Stories from the past

With the war over, all that was left was to get back the lands that the golems still occupy. For that, armies were sent to reclaim them. Most I were involved with was recapture of Toros. But since it takes time for most people to travel from place to place. I spend time with Aktor and Low.

Low seemed quite enthusiastic when she came to see Aktor. Saying.

- Let's fight.

- We have already fought plenty. We don't need to do it again.

- This time I want to beat the real you.

- What are you on about?

- I know that you are the Creation. Just give it up.

- How did you come to find this?

He looks at me and I shrug.

- I have my sources. Now let's fight.

- I don't need to use my real powers to defeat you.

- Just use them.

- *Sigh* would it please you if I used part of my real power?

- I'm still disappointed a bit, but sure.

We went to Siel'Kel and they were brought to the arena. Aktor chanted something to his spear.

- Requesting access to tier 1 of my powers.

- Password please.

- Moonlight stroll.

- Access granted. Tier 1 activating.

He started to shine a bit, this time a bit less than last time.

Then the fight started. Low tried to run towards Aktor, but then Aktor started sending a barrage of spears at her. She tried to dodge them, but then she was pierced by couple of them. It was a quick match. When Low got back up, she said.

- Again.

Then the same thing repeated. Again and again, with little to no succes from Low. Finally she gave up and we were done. When she was back to the real world, Low said to Aktor.

- I will get you one day.

- Good luck with that.

Then she left somewhere, and I was left with Aktor and Siel'Kel. I'm sure that Siel'Kel knows about Aktor's secret now, so I don't bother hiding it and so I ask Aktor.

- What was your favorite creature to create?

- Of the existing races, I must pick dwarfs. They bear such a creative minds.

- Then what about the ones that don't exist anymore.

- Then it would be the lorshekt race.

- What were they?

- They were a race that had four legs and six arms. Their upper body was something that resembled humanoid features and they had two horns coming from their forehead. They were as big as the bigger side of the horses. They were even greater craftsmen than dwars. At the dawn of Norbul, they were the first ones to build a functioning cities. Their only wish was to create things and nothing more. They never wanted to harm other beings and they only ate fish and plants. Their creations can still be found today. Perhaps you even have walked on the creations of lorshekts. Their earlier buildings were more welcoming, but as the time went on, they started to build defence mechanisms to protect their cities. Most of their later buildings were situated underground.

- Why did they disappear?

- They were seen as threat by most of the races. Other races could barely use magic at those times, but lorshekts could build mechanisms that far surpassed their own. They were afraid that the lorshekts would turn against them, so they were then labeled as monster race from many cultures. We didn't want to intervene, so they were mercilessly hunted like animals. This happened at some point all around the world where they were situated. Lorshekts had only three option. Start creating weapons that would repel the attackers, but also go against your very nature. Flee to the sea and create a culture that lives by the sea. Then there was the option to build underground cities that would be protected by complex mechanisms.

- Which did they pick.

- They decided all of them in some form or another. It varied from region to region, but they all ended up doing one, if not all of those choices. Most of them fled underground, never to be seen again. Some built a floating cities in the ocean and would live by the sea. Then there were those who build a weapons of war to defend themselfs, the very thing the other races feared. Those who fled to the underground and the ocean built some weapons to protect themselfs. Those who decided to build weapons, eventually perished. Those that fled to the underground can't be confirmed if they are still alive or not. Those who fled to the sea would eventually lose their floating cities and become completely marine based life and would evolve into beings that could barely communicate and loose all their creative intelect. The ocean lorshekts are the only lorshekts that we know that still exists. If there is any lorshekt communities left underground, they would be the last of their people. Wether or not even they have retained their creativeness remains a mystery.

- I should probably check one of those ruins out then.

- I will not tell where those communities might be located. If they wish to remain underground in peace, then they should stay underground in peace.

- But isn't it just sad?

- It is. But the risk of history repeating itself is too great.

- But I'm sure the times have changed.

- Have they really?

- ...

- In any case, they should stay underground as long as they wish to do so.

- I hope that one day I will meet them.

- So do I yearn to do so again.

We then sit around in silence for a while. Then it hits me

- Now that I think about it. You could be the richest man on the world if you wanted to. Why haven't you done that?

