Battleforged
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Chapter 423 - Conflict Resolution
🕑 Added 2024-05-20 04:00:01 +0000 UTCA/N - Elonia's POV
Elonia wanted to scream as Caliban’s own men actually stepped forward, and it didn’t matter that the slowed to a stop upon facing Caliban’s glare. All that mattered was that their enemies had mastered the arena so damned well… knowing backdoor hacks to win rigged games where humanity hadn’t even learned the rules, showing what an absolute fucking FARCE the whole thing was.
EL – Caliban. We declare Vendetta. Let’s obliterate these fucks ONCE AND FOR ALL!
She knew it was a desperate girl venting in the awful second that time seemed to freeze, her brother staring coldly at the man now laughing and taunting Eric as he whipped his deadly VOIDAL essence-infused blade around that somehow served as the signal for all rules to be discarded like the bullshit they were and for their enemies, a whole fucking galaxy full of high powered enemies, to crash Earth’s party and slaughter every under-leveled human to their hearts’ content.
She wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all. Because really, what did she have to offer? She was a single White-tier girl with a doomed faction. All she could do was go down swinging. Not even worth a single Bronze-tier soldier who had almost been compelled by an opponent’s charisma and leadership check to step against their own ally. FUCK
C – Wait.
A single word that Elonia hadn’t even expected. One that dared give a shred of hope even as Leonide made Eric’s death all but assured.
“Fine! Congratulations, asshole. You’re not completely pathetic. You’re actually making me pull out the big guns, and pass out on a sweet title to take you out using only a fucking FRACTION of my power!”
Leonide’s wild sneer turned to a manic laugh as his entire body began to shimmer with a sudden heat surge and it was all Elonia could do not to cry out in dismay. Sensing in that moment that all Eric’s revenants were either deep in the ground, or literally miles away (because the Silver tier father would have destroyed them in an eyeblink under the pretext of a fair duel. She knew that. Somehow she just knew that was how these assholes operated!) - So it was just Eric facing off against a monster whose Speed had just shot up another 50%, and if her brother had, for some insane reason, been holding back before, he certainly wasn’t now.
The air rang with the golden ring of mithril flashing so fast it was near blinding… a pristine sword somehow managing to parry half a dozen weaving slashes… until a ruthlessly chained feint, shield bash, and lunge nearly spelled her brother’s death.
“ERIC!”
It was a horrifying thing to see intestines spurting from a gut wound from a blade so deadly it had torn through mithril as if it was nothing at all.
Elonia screamed in her mind, too shocked to breathe as her brother stiffened in the cold heartbeat his foe tore out his blade.
Leonide laughed when Eric stumbled back in a spray of blood and entrails that died off far too quickly. “Does it hurt, you pustulant little fuck that just cost me a Child’s Play title? Please fucking tell me it hurts!”
And for some awful reason, Eric actually felt compelled to answer.
“Yeah,” Eric wheezed. “You know what, motherfucker? That 50% Speed boost and a higher order concept blade hurts a fuck ton.” He forced a laugh. “Guess I’m also going to have to pass on that Child’s Play title after all.”
Leonide stiffened, his smirk turning to a snarl as his feet crunched on the basalt flats, marching toward a slowly backing away Eric, slipping on his own bloody trail. “You would dare to mock me, maggot?”
Leonide’s blade began to suck in all light, a darkness so vast it could swallow the sun. “This ends NOW!”
“Agreed.” Eric’s lips abruptly curled in a smile so bright and wide it could swallow the sun as syllables left his lips that caused the viewing window to suddenly go blank.
Yet somehow a wide-eyed, disbelieving Elonia could still see everything.
See the fury in her brother’s eyes. Taste how the hot Wrath within her brother had erupted to something monstrous and terrifying and utterly beyond the pale.
IF the mocking youth trying to kill her brother wielded a voidal snake filled with poisonous bile, Eric was the blazing falcon that would snap its spine before burning it to ash.
Elonia’s breath hitched as her brother’s words seemed to shatter reality itself.
“Repudio!”
