Chapter 24
* Third person point of view *
"This emblem must have a greater meaning... although surely with time it will be revealed as it has been until now, although I still find his comment confusing about an Aeldari using the Aquila being a heresy... What is an Aeldari?" In her hand appears a necklace with the same emblem and Epianne begins to study it carefully, something she has already done many times trying to reveal its secrets.
'Master did not want to talk much about the emblem, arguing that he only chose it at random, although among all the historical knowledge we have I have not been able to find which empire it belonged to. Something completely rare, since Master has an enormous amount of knowledge about it...' Giving up again, she keeps the emblem, which is actually not the only one since some armors or necklaces come with other emblems, dragons, wolves, cities, skulls...
'When Master told us that he was in Payon, five months ago, we immediately sent half of the order to try to help him, but when we arrived we found out that a Sniper had stopped an invasion of the undead, with minimal damage to the city, we began to help too and when people recognized our emblems, they knew who to thank. We were happy that we could finally help our Master, so we informed them that we were the Order of Geffen under the command of Leonhard Hauser.
In the following months, we began to have many people in our ranks, and the prestige of our Master and order was recognized. at first everything was going well, but as we continued recruit more adventurers, the first divisions in the order began. We didn't notice anything unusual at first, since we spent most of the day studying and waiting for news of our Master to send an expedition to help him.'
"When we realized, almost 4 months later, it was already too late, the order was divided into 4 groups, included us." Epianne closes her eyes as the breeze comes down from the mountains bringing a damp smell, the clouds over the mountains are black, signs of a coming storm.
'The first group, the magicians with the most members who sought to be under the command of Geffen. According to the information that Lilinaya collected, they had been sent by Zanzibar Hellmod, something that did not surprise us.
The next ones, the nobles who want to accumulate power for themselves, laughing at luxuries and extravagance, or at least that's what they seemed, because to our surprise Nysynea and Victoria managed to identify one of their members going to Prontera and following him they discovered Herman von Efesiers the captain of the Prontera Chivalry, the little they managed to hear was that they were providing information to the King. After that they infiltrated the palace they discovered that the King was upset with the achievements of our order.
They obtained a lot of information about what was happening, apparently the fact that we sent our order to help before the news even reached Prontera had caused discomfort, reaching the point that they even blamed us for several of the events, luckily several Archdukes defended us, apparently our Master managed to make friends with some of them.'
"Even so we couldn't hide our disappointment with the king's accusations." Epianne looks at her hands, then looks up at Prontera, she will never be able to see the city the way it was before and she will never believe the lies of its ruler again. The fact that even her father gave her a little warning when they finally met shows just how precarious the situation had become at the time.
'So we secretly began to prepare for a break with the kingdom, our master had promised us, he would even fight against the kingdom for us and we would do the same for him. Although after starting to work on it we discovered that it was already done, our Master had already predicted that this would happen and several of the projects that he did since he took the castle, which we didn't understand, made sense if we had to fight against Prontera. There is no doubt our Master is the god of war.
The last group and the one with the fewest members, the saints, representing the church, unlike the others we could not find much information about who they work with no matter how much we investigate, but they clearly reflected the decline of the Odin Orthodoxy, In addition to being the people who criticized us the most within the order, arguing that a woman could not be in charge and we had to invent a man so that we could have control.'
"Some of its members even approached us and wanted to isolate us from the rest, how could we be so blind and not understand what they really wanted?" Looking one last time at Prontera, she turned around and went back into the library, seeing how the other girls began to clean the books, approaching them to help.
'A lot happened during that half month. The way in which we discovered the extent of the betrayal was humiliating, Arldana lost her right to command the order, with laws that we didn't even know or approved, and when Arldana was removed from seat they immediately fought to see who would be the Master.... That's when our Master came back after not hearing anything from him in the last month.
The meeting place is a huge room with a circular table in the center, representing that we are all equal or at least that was what our Master wanted, also the meetings are open to all members of the order, but even that was discarded by these people, placing a throne in place of the chair that was there previously.
Our Master immediately and without even removing the mud from his boots entered the meeting room, those present immediately began to try suppress him, but we clearly saw how the guards, members who were released by our Master from the kobolds, recognized him and they began to tremble, they were also part of the forces that oppose us. And without looking at anyone, he walked to the new Grand Master's throne, pausing, observing it a bit and then sitting on it.
Those in the room were stunned, some not understanding what was happening, others like the representatives of the magicians and nobles, recognizing who it is, began to tremble a little, but soon the rest exploded and began to demand that the stranger who entered be executed for his insolence. And seeing that the guards did not even move, they ordered their direct subordinates to act. And at that moment I didn't understand how, but our Master, without even getting up or moving a finger, eliminated those who tried to attack him.
An attack with magic that I did not know... I studied magic with Master, and I managed to fulfill my dream, creating several magical systems, a system of enchantment of objects, one of runes... but I had never seen that kind of magic, after that our master finally spoke.
"I the Grand Master of the Order of Geffen hereby declare, all members of the Saints in our order are sentenced to death, Master Lilinaya it is can please." I still get chills when I remember our Master like that, that cold and penetrating gaze, an aura of dignity implying that everyone was below him, the god of war has come and the blood of his enemies will be spilled, I was clearly excited too, something I didn't understand very well at the time.
After that the room was completely silent and without waiting for an answer, he took the document on the table, which showed Arldana's dismissal as Master of the order, grinning a little while reading. All the presents, when they understood what he say, began to shout louder, to call attention, accusing our Master of being a murderer and traitor, using the powers that they attributed to themselves to try to make a public trial, which is more like an execution since they would never allow the accused to defend himself.
