Gilliam was entirely stunned, he expected a lot of things to happen if he won and became the new lord. But he didn’t expect this. A massive group cheering for a human, someone that had killed hundreds if not thousands of them, as well as their lord and several of their leaders...

“Petal... What... what is this?” Gilliam had no idea what to think of this.
Petal just smiled and if she planned to respond, Angela came in the door and interrupted her.

“There you are! You slept for... well... I don’t get days here so, a while!” She looked almost disappointed with him but at the same time looked happy he was awake.
“Come, your people await their demon Lord!” She looked surprisingly happy having said that, almost as if she had been holding it in for a while now.

“Please... don’t call me that.” Gilliam didn’t like the sound of that, not at all. Though it might be true that he is the lord of these demons, he’s no demon Lord. “Just explain... this...” he broadly gestured to the crowd outside.

“Well, when they finally asked if you died and we explained that you’ll wake soon, they started asking questions and... well... We answered. Or rather, Petal did, I still don’t understand them.” She forced a small sheepish smile before walking over to Gilliam.
“Vozellath was a tyrant, bored and annoyed he used the Fracturians as toys and playthings when he felt it. The conquest of other worlds was his predecessor’s idea which he kept doing once he took over.” Her facial expression strongly suggested that she wasn’t happy with this way of doing things. “The idea was that he’d grow super powerful super fast, but once that happened he seemed to realise that he didn’t exactly know what to do with himself after that so he turned to abuse, violence and consuming resources.”

She patted Gilliam on the shoulder. “That’s where you came in, you were exactly what he wanted, save the whole losing and dying part.” She seemed very happy about the latter part.
“Now, they asked about you and we explained that not only wouldn’t you abuse them as a people, you literally can’t consume enough resources to be a problem.”

Gilliam nodded, she had a point there. And if he was out of it long enough for info and rumour to spread, the cheering made sense.
“What about stopping the portals? Did you mention those?” He wondered, if this was done then he didn’t have to do much.

“No, that seemed more important, so we thought you could handle that. There was also another batch of people who came in after you won the fight. Not all of them alive...” Her happy expression changed. “We got them locked up here in the building so they are safe, I explained the deal to them so they are not in panic but...”

“Yeah, they aren’t exactly happy either. Have you fed them?” Gilliam wondered, he had all their resources in the ring but the Fracturians should have plenty of resources that could be shared between them.

“Yes, they are fine. You just go address your people and stop the portals.” Angela pushed him towards the crowd who seemed very interested to see him closer. And since she’s quite a strong girl it wasn’t like he had a choice in the matter.

Being shoved out through the door the whole plaza fell silent, Gilliam felt a stage fear he had never felt before, the pressure was almost worse than the fight... Almost...
“Err... Hi...” he casually and nervously waved. He got a few confused waves back, more that they mimicked the movement without knowing what it meant.

Gilliam had a moment of strong uncertainty, what did he say, what should he do, what was expected of him?
In the end, he entered another fuck-it moment, diving into the water.
“Vozellath is dead!” he shouted to the whole place, which erupted into another round of cheering. It took a moment before it died down for him to continue.
“I’ll admit that I don’t know exactly how things work around here, so I’ll need someone to explain that for me. I’m also stopping the portal invasion to other worlds, can... can someone help me spread that word?”

The crowd fell dead silent for an awkwardly long time. “Well? Who can help me stop the whole portal thing?”

They remained silent for a moment until someone in the group replied somewhat anonymously. “The Generals.”

“Oh, that’s good. Are any of the Generals around here now?” Gilliam requested.

There was some murmuring until the group looked around and started to split apart creating a hallway between them towards an individual within the masses. It took a moment but in the end, the one revealed was someone familiar. The mage he met as soon as he came through the gate to the Heart. He never learned her name, and besides her webbed ‘ears’ and air of magic around her, she looked surprisingly similar to the others with the same sandy textures in her scales.

She seemed to almost panic as the focus was put on her, it didn’t help that Gilliam was smiling widely. To him this was amusing, he didn’t consider that the locals might not have much experience reading into human facial expressions, so this might have been extra weird for her.