The shocked look on Leonide’s countenance was almost comical, as the hyper-fast movements that had so characterized him slowed with a surprised lurch. Graceful shifts in stance and form turned suddenly awkward, the young contender’s limbs now visibly trembling under the weight of artifacts and Silver-tier prizes they had held so effortlessly just a split second before.
In that heartbeat, Elonia sensed the abrupt cancellation of a half dozen arcane wards, enchantments, and alchemical boosts. The spoiled young master now forced to face his foe with his spells disrupted and no artificial enhancements at all.
Yet before Leonide could even finish processing the sudden change in circumstances, a second word was uttered that shattered all of his previous understandings of just how crippling pain truly could be.
“FRAGOR!”
A word that somehow echoed the very essence of Wrath and destruction, radiating higher order concepts of furious obliteration that Elonia was somehow deathly certain could tear through any conventional Psion ward or defense as easily as a match burning through paper. Against those higher order concepts, there was very little that could possibly counter such a blow. Save, of course, for a helmet that actually DID sparkle with concepts beyond the pale that was of course protecting Leonid’s skull. Yet the psionic shout hadn’t been targeted at Leonid’s well-protected head, but at the weakest link in any man.
And if the look of wide-eyed shock and the spray of blood oozing out from the overlapping hip plates of his custom made armor was anything to go by, Leonide had just been forcefully made a castrato.
That Eric could unleash such a devastating blow so effortlessly against an elite Bronze-tier Classer was almost as chilling as realizing that it was only thanks to the link between siblings that her brother was somehow buffering that kept her own skull from rupturing, her brother daring to unleash the wild essence of an attack that was utterly anathema to their kind.
How?!?
Yet the retribution was far from over.
As the air lit up with a bar of intense blazing blue light so cold it was a billion years of icy hell in the deepest blackest corners of space. Icy flames surrounding a furiously burning inner core so horrifically hot that she feared it would sear through reality itself. It was a hideous synergism of ultimate destruction encapsulated in the shape of a four-foot-long bar of absolutely obliterating frozen flame.
Elonia’s mind raced, screaming with higher order concepts of Fire and Ice and Wrath and so much more… clamoring through her skull as she felt on the verge of the most miraculous epiphany conceivable. All that kept her from losing herself in a wondrous stream of revelations was the jarring shriek of agony from Leonide spitting blood even as terror compelled him every bit as much as pain, the foolish young would-be master desperately raising his blade to counter certain death.
Time seemed to stretch and slow to inconceivably fine quantized chunks as a Silver-tier rift abruptly opened between Eric and his doomed foe.
A massive clawed talon no doubt belonging to the glaring eye that had forced this confrontation now reached to tear Eric free of space and time forevermore. A violation of so many writs, codicils, and edicts that even Elonia could sense the shocking reverberations of the violation echoing all the way to transcendent halls an impossible distance away.
Yet it hardly seemed to phase the phoenix blazing so fiercely bright as it soared through the heavens, causing incalculable destruction. The type that could freeze entire continents and turn lakes and rivers and entire oceans to boiling magma, in the wake of an ascension she knew damn well had happened over two thousand years ago.
Yet here and now, she could still see the barest echo of its power in flame so hideously hot that even a Silver-tier monster was forced to bleed.
Leonide’s patron was unable to stop the inevitability of Eric’s strike, no matter how twisted its resources or great its Charisma. For it truly was a world away, and would normally not even be permitted to unleash that crushing aura that Eric had shrugged off like a mosquito’s annoying buzz.
Yet it now did far more than project killing intent, actively forcing open a portal right before Eric, a twisted demonic countenance desperate to catch Eric’s gaze with it’s own hideous glare.
“You will surrender my son, and you will do so NOW!”
Yet no matter how furiously that hellion howled before the inevitable passage of Eric’s Ice Fire-infused strike, the pristine fusion of no less than four higher order concepts did not stop. Not even when the monster, face suddenly filled with the desperate love of a father… dared to manifest right in front of Eric. Only for the image to be cleaved in half by power sufficient to shatter even a Silver-tier demon’s portal… just an instant before Eric struck Leonid’s desperately held voidal blade.
Also fused with higher order concepts.
For just a split second.