- Oh that. Yeah I tried it once and it didn't end well for me.

- I need to hear this.

- In that life, I lived as Michael von Runerbigs. I was someone who appeared in the country of Tristora. It doesn't exist anymore. I went in and bought a mansion and some servants to work for me. I ate nice meals, took pretty sweet baths and drank pretty good wine. No one knew where I got my fortune from, because normaly you can't just make lux appear from out of nowhere. People started to speculate, and one day a mansion belonging to a viscount got robbed and the valuables went missing. They expected me to be the one who stole them, but once they searched my belongings, they let me go free. But the public thought that I just got away with theft because I'm rich. Eventually it reached to my servants ears as well and some of them started to collude against me. Thinking the same things that the general public did. Then they decided to drug me with a truth serum they got from who knows where and they started asking questions. While I am original power, my body still resembles that of a mortal, so the drug worked and I spilled the beans. They first didn't believe me because obvious reasons and thought that the serum was defective. Then they made me prove that I can do it, but of course, I didn't do it infront of them. I said as much and they proseeded to beat me until I did. I told them "I was so gonna fire them" in which one of them said "if you think you will be alive after this, you are more stupid than we thought". That hurt my feelings so I told as such. They just beated me to a bloody pulp until most of my fingers were mangled, knees were broken, teeth pulled out, ears cut out and rest of my hands were broken. They didn't seem satisfied with my constant truths and they just gave up and let me to rot there. I of course eventually got out, but I just left a corpse there to be found that looked like the one I previously inhabited. So ends my story.

- You got through all that and you are still sane.

- I've been through much worse.

- So do you still use your powers to make yourself lux?

- From time to time, I am fed up with some people, so I just pop out some lux and be done with it. Even sometimes when there is a mission to bring some resource to someone, I just make it on the way.

- You really are a scumbag sometimes.

- Yeah.

- Speaking of being a scumbag, you said something about you having sertain rules to follow.

- Yes.

- What are they?

- You don't need to concern yourself with them.

- You also mentioned you lose your memory a bit each time you die or something.

- You don't need to concern yourself with that.

- You are hiding something else. What is it?

- ...

- So you aren't going to tell us.

- Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

- That isn't going to help me.

- So where do you think Low went?

Trying to change the subject. Fine, I play with you for now. But one day I will get you to tell me.

- She probably went to Atlas. She is starting to like the place.

- That she does. You should go there more often for your child. If she's alive that is.

- She will be alive. And like you are someone who can talk about closeness with your kids.

- Who knows. Maybe Low wanted to keep it a secret from you as long as she can.

- Shut up.

- Will do.

Another moment of silence.

- Do you think it was a good idea to leave those cannons at Vigilance?

- What harm can they do? They can't fire it since they require a lot of mana. They can't even understand how they work so there is no harm done. However, if someone figures out a way to use them and create their own replicas, then we might sit around for a new age. Though I doubt anyone will figure how they work for at least couple of centuries.

- If you say so. And since you were around in the times king Joshua did his thing, what were you doing?

- Funny thing really. I actually was there and we met back then.

- What? How?

- I was one of the passerby when you were going to where Joshua was.

- So we met then too.

- It was pretty weird at first, but when I pieced together where Joshua was sending his guards, things started to made sense to me. Since I saw Lex and myself together, I was confident that I didn't need to lift a finger back then, but will be doing so in the future.

- Why didn't you stop Joshua?

- Do you think that I had means to stop him?

- Fair point. Wait, you knew that Lex was Magic back then?

- I managed to find out in one of my previous lives.

- Huh.

- But when I saw you the first time, I was so confused to what will happen now that I've killed you. I thought "did I change the future?" or things like that. But when I met you again under that tree, things started to make sense, but I was still cautious.

- So you have always been a traveler.

- Almost all the time.

- Why do you do it? Why not just settle down for once?

- I have settled down every once in a while. But then I later find that I want to see more of the world. Didn't I just tell you about my life as Michael?

- You did, but I wondered if you did so any more than that.

- Yeah, every once in a while I see a nice place that I would like to observe little longer. So I decide to stay. And when the time is right, I head back to the world and leave it all behind.