Our Master laughing, called their acts a boring cheap movie silencing everyone present again, continued sitting without moving, turning to see the representatives of the magicians, if looks could kill, I'm sure the representative would be dead by now... although to tell the truth it seems that he really wanted to be dead at that time.
"Now you have 1 minute to get out of my sight and take all your subordinates with you and tell that bastard Zanzibar that if I see even the shadow of any of his bastards in my domain, I will send him to Niflheim myself." Without waiting for an answer and leaving the magicians stunned, he stand up and walked to the representative of the nobles, standing in front of him, and since the representative is much shorter than our master he clearly needed to tilt his head down a bit to look him straight in the eye.
"It's the same to you, tell that fucking idiot Tristan to stick his fucking shoe up his ass if he wants, but if he keep bothering me, looking for a war, he'll get a war." That froze all those present even though he said it in a low and cold voice, most of those present can hear it. Even now I can't identify if I was surprised by what he said, or simply because my NPC mind at that time didn't understand what was happening.
"What? Do you expect me to throw you out of my castle? Don't worry I can do it, I'll make sure all your heads make it to the desks of those fucking bastards before sunrise!" At that moment Lilinaya along with Nysynea, Victoria and Shetinoth entered, they are covered in white robes and hoods, the belt and the inside of the robes is red, the emblem they wore was a triangle on top of a crescent moon, a kind of katar apparently, with their weapons stained with blood. They immediately bowed before our Master.
Even I thought Lilinaya looked cool, although clearly those were the costumes from one of the Master's video games, assassin creed, apparently Lilinaya fell in love with the game and whenever there are public gatherings she wears it, although her alter ego Lalter likes the Nightingale Armor more being more assassin's like. I think the same, but sometimes Lilinaya's tastes are weird, like when we found out she likes to sleep in the laundry basket... Or her strange fondness for driving naked, arguing that she likes to feel the wind on her skin...
After that declaration of war, everything progressed very quickly, Lilinaya introduced herself as the Master of the Assassins Guild and swore allegiance to our Master, then our Master presented proof that the saints were a cult of demons, we still feel ashamed for not realizing it before... then he give the order to kill the leaders of the saints, and their heads were given to the other two leaders as a gift to the Viceroy and the King.
Then he ordered us to spread the news to all the members of the order, warning them that he would not tolerate traitors or spies and that anyone could leave whenever they wanted, after a hour, seeing that only the leaders of the Mages and Nobles had leave, he began to kill all of them, the next day we had to burn hundreds of ex members of the order, all of them guilty of treason.
Several days later nothing happened, according to Nysynea, Prontera and the King remained silent at the threat of war but it was being pressured by many nobles who lost their relatives in the 'cleansing' of the Order, multiple criticisms towards us were said in all the courts in the cities of the Kingdom, but even the different guilds didn't say anything either.
We never knew why our Master did that but he was clearly upset about something and kept cursing the King daily, at that time, he showed us what the TV, movies was and we were all amazed by them. He placed several televisions in the castle and all the members of the order could enjoy it, although only we could choose what to watch.
But in the end the order drastically decreases in number leaving only us and the summoned, our number was reduced, but our strength was not, since we were all the elites of the order. Now I also understand why the Master did not want to change the jobs of all those who entered the order, surely he already knew that something like this will happen.'
"Even so, the kingdom made huge gains, if everyone who left joined the Kingdom or the Guilds, they would have obtained hundreds of Rebirth Class without doing anything, about 150 of them... I wish the master was more decisive and finished them all..." Epianne continues cleaning the book, which is not really dirty or anything in the place needs cleaning, they simply do it because their Master gave them maid outfits so it is their duty to act like maids.
'That week we were happy that our Master was with us. We were finally able to demonstrate what we had learned, it was a disappointment that I lost my senses again... we were still NPCs sigh... even so, the master treated us with kindness and did not discriminate against us, he even spent time with each of us.
Although he didn't stop working... this time creating clothes that he gave to all of us, as well as several pieces of underwear, continually warning us to always wear them when we cross to the other side of the door, giving us total freedom to act when we have to be on the other side. We received it happily, without really understanding what the master had created.'
At that moment, she takes her jacket and sees it, although it is not a piece directly made by her master, it uses the techniques created by him, it is not a divine garment that increases your power or anything like that, it's not like it can't be enchanted to have that function either, but the function it has is much greater than that... indestructible that was the only thing his master was looking for when he create it.
'After some days we received the order to get ready to move. Then Master led all of us to the north, leaving the castle empty, some of us thought we were running away but no, our Master took us to what is probably the most dangerous place in the kingdom on a mission that anyone would call idiotic and suicidal, we started a liberation campaign in Glast Heim.
There are many legends about the ancient city, the Ruins of what was once the capital of Rune-Midgarts Kingdom. The warriors of Glast Heim that were so powerful that other nations thought of them as Super Entities. Others legends say that the king of that kingdom was seeking more power from the sacred tomes hidden deep inside of the Ancient Tower of Geffenia, so he sent Assassins to steal it from there. Little did he know that by reading the tomes he unleashed evil powers over his kingdom; so powerful that it damned every soul into infinite torment.
The king's name was lost, now he is only known as the Dark Lord, and what is left from Glast heim citizens are now fearsome monsters feasting on the flesh and souls of wanderers. Other legends passed on by bardic poems and songs sustain that Glast heim would have been "the fifth" of the many Halls of Honor that were used as Valhalla, harboring fallen warriors chosen by Odin.'