Familiar: Part 3

Until her attack was revealed, though, I didn't even know how to prepare. Now I had to remember what I'd been doing before Ryne showed up…making the core. So what did it do? I studied it as closely as I could, but the language was one I couldn't read. The stone didn't look like stone. It looked like a block of frozen blood with black bone parasites swimming in it that happened to make word-like shapes. It was a cube, but something about it seemed off. The color was too organic to be such a rigid shape. My magic probe was hurled back with enough force to knock me off my feet so thoroughly it took me several minutes to find them again. Maybe it would like me better if I touched it. It had rejected WWO, but Ryne had put it there for me. If I couldn't use it, then what was the point?

I had to steel myself before I touched it. The thing had already rejected me once and it rejected WWO so hard she actually moved. I wasn't sure I could replicate that level of force. How much force would you even need to push a world? My first two attempts ended in me dancing backwards after coming within an inch of the surface. Finally I just rushed it and my finger touched the surface before I could change my trajectory. It felt like blood, not solid at all. It rippled in reaction to my touch. The ripple became a full wave as I danced back to wait for a rejection that would destroy me.

It didn't release a pulse of energy or a blast of force or any form of retribution. Instead, it molded itself into a throne. A simplistic design, just a hefty chair with solid arms and a tall back, but it was clearly a throne for some dark lord. Well, I wouldn't accomplish anything by looking at it.

I sat on it and felt the power as it accepted me as the ruler of Zezhria. The flux of power was more than I'd been expecting. I'd thought it would pull out half of the power of the other keeps so the leftover would return to the previous owners, but it was the whole value. Every city I'd built had a keep by now. I had over twenty keeps feeding their power into this throne. Two million times my base power. The effect of that was multiplicative with the keep of Zezhria, making it a total of two billion times the base power of me before my abilities and weapons acted on it. I could level my entire empire if I wanted. I could obliterate mountains and raise valleys into the sky. Hell would fall before me like chaff!

I activated my new spell and returned to the throne room. Edge was waiting for me. Convenient. Questionable, though. Why was she still here? I'd been gone for a while. Over a year, and she was still here? Was it a coincidence, or had she waited in the room the whole time? I silently asked the skeletal servant at her side and realized she'd never left the room. And her mask was off. Another oddity. "Father." She was hesitating. She took time to bow before she continued. Every word seemed to be drawn out of her one at a time. "I suspect Mother is planning to betray you."

That was interesting. It was also interesting timing. I'd just realized she had the power to prove an effective enemy. Less effective than I'd originally thought, WWO had a point when she told me that nobody else had the avatar spell. Her and Hell pulling out would definitely decrease my power, but not to the point of only owning Zezhria. I would need to commission more cities for the the Os'Minog, Tyderun, and Nagae, but my biggest concern was currently WWO and her plan. Could the two be connected? No, I'd suspected Edge knew a secret before WWO decided I wasn't her friend anymore. And she hadn't left this room. Though…teaching Lethe and Hell where their cores were and helping them rebel at exactly the wrong time would be easy for her to accomplish. "A harsh accusation. I assume you have evidence of some sort."

Edge pulled some items out of her inventory. The first was a draft poster. The sigil wasn't mine. Nor was "Queen Lethe calls her loyal forces to war!" conducive to the rule of my empire. I used a remote viewing spell to make sure Edge hadn't created it herself, and found the posters in every pixy city as well as my elven cities. She wasn't brazen enough to put it up in Zezhria, though. "This is just one poster I stole from her empire. I have also witnessed her conversing with Hell about you."

The second item she pulled from her inventory was a scrying crystal. When she held it up, the crystal lit up and played a video recording.

Hell was sitting on a throne in his great hall. Lethe appeared at his shoulder. Both myself and Edge could see hidden Shadows, but the recording was from someone who didn't have that skill. "I know you're there, Lethe. You've been watching me for days." Hell slammed his ax into the floor with enough force to shake the watcher's footing. "Does my best friend trust me so little that he'd have you watch me? Hasn't bothered so much as a 'hello' since you gave him kids, but damn he's getting cold."

"I'm not here for Void. Of that you can be sure. I have a…" she suddenly noticed the watcher and acted with lethal force. The video showed the spinning point of view of a severed head for a few seconds before it hit the ground and cut out.

"That was from an informant I trust. I have several tailing Mother, and all of them lost her a few hours before this and found her again a day later. I confronted her, looking for a reasonable explanation to all of this. Her response was…telling." She held up another video crystal. This one glowed with power, showing that the recorder was much more significant a being than the last one.

