//Author Note
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//End Note
“I’m quite interested in seeing the outcome of his society.” Oliver says thoughtfully, his fingers tapping out a rhythm on the table before him. “He is quite forceful in recruiting citizens for his cavern from the population of wild beasts, and the rules that he forces them to live by are much more extreme than most dare to ever bring into effect. Only possible because of the collars that he’s using.”
“Those damned things.” Eshya grumbles. “Don’t let him get anywhere near you with those things, otherwise we’re going to be the ones responsible for hauling your ass out of there.”
“I understand.” Oliver replies, nodding seriously. “It’s as dangerous a weapon as most that you employ. Back to his society, I expect that the liberal use of these collars will limit the natural talent and growth of his citizens. I’m quite interested in observing how that affects the end structure of the civilisation he’s building. It may also be possible to use those collars in a more limited fashion… but honestly, I don’t see too much reason to employ such tactics. If a cavern citizen betrays the values of their society, then they can be replaced by another.
“Citizens who want to be part of your society are simply much more effective, talented, and capable.” He says, practically speaking to himself, though many who have gathered here are paying close attention to him.
“It seems that he’s just trying to remake his own little clone of the Unified States.” I say, shifting about in my seat as I awkwardly consider the consequences of all this.
Gale is yet another welfare officer, and the fact that he can manage to come down here against his own programming, just to fuck around, is just absolutely appalling.
“Arduelle, why are there so many welfare officers breaking their collars? I thought this was supposed to be rare?”
“How many welfare officers do you think are on the surface of this world?” She asks. “There are many. This is rare, but the few who make it down here always cause trouble for us because we can’t just kill them without causing trouble.”
“So how do you deal with them?” I ask.
“Most of the time I keep them spinning in circles in the ruins by teleporting them back and forth.” She replies. “This time, I feel it’s best to leave the challenge to you and your little empire. Good luck.”
“Damnit.” I swear, rubbing at my head.
“I don’t know as much of this Unified States as I’d like to.” Oliver says, tilting his head in curiosity as he notices my swearing. “Do you care to speak more on the topic.”
“Sure, we still have to wait for everyone else to arrive.” I say, shrugging and taking a moment to explain things for him while working to think out a few solutions to my own problems. I try to keep my explanation unbiased, but I do unfairly focus on the upper world’s treatment of ‘beasts’, and some of my other issues with the Unified States of Mana, taking an extra moment just to complain about the name.
“How much ego is involved in naming a society like that? It’s like an even more stuck up way of calling your empire ‘literally everything’. Like, ‘I am the empress of all matter and energy that fills this universe.’ Who talks like that?”
“Many dictators such as yourself.” Oliver replies dryly.
“Hey, shut your filthy mouth.” I spit, groaning at his reply. “That was a joke, by the way, but seriously….? I seem like that from where you’re sitting?”
“The difference isn’t meaningful from my perspective.” He shrugs, before dragging us back onto topic, discussing the various qualities of the Unified States society.
Oliver eagerly eats up everything I have to say, taking it all in and writing down notes as he goes. We’re joined soon enough by a few others, a couple of warriors, and lesser council members from weaker caverns. Our outreach is mostly focused on those who didn’t neatly fit into the republic or the monarchy, and that shows clearly in the group we’re forming.
The Grand Council is surprisingly quiet at the moment, as far as I can see we’re the only ones using this central teleportation hub to come together for our own little meetings. I guess the rest of the cavern rulers have had decades to sort out alliances with each other, but even still it’s surprising they’re not using this more actively.
“What sort of alliance are you hoping for?” As soon as I’m done speaking with Oliver another of the cavern leaders approaches. He speaks plainly and unlike most others I trust that he’s not playing some political game with this question.
“Fighting for shared interests, developing trade channels, and sharing technology and Skills.” I say with a shrug. “With the way the Grand Council has been set up, we can all too easily be separated and challenged for ownership of our caverns. Everyone I invited here is vulnerable to that sort of attack.”
