Familiar: Part 2

It took days of searching, but I finally exhausted the list of rituals. Nothing to manipulate or alter the keep passive. None that would change the interaction between the crown set and the keep, either.

"You're looking for the keep core ritual, aren't you?" I screamed like a little girl when I heard someone talking. Nobody should be able to break through my warding! Even Bonehead would have been killed by each separate layer I'd bound to the stone! Then I recognized the voice. Ryne had returned. "You don't get access to that from being a mere Creator." She scoffed. I gaped at her. I thought my memories were fairly accurate, but the being before me looked nothing like I remembered Ryne. She looked human. A gorgeous naked human, but still human. There was no doubt in my mind that if she so much as hinted at the possibility of sex…I'd ditch Lethe entirely for the slimmest chance at fucking this person that sounded like Ryne. "I see you've been busy. Still the best candidate for ruler. There are a couple of contenders, but they don't have as much potential as you do." She was praising me! A disgusted sound came from her. "Maybe the glamor is too much for you still." And the impossible beauty was gone, replaced with the darkly divine visage of Ryne. Why had she appeared as a human before? "You need to forge your soul into something that can't be swayed if you want to conquer Hell. It doesn't have anything to match my world, but they have many succubi that would be more than capable of stealing your soul as it is now. The first step is losing your humanity. I can't help you with that, since I've never been human, but I know it's important. Maybe WWO will know. I imagine she'll be here when I leave to grill you about what I talked about." She sniggered like the attention of the entire world itself meant nothing to her but a slight form of entertainment. I'd actually thought I could match her with WWO alone? How naive could I get? Of course I could never match Ryne, that was pure foolishness. Hail Ryne. "If I give you the secret to a keep core, you'll need to do something for me."

"What could I possibly give to you that you don't already have? You're far more powerful than I am, and I doubt I'll ever reach your level regardless of how long it takes." Maybe the keep core she was talking about would tip my power over hers when I reached level five hundred. I doubted it, but it was possible. Not. Not even close. Hail Ryne. That was supposed to be the upper limit of power in the game, combined with the keep bonus and whatever the keep core bonus was…I still doubted it would allow me to reach her level. Or even close to that level. Hail Ryne. "I don't have anything you want."

"You have a soul. A soul intrinsically linked to this world. I don't have a link to this world. Manipulating it is hard because of that, I have to exert force to break the defenses first." I felt like she was mocking me. Exert force? Wave a pinky, maybe. Hail Ryne. "If you gave me that link, I wouldn't have to try so hard. It would allow me to bring my soul into this world entirely." She wanted to claim my world? I felt a deep pit of rage ignite at the thought. None of me wanted that to happen. The me that had been human, the me that was a Dark Elf, the me that had struggled to my utmost at every opportunity to reach the peak of this world. None of me. She'd been the one to help me build my empire in the first place, but it was my empire! Now that I thought about it, it made sense that she'd do that so she could take it for herself. I couldn't even muster up a "hail Ryne", the fury was burning too hot. "Relax, I don't want to own you like you own the elf, whatever her name is. I don't want you as a familiar. I don't want this world. Relax." She'd backed down? Was that…appeasement on her face?

If she didn't want the world, then why would she want to bring her soul here? She was a ruler. She was born to command and control. It was her nature. Unless…this world was just a stepping stone to get somewhere else. Maybe it was just the first step in her descent to her throne in the real Hell? Hadn't she mentioned something like that before?

"This world was only ever a means to me, not an end. In the end, you'll have it to yourself. With WWO, of course. It really belongs to her, but I doubt she'll remain active for much longer. Worlds tend to get tired of watching themselves progress. When that happens, then you'll get to see something interesting. Hopefully you're capped by then. She's growing really fast, though. Regardless, I don't want you as a familiar. I just need some form of contract. Non-aggression should be fine, right? If I give you the keep core, then I won't act against you or anything you control and you won't come into my Hell. Ever. Fine and dandy, right?" She held out her hand. I eyed it suspiciously. The bargain was too skewed in my favor. Why would I be allowed to attack her underlings if they came here, but she wouldn't be able to do the same were mine to go there? She didn't even say I wasn't allowed to attack her, I just wasn't allowed in Hell. Was I a threat to her? Could it be possible? "Damn, you're suspicious. Do we have a deal or should I go to one of the others that could kill you right now?" there were others? She said that every time, but…that was it for overthinking. I grabbed her hand immediately. If Ryne showed favor to anyone else, I was done for. It felt like my hand was melting into hers for a second as the terms flashed through my mind and waited for confirmation, which I gave.

It was like a shockwave, but it didn't affect anything. I felt like I could feel the world around me shudder or perhaps stretch in a ripple that expanded ever outwards. An invisible ripple that had no effect on anything. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to tell me who the people are that could kill me, would you?" I was betting Arthur was right at the top of the list. Her empire was the only one that could challenge me at the moment.

"Not their names, but I don't mind telling you about your competition. There are several players that have hit the level cap. Any of them could kill you one on one. A Paladin fighting on the third floor of Heaven right now has hit his max level. His items are all mythic, but they're not a set. He could kill you pretty easily. If he ever got to you. There's a Necromancer somewhere with over a hundred pets that hit his level cap. His pets are better than yours, though you're closing the gap. A Druid maxed out her level, and has a fairly large pet army. There's a Cultist somewhere that has figured out how to make familiars. That's just the maxed level players with extra danger to them. There are also the several hundred that have hit the level cap without being extraordinarily powerful, but could still destroy you if you ever met them." I'd forgotten that min-maxers weren't usually the city-builder types. Every second counted, so they'd be farming mobs and probably not even noticing the forums at all.

