Ultrapowerpie
Mail Moogle of AdventureQuest
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Chapter 17
Imagine if you will, the sound of a V8 engine revving. Now imagine this sound about 1000 times louder and then with 4 of them near each other happening in the wee hours of the morning, before sunrise. Fortunately for you, you are underground some, so the noise is dulled.
This is the noise that Grim experienced as he was woken form one of his rare naps at his console. “What in the name of all that is made of cheese is going on up there?” he muttered, awakening from his own bed in his own room in a secret corridor that the rest of the Roughnecks had yet to discover and booby trap.
As he teleported into the main chamber, he found an extremely tired and grumpy Jenna slurping away at some cereal. “If you’re wondering, Necro and Reaver are trying out the Scythe,” she muttered, ears, tail and eyes all droopy.
“The what?” asked Grim, not quite sure what was going on.
“That’s the name of that infernal ship you built they gave it. Thanks to this damned Bond, I woke up at the same time as Necro, so I’ve been up since midnight while those two were exploring that cursed thing,” she muttered, barely getting the food into her mouth.
“I take it you’re going to kill him when he gets done?” he asked, going to his seat at the head of the conference table.
“I can’t for two reasons. The primary one is that whatever happens to Necro happens to me, and there’s no way in the Netherworld I’m going through that pain again. The second one is that this is technically Reaver’s fault as he’s the one who woke up Necro. So, I’ll just kill him and you can revive him later,” she shrugged sleepily.
“Sorry, but we can’t afford any more fatalities. Those revival supplies are really expensive and hard to find, and I can’t get some more for at least a month. You’ll have to settle for nearly killing him,” he grinned, eating a pancake from the buffet that EVA had set up.
“I’m just glad that this bond doesn’t synchronize ALL of our bodily functions, otherwise I may just go insane,” she sighed.
“Ah, yes, the last stop in the digestive process. The reason for that is because you two possess different metabolisms and because you were both taught at a very young age that privacy while in bathrooms is extremely important. That privacy need that was trained while you were both young carries on into the subconscious building up a natural barrier. Any area that is deemed as “private” by you or the subconscious is much harder to penetrate then the other areas of the brain. That’s why everyone has secrets that take advanced telepathy to probe. You don’t have to worry about Necro trying to probe your mind and access unwanted memories or images,”
“Actually, he hasn’t tried anything perverted like that, if that’s where I think you’re going. We’ve both respected each other’s privacy, and we haven’t done too much with the bond on a telepathic level. The Bond is doing more stuff to us then we are trying to manipulate it,” she shrugged, her appetite slowly coming back.
“Yes, he does seem like a good boy… though after that outburst yesterday he may need a better outlet for his feelings. I did want to talk to you about that… you know how people sometimes bottle up their emotions and wait for things to burst? Necro seems like one of those people, and like it or not, you’re going to have to get him to release the steam valve once in a while. If you don’t, the emotional energy WILL poor into you, and can have some negative consequences. Likewise, you need to pay Necro the same courtesy with your own emotions.”
“What type of consequences?” asked Jenna, as the engines of the Scythe roared to life again.
“Bursts of emotional energy is extremely dangerous… hell, emotions themselves are volatile things. Take love for example; it’s the most confusing thing in the bloody omniverse. Reapers of Death have called it the most manipulating of all human emotions because of the lengths it can drive someone too. Necro killing himself to save you? Only love and that bond would cause him to do something that… stupid. Yes, you may call it brave, but bravery and stupidity are of the same breed, and there’s a fine line that separates the two. Love truly does conquer all; lust, reason, sanity, evil, good, the world… you name it, true love will defy it. It has it’s own little principles that when there really IS true love, all sorts of crazy stuff will happen between the two people just to keep them safe,” Grim ranted, devouring 5 more pancakes.
“All that told me was that you despise love, which shouldn’t surprise me given your history…” Jenna stated, looking up at Grim.
“Necro’s the first Reaper of Death ever to be in love… and to actually USE it… it defies our nature… he can get away with it now, but once he starts going pure Death energy, I don’t know how it’s going to effect him… That’s a ways away though. The point is, a sudden burst of someone else’s emotions can cause unpleasant side effects, the least of which is a shift in your personality. You could be permanently angry the rest of your life, or be suicidal. Trust me; I’ve manipulated emotions enough to know that you can be emotionally scarred by such incidents,” Grim concluded.
“Fine, but it seems like the universe is conspiring to bring Necro and me together…” Jenna sighed.
“Given the knowledge of how the author thinks and the fact that you two actually would make an interesting couple, I’m not surprised,” Grim said, then put his hands over his mouth as he realized his blunder.
“Wait.. what? Grim, you’ve been uttering strange things ever since I first came here… it sounds like you know of some sort of conspiracy or something… I want to know the truth,” demanded the curious Jenna, her ears perking up.
“YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!” he yelled dramatically. “Seriously, you can’t. If I were to tell you the truth right now, it would blow your mind,” Grim nodded.
“Try me,” she purred.
“Ok, you are actually a fictional character of a story created by someone who lives in a dimension known as the “Real World” and are currently being read like a character in a novel, which you are,” he stated bluntly.
Jenna’s eyes, ears and tail twitched as a tiny explosion occurred inside her head, and she then fell face forward into her cereal.
Grim sighed, knowing this would happen. “EVA…”
“Yes sir, repair her blown brain and erase the memory of what you just told her, then release her on the deck of the Scythe as you go and yell at the other Reapers for screwing around so early in the morning,” the computer stated, using a large tube to suck up Jenna.
“Wow, you really ARE good, you know?” he grinned, teleporting to the Scythe.
“I know sir, I know,” she muttered, a hint of pride in her voice.