He waved her over. “Good, come, I have many questions for you.”

She looked terrified as she walked over, the crowd closing in behind her but letting her pass unrestricted. Gilliam waited until she came over to lead her back inside the massive building which seemed to be large enough to work as a normal house for someone of Vozellath’s stature. Angela and Petal came in afterwards.

The whole ordeal outside was rushed a little on purpose, he felt incredibly uncomfortable in front of that large crowd, so he just wanted to go back inside and get all of this over with.

Angela led Gilliam and his General to a room as Petal remained to close the doors.
The room felt like a spare room they put a table and some chairs in, and the furniture was normal sized for them as humans which was for some reason surprising to Gilliam, but a second thought had him realize they probably got this put in after he was knocked out.

“Now, I have a lot of questions for yo-” He stopped himself as he saw his general looking around entirely panicked. Which sort of makes sense, she welcomed him somewhat harshly and treated him with zero respect. Something that just made sense at the time. But she might think he’s going to do some horrible stuff to her.

“Ok, you know what, let’s change the topic first. First of all, you are not in trouble, I am not going to do something bad to you. Everything is fine I just need information.” Speaking calmly as he sat down he motioned for her to do the same. Angela had already sat down.
“Let’s start with the simple things. My name is Gilliam, what’s yours?”

She seemed to calm down after having it explained that she wasn’t going to be the receiver of something horrible. Gilliam assumed that she was one of the onlookers through the barrier so she was probably terrified of the man who turned the tables on the old Lord who was thought unbeatable.
“Sarnathia.” She commented hesitantly. “I am one of the three... or remaining two Generals.”

“Ah.” Gilliam commented. “I assume Xaros or whatever his name was, was one of you?” Gilliam couldn’t remember his name, it was something like that in his mind at least. “The electric storm guy?” Adding some more information felt right just in case he was too far off with the name.

“Yes... Xyros.” She seemed even more uncomfortable, perhaps due to Gilliam’s nonchalant way of commenting on the subject. “The last one is Korrak. I don’t know where he is but we can find him if you need.”
She kept looking at the table between them, not seeming comfortable meeting Gilliam’s eyes. It probably didn’t help that Petal came into the room as well as Angela being there.

“That’s fine. Now, I want to emphasize that you don’t need to fear me, you’re not in any trouble and I don’t mean you any harm. You can look at me and act like how you want, I’m pretty laid back that way.” Gilliam smiled a little at the end there, though he had been a leader of group projects in his studies before, he had never been... this.

Sarnathia almost raised her voice, making it sound like he was halfway insulting her dog. “I can’t do that! You’re our Lord, I can’t speak down to you like that!”

This caught Gilliam a bit off guard, he halfway just expected her to calm down and speak to him like a normal person after getting permission, but it seemed there was more to it than that.
“Well, in that case.” He recomposed himself. “I would like you to teach me more about your culture, how things work, local rules and ways of acting. Just the general stuff so I know how I should do things and what I’m allowed, and not allowed, to do.”
He tried putting on a calm and pleasant self, but he kept coming back to the thought that his body language and face might not be that readable by the locals here. Besides food caught from Lisica, he’s probably the only human they have seen properly.

Though what felt like the next several hours Sarnathia explained what she was asked of. This was much more detailed and well-explained than Petal could ever do. Though in Petal’s defence, she was just some ‘scrub slave in the outskirts’ of the Fractured Lands. So her knowing things didn’t make sense.
They went through how the Fracturian species acted towards each other, and he got an updated explanation of the hierarchy with him on the top. Given that he was the lord he could literally do whatever he wanted to whomever, and nobody would even try to stop him. Likewise, any orders he gives are taken at face value and taken as law, which backs up why Sarnathia was so afraid of him but also why Vozellath did what he did without problems.