Before it shattered like glass.
As did the Silver tier artifact kite shield that the panicked youth had fused with every defense perk he had available.
Both of them holding up as well as tissue paper before a firestorm.
Eric’s killing strike, utterly unimpeded, then whipped through a horrified Leonid’s torso like a blowtorch burning through rice paper.
“No, No! It doesn’t end like this! It can’t end like this! FATHER! HELP ME!”
How horrible it was that Elonia could so clearly hear those screams ringing through her skull in that moment of frozen time, the entire conference chamber and everyone in it frozen like glass, so hyper-fast had her relative perception of time become. Yet she could now sense that boy’s desperate dying shriek just as well as she could her brother’s ethereal roar as his blade tore free all the heat from Leonid’s entire body, leaving a statue of frozen carbonite for a single second before the transcendentally hot point of contact caused such a discordant shockwave of temperature extremes that the frozen contender exploded in an obliterating spray of shrapnel now tearing through the air at hypersonic speeds...though not a single sliver dared touch its ultimate master as Eric howled and shuddered with the wave of power suddenly coursing through him.
Elonia abruptly lurched in her seat, temples throbbing as the frozen chamber sped up to normal time. Or perhaps her madly racing thoughts had just slowed, only then realizing that the battle had passed by so damned quickly that she only heard herself breathe now, one shuddering gasp after another, as a pair of desperately panting goblin shamans burst into the room, radiating the deadly potency of Bronze tier classers utterly anathema to the level limits she was absolutely sure had been the case at one point in time… somehow. Yet the chilling degree of contempt their glares had for her turned to child-like cries of dismay when the monitor flared back to life, showing in exquisite detail exactly what Elonia had visualized. Making it clear that it hadn’t been desperate delusion brought on by the panicked fear of losing absolutely everything.
“No. Impossible. That can’t be! We recast the spell in just seconds!” Squealed the closest shaman, crashing to his knees and yanking the oily locks of hair from its scabrous, scaly skull, its headdress discarded.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Roared Stony, glaring at the sight of a wild hellion laughing like a madman as the howling winds whipped free locks of crimson hair from his helm, hovering over the shattered remains of his kill. His eyes were wild with furious rapture as he shook his fist at the heavens, green eyes glittering with madness and fury as he appeared to be glaring right at them.
His mithril mail had been shredded. His armaments were drenched in blood. Yet Ernest Slaughter himself moved as if utterly free of injury or pain. In fact, Elonia was awed to see that he all but glowed with an energy, a vitality, that now eclipsed absolutely everyone else in the room. Even the handful of Bronze.
Stony curled his lips and spat. “The boy won? Impossible!” He glared at the shamans, fire in his eyes. “This is your fault, fools! You were supposed to have eyes on the prey at ALL TIMES! You will be the ones to pay the price for your unforgivable sloppiness and utter dereliction of duty!”
The still upright shaman’s eyes bulged with fury. “How dare you! You were the one who instigated this unfortunate chain of events. YOU! Stony Rockthorn. YOU made the offers. All we had to do was link the spells, and you still haven’t paid!”
“Shut your damned trap, you brain-dead fuck!” Stony roared, stealing a look a coolly smiling Caliban’s way. Yet instead of a lick of shame, his ploy so clearly revealed, all he did was glare his contempt. “Think what you like, you smug bastard. The fact remains that Transcendent attacks were used here on Earth!”
“By your instigation! A ringer your own shaman co-conspirator just admitted was part of your plot to assure Ernest Slaughter’s death!” Brittany shouted with fierce vindication.
“Lies!” The wild-eyed shaman screamed. “Lies and slander. Lies and slander! You have no proof! NO receipt of transaction! That asshole of an ogre hasn’t even paid us yet!”
The shaman turned to glare at his groaning barrister. “You! Throw a warrant at her and shut her up!”
The lawyer just glared before scribbling furiously on the pad he was now curled over.
Brittany’s smirk grew, infuriating Stony.
The massive ogre stood to his full ten-foot height and roared at Boston’s queen. “You think you won, you little native bitch? Better think again! Because it doesn’t matter the source, fool! Higher order attacks were used and the gates are now open and I can’t wait to see your entire family dragged to the stakes! Just like your Salem ancestors were, just a few generations ago. Ha!”