On board the Scythe’s bridge, Necro and Reaver were having a ball with the controls. Necro was sitting in the pilot seat, which was a most curious one as the main control stick was like the bars on a motorcycle, only further enhancing the coolness factor of the Scythe. Reaver sat in the pod next to the pilot pod, where navigation was. Grim teleported right behind the two and summoned two copies of his scythe, one in each hand. Twirling the scythes around like a total badass, he then slapped both of them upside the head with the flat of his blades like a red headed stepchild. The slapping was so powerful, that the two bonked heads against each other before they hit the ground.
“THAT was me keeping a promise to the readers… I mean my contacts who I decided to ask for name advice, and then naming the bloody ship without even so much as a vote!” Grim shouted.
The two recovered from the concussion quickly enough, and resumed their fooling around with the controls, revving up the engines again. “Too late, we replaced that ghastly hood ornament with a scythe with wings to make it all cool. Also redid the logo of the old ship on the shield. The Scythe is ready to go! We were nice enough to wait for y’all to get up here! We already decided that you’re the Captain, Necro’s pilot, I’m Engineer, Jenna is navigation, and Jenkins and Mog are passengers who can do various stuff… maybe Jenkins can be the barkeeper…” Reaver replied
“Wait, we have a bar on this ship?” asked an interested Grim.
“Fully functional kitchen in the cabin, which we refurnished so that way it’s our main dining/planning area. We converted some old storage spots into comfortable sleeping quarters for all of us and the future Reapers on board. This baby is ready to cruise the world… with it’s Quadruple Centrifuge Ion Drive, Q-CID for short, she can probably do deep space missions… and we haven’t even BEGUN to test the warp drive that your robots installed on here,” Reaver boasted, obviously in his element.
“I never ordered a warp drive… did they install the portal device?” Grim asked.
“Instantaneous travel is more complex; we got two modes of transportation. The first is a jump drive they found on one of the ships in the Scrapyard. While it SEEMS like that would be awesome as it isn’t limited by any sort of jump gates or rubbish like that, it’s really unstable, so if we use it, we don’t know where the heck we’ll end up. More unreliable then the improbability drive, that’s for bloody sure. The second mode of transportation are these “wormhole torpedoes” we found, which opens a rift in the space time continuum and lets us go to any two points we please. While technically more reliable then the first drive, it probably is going to leave a mark or two on the environment,” Reaver explained.
“Bah, the aftereffects of trans-dimensional traveling rifts are under our FCPA insurance plan, we need not worry about those, they can clean up any sort of nasty distortions…”
“FCPA?” asked Necro, turning from the controls to stare at Grim.
“YOU WILL ALL FIND OUT WHEN THE TALK COMES! YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH! DON’T MAKE ME BLOW YOUR MINDS!!!!” He yelled, panicking.
Necro and Reaver looked at each other, nodded, and said together “Try us.”
And so Grim repeated the same scenario with those two as with Jenna, with the same results. Conveniently, EVA had installed a mobile version of herself into the ship, so she was able to rush them off to the sick bay with Jenna in order to heal their blown minds.
An hour later, after everyone had been healed and their memories slightly altered, they gathered in the bridge, surrounding the main holo-projector basin. “Alright, you all passed out because I told you something that did indeed literally blow your minds. I will not repeat it, as you are not high level enough to fathom this life changing info. And DON’T say “try me”, as I just did. EVA has the footage of your brains exploding inside your heads if you don’t believe me. More importantly, we need to…”
“ROAD TRIP!” Necro and Reaver yelled, causing a facepalm from Grim.
“Look, we have to go over the geopolitical…” Grim began, but the others were far too excited. Even Jenna seemed somewhat eager, but this may have been from Necro’s overflowing enthusiasm. Still shunning Grim, Necro started up the engines while Reaver rushed off to the elevator in the rear of the bridge to head down to the engine room, leaving Jenna to man the navigation pod. The pod on the right was in charge of the weapons, but Necro and Reaver had jury rigged it so that way Necro could easily fire weapons when needed. Necro was the pilot because out of everyone, he was the most qualified with his Texas certified driver’s license. The fact that it was a commercial license and not for a motorcycle did not seem to bother anyone at all, least of all Necro, who was revving the engines loudly.
“Alright Necro, since you’re second in command and in charge since Grim is still gawking at y’all, I’m reporting to you. We’re ready to go when you are, me and the small floater army down here… not those nasty floaters we ran into, these got arms and a giant robot eye in the middle and whatnot. They’re quite useful, and seem to know they’re way around the ship. The four giant “wheels” outside the ship are actually centrifuges that help charge the ions that are used as the propellant for the ship. Once the ship is off the ground via a surge from the real centrifuges, the ship can easily hover in the air thanks to a combination of repulsor-lift tech and tiny maneuvering jets all across the ship, allowing for great maneuverability. The Centrifuges also act like giant in-take fans, so they suck up all the ions we need from the air, shoot it through the engine core down here for processing and pressurizing, then shot back up to the center of the centrifuge for charging, then expelled out to make us go zoom,” Reaver explained.
“Reaver, I got no idea what the hell you just said,” Jenna sighed, shaking her head.
“He’s saying that this ship works on magic and technology. It’s not like it’s using some sort of anti-gravity magic to work, it has a process… Hey, Reaver, how does the Scythe get ions from space?”
“There’s all sorts of particles floating in space, you just got to know where to look for it. Remember that the ion drive is strictly for sub-light travel, we’re not using it to journey to other worlds. At the least, we use the warp drive for Faster Then Light, or FTL travel. The instantaneous transport is going to be used for emergencies…. Centrifuges charged Necro! Ready for blast off!”
Necro slammed his right foot down on a pedal and turned the right handlebar, causing the rear wheels to blast off vertically, carrying the ship into the air. Surprisingly, Necro did not cause a sudden massive increase in Gs with his move, but slowly lifted the ship into the skies.
“Wow… it looks different up here…” Jenna said in awe through the giant transparent aluminum alloy glass screen in front of the bridge that provided a clear view of the surrounding environment both above and below the airship, directly in front of it.
