Chương 519: AF Chapter 518 – Epilogue 4 – Portents for Auberean

Auberean: Several years pass… The Really Long Jump swirled open, and the travelers zipped in from across the horizon, materializing on the ramp there. Mikal McMikal hitched his youngest up in the carrypack, the toddler's head lolling from the spin of dimensional displacement, but rapidly starting to fidget after seeing all the new stuff here. The trees with purple-green leaves were definitely an eye-catcher.

"Wooooo!" burst out Conner, lifting his short sword and leading the others forward as they all screamed the same war cry and streamed after him. The Mick and Bunita watched them go, knowing there was nothing dangerous in the immediate area, at the very least, and they moved off the platform as those behind them shifted in behind them.

Port Newhold was the only settlement on one of the continents, and that only opened because the continued reclamation of lost souls had increased the population enough over time that some could be spared to explore, settle, and expand beyond Dereth. Plenty of expansion room in Dereth yet. They hadn't even managed to restore all the Hlaetians yet, after all.

The Mick and his Roaches had been involved in the set-up and clearing of the areas around the new settlement on the continent of Haebrus, and had taken the chance to move to the new world and see what they could make of it. Eventual complete independence was the goal, but the people selected for this place were skilled, not maverick independents who would twist the destiny of the place to fatten their own purses and pursuit of power.

The layout of the town was more regimented than Mayoi, but still looser than a place like Cragstone. As it expanded, new areas would doubtless be laid out in less organic patterns, but for now the charm of a new town was still intact. The rest of his Roaches and their families were coming in behind him. There were new Royal Scouts who could handle what dangers remained on Dereth, but ever since Aru had come, the random danger level on the island had fallen off dramatically.

It didn't mean that there wasn't any, but random shite being pulled in to cause havoc seemed to have been banished to the storybooks and lovers of deus ex machina, and a more 'real' world substituted in that was thankfully more predictable, at least for now. It helped that the Veil on the whole island there was as hard as iron, so extraplanar intervention was not going to happen through the Pyramid Domains. That meant the only thing to fear was a naval invasion…

which, he'd been told, was totally possible, so ignoring defensive works was not something they were going to do. Happily, someone back home was on very good terms with the local Leviathans, and so a surprise naval invasion wasn't in the works… and likely would either be at the behest of The Deep, or in complete opposition to it, the latter more likely since two Warlords of The Deep lived on Dereth, and the thing was happy with their service…

and the continued liberation of souls from its rivals on Vissidal and the Dark Islands. The Lady Magos' habit of making endless miles of walls and roads had very much been put on display back on Dereth, and here as well. He'd seen the walls here many times during his initial scouting expeditions, and was assured of their strength, mana-reinforced to the local ley line and basically invulnerable to most standard assaults.

It wasn't exactly a safe place, as there was a whole wild continent behind those walls, with who knew what waiting out there after two, three or more generations of the Empyreans being gone, but there was nothing too dangerous lairing within twenty miles of here that he knew of, and that was good enough for now.

His lady Bunita, her hair a darker auburn now but still quite red, and her freckles less obvious against more olive skin, gave him a knowing glance, and he just grinned as she started after the kids, making sure they didn't get lost before finding the house they'd be calling their own.

The Matrix Levels gave him a lot of time to have a big family, /tells and the Markspace kept them in touch constantly, and there was always something for a good sword and burgeoning Crafter to work on, although much of the business of Newhold was going to be protecting the miners and farmers expanding the resources they had available.

"Welcome to yet another new world, me sprout," he said to his toddler Pwent, who gurgled happily in reply, blue eyes under red hair all wide and interested in everything.

"Let's see what be waiting for us out here, aye?" he murmured cheerfully, looking back as his Roaches came in one by one with their own families, and trundled down the stairs after him...

More years pass… The newcomers were roasting two banderlings on spits. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Kraash, a Dereth banderling scout recruit, whined deep in his throat next to the Mick. The banderlings of the continents were of very different tribes than those of Dereth, with no known relations. They were more striped than spotted and had longer tails, but it was plain to all they were from the same world, the languages being fairly close if naught else.

Contact had been sporadic, the newcomers being seen as rivals and invaders, which was completely true from their side of things. Still, Princess Kristie had a way of knocking sense into folks catlike and otherwise, and moving past attempts at raiding and automatic territorial aggression to get at least some semblance of talking going on had happened. The Dereth banderlings tended to awe and impress the smaller continentals, and having one along to help with the exploring often proved to be helpful.

Given the native banders here had been released from bondage when the olthoi overran the Haebrean Empire, they'd spread fairly widely in the interim. The drudges who were next to extinct on Dereth were also present, but without the magic there driving them up in Racial Levels, were skulking scavengers who tended to be preyed upon by just about everything. But this, this was new, and Kraash definitely wasn't liking what he was seeing.

