BS7 - Epilogue (Patreon)

Baron Cassius stepped into the communication room in his Refuge, which was little more than a conference table. Sitting down in the high-backed, ornate chair, the waiting servant filled his chalice with wine, before leaving the room.

Baron Avaron was the first to appear, his projection holding a stein of beer and taking a big drink. The blond man was in a Nordic tunic, wearing a crown upon his head. 

Avaron scowled as he sat his drink down., “Fuck! What a huge waste of time this has been. I could have been leveling in the third Tier by now, but here I am waiting for our enemy to show up. If not for our task, I’d have long-since moved on.”

Cassius groaned as he took a drink. “Tell me about it. Baron Calix said he has news. Maybe it’s almost time. The War Trial nears, if they don’t move soon, we’ll have to move on their worlds instead.”

Avaron grimaced. “Not even I think that will work so well. Their people are earning plenty in the dungeon, and their earned worlds are quite loyal, so far. It’ll be hard to move in their cities when the natives want to shiv you in the back.”

Baron Calix suddenly appeared on the other end of the table, the son of Hermes dressed in his metallic toga.

Cassius said, “I hope your news is good, Calix. We’ve been wasting far too much time on The Burning Steps.”

Calix chuckled, and shook his head. “You two complain too much. I’m the one doing all the traveling and hard work. But I do have news, both good and bad.”

Avaron said, “Well, out with it. I don’t have all day.”

“The first, is that our enemy’s families have merged. Nessa Tyrsdottir and Baron Hart have wed, as witnessed by the Divine.”

Avaron snorted. “So what? That doesn’t change anything.”

Calix scoffed. “You are an idiot if you believe that. Thanks to that bitch’s success, Baron Hart is now closer to becoming a Count than any one of us is–with the exception of having a third Tier world. If he becomes one, our ability for us, or our…patron, to influence the War Trial in our favor against them, will decrease significantly.”

Cassius groaned. “Okay. What else?”

Calix replied, “The Aesir and the seers all say the same thing. Hearthtribe is finally about to move. However, there is an issue.”

Cassius frowned. “An issue?”

“They are going to land on several worlds–Six in total. But we don’t know precisely when their leaders land.”

Cassius frowned. It was bad enough that they had difficulty reading when Hearthtribe was going to involve themselves in the war again. But that they couldn’t predict when they land? “Could they have countermeasures against prophecy? This doesn’t make much sense with them being lower Tier natives.”

Calix replied, “The seers…they say they must have some kind of special protection. They are able to see, but their vision is clouded and delayed. Almost as if they are trying to foresee the actions of those of a higher Tier, but a little different. But not to worry, we see the actions of their guild just fine…at least now. The Hart family and their Champions…they can see so little of what they do, that it is alarming.”  

Avaron snorted. “It sounds like excuses to me. All incompetent failures, just like your spies. They learned less than an average boy knew on the street of their worlds.”

Calix groaned. “We’ve been over this. Hearthtribe has a very stringent application process, I’ve never seen anything like it. We’ve only managed to get some of our men into their subguilds, and the beastkin are like walking lie-detectors. Our infiltrators are often quickly removed with no warning, and we don’t even know why or how. Their administrators…there are rumors that they never sleep, and that they live inside the Menu. Always watching.” He shivered.

Avaron sneered, but Cassius waved his hand at him placatingly. “I wouldn’t look down on these beastkin either, Avaron. The Ravenwolf Clan avoided all of our traps as if they could see the future themselves. It’s not impossible for them to have their own seers and protections, to go along with their other capabilities. Let’s move on to the foretelling. What happens in the war?”

Calix went over where Hearthtribe was hitting, and when they were landing. It was strange that their foretelling hadn’t been clear about this until this time, but it was far from the only oddity when it came to their enemy.

The problem, or the bad news, was that the Dungeon itself had failed. It seemed in their diving into Tartarus, Highlands had earned a method to earn planetary core energy–Energy Rating, and won a world back, which would grant them the same thing. At this rate, within a few years from that alone, the world would enter the third Tier. 

This would happen long before the second stage of the War Trial, and there was nothing they could do to stop it.

Avaron was pissed, slamming his hand on the desk. Thankfully, he wasn’t even truly in the same room with Cassius, or his chalice would have been knocked over. Thank the Divine.

“Haven’t we already lost? With what they just gained, we’ll have failed in our task. Why would the dungeon give them exactly what they needed?”