“That’s nothing, wait till we take this puppy up past the clouds,” Necro winked, used to seeing the view as he flew on airplanes back in the real world. He was NOT used to actually flying them, but the Scythe seemed to respond to whatever he wanted, so he turned off the VTOL thrusters and switched to normal mode, craning the nose of the ship up and blasting off with all four wheels spewing the blue fire towards the rear of the ship.
As they broke through a thick layer of clouds leading to the stratosphere of Tipa, a gasp of awe came from everyone on the bridge at the simple majesty of the fields of clouds rolling on forever before them. This magnificent moment was ruined by Reaver, naturally.
“Oi, Necro! We haven’t even broken the sound barrier yet! Let’s crank it up a bit!”
“Don’t push me sir! The maximum speed of this sucker is Mach 225,000!” Necro grinned.
“And you won’t be going that fast in Tipa’s atmosphere, that’s for bloody sure. No faster then Mach 10!”
“Oh come on Grim! It’ll take over 3 hours just to circle the equator of Tipa!” Necro replied sulkily.
“Need I remind you that all the continents of Tipa are on the western hemisphere? You can reach Nida in about 2 hours at that speed, it’s quite fine…”
“You let us go faster in the Otana…”
“That’s cause the Otana wasn’t the size of this thing! We could easily hide the Otana from the public, this thing we have to go high in the sky to hide it, and then they can hear us all the way in Nida when you started it up!”
“Ease off Grim, this ship has two modes. The first mode is the normal one, which purposely makes extra noise just for show and to inspire fear in our enemies. The second mode is stealth mode, which nullifies the engine noise and activates a cloaking device, a good one. It’s a phase cloak, which means that solid objects can pass right through it, making us completely invisible and intangible! This ship has literally got all the bells and whistles any ship could even want!” Reaver intervened.
“I don’t recall ordering the droids to install all that…” Grim muttered.
“I had the droids add them when they finished. They are amazing, you know?”
“Can someone PLEASE tell me what all this number nonsense is about!?” Jenna shouted, extremely annoyed at being out of the loop.
“Mach is a measure of how fast the speed of sound is. So, Mach 1 is the speed of sound. Conveniently, the speed of sound on Tipa is the same on Earth, so I don’t have to worry about any conversions there. Mach 10 is roughly 10620 km/h, which is fast considering the technology available in my time. The speed of light is very roughly Mach 900,000, if we were using the proper conversions. So, Mach 225 thousand is ¼ of that number, meaning that the Q-CID can take us up to ¼ the speed of light. Grim here is being a fussy pot and not letting us go over 10 times the speed of sound though in planet. I take it that means no warping in planet, no?”
“Hell no! Don’t you read sci-fi novels? Going to light speed near a strong gravitational field is dangerous!” Grim reprimanded.
“Fine fine fine… anyways, we’re going at super fast speeds here, so if you decide to go on the deck of the Scythe, you WILL be blown away. That’s on top where the “hood” is, or the chassis as we like to call the main part of the ship. Can we test out the weapons systems Grim?” Necro asked.
“No! We need to get a move on here! Necro, land this ship down outside of Calico, I’ll enlarge the entry hole so that way we can store her underground later,” Grim ordered.
After thirty minutes of putting off landing, Necro finally did as Grim asked which followed some more screwing around as Necro and Reaver gave the rest of the Roughnecks a grand tour of the ship’s interior.
It was lunchtime when they finally situated themselves back in Calico’s main chamber, with a lunch buffet already prepared by EVA. A map of Tida had already been prepared, with the various kingdoms marked with major landmarks.
“Tida is divided into the North and South side by the Great Gap River, or GGR for short. It’s the widest river on Tipa, spanning from Eastern to Western tips of the continent and spanning about 50 kilometers wide. You would think that Tida would be two separate continents, and it would, if it wasn’t for the odd land formation directly in the middle of the river,” Grim nodded, and EVA highlighted a small land strip that connected the north and south parts of Tida.
“It’s known as The Overpass, a 3 klick wide land pass that is actually a natural bridge with large gaps in the support rock beneath the actual road on it that allows the river to flow through. It’s recorded in the Archives that the Overpass was made by the Founding Reaper of Earth to connect the two sub-continents together. In the center of the overpass is a 20 klick diameter circle that holds The Citadel…” Grim started, but got cut off by Necro.
“Which is the stronghold of the Paladins which they use to exert their authority all over Tida. Is it also the former capital of the Grand Kingdom?”
“The first part is correct, the second is no Obviously you’re good guesser, or you just know you’re clichés rather well. The Grand Capital Ruins are in the southern portion of Tida, but that’s later. Like Necro said, it is here that the Paladins ruled. The Reapers never actually touched The Citadel, though I wanted to bring that monstrosity down, I assure you. The Elemental Orbs wanted there to be some sort of lingering order yet for the people of Tida to cling to, and they figured the Paladins were the best shot. Fortunately for y’all, the Paladins are going to be a nuisance for our campaign, and we’ll have to dethrone them if we want to unify Tipa,” Grim explained.
“Grim, I know that you and Necro have your beefings with the Paladins, and Reaver may not like them because he’s a Forger, as he told me, but I happen to like them, and Aldrith IS allied with them. In fact, ALL the kingdoms of Tida are aligned with them…”
“Nope, your knowledge is incorrect. New Grand is aligned with the Necromancers and have shunned the Paladins, most likely cause the Necromancers helped rebuild New Grand while the Paladins didn’t even look in New Grand’s direction. This brings us to the heart of the discussion: the political state of Tipa, and the Elemental Orders. First off, there are no countries here in Tida; that would be too formal. They are all kingdoms, with a central capital and the extent of their conquest or of the people who pledged allegiance to the capital. We’ll start with Aldrania, where we technically are now,” Grim snapped his fingers, and EVA highlighted the north eastern portion of the continent in blue. Necro judged it to be roughly 1/3 of the northern half of the continent.