“We’ve survived on our own until now.” The man replies. Everything from his stance and attitude wreaks of a warrior, but he doesn’t have the form of an ideal Hollywood shape that I’d expect. Rather than rippling muscles, and tanned skin, he’s carrying plenty of fat over his muscled shape, and his face, far from handsome, seems more like a shovel with a mouth and nose scratched into it.
Yet, much like Eshya, he carries an air of danger that comes from something more than just a dense mana form. Without any care for politics, he stands here confidently among us. He doesn’t seem concerned that he’ll lose control of his cavern.
I’ll call him Manny. I think I can remember that name.
“You survived on strategies that might not be applicable any longer.” I say “You saw how I was taken down in the first Council challenge. That’s all it would take for you to lose everything.”
While there are some here who are surprised at my words, most are nodding their heads quite seriously at the thought. It’s not as if I’m some genius who could see what they couldn’t, apart from those who are clearly just disinterested in politics, everyone already can see the dangers this new system has brought to their doorstep.
“How do you propose we stand against them, even you couldn’t provide a challenge, and I have no doubt that we lack the power to win a fight like that. Even if all of us here invested everything, we’d still lose, and by a large measure.” The woman bringing up the point is something akin to a proper walking tree. Her shape is only vaguely elvish/human, and I don’t think she cares to change herself any further. She is adorned with countless pieces of jewellery, weapons, and various clothes. Each one of them enchanted with dense mana.
“We have a few tools we can use, and we shouldn’t be fighting the whole republic and monarchy over each and every issue.” I say, “Even if an alliance can’t bring us to parity, it can keep us from getting crushed every time we speak up.”
“Except many of us are already surviving just fine as we are.” Another man says, “If we joined an alliance like this, it would be putting a target on our backs. I don’t doubt that in a few hundred years you might stand against the monarchy and republic as an equal, but how many of us would survive along with you? Can you give us any reason to risk so much joining you?”
“I’m impatient.” I reply, meeting his eyes. “Part of the reason Arduelle and Frey have an interest in me is that I can grow very quickly, it won’t take hundreds of years. If it takes me a whole year to reach the power of the queen or the president, it would only be because I’m slacking off.”
“Ridiculous.” He grumbles. “I want assurance that this alliance can protect us, I see no reason to gamble our safety on this mad idea of an alliance. All it will do is make the republic and the monarchy move against us.”
The man, clearly disappointed, stands from his table and heads back towards his own teleporter. A few others follow him in retreating, but the greater majority stay with us. This isn’t an implicit agreement to the idea of an alliance, but rather a willingness to hear us out. Unfortunately I’m not sure I have anything to offer that would assure their safety.
“What an obscene, tragic sight this is!” A familiar, human man says, entering the room via his own teleportation enchantment. “Such systems as this have already been proven fallible, why do you insist on such madness when you can just bow to superior ways of life.”
Gale, the welfare officer, takes in the sight of us with a genuinely bereaved look about him. His untamed beard is drooping down to his waist, and his clothes are covered in mud and muck. He looks between us all, his eyes shining bright, as if he’s just about to break down in tears.
“Ignorance, pitiful ignorance. You’ve all been so sadly unfortunate, never seeing what you could be. Please, come with me and I’ll show you.” He offers, waving his arms around. “See what this world could be!”
“Ah, a madman, how quaint.” Malea snorts, looking at the man with a dark expression. “How he avoided death so far is simply miraculous.”
“Hardly.” I reply, stepping in before she can steer us a bad direction. “We can’t kill him. Else it’ll stir up problems that even the dungeons are loathe to deal with.”
“Ah, that’s unfortunate then.” She groans, staring at the hairy madman.
“Is there no other way of shutting him up?” A rather familiar young man asks as he approaches us. He looks the same as the last time I saw him.
Warren, the man who ran off with half of my gremlins, walks up to us with a broad smile on his lips. Eshya moves to step between the two of us, a dangerous look in her eyes. I don’t really remember there being any grudges between us, but our relationship has been rather complicated.
“Unless you have an idea?” I ask with a shrug. “How have you been? You’ve taken your own cavern now?”
“Had to hunt a few of the more powerful beasts for the local lord to consider me the true ruler of the cavern. Apparently, if I was even a day late, I’d have to get permission from the Grand Council to receive my title.” He says, shaking his head. “Anyway, I’m glad to see that you’re making new friends.”
