Chapter 459: Brainstorming
Laz knew Maia was the corporal form of a god and therefore the strongest creature in this realm, stronger than even him. In essence, as she was the god of this realm, if she found fault with Laz or even the other humans, she could kill them with a thought. While that was a scary kind of feeling, Laz had been confronted by other beings much stronger than him before so he wasn’t exactly frightened by this.
And besides which, the little loli was kind of cute in her own way and seemed to be easy to get along with, well... as long as it seemed like she wanted something from him even though he had already told her no.
Those feelings though were washed away with the anger she put on display at this very moment with Ivana and Sylvia as she went from being a cute and sexy, loli to being what she actually was, the god of these people.
In but a moment, her entire demeanor changed from being a carefree onlooker to being an angry, if not vengeful god.
Holding the two women up by one breast each had to hurt them and possible scare them, but more so the look in her eye wasn’t something Laz was new to. It was a look of anger and of madness, one that only a being who had been through hell could produce.
Maybe Laz had that face on him before, but he had never noticed it. Where he had seen it before was on the face of his grandfather whenever he got into a dark place and started thinking about the war that he had been dragged into.
It wasn’t a look Laz wanted to ever see a person give, the look of losing control.
Laz, who had no business interfering, stepped forward and reached out a hand, setting it gently on Maia’s shoulder.
Her head snapped over and glared at him, but he just calmly looked back. To him, Maia was a stranger so her madness didn’t affect him much. It was nothing like when he had seen Grandpa Crowe lose control before.
That look had been imprinted on him from that day on.
Seeing Laz’s calm face, Maia actually took a few deep breaths as her anger settled. She wasn’t trying to be angry with her children, far from it. But since Ivana and Sylvia were suppose to be her two stronger supporters as well as the pillar’s of the entire race, it hurt her deeply to see them actually get so hostile towards each other.
She let go with her hands, causing them both to fall to the floor with a ’thump.’
Sylvia recovered first and backed up, not sure yet what was going on.
Ivana on the other hand took to her knees and leaned forward, smacking her head against the ground so many times Laz was surprised she didn’t bust open her skull.
"Please forgive this lowly one for acting so disrespectfully in your presence, mother."
"Please forgive this lowly one for acting so disrespectfully in your presence, mother."
"Please forgive this lowly one for acting so disrespectfully in your presence, mother."
And she just kept saying it over and over again while pounding her head down.
Laz just shook his head while Maia sighed.
"I know that you fight, but right now we have a bigger problem. I would hope you could focus on the task at hand and leave these petty grievances for another day?"
"Of course mother. Of course."
While Sylvia wasn’t privy to knowing who the little girl was, she wasn’t stupid either and seeing the way Ivana was acting, she figured it out quite quickly.
"Please forgive this lowly one for acting so disrespectfully in your presence, mother. I shall accept whatever punishment you deem necessary from me."
While Sylvia apologized, she didn’t keep begging like Ivana.
"Punishment... Well... for now I shall take both of your apologizes for the moment as we have something else to focus on. But the punishment shall still come so don’t think you’re off the hook that easy..." Maia said, cracking her knuckles as Ivana and Sylvia both shook a little bit.
"So... umm...?" Sylvia had a ton of questions, but she just didn’t know how to ask.
"This is Maia who is the corporal form of the mother tree of your people. As for why she’s like this? I guess because she’s bored?" Laz responded while Maia just started running and jumping around without a care in the world again.
Watching her, Laz had the feeling that if he had been left in a half sleeping state for ten thousand years, he would probably want to walk and jump around as well once he was free.
"Mother... I mean Maia, has tasked us with finding out just where those Infernal Beetles came from. As you know, while she is spread all throughout this tiny pocket dimension, there are still places she can not see due to the manipulations of our people. While we don’t have any solid evidence, we can make a few conclusions with what we do know."
"They are a family that has been around since we came to be sealed in here as only they would have been able to keep Infernal Beetles from during the war. They are also strong enough to have their own private chamber and apparently brave enough to try killing her..." Sylvia finished up Ivana words, indicating that she had already thought the same things as Ivana.
"That is correct. I am just unaware of why anyone would choose to do this. All of our people know what the consequences are if Maia were to die..." Ivana said, stating the most confusing part out loud.
Even Sylvia didn’t seem to have an answer.
There were several of the older families who had survived after the great war to continue on their bloodlines. While no one who fought in that war was still alive, that didn’t mean the information from that time was lost. There were many stories about the results of a Fae race losing their mother tree. As such, since they were lucky enough to have been granted a replacement, their people should be entirely grateful and respectful to Maia, not trying to kill her.
"What if they weren’t dependent on Maia to survive? And what if they knew the secret of getting out of this pocket dimension?" Laz asked, as everyone was still in thought except Maia who was chasing around butterflies.
"We can get out of here?" Sylvia asked shocked. That had been a long held wish of her people, but one that had started to fade in the rivers of time. Afterall, this place was peaceful and a peaceful environment makes for a lazy people.
"Yeah. The only reason you were in here was for Maia to recover her strength which apparently she had done a while ago. But because the condition of being summoned hadn’t happened, you’ve basically been stuck in here. Now though, she is using me as an excuse for you all to leave. But before doing so, she wants to figure out who tried of off her so... once that’s done, you’re free to leave. Although I will be honest, the world itself is going to be rather difficult for you to live in. I will have to contact my master A’ruya and see what she says."
"Oh?" Sylvia didn’t know how to respond since she didn’t know what the black tree mark on Laz meant and therefore didn’t know exactly who his master was. To her way of thinking, she didn’t want to rely on a human for their people’s survival.
Although Laz was the exception.
"So what do you mean when you said ’what if they didn’t need Maia to survive?’ And I’m assuming you think they think that if Maia dies, the gate will open and we will be free?"
"Yes to the second part and as to the first part. Well... what if they had blood that wasn’t just you’re pure Fae blood?"
"Is that... even possible?" Ivana and Sylvia asked at the same time. While Ivana had been there, she was giving Laz and Maia space at the time this was discussed.
"I’m guessing so. Maia said that if we... meaning me and one of you or your people were to have children, the bloodline would be immensely stronger than just with your blood."
"Truly?" Sylvia asked, never having even entertained the idea, especially because pure bloodlines were so sought after by the upper class.
"That’s right. While there are probably only a few bloodlines out there, assuming they survived, that we could benefit from, his is definitely one of them. Got it?" Maia said winking a few times as thought trying to get a point across.
Both women seemed to get what she was saying right away.
"So anyway..." Laz continued, acting like he didn’t see what he clearly just saw.
"What if one of them had already mixed their bloodline? If that were the case, would they really decline if something happened to Maia?" Laz asked, getting Ivana and Sylvia to think.
"They would, but it wouldn’t be nearly as much. But the biggest problem would be that because of it, they would start to develop traits far different that what my children normally possess," Maia stated as a light popped on in both Ivana’s head and Sylvia’s head at once.
She smiled and then frowned.
’Took them long enough,’ she thought to herself.