Further explanation of the Fractured Land as a whole matched what they had figured out already. Nobody was able to fly between the landmasses as nobody knew where they were, however, the gates work as transport between the lands, they activate automatically at what seems like random times once they passively absorb mana from the air, or they can be manually fed mana as Gilliam did it. The Fractured lands itself is made up of 29 known landmasses which are split up into right and left for the most part and follow a body structure. There is the central nine which compose the right and left Shoulder, Chest and Legs. The central Upper and Lower body with the Heart between. The Tail below and the Head above. Outside the Shoulder is the right and left Arm, hand and three fingers on each side. Likewise, there is a foot and three toes on each side.
Though they have assumptions of the body parts as a logic for the naming, nobody knew if they were placed like that in space, but it didn’t matter as it matched the static Gates.

As for the culture, it was very warrior-like. Anyone with a title could be challenged as Gilliam did. Though they can choose to not accept it is often seen as a negative thing and would lower them in the eyes of everyone else. Though not as highly regarded as Lord Gilliam, they had almost similar control below them, just not to the same extent. However, the slave caste had practically no value unless they were pregnant, tending to children or actively carrying victims between the portals.

The reason the Fractured lands were suffering as much as they were, was naturally due to the caste system but regarding resources it was mostly due to how Vozellath handled and wasted things, he was bored and just went nuts with things to fill his days with something. This was the same for the Lord before him and though the caste system had always been like this as far as anyone knew, the portal invasion and wasting of resources had only been a problem with the last few Lords.
Many plants and creatures thrived in this ecosystem, they had evolved to take advantage of the mana in the air, meaning that farming plants and animals for food was doable. This would affect the hierarchy a lot due to the heart consumption of their race didn’t trigger well with Fracturian hearts, unless they had already mutated like Petal or Sarnathia.

The short of this was that it didn’t need too much change in their daily life. Setting up agriculture and a proper meat farm would amend a lot of the problems as far as resources went. The portals weren’t a problem on their own if they were used properly. The Fractured lands had a lot of resources that were useless locally but could be good for other places, like gems and local mana-imbued stones, and even exotic flora and fauna. So they could set up a decent trade network if done right.

Gilliam took a moment to re-explain all this to Angela, as she didn’t understand Fracturian but he wanted her thoughts on this, it became necessary.

“Well, these are your people now, at least under your command.” Angela started, pushing all responsibility back on Gilliam. “But if this world is as mana-rich as it is, and if we teach and help them to set up things, I think they can be up and running rather fast. They have the manpower.” Shrugging at the end she had a very good point.

Gilliam had removed potentially thousands of them from existence, but you couldn’t even see it based on how many were left. And even in the Fingers, where he had seen no plant life or animals, there was meat and they were surviving. Some might be eating the incoming humans or other races found in the invaded worlds, but with proper local management, this should fix itself.

“There are a lot of changes that need to be done, but the first is to stop the portal invasion right away. We’ll use the time to try and make it stable here in the Fractured lands, perhaps we’ll go to Lisica and find some people who would like to be a part of this, I’m sure many explorers would love to check out a new world.”

They started planning right away, sending messengers out to stop the portal invasions right away. They wrote simple notes to be given to any prisoners from Lisica about the situation that could be given to them, then they would be brought to the Heart unharmed. It was not much but it was a start.

Sarnathia became an integral part of this as a General, word was sent out for Korrath as well as other leaders around the lands, they needed help and information. This was going to be a massive undertaking that needed testing, showing and examples. The good thing was that most of the Fraturians were on board right away. Though they were a heavy warrior-aligned culture, they still had more comradery than Gilliam expected. The main problem became to give the Slave caste some worth so they wouldn’t be toyed with as they were now.

“All we need to do is get the ball rolling-” Angela explained to Gilliam and Petal. “-If we can teach them what they need to start with things, and make sure that everything done with this is properly protected, setting up some trade-based economy, they might be able to fix most of this themselves.”
She looked at Gilliam almost in a way suggesting that this was just an idea, but she wanted thoughts on it.

Petal didn’t have the mind for this kind of thinking, she could help with some cultural norms and thinking but this kind of planning was above her. So she used most of her time to play with Savia outside.
In her stead, Sarnathia was part of the planning, she had more information about the lay of the land as well as actual social power to make things happen, so in this case she had more weight behind her words.