- Have you ever regreted leaving?

- Couple of times, yes.

- Did you ever build a family in those events?

- Most of them consisted of that, when I had regrets. Sometimes you just need to take a rest in a place. See all that it holds and might hold in the future. Most of those times I was a helper in a farm or something. Fell in love and had couple of kids.

- You sure have many people you "felled in love" with.

- You expect me to live my whole immortal life loving someone exclusively? When they have been dead hundreds of years?

- Who knows. Perhaps you found someone who you really felt that "this is the one".

- There was someone like that, but they have long since passed from this world.

- What about Carbon?

- She is someone I care for, but our relationship is more for benefit rather than pure love.

- Does Carbon agree with you on this?

- I don't know. Maybe she cares very little of me. Maybe she cares deeply for me. She didn't say anything back then and even farther back, so I don't truly know how she feels.

- Maybe you should ask her.

- Hell no.

- Why not?

- If she says yes I don't know what to do.

- Whimp.

- I've slept with many other people than you. And willingly, well most of the time.

- So you have been raped too.

- You know of my relationship with Crimson ruby, so I don't need to explain it. That and few other ocations.

- So even I have more dignity than you.

- Well, when you live as long as I have, then come telling me you have some dignity.

- Lex has more dignity than you and he is older than you.

- He focuses just on magic so of course he will have less experiece. I don't even know if he slept with anyone in his long life.

- Should we ask him?

- Probably wise to not do it. I don't want to enter that rabbit hole.

- You are right. Me neither. Let's treat it as an enigma.

- Let's do that.

- So who was this one you found to be "the one"?

- It was a ruler of Dia. In a time when the islands didn't have much of an unity. Her legacy ended up being the Deroth empire.

- Why that woman?

- She was... how do I say it? ... A cheery persona of sort and still serious.

- How can you be both? Was her cheeriness an act?

- No, it was all real. She somehow managed to do both. While she knew how to act serious, she was mostly cheery all the time. And boy she could be terrifying when she was serious.

- Did you marry her?

- Yes, in that life, I lived as an emperor of Deroth. Though I didn't have much power, since it was a matriarchy. It was one of my first lives as a demon actually, now that I think about it.

- How many kids did you two pop out?

- Seven. Three boys and four girls.

- That many?

- When you live a long life, you have time to do things more often. Though most of the time I acted as an emotional support for her. Now that I think about it, that Rufus might be from one of my lineages.

- Did... did she knew your secret.

- I ended up telling her of it, yes. She was first thinking that I was making a joke, but when I looked at her seriously, she understood and slaped me. At first I was terrified if she would sent me away for this, but then she smiled at me and said "in the end, it doesn't matter. I fell in love with you so that's all that matters." But then she also said with a serious voice "but I'm still pissed of a bit that you didn't tell me sooner." When she said that, it sent chills down my spine. I then told her everything that came with my situation. Everything.

- The same stuff you wont say to me.

- Yes.

- So it was that deep of a connection.

To not even tell his brothers and the carrier of his sisters soul.

- What was her name?

- The empress Eilish Gilith of Deroth. Later Eilish Deroth the I

- Was Deroth something else back then?

- It was a small part of one of the many islands in Dia.

- What did she look like?

- She had one purple eye and one blue eye. She had long dark hair with a bit of a blue tint. She was about your size when you count her four horns, two long horns coming from her sides first curling upwards and then straight up. The other two were coming from back of her other two horns through the opening between her head and her other horn, making a curl downwards. She had a long but slim tail that felt smooth to the touch. She liked to keep jewerly on her horns and tail, when she had the lux for it. She also kept jewerly in her hands and legs. At the begining she wore very little clothes that covered most important parts. I didn't mind it, since it was hot where she came from. She actually hated wearing many clothes at once, making the trip to the northern islands bit difficult. Later when she became empress, she was forced to wear more clothes, but still wore as little as possible when in private. She might have not looked the smartest most of the time, but she could give you an aura of superiority, which often made people double guess her attitude.

- How smart was she then?