Cassius shook his head. “Tartarus doesn’t have full control over what is granted, the Framework grants things based on a true lottery system. Even fate and luck manipulators have failed to alter the rewards. This was true luck for our enemy.”

Calix focused on Avaron, “Our Patron won’t hold things that happened outside of our control against us, but they won’t forgive us if we still fail the task given to us–the one within our control. Early in the third Tier is still weak, and if they solidify their standings further, it will make it even more difficult to defeat them in the War Trial itself. We can’t allow any of these six worlds to enter their hands, even if we do not win them for ourselves.”

Avaron grimaced. “But we didn’t even touch this stupid Serthune. Why do they want that shithole in the ground?”

Calix snorted. “That’s the problem with do-gooders, isn’t it? They don’t need a reason to want it. They just want to help.” He spread his arms wide, and laughed.

Cassius shook his head. “It shouldn’t matter. We have sabotaged the others, even before the conquest of some of them began. We can just dog pile that one or sandbag it if it comes to that. For now, we need to focus on The Burning Steps and Bramvalen. Our trap is ready for them, we only need to spring it. With them trapped in the void for a time, our efforts will cascade into the others. They’ll be too slow to catch up to all our other focused efforts.”

Calix nodded. “We need to beat them in this Battleground when they land, and keep hitting them, making them unable to accomplish anything. The plan somewhat hinges on it. We have a few backup plans, but their leaders are incredibly mobile, we were told. They just might be able to overcome it if we don’t put them on the back foot.”

Cassius understood. With their weekly events combined with outnumbering them drastically, they could keep them from accomplishing anything meaningful on the world. 

Avaron snorted. “Overcome it? How are they going to triumph over a tainted moon? That world is as good as dust already.”

Calix snorted. “We still have to be careful, it’s not as though it can fall overnight. We couldn’t let it be destroyed before they even landed, could we? The Sector Council would look far too deeply, and we would be implicated. In addition, if Tyr’s daughter catches us sabotaging the world, the Sector Council may rule in her favor and that will be it for us. You of all people should understand very well that her words mean something–and that was before she became a Baroness. Now, her words hold a heavier weight. If they gather any evidence at all, our plans will be ruined, and so will we.“

Avaron grimaced. “Fuck. So we got a little over a month before they start to arrive?”

“That’s right. Their arrivals on the other worlds seems mostly set, so we will position our people appropriately. But on The Burning Steps, we can’t even figure out when they land, just that we know it is around that time, give or take a few weeks.”

Avaron groaned. “Weeks? My guys can barely stay focused for a whole day.” 

Cassius said, “There’s less than a year before the War Trial polls go out. It is not good enough to just beat them. We must crush them, ruin their reputations by pinning the blame for these losses on them, shattering the trust their people have in them. Or they will have too much power during the trial. We cannot allow them to ruin our Divine’s plan to rule the Sector.”

Calix narrowed his eyes on Avaron. “So that means less time at the brothel and with a belly full of beer or wine. Whip your people into shape for divine’s sake. Our very lives just might depend on it.”

Avaron rolled his eyes. “Whatever. And what about you, Calix? Are you to be joining us?”

“I’m almost done with my task. I may join you on The Burning Steps, but after the landing. It’ll be up to you two to win that first match.”

Avaron scoffed before ending the transmission, leaving Cassius and Calix alone.

Cassius asked, “How about the Ravenwolves, where are they headed?”

“It seems you might have lucked out. They’ll be on The Burning Steps. You’ll have your chance to get your revenge on them, and soon.”

Cassius grinned, and his hands balled into fists. He couldn’t wait to get that bitch and the abomination back. And that he could drag them into the void was going to be quite the gift.

***

Avalara ran her fingers through Jake’s hair, his head lying in her lap. His permanent summons were sparring, and he was enjoying her loving attentions.

A veritable army of manifested templates fought against Bree, Sati, Ruby, and Nessa, and Jake thought they were actually an excellent team. Combined with his Aura, they were truly formidable. Almost as formidable as the rest of his wives, minus the ability to summon their Divine.

Zephyr the Garuda and Jasmina the Naga Siren joined with his beastkin army, attacking Bree and the rest. There were a total of eighteen different beastkin templates, and he had made sure to pick some that were especially challenging.

Nessa’s water snakes rose from her lake, the two attempting to bite into the Garuda’s body, but it deflected one with its feathery shield. Zephyr blocked with its feather blade behind its back, slicing through the snake and dispelling it.