The ogre laughed coldly. “So fuck you, and all pretexts of playing this game as anything but what it is. An opportunity to crush all you trash-tier losers to dust! You think the imperial clan gives a shit if we bend a few little strictures on a backwater pissant world like this one? Fuck no! Not when we leave most of you ascending shits alone entirely, not even worth our time. And everyone knows to look the other way when we finally settle down to devour our fill. And guess which backwater trash heap got selected? That’s right, fools. This one! Ha! We win, you lose, and there isn’t shit you can do about—”
“Stony, we can’t!”
The ogre turned to glare at the gnoll contender, cowering like a whipped dog.
“Check the interface, Lord Stone. Check it!”
The ogre pinned the gnoll with a cold glare while he went still… before stiffening altogether, eyes widening with a look so unlike his normal state of blustering rage.
“No. Impossible. We didn’t make the kill. It was that damned kid howling in a fucking lightning storm! Why the fuck is he laughing? How isn’t he dead? FUCK, I hate worlds like this!”
The pair of panicked shaman gave despairing shrieks when they checked their interface.
“Lord Augustus just declared war!”
It was all Elonia could do not to chortle with darkest mirth. Because as much as she wanted to taunt the fuck out of these ASSHOLES who thought that arranging for her brother’s death would help them lock in territory of their own, only to find it backfiring in the ugliest of ways might have been sweet justice, she’d be a fool to direct any enemy’s ire her way. Especially a psychotic Silver, grieving over the death of his son. At her brother’s hands. And may no one ever figure out who Ernest ‘Edgelord’ truly was.
“Well hell, Stony, it sounds like your brilliant plan backfired!” Brittany, clearly under no such reservations, happily taunted. “And now you got a Silver-tier daddy who I’m guessing is just a wee bit upset that his baby boy got slaughtered! Because it’s clear as shit that this whole fucking thing was a last-second scheme you cooked up with those loser-ass goblins. So what the fuck will you do now, you treacherous little power-mad fuck?”
Stony’s eyes flared with hate. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do, you obnoxious little witch! I’ll tear out your eyes and shove them down your throat!”
He roared and charged.
Brittany’s furious and totally justified but definitely stupid taunt turned to a desperate scream when the massive ogre abruptly pulled out a giant club of petrified wood crackling with eldritch power and the promise of death out of nowhere. Yet before she could even inhale to shout a desperate spell to take down that ogre, Caliban was suddenly there.
One hand was suddenly on the petrified club, stopping it cold, no matter the massive ogre’s strength. The other hand was wrapping around Stony’s neck when a leg hook sent the monstrous beast slamming to the ground.
For long moments, Caliban glared down at the writhing and thrashing Stony who was easily five times his mass, yet seemingly as helpless as a babe before him. The furious hate in the massive ogre’s eyes turning to genuine fear as he was finally forced to accept just how vast the power gap was between a fiftieth level ogre and a Bronze-tier elf.
“I fear you forget yourself, Lord Stone. You nearly tripped over one of our stateswoman during peace talks. This, as I’m sure you know, would have had grave repercussions.”
Stony would have spoken, but he was too busy gurgling, tongue forced out of his mouth, eyes bulging as pinpoint crimson pricks formed in his sclera before Caliban’s ever-tightening grip abruptly eased, and he helped the shaken Stony back to his feet, while plucking the enchanted club off of Stony’s possession so effortlessly that it was like Stony had given it to him for safe-keeping, and the humbled ogre didn’t dare say a word.
Black Tooth actually chortled at Stony’s expense, earning a glare from the ogre that turned his laughter to a whimper.
“You wanna get anything off your chest there, Black?”
The orc quickly shook his head. “No, Lord Stone.”
“You still want to keep those nice territories with all those milk maids that our goblin associates made damn clear would be worth a pretty penny if I were to take those territories from you?”
The orc’s desperate head shakes grew more insistent. “No, we don’t want that, Lord Stone. You know they’re vital for our ability to actually level!”