- Oh she was briliant. I actually wont doubt that she was smarter than even Lex. She made briliant moves when she was expanding, making her a good leader. She did lay around when ever she could, but once she was asked to do something, if she deemed it necessary, then she would come to help immediately. She actually came to snuggle with me whenever she was stressed with her work, even before we started being a couple. I actually grew up with her in that life because I made my body to be that of an 9 year old who came from faraway island with his small makeshift boat. She was 10 at the time. To demons, those ages were 6 years compared to that of an human. I wanted to experience life there as a kid, so that is why I chose a kid's body. I had two pointy horns coming from my back and two short and thin tails. We often played together with other kids of that region. Eilish was obviously the smartest, so she could play the other kids like fools. She always enjoyed when there was fun to be had. She had a habit of slaping her tail against the floor over and over again when she was annoyed and swinging it from left to right when she was intrigued. She often played with her fingers when she knew she had done something wrong. Our kids picked up on those habits as well.

- I'm not gonna comment on how weird it is for you to act as a child, so I ask. What kind of island was it?

- It mainly had fishing villages near the shore and couple of farmlands when you went more inland. There was a tall mountain at the centre of the island with forest surrounding it. It was kind off your typical tropical island.

- So how was the sex life?

- Oh, it was awesome. She somehow came to me and asked for us to do it at the very moment I felt a bit horny. Not always, but surprisingly often. She was actually the one who wanted it more, but at the later days, she got too tired from work to do anything, so we just snuggled.

- How was your kids?

- The oldest daughter Reaish, was very much like her mother. Cheery but still calm and collected. Our second daughter Liyish, was bit of an adventurer. She wanted to go all of the places of the world. We tried to accommodate her as much as we could. The first son Olersh, was someone who looked things calmly at first and then made the decision. He had trouble hanging around with her two big sisters at first. Especially with Reaish. Then our second son Brutus was born. He was much like his bigger sisters and always up to something. Honest to a fault. Then third daughter Ailmish was born. She was bit of a shy girl, but she always wanted to be besides one of her siblings or her parents. She was smart girl though, getting Brutus from out of trouble whenever the situation presented itself with that option.

- I asume you are telling them from oldest to youngest.

- Yes, where was I? Oh, then the twins Nero and Hien. Hien was similar to Reaish to the point of always competing with her, and Nero was someone who just liked to read texts and listen from the sidelines. Then we had a two dogs called Calev and Treil, who proseeded to make more pupies when they got older. And one cat, who always caused trouble, but paid us with prey she found. She got knocked up by some other cat, so we had buch of kittens as well. It was a busy household.

- Must have been fun.

- There were days when it was a total hell. But there were days that I wouldn't trade for anything else.

- Did you get your kids before or after the birth of the empire?

- Reaish was born before the empire, but rest of them were after.

- What did your kids do when they got older?

- Reaish trained herself to be the heir of the empire and eventually became it. Liyish became an ambassador that visited other countries. Olersh became an accountant for the empire, Brutus became a commander of the army, Ailmish became a tactician for the army, Nero followed in my footsteps and handled darker side of things from the side and Hien became a commander of the navy.

- Did you fight many fights during those times?

- When the expansion started, we were greeted by couple of unwilling islands. There were some conflicts, but those were dealt with by the people who followed Eilish. She mostly handled things with kindness, but used cruelty only once by behaeding the people who became corrupted by power. I was second of command that worked on the background doing the dirty business, though she never liked to admit what I was doing benefited the cause. I made sure that darker things never rose to Eilish's scope of duties. Though she had to make couple of tough calls every now and then.

- So you have experience running a country. Didn't expect that.

- The work I did was small compared to Eilish's work. While necessary, but still little.

- You say that handling darker side of things is small compared to the brighter side of things. That doesn't sound right.

- Well, I like to call it small compared to Eilish's work. She did order me around very often when handling these things, but I tried to take care of most of them myself. She always appologised to me that I had to work like that, but I always said "it's the job that I have chosen" or so other things like that.

- Anything else that might be interesting?

