of minor aspects.
A minor god was still powerful. The god called down on the Formorians was a ‘minor’ deity.
What went around comes around, and I found my throat going dry one day as the sky split above us.
“Retreat in good order!” Katerina immediately ordered. “Prepare for impact!”
The tranquil sky twisted into a vortex of deep purples and angry blues, and Katerina’s [Shadow Legion] grew and became more defined. The crimson glowing split in the sky enlarged, a zipper revealing the realm of the gods. A pair of burning yellow eyes stared at us with pure hatred, nothing like Lun’Kat’s indifferent gaze. With a deafening roar, blinding arcs of lightning and fire descended upon us, the ground heaved, and the world turned to chaos.
That was on the edges of the main event, the wrath of god utterly scouring the land.
Broken and battered, we retreated, hunkering far down in enemy territory. We almost left the Han Empire in its entirety and returned home, but the Wei were desperate for troops, while having recently won a great victory at the Tears of Vulcan. Flush with fresh armor and weapons, eager to have experienced troops to wear it, Katerina negotiated one hell of a deal.
We continued.
“Elaine Elaine Elaine! We found an Immortal cache! We met Sigrun! She’s so cool! She’s got this HUGE dinosaur, and she just goes zap like that and…” Nina was excitedly bouncing around me as I landed next to the pair. She’d grown up in the three years here, and I privately thought that spending her formative years in a war zone was going to be terrible for her mental health.
It was far better to spend formative teenage years with a merry band of government sanctioned Rangers, solving problems via excessive violence, then pushing oneself to their utter mental limits while surrounded by much older Ranger candidates.
… yeah I didn’t have a leg to stand on when it came to criticizing upbringings.
“... and she said I was good enough for the Order! Good enough to become a fully fledged Valkyrie!”
All of it was interesting, and I wanted to know more.
“Sigrun? The… head of the Valkyrie Order? That Sigrun?” I asked the two.
Iona nodded.
“Wanted to talk with you about that as well.” She said. “Turns out our home is the only semi-permanent structure in the Order, with everyone else taking the ‘wandering’ part a little more seriously. I said it would be a fine place to drop mail off, since getting in touch with each other would otherwise be impossible. Hope you don’t mind?”
“A bunch of heavily armed warriors stomping around can only be good for security!” I joked. “Yeah, sure. We discussed how our home might end up being a center for the new Order, mail just sounds like the first step.”
Ah, right! Emotions! People! Big accomplishments called for recognition and praise!
“Nina! Congratulations! Are you waiting for anything in particular to class up? You were going to merge your two 256 classes into Storm and grab Mirage, is that still the plan?”
Nina bounced up and down in her enthusiasm.
“Yeah! We’ve been looking, and I think I want to model myself after a derecho!”
I scrunched up my eyebrows, unfamiliar with the term, but familiar with the idea of having an ‘elemental theme’. [Butterfly Mystic] was heavily involved with sunlight themes, for example, while [The Dawn Sentinel] didn’t quite land on any one idea. A minor thematic narrowing could result in more power, and I was all for it.
“Derecho?” I asked.
“They’re super cool! Super rare! They’re this great big windstorm that just hits like a tempest, then it’s gone. A quick, brutal hit. It’s perfect for how I want to fight!” Nina enthusiastically regaled me stories about derechos. They sounded neat, but I was just a little worried about her confession that she’d never seen one before.
I wanted to read more, and would probably check out some books once we got back home to Sanguino. Another part had me curious.
“An Immortal hideout?” I raised an eyebrow at Iona. She nodded.
“Yup. Feels like the one we found in Exterreri. Wanted you around before we checked it out. Want to come?”
With a pitch like that, there was no way I could say no.
“Brrrrrpt!!!” Auri sprinted off into the distance, wanting to be first in.
We all traded looks, and I sat down on a rock.
“We’re standing on it, aren’t we?”
“Yup.”
“How long until Auri figures it out?” I asked, and a brisk betting pool was set up.
Fifteen minutes later - Fenrir won - Auri was back, complaining how we were ‘so mean’ for not telling her sooner.
Iona showed us the way to a deep underground base, and it was frankly a little disappointing. I’d grown up on stories of trapped lairs and deadly dungeons. The reality was so much less fun.
Nobody wanted to live in a trapped environment. People were living there. Stepping on the wrong stone and getting peppered with a thousand darts was no fun. Same with maintaining the traps. Things rusted, levers broke, the cistern leaked.
People weren’t Pekari. We just strolled right in, [The World Around Me] revealing the occasional skipped corners in construction, but otherwise not finding any traps.
