Chương 80: AF Chapter 79 – Fighting the System

The Mick's eyes flickered as he recalled tales of the past, and how, yes indeed, the mighty always were surrounded by tales of that. Even the great crafters he knew of had names interwoven with this or that grand tale of war and battle... And the legends of home likely never rose above Level 150 here, which was almost a beginner at one point in time!

"This island is completely unnatural. Normally you get next to no Karma for defeating Summons, for instance," Princess Kristie Rantha went on helpfully, and the Mick blinked in shock.

"Yes. They are too limiting, they aren't 'real', and they are bound to time and place, with limited tactics and no free will. The amount of Karma you can harness from them is a fraction of that from real creatures, and it goes down to nothing if you fight them repeatedly.

"That doesn't seem to be the case here. It sounds like you could just rampage across the landscape, killing all the Summons repeatedly while the real creatures stayed out of your way, or perhaps just stay put near a particularly advantageous set of spawn points, and work them until you knew the creatures cold and could put them down easily, yet still gained full Karma for doing so?"

"And loot drops," I reminded Kris.

"I imagine the creatures even had different tiers of loot tied to them, encouraging you to fight tougher and stronger foes, instead of harvesting weaker ones."

"Aye, all that were also true," the Mick said, picturing the past, and visibly repressing a shudder now.

"So easy to string along by the nose, we were?" he managed to ask.

"It's just motivation, and if nobody comes down from on high to force you to obey orders you don't want to obey, it becomes a sort of fun and a job, especially since you 'couldn't die'." I made the air quotes for emphasis.

"The real kicker is if there were some sort of whimsical nonsense that happened. That lets you know that something is watching and is vastly entertained by your shenanigans." The look on his face was poleaxed. Princess Kristie lowered her eyes slowly and said, "You have GOT to be kidding me..."

"There were... certain events that would happen, at certain times of year, an' there were things on the island that made no real sense at all, but were just here..." he got out, his thoughts racing at what that all might mean.

"Whims of the gods suddenly become the whims of things which are not gods," I groaned, rubbing my temples.

"Do... you have an example?"

"Aye. The most dangerous beast on the island is a little white rabbit about so long." He held out his hands less than a shoulder's-width apart.

"It can rip an experienced warrior in two with one bite, an' yer magic won't protect you. It took a lot of planning an' multiple blades to kill it... and whoever killed it got a free trip to the... Deathstone, too."

"A white rabbit," Kris repeated calmly, her expression completely neutral.

"And others?"

"There's a Tremendous Monuga in a red an' black checker-pattern shirt with a huge double axe up in the northlands, with a blue-furred auroch the size o' a hill helping him chop down the giant trees there. Except, no matter how many times he chops them down, the trunks vanish from where they are stacked, the trees return, an' he just keeps at it." We both just looked at him, thoughts running through our heads.

"Really?" Kris said in a droll voice.

"Aye. And then there's the Thunder Chicken, and the Hellcow..." A headache was starting again.

"There's a village of Snowmen over in this area, called Frosthaven, snows year-round there. Always being threatened by an abominable two-headed Snowman made by an intelligent and nasty magma golem, an' we have to rescue them." Kris took a long and deep breath.

"Near the village there were a Portal to the lair of a snake-man calling itself Santa Sclavus, who delivers presents to the children on Midwinter. Except it always gets captured an' imprisoned by an imposter, an' we have t' go rescue it t' save the Midwinter holidays. Only during the month of Midwinter, mind ye.

"Kids really did get presents from it, too." Kris looked at me, I looked back at her.

"I'd say those Ancients had contact with more cultures than we thought," Kris murmured.

"Or whoever was watching them rove the dimensions."

"You made note of doing quests, and killing this Grael multiple times," I spoke up.

"Did the reasons ever change? The people and beings involved?" He shook his head emphatically.

"The very, very first time? Those involved seemed t' almost come out of nowhere, an' the matter was clearly alive, important, an' aye, Grael had to be stopped afore things spiraled out of control an' things happened. So, we went an' did it." His eyes shifted.

"After that, though... well, sometimes, those people seem to have come out of nowhere, an' if you asked around, people remembered them, but they didn't know anything about them. Like you'd worked next to someone for years, knew their name an' face, but didn't know anything about them.

"Once we succeeded at the very first quest... those people were like, well, yer Summons. Like the whole of their life was now part of the process o' keeping what we'd defeated bound, Sealed, an' otherwise defeated. There to help our juniors enjoy the great an' grand quest we'd undertaken in the future, to see what it was like, an' enjoy some of the rewards." He shifted uneasily at the implications. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

What if he became part of that imprisoning process, a soulless shell only able to spout the same words and phrases forever?

"Some of those rewards were very specific, and very powerful?" Kris asked knowingly.

"Oh, aye! Sometimes junk, sometimes powerful, always unique. Ye'd get an imitation of Grael's Black Spear for yer home, an' could use its power, an' a Token that would make a Weapon lethal against the mukkir, for instance. Reason enough t' do the same quest multiple times, and there'd still be rewards for doing so. Teams could get quite competitive about how long it took t' do them, even!" He couldn't contain his remembered enthusiasm, like a star athlete remembering their glory days.

"An open-world gladiatorial game of incredible size, with every species here drawn into it," Kris murmured, looking up at the sky.

