Demon continent Alsace in the year 237 in the 9-month Lilithum on the 31st day after the shattering of the empire.
The forge was a building stretching over several floors with many winding corridors, in which rats were always running from one place to another. Always doing tasks for a higher goal, what this higher goal was she didn't know yet, but should the next conversation with a rat help her a bit.
She had intercepted some rats and interrogated them, after each encounter of this kind she had erased the memory of the rat in question to prevent it from warning other rats.
So she had learned a lot, but there was still a lot she didn't know and could only learn from higher-ranking rats. Which was the reason that she waited here in a somewhat remote place for the return of one of her previously interrogated rats, which should bring a commander, whom she could then interrogate. At least that was the plan, but whether it would ultimately work as she had thought it would remain to be seen because rarely did a plan survives contact with reality.
While she waited for the rat and her latest victim, she went over the information she had received so far in her head.
The rats had found the ruined city a few years ago and moved into it after some initial difficulties, from here armor was delivered every now and then at regular intervals to, as she had already suspected demons. To which demons was hard to say, since demons were all the same to the rats and that there were different factions was known to them, but not important enough to keep up with. Then there was another reason, a larger goal that all the rats here in the city were working towards, but which they had not formulated until after they had settled the city. At the same time, this city had become the rats' new weapons forge, and they were supplying weapons to some other rats. As far as she could learn, the rats lived in family clans, which ruled over different areas of the continent or simply lived there. Even though the family heads of this clan were pursuing a goal that was still unseen to her, it seemed as if they were working hard to unify the rats among them, and they also seemed to have some sort of ruler symbol. At least some of the rats she had interrogated had come from other families before they had come here or had been dragged here after a lost battle against the rats of this city and were working here in this city as slaves.
The sounds of rat's footsteps at the end of the corridor brought her back from her thoughts and back to focus on the here and now. Two rats were coming towards her at the end of the corridor, one of them was the rat she had interrogated last, the other one had robes of better quality on and also some small rings and stones adorned her and her clothes. Also, her appearance betrayed that she was not like the other rat, where the other one walked with a crouched posture in front of her, this rat walked with an upright cross and a certain authority, which the other rat lacked entirely. The two rats walked side by side in silence, she had had to search for a long time for a rat that served one of the higher ranking rats so that the rat could bring the higher ranking rat to her at all under false pretenses. What had cost her a lot of time, until she had finally found this one rat.
The two rats came closer and closer, still not talking to each other. Not that she needed that to get into their heads and read their minds, which she had been doing since she could hear the footsteps at the end of the corridor. Whereby she took appropriate care not to force the higher-ranking rat's mind to react in defense. From what she could see of its superficial thoughts, it was busy arranging the tasks for the rest of the day and comparing the numbers of armors created today with those of the previous day.
Meanwhile, the rats were coming closer and closer to her, so she began to direct her thinking in appropriate directions and delve further into the rat's minds to learn more about them and what they were up to here.
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A sudden feeling came over him so he remembered back to the old days when they had to be on guard against the monsters of the forest, as they were many, but one of the poorer rat clans. How they had to fight for every bit of food and in the end, it had not been enough for everyone, and yet they had continued to multiply and multiply, because only in this way their survival was ensured, or at least that of the few who got through and were not killed by monsters or other rats. But now, today, it was they who were in charge among the clans, and it was they who were envied by the other clans, and so there was fighting against them over and over again. But they now had armor and food on their side and they had something far more important on their side, where other rats had turned away, they had remained loyal and been rewarded for it. Oh yes, they had, first, they had found this wondrous city of demons, in which they had found all these golems, which were all inactive. It was only through them that these were brought back to life and all thanks to the finding of another gift from Diva, they had discovered a device that directed the golems and also the runes under the city and so they were able to activate the golems and not at a better time because word had spread quickly that they had found one of the lost cities of the demons again and were now inhabiting it. No sooner had they activated the golems and the runes than an alliance of various clans surrounded their city. Unfortunately, the old demons had forgotten to build a wall around the city, something they had the golems do at the moment to better defend themselves in the future because there were always intruders like monsters or other clans. However, thanks to the golems that Diva had given them, they had been able to defeat the other clans and capture some of the attackers.
