Chapter 38 – Building an Army

“The King of Windfall,” chuckled Charles as the handful of remaining adventurers in Fillydelphia found him.  Not that he was hiding, but they were kind of bothering him.  So far, through Necromancy and a unique lack of empathy for his fellow human beings, Charles expanded his army to over five hundred.  “Are you sure about that?”

“The Mayor was spotted in this very town, the King of Windfall will stand against you no matter what you do to me,” said the woman.

“You must be kidding,” stated Charles.

“No, I am Loki,” said a woman, glaring at him.  She looked upset, probably because of the army of the dead he was raising but she could just be the angry kind of woman you hear about.

“And he’s Thor, and that guy is Hel,” sighed Charles.  They were all titles of course, the lands around Filly were rife with titles replacing names because Charles was bored and spent too much time reading old Norse myths.  At least they were not Har somethings.  “I’m surprised there isn’t a Fenris around her somewhere.”

“He left,” said Loki, holding her sword and shield.  It was emblazoned with Loki’s symbols marking her as a guardian of the forest.

“Oh, yeah, I think I melted his spine,” said Charles.

“Then we will avenge him,” spat the woman.

The Dark Overlord encompassed him, his body vanishing into a mass of shadow as he began to laugh through his perfect teeth.  The peeling, soul shattering laughter lasted entirely too long.  “I’m going to enjoy this.”

***

“Are we finally ready for the trial of speed,” asked Lance.

“Yup, quick trip to the Eastern Gate fortress to get a green vase,” I said, continuing to stretch. Pre-race stretching was very important, if not for the reason Lance thought.

“So to be clear, the first person with the vase to get back here wins,” I said looking around. “No other rules?” The thief’s eyes got really, really wide and she shuffled a few paces away.

“You aren’t allowed to kill anyone, it wouldn’t be kingly,” said Lance quickly.

I glanced over at the thief and shrugged, “I suppose not, wouldn’t be fair.”

“But everything else is fine, including perks, skill and abilities that allow you to steal the vase,” said Lance comfortably. “Even if you grab it, if a clever thief takes it from you it is theirs.”

“She’s level 48, I’d imagine she’s pretty good at that,” I said as she vanished. I tracked her invisible form for several seconds as she darted behind several people and then finally reappeared next to Lance looking uncomfortable.

Lance nodded as she whispered to double check that I wasn’t going to kill her again, she was quite upset about that. I wasn’t going to kill her, of course. But my other half was taking forever to do what I told him.

“Found it,” said Shart, at the Eastern Gate Fortress.  I’d been stalling everyone for the few minutes it took Shart to get there using line of sight portals.  With our familiar bond, distance was no longer a concern and while Shart hated to be used for stupid human projects… he did love to screw people over.

“Alright, on your marks, get set, go,” said Lance.  Instantly the Falconian girl I was competing with flashed forward as fast as the sun.  That was quite fast, and she was going to be covering leagues an hour which I might have been able to outpace if I went all in. That sounded hard though because I was more of an endurance guy so I formed a portal and grabbed the vase.

· Mayor Jim has completed the Second Trial of the Lion

The poor thief looked distraught; she hadn’t even left the castle grounds yet.  Lance looked annoyed.  I shrugged.  “I can teleport.  I teleported us here.  What part of that did you miss?”

Angela shook her head at Lance, “That’s on you.”

***

“You were going to defeat me through the power of friendship?  Was that it?” asked the Dark Overlord.

“Brains,” replied Loki.

“Yes, that was it,” stated the Dark Overlord as another batch of zombies rose.

“Brains,” said Loki.

“You got that right,” replied the Dark Overlord, looking over his field of yet more zombies.  Thousands were going to be useful, but was it enough?  “Do you really think we need more?”

“Brains.”

“Fine, I suppose I could check the outlying area to find even more living humans to convert to undead, but this is just getting sick you monster,” said the Dark Overlord, examining his horde.  Three thousand one hundred and two zombies seemed like a lot, but really in the great scheme of things more was always better, right?  “I think I might be the bad guy here.”

“Brains.”

“Interesting, don’t you do need a sack to drown a puppy,” smiled the Dark Overlord.

***

“The Third Trial is the trial of quickness of mind, you must defeat one of our greatest spellcasters with magic,” said Angela.

I looked past Lance, “Great spellcaster, interesting.  Who?”

