Stem the tide (1/2)

Year 159

“The next demon king won’t be here.” Edna said confidently. “Based on historical records, so far there’s only been two incidents of successive demon kings in the same continent, within the past 500 years.

It’s actually not that low, isn’t it? 2 consecutive demon kings imply 4 demon kings in the same continent, and every 10 years meant 50 demon kings in that period of time. About slightly less than 10%? At least, that’s what my primitive mind suggested.

Not the best chances, and can still happen. Edna, thanks, not a flag I appreciated having.

“I don’t think I’m that unlucky.” Edna responded. Edna was merely trying to convince me that we still have time. Our research and development for stronger, more powerful magical bombs and weapons was making progress, but still too slow to really tip the scales.

In the past 2 years, we’ve started training more [enchanters] and more [lapidarists], to buid stronger, more powerful magical bombs. It’s funny that I’m back doing what Harris was doing.

Back then, he wanted huge crystalline matrixes to store my skills. Now, what I’m trying to do is huge crystalline matrixes to store bombs. Bombs. Lots and lots of bombs. Bomb research tied in with my ongoing hexbomb research, and the idea of a ‘clean’ hexbomb.

That felt like a dirty word, the idea that there’s such a thing as a ‘clean’ hexbomb. As if the twisted tangle of soul fragments, things made via blood sacrifice can be ‘clean’.

My regular process of ‘harvesting’ souls also generates soul fragments. I dislike the term ‘harvesting’, since as a soul and spirit tree, my job is actually to facilitate the transfer of souls to the unknown, for them to reincarnate in life. Increasingly though, I’m now curious what actually happens after sending them off.

Anyway, that’s another thing to study. For now, soul fragments of the dead are what I use to make artificial souls and minds. To fuse them in a way that makes a bomb, while still ‘clean’, is really one of the oxymoronic challenges, because my very nature as a soul tree and spirit tree is really to ‘repair’ all these soul damage, not find ways to corrupt soul fragments into bombs.

We resumed experimenting on the soul fragments, and set up large mana batteries around the Valley of the Unrotten to do so. Dabbling with soul-related matters still required a lot of energy, but not as much as they used to. It seemed that my naturally higher levels and domain abilities contributed to a ‘discount’.

We attempted a few different kinds of ‘research’. One of which was to manually stitch the soul fragments together, and figure what shape creates what sort of effect. We know for a fact that hexbombs are imperfectly connected soul fragments, but why? Is it the irregular shape, or type of connection, or the base nature of the fragments? Do the type of fragments matter?

At first, I thought it didn’t, but then as the research continued, it’s quite clear there are some differences in the nature of these fragments, especially in the ‘type-of-death’. If so, that’s a bad sign because the power of blood magic is then inherently tied to the nature of its sacrifice, that the fragments must be made in this manner to generate that level of power.

I believe it's possible to separate the emotions from the fragments, but if the emotions are the fragments, then...

We reviewed our experience clearing the hexed lands, and it took a lot of brainpower mainly, to disentangle the hex. I wonder how did that work, that ‘drawing out’ the negative emotions so that they can dissipate, does that actually support the view that the emotion and fragments are separate, or was it both?

At the same time, it’s a known fact that some extremely traumatic deaths can generate ‘ghosts’ and ‘haunted’ monsters, and so, are those ghosts and haunted creatures similarly a product of that person’s soul fragmentation on death, and those fragments then transformed or created a ghost?

There had to be something. Death and blood magic must be linked.

-

Arlisa went on a tour of the cities and places of the Central Continent. Despite being an average student due to her lack of effort, she was enthusiastic at the opportunity to get away from her parents.

“You seem very keen on travelling to the other cities, Lady Arlisa.” A fellow student around her age said. Arlisa theoretically should have graduated, but she decided to stay on. The Freshlands Treetiary College does have a ‘core’ syllabus that’s aimed to replicate the 4-to-5 year university experience, but there are a lot of ‘optional’ subjects, and even the core syllabus changes year on year.

Arlisa nodded. “Yes, Irkania.” The group was mostly commoners. Most of the noble born students had their own ‘continental tours’ already, but the Freshland Treetiary College wanted to recreate a similar educational exposure for its commoners, so they had a tour arranged. There were other nobles too, most of them less wealthy. Still, there was no shame in the tour, since many of the academic team participated. “I’ve wanted to visit the coastal cities for quite some time.”