“That’s right. You made it pretty fucking clear how powerful freely leveling cannoneers would be, and for that reason alone, I let you keep those overly endowed wenches. But that’s with the understanding that you work for ME, Black Tooth!”
“Understood, Lord Stone.”
“Good. Then SHUT THE FUCK UP and don’t say shit till I tell you to!”
The orc chieftan quickly nodded. When the closest gnoll smirked, Black Tooth snarled and smashed him right out of his seat.
“So, what the fuck do we do now?” Hissed the second gnoll at the conference, with zero concern for his groaning compatriot.
Caliban flashed a cool smile as the display screen died a second time, to the goblin shaman’s dismay. “That’s an excellent question, Phospho. It seems obvious to me that a miracle has occurred this day, and we should all be grateful for that miracle, and in our native friends’ abilities to handle their own ascension issues without any outsiders coming in and cutting into our mutual profits.”
He flashed a smile that was all teeth. “Considering that all of us stand to lose far more than we bargained for, should the wrong sorts get invites… best we keep a tight, mutually agreed upon accord of exactly who we let into our world, or at least the small corner of it supposedly under our influence. Wouldn’t you all agree?”
The room went dead silent, one party after another giving the tiniest of nods. Even the pair of goblin shamans, seething with fury and glaring Caliban’s way, suddenly blanched and paled when another monitor came to life. One that the goblins had no control of, whatsoever.
“Oh my. Look at this completely random depiction of one of Freetown’s many family units returning from an unexpected desert excursion… and what’s this? I do believe they have handful of elite mercenaries in their company.”
Caliban smiled right at the suddenly pale-faced goblins. “So, my dear friends, what do you think? Should we turn up the volume, or am I correct in assuming it’s an absolute waste of our time?”
The pair of goblins shared a look. “NO need to trouble our friends with unimportant drivel, right, Snip? Clearly we saw NOTHING that would warrant our opening our mouths for ANYONE about ANYTHING! In fact, I think it’s in our best interest if this meeting was adjourned right now! With our dear native hero actually resolving a monster surge, I think it’s best that we head to New York without wasting another minute!”
The pair gave Caliban the full weight of their pitiable whipped dog countenances, no matter that they were technically Bronze-tier Classers. Then the closest abruptly blinked, eyes widening with dismay as if receiving an alarming interface message. “With the understanding that Bloodtear Syndicate has absolutely no idea who the hell Raven Company is, we give a soul-bound oath to tell NO ONE of necromantic suspicions or higher order transgressions for any reason, at any time, now and forever. Now if you’ll excuse us...”
Caliban’s smirk was undeniable as the other humanoids groaned or cursed the goblins for fools. The barrister as much as anyone else. But with the tiniest of nods from the clear ringmaster of this meeting, the pair darted out faster than most of the White-tier classers could follow.
Stony snorted. “Sure, Caliban. This round is yours. You happy? Good! But you’d better tell your little pet that if even one of those fucking Bronze-tier revenants dares to enter New York space, all best are off! We’re opening the gates wide! Because even if we have to worry about a half-step Silver asshole jumping through and killing all of us, you damn well better believe I’ll be pointing him to you, Ernest Asshole, and both of these smug bitches that think they can gloat my way without fucking consequence, especially YOU, Elonia Silver, you Sylvan SHIT with less than two square fucking miles to your name! Because then I’ll definitely be telling Lord Augustus how much you ALL were laughing at the sight of his son’s death! Are we clear?”
Elonia froze, pinned where she sat by such glittering HATE in that ogre’s eyes. Because he knew and she knew that at that moment, no matter her mastery of so many deadly ritual spells, that if Caliban and the other elves weren’t here, he could rip out her throat before she got more than a single word of a single chant out.
FUCK! She needed better insta-cast combat magic and a decent personal use shield spell. Why was she so stupidly specialized with almost every last point in Arcane Potential? She just couldn’t understand what the hell had possessed her to embrace being so fucking lopsided for so long. No matter how sweet the multiple Attribute bonus to all future points in that particular stat might be… she couldn’t survive jack shit on her own.
