While Zarian was bumbling his way further east, many inhabitants of Corma were still bracing themselves. The tectonic shifts had collapsed numerous caverns and killed countless creatures, mostly monsters, who normally lived underground.
The nations east of the Stone Sea River, the united Stalwart Paladin Kingdom and the discordant islands of the Windy Strider Kingdom suffered blow after blow from Zarian’s rampage and world-shaking.
Giant waves tested the walls the island cities, fortresses, and farms had surrounded themselves with. Rulers, large and small, cried out to their gods or cursed the Dark Lord for their continuous misfortune under the threat he provided at the worldly and universal stages.
Prime Archbishop Orin Ignatius snapped, rounded up the dregs of his best and most zealot fighting paladins, and started up another crusade to gain some victory somewhere. They pointed their swords and holy magic toward their nearest neighbor, the scattered islands of the Windy Strider Kingdom.
It was about time they took over that secular and hedonistic kingdom.
Orin had the guidance of his gods and news from his limited but faithful inquisitor network that the Dark Lord’s presence was darkening the Windy Strider Kingdom. The other Floridians were already there, affecting the capital with their evil freedom. No doubt, the Dark Lord would show up there, too.
So it was time for another crusade right after the last failed one!
***
The underground city nation, Carrowmore, survived mostly intact because of its ancient wards that defended against earthquakes. But all of those wards were burnt out and destroyed now.
These were wards that had lasted since the Reset Era, too.
The last person who had mastery over such pivotal wards had died from getting backstabbed while having his riches taken by rivals a month ago. The death of this special drider left the city without their expert ward master against earthquakes.
They were scrambling to do without, since their gods weren’t helpful in the mundane maintenance of wards.
***
All the way down south from Carrowmore, Princess Foodie Darkrun was making her rounds with Prince Loner and Slip the Sleipnir. They were checking on everyone in the former fortress base of the wolf dragons and wolf kobolds.
The world-quaking event had come with aftershocks. Every now and then, Foodie and the others had to brace themselves.
Foodie still had chills when she thought back to that mighty roar that reached everyone. It sounded like an apex beast had attacked the world.
Everyone had become afraid of all that roaring and world-shaking. Even the skeletons and spiders had rattled or buried themselves in a hole out of fear.
Loner had done his best to keep his cool while Slip reared up and kicked about with all eight of his legs. Even Lord Hoodah the Hulk Meister had dropped from his great fifteen-foot height and blabbered like a baby, dreading the source of that roar and the power shaking the entire world.
Foodie alone had stayed steady on her feet and looked up at the skies. She’d stayed on the sturdiest fortress wall that hadn’t fallen from Part 2 of the mythical event and the world quakes.
She’d seen pieces of dark stone fly overhead at great speeds. She’d seen something white and glacial far, far, far into the east that pierced the sky and flew away into space.
She’d listened to the roaring with her fists gripped tightly, her toes clenched so hard they dug into the stone under her. She’d endured because this was the roar of her father, and she could feel his raw power from it.
She’d roared back. She’d sounded nothing like him. But she’d roared anyway because she wanted to practice.
One day, she would be so strong she could crush mountains, break moons, and shake the world with the sound of her voice. She would become stronger and stronger, just like her father.
So after the worldwide event settled down with only a few aftershocks, Foodie made sure everyone was okay. They had a two-week break before going into the Wolf Dragon Den as the last part of the mythical regional event. That was plenty of time to feed her people and rest up.
After her rounds, she went to sort out plans with the others of the Ride-or-Die Guild, who Foodie considered as cousins, even if not as royal as her. Then she went off alone to train.
The memory of father’s roar and the way he shook the Walled Continent, maybe the entire world, filled Princess Foodie Darkrun with determination. She didn’t train all by herself or without someone watching over her, however.
***
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Ekri the Tailor watched over the princess from the shadows and with his high-level stealth skill. Watching over her was now his sole duty.
So much of the world he’d once known was changing so fast that all of his plans were puffing away like smoke.
He didn’t bother considering himself as much of a baron anymore. He’d not only ignored the summons for him from the other barons, he’d ignored the Countess of Carrowmore.
