Erlking

The project was going about as well as he could hope for. The restrictions the Creator and Arbiter had put on the World lords about sharing information was vexing, but the smarter ones were getting closer to true understanding regardless.

The process was consuming nearly all his time however. That was truly saying something, because for beings at the level of the World lord’s time wasn’t quite as linearly fixed as it was for less powerful beings.

He had neglected much of his territory of late, pulling back his favorite creations and abandoning whole worlds likely to fall into the path of corruption. If they were able to beat back the corruption from their universe then he was better off saving his strongest children. If not…well if not they were all going to die anyway.

He was using his avatar to view several worlds and human souls as he tried to plan out his next steps. He didn’t need the avatar or the screens for that matter. He was a being that had moved beyond physical limits. Yet he found that he liked having a body again, and it was so much easier to stay in it all the time then have to build it from scratch every time he wanted to interact with one of his charges.

He was reorganizing Benjamin Vryce’s third trail. To his delight, this one had proved stronger than he had thought. When the Morrigan entered his work area. She was agitated, her feathers puffed up around her as she moved.

“Greetings Morrigan, what has your feathers so ruffled today?” he asked her as she approached, still working on the updated trial.

“Erlking, were you aware that Queen Illyria and the court of seven have been snatching up all the worlds you are abandoning?” she asked, voice rising close to a caw.

“Of course, my dear.” Erlking responded, flicking his hand to bring up a screen showing a takeover in progress.

“You know? If you know, why are you letting her do it, they already outnumber us significantly. If they are able to take over more of your worlds then even if we win in the end, we might still lose.” She was still quite frantic, it seemed that Erlking knowing about the takeover and being so calm had made her more frantic.

“Morrigan, please sit down.” The Erlking offered her a calming chair right beside his own. She huffed at the implication that she needed to calm down, but sat anyway.

“It is true that Illyria and the court of seven outnumber us. Even so I fail to see why this worries you so much. Illyria was always weaker than the rest of us, she propped herself up by gathering even weaker World lords to follow her. Even now I lay even odds that we could defeat her in a straight on confrontation.” He said soothingly still working on Vryce’s trial.

“The rest of You, you mean. I’m no stronger than anyone in her court, without your backing I would have fallen in the last great war.” The calming chair was beginning to have an effect, she was just being stubborn now.

“Morrigan, that may have been true of your strength ages in the past. That is no longer so however, you are still here as much from your own strength as mine,” said Erlking.

“Be that as it may,” she said changing the topic. “That still does not explain why you can be so calm while she takes your worlds. Shouldn’t we retaliate?”

“Those worlds are no significant loss to our cause Morrigan. I only abandoned them because I believe there is a high probability they will be claimed by corruption in the near future. Why burn our limited resources to protect worlds that we are likely to lose anyway? I left enough of my creations behind that it will take her months to clear them all, by then she will have to fight the corruption if she wants to keep those worlds.”

“Alright I see your reasoning, it just goes against everything our kind has done since before we each left our original home worlds.” She was much calmer now, thanks to his chair’s effects and his explanations.

“How has that worked out for us?” he asked quietly, looking to her for the first time. “From the time we were born, we devoured each other. Until we were the only one left on our home worlds. When we went beyond, we didn’t stop. Now, who’s left? You, me, Shipwright, Granite, Specter and Illyria with her six followers. Perhaps one or two others who hid themselves deep when the great wars began.” He sighed and turned back to the screen.

“I refuse to dwell on the past Morrigan. Since I can’t figure out why the Creator offered us his aid once more, I also refuse to repeat the mistakes that got us here.” They fell into silence for a time. Him working his screens and her watching him work, a conflicted expression on her avian features.

“I understand,” she said at last, her tone conveying so much more to him then just those two words should have been able to.

“Thank you.” He said, his words carrying their own added meaning.

* * *

Benjamin Vryce

He had followed the trail, slowly meandering through the huge forest for nearly an entire day. He was glad the swamp trial hadn’t been this large, slogging through that mud for days on end would have been hell. The fact that he was still moving without coming into another conflict was making him paranoid however, he felt like there was something else going on he was missing.

He came across a tree that had the dirt around its roots turned up. Great clods of earth had been over turned, like something had been digging in the ground. He looked at the damage for a long time, hoping that what he thought was not actually what was happening.

He continued on, more carefully than ever before. He flexed his hands, over and over again. Finding another area where the ground had been disturbed, he stopped to look closer. The roots had been chewed on in places. Oh hell, that sadistic World lord was really going to make him fight one of those wasn’t he?

It took another hour, but eventually the dire boar came into view, it was huge. The dire squirrels had been the size of large dogs, this beast was bigger than some trucks. He watched it from concealment, as it dug around in the dirt. It was moving earth as effectively as a bulldozer might.