And the constant low-grade pain that just wouldn’t STOP! Why the hell had she let her Pain Essence hit Rank 3? WHY? She wanted to shake her head and cry, as if her past self had been a puppet controlled by another, denying herself even the Vitality needed for her pain to ease to a throb far less bothersome than it was now.
Elonia swallowed, suppressing her racing thoughts as she was pinned by those awful, beady, hate-filled eyes. Yet when Caliban spoke, it grabbed the Ogre’s full attention.
“Agreed. And you’ll give your oath that, so long as neither Ernest Edgelord nor any other Contender tries to invade New York with massive armies of Bronze tier revenants, you and your cohorts will neither aid nor abet any motions or actions that would expand settler rights beyond that originally permitted to outworlders in the accords. At least until Earth finally finishes its ascension.”
“Fine. So long as it’s understood that all bets are off, should we be forced to face any revenants!” Stony snapped.
Caliban snorted. “You mean any Bronze-tier revenants. Otherwise, it would be all too easy for any pawn that one of your… associates might sucker into a suicide run with a handful of level 1 shamblers to give pretext for an open door invitation to wildly distraught Silver ranked fathers who would absolutely LOVE to claim your head, Stony. So let’s agree that no Bronze tier revenants of any sort will be permitted to invade New York or any other territory claimed by your conjoined horde. And in return… you all, as representatives of your races, including you, my dear barrister, will give a Soul-Oath that there will be NO talk of transcendent power usage, uncontrolled monster surges, or opening our doors to any additional settlers, adventurers, or conquerors beyond the average power level of those in this room. Excluding myself and my soldiers, of course.”
The room grew deathly quiet, Stony glaring Caliban’s way before slowly nodding his head. “Done and done!”
Caliban whipped out a contract so fast even the goblin barrister whistled, yet none hesitated to sign.
“A million credits, just for signing?” The once more seated gnoll squealed, before being smacked out of his seat again by Stony.
“Shut up and take it. And prepare the veli, Spike. We’re leaving.” He gave an exaggerated sniff with his nose. “Freetown’s beginning to smell a bit ripe. We got places to be.”
“Taking out this bitch’s territory?” The dog said with a sneer Elonia’s way.
Stony snorted. “That two mile piece of land surrounded by a constant storm isn’t worth shit. She’s tying up our elites for no good reason.” He then turned to sneer at a stiffening Brittany even as Elonia tried to quiet her sigh of heartfelt relief.
“You’re next on the list, Brittany. Boston will make a fine jewel in my crown, with a bit of consideration for my fine friends that you’ve been aggravating for far too long. Isn’t that right, boys?”
The pair of gnolls nodded and yipped like good doggies, apparently not even caring that Stony intended to claim for himself the territory that the gnolls had been struggling to take for quite some time. Though they’d probably be thrown a few choice bones, of course, Elonia cynically thought, like the good little doggies that they were.
Stony then lifted his food bowl, leering at a pale-faced Brittany while noisily chomping down on more finger-shaped cracklings that a horrified part of Elonia now suspected really were the fried fingers of some of his slaves, the nature of the meat being a double bluff and a massive insult all in one. “I hope you like being a sub, little queen, because sure as shit, you’ll be wearing a collar before the month is out and your fingers will be filling this bowl. Just like the last human who dared to mouth off to me.”
The humanoids all roared with laughter as Stony’s smile grew wide and vicious.
Brittany lurched back in her seat, pale as a ghost.
Stony and his cohorts then all marched out in lockstep with departing sneers and chortles at the still seated elves and human girl.
Caliban gave the trembling young queen a sympathetic look, the moment their hostile guests had finally departed. “You’re more than welcome to extend your stay here in Freetown indefinitely, Your Grace.”
“But I can’t cede Boston to you, can I?”
Caliban sighed, shaking his head. “Sadly, your territory charter forbids it. But you, your family, and those you value most can be given escort here. That’s well within the charter of what Bronze tier mercenaries and Blue Corp representatives are free to do, and I find it extremely unlikely that other Bronze tier elites will risk their deaths over something so trivial as your family’s safe departure, especially when such helps facilitate a… bloodless transition of power.”