“Did you participate in last year’s tour?”

“I didn’t.” Arlisa shook her head. “I wanted to but something came up.”

“Ah.” Irkania was a lizardwoman, from one of the riverine towns. They were relatively rare previously, but a few decades of stability helped their population to regrow. “Have you ever been there in the past?”

“No. Maybe my mom took me there when I was a small tiny girl, but I can’t remember any of it.”

They both smiled. “Well, I was hoping that you knew your way around. I’ve got to visit some relatives and pass them some souvenirs. But I guess I’ll just have to keep walking around and ask whether they’ve seen any lizardpeople.”

Arlisa chuckled, and made a joke that would be inappropriate in more socially developed societies. “So the whole stereotype is true! All lizardpeople are connected!”

Irkania laughed too. “Well, to some extent. We are a small species.” Truth was, they were once more common, their cities were centered around the swamps of the inland lakes. Most of those lakes and the swamps were flattened when Sabnoc blew up. So, what’s left of the lizardpeople that went on to reclaim their lost land all came from a small pool of survivors and outlying villages.

They benefited greatly from the Valthorn’s Social services, especially the [incubation pods], specialised [childcare centers] and nutritional tree saps. Young lizardlings were frequently starved of nutrients and it seemed they have a relatively low survival rate. It was also particularly troublesome as infant lizardlings were pretty much animals and had very monster-like aggression, their sentience and awareness seemed to just pop up when they passed their 2nd year.

In the case of lizard young, it was particularly important to prevent their lizardlings from escaping. Their society has a very strange relationship with their children, to them, the sentientless children were monsters, and their own people have no qualms killing the young lizards if they were exceptionally aggressive. To them, a child is only a lizard child when they gained their will and intelligence. Before that, monsters.

They also have no concept of parents, and practiced a case of pooled upbringing, where everyone contributed to raising the newly sentient children. Everyone was pretty much related, and the females would deposit any fertilised eggs in a central location in their village.

Till this day this was something I have not been able to process, that they are able to have that emotional distance from their spawn for that first two years.

“Cousins?”

“Yes. Everyone’s a cousin, or an uncle. We do have our own words for it though.” Irkania smiled. The lizardpeople repopulation programme was one of the few success cases on the Central Continent, but one we rarely talk about. Lizardpeople generally face a little more discrimination than others, particularly because lizardpeople prefer to work and play at night. Daytime they are often observed to be lazing about, and thus they have a reputation as being lazy. Still, they are one of the best night-time guards, and are very good counter-assassins, thanks to their extremely keen sense of space and movement. “But I believe they are two generations before us.”

“Ah.” Each village a family, each generation a batch. Arlisa nodded.

The tour was a large one. Easily 500 students in this batch. For the commoners, they were split to about 6 different batches, so that everyone would get their chance for the tour. The academic staff would rotate to participate, along with a group from the Valthorns and the Treeology.

The largest beetles were used as transport, after all, once all the other support staff was included, this tour was a 1,000 strong tour. Entire inns were reserved for the tourists. It spoke of Freshka’s evolution from a town no one knows to the Spiritual Capital of the Continent. The soft and hard power it now controlled.

The sea. Arlisa spent about half an hour by the sea before leaving. A little disgusted.

“The sea’s the same everywhere.” Irkania said. “The ports too. Forever messy, and filled with the smell of salt, rotten fish and people who didn’t have showers for weeks.”

“I thought lizardpeople don’t shower.”

“We do. Some of us.” Irkania smiled. “Were you expecting something different?”

“I don’t know, actually.” Arlisa said.

“Maybe what you need is space. Away from whatever that kept your mind occupied. Perhaps your mother?”

Arlisa shrugged. “Perhaps.”

-

Communications with the reef mind continued, and progressively, I began to feel like its mind was forming up. It no longer felt like it was a clueless thing clawing randomly. The images and scenes it brought up were all new, different, and it repeated, as if getting confirmation.

About 2+ years since we made contact with the Reef mind, it finally attempted it’s first conversation.

> Reef. Greetings. <

I heard its voice, my group of artificial minds allowed it’s attempt to communicate to reach me.

< Tree. Greetings. > I responded. I would one day hope to bridge this communication with Lilies, and also Vallasira. Perhaps Vallasira could visit it directly.

> Reef. Happy. < It is happy?

< I am glad. >

> Language. Difficult. <

< With practice, becomes easy. >