“As of right now, there are 5 kingdoms in Tipa. When the Grand Kingdom was destroyed, there were many small kingdoms that popped up, but over time they got conquered or joined together to form the 5 kingdoms we have today. They’ve been around for about 200 years, depending on which kingdom we’re talking about. We are in the Kingdom of Aldrania, with Aldrith as its capital. While formally the Outaway woods and Calico fall in Aldrania’s borders, Aldrania never actually asserted it’s authority past the Azure River, which as you can see is a short river that starts up here in the Calico Mountains, worms it’s way west, south, then east again to effectively cut off this peninsula from the rest of the mainland. We’re still technically attached to the mainland because the river doesn’t cut us off land wise in this region north of the river. Nonetheless, because of our situation, we will have to deal with Aldrania first if we plan on accomplishing our goals…” Grim continued, interrupted by Reaver.
“And those goals would be…”
“We are going to be facing a powerful invasion force from Nida. This invasion force comes from those creatures which are usually deemed “evil” by the humans banning together under one leader. This leader is the problem… You have all been briefed on the incident that occurred 40 years ago that forced the rest of the Reapers into killing themselves to seal that god, correct? Well, the fail-safe they activated didn’t… completely isolate the confounded Class 1 God. He’s trapped, but there’s a relic in Tipa that acts as the containment device for the dimensional prison. Said relic is located on Nida, and the leader of the Hoard, as they decided to call themselves,”
“Yet another original name,” Necro interjected.
“The Hoard leader is fully aware of this relic, and is intent on trying to use it to help him take over Tipa. The idiot is not aware that the Class 1 God can easily obliterate him with a single blink and then proceed to lay waste to Tida again, but evil villains never DO think too far ahead in circumstances like that,” Grim sighed.
“Grim, you mentioned the classification system here uses a scale of 1-7… so we’re dealing with a weak god, right?” asked Necro.
“But a god nonetheless. We are only demi-gods at full power, and in a head to head fight with all of us… I’d say we’re evenly matched, at least the old Reaper crew. I’ve yet to evaluate how this generation does. Unfortunately, this god doesn’t like head to head confrontations, and we never could get him to do a grand standoff fight. We wouldn’t WANT to do that anyways, as it would probably destroy Tipa in the process. The main plan with that fail-safe was for the last generation of Reapers to trap him, and then for this generation to finish him off,” Grim explained.
“How the heck do we kill a god? Aren’t they immortal and whatnot? Can’t he just… uncreate us or something?”
“Beldron, the name of the god we’re dealing with, is a general demon god with no real area of specialization. Yes, he does follow the Demonic Doctrine that Tipa is used to dealing with, so we do know some extents of his power. We don’t have to worry about him attempting to go back in time and blow up the planet at it’s creation or anything like that thanks to our FCPA coverage. We’re immune to reality distortion waves from other acts of uncreation or temporal disruption. Tipa is solid along those lines, but our position in the backwaters of the omniverse makes us susceptible to random portals, which sadly the FCPA does not cover, cheap buggers…”
“Grim, now you’re just confusing us. Who is the FCPA?”
“That falls under “The Talk” to know who they truly are, but think of them as an agency that helps out worlds when dealing with the supernatural stuff. Since Tipa doesn’t HAVE any gods anymore since the Goddesses abandoned us, the FCPA helps make sure that random Class V and up Creator Gods don’t come in and make us worship them. Also deal with all the annoying paperwork with the Immortal Council…. It’s complicated, but they’re technically our superiors if there was a pantheon here for Tipa. The FCPA doesn’t usually do “divine interventions” though, so we can’t really ask them to help us out with our problem since he’s only Class I. If he was, say Class IV or higher, we may be able to get help, but we do have measures on Tipa to deal with these rouge gods,” Grim explained.
“So these guys are like gods that let us do whatever we want, giving us full free will and whatnot, and help protect us from nasty external threats except for the portal thing?” Reaver asked, trying to piece it out.
“Sort of… They don’t just sit back and do nothing though. The FCPA is a huge organization. You know how monsters have random amounts of gold and items on them, or how in some worlds defeating enemies gives you health? The FCPA are the ones who put health in pots and give monsters rewards. They’re a huge organization that has billions of worlds to cover, so they’re usually stretched pretty thin. The point is, we don’t have to worry about Beldron trying to attack Tipa when we’re not there. He has to cause his destruction in the present and can’t time travel or bring in followers from his dimension. There are lots of inter-dimensional laws I don’t have time to go with, so trust me on this,”
“That still doesn’t explain how the hell we kill this Beldron,” Jenna complained, currently licking her arms while Necro was once again batting his tail playfully.
“Immortality is never quite what it seems to be, let me tell you that. There’s always SOME way to defeat a god, whether there is one or not. Even if the god is considered Class VII, the highest level god, there is still some way or another to defeat them, even if that other way is to get another Class VII to duke it out with him. That’s because the large majority of “gods” out there are far from perfect. Gods tend to have some sort of human or animal tendency to them. In the entire omniverse, there are only a handful of deities out there that have been judged “perfect”, which I use lightly as the term is subjective, and earned the right to be called an “omnicreator”. These gods are ones that can be truly immortal, as they generally have no weakness whatsoever. Fortunately, “omnicreators” are usually the “sit back and watch” gods, so they don’t usually try taking over other god’s realms,” Grim explained.