Eating slain bipeds had long been mostly taboo on Dereth, where some might rise as undead to bedevil you after death, and vivus generally made sure intelligent dead went away to death and didn't come back, meaning this kind of behavior hadn't been seen by anything but savage drudges once under Bonecrusher, unchecked gurug going mad, and nests of feral moarsmen for nearly a generation now. But these things had low-quality metal armor and weapons. They had at least some intelligence about them.

-Lass, Highness, I've a new species o' bipeds I've not seen before. They caught a native banderling camp an' seem to have butchered most o' the inhabitants. They spit two of them up for supper already, an' seem to be prepping the rest for smoking an' rations, - he /reported grimly, quiet alarms ringing across the Markspace. He was a good hundred miles out from Newhold, but that didn't mean anything, because some of these things were riding giant pigs!

Pigs were in no way native to Auberean, especially the continents, and Harlune had long confirmed that. The ursuins could totally keep their populations down, of course, but giant pigs like these, as big or bigger than an auroch? They didn't even have those on Ispar! He'd been told uncontrolled pigs were an ecological catastrophe without things to hunt them down, so none had been brought to Dereth as yet. There were some sheep and goats and more cattle, along with horses, but no pigs as yet.

Sheep and goats who got loose tended to die to the magical rats there pretty quickly… -Let's see it, - Kris /responded immediately, with the cool calm of utter lack of surprise, and a steely interest in something that might prove to be exciting and a change of pace. He fed the view to her, and any others who were listening in, which he knew included Commander Briggs. They were man-sized, but built with somewhat thicker bones, hides ranging through green to brown to yellow.

They had broad, flat noses, much like their porcine mounts, and even residual yellow-white tusks. Their hair was dark and wiry, their eyes reddish to yellow, and these fellows were built thicker than most humans, with prominent jaws and foreheads overshadowing deep-set eyes. The way they seemed to be constantly challenging and abusing one another over minor matters didn't give him any assurances on their benevolence, either. -Well, fuck, - Commander Briggs /spoke up, his /voice extremely unamused.

-That does NOT portend well. Master Harlune, familiar to you? - Thus alerted to military matters, the Empyrean mage joined the Markchat, immediately studying the bipeds below through the Mick's eyes, listening to their squealing, brutal language, and analyzing their behavior. -Those look like the pig-men of Gortus. Savage, barbaric things, completely unusable as reliable slaves. They were never taken as servants, having no sense of honor, only power and strength.

Even as gladiators they were mediocre, as they resisted any kind of formal training in favor of a glorified frenzy, - Harlune elucidated with a sage's experience. -Yellow-blooded? - Kris /asked, a grim and fatalistic tone to her that the Mick found at once thrilling and foreboding. -Uh, yes, it was rumored so? - Harlune /replied, a little surprised. -Share a planet with a bunch of green-blooded bipeds, one species chest-high, one man-sized, and one up at tall banderling size? - she /went on icily.

-I wasn't aware you were so familiar with some of the Empyrean world-walking, Highness, - Harlune /confirmed carefully. -There are now orcs and probably goblins on Auberean, - Commander Briggs /declared in a slow, dangerous voice. -If anyone is wondering what our next big challenge is going to be, you are looking at it. - The Mick felt his blood begin to race. -Them's fighting words, Commander, - he /said carefully. -Lord Mick, you are cleared to engage and to fucking kill them all, - was the grim /response.

-No mercy is required. You may want to save one to question. If not, save some heads. We'll have questions. - The Mick looked around at his band, only six people in number. The band of 'orcs' down below numbered at least thirty. He found himself not worried in the slightest. Nothing he could see indicated any great degree of danger, outlying raiders for a larger population, by his estimation.

"We kill them all, save a few heads for questioning by the magi, an' we find where these things are coming from. Kraash, you take note of anything, you'll be running word to the bander settlements close by. See if we can find any survivors to go with you." Orcs, huh? He wondered what else might have somehow come here in the years the Empyreans were away.

The System's tendrils had run all over the planet, the Lady Magos had said, and now that the gods were here, those tendrils could be pulled on by any outside Entity with the power and the will to do so. It seemed they'd received some time for peace and quiet, and now things were going to start turning ugly again. And that was why the Royal Scouts existed.

"We go in invisibly, and put them down," he told everyone.

"In close, now." The Invisibility, 10' Radius went off as the scouts gathered swiftly around, touching one another to assure themselves of position. After they vanished from sight, they rose together, free hand on the shoulders of one another, and keeping formation, headed for the massacre below. Another massacre was about to join it, and he'd see how the orcs liked being slaughtered like the banders they'd butchered...