"You're consorting with Hell!" Edge screamed like she was out of control with rage, but I could sense the control behind it. This was all an act to make Lethe think Edge was incompetent. If I could tell, Lethe definitely could as well. "My spies saw you!" she brought out the same crystal she'd just used on me.

Lethe shoved Edge into the wall. "You doubt my loyalty? You? Offspring should know their place!" she turned and walked away. Until they got the message that I was looking for them. Lethe turned on Edge, digging a dagger into her throat. "Speak one word of this to Void, and you won't survive to see the sky again! I'm perfectly willing to waste an hour every day cutting your body to pieces before it can reform!" Interesting. I hadn't even figured out how often players reformed or how much I'd need to kill them to keep them dead despite the temple resurrection. Apparently she knew the exact numbers.

The words were vicious, but the tone was saturated with terror. I could understand that. She'd watched me respond to betrayal plenty of times. Which response had made her terrified of it, though? Could it be as recent as Oblivion? Some random traitor between then and now? Or perhaps…B…whatever his name was. The first one. If so, then her act had been an act since the beginning.

The memory continued until they reached the throne room. "I have a couple of questions for you. First, why were you following your mother?" If there was a reason behind the tracking, there could be more evidence. She wasn't pulling out any more items, though.

"She seemed like an easy target. She mostly wandered around the keep. I trained my spies to watch her. When they got better, I had them start to tail her agents. That is almost all of my organization, watching mother's organization. The way I see it, you have your own spy network for the rest of the world, Mother is watching your empire, so I should watch the spies. I don't know who you have working for you, so I could only work on Mother. And Hell. I also have a few tailing that Oracle pixy and your elven commander, but both of them are above reproach, as far as I can tell. They haven't torn down Lethe's posters, but my informants tell me that the posters make them uncomfortable. Her network has also assassinated several local leaders that were loyal to you. Outspokenly loyal to you, actually. That was what started my suspicion. I investigated them for secretly plotting against you, but I haven't found a single npc that isn't loyal to you. That is why over half of my organization are npcs. Anyway, the informants watching Hell and some of her more powerful agents noticed that they would meet in the markets or barracks abnormally often. They didn't dare get close enough to hear what was said, but there is no doubt that they were meeting on purpose." She'd put a great deal of thought into this. If it wasn't real, I had to give her credit for being so damn creative. It was actually believable. Especially if she used npc spies. That was how Vyktor was so insidious everywhere, because players didn't think npcs were really paying attention to what they were saying. Lethe would be an exception, but her agents probably wouldn't be in on it unless they were part of her inner circle that knew they were all secretly traitors.

"How did you connect Lethe to the actions of her agents? Any organization that grows past a certain point can have small rebellions by the greedy or ambitious." That was always the hardest part. Getting the low-level lackeys to confess was easy. The higher up the chain you went, the harder it was to connect the dots indisputably. I needed a very weighty claim to turn me against Lethe. Hopefully, Edge didn't have anything that would directly tie Lethe to this plot. If it was a plot. So far, all it proved was that Lethe's agents were working with Hell. That didn't prove disloyalty on any count. The posters were the hardest bit to explain, so far. Even if she couldn't find dirt on "loyal" npcs, by virtue of rulership I was obligated to have enemies willing to pay assassins. I wasn't sure what form that would take in a population filled with loyalists and vassals.

Edge shuffled her feet for a while before I realized she had no plans to talk. The odd part was that she was showing signs of being nervous. She'd never done that before. I imagined that if I'd been able to see her face, she'd be blushing. It was interesting, watching Dark Elves blush. It wasn't that the skin darkened, it was more that the shade of black went from a darkened white to a darkened red. If there was a light behind the ears, that made the difference even more pronounced. She finally stopped fidgeting and faced me directly. It seemed a bit like she was steeling herself for something. "She's fucking several of them. I verified it myself. Between moans, I could make out whispered orders. I didn't record that because I thought you would be…irate enough to strike the messenger if you saw it in progress."

On a certain level, she was right. Fury was boiling through me like my blood had become lava. "Did you ever see her fucking Hell?" she shook her head and backed away two steps at the same time. I hadn't realized it, but the storm had overcome most of my body. My voice had been altered by the fury to the point that it barely sounded organic, let alone human. With all the rage going through me, though, there was a part of me that stood back and watched myself burn. I could see the anger, and what caused it. I could see what I wanted to do. I could see what I was going to do, and why it wasn't smart. I could even see the possibility that all of this was Edge manipulating me into attacking Lethe so she could replace her mother. She hadn't shown a single sign that she didn't want to be Empress Edge and there could be books written about all of her hints that she would enjoy the job. The problem with hints, though, is they're easily accidental, having no meaning whatsoever, and even more easily misinterpreted even if there is real meaning.

