Sendicard
patreon
Canon Side-Story: Otherworlders: Fierro was killed by a little girl?
🕑 Added 2024-12-13 00:36:44 +0000 UTCThis one is a pretty huge departure from the normal content and is completely optional. A lot of the canon side-stories are optional, but you miss something that could alter your understanding of events by skipping it.
This one will not be relevant for a long time and focuses mostly on introducing 5 characters that many will have forgotten about by the time they come up. It also has some heavily adult themes, as unlike most of the content, it doesn't star a 12 year old girl.
It's also the longest side story, period, at almost 3K.
I had fun writing it, and I hope you will too. The $10 tier patrons that voted on it will presumably enjoy it quite a bit.
------------------------------------------------------------
The lord sighs, her day is just beginning and it’s already stressful. She’s been resting on her laurels recently, but not anymore if the people in her life have anything to say about it.
The meeting hall is only for the truly important moments - at least when used officially - and hasn’t been invoked in several years. Its use today brought her out of the bedroom - not a big loss - but more importantly, it brought the three Dark Knights from their stations all over the malignant lands. The first dark knight, Reaver, a lich that’s dedicated two hundred years to martial combat. His prowess is undeniable, even if unconventional. His equipment, once golden and glorious, now shows its