“Don’t take them lightly by what I just said, gods are dangerous creatures indeed. To a mortal there is no chance unless the fates dictate that he does so, and that’s usually with some sort of divine help, usually provided secretly by your friendly neighborhood FCPA, but that’s for “The Talk”. Beldron is Class I, which means that while he’s powerful, he has a weakness that is known and can be exploited. At full power, we are considered demi-gods. Our actual class level varies on the Reaper, but we ARE powerful, and we CAN take on a demon god. Beldron was actually nearing Class II when the last generation of Reapers fought him, but thankfully the fail-safe kept him from going up in power. It will be a difficult fight, but there IS a method to off him permanently. I can’t tell you this though because the plan still has some bugs and I really don’t want to overburden y’all. I mean, come on, you’re already responsible for one of the 6 elements of the planet, and you also have to restore the credibility of the Reapers as well as save the world. I want to add the burden slowly so that way it doesn’t squish you,” he continued.
“That’s great, but back to the original question: what are our goals? If you’re not going to tell us how we’re going to kill a demon god, then tell us what we’re supposed to do besides gather the rest of the Reapers?” Necro asked, now poking Mog’s pompom, since he was sitting on top of Necro’s head.
“The Reapers have lost credit with the eyes of the public. They believe us to be dead, or have forsaken them. Your primary duty, besides your quest for the Reapers, is to get the 5 Kingdoms to re-swear their loyalty to the Reapers. Yes, it’s more of a formality as we could very well just force them to do whatever the hell we want when we’re all at max power, but it’s much easier if they think they have some choice in the matter. We need to unite Tipa under one banner, mainly ours, and get them prepared for the invading Hoard. The South of Tida is currently warring between the two kingdoms down there, and will get easily swept up in a united front by the Hoard. The three Northern kingdoms have truces with each other, but they’re uneasy ones. The Paladins are part of this problem of unifying the continent, because they’re actually stirring up trouble between the kingdoms,” Grim said grimly.
“Why? If the Paladins are for justice and good and whatnot, wouldn’t they want a united Tida?” asked Reaver.
“This reminds me too much of the Catholic Church back in the middle ages of my world. There were plenty of separate kingdoms back then, with no real sense of unity. The Catholic Church was the one organization that survived the fall of Rome, and thanks to it kept people going through the Middle Ages… somewhat. The old Catholic Church was corrupt, more a political entity then an actual religious organization. The Paladins probably want the continent divided so that way they’re the major power. I don’t think they’d like it if all of Tida was following us then them,” Necro theorized.
“Exactly! The Paladins like their position of power, and would be loathe to give it up, especially to us. The Paladins are still pretty mad that we ended the Grand Kingdom, as that was their golden age when they were the King’s right hand army. They’re still powerful, but no where near as such during the Grand Kingdom. Even if the Reaper of Life told them to, they’d probably call her a traitor for abandoning them in their hour of need,” Grim replied.
“I say, Grim. If the Paladins don’t have the Reaper of Life as their head, which they did back in my day, who’s the jolly old leader now?”
“The “Holy Emperor” is the position, said to have been handpicked by the Reaper of Life before she betrayed the Paladins. After that one was picked, the position of Holy Emperor has been a position for, yes, another monarchy. This would be a good time to explain the Paladins and they’re infrastructure. As you know, the Paladins were founded to uphold “the greater good” that is the life element. They’re motto is “Burn the Heathen, Kill the Mutant, Purge the Undead,” Grim began, but was cut off.
“Why am I getting a Warhammer 40,000 moment here? Anyways, who exactly is the Mutant and Heathen? I can guess who the undead are,” Necro interjected.
“The Heathen are those who follow the Serpentine Trinity; that is the members of the Air Raiders, the Infernal Forgers, and the Necromancers. It also refers to criminals and other people dubbed “uncivilized”. The mutant refers to lycanthropes and vampires, and other “freaks of nature” as they call them. Fortunately Beast Warriors are considered “ok” by the Paladins, so you don’t have to worry about getting killed for being in your current form. You will be killed for associating with a necromancer though,” Grim explained.
“Bunch of dastards… who the hell do they think they are judging others by their “standards” of living? The Life Element is NOT the “only” path out there…” Necro muttered.
“Now you see why I loathe them. Incidentally, the reason why people support them is because of the balance thing I mentioned earlier. It seems that it’s usually the “dark side” who tries to upset the current balance with world domination or destroying everything. Since everyone loves an underdog, the light side is usually favored, and as such, “civilized” people usually tend to go with its beliefs. That and people are afraid of the unknown and change and blah blah blah, a bunch of philosophical BS that I’m not going into. The Paladins ORIGINALLY were a decent organization created back before the Grand Kingdom existed, dedicated to protecting humans from monsters and such. But unfortunately, the Grand Kingdom gave them a power boost like no other, and the Paladins decided they liked being the elite army with their ideals, and they got corrupted from then on,” Grim added.
“How do they feel about the other sentient creatures, like elves and orcs?” Necro asked.
“That’s a source of debate. Some Paladins are “kill all non-humans”, while others are “let’s be friends with other sentients”. The compromise is that the Paladins treat the other races with respect, but generally ignore them unless they’re attacking a human settlement,”
“Alright, go on about their domain and infrastructure,” Necro nodded.
EVA highlighted the rest of Tida, adding 4 more colors to the map. “Here are the remaining kingdoms. I will not go into depth about them until we actually run into them, as this briefing is long enough as it is. The red area in the middle of the North is the Highgetish Kingdom, with the capital of Highget. The green area on the west side of the North is New Grand, with New Grandia as its capital. These three kingdoms respect the other’s territories, but there’s some border skirmishes with minor nobility that keeps the truces uneasy. As you can see, the North is divided in about a third for each kingdom, keeping everyone happy. The South only has two kingdoms but apparently half the sub-continent is not enough. The yellow area in the west is the Kingdom of Lochester, with Hichester as its capital, while the brown area in the east is Renegadian Kingdom, with Renias as its capital,”
“All monarchies… Grim, is it against the rules to point out that monarchy is the stupidest ruling system and if they want a totalitarian government they should settle for a military dictatorship,” Necro asked, his modern ideas taking over now.