“I’m not some friendless dictator, you know.” I reply shaking my head. “Are you interested in trade? Heck, immigration, and emigration would be good too, I have some gremlins causing trouble, that might do better with you.”
“You didn’t just kill them?” he asks, a little confused. “I’m open to the idea, but we’ll have to discuss the details.”
“I’ll need to talk with some of my advisors, before we have anything on paper.” I say, shuddering as I think of all the paperwork we need to sort out from all of this. There are so many important deals to work on, and half measures will only screw us up in the long run.
Warren chuckles at me, before explaining his own adventures. The man is a strange one, but not evil from what I’ve seen, he’s apparently quite fond of some of his gremlin warriors, and they’re making an interesting new home in a cavern somewhere below mine.
The place is apparently filled top to bottom with spreading roots and branches, until they cleared out their own home, Warren couldn’t even stand up straight and had to walk around in a crouch everywhere he went. Eshya pressures him into discussing his battles, which are equally as interesting, from giant slugs, to insect swarms. He’s had quite the adventure since running off from our cavern.
“Well, I’ll be in contact.” I say to the affable young man, waving over towards Gale. “I have to deal with this guy while I have the chance. I just know he’s going to end up a pain in my ass, and I don’t know how to live without taking the offensive.”
“Don’t get yourself in too much trouble,” He says, chuckling at me. Malea reluctantly trades brief goodbyes with the man before following me over towards Oliver and Gale.
“Yes! Of course I’ll show you how a perfect world looks. You will accept my rule… My… our… perfect rules! For the people! You will see it, and you will want to be a part of this change!” The madman shouts eagerly, pulling my acquaintance over towards the teleporter that will take us to the cavern that this welfare officer has taken over.
“I’ll be coming too, if it’s no issue.” I say, keeping pace with the pair. Gale nods eagerly, his head bouncing about like a bobblehead in a washing machine.
“Me as well.” The tree woman says, “Our caverns neighbour one another, and I’d like us to get along.”
“Yes, you will see. You will see how grand this world can be with proper rules in place. You’re all too free, free to be cruel, free to be violent, free to be lazy and wasteful. Everything is much better when everyone is forced to do what they should do.”
Well, that doesn’t at all sound like it’s going to end badly…
Our small party enters into the teleporter, shifting out of existence and coming back again before we can even notice space warping around us. We arrive, not in a palace as every time before, not even in a building at all. A small tent made from common materials pulled straight from the environment surrounding us, is the only sign of civilisation around us.
“Welcome!” Gale shouts, waving his arms around at the wild lands around us, slowly being tamed by the same beasts that would ordinarily call it home. Trees are being toppled, and turned into useable wood, while the soil at our feet is being tilled by the simple tools that are adapted to all sorts of hands.
This is the most diverse society that I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been to some strange worlds filled with all sorts of mixed blends of species. It looks as if every beast and living being in this wild forest has been either collared or slaughtered, the blood of the dead is even now tilled into the fresh fields that double as graves. The beasts are mostly of lower intelligence, and even the farmers on earth ‘murdered’ countless pest animals, but even so…
What makes it most disturbing, is the fact that the animals that weren’t killed are now struggling to work with alien tools while burying their own kin, and tearing down their old homes. Straying from Gale, who’s declaring his superiority and is ecstatic to show what will be built where, I touch a few of the workers, peering into their thoughts.
Pain.
Grief, like a dark pit.
My own face buried in the earth beneath my feet.
Most here aren’t able to think with the same structure as I’m used to, the thoughts that I gather from them are in more the form of images, emotions, and ideas, each is vague the stories they tell carry the same weight.
I’d like to call Gale evil, and call out this horrible cruelty… but I hesitate. This isn’t something that I want to imitate, and I want to shut this down and do things my way instead, but these beasts were killing each other long before Gale came here. The violent rules of nature were considered normal, and while this is absolutely terrible, it’s just another aspect of nature.
Gale won, and now he’s imposing his own rules.
The war I fought to take my own cavern, the white flames that I spread to claim victory, the cruelty and violence I embraced; it was different, but not so different that I can’t see similarities.
