Gerain allowed himself to ponder the endless mysteries of the omniverse. Still disturbed by the byakhee’s incursion, he reached over to the map of his multiverse and shrunk the three dimensional projection of intertwined worlds until they all collapsed together into a glowing icosahedron.

There, at the boundaries of the icosahedron, were the other multiverses that buttressed up against his own. Each one with its own admin and set of rules, each one containing countless worlds.

Gerain had explored a few of them, during the hundred years when he had grown weary of the never-ending war. Over there was the multiverse that was ruled by the byakhee’s eldritch god as they burned through their own realities, the system shifting and adjusting to include something called sanity points. Over there was a strange multiverse filled with primary colours, where the main denizens were cheerful horses and the system was defined by friendships, bonds and happiness. And again, over there were worlds in which mana played no part, and science was the most powerful aspect.

Still stranger multiverses existed, all self-contained with clear boundaries between them. All with their own admins and rules.

It had made Gerain nauseous, truth be told, to explore these strange other worlds. Even if the systems had translated his power and rank to the equivalent in their systems, Gerain had felt uncomfortable. And so he had returned to his own multiverse, and determined to allow no incursions into his own.

Perhaps he was a traditionalist at heart, but he had little patience for learning the intricacies of new systems. He had also, on more than one occasion, found himself in a situation where his life had been at risk. Worse, he had discovered that the time he spent exploring the adjacent multiverses meant he was not paying attention to the unending war in his own.

There were more than enough worlds here for Gerain to concern himself with.

He considered a brief connection to the admin, to alert them of the emissaries incursion, but decided that there were other pressing matters at hand. The admin would have made a note of it and likely responded anyway.

There was the alliance in Kragen’s world to be dealt with, after all.

Gerain zoomed back in on his three-dimensional map, tracing the lines between his world and that of Kragen’s world.

“Interesting,” he muttered.

There was a route not three worlds away from Kragen’s world to Gerain’s homeworld, now known simply as necropolis. Doubtless, this was the plan of those that meant Gerain harm. The Seven Suns were rallying their forces in one location and intended to travel across the intervening two worlds to reach Gerain and his tower.

They had long ago given up on sending lone heroes to kill the thousand year old necromancer, and now attempted to mount massive onslaughts against him, banding together and creating portals several miles across in order to send troops through. The mana cost of doing so was immense, and such portals took several days to engineer, and a week for all the troops to march through. Once one world was gained, at the cost of millions, another portal was opened on the next world, and the diminished troops from that world were sent through, and so on.

“They will never learn,” Gerain muttered, “Never. There is only one thing to be done. The same thing that has always needed to be done. Kill them all, destroy the Seven Suns. Then I can be at peace.”

There were those that considered Gerain a monster, a murderer of billions. And from a certain perspective, Gerain could see their point. It was true that he was responsible for incalculable deaths over the thousand years of his existence. Yet Gerain was not, in his estimation, evil. The fact was that he wished this would all end. And he had resolved, centuries ago, that one day it would – as soon as people stopped trying to kill him.

Because that was, in Gerain’s estimation, the crux of the argument between him and the rest of the multiverse.

People kept trying to kill him, so he had to kill them first.

It was a simple fact of Gerain’s existence that in order to keep living, something which he wanted very much, he was forced to kill those who wanted him to stop living. He had no ill-will towards the billions upon billions that had died at his hands, to be reanimated into his vast army.

It was simply that without them, those that wished to kill Gerain would have succeeded centuries ago.

Gerain tried again to recall where his burning desire to live had originated, but again, the memory escaped him.

Still, Gerain saw an opportunity.

If the Alliance had decided to fortress themselves in Kragen’s world, then now was the time for an offensive, and hopefully it would be the last one that he would have to endure.

He turned his attention to the newly initiated reality. Almost 8 billion lived there. This was indeed a prize for his forces.

Gerain tapped the silver circlet he wore on his head. The gesture was unnecessary, but he enjoyed reminding himself of the existence of the most powerful magic item ever crafted, and by his own hand, no less. The crown of control had many functions. Chief among them was his ability to command the undead across the multiverse. However, he found the mental effort of doing so a strain, and had long since passed over the day-to-day runnings of the war to his three generals.

Instantly they appeared before him, ghostly figures from across the multiverse. Here stood Brother Caldwell, a cowardly and fearful man despite his power, who was responsible for the necromancers. There was Mother Murder, the skilled commander of the assassin death cult that worshipped Gerain as their Father of Death. A lethal assassin in her own right, she was also a devout believer. And there was Demonatus, the Lich Overlord, a creature in its own way which possessed as much power as Gerain – but only because the latter allowed it.

It amused Gerain that of his three generals, two of them were living, both having been born into servitude. For Gerain’s purposes, he had discovered it was prudent to have living servants with skill and power that worshipped him as if he were a god. There were advantage to having the base cunning and skills of the living in his forces, even if the armies of the dead vastly outnumbered them.

“We serve our lord in life and death,” chorussed the three, although in the case of the flaming-headed Lich Lord it was more of a tombstone rasp than anything musical.

“Report,” Gerain said, indicating Brother Caldwell should go first.

“We have sent the majority of our forces to the newly initiated reality, as instructed, great lord. We estimate that within two weeks at most the entire world will have been converted.”

Gerain nodded. This was as expected.

“How many of the necromancers do you expect will fall?”

“Perhaps ten percent, or fifteen at most.”