I needed to cool off before I confronted Lethe. I couldn't go at her like a storm of rage and expect to glean the truth from her responses. She had to believe that I had no idea what she was up to when I asked her if she had betrayed me. I needed an honest reaction. I teleported to Vyktor. He was good at calming me down. For the most part. He was training some npcs in a barren wasteland. Most of them were orcs, so I didn't need to guess where we were. "I have a problem, Vyktor."

"I heard the war was scheduled. That is definitely a problem that would deserve your attention, my Lord, but why have you come in person?" that was the purpose of the animate shadow spell, after all. This had to be in person, though. I didn't think I could stop my shadow from reacting to the pure emotion if I allowed it to be a conduit at the moment. "Do you not already have a plan to surmount the problem of conquering them? What would possess you to seek my aid in person?"

"Have you heard anything about a rebellion from high-ranking members of my guild?" Vyktor's eyes reacted as if his flesh wanted to go pale despite the fact that his undead flesh had no tone anyway. "I take that as confirmation. Who are they?" if he told me that there were more willing to betray me than just Hell and Lethe, I'd obliterate the entirety of the player base in my empire and rule the npcs and monsters instead. I didn't need players when I could have familiars. Tenuous bond or no, it was something. Something concrete, even if I wasn't sure how hard that concrete was.

"Your lieutenants, sire. I'm afraid that the armies gathering outside of Hill and Shaltyr are led by players that owe you homage in name only. Their loyalty is to the local rulers. The higher the rank, the greater the care they exercise in controlling who they talk to and what they say, but the grunts hold no qualms about openly calling you a tyrant, murderer, evil, or despot. They also speak openly of rebellion, and their leaders don't punish them for this at all. I haven't been able to connect either of them directly to the rebellious elements, but the people they allow into their inner circles consist of those that allow rebels into their inner circles almost exclusively. I do not see this as an accident. I was hoping for proof of their involvement before bringing it to your attention, your Majesty, but it seems I waited too long." So they were building an army. It was a good opportunity to attack. I would leave my keeps behind when I assaulted Hell. Many of my pets would die as we fought our way deeper, leaving a train of pets rushing to catch up to the main force. The players would die as well, but Hell and Lethe were in charge of seeing who among their forces would lead the charge. There were probably loyal elements that they wanted dead to leave as open a process as possible. If I had to guess, the rebellion would happen immediately following the defeat of the demon lord in the deepest city. Before I could claim the throne of Hell, they would attack me with their forces. If I died there, it wouldn't be hard for Lethe and Hell to teleport directly to my throne to drive a sword through me as I regenerated from death. Teleportation was significantly faster than regeneration and there would never be a better chance. I'd even told them that after gaining the Crown of Hell I'd be able to increase my level even further. I'd given them a deadline.

That's where and how I would do it, anyway. It was the weakest I would be in the foreseeable future. Now the question was if I would let their rebellion go on according to plan and simply obliterate them, or would I destroy it before it threatened my conquering of Hell? The problem was with WWO. If she decided to assault my real body with an army of uber-monsters…I would need to be there in person to repel them. If I could repel them. If she decided to instead attack with Hell marching up now and assaulting my empire before I reached them, it could stagnate into a mire of battle in whatever passage led from the goblin kingdom to Hell.

Something snapped in me as I realized that Lethe had truly betrayed me. My fury dissipated like it had never been. Rage was useless in the face of betrayal. Merciless reciprocation was the only option. I wouldn't let my anger make me merciful.

I returned to Edge. My fury had been controlled by logic, as it should be. I released my rage into the atmosphere as I realized what I had to do. Their calculations were off. If their plan was different from what I'd just realized, then I would confront it after Hell had fallen. If it was, I had the power to obliterate them. If not, I just needed more loyal keeps. I could obliterate every player in the game now. Ryne had said that there were those that could challenge me. I knew the power I'd unleashed against Bonehead when he was alive. Uber-monsters were more powerful than any single player could ever become, that was the balance of the game. I could unleash more power than had been required to bring down an adult dragon without any preparation whatsoever in less time than it would take one to breathe in. I had to remain wary of an army of uber-monsters attacking Zezhria, but that was exponentially more power than all of the pixies and orcs combined could bring to bear. Lethe and Hell could unite to bring me down, but I would destroy them. The problem would be hiding my new power as I tore through Hell. If Lethe learned of it, she would know she wouldn't be able to win. It would force her to return to the false loyalty that drove her to bear my children. Then I'd have to wait for a long time, possibly millennia, as she decided how and when to strike to know for sure that she would. Maybe she'd maintain the illusion forever. So long as I was around she could never feel safe claiming her crown as her own. So long as I was invincible, I would always be around.