“Kyra?” Eshya asks, leaning on my side and pulling my fingers out of the fist that I’ve formed. “It’s not your responsibility. We can’t do anything about this.”
“Not today.” I say, staring out over the fields of blood.
I need to be strong enough to pick a fight with the welfare officers, but even more than that, I need to be competent enough to create a society without this suffering. When consciousness and sentience is so common as is the case in this universe, it’s impossible to avoid cruelty.
There isn’t enough food for everyone, so who eats and who gets eaten? Who has the right to have children? Everyone? We’d have too many to feed and return to the first question, who gets to eat?
“Beautiful efficiency,” Gale says, walking up to us. “We all work towards a common goal, we all survive together! This is the way the world should be.”
“What of the dead?” I ask, feeling a warm guilt rising in my heart as I think of those who I have killed.
“Unfortunate souls that could not be tamed.” He explains, tears dripping from his wet eyes. “We mourn them, we all should mourn those who can’t be saved, but we shouldn’t let that stop us from saving those we can. Those who will be good citizens, kind citizens. Together we’ll build a better world here, and you too will join me in time.”
He smiles through his thick beard, his teeth clean and white, his dark eyes overflowing with a deep abyss that’s reaching out from his soul. I turn from him and walk around the area, some places cleared for housing, some for farming, and I’m sure that there’s more I’m missing.
The beasts here are working for a common good, but do so without free will. Crying and screaming inside their own minds, as their bodies move without them. Gale’s use of the collars here is far more extensive than the welfare officers will usually use. The desperate emotions echo through my own soul, but no one else can hear it.
Oliver is observing curiously, and the tree woman is happily watching the fields come into shape. She doesn’t see the horror in it. Malea is herself more curious than bothered.
“So, when are we killing him?” Eshya asks, holding my hand tight as she meets my eyes.
“When the dungeons permit us to.” I reply.
“You don’t want to save him?” Eshya asks, “His mind is heavily affected by the collar he’s wearing, is he even responsible for all this?”
“I don’t think I can save him.” I reply. “Not without fucking with his head so much that it’s unforgiveable. He can find this perfect world of his in his next life.”
“There’s my killer.” Eshya squeezes my shoulder, but her words don’t comfort me.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Stats and Skills
~Mana Form:
Current mana density: 39,299 / 60,892 units
Current mana volume: 19,536 / 30,270 shards
Mana volume at crystallisation density (Max. mana volume):
Kyra: 30,270 shards
Kyra’s armour: 20,777 shards
Kyra’s throne: 1,109,298 shards
~Forms
Mana Canon
-Annihilation Heart (Adapted)
-Blood Fuel (Adapted)
-Bone Magic Storage (40,000 mana shards)
-Nail Shifters (50,000 mana shards)
Dancer
-Flash Nerves (Adapted)
-Quick Perception Mind (Adapted)
-Burst Reflex Muscles (35,000 mana shards)
-Layered space Muscles (80,000 mana shards)
Turtle
-Rebinding Tissue (Adapted)
-Catalyst Sweat Glands (140,000 mana shards)
-Repulsive Skin (80,000 mana shards)
-Prehensile hair (10,000 mana shards)
-Fatty Tissue Blood Storage (100,000 mana shards)
Investigator
-Wide eyes (Adapted)
-Wide ears (Adapted)
-Sharp nose (Adapted)
Misc.
-Clean bowels (Adapted)
~Favourited Skills:
Magic:
-Annihilation Magic (Customised)
-Fire Magic (Functional)
-Space magic (Broken)
-Force magic (Functional)
-Ice magic (Broken)
-Wind magic (Broken)
Movement:
-Hand-to-hand casting (Functional)
-Mana surge movement (Functional)
-Stealth (Functional)
Senses:
-Eyes of an Empire (Customised)
-Combat Awareness (Functional)
-Watchmen (Functional)
-Hidden bug (Mastered)
-De-tagging (Mastered)
-Anti-stealth sight (Mastered)
Special:
-Spirit Transformation (Broken)
-Conformity (Broken)
-Training mana form (Functional)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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that was creepy