“Yes, I don’t want you upsetting the political community of Tida with your modern philosophies on government. I will admit, monarchies are stupid, but they haven’t learned that leadership isn’t genetic. I mean, I guess you could TRY, but no one will believe you, considering that family birth is like, half of what makes a person…”
“That’s another issue. I remember reading “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”, bout this guy from the Industrial Revolution in my world being sent back to the middle ages. Towards the end of the book, he becomes this powerful guy in the kingdom, second only to the king, but he also realizes that he’s not accepted by the other nobility, or the peasantry for that matter, because he doesn’t have a family. They’re a time period that think that family is more important then ability, which is plain stupid.”
“You are in some luck there, as Tida isn’t nearly as bad as King Arthur’s Court is in that regard. Some of the most powerful mages serving in the court come from peasant families, so people ARE aware that family isn’t everything. Nobility and Royalty will of course judge you mostly by your family, but when you start talking with the common folk, you’ll realize they care a lot more about abilities then they do about what family you are. Obviously they’d bow down to Jenna if they found out she was a princess, but they wouldn’t think less of you Necro if you were born from the poorest family ever if your magic talents are good. In Tipa, the socioeconomic structure isn’t quite as rigid as the old feudal system, where you’re stuck in you’re class where ever you’re born. People can move up to be mages or knights, or get kicked down to being peasants. It’s the nobility and royalty though that is judged on family though. You can say that we’re working on it, but we’re going to need something like the French Revolution and a Napoleon that you should be judged on ability, not heredity,” Grim sighed.
“That just means I got to lie about my background, I’m good with that. I’ll assume they’re used to the Reapers being from common upbringing?”
“Jenna is the third reaper to be inducted from nobility or royalty. The Elemental Spheres try to avoid picking humans from that class to try to prevent them from going “Oh, only us fancy people get to be Reapers, making us that much better then you”. Trust me, we have an odd system here, but it IS changing… ever so slowly… This reminds me, there is to be absolutely no havoc inside the capital cities whatsoever. Our goal here is to convince these kingdoms that following us will save their butts, which it will. I don’t want any Shambles incidents in the capitals, otherwise we’ll REALLY be despised and have to use mind control or something, and it’s really hard to do that on an entire planet’s population. You may launch reprisals at smaller villages, if you can justify it properly, like in Shambles. You are to be on your best behaviors, and Jenna will be in charge of making sure you behave yourselves,” Grim stated.
“If Jenna’s the mother, does that make Necro the father of us?” Reaver said slyly. This comment was met with the flat of Necro’s blade against Reaver’s skull, and then the flat of Jenna’s blade against the front of Reaver’s Face, knocking him out.
“Well, yes, sort of… Necro may not know what to do, but I’m sure he knows enough on what NOT to do to attract attention. That and he is the most capable of smooth talking his way through anything with deception and what not, though the Reaper of Wind may also be capable… if we had him. Regardless, no mucking about,” Grim warned.
“Aye sir!’ everyone else changed, except for Reaver, who was being revived by Mog.
“Now, let’s move back to the Paladins,” Grim sighed, snapping his fingers and a large gold area highlighted about 75% of Tida. The circle did not encompass any part of New Grand’s territory, and did not touch go past the Azure River. It also seemed to leave other parts of the continent unhighlighted, but mostly at the edges.
“That is the domain that the Paladins control. Big, isn’t it? Once you cross the Azure river, you will be in their territory. The Paladins central HQ is of course, the Citadel. Here the Holy Emperor sits, as well as the administrative staff for the Paladins. It is also where the Head Priest and General of the Imperial Guard reside, the second highest positions. Obviously, the Head Priest is in charge of all magic users, while the GotIG is in charge of the Citadel’s security. Below these two are the 5 Generals of the Holy Order, or the Generals for short. These guys are each in charge of a region of Tipa, mainly one for each kingdom. The New Grand one is in charge of expanding their territory, as New Grand is against the Paladins… not openly, but they do ignore any messages sent their way and ally with the Necromancers. There are 5 Paladin Frontier Bases, where each General lives to oversee his region. Right now, we will focus on the Aldranian Branch as that is where we are, but most branches are the same, with the exception of New Grand,” Grim explained, zooming the holo-projector on Aldrania.
“Here is the capital, this red dot. The blue dot is where we are, and the black dot is the former village of Shambles. The blue line is the Azure River. The brown line is the main path from our location to Aldrania. This green dot is the Paladin Frontier Base, or PFB is situated. What’s the yellow area it’s situated upon? That my friend is the Maralny Desert, home of one of the Air Raider tribes. They outpost is about a day’s march from Aldrith, allowing the Paladins to respond rather quickly to any Air Raider attacks and keep tabs on the kingdom’s capital. Inside this massive fort lies the General, who has under him two divisions of men,” Grim stated, causing Necro to spurt out his apple juice.
“WHAT? Two divisions?” he cried incredulously.
“What’s so bad about two divisions?” asked Reaver, who didn’t know a lot about military organization.
“Ok, in a general military structure, there’s usually 12 men per a squad, right? There’s usually 3 squads plus a fourth “special ops” squad that handles heavy weapons and such in each company. There are usually 3 to 4 companies per a battalion. There are usually 3 battalions for every regiment, and there’s usually 2 regiments for every division…” Necro began, but was interrupted by Jenna.
“Actually, the Paladins have four 12 man squads per company, four companies per battalion, four battalion per regiment, and four regiments per division…” she said shyly, knowing that Necro wouldn’t be happy.
“Dear pie, that’s 6144…”
“Actually, Grim, each PFB has 4 divisions, not 2,” EVA corrected.
“Lovely, that’s 12,228 soldiers vs. the 6 of us, plus a moogle and a sentinel cause you can’t leave the base. And that’s ONE base! Who knows how many are in the Citadel…” Necro sighed.