Bree’s humanoid body was filled with the flames of spring mixed with monstrous strength, and her powerful punch slammed into Darris the turtle beastkin’s shield. His body was blown back, despite the song-enhanced wall of water softening the blow. Vines from her wrapped around Darris, slowing his movements as dinodogs were created to charge after the several templates. 

With his body and shield brought out of position, Ruby’s blade of blood snaked past the template’s guard, and cut into the snow owl healer he was protecting, and dispelled it into motes of light. Ruby then flipped over the enlarged Vesuvius’ glaive, dashing toward Jasmina and sending more blades of blood as she slashed her saber into the surrounding enemies.

The healer down, Sati’s flame darts started burning into Seamus, the paladin of Lugh unable to keep up with the damage being done. He was dashing after her, but she flew and kited him away as she dealt with the archers gunning for her. 

Jasmina’s auril-infused shout sent vibrations into Ruby’s body, causing her to halt. Even covered with her blood plate armor, this ability still had quite the influence on her, ripples traveling through it and hurting her ears. 

Nessa’s lake wrapped around Ruby, protecting her from the effects. She then continued her charge, and while the powerful Dahlia arrived to defend Jasmina, Bree launched Darris into the air, crashing into Vesuvius and sending him flying. 

A giant orb of flame from Sati crashed into Jasmina’s shield of water, and since Dahlia was busy with Ruby, Nessa launched from her lake, and her blade pierced through the water protecting Jasmina, stopping in front of her neck. 

Pouting, Jasmina disappeared into motes of light–transporting to another place in the Refuge because their killing blows were certainly not worth suffering for the girl. 

With her and the healers dead, the party was able to focus down each of the templates until it was just the four of them left standing. They had to work through a few archers and flying beastkin, who had been hassling them with well-aimed shots the whole time.

They had defeated twenty of Jake’s summons with just the four of them, and he was quite impressed as they happily marched toward him, high-fiving each other and laughing.

Jake and Ava clapped as he sat up. “Good job, girls. That was some great teamwork.”

Ruby’s armor rippled, then became fluid and went back inside of her. “Jasmina’s shout was so strong, and Zephyr was so tough to deal with. That was good practice.”

Sati had floated over, and she said, “The beastkin are truly varied. The water was full of vitality, and made it a greater challenge to deal with, even with my powerful flames.”  

Bree snorted. “You got that right. That Darris guy sure was a pain in the ass on his own, especially with that Naga Siren helping him. Thankfully, that Dahlia template isn’t nearly as good as the real thing.”

Jake chuckled. “It’s good for you in the sparring match, but not so good for us. I’d be happy to be even more overpowered, able to call out true copies of all of our allies, as I’m pretty sure I’d be unbeatable. The templates do well in serving their role, but they would have difficulty against their counterparts, even with my amazing buffs. Their skill levels and resources are limited, and they just aren’t able to defeat a truly talented opponent, even with their increased parameters.”

Nessa said, “Or some good support. We can all see how well Jasmina made them so much more effective. We can also work together with them when they’re on our side.”

“Definitely.” 

He talked about their fight as they preened at his praise, and he was happy to go over what he thought of their actions. A complicated battle with twenty opponents was difficult, but Jake could have directed the templates better to make them a much larger challenge to defeat, if he wasn’t relaxing or just wanted to be a pain in the ass. Working with them, he pointed out these items to look out for, and how to handle them for the next time.

Of course, Jake hadn’t truly brought out his A-team when it came to the templates. Some beastkin’s abilities were simply more effective than others, thanks to the template’s many other limitations and restrictions.  

Since they were going to be focused on PvP, they were spending a lot of time facing humanoid opponents for now. He had plenty of monstrous opponents for them to play with, but they would get plenty of those to work on as they challenged the numerous Rifts.

His mana recovered thanks to the Hearth of the Refuge, Jake summoned the next round of enemies. This time, it was a grouping of cultivators, Nords, and Roman warriors and casters. He had managed to grab a few while he was on Aetheris, which he was happy about.

The Xara template drew her blade, and a fiery halo appeared over Xu Weiyan’s head. Aria growled, her tails flickering behind her as Astalder brandished his axes. A dwarven rune mage cast a spell, creating an earthen barrier in front of the casters, Jake infusing mana into its casting.

This time, the number was far greater, as Jake’s investment in them was different. Over forty enemies were arrayed in front of them, preparing for battle. 

Bree chuckled, cracking her knuckles. “Looks like a new challenge.”

Jake asked, “Ready for the next round?”

The girls all looked positively eager, and after an affirmative, Nessa started shouting out orders, and they rushed off to take on the challenge.