"What actions have you taken to supplant your mother apart from the confrontation you showed me?" Edge shook her head. She hadn't set anything in motion before she confronted Lethe? Perhaps I'd put too much trust in her. "Really? You confronted her with no plan to overthrow her on your own? What if I didn't believe you?"

"I had to trust your wisdom, Father. If you didn't believe my claims, then I would be destroyed for the audacity to accuse your Empress of disloyalty. Any plan I could lay would crumble to dust as you approached. My subjects are only loyal to me because of my loyalty to you. Acting against you is impossible for me." I would have thought that was true before I realized that Lethe could use my npc vassals to attack my other npc vassals as long as she had disloyal players telling them to do it while belonging to my guild. Vassals weren't usually under my direct control so they couldn't discern my plans to know if what they were doing was actually disloyalty. My pets would never fall for such a ploy, but the npcs could be used against me by a clever foe. Never directly, but they could undermine my power structure enough to strike on their own. "What will you do? How will you destroy her?"

"I won't." Edge gaped at me. Did she think I was allowing feelings to get in the way? Naïve girl. "She will rebel, but she doesn't know enough to win. Any damage she does will be repaired in days. The npc armies can't fight me directly, so she only has players to work with. I will not fall. You will return here after the first confrontation with open war against Hell. Down there it will be me against them alone. I will conquer all that are disloyal." I really needed an infallible way to maintain loyalty. I didn't want to make the three remaining children I had into familiars, though. Even with Delfina and Shyndyn, I could feel…something. Like I was a chain around their necks. Their growth was limited by mine, their growth was forced into a mirror of my own. I didn't want that for my children. I needed another option.

I did need to protect Edge, though. Lethe would know she talked to me after abandoning all of her duties for a year to sit in my throne room. She would have to assume that Edge was talking to me and hiding in the keep to avoid the wrath of her Mother. Damn! That meant I needed to confront Lethe and be convinced that she was still loyal before we descended into Hell so she would think I didn't believe Edge. But that would mean I needed to kill Edge for the perceived deception. Lethe would require it as proof that she had been successful in pulling the wool over my eyes that would assure her that the plan didn't need to change. If they knew I knew their plan, they would assume I'd have a reserve force waiting at the final gates of Hell and wouldn't attack then. That would turn their attention to any battle between the conglomeration of the forces of Hell and the final battle. Keeping my guard high enough to survive a coup during that entire time would be more difficult than I felt it would be worth it.

Now I needed a way to make Lethe think I'd killed Edge when I didn't actually do it. I also needed a way to let Phyx and Htaed experience the same thing when they were disposed of to avoid Lethe's coup. I couldn't imagine she would allow her children to live when they were living reminders that she wasn't the true ruler of my empire. Or maybe she saw them as too corrupted by me. Sins of the father, and all that.

All three of my children needed to die without dying. Unless they were part of the coup as well. Edge was less viable an option because she'd brought it to my attention, but the other two weren't cleared. Which brought the sudden acceptance of Phyx. Lethe had hated her attire the last time I cared to notice. When had she stopped? Was it because she'd accepted that she would need to kill Phyx to supplant me or because Phyx had agreed to help bring me down? Was there a third option?

Before I could do anything else, I needed to kill Edge. I also needed her reaction to be real, so Lethe would believe it. I called to Lethe on the chat system as I prepared the spells and wove them into the stone at my feet so there wouldn't be any mana leakage or activation flashes. It was interesting to me that I could feel the magic intrinsically as the spells took effect. I didn't even need to add rings of illusion to keep the activation secret from Edge. Spells were becoming less effective as I became used to manipulating the magic directly. The amount of time I spent holding them in reserve probably helped that. I didn't even think of magic in terms of rings anymore.

As Lethe entered the keep, I realized that my keep passive didn't apply to her. It couldn't apply to her now that the keep core was active. She would gain the benefit from the core at Shaltyr when she activated it. If she ever found it. Which brought the question of where the cores were. I doubted each keep would have a special underground lair dug out and warded to protect the ruler in it. Where else would the core appear? I would need to find the core after I killed Lethe. "Your precious daughter has claimed you're an enemy of mine, my dear wife. She says you plan to destroy me. What's your reaction?"