The other part to finding hidden lairs is if I wasn’t the first one there, there was nothing.
However, all that to say, I wasn’t going to ruin Nina’s fun, nor Auri’s. I zipped through the place, noting a disappointing lack of secret passages behind bookcases - or maybe the people who’d come through before had removed the bookcases, hard to tell - and finding only one very interesting item. It was so interesting I didn’t see the need to seed the place with little gems, old books, or other fun ‘loot’.
“Place is clear, have fun!” I told the two, and they were off like a shot.
Iona knew me. She gave me a look.
“Might want to poke your goddesses, there’s something really interesting here.” I quietly told her.
Her eyebrows went up, and she strode in through the door, her armor flowing around her.
Screams of excitement told me when the interesting item had been found, and I was there a few moments later.
There was a sword in a great slab of stone that extended far into the ground, one that gently radiated divine power. On the stone was an inscription.
Only the Worthy.
Iona’s mouth was moving in silent prayer as Nina and Auri were staring in open-mouthed shock.
“I’m pretty sure that’s a divine artifact.” I told them. “Not sure which god granted it, but hey, here it is.”
“Aelion, God of Valor.” Iona absently replied, her hand twitching towards it then stopping. “Selene and Lunaris really want it.”
She seemed to struggle internally for a moment before shaking her head.
“Why don’t you all see if you can use it first? They’re fine waiting, and it’s strong.”
If we could use it?
“BRRPT!” Auri had seen plenty of fighting, and the idea of having her own divine weapon seemed Just Right to her. A pair of [Mage Hands] wrapped themselves around the hilt, and started futilely pulling on the blade.
A ‘bead of sweat’ formed on Auri’s forehead - she was doing it herself, the brat - and more hands joined in. She started hovering higher and higher as she strained to pull the blade out, but nothing happened. One moment dozens of hands were trying to lift the sword, the next they all vanished as Auri ran out of mana, the little hummingbird collapsing to the ground. She kicked up some dust in frustration.
“Brrpt BRPT!”
Stupid sword, not even made out of fire, only good for…
“Mind if I give it a go?” I asked. Nina’s ear twitched at that, but Iona nodded.
I felt voices whispering in my ear as I put my hand on the sword, transmitting concepts instead of words. War and battle, valor and honor, all sorts of things I just didn’t like.
I gave it a few half-hearted tugs, noting that it should be loose but wasn’t. I shrugged.
“I’m clearly not worthy.” I joked. “Iona, want to see if you can brute force it?”
Iona grinned and cracked her knuckles.
“Oh yeah, you better believe I want to show the sword who’s boss.”
Iona started off casually trying to pull the sword out of the stone, seeing if it would cooperate. The gently radiating divine power took on an ugly note, fiercely rejecting the paladin of another goddess.
Iona narrowed her eyes at the blade.
“Fine then.”
She took a stance around the sword, her mallium metal flowing around her hands, arms, and the sword to get a fantastic grip. She wiggled, getting herself into the proper position, then heaved, her muscles bulging as she applied her full force, the veins in her neck popping out as she exerted herself.
The sword didn’t move.
Everything else did. The entire place shuddered, and the very foundation cracked under Iona’s pulls.
“Stop stop stop!” I yelled, waving my arms. “You’re going to bring the whole place down on us!”
Iona glared balefully at the sword, which seemed to be smug of all things. She gestured from Nina to the sword.
“Alright Nina, you’re up.”
The ginger kitsune took a stance near the sword and wrapped her hands around it, her nine tails fanning out in a circle around her. She suddenly looked regal, like a [Princess] or [Queen], and the little factoid that the Nippon-Koku ruling family had nine tails suddenly seemed really important.
She pulled.
The blade shifted a fraction of an inch.
With a triumphant roar, Nina pulled more…
… completely unbalancing herself and toppling over as the blade slid back down into its groove. Cursing and swearing, Nina picked herself back up, kicked the sword, and tried to pull it out with all her might.
Ten very embarrassing minutes later of Nina cursing, swearing, and pulling at the blade, and she called it quits. Iona hugged the tearful squire, patting her hair.
“Hey, hey, it’s alright.”
I smirked at the two.
“Iona’s about to get revenge on it, watch.” I said.
That cheered Nina right up.
“Yeah! Go kick its ass!” She yelled. I wasn’t sure if the blade trembled at that or not, and Iona grinned evilly and walked up to it, putting her hand on top of the pommel.
“Selene, Lunaris, by right of discovery, by right of possession, I dedicate this gift to you.”
The blade vanished in a sparkle of divine power.