Gerain nodded again. This was acceptable. It mattered little to him if necromancers died, as they reanimated afterwards. One day, when all of this was over, he intended to slaughter all the remaining necromancers. Until that time, they were convinced that after enough time serving, Gerain would grant them the boon of eternal life. This was, of course, a lie. Gerain had no intention of granting eternal life to any other, and had indeed made it an impossible task for anyone else to discover the secret as he had. He had forbidden certain branches of necromancy, and any trace of the spell he had created remained within the boundaries of his tower.

He toyed with the idea of executing Brother Caldwell there and then. He knew that the man had, despite the ban, been investigating the closed branches of the necromantic arts that might lead him to the creation of the spell of immortality. But Caldwell lacked the imagination or creativity to realise which of the spells needed to be combined and in which order to ensure immortality. As a bureaucrat, he was effective. For now, he would live.

“Very well. I want you to ensure that no more than two weeks pass before the reality is converted, and that portals are established in all the major cities. The forces amassed there are to proceed at once to Kragen’s world.”

“Kragen’s world, my lord?”

“One final push,” Gerain nodded, “Is all that it will take to destroy the Seven Suns once and for all.”

“My lord is wise,” Brother Caldwell nodded.

“What about recruitment on the other worlds?”

“Our numbers grow apace,” Brother Caldwell nodded. “There are few that resist us. It is most gratifying.”

“Excellent. Mother Murder?”

“Our forces have deployed on the two worlds, as you instructed, your eminence. Every emperor, empress, king, queen, general, every sheriff, mayor or leader of any kind has been brought the sweet release. In both worlds, there is civil war, and the populations are busy releasing each other. We expect both worlds to have fallen to a fraction of their former populations within the next three weeks.”

Gerain nodded. This was the core use of the assassins. He had long ago realised that the safest way to prevent the armies of the rebellion growing was to ensure there were no worlds left upon which anyone lived for them to recruit. Sending the death dealers in en masse to cleave through the ruling classes in one fell swoop was sure to cause anarchy and prevent the Alliance from recruiting. It was a quick, clean solution and one which never failed.

“Very well, you may proceed to the other worlds, as discussed. Brother Caldwell, you will send the appropriate number of necromancers to each in order to build our forces there.”

“Of course, great lord.”

“Demonatus.”

“We hunger for flesh, great lord,” the Lich Lord hissed, “Our factories of the living are scarcely providing the sustenance we crave...”

Gerain grimaced. The only problem with the undead was their constant craving for the flesh of the living. It had been necessary to create the flesh factories, where the living would breed before being devoured. It was a difficult balance to maintain.

“I will look into the expansion of the flesh factories,” Gerain nodded, “In order that your cravings may be satisfied. Now, turn your forces to Kragen’s world. Are the Lich Sorcerors prepared with their portal spells?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Good. In the meantime, you will divert your strongest behemoths to your own world. If the Seven Suns do by some miracle, make it through the intervening world, yours will be the last defence between that one and this.”

“We serve our lord in death as we did in life.”

Gerain dismissed his generals, satisfied with the arrangements made.

“Ah, my lord, there is one more thing.”

“What is it, Brother Caldwell?”

“We have detected an anomaly on the newly initiated reality. A glitch, my lord.”

Gerain sucked in his cheeks. A glitch.

He knew from experience how dangerous they could be.

After all, it was a glitch which had begun his path to the person he was today.

 

 

---

 

Author's Note: 

Hey folks!

Time for another “Rob’s Friday Notes!”

Once again, a massive thanks for all the comments, ratings, input and patrons!

So, where we’re at right now is (obviously) a step back from the main story to look at the bigger picture (now interlude chapter 2/4) before diving back into Arc 2 for Gary & Co. I’ve got a feeling these chapters are going to be divisive but then I never know exactly what’s going to land with readers. ANYWAY – it is what it is, and after these 4 chapters the majority of the lore is in place and we’ll get back to the main story.

Chapter Titles!

Last week I asked you all for title suggestions & got some absolute diamonds as a result. I’m a bit behind on updating the “credits” document but they’re all going in there as soon as I get a spare minute. This week I’ve been working on both the ‘Gary’s titles’ chapter (54) and the next levelling up chapter (55) & it’s been really interesting how the suggestions you all put out have appeared in the story and IMO improved some of it, with your ideas directly feeding into the narrative and resolving some parts in a more interesting way than I’d got planned.

I mentioned this before but there’s a good chance that once we get to the end of “Book One” (Approx chapter 65) I’ll pull back to being 6 chapters or so ahead in order to be more responsive to input - but let’s see where we’re at then.

A Quick Back Edit

I have to admit to a very minor bit of back-editing to the Admins and Leaders chapter (chapter 32), in which there was a discussion about Gary& Rain from the survivors’ perspective. I incorrectly identified Martin as being against Gary, this has now been adjusted. It’s a slight tweak but Martin’s character goes in a different direction to the one I’d set up in the chapter & was purely down to me, uh...(cough) notpayingattentiontobehonest (end cough).

I am avoiding back-editing where possible but this one was necessary.

Moving Swiftly On!

This Week’s Question (Spoilers!):

There is absolutely no way I can ask this week’s question – which might be the last for a while – without putting in major spoilers, SO: I’m going to put the question behind a spoiler tag.

Okay, I think I’m going to stop there for today folks, except, hmm…

okay, maybe a little bit of a teaser for next week?

Yeah, why the hell not?

Teaser for next week, spoiler’s ahead!

 

Cheers folks, and have a bloody good weekend!