Some of the demons had heard about it and had come to them or had tried to, only a few had gotten to them. Some of them had reclaimed the city, those they had killed and never heard of these demons and their leader, not that they cared. Others were smarter and tried to trade with them, first for the golems then for weapons. So they sold weapons to some demons and golems to others or both.
He was one of the few who took care not to sell too much to the same demon faction, the elders had decided that it would be unwise to lose their advantage against the demons because if they showed weakness, the demons would attack the city and the elders did not know if their golems could withstand the onslaught of a demon army supported by golems and equipped with their own weapons.
Once they had survived this storm, they had found another miracle. They had found the prison of Diva. The Titan who served as mother and father to all rats and the prison wasn't far at all, it was close by, they just needed enough Arcane Energy to open it. What he and also his brothers and sisters were feverishly waiting for.
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Interesting what she was able to learn from the little rat and all thanks to her psionic.
So there was a control unit from which all golems were controlled, from where this could also be switched off. She had also learned some interesting things about the politics of the rats, some things she had already known were supplemented by them and thus gave a more accurate picture. Also a more accurate picture of her own situation, she had set up her temporary camp not far from a city with golems, which could continue building golems. Which she would have to change immediately. At least they had been able to answer some of her questions. The golems had not been activated by her, but by the rats, and she had to assume that the local beast and monster world didn't quite know yet that the city was now a Forbidden Zone, which had led the rats to increase patrols.
At the same time, they still seemed to be arming themselves and other factions of the demon world, being wise enough not to give away too much of their resources. What worried her a bit, for what did the rats need so many golems, armor, and weapons. But only if the elders were planning a war. This, together with the fact that they had found their Titan, who appeared to be imprisoned on the Demon Continent just like the Dragon Titan, was frightening. Titans were like Gods and therefore a death sentence for all living creatures near them except their spawn. What would become even worse, should Asmodus and Lilith interfere and fight against the Titan, there would be nothing left of the Continent of Demons.
Next, she had to find out where the Titan's dungeon was and do everything in her power to make sure it didn't come to that.
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They had been on the trail of the little princess for several days now, but had not yet been able to find anything useful that could tell them how far the princess had gone and whether she was still alive, they could only find out from the star. Which did not tell them the distance, but only the direction in which a member of the royal family was located.
He had received word that the other groups had reached the imperial soldiers and had begun to lead them astray. Which was good, since they seemed to know where they had to go and the different troops of imperial soldiers were advancing in different directions, one like them also into the primeval forest, which grew in the middle of the continent and about the same direction as them also.
Like them, did they have any idea that Caleb was still alive and any way to find him? The other squads hadn't been able to find out yet, and it would be some time before he did since the message bird had to find them first. Communication with the world outside the primeval forest became more difficult with every meter they penetrated it and took longer and longer.
They would have to get through that, though, and they would. Until they had the princess safely in their grasp and from there he could continue to see what he was doing. In anticipation, a smile settled on his face. Which immediately disappeared from there, as a comrade in front of him was attacked again by a cat-like monster. These monsters were incredibly strong and they had to be careful that they did not fall into their traps and were killed by these monsters. What they could and had already proven a few times because they had already killed two of his comrades. The monsters had the effect of degrading all his and his comrades' senses as if they could only perceive everything in black and white, and even sounds were swallowed by them.
With a steely face, he set about defending his comrade and himself against these monsters and pushing further into the primeval forest of the continent. Nothing would stop him and he would go over dead bodies, if it must be, also over the corpses of his comrades. That was the way of the world, only the strongest survived and the weakest died, and he was the strong one and would therefore survive and return with the princess.
Only marginally his mind wondered how it had been possible for the princess to penetrate so far into the primeval forest without dying or leaving battle scars.