- Olersh was so cute when he lost at some competition. All the girls followed on their mothers footsteps and made a cute face while pouting. Hein was known to cause trouble on the ranks of the navy, but often finding a loophole that doesn't make her quilty. Brutus was bit confused at the start of his career when other recruits couldn't keep up with him. All of them, with the exception of Ailmish, loved eating fish. Ailmish couldn't stand eating anything from sea, making her eat mostly vegetarian options. Not because she didn't eat meat, but because there wasn't much of it. She got teased by Olersh quite a bit, until she forced him to eat rotten fish by himself. Don't ask how she managed to make him do that. I only heard about it afterwards. Eilish liked to tease all of our children ever so slightly. She often triked the kids doing things that they didn't want to do. Be it by some treats or phraising things in a sertain way. Eilish actually managed to win all the game of wit, to the point the kids banned her from participating in some of them. In physically challenging games, she fell short a bit, but she was actually proud of herself when she won againt the kids. At least until they all grew up and beat her in every physically challenging game.

- You sure sound like you enjoyed those times.

- I had some other times with my other kids that brought me the same amount of joy, but I treasure those memories as long as I can.

- As long as you can, huh. Well, did you have your spear back then as well?

- I had to make an excuse of finding it from somewhere and claiming it as my own. I had to do it after my body became more mature.

- Since you were demons, did any of you have demon tatoos?

- Eilish wanted to put a tatoo that said my name near her private parts. I was first against it, when I said that she might regret that later if we don't stay together. But she just said "this is my commitment to you". She wanted me to have couple of tatoos on my arm so I would look a bit more manly, so I put one on my right arm. Brutus got many tatoos put to him for a sign of strengt or something. Ailish got a small tatoo on her shoulder and Hein got one on her face. I heard a rumors that Reaish, Liyish and Hein all did the same kind of thing that Eilish did. I have not confirmed this, nor do I wish to find out.

- I don't blame you.

- What kind of father would want to find out about that? Just imagine your Nina doing something similar.

- AAHHH! Don't put that image on my head!

- Now suffer as I have.

- Wait, how did YOU find out about that information!?

- It's just a rumor that I heard from somewhere! Don't ask how they found out!

- But why did you have to put that image to my head as well?! She is barely 6 you know!

- I'm sorry you know! I just had to make you feel how I felt!

- Well thanks for the image!

- You are welcome!

We squirm a for a while until we calm down. I start.

- *Inhale* *Exhale* Now then. Back to the questions.

- Come at me.

- I doubt that any of them are alive anymore. Do you?

- I heard a rumor that Ailmish has extended her life via magic somehow and is living somewhere in Dia. Don't know how true that is.

- Don't you want to find out?

- What do you think? There are tons of islands in Dia. How am I ever going to find her?

- Have you even tried?

- I did around 20 years ago, but then I had other business to take care of.

- Then how about you go and try again?

- I doubt that she survived the war though.

- I hear that smaller settlements weren't hit as bad as the bigger ones. Maybe there is hope.

- But...

- Don't "but" me. Do you want to see her again or not?

- Of course I do.

- Then let's go find her as soon as we take care of business here.

- If you are so keen on doing so.

- You don't sound so enthusiastic.

- Of course I don't. It's been so long. How could she be still alive?

- We just need to try.

- I guess I will tag along with that trip then.

- Let's take Low with us. She can teleport easily now.

- If that's what you think.

- Good. We will do that. Now then.

A moment of silence. I ask.

- Where do you think Eilish ended up in?

- I can't know. She said will wait for me to come meet her one day in Wiyrn, but I don't know if she would be there.

- Is that where demons go after they die?

- It is an upper layer of plain of Wortsh. Wiyrn is for the righteous and just demons only. The middle layer is Wurt where normal people go and lowest layer is Mystr where evil demons go.

- I see. I guess we need to also find our way there.

- What is the point? Her soul has probably returned to the cycle by now. There is no way that she will be there if we go.

- She said that she will wait for you. Then we better not keep her waiting any longer. First we deal with the remaining golems in Ehstos, then we go find Ailmish and then we try to find our way to Wiyrn. We got plans ahead of us.

- We do, don't we.

- Now for the final question of the day.

- Come on then.

- How did Low find out about your secret?

- Hhmm... It got to be that dam Lex. Gods dam you Lex.

- I heard he has hard time with most of the gods.

- Good. I think.

And so we spend the rest of the remaining day chilling.