Erlking

The Erlking wiped the last of the blood away from his hands. He had largely given up on the remaining human souls, and instead moved to secure his boarders. Queen Illyria was becoming a real problem, and he couldn’t understand why she was doing this. How did that human saying go; ‘We must hang together or we will hang separately.’ Something to that effect anyway. Her attacks were hurting their chances of eventual victory against the corruption.

He looked down at his mostly clean hands, there was still blood of varying shades around his nails but it would do. War, when fought at the level of the World Lords, consisted mostly of moving creations around and between worlds. This avatar was powerful, but he had creations that stood taller than mountains, so he didn’t need to be here. He was just feeling so helpless, he wanted to feel like he was making some progress.

Moving into his space, he settled down on his meditation chair. He loved this chair, it looked for all the world like a metal folding chair from earth. However, the Arbiter had created them all himself, and gifted all the World Lords and souls with one. If they had each possessed one of these during the great wars…no it was in the past now.

He pulled up his screens, he needed to check in on his champions and his other charges. Bishop and Blake had been loaned to Shipwright. A rift had formed on one of his ships and he needed extra hands. They had formed a team with Frank Briggs and they were quite the effective unit. Flipping through a few more he found mostly dead weight, human souls just moping around in the tower.

Lastly, he pulled up Benjamin and Benz’s screens. Jade was having an interesting conversation with stomper. He had patterned that particular goblin to take on the leadership role of the clan when the current chief past. So, there was more to him than he let on. It seemed like he was letting a little of that out for Benz’s benefit.

The Erlking chuckled, Vryce had made a good call collecting the goblins. The chuckle died away when he turned his attention to Benjamin’s screen. He had strained his soul to its limits, it looked like pure chance had kept him from destroying himself. The Erlking quickly replayed the last few days of their adventure.

He was impressed by what he saw. Benjamin had managed to acquire two of his monarch patterns. He hadn’t expected that. Oh, he had given him the golden armor sets, but he had made them ages ago for the Hive. When they started killing each other he decided they didn’t need any further interactions from him and had shelved the suits.

Since Benjamin was going there anyway, he had included a few just in case. It looked like he had taken that as a sign that he should take the monarchs for himself. It was a solid plan, except the Hive had been on that world for many years and they had grown beyond what the human’s newly unsealed soul could handle. As was evident by the damage he had inflicted on himself.

He was currently trapped in his void space, trying to fix some of that damage. His soul was impressive, the Erlking couldn’t have held so much at his age. He was at his limit though; it would be a long time before he recovered from this fully. Having overheard Jade’s conversation; he knew that they had a plan to help him, so the Erlking wasn’t too worried about that. He did worry about the mission though.

He moved his view over to the tower; the rift had appeared in. The Hive there were powerful, several monarchs having banded together to create an alliance. In fact, all of the powerful groups in the massive Hive towers were alliances of many smaller factions. The unallied factions outside those massive towers were much weaker in comparison, surviving mostly on the impressive individual strength of their monarchs.

They were holding for now, the rift was still small, and as long as they still had bodies to throw at the invaders, they could last a while longer. It couldn’t last forever though, eventually, the invaders would get out of the tower. When that happened, it was only a matter of time before the world was doomed.

The champion souls he had sent to deal with the problem, still had a chance. It was much reduced with Vryce’s soul injury, but there was still a chance. Still, it wouldn’t hurt for him to see what help he could offer. He wished for perhaps the hundred thousandth time, that he had added more control patterning to his creations.

Most of the others, didn’t have a single creation that wasn’t purpose built for battle. He had a standing army, but he also liked to create real, or as real as he could make, civilizations. So, when he created the Hive or the goblins, he made them independent of mass direct control. That made his creations more alive, but in situations like this he couldn’t just order them all to obey Benjamin’s orders.

He sighed; it was done now. No point crying over released patterns. The Erlking pulled up more screens. He was stretched to the limit; but if he could find anything nearby, he would send it to help Benjamin and Jade. Perhaps even Shipwright or Specter might be willing to help him.

* * *

Jade Benz

She fired her essence pistol as fast as she could cycle her essence and pull the trigger. She hadn’t understood the concept at first; but when she thought about it like pulling essence to summon one of the ogres, she figured it out. Right now, she was holding her force shield in place and pumping round after round into the giant salamander the group was fighting.

Tok stood beside her, throwing javelins and rocks at the beast. While Tik was up front tanking its attacks. They had been at this for days, and, thanks to some strategic advice from Stomper, she was able to utilize her ogres much better now. The goblin had really stepped up his game after Vice went down.

She looked over at him and shuddered. Apparently, the little bastard had known she’d done his town the whole time. The pointy toothed prick even had the gall to blackmail her, into following his lead. Telling her how poorly Grace would take the news, and how Benjamin wouldn’t let his Grace be around such a threat.