The neat thing about master perception was I could hear him grind his teeth.  “You will face off against Melissa, the Lady of the River Side.”  This was apparently news to her, as her eyes bugged out for a moment before she calmed down, shrugged, and walked towards the circle.

“What about you, or Plasma Julia,” I offered, looking over the group. Plasma Julia, you realized that was what I was calling her, shook her head violently and Lance grumbled. “The ladies of the River are the best wizards in Falcon, and well suited to a non-lethal duel. Our skills are more deadly in nature, and we wouldn’t want an accident.”

“You guys have weird titles,” I said, walking towards my spot for the spell duel.  Melissa adjusted her hair back into a tight bun and put on a cap to keep it out of her face.  The cap looked like a nurses cap designed to keep their hair out of their faces during surgery.

“Just want to say I’m a big fan,” she said as she got ready.

“Really?” I asked.

“Yes, those curious puppy books are my son’s favorites,” she smiled.

“Take the loss,” said Shart as she got into position and all mirth vanished from her face.  She switched to a dead serious expression as we waited for the fight to start.

I activated Counterspell and waited.

“Um, who goes first?” I asked.

She held up both hands, gathering her mana for a spell and nothing happened.  I watched her for a moment.

“Do I go first, bub?” I said blasting her with Holy Light on the word of power, bub.

“Ouch, my Mana is not working,” she announced and started trying to cast another spell.  I waited for my spell to go off cooldown as she waved her hands in the air, trying to gather power for her magic.

“What do you think is going on, bub?” I asked.  A second blast of holy light flashed over her.  I was only doing a few points of damage, but her barriers weren’t even coming on.

“I can’t use my Mana,” she said, horrified.

“Do you think it has something to do with the duel, bub,” I continued, blasting her with holy light again.

“Possibly, maybe the <system> doesn’t realize I’m supposed to be fighting,” she said.

“That sounds terrible, bub, what do you think you could do to reset it?” I asked.

She shook off the last shot, I wasn’t really trying to hurt her, and considered it.  “Maybe it didn’t pick up when I walked in?”

“Bub, that sounds just crazy enough to work, bub,” I said, blasting her twice more.  My Holy Light was set to sting like the bejesus mode rather than peel off your skin, but the effect of that many blasts was rapidly apparent.

Grumbling, she stepped out of her spot and walked to the outside of the ring to reset it.

· Mayor Jim has completed the Third Trial of the Lion

“What?” she yelled as I deactivated the counterspell skill and a blast of mana erupted from her hands and neck.

“Did you block all her Mana?” asked the Princess.

“Every single point, and it was tricky,” I responded, flexing my hands. Lance looked horrified and the anti-Jim faction was missing several members. “What’s the last trial?”

***

“Brains?”

“Look, I can’t stand your genocidal tendencies anymore.  We’ve had a good run, but I’m literally out of people to kill here.  That is every satellite village from the city,” said a distraught Dark Overlord.

“Brains?”

“Even I have my limits!  That’s an orphanage next to a no kill shelter for puppies and other animal companions, that’s dark… even for me,” begged the Dark Overlord, looking down at the fortress-like building.  The handful of local defenders were even now preparing to protect the building to the last.

“Brains?”

“No, you monster, I refuse.  I’m not going to brutally kill all those kids just because you get your kicks out of it,” said Charles.  “I’ve realized now that you are a bad influence on me.  I’ll never do evil ever again.”

“Brains?”

“Oh, I can never stay mad at you,” smiled Charles.  “Let's go murder all those children and turn them into zombies, together.”

“Brains.”

“Hey, don’t get greedy, the old folk’s home for retired adventurers is way across the river,” said Charles.  “Those people deserve their rest.”

“Brains.”

“Fine, after we kill the children, we’ll head over,” sighed Charles with a chuckle.  “You are incorrigible.”

***

· Mayor Jim has completed the Fourth Trial of the Lion

· Mayor Jim has completed all Trials of the Lion.

“Seriously, beatboxing?” I asked, causing the Falconian I’d just defeated to shrug.  Most of my real-life skills didn’t carry over to Ordinal, but I was friends with the ‘94 American champion back on Earth and you pick up a few things.

