King Chronus- Distheros Castle
Chronus looked into the mirror beside his desk; haggard bags sat under his eyes, and slight specks of grey were beginning to escape from his beard and brows. The creases on his face grew slightly thicker each day he spent here sealed away reading endless report after report. Deciding what fires needed to be put out most urgently and what monster attacks required the crown's intervention. How to array his forces against the constantly leaking tears in reality. And most of all, the endless pointless probing of his kingdom's weaknesses from its neighbors.
Hells the only one he didn’t have to worry about was the frost lord. That man would freeze and scatter continents if you touched his family or his people, but all he really wanted was to be left the hell alone to run his surprisingly functional meritocracy. And that was exactly what Chronus intended to do: continue the pleasantly successful trade between their kingdoms and keep his nose out of the dragon tamer's business. The severely frowning man in front of him waved a hand to get his attention back on the daily briefing.
Chronus sighed and looked back at Tremlin; his spymaster was a horrifically competent man, but by the gods, the only things coming from his mouth were always doom and gloom, delivered as dryly as a man ordering supplies for a barn. His countenance matched his tone as well: plain black with golden buttons on the most functional tunic ever created, hair cut to near shaved, and of course the ever-present damned ledger that held the kind of secrets that men were killed for.
“Now, as you remember, the southern ports are still having problems with Sclavian mercenaries under the guise of normal pirates. We have secured a platinum party of adventurers for three separate vessels; they are under the simple directive to protect the ships. Of course, when the Sclavians attack, platinum adventures will simply erase the threat; we made sure the parties we chose are all on the “don’t bother with prisoners” side of the spectrum. Tremlin droned on in monotone; Chronus struggled to keep his attention on the matter at hand. It was important, but he had dealt with so many dire, near world-ending matters over the last seven hundred years that a government-sponsored band of pirates was barely a raindrop in the ocean of his problems.
Chronus responded in his bassy, authoritative voice tinged with weariness, “I don’t want the Sclavians to be willing to repeat this type of incursion again. Hire a cluster of the Craven as well to go after their leadership with a message.” Tremlin faltered momentarily before resuming his neutral expression.
“As you wish, sire. I personally think that is overkill, but if the Craven don’t simply kill them all, they will certainly never dare to step foot on our shores again.” Tremlin wrote a small note in his ledger before they were both interrupted by an ethereal, airy chime from the war room hidden to the side of Chronus’s office.
They both stood suddenly. Chronus with a groan of frustration. “Godsdammit all, what triggered the table?” He rushed through the illusionary wall to the small circular room, bare except for five chairs around the most powerful divining artifact in the kingdom. It was a crystal table looted from Elysium ruins nearly four hundred years ago. The table displayed the world spilled flat like a map, ever-changing borders and eddies of magic swirled over its surface. Depicting the enormous magical powers of the word and system at play. The only times it chimed were when something changed dramatically.
The last time it had chimed was when the necromancer had more or less erased a fucking swath of the kingdom with his folly. Chronus squinted at the map trying to discern what was different; no new pulsing red slits denoting rifts, and the swirling confluxes of mana that hovered over the great dungeons stayed the same. His eyes swept over his own kingdom; all was as it should be. “What in all of the seven fucking hells is that, Tremlin?!” Chronus pointed at the miniscule ring of light denoting a newly established kingdom squarely in the Forsaken Lands.
Tremlin tensed, zooming the table in to glean what little information it would impart. “The Ravenous Grove? My liege, is Cormag back? I thought we still had at least several years?”
Chronus snorted. “No, the necromancer isn’t back yet. I checked personally last month; he’s still piecing himself back together from whatever he pissed off in there that scattered him, but who in all the hells goes and founds a kingdom there? Why? And honestly, Tremlin, How...there are only two unaccounted for kingdom anchors…both on the other side of the globe.”
Tremlin creased his brows as he mentally sorted through thousands of reports. “Hmm, my lord, I will retrieve all the pertinent reports from the region for our review immediately.”
