Chương 71: A King Another King And A Tree

Vraxious—The Forsaken Lands Chronus stood up and stretched hands and staff over his head before leaning heavily back onto his staff and continuing his tale.

"Cormag ruled the lands south of us now known as the Chaos Wastes. He was a just and well-loved ruler. His domain bred hardy, worldly folks who thrived. As most men do, he fell hopelessly in love, got married, and had a beloved child. I wish that was the end of this story; if it was, the world would be a much brighter place." Chronus paused for a bit, walking over to examine Vrax's murder tree with a raised eyebrow. He continued while tracing his hand along the glowing veins of adapted luminescence along the bark.

"His wife and daughter fell ill with a malady of the soul, a curse of some kind more specifically. Wracked them body and mind for years, they dwindled from the jewels of his life to husks of what they once were. I tried to help him in every way I could. I sent every tome, every forbidden text I had to aid him in his attempts to save them. I trusted him implicitly with the knowledge I had hoarded for nearly five hundred years. The things I felt were best not available to the rest of the world.

Then things took a turn in the kingdom." Vrax relaxed a bit, sitting down across from where the king leaned against the tree, and reached into his pack, pulling out one of his precious few baked goods remaining from Martha. The king eyed him jealously as he began nibbling on it. Well, if he wants me dead, there isn't a damn thing I can do right now; I might as well settle in. Honestly, this story is not what I expected so far, and it's pretty damn grim. Chronus reached out a hand, gesturing towards the honey bun.

"Is that from Martha?" Vrax stopped mid-bite, speaking around a full mouth, "Yesh…"

"Got another one?" Chronus asked, obviously hoping for a bribe.

"Last one…" Vrax said cautiously; he blinked and suddenly was holding nothing but crumbs. Chronus was chuckling to himself mid-bite of Vrax's honey bun.

"Really?" Vrax asked, utterly dumbfounded; the king wasn't what he expected at all.

"Anyway, like I said, the kingdom took a turn; the hellmaw rift opened in the bay, and this was before we had the hellmaw fortress constructed, mind you, so I was very busy making sure the northern reaches weren't overrun by abominations. While that was happening, Cormag's wife and child passed; none of the rituals, healers, or any of the other hundreds of things he tried were successful.

It broke him in a fundamental way, and I was too fucking busy to notice what was becoming of my friend on the other side of the kingdom." Chronus wandered around for a moment, inspecting some of the vein diver seeds frozen in the air next to him with a raised eyebrow.

"Cormag brought his family back, or at least what he thought was his family; they came back decidedly wrong, cruel shadows of the people they once were. I'm personally not convinced what came back was even them and not something dark masquerading in their skin. Things spiraled quickly from there; he covered for their heinous acts upon his kinsmen, convinced if he was just strong enough, he could fix it and piece together the missing pieces of their souls.

That was the last I ever heard from him before I was forced to move my armies against him."

"How did he bring them back? I thought that was impossible." Vrax asked. Chronus shrugged.

"I don't know; many of the things he accomplished I don't understand. It certainly wasn't in any of the tomes I sent him. So what would you do if your family was slain, Vrax? How far would you go? I'm trying to give you a very real example of how good people with singular capabilities can become an unmatched threat, and from what I've seen, you very much so fall into that category." Vrax thought hard for a few moments.

"I'm going to assume you can tell if I was lying, so I'm just going to acknowledge I'm laughably in over my head right now and be honest and really hope it doesn't get me turned to sand." Chronus smiled and nodded, holding up his hand to show off a magical ring.

"Correct assumption. The ring cost me my own weight in gold, but gods, is it useful." Vrax nodded and continued, "If someone killed those I love, I would mourn, I would bury them, and I wouldn't bother digging another grave for the fucker that did it because I would make something that scares even me and feed them to it." He finished with a slight snarl; his armor's vambrace pulsed slightly in approval. Chronus cocked an eyebrow and nodded slowly.

"You haven't lied yet. I appreciate that.... You should meet the frost lord; you two would get along well. So let's get to the next important topic since I think I have a good measure of you now. You want Hope's End." Vrax carefully chose his next words; the king was terrifyingly well informed.

"It's not that I want it; we just don't want to be under the bastard duke's thumb anymore." Chronus nodded.

"Fair, I have an offer for you, one more important than you may realize. I know you plan to push the border back and try to fight off the duke and the church. I won't break my own rules. If you try that while it's still in my kingdom, I'll come down on you all like the wrath of the gods themselves. There are no exceptions for rebellion as I have defined it in my kingdom. If you all can keep skirting open rebellion until Hopes End is unincorporated, I will offer zero support in the retaking of it."

Vrax looked flabbergasted; he had expected threats, not a "have my town if you want" response. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Don't look quite so happy; this offer is for a few reasons. First, it's a good test to see if you have what it takes to even survive. Second, I need someone unassociated with me to temper the Church a bit; they have been getting far too big for their britches lately, and I have a feeling this crusade is about to become a famous military example of hostile terrain used to eliminate superior forces.

Thirdly, once you have taken control of Hopes End yourself, you will repay me with a nonaggression pact made publicly and bound by the system." Chronus finished Martha's honey bun and began licking his fingers. Vrax didn't even hesitate.