“Calm down! You’re forgetting that one of those four companies is an HQ company, which means only 3 of 4 will be doing fighting. Yes, it’s high numbers, but y’all ARE going to be demi-gods after all. Besides, since Aldrania has the lowest level monsters, the Paladins there are also lower level compared to the others. Now, as I was saying, their military is generally well run. You have Brigadier Generals running each Division, Full Colonels running each Regiment, Lieutenant Colonels for each Battalion, Captains for each company, and Lieutenants for each Squad. Each squad consists of one Squad Sergeant and Squad Corporal, with the rest being “enlisted” ranks. Generally, the main body of the Paladin is a knight with a sword and shield, though they use practically every weapon out there, excluding the scythe. It just depends which group you’re fighting. They never break down past the Squad level, so if you run into a random patrol, it’ll be a squad with the company not too far. One division is always out on patrol, stretching themselves across Aldrania looking out for trouble. Another division is kept inside the capital city, while the other two stay at the base,” Grim explained.
After sipping some pumpkin juice, he went on. “While most Paladins are knights, there are clerics. Usually there’s 4 clerics per company, in that 4th “support” squad, along with 4 mages and 4 normal Paladins. Clerics are generally for healing purposes and dealing with undead as they associate themselves with the Life Element, while mages are more for fighting and haven’t formally chosen an element, but still fight for “the greater good” or something like that. Also, one regiment in each division is entirely made up of cavalry, and they are usually the elite units compared to the foot soldiers. The Paladins do not usually believe in using archers and such in combat, but some companies may employ a few just in case. The Clerics and Mages are usually ranked according to a “tier” of ability, from 1 through 10. All paladins, whatever class they join, join as initiates and must pass their “trial” by themselves or in a small group to be deemed worthy to enlist, though the Paladins are usually welcoming to anyone, even Necromancers or those who are “mutants”. They grant them clemency and that they have repented for their sinful actions, and are thus redeemed,” Grim concluded.
“Next I’ll deal with the Air Raiders, as they live in the desert. As you already know, they’re nomads that were viewed as a bunch of criminals by the Grand Kingdom and forced into exile in the various deserts around Tida. They get their name because the majority of members are aligned with wind somehow, and they typically launch raids on settlements,”
“Yes, they’re horribly cruel and merciless. They don’t give a second thought to killing women and children, and are absolutely despicable. They deserve their exile,” Jenna hissed.
“You may want to investigate the reports the military of Aldrania hands you more closely. My intel suggests that the Air Raiders operating round here are quite respectful in their raids, only taking enough food for what they need, and only attack men who get in their way. Women and children are at worse, knocked out cold. Your loathing of them stems from their frequent attacks on your subjects, and you would like nothing more then to wipe them out, no? Consider that they have to survive in the desert, where food is scarce, especially as the Air Nomads have been using up more then the desert can produce, and monsters aren’t the most edible things, as most are poisonous to humans. They’re trying to survive, and they are NOT criminals or gypsies or whatever ludicrous charges the Grand Kingdom trumped on them,”
“Hello, member of the Grand Kingdom right here,” said an annoyed Jenkins.
“Don’t care Jenkins, your Kingdom is dead, and so is it’s feelings, get over it. It just so happens that the next Reaper, the one of Wind, has been detected in the desert AND in the capital, indicating he’s probably a member of the Air Raiders. We’ll talk more about that later, but as you can see, killing them all is unwise,” Grim smiled coldly.
“The Air Raiders are not organized by any means; each faction operates as separate entities. The actions of one “cell” do not mean the other cells are the same, each one has it’s own flavor, if you will. Since Wind mages are the experts on tracking and recon, they are the hardest to track, which gives the Air Raiders a distinct advantage over the Paladins. They can easily move their camp in a matter of hours after getting word that they were discovered. There is usually one Chieftain, with other duties assigned to people based on ability. Usually the men go off to raid while the women mind the children, a typical role in Tipa society, though there are exceptions, and women are more then welcome to join a raid. Women also are in charge or protecting the camp so they’re not just weak creatures that need protecting. The main goal of the Air Raiders is to survive, though some act through revenge. The largest concentration of them live out in the Talni Desert, which is in Lochester territory,” Grim added, stopping to eat a grilled cheese.
“That’s about it for them, nothing too fancy. They live in all the major deserts, and their numbers are unknown, though I’m sure the Paladins could wipe them out if they really tried by sheer numbers. Keep an eye out for them, as they have spies in all the settlements to scope out targets. Next I’ll cover the Aqua Guardians, whom you’ve already met and may have slightly ticked off… it would be nice if we could get the Elemental Orders to swear loyalty to us, but that may be a teensy bit harder…”
“Anyways, the Aqua Guardians are similar to the Air Raiders in that they operate mostly on their own. They have small outposts all along the major rivers and lakes making sure people don’t try to taint it or abuse it or something like that. They sort of serve as the authority in areas where there is none, and have a general sense of good. They’re certainly not as obnoxious as the Paladins, but as you saw with Jenna’s group, they can be a tad… extreme and confused. I’m not sure how they’re going to take the news that an entire group of them got defeated, but we’ll see. There IS a central location for them though, near the Citadel actually, about 10 klicks east and on the north bank of the river. They don’t have too much authority over their various cells, but they do form the head. Each group as a “Captain” as their various leader, and their armaments are mixed, but mostly ranged weapons. They don’t belong to anyone except the waters of Tipa, keeping them free for all to use, but not abuse. There are currently no AG along the oceans, something about the water there being tainted with salt…”
“The Infernal Forgers are a tad more connected then the previous two groups, but far smaller in number. The Raiders and Guardians have thousands of people if we summed up all their cells, but the Forgers would barely be above a thousand. This is because of the technophobia Tida has. They believe it is unnatural, and shouldn’t be messed with. Reaver already explained the ranks. The Master Smith rules in Mt. Inferno, a dormant volcano located in New Grand near the Great Gap River. Below him are the 5 Smiths, one for each Capital, where they train up the younger members of the organization. While technology is still reviled by the kingdoms, the Forgers DO make the best weapons and armor, so the capitals tolerate them provided they make weapons and armor and keep the tech stuff underground. Freemasons are usually in charge of the smaller settlements scattered throughout Tida, though they are allowed to roam and forge as they please for the Forgers. The lesser ranks usually stick with their leader until they are promoted to Freemason. They’re goal is to unlock the secrets of advanced technology, while making cool stuff and setting it on fire,” Grim nodded as Reaver grinned.