Ekri the Tailor was going to lose everything, such as his lovely tailor shop that was on his business cards he’d scattered all over the place, yet he was okay with that. He was serving the will of his true mistress, and he was focused on the developments of his favorite new pastimes.
Speaking of pastimes, Princess Foodie wasn’t the only one doing late night training. Another certain someone, who was an interesting case study for the tailor to measure, was conducting their own nightly, half-secret training.
Gnoll Elder Ezda was running around in the night to fight the strongest challenges she could outside of fighting waves upon waves of wolf dragons and wolf kobolds who were lower in level than her. But where Princess Foodie trained to become stronger, Ezda trained in fear that she was too weak.
The world shaking and roaring from earlier had frightened her. But who would blame her for being scared?
Ekri had felt a fear he’d never felt in his life when all of that happened. To fight something like that would push him over the edge, beyond the limitations he’d reached long ago, perhaps even sacrificing too much for him to recover from.
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It was possible, perhaps. Ekri the Tailor was quite old, and he had his own stockpile of great and fearsome powers that could affect a large swath of the Walled Continent. But … that had taken time to build up and prepare. A long time. Some of his powers weren’t reusable if he ever had to go to such extreme lengths to win a fight.
Ekri had to admit it was a rare feeling to feel inadequate next to the youth, especially the one who was deemed the Dark Lord and Shadowfell Husband. So, he distracted himself by watching those who were far weaker on the totem pole of power but were scrambling to become stronger themselves.
Gnoll Elder Ezda was just about … oh … there it went. Ezda was now Level 100. Would she become a Master Ranker?
Maybe she would. The gnoll was clearly ecstatic with her achievement. There hadn’t been a gnoll at Level 100 or above since the Reset Era thousands of years ago. Ezda was literally the first in two eras.
Ekri the Tailor was quite interested to see how Ezda would develop further while he waited in the area. He was also interested in what his mistress would think about all of this.
Then his interests changed when Ekri felt a subtle psychic ripple pass through him. The ripple gave him a sense of delight and dread.
That ripple could only come from his favorite of favorites. The one who Ekri believed to be the greatest adventurer he’d laid eyes on. The one who had announced herself as the Star Core Queen out of ironic bravado, which was a funny thing to say. To be the Star Core Queen would mean she wanted to be the Adventurer Queen.
Ekri found her … Naomi Washington … fascinating. There was something about her that struck him like a muse, giving him more creativity than he’d felt in years. He truly wished he could come out and ask her … to wear his clothing.
But Ekri floundered his chances, and he had always struggled with being direct with the people or things that interested him most. That and he didn’t want to antagonize the Dark Lord too much, which could antagonize his mistress.
Oh well. Maybe he just needed to wait a little longer for the right time to come to him. At the very least, he wasn’t far from his favorite muse.
***
Further south, while safe and secured in a tightly guarded and enchanted bunker, Naomi Washington stirred a little in her sleep.
Ruvaria waited nearby, stopping all projects to counter or redirect the young human woman’s raw psychic power before it blew up the bunker and damaged Ruvaria’s things. This was especially important since Jack was being monsterized hundreds of feet below in another bunker section.
Sometimes, Ruvaria would use magic imprints of Naomi’s power as a psychological weapon to torment Jack. The mythical hater had a pathological obsession and deep-rooted fear with the woman that equaled Jack’s obsession with Zarian.
Maybe Jack’s feelings toward Naomi were stronger, since the Absolute Hater had a class designed for going against Zarian, yet Naomi had taken up a large amount of Jack’s attention anyway.
It was interesting to muse about it all and put her theories to test as she clinically tortured Jack in between rounds of studying Naomi. Or while she followed the adventures of her lovely dear student through the magic signals she received from her orbital simulacrum scryers.
Another term for them would be magic satellite cameras.
She’d learned that term from an Outsider a long time ago. Having those in the atmosphere all around the world made it easier to spy on everything of major note or to watch what she considers cheap dramas between mortals. Of course, Zarian’s pursuits were her favorite to watch when the signal remained clear.
Ruvaria smiled. She touched both her real and wooden fingers to her lips. She remembered how Zarian kissed her, held her, and followed her lead until he got a better grasp of elven arts in bed with her.
She knew their romantic fun wouldn’t last forever. His love for Naomi burned hotter than the stars. And his marriage with Shadowfell could morph and change in ways nobody could predict.