Apparently, on Ordinal a good beatbox showed off that you were of sound moral character or some such.  In any case, it was over, and my popular support had shot up to 42%.  Which was a problem. Theoretically, I could become the leader of a nation without popular support but that typically didn’t end very well.  I needed these people to willingly follow me into battle against the Dark Overlord.

Still, I was running out of options.  I didn’t know how long the Completed all Trials buff would hold.  If it ran out, I might need to do this again and a few of my tricks probably wouldn’t work a second time.  I’d tried negotiation, I needed a show of force, but I didn’t just want to start beating heads.  I needed to demonstrate my power but that was tricky. I needed to fight, but if I started a fight, I’d look weak. I needed a sucker.

Then I spotted Lance, looking like the sneakiest puma.

“You could challenge him for the lead!” said one of Lance’s supporters.

“You keep saying he is a fake, you could challenge him and be King,” said another.

“You keep saying how you’d do a better job if you were King,” said a third.

I smirked at that.  That was at least normal between worlds.  Politicians making claims that they didn’t really support and their followers not realizing they were just saying what you wanted to hear.

I nodded, “Seriously, Lance.  You think you can challenge me?  You look more like a Starscream than a Megatron.”

There was a horrible pause as every Falconian ran through every season of the Tales of Grebthar until they found the Transformers.  Then all of the theologians paused, considering my words.  For an American, that meaning should have been somewhat clear, but they didn’t have 800 years of theological backing discussing all of the points endlessly.

However, the consensus gathered pretty quickly.

“Get that man some healroot,” said Melissa.  Lance was reduced to a state of open-mouthed horror at the terrible burn I’d just leveled on him.  He glanced around quickly, trying to gauge the responses of his peers.  The anti-Jim faction was behind him, of course, but everyone else was rapidly shifting to my side.

Well, enough, I needed less than 20 of them to swing my way.

The anti-Jim faction members were all grinning wickedly.  They knew I was out of my depth.  They knew that Lance could easily take me and then he’d be King and Mayor.  It was all working out to plan.  The only person on the anti-Jim side that didn’t look 100% on board the ‘Lance kills the Mayor’ plane was Lance.

“I don’t feel it would be right for me to challenge a fake mayor,” spat Lance.

“Oh, I figured you were going to bring a party,” I said, looking at his faction.  Sir Dalton started to move closer to me but when he noticed Fenris standing there unmoving, he paused then snorted.

“Only five?” said the big Knight, then he snorted in a manner Zorlando would have been impressed with before stepping back.  The anti-Jim faction bristled at that offhanded insult.

“You were going to fight a party of us, by yourself?” said Lance, noticing my companions holding back.

“The Mayor has to fight with the Dark Overlord, you seriously think I can’t handle anything you could bring?” I asked.

“Well, if you want to fight an entire party by yourself I cannot help but accept,” smiled Lance, the level 45 Zealot.  Suddenly four other Falconians were highlighted in my vision.  Cole, the level 44 paladin, Angela, the level 45 Paladin, Plasma Julia the level 44 Zealot and Plasma enthusiast, and Princess Julia the level 52 Zealot.

“Half of you aren’t even on the anti-Jim side,” I said glaring at Princess Julia, the traitor.

“I never actually fought against you, I just want to see what you can do,” said the Princess walking towards the center of the ring as the crowd stepped back.  I got into position on the opposite side of the other party and waited.

I was grounding my teeth when Bashara cleared her mental throat, “I suggested that.”

“Why, pray tell, would you,” I asked.

“Because, Princess Julia is seen as your lapdog, she needs to be seen as independent if she hopes to hold any sway over the family,” said Bashara.

“That makes sense,” I grumbled. I didn’t fully grasp the politics of the royal family, but I was effectively stepping in on top of them, so having someone I could marginally trust at the higher ranks was useful.

Of course, then Plasma Julia and Lance both began gathering plasma in preparation for when the fight started and Julia started buffing the armor of the party. This was going to much less fun than I was thinking.

“Don’t feck around, Jim,” said Sir Dalton.

Suddenly the dueling interface shot up and we were surrounded in a system generated barrier.  It was not set to prevent death.

“Oh, my bad, it looks like I didn’t turn off the damage settings, I’m sure you’ll be fine,” said Lance.

“Feck around a little bit, Jim,” said Zorlando causing the Falconians to turn to face him. There were two prepared orbs of plasma and Julia’s barriers were hardening. “You don’t want to accidentally kill them.  It's bad manners.”