“The Druids are an interesting group, living in the forests of Tida. They operate independently of each other, but they all follow a common credo so essentially what one group does another would likely do it as well. They’re job is to protect the forest from poachers, loggers and the like. Druids are primarily mages attuned to the earth element, but there are a few warriors that become Stone Warriors or Beast Warriors. Ironically, plants fall under Earth and animals fall under Life, yet the Druids can still create Beast Warriors, a phenomenon that fascinates me, but that’s going off topic. Essentially, adventurers trying to go into forests will run into the Druids, and usually will be run out if they are seen harming the plants. It’s fine to hunt monsters, but not plants. As I said before, Druids are all carnivores while Paladins are generally herbivores; which prevent the two groups from getting along as Druids love to protect plants and Paladins protect humans and animals, but not monsters. There’s usually a head Druid, and some various ranks based upon the level of the druid, but nothing too rigid. Just a “be at one with nature” attitude. They’re mostly laid back except when someone steps on a flower, and then they’ll go psycho on you and try to avenge the poor flower. Watch your step around them, please,” Grim cautioned.
“Naturally, I’ve saved the best for last, the Necromancers. This once might organization now lives in the Tainted Woods of New Grand, an undead forest that no druid would dare set foot in. Within this forest lies a massive fortress known as the Necropolis. While only half the size of the Citadel, it’s still quite an imposing site, and far more fearsome,” Grim nodded proudly.
“I know I haven’t been real detailed about ranks in the other organizations other then the Paladins, but that’s cause really the Paladins and the Necromancers are the most organized of them all. Sure, they all have scouts, mages, healers, etc. but I don’t want to point that out. If a position needs to be explained further down the road, I’ll fill you in. Anyways, the leader of the Necromancers is the Grand Master Scythelord…-“
“Scythelord? I thought you said that only we carried scythes?” Necro asked.
“You must remember, each Elemental Order was founded by the Reapers, and therefore are somewhat Cults of ours. The Holy Emperor was originally the Holy General, but that changed once the Reapers ended Grand. Out of all the organizations, the Necromancers revere their Reaper the most, and honor him by making their leader carry a scythe. Truly, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so the Founding Reaper of Death allowed it,” Grim explained.
“I thought they weren’t supposed to worship us?”
“You saw the AG worshiping Jenna, no? No matter how much we do, because we’re essentially the highest power around here, some form of worship is there. The Elemental Orders will at the least respect y’all for being the Reaper of their element… well, except for the Reaper of Life…”
“So, could I technically become this Grand Master Scythelord?”
Grim grinned at that suggestion. “One of my original unification plans was to have the Reapers become the respective leaders of their Elemental Order. Obviously it’s harder for some then others, but if the Reapers were literally the heads, we could easily mobilize Tida for war. While the kingdom unification is more urgent, there is nothing preventing you from claiming domination of your respective Order,”
“What, you want more titles for yourself, glory hound?” asked Jenna jokingly.
“I’m not the one who was claiming to be a goddess earlier,” he teased back.
“Hey, I was under the influence of that Water Orb!” she growled playfully.
“Alright, enough! Anyways, the Necromancers aren’t quite as militant as the others. There’s… 5 “Elder Necromancers”, which serve as the council for the entire group. Each Necromancer is idealistically in charge of one kingdom, but because they’re holed up in the Necropolis, they don’t have too much reach past New Grand. That’s where the Necrofinders come in. They’re the talent scouts for the Necromancers that enlist others to join them by roving around the world, which is your current cover story. The Necromancers have their initiate rank, then once inducted, they’re given a field of study. Most become Stalfan Tamers, which are your average necromancers that wield large armies of the undead to crush others. Others choose to undergo Sentinel Tamers, which are the Necromancers that use Sentinels. Generally, Necromancers go off in pairs when they’re on the attack: one for Stalfan, one for Sentinels, as they are completely different magic, but both are necessary for a viable attack. Still others go for the “dark mage” aspect, which focuses less on necromancy and more on the other elements of the Death Element, like emotion manipulation, diseases, pain, etc. Each of these three branches have their tiers as well, once again, 1-10.” Grim concluded.
“That was less epic then I thought it would be…” Necro sighed.
“It’s cooler once you’re actually AT the Necropolis and see all the stuff around there. Trust me, the Necromancers are the second most organized of all the Orders. Tomorrow I will be briefing y’all on your specific jobs in Aldrith, and then I’m kicking your butts out of here so I can get some rest and we can continue on with our grand mission…”
“Sir, it’s twenty hundred…” EVA reported.
“I lectured for 8 hours? You’re joking me….”
“So THAT’S why we were so bored!” Necro and Jenna chimed together, then blushed as they realized they said it together.
“Get out of here and go to your rooms, no supper for being bored for any of you! You can use your food replicators if you want a quick snack!” Grim ordered, more as a joke then anything else, but the other Reapers were glad to go their separate ways and get away from the main room.
“EVA, next time warn me when I go into a large rant like that!” Grim said, going back to his console.
“You were doing such a lovely job sir, I decided it best to just let you drone on and on. Hopefully we’ll get them back into Tipa soon enough,” EVA replied.
“Yes, no more bloody side quests for a while, that’s for sure,” he muttered.
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