Lethe's real reaction was cold. No anger burned in her eyes. No rage poured from her. She'd already accepted that Edge was her enemy. "I couldn't expect anything else from the daughter that wants your cock more than breath. What's my plan, in this dark lie?"

Edge was in a very defensive posture as she backed away from me. Betrayal was clear in her eyes as she looked at me. It was a good thing she'd taken off her mask to be more convincing, as it definitely worked on Lethe. As real as her feeling of betrayal was, she'd get over it. Or die when it finally became too much for her to handle. I found that the prospect didn't distress me nearly as much as Lethe's betrayal had. Perhaps it was the fact that I still thought of her as a digital child while Lethe was a human that had lived in my world previous to this one. It didn't really matter, though. I'd overcome that curse of Urt eventually. This was breaking half of the curse, it was up to Edge to break the other. The old world was over. It was inferior in every way, and nothing would make me see it differently. I felt something else snap within me as I realized that I wasn't any more human than Edge had ever been. We weren't humans. We were elves. Ancient. Immortal. Our perspectives should not and would not align with human ones. Edge's work had just gotten a lot easier, if it was indeed her work to do.

"She never knew. All she knew was that you were 'consorting' with Hell. As if I didn't know that already. His loyalty has been in question since day one. If you weren't watching him closely, that would be very suspicious. I'm thinking the death penalty." I almost sniggered at the use of an antiquated phrase. What other penalty meant anything? I wrenched the guild sigil from Edge as I stepped toward her. Lethe didn't try to stop me. All of my hidden spells activated as I drove my blade into Edge's heart. She screamed and clawed at me for a few seconds before going limp, impaled on the blade longer than she was tall. Her gear's quality was the only reason her weight didn't drive her to the ground in two pieces. I left the blade in her as I dropped it, letting her fall to the ground to bleed on the pristine black stone.

Confirmation came as I stared at her limp body. I told the skeleton next to Lethe to confirm it verbally. "Master, the army is ready. The time has come to let blood flow!"

I nodded and activated a spell to return the massive blade to my hand as I teleported to Barricade. The Obsidiate city was growing quickly. Their natural ability to manipulate stone helped, undoubtedly. It looked like a field of stalagmites had grown out of the earth. Except for the bank, of course. It was similar to the spire-ridden skyline of Zezhria, but the spires were wider, more natural. Less menacing, in my opinion. The stone was also a natural shade of gray instead of the pure black of Zezhria. It worked better to hide the bank, since it was also a featureless gray. The Obsidiates themselves seemed to blend into their homes, not even wearing clothes that contrasted with the stone. Their natural black…outer layer was the only part that seemed to contrast sharply with the surrounding stone. I could already see the signs that subspecies were coming, though. Here there was a slash of dark sandstone across a face, there a shoulder looked more like shale than granite. I saw one that had an outer layer that was pitted and dull like basalt. So far, it was all black. That would change. Unfortunately. Maybe their city would grow to look similar, layer upon layer of differently colored stone turning the stalagmites into a dull version of a rainbow. I wouldn't be surprised. Stone had too many colors to remain black for long.

The most beautiful part of the city by far, though, was the army that filled it. My pets were everywhere. They were easily distinguished from the npcs as well. Their armor was beautifully crafted. Each monster looked like a raid boss. Their power mixed with the bonuses on the armor itself made them nearly as powerful as max-level players without mythic gear. The npcs wore all sorts of armor ranging from broken quality to legendary, but I saw nothing that brought to mind a mythic piece of gear. The numbers were astounding, though. I knew I'd allowed volunteers to populate the army, so I was surprised that so many showed up. Npcs didn't respawn like players or my pets. They would probably all die in this war, but they'd volunteered anyway. I had to give them respect for that. And congratulations to Wuw'Oh on her coming feast.

Another source of pride for me was the third army; players. They were all equipped with legendary or better gear, and the effects compounded each other to turn their army into a whirling mass of color. I grinned behind my helmet as I realized it was time to start a real war. This was what I loved the game for in the first place. Even the concept of having the ability to conquer other cities had sucked me in, and now I was about to start the greatest war in the history if this world. "You ready to go to war?" the cacophonous response left no doubt. And not all of it came from the soul slaves in the npc and pet armies. Maybe players could become another, more versatile, arm of my empire. Maybe they weren't all loyal to Hell and Lethe. "Let's burn Hell to ashes!" I wasn't good at rousing speeches, but this crowd didn't seem to care. The gaping maw of the earth that stood before me didn't know what it was going to allow passage to.