Ruvaria was too old to think this romance was anything but a fancy to help her student relax while having some fun. And that was okay. But she had to admit she’d become a little weak in the knees and breathless when she heard his roar and felt the way he shook the entire world with nothing but primal brute force.
She wouldn’t have cared for it if it wasn’t for how this revealed a new side of him she hadn’t expected. Of course, she hadn’t reacted so strongly to him alone.
She was in the middle of containing or diverting Naomi’s destructive power now because even while the woman was stuck asleep, her subconscious remained active. And the nature of the powerful cultivator was responding positively to the roaring and shaking Zarian had produced.
Ruvaria couldn’t help but smile and shake her head. She was too old for this. But even after ten thousand years of life, she felt some measure of jealousy. If only she was younger and less broken inside.
Oh, well…
Ruvaria had a decent handle on Naomi and Jack and her other bunker projects. She smiled at the unfortunate break in the ancient wards over at Carrowmore and their lack of a ward worker of high enough caliber.
She also turned her attention to her own backyard.
The Promised Continent was a mess, especially since it had a fault line running through the middle of the green landmass. Ruvaria had long ago placed wards on the fault line for such a day like this, and they partially worked, saving millions of elves, but not all.
It was a little disturbing that she’d felt nothing from the deaths. She felt nothing when Ekri had cut off the hand of her son, King Rithos, and gave the five children quite a thrashing before sending them away.
At the very least, the children still lived. But there were more of her descendents acting of their own accord even though she told them to stay out of the Walled Continent.
Now that she was part of the freedom alignment, she felt disgusted with how she allowed the traditional good alignment to puppet her so much in her younger years. She hated how she’d felt before having freedom.
Even when she’d thought herself in control, she never truly was. The good alignment still had its hooks sunk into her, and it was fortunate she was good +4 for so many years, or she might not have forced herself to become interested in Zarian and have the pleasure of being what she was meant to be, free evil.
Because of her experiments with Jack, she was already free evil +2. Yes, indeed, the freedom alignment and free evil sub alignment were perfect for her. And knowing that made her angry about the past ten thousand years.
During bouts of pure madness, Ruvaria had nearly given into the dark thoughts of tearing down everything her family had built. She’d nearly given in, almost willing to take the lives of those she brought into this world.
Thankfully, she’d stopped herself. She was apathetic at the worst of times, but she was trying to do better, and destroying the Promised Continent was not better. Instead, she let them make their mistakes.
Such as summoning a regressor and sending some stupid youths to meet her lovely student at the Windy Strider Kingdom.
Ruvaria could intervene, and she likely would if they truly had the means to seal Zarian successfully. She cared too much about him now.
Even if their romantic fun was destined to end, she saw him as both her savior and the only path that mattered. Through Zarian, she would push her magic to a whole new range of power even while still a Master Ranker.
“You are so lucky,” Ruvaria told the sleeping Naomi. “I wish I could be you. But I cannot. So I will be me. I will endure all my pain and madness. I will do all I can to support him, our future Adventurer King and beyond.”
There was a sudden pulse of activity that caught Ruvaria off guard. It almost felt like Naomi had given Ruvaria … a psychic head pat.
The Chosen One gaped. Then she burst into laughter with a few tears rolling free from her left eye.
Ruvaria smiled at the other woman. Truly, there was nobody more perfect. She could see why Ekri the Tailor was obsessed with this one.
***
It would be an exciting day when Naomi Washington woke up and went seeking for her other half. The one who inspired her and thrilled her and led a mortal woman with no real magical talent and bloodline breaking barriers and limits that shouldn’t have been possible.
But she was doing the work with her purely insane determination. She was also taking advantage of all the help she’d received from others.
Chief among the ones who’d given her the help she needed was Zarian Sainte-Darkrun. So, of course, her existence roused at the sound of his roar and his world-shaking.
But today was not that day Naomi woke from her deep slumber and the mental battle she raged on a uniquely different plane away from common reality.
Her staying asleep was a blessing for everyone else, really, as many people, creatures, survivors were still recovering after Zarian went berserk. Though there was one question that concerned almost everyone.
What was the Dark Lord doing now?