A few hours later, Chronus and Tremlin were surrounded by piles of envelopes and ledgers filled with handwritten reports. Lewis A mountain of muscle stuffed into a ridiculous-looking suit vest was also squeezed into a chair in the corner, his beady eyes peering through a monocle at a hastily written abnormal sales ledger from Hope's Path. Logistics and spywork weren’t his cup of tea, but he was the only king’s guard in the castle right now, and they wanted to keep the circle of confidence very tight until they knew what they were dealing with.
Chronus sighed, setting down another thesaurus worth of reports. “Alright, so I remember a briefing mentioning new monsters in the dungeon and some oddly antagonistic behavior towards the Order of Rembrand specifically.” Chronus pulled out a small sheet of paper and looked down his nose at it.
“Feed me more paladins,” written in glowing moss on the first floor of the whispering grotto wall, and this occurred after…am I reading this right? Magical flying nightmare squirrels decided that paladins weren’t allowed inside anymore after a novice smote one?” Chronus looked up at his companions; Tremlin rubbed his brow in frustration, and Lewis let out a gruff chuckle.
Lewis chimed in, “Yeah, I’m reading about how fruit sales have gone up threefold recently. Adventurers are using it to bribe the squirrels into escorting them through the first floor. Apparently the squirrels and the Daisys are both from that new local legend, the Forsaken Paladin or something like that.”
Tremlin piped up. “Yes, my lord, it all keeps leading back to that…particular figure. He seems to be at odds with the Order of Rembrand in some way, as their casualties went up fivefold in the dungeon after his intervention. And the sheer volume of reports I have received with anecdotal information and rumors about that figure is staggering.”
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“Fucking good, those assholes deserve it,” Lewis grumbled.
“Lewis I don’t disagree they are greedy, power-grabbing tyrants who honestly are going to need to be put in their place soon, but—and this is a big but—they are also policing something like a quarter of the kingdom. Do I like it? No. Do I have a better solution right now? Also, no. Back to the paladin, what do we actually know about him?” Chronus said firmly.
Tremlin unsealed a letter. “Let’s see what your favorite spy has to say. Cassandra’s last line of inquiry was about him specifically and his growing relevance to the planned crusade.” Tremlin looked more and more concerned the farther he read in the letter. Finally handing it over to the king with a sigh.
The king's brow rose a notch as he read as well. “Don’t keep me in suspense!” Lewis blurted out, tossing his stack of papers to the side.
Chronus looked up. “Vanessa believes the Paladin is a boy barely over 20 years of age from Hopes End, the adoptive son of the mayor.”
Tremlin muttered to himself, “It’s always something with that fucking town.”
Chronus cleared his throat, continuing on, “Powers are still undefined but related to rot and savage beasts, specifically brand-new species she believes he may be making, an odd combination… She has her latest threat report as well; she believes Hopes End is planning to stall until the border retreats past the town so that they can achieve independence.” The room went quiet at that, knowing that the town was planning to play a very dangerous game.
“And suddenly a new kingdom sprouts up next to Hopes End on the eve of the bloody duke making a grab for control of the town with the backing of the church.” Lewis finished the thought everyone was having. ”What a magical coincidence...”
“My liege, I believe it's a realistic and probable theory to work off of that the two are connected.” Tremlin said very matter-of-factly,
Lewis picked up a stack of rumors about the paladin and began browsing them, a slow grin growing with each page he leafed through. “Ho, shit, he was the one who sent Edmund’s bastard crying back to his father after the fight at the dragon’s maw. Honestly the lad sounds fun!” Lewis leaned forward to steal a short pour off of a very fancy-looking crystal decanter on the king's desk.
Chronus poured himself a glass. “This could be a boon as big as the non-aggression pact with the frost lord, or it could be the beginnings of another nightmarish villain like the Necromancer. I’m going to go visit him personally and decide for myself.”
Lewis froze the glass halfway to his mouth. “Wait, seriously? In person?”
Tremlin started stuttering a protestation and was cut off with a wave of the king's hand. “I have made my decision. I don’t want to go off hearsay and tavern rumors. Besides, it's been too long since I got a personal feel for how things are going in the kingdom, not to mention I want to see exactly what the duke is really doing with his tax money. Lewis, congrats, you’re in charge of any emergencies in my absence.” Lewis cursed to himself quietly; the kinds of emergencies the king would have to deal with were not fun.