She ground her teeth together at the memory, and continued firing. She actually liked this group, and if they kicked her out, where would she go on this bug filled shit hole planet? She supposed it wasn’t all bad though, he had taught her a lot about fighting. The ogres were far more deadly under his lead, than they ever would have been before. Even teaching her how to put her shield up, and where to shoot, to be of the most help in a fight.

The blue king swooped down, driving his big ass bladed arms into the salamander’s head. the fight didn’t last long after that. She got a good chunk of essence from the kill, but not as much as she would have if her ogres had dealt the final blow. Jade didn’t really understand how that worked; she could see the essence bleeding away from the salamander after it died. A lot of it was sucked into the blue king, who dealt the final blow, and traveled down his connection to Vice.

She didn’t know if it was a soul specific thing, or if the Arbiter had fiddled with them before he woke them up here. Either way, killing gave power and she liked it.

“Hell, yea boys,” she shouted. Giving a fist pump that was mirrored by her ogres, huge grins on their tusked faces. “What does that make, three of the big slimys?”

Grace nodded at her with a happy smile, she had perked right up after they had made the plan. Jade twinged inside at her smiling face, she felt guilty. There wasn’t anything around here to take her mind off it either. Not that Stomper would let her get high, even if she did have some. He had given her a small nod of his own, before seeing to the salamander’s body.

Apparently, the blues really loved eating these things. Once they had killed a beast and funneled its essence to Vice, the Hive would all fly out to harvest the kill. The reds didn’t care for it as much, there was this giant horned beetle looking thing that they liked. They had killed two of those as well, but there weren’t as many of them around.

The reds and blues were getting along pretty well since they started getting regular meals. In the last week or so of hunting, the bugs had gorged themselves. She wasn’t a bug expert by any means, but she thought their shells looked a little brighter, more colorful or something. Several eggs had even hatched, red and blue, and the little ant looking bugs were crawling around in a mixed lot. She didn’t care one way or the other, but Grace and Stomper seemed to think that was good.

“Good job out there, Jade,” she turned at the voice. It was Stomper, coming over to talk now that the Hive were swarming the big lizard.

“Yea well, I told you I would play ball big man.” She said, looking down at the Viking who was more than he seemed.

“Indeed, you did.” He replied, falling silent after that. Watching the red and blue Hive strip the carcass down to bones. “The Hive can really eat, all this food, I’ve already seen more eggs being lain.” He said at last.

“Yea they are eating a ton, and screwing a ton, pretty sure I’ve seen some reds and blues pairing off…but is it helping? Is Vice getting any better at all?” She asked, eyes also on the industrious Hive.

“The chief is getting stronger…We can’t feel him like he feels us, but the pain isn’t as bad through the link anymore. We just have to keep feeding him essence. The hunting is also improving our teamwork, and the strength of the Hive. Losing the time is unfortunate but…” He shrugged, words trailing off.

Jade stood there awkwardly for a while. She wasn’t good at small talk, not that Stomper talked a lot anyway, but still. She cast her mind around for another topic, so she could break the silence. Finally, she settled on the big she wolf. Ice had joined them a few days ago, seemingly out of nowhere.

“So…will Ice be joining us on the next hunt?” she asked. Thinking about how often she would see the giant wolf curled up around Benjamin’s body, since her return. Growling at any of the Hive…or ogres…that got too close.

“Yes, I talked with her this morning. When Honor finds another target for us, he will take over guard duty and she will join us in the hunt.” He said.

Both wolves had taken losing half their number very hard. While Ice had been mothering Vice constantly. Honor had started scouting out new salamanders and horned beetles, for them to fight. The team was having trouble moving quickly now to. Without the wolves to act as mounts, they had to walk to the battlefield.

“How do you talk to her so well, they can’t talk back.” She asked, curious how he always seemed to know what the wolves wanted.

“Goblins and wolves have a long history. Many of my people, used to believe, that the Lord Erlking made our two kinds to act together. So, making it so we could understand each other only makes sense.” He said, placing only slight emphases on the fact that he didn’t have a people anymore.

Jade winced at the subtle reminder of what he had over her. She felt bad, but feeling bad wasn’t going to change anything. She stood up, clearing her throat loudly before saying.

“Right, well…I’m going to go run the boys through those drills you taught us.” Before moving away to the ogres. She felt his eyes on her back the whole way there.

She really did run them through the drills though. They were easy enough, teaching Tok how to aim at specific targets and teaching Tik how to better use his shield, among other things. She started her own drills with them, calling up her force shield and firing her essence pistol. The routine was nice, and anything was better than dwelling on the past.