"Deal!" Chronus smiled the smile of someone who knew they had just made a deal where they had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

"Some free advice for you: start reaching out to the important organizations, especially the knightly orders and adventurers guild. The more established you are with the existing powers, the harder it will be for the duke and church to keep moving against you once you have secured your borders." Then in an amused, slightly mumbled voice, "And a few of the knightly orders are going to lose their minds at the chance to send fresh recruits here to train." Vrax stood up and held a hand out to Chronus.

Chronus accepted it with a firm grasp and a single shake.

"Shall I let a few key figures quietly know to send some representatives your way?" Chronus asked.

"That would be greatly appreciated, Your Highness." Vrax answered thankfully. They exchanged a few more minutes of conversation, delving into details of the deal and where, when, and who Vrax should meet with to start his diplomatic endeavors. Chronus looked around the courtyard one more time.

"Alright, it's time for me to go. Power attracts power, and this skill of mine will have certainly caught the attention of something by now. You will understand what I mean if you survive to the third tier." Chronus turned and trekked off back down the street without another word. Vrax stood there dumbfounded, just tracing his eyes over the somewhat ridiculous amount of gore the tree had spread across the streets in the last battle. The world suddenly snapped back into motion, scaring the hell out of Vrax.

He jumped so hard he nearly tripped on a gravestone as a daisy psychotically flung itself past him at a butterfly. Vrax took a deep, slow breath.

"That was utterly fucking terrifying." He mumbled to himself before just deciding to leave the siren's call to its own devices; he had more important defenses to attend to anyway. And the siren's call wasn't going anywhere; it seemed to have claimed this rough area as its own after the fight, already starting to leave bizarre, nonsensical ice formations all over the sides of buildings.

Vrax slowly trekked back towards his workshop; along the way he used his new skill to violently defoliate a street and top off his reservoir. He had been pouring the full capacity of his reservoir into the newly rooted sprigan sapling over and over for days now, trying to accelerate its growth. It seemed to be working; the spear had become more of a small two-branched tree with a handful of hearty leaves.

Vrax made it to his workshop and walked past the draped leaf doorway, brushing his hand along a vine with bulbous eyes that ringed the room. The eyes sprang to life at his touch, shining pure white light through the dusty room and illuminating the changes he had made. It wasn't as much as Vrax would have liked, but it was a decent start.

He had moved all the planter boxes against the left wall, giving the sapling more room to grow, and cut a hole through to the broken second floor so light could stream down when he opened the aperture of thorns he had placed as a skylight shutter. The strings of eyeball lights were new and extremely helpful; they would point where he looked with their beams of light, making detailed work even after dark a breeze.

The everthirst hammock had been extended all around into a sort of writhing wallpaper that would defend his workshop from unwanted guests. And could double as pop-out tables with a quick use of [Adapt Life]. He had had to use ten everthirst roots to cover that much space but figured it was well worth the effort. He had gotten rid of his salvaged tables, preferring his more… modular solutions.

In addition to the very useful flexibility of the everthirts walls, he was really starting to appreciate them as a building material—just add water, adapt a little bit, and have it grow around whatever you wanted. You didn't even have to measure since they could move and adjust the amount of pressure they moored themselves with. It was just a totally circumstantial massive bonus that his replacement for boards would absolutely drink anyone not wearing a mark of Vurune.

Vrax stepped over to the Spriggan sapling and tugged on a branch hanging from the ceiling to open the skylight iris, flooding the room with natural light that overshadowed his eyeball lanterns. The Spriggan pulsed slightly as the sunlight washed over it, leaning slightly towards the light, its root sinking deeper into the bones of the fey it was feeding from.

"Hey there, little guy! Are you ready for your daily dose of magical grow-fast juice?" The tree leaned towards him slightly, giving him a gentle boop on his outstretched hand. Vrax smiled fondly and gave it a pat back, reaching over and picking up a watering can he had constructed from a moss bear skull and a quick adaptation of a patch of mundane moss to shape it how he needed. He sprinkled a fair amount of water over the Spriggan; it kept playfully thwacking its branches at him, trying to steal the watering can.

Vrax stepped back to really look at its form; it was starting to look less and less like a normal sapling every day. What had started as a thin, pointed stick of wood with veins of green power running between its bark had filled out dramatically. A proper trunk now sat slightly molded into the ruined golden armor. It tapered up with beautiful, almost shimmering white bark that reflected the veins of emerald power in the bark's natural creases.

The two branches stuck out from it midway up like jagged, uneven little arms with sharp tips on the end that were starting to fork into four smaller finger-like branches. The top of the Spriggan had what looked almost like a small crown of verdant red leaves sticking out.

"Alright, buddy, hold on! Time for your daily dose of fertilizer courtesy of a whole lot of dead shrubs!" Vrax extended his hand and began letting his [Cistern Of Bloom and Decay] funnel its life-giving energy into the plant slowly in a hazy green misting of magic. The Spriggan did a strange but oddly charming sway slightly from side to side as it noticeably grew another few fingers in height and twice that many around. Bringing its crown nearly to Vrax's chin.

As his magic tapered off, the forking branches on its arms grew outward, cracking the flesh of the bark open as four wooden claws ripped free from inside.

"Oh holy shit! Yes, I think we are almost past the stuck-in-a-pot stage!" Vrax joked, poking the armor with his foot. The bark just below the crown of leaves quivered for a moment before opening to reveal two deep green pits that radiated devastating power. The pits of light shifted slightly to look up at Vrax before the Spriggan reached out with its clawed hand and slowly stole the watering can from Vrax's shocked grasp.

It upended the rest of the watering can over its eye sockets and trunk with a sourceless contented creaking sound.