"And they even have access to Terran mythology?" The Mick was naturally confused.

"Terran?" he repeated blankly.

"Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox are legends of a very distant world called Terra, far, far from Ispar and this world. The White Rabbit is another lethal legend of that world. Santa Sclavus is a corruption of Santa Claus, a pseudonym of Saint Nicholas, who travels the world on Midwinter and delivers presents to all the good little boys and girls, and coal to the bad ones, carried about on his sleigh pulled by eight, nine, flying reindeer."

His face showed his astonishment as I flicked up Holos of each of these legends, with the grinning giant Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, men skating on slabs of bacon atop griddles an acre in size, clearing massive forests away for lumber and farms; the White Rabbit tearing the heads off armored knights and feasting on wolves leaping to attack it; and Santa in his red and white outfit, plump and cheerful, flying through the air with Rudolph leading the herd.

"This third magical system we know?" Kris tossed her thumb at the Holos the wide-eyed Mick was staring at.

"It's the one used on that world."

"So, there's Isparians there?" he asked, still rather stunned. Kris blinked at the question, looked at me.

"Humans, not Isparians," I replied plainly.

"They'd be like cousins? The main difference is that Isparians all have the innate gift to wield magical energy. Terrans do not. A whole bunch are like the princess here, Forsaken by magic, and incredibly strong against it. Their children of this generation, now, a bunch are growing up with the potential for magic, because of the magical system there now.

"But Isparian humans, we ALL have magical ability. So, there's a difference between us and Terrans, even if it's small." The Mick nodded slowly, considering that.

"I've never heard of these... Forsaken," he said cautiously, looking at the Princess.

"None like you, Highness..."

"Somewhere on Ispar, there are Hags," she replied firmly, pulling back her hair and displaying the vividness of her Cursemark on the side of her face.

"Hags are born and powered by a great and mighty Curse that transcends dimensions, and even multiverses.

"Rantha Hags are a Curse upon Hagdom. We are born on a world to counter the Hags, powered by that selfsame Curse. The key part of being a Rantha is that we have no magic, or the Hag Curse would take us. It is defying the Curse and staying Null to magic that makes us Rantha Hags. We suck the power out of the Curse, 'til all that is left is this Cursemark and its ability to sense the Evil in those about it."

"We're guessing that Milantea might have Hags dwelling upon it, and Nuhmudira might have been one of their acolytes, given some of the knowledge she possessed," I supplied after she finished.

"No proof of that, but the fact a Rantha Hag was born on Ispar means there's Hags there, somewhere. I'm sure the Empress will find them."

"Mom's pretty good at hunting problems down and killing them," Kris agreed with a knowing smile.

"Especially if there's good Karma involved."

"She's a horrible Empress. Instead of being arm-candy to her husband, she's always out and taking care of problems, usually in the 'dies mysteriously from unknown causes' kind of way. Terrifies all the nobles of the Empire, who whine that she needs to stay in the Palace just so they know where she is and that their unclean laundry isn't going to come back and bite them." The Mick actually grinned widely at that.

"That do be sounding like an utterly horrible Empress! Me mother would have liked her!"

"She does rather enjoy a lot of support from a lot of places, and the young women turn out in droves to apply to the Swallow Guard," Kris admitted, and flicked a finger my way.

"There are far, far more women spellcasters now than there has ever been in Ispar. Mother is very, very big on empowering women, and the best channel for that is magical power. We are exceptions to the fact that women are weaker than men, we know it, and while martial power is certainly open for the quick and able, for the vast majority of women, magic is the equalizer."

"And ye've nae Temples at home to close the gap," The Mick nodded agreement.

"Stronger than men, aye?" He eyed her with cautious interest.

"She can pick you up and throw you over the Wagon with one hand," I supplied helpfully.

"Be nice to Her Highness." Kris' eight canines gleamed, and The Mick bowed cautiously from his Disk seat.

"I'd like to spar with you, when you've the time!" he admitted grandly.

"From the way you move, I can tell you're better than I am," she stated without any shame.

"But, I think I am going to really, really surprise you with what Profound Swordplay can do." His eyes widened marginally.

"Ye've a way to make bladework stronger?" he asked urgently, leaning forward eagerly.

"I held off taking the road of battle-magic, an' 'twere a good I thing I did, given what's happened to it, but the martial road has had great problems staying relevant an' equal with the magical arts."

"That's actually how it should be." He blinked at Kris' admission.

"The martial arts are the core and foundation of a civilization's advancement, rooted in the physical. The magical arts are what the martial arts are striving for, looking to put ever more of our intelligence, knowledge, and skill into play, as opposed to just raw physical power.

"It could be said that the physical arts of combat exist so that the magical arts of combat can be developed. Without warriors to protect them, the knowledge base and scholarly tradition required for magical development never happens."

"Huh." He sat back as he considered that.

"Ye've no magic whatsoever?"

"What I have is spiritual energy, which is not magic." I nodded to confirm her words.

"I have Tats which can channel Soul energy, Essence, but that's just like wearing a magic item, only on my skin." She held out her hands, and he watched with intense interest as they flowed metallic blue-black, with white stripes leading up to her middle fingers. Long and short bars of hot white ignited on her forearms like brands, too. He had obviously never seen Soul Magic before, and was plainly dying to learn more.