So there was a Necromancer with better pets than mine? Bonehead wasn't the most powerful pet in the game? How could someone have a more powerful pet? Another question was why the Paladin had been located for me? Did she want me to know that Arthur would be recruiting this person soon? Had Arthur already launched her assault on Heaven? How did she expect to win with so little preparation? I was scared of losing and I was certain my armies were better than hers.

"Three of them are in Arthur's court. They'll be getting the rest of the classes soon, and every year that passes will leave them better at controlling them than before." Three? She had three max-level characters in her guild? "You've stagnated, though you're starting toward progress again. Never stagnate. Remember to kill your humanity." She waved her hand and a crimson pedestal marked with black script appeared in the center of my cell. "There's your keep core. It draws power from every keep you control, so remember that no keep but this one has a bonus anymore. One more warning, your eldest children have maxed out their levels and they're headed toward the Paladin faster than he's progressing. Watch out for the male. The familiar bond is a powerful one, but it can be resisted to a certain extent. It can even be broken if there is enough hatred in a short enough amount of time."

At least it was never boring when she left. I checked my warding and realized that it hadn't been touched. How had she circumvented my warding entirely? If she'd broken through, I wouldn't have been surprised, but to leave it as she'd left it? Was there a way to avoid detection by magic? If so…I needed to do a lot of thinking to build a detection method that was entirely impossible to avoid.

"That thing is an abomination." WWO was glaring at the keep core. Why did she have a problem with it? Was it just that Ryne made it without asking her, or was there a deeper reason? "You don't understand what it is. It throws the very mechanics of ownership to the winds." That was interesting. "It pulls all the power to this keep because it gives them back ownership of themselves! Don't you see? Don't you see what she's done to you?" 

No. I did not see. How could they own themselves while I reaped the benefits of their power? What was ownership if not the use of their power? So long as I had access to the power, did it matter if I "owned" it? WWO screamed wordlessly for a few seconds before turning to glare at me. 

"You're not the king of anything except the Dark Elves anymore. You go anywhere else, and you're not king. In the lands of the orcs, Hell is king. In pixy territory, Lethe is queen. They bow to you, but they are outside of your control! All of your orders, they're only following them because the ruler they actually respect bows to you. Hell and Lethe even get the benefit of the keep, albeit half as effective as it was for you. But that doesn't even matter because every race has its own core! They have cores too, and that buffs the ability far above what you used to get from the keeps. And you invented that damn avatar spell! What was I thinking, letting you make that spell?" What? That changed everything! If Hell was actually the ruler of the orc lands now…would he answer my call, or rebel? If he rebelled, the power I was drawing from the keeps would reduce by all of the orc cities. As a traitor race, my keep would forever be weaker than either Hell or Lethe if we weren't allied.

Of course, at the moment he'd answer my call. Happily so. But what about in a hundred years. Or two. If he found the core and realized how powerful he was in his keep…if he realized the power he owned as the king…as soon as the benefits to him being autonomous outweighed what I was giving him, he would definitely rebel. Maybe he would. All the incentives were in line for him to rebel. It was uncertain, though. Very uncertain. I found myself questioning his loyalty even more than before. And now I had to wonder about Lethe as well. She was a queen. Would she remain servile if she found the pixy core? 

"And it's the same everywhere else too. Damn my balancing nature! Now Arthur will never conquer Heaven. Then you'll conquer everything and nobody would ever die again!" wait…WWO didn't think my rule was in jeopardy at all. She was mad because she thought it was even more certain than it was before? I knew that Arthur's power would probably have some difficulties, but those difficulties would die down when I finished with Hell and started attacking Camelot.

"Relax, I made a deal. I won't conquer Camelot regardless of how powerful Arthur becomes, or doesn't become." Why wouldn't she be able to conquer Heaven, though? How was it an abomination? It seemed more like an instrument of chaos to make sure everyone rebelled against me which would cause more death than wars against Camelot. In the short term, Camelot would be weaker, but my enemies would be more plentiful. Unless I put familiars I trusted on the thrones…but I'd already given them to Hell and Lethe. And apparently familiar bonds themselves weren't as certain as I'd thought. If they waited until they had the power to resist me and worked in tandem with whoever governed the goblins and hell…the war would leave my empire smoldering. If not completely burnt to the ground. Then the problem would be Camelot swooping in to fill the fields with daisies and sunshine. My domination of the world was less likely than Arthur's at the moment. "How does this throw off balance?"

"Because everyone is balanced in theory! You aren't balanced with everyone else that has a core, though. You're the only one with a spell that allows you to act outside of your city with the keep bonus! Arthur will never come up with a match for it, and spells aren't a form of balance, so I can't teach it to her for no reason! The king of Heaven will hunker down behind his walls and she'll never get him out. You probably won't even notice the difference. The last keep in Hell will take a lot more work than it would have otherwise, but apart from that nothing changes!" I would have suggested attacking the pinnacle of Heaven myself after I conquered Hell, but she wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise. WWO slammed her head into the red stone, and rebounded so hard she was thrown into the wall. That seemed off to me. She was the world, why would she rebound so hard? Why would she rebound at all? Wasn't the core part of her? "Stupid demon bitch won't even let me touch the damn thing. You're not getting off easy this time. You haven't had a challenge yet. You will." WWO really didn't like Ryne. Or I'd completely misread her before. I thought she was fond of me, but that might not be the case at all. She melted into the wall and I was alone again. Well…fuck. WWO now had it out for me…and that could take any form. All forms. What did it even mean to make an enemy of the whole world? How could I possibly win? Or even start to fight back? By not killing anything ever again? Helping monsters repopulate even faster? That wouldn't help me at all.