This planning took some time, Gilliam made sure to travel around and meet the locals, and they instantly recognized him as the new Lord, probably the energy thing he got from Vozellaths’ heart. He also spent some time doing a deep clean of the building they were now living in, a through deep clean. He found most of it disgusting, not just the dust and dirt but the stains and... unexplained stuff.
His sword was also returned to him, some locals had found it while cleaning and mending the plaza outside and wanted to be the ones to give it back to their new Lord. He accepted it and thanked the slave who returned it to him. This seemed to cause a lot of positive thoughts and rumours around the lands in the Heart.

Since the Fracturlans could absorb mana Gilliam considered rewarding them with a mana boost or mana crustal, but on Petal’s recommendation, he didn’t do that. It acted almost like a drug if potent enough... And Gilliam’s mana was more than potent enough. Though it seemed that this was not necessary as just treating them like people, helping out where he could and becoming part of the community seemed to be plenty for most of them. The more he got to know them the more he felt like they were just normal people who got in a horrible situation due to tyrannical leadership.
He was challenged on an almost daily basis, but always in the form of sparring and for the fun of it, it was never to the death but rather seemed like a social badge; having fought the Lord and perhaps gotten some scars from it. He went undefeated.

Quite some time passed, and Gilliam had no idea just how much went due to the lacking day cycle, it messed with his head and he still hadn’t gotten used to it. He had slept enough times that he felt that at least months had passed, given the difference in the flow of time this should mean that at minimum, they had been gone for 4-6 months. The portals stopped shortly after Gilliam woke up, this caused some internal turmoil which was easily handled, it seemed that if Gilliam had given a forceful order, the Fracturians would have almost been forced into accepting the order, this might have been part of how the demon Lord’s energy worked, he would need to test more to make sure. But for now that at least gave him a semblance of control, showing and forcing progress would probably be better than talking about it. And in the end, if they didn’t want to keep doing it, they could just leave this world and let them do as they wanted, destroying the invasion portals as they went.

As things were progressing as planned, Gilliam, his party and Sarnathia found themselves on the Right middle finger, the index finger didn’t have a working portal platform anymore as they were the lucky ones that got a Star Lance through the open portal earlier. Having gone there a short while ago as they were now ready to go back to Lisica, Sarnathia was given temporary control to further the ongoing projects and Gilliam would pop in at times to see how it was going.

A Fracturian in the Force caste, the lowest level of warriors, came running to Gilliam. “My Lord, we have a stable portal.” He had slight problems looking at Gilliam directly but seemed to steal some glances.
They had been opening portals into Lisica, but the problem was that either during forming or moments after, the portal was forcefully shut down. A good thing it meant that the locals had mastered the way to close the portals. However this time it was kind of annoying.

“Good, send through some scouts.” Gilliam commanded. “Just one willing Imp, don’t send many in at the same time. I don’t want anyone to accidentally die.”
Gilliam didn’t want to be the one going in there only to get dropped into lava, a solid wall or something. He was also adamant that whoever went in had to go willingly knowing the dangers.

Since most Fracturians hadn’t seen enough water to properly swim in, the skill of just keeping afloat in water was severely missing among their people, so a flying individual was the best option. Once the Imp had gone through, stayed there for a while and come back with proof of all being well; this could be a branch, some water or anything, that would be enough for them to go in.

An Imp seemed to have agreed to go through and disappeared through the standing portal. Gilliam and his group wired with bated breath for him to return, and a few minutes later he did.

“Well, what did you see?” Gilliam asked, doing his best to not let his eagerness make it sound forceful.

In a high-pitched squeaky voice, it replied after landing on a stone not far from Gilliam.
“Water, only water as far as I could see.”

“That’s good, we can shove through something that floats, land on that and Savia can bring us back to the Academy.” Gilliam explained in V’idan to his group.

“Savia can teleport!” The little creature in his hair shouted. He couldn’t stop himself from chuckling at her statement.
The others nodded and they proceeded as planned.