He watched the beast move, slowly destroying huge sections of the forest floor as it did. Boar really were destructive, no wonder there hadn’t been any permits required when his brother took him out. He knew some areas restricted their hunting, but where he was from, they were fair game.

Try as he might he couldn’t find an opening; its brown fur was thick and course with bristles. He didn’t think he could pierce its hide with his short claws, and even if he had still had the crossbow, it would take more bolts than he carried to finish the monster.

Add to that, the Erlking had made this trial before Benjamin’s transformation. He just couldn’t believe that fighting this boar was actually his objective. He trailed the dire boar for many hours, eventually it began to grow dark, and the boar flopped down on its side.

That was a surprise, the swamp had never changed. He wasn’t sure how long he had been out here either but knew it had to be more then twenty hours. How long had the sun been up when he arrived, would the night be just as long? He supposed he would soon find out.

He also wasn’t sure why the boar was settling in as night fell, from what his brother had told him they were mostly nocturnal. Not that he was an expert by any means, and since this wasn’t earth he thought it best not to assume anything.

As night truly settled in, he had a decision to make. Should he spend his night on the ground, or try to find shelter in one of the massive trees. He hadn’t seen any signs of other wild life the entire time he was here, and assumed that meant the Erlking had planted each of the beasts on purpose.

With that in mind, he decided to stay on the ground. If the swamp trial repeated itself, he wasn’t likely to run into anything other then dire boar and dire squirrel, and he really didn’t think the squirrels would want to be any closer to this thing than they had to be. When night fell in earnest, he found out once again why he shouldn’t make assumptions.

He had been bedded down among the roots recently disturbed by the boar for a few hours. He chose the spot because the boar had already foraged here and other animals were likely to avoid the spot for a few hours at least because of the beast’s smell.

He looked up to catch a small flickering light coming from an overhead tree branch. He squinted at it for long seconds before he saw it again. There was really something up there. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be a way for him to get closer to check it out.

If he moved now the freshly turned leaves would crackle as he brushed them and he couldn’t send Silver out to recon because the little guy was still out. He thought briefly about trying to enhance his eyes with energy from his core. He dismissed that idea, as the power was still sealed. In the end, his best move was to wait and watch.

The hours ticked by slowly, Benjamin hadn’t grown tired at any point in these trials. Excluding times he passed out from injury. So, he was able to keep his eyes fixed on the small flickers of light. To his best guess, there seemed to be two people sitting up on a wide branch. The flickering lights were coming from a small stove, as they opened the door to feed in bits of fuel.

There were people out here. He hadn’t seen any people from earth other than that kid Frank, since he got here. He debated calling out to them, but they might not be human. They might be World lords, well that wasn’t likely. He didn’t know much about World lords but sleeping in a tree didn’t seem to fit with what he knew about them.

Humanoid monsters, that was more likely. He hadn’t seen anything that seemed to, alien, since he got here, but it almost seemed like every area he had been too had been built specifically to test him. Did that mean the universe he was in was similar to earth, or did the Erlking tailor make everything here to be somewhat familiar to him.

Looking at the slumbering body of the wild boar, and the otherwise completely empty forest, Benjamin couldn’t rule anything out. He pushed the idle thoughts aside. For all he knew he was in a completely alien world and the plants and creatures were nothing like what he thought he was seeing.

While the night slowly passed, Benjamin would occasionally look inside himself. He was afraid to touch the seal without Silver present, but he did look. He followed each line and curve, sweep and swirl. It was a puzzle. He was sure about that now, one that he was supposed to solve.

He ended up following the flow of energy with his mind’s eye. It trickled slowly from the reservoir that housed it and worked its way through the long and winding knot to reach the channels that distributed it to his body.

The reservoir was a mystery to him as well, would it run dry eventually if he didn’t keep killing monsters? He just didn’t know enough. He puzzled over it on and off as the hours ticked by, watching the pair of mystery people in the tree at intervals. Until at long last the sky began to lighten once more.

They weren’t human. He could tell that right away, even from this distance. They were humanoid, but as the pale light of dawn filtered through the canopy of trees and touched them, their faces were a deeper green then the leaf filtered light could account for.

They were a man and a woman if he was any judge. Also, going strictly by appearances, if he was to compare it to his favorite RP game. She was a ranger type and he was a fighter type. Any further speculation would have to be made when he got closer.

They didn’t have much in the way of a ‘camp’ to clean up, but they did spend an awful lot of time cleaning up the small portable camp stove they had used the night before. It looked to Benjamin like they were taking no chances on setting any accidental fires.

After that they waited and watched the dire boar, waiting until it woke up and wondered off before climbing down the tree. The fighter struggled with this, taking his time and finding each hand and foot hold. The ranger descended the tree almost as easily as the dire squirrel.

Benjamin waited a little longer after they moved off before beginning to follow. There was no way he could hunt that boar alone, not as he was, but perhaps he could learn a thing or two by following the pair.