Vraxious – The Forsaken Lands
Vrax was clutched onto a shelf of sticky purple climbing fungus that had wrapped around the side of the crumbling brick watchtower and was now probably the only thing holding it all together. He had half a leg thrown over the shelf and his body stuffed in using the one above for cover as he surveyed the rather mystifying ruins before him and the probable reason his damn trial hadn’t been completed yet.
He had been holed up back at camp slowly building a living wall around the dome and adding to the unique fauna of the area for over a week, and his control over the region hadn’t budged.
Eventually he figured out there had to be something powerful that was prowling in and out of his domain that the sunflowers couldn’t deal with on their own. It appeared he was right. Below him was a stunning sunken coliseum filled halfway with trickles of water from ages-ago broken pipes that still, a thousand years later, somehow produced water. The rows of seats rose from the water, golden filigree untouched by time and accented even by the deep murky greens rising from the water to grow ever upward.
Hovering above the water's surface were uneven platforms at varying heights, some with small walls that could serve as cover, others with staircases that led to nowhere. One even had a scraggly tree barely clinging to life set next to a very active weed as tall as Vrax that had roots stuffed into its bark, draining the last sparks of its life into its undulating bulb.
As interesting as all that was, the beast dragging a shredded but still twitching daisy in one hand and a brutish hunk of stone roughly in the shape of a club in the other hand was what drew his attention. Identify showed it was a [Bogheart Troll Tier-1](lvl39) Vrax smiled; he had prep time on his side, and his stigmata garden was stuffed to the brim with his creations. Oh holy hell, I'm going to enjoy putting that regeneration talent of his to the test.
Vrax began trapping the ever-loving shit out of the wide cobblestone street leading up to the steps that descended into the coliseum. He started with six of his Razor retriever hives placed in pairs on the edges of the road like brutal self-triggering snares. Down the center he dotted three of his Acidic Lurker mushrooms; he wished he had more to use, but he was still low on those, and he wanted to leave at least a few at home to propagate.
Vrax ran back to his campsite and added a few dandelions and the special smelter moss he had been working on this week to his stigmata garden. He dashed back to his trapped street; thankfully, it was only a few-minute dash for him, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, especially with the leaf bridges he had dotted across the city near his home that would be useless or terminal to anyone else who tried to use them. With his [Forest Strider] Talent they stiffened just enough and interwove perfectly to not break as he lightly stepped across them, completely bypassing streets that were still rather dangerous even with his creature swarming the area.
Vrax snuck up to the steps of the colosseum. The troll was angrily trying to eat a still-twitching daisy, getting a bite taken out of it for each it managed on the daisy. It didn’t seem to care much. Vrax watched a nostril get ripped open by a flailing tendril only to slowly ooze back together. The blood that was leaking actually crawled back up the creature’s face to the wound, writhing back into veins and pulling flesh taut behind it. Goddamn, I've heard stories about how hard they are to put down, but that is more than I expected. The troll huffed at the daisy after another disappointing bite and then spiked it into the colosseum wall with such force the daisy actually splattered across a ten-stride section of the wall, petals slowly drifting down from the sky.
Vrax suddenly felt a bit more nervous about the endeavor. The beast was massive, easily four times his height, with thick brown hide across its entire body that would almost certainly be as tough as leather armor. Not to mention the thick, oversized fangs jutting from its mouth below the dim red eyes. Also, it was the first thing he had ever seen that wasn’t even phased by a daisy, just casually annihilating it because it was an inconvenient snack.
With a gulp, he finished setting up his traps. The smelter moss settled into the center of the street, quivering angrily as the stones around it cracked from the heat it put off. A lot of dandelions right on the top of the steps for it to run through. And finally he set himself up on the same shelf of fungus at the very end of the street. Vrax whispered to himself, “Hey, at least I get to test out Sunshine’s new weird upgrade. Hah, oh man, the Rembrand assholes are going to have a fucking stroke if they ever figure out he got a divine blessing from eating a fucking paladin.” With one final gulp of nerves, Vrax reached out with his powers, calling a nearby Devourer towards him, and let out a piercing whistle.
The troll's head ponderously turned towards him, squinting at where he was violently waving at it from the watchtower. The street shook as it lunged up the stairs towards its new lunch.