Brittany, no longer fronting, revealed her true terrified self when Caliban, wise in ways Elonia was slowly coming to appreciate, gently excused himself, giving the pair a few minutes to collect themselves.
Brittany eyes filled with sudden tears.
It was all Elonia could do not to hold her friend tightly to her, right then and there.
She flashed the girl in her arms a heartfelt smile. “Don’t worry, beautiful. Our hero came through. That’s all that matters. He actually came through.”
Brittany nodded, forcing a smile even as she sobbed with dismay. “What are we going to do, Eli? I can’t… I can’t betray my family, but I don’t want to go back! I’m so tired of feeling sick with fear every day we’re trapped by that damned siege. I don’t even care about having ‘lucked out’...ha! into a Noble Profession to go along with my Witch class anymore. It’s the people counting on me that I stay up all night worrying about, and the class synergisms just aren’t enough, no matter how fertile my crops or people, or how thick the brambles and ferocious the wolves guarding my kingdom. Orc Cannons, goblin snipers, and gnoll arsonists and sappers are just too much! After all those months… years? of struggle, I’d feel so ashamed if I just abandoned them all to gnoll savages, goblins slavers, and ogre psychopaths. No matter how much I just want to stay here and enjoy the city and personal computers and shopping and movies and hope and just be with you and forget that any of this had ever…” Her words died off, gazing at Elonia with a look of awed wonder.
“Brittany, What’s wrong?”
“Look in the mirror!”
Bemused, Elonia glanced in her friend’s hand mirror. Blinking in surprise at the sight of her own reflection. Far from the wan exhausted beauty she now accepted herself as being, her eyes sparkled with a Vitality that was beyond wondrous, her very skin seeming to glow with good health, good fortune, and so much more.
She blinked once as she was struck by a revelation so profound that it shook her to her core, not even registering her friends desperate cry for help as blackness became light, and her world changed forever.
Chapter 424 - Wonders forged from the tears of my foes.
Comments
Joe K
It's been stated multiple times that Eric's revenants are 100+ white tiers. So he should be able to do whatever with his current undead since they aren't bronze.
Antony Haynes
Is the Emperor a goblin? Or, at least, allied with the goblin/ orc/ gnoll/ ogre factions? It’s the only way to make sense of what’s happening in the Survivor/Battleforged universe. To the extent that the empire has “rules,” virtually all of those rules get bent at the goblin’s behest and to the goblin’s benefit. Even within the confines of the story, it breaks our ability to suspend disbelief that the Emperor made a special silver card just so that an aristocrat can steel a territory recently conquered by a native from that native –and—that the goblins get to call on this card to the their benefit. If the Emperor and/or the aristocrats and/or the goblins really cared that much, then why go through the whole pretense of having “rules” at all? What was the point of creating fake limits on the use of bronze and/or silver level powers, when the goblins can call on those bronze or silver level powers with the use of artifacts and cards created by the emperor? If the game is so heavily rigged in the goblins’ favor, then why even bother to have the game played—why not just give Earth over to the goblins (or the relevant alien faction) directly? If the Emperor and Eve Death are the only gold level powers hanging around the Survivor/Battleforged universe, then how do they gain from what is happening on Earth, when either of them can rewrite reality at will or simply release a fart and destroy the whole planet?
Chill59
I think she assumed leadership of the Black territory and it boosted her somehow.
KatC
Sooo what just happened with Elonia, hmmm a new Queen to be perhaps. 3L the = he best = bets
Trevayne
I am pretty sure he promised that Eric wouldn't invade New York with his Bronze or Silver revenants. The last time I looked, Boston was not in New York. That siege might end abruptly.
Iain Grubb
Technically that specifically stated "invading with Bronze Tier revenants", he can go in with his silver Worms, and raise as many as he wants when inside the borders from that wording ^ ^ Really irritated he has to go reclaim his old zones, they could have been reclaimed with Freetown and then he could focus on the wild zones and NY. He actually can't reclaim Ashland since you can't conquer 12 endless rifts.
Silver Beard
IDK.. Caliban making promises Eric might be unwilling to keep.