He cast a simple flying spell on his party so they could avoid going into the water, just as a safety precaution before turning towards Sarnathia.
“I don’t know when, but I’ll return to see how it’s going. There isn’t a good way for you to contact me so I’ll try to find a way to do that every few months or so.”

Sarnathia blinked confused for a moment at the talk of ‘months’, but seemed to accept the order.
“As you wish, I’ll do my best to continue with the farms.” She gave a proper nodding bow in respect to her, much shorter and human Lord.

“Well, I suppose we’ll go back, then.” Gilliam smiled at his group as he activated the flight spell on himself and started hovering. Turning back to the Fracturians he gave an order. “After we have gotten through, close the portal.”

He got several approving nods and affirmations on the order before he nodded at the group and flew through the portal.

A familiar blinding light messed with his sight for a moment, but he could smell the salty air and hear the waves roll over themselves before his vision returned. Taking a look around it was as the Imp said, he couldn’t see anything besides the ocean, so they were in the middle of nowhere, which was perfect for this portal.

It didn’t take long before the portal closed behind them, collapsing into nothing as the crustal fell into the ocean but disintegrated and faded away as soon as it contact with the water.

“Savia, can you take us back to the Academy? Outside the main door?” Gilliam requested of his little friend. At the same time, he took his staff and sword out of the Ring, he didn’t expect attacks to happen but he also didn’t feel comfortable not being prepared. They had been gone for a while and though the portals had stopped nothing was stopping the Fracturians that had already invaded to continue on old orders.

“Savia will teleport!” She shouted from his hair as she climbed up on the top of his head.
Angela and Petal had already grabbed hold of him as they waited for Savia to do her thing.

A short moment of energy buildup later and the salty air was swapped out for a more mana charged sense. There was the sound of surprise as they landed close to someone, who was confirmed to be a student as soon as the bright light disappeared.

Looking around it was clear that the Academy was on high alert, there were more guards and soldiers around than he remembered as normal. Though that said it meant that they would catch wind of their arrival even faster.

“Soo.. now what?” Angela asked, seeming to wonder if they should go inside or not.

“I think we can just wait. Someone should come out soon.” Gilliam was certain of this and his thoughts were confirmed even before he had to wait any more.

Aeris teleported in with Jial, landing within conversation distance. This startled Gilliam enough that he was about to attack them, but as he expected something to happen he could stop the reaction with only the slight twitch of being startled.
“Good lord, I hate when you do that,” Gilliam commented with a relieved sigh.

Just by being here, them floating probably didn’t help but there was a small crowd forming from the moment they landed until now.

“We are happy that you are back. But I need to know. Were you... successful?” Jial’s stilted speech gave Gilliam a strange nostalgia.

“Yes, we have killed the Lord, I have become their new leader and we have stopped the invading portals!” He said this a little bit higher than needed, mainly to share the information with everyone around.

The group around them erupted into cheers, several of them had their legs give out and fall to a seated or kneeling position, seeming to have a massive amount of stress removed. Most kept cheering and Aeris started a chant of Gilliam’s name, they rhythmically chanted his name over and over again. He couldn’t help himself from feeling incredibly touched but he also realised that he was the only one who had his name chanted. And as strange as this sounded he didn’t want to be the entire center of attention.

“Angela! Angela!” He tried to chant her name through the crowd already loud shouting of his name, Aeris seemed to catch on first and joined. This slowly had the others join as well.

This let Gilliam see something extremely rare he never expected he wanted to see before; Angela was blushing with a wide smile. He knew she wanted to make a name for herself and if this didn’t do it, nothing would.
Through all this Jial still had his stoic face, but Gilliam could see a small smile as well as relief in his eyes.

Gilliam had to almost force himself through the crowd that had formed, past thankful eyes and happy smiles to get closer to Jial.
“We have a lot to talk about.” Gilliam smiled at his teacher.

“It would seem so, let’s go to my office.” Jial replied with a nod as he started leading the way.

[END]