Ava giggled. “Can’t you see it, my stag? They all want your attention.”

“Of course, I can see that. They also just love fighting, too.”

“That goes without saying! Just like all of your wives, they are warriors for good. But also love. These girls are all itching for your affection.”

“And they’ll get it, in time. We only have a month in transit, and it’s not something I want to rush.”  

“They wouldn’t want that anyhow, unless that was what you wanted. Each will treasure and cherish your pursuit, in whatever form it takes. Even if it takes years–all of your girls are patient because they have a profound trust in you. As we all do.”

Off to the side, a loud crash was heard, followed by an explosion. Shards of creature rolled by Jake and Avalara’s position, before dispersing into motes of light. His wives had finished off the boss monster the simulator had spawned, and it was one that was at the peak of their Tier. 

The challenge wasn’t upgraded like what they would experience in the dungeon or in a Conquest, but they crushed the boss with just the five of them–including Avalara’s Battle Avatar, and nothing more than Jake’s Aura and buffs.

“Woohoo!” Berri said, “That’s what I’m talking about. We’re going to whup these scrubs, and clear all the Rifts! And then, we can get back to making babies, and–”

Ophelia snorted. “You got a one-track mind, Berri. I think we’re going to be busy for some time, even after the Conquest of these worlds. The War Trial is set to begin soon, perhaps right after.”

Berri scoffed. “14 days.”

“Huh?”

“14 days is all the time it takes for me to make an egg. If we can’t find the time, then we’re working way too hard. If we don’t have the time, then we should make the time. Besides, look at how strong our babies are!”         

She pointed over to the side, where his oldest daughters could be seen through the window in the nearby room. They were facing off against a familiar figure with an audience of most of their sisters, and Jake couldn’t help but be a bit surprised.

It was the Orc Commander they had faced on Ariminum, their first Rift Boss. The forces that fought alongside him were fewer than at the Rift, but the five girls took them on with a surprising amount of strength and skill. 

Clara and Nora both wore the cape suits, lined with mail. Nora was able to control the streamers or flaps with spearheads on the tips, though Clara wasn’t able to just yet. They also wielded halberds, swinging them deftly, cutting through the orcs with their auril or mana-enhanced weapons, runes glimmering around them.

Rena and Nyxa both held shields with large maces, almost looking like two-handed weapons, held in a single hand. They were covered in thicker plate armor, with spikes lining their backs and sides. They were fighting in formation with their bird-sisters, the two holding the line while they protected their flanks. Pushing into the smaller orcs, it really didn’t even look fair.  

Blaze held a two-handed axe, reminiscent of Bloodberri’s Chimeric Axe. Her snake body twirled and crashed into the side of the orc’s formation, sending them flying and smashing into their allies. Swinging her axe, she cleaved off an orc’s arm, enabling Clara to finish him off, and push forward. The Orc Commander shouted, buffing the orcs and covering them with a red barrier.

Each of the girls released simple but effective runic spells, from Breaths of Cold to lightning bolts. The orc’s shields weakened, the girls fought defensively by focusing down each one, until they finished besting each one, and pushed on to the commander.

The five of them surrounded the Orc Commander, and traded blows. He activated an ability, swinging powerfully into Nyxa’s shield, and shoving her to the side. Spinning around, his large mace swung toward Clara’s head, the golden-haired owl girl barely bringing her halberd into position to block.

But a barrier from Blaze arrived, blocking the mace. Meanwhile, the larger girl had risen herself high, and used gravity to bring her blade down and cut powerfully into his back, bringing him down to his knees.

Rena then managed to finish him off, her mace smashing into his helmet and skull, dispersing him into motes of light.

The parents all stopped what they were doing, to teleport and congratulate their eldest daughters. The many other daughters clapped and cheered, shouting at their sisters’ success.

Berri said, “You did it! That was awesome teamwork!”

As they tried to hug their daughters, and the many snake-sisters tried to get their hugs too, they got to experience the unfortunate side effect of armor–it was not good for hugging. 

Still, they could feel the warmth in their hearts and hearths from receiving their parent’s praise and feeling their Presence, so they were ecstatic and full of pride.

Jake looked over his women and his children with a smile. While there were numerous threats ahead, between the Conquest of several worlds, PvP, and the upcoming War Trial, he was confident. Jake and his family, friends, and allies were strong, and all these challenges would be overcome in time.

The flames of both love and determination burned brightly within their Hearths, and they were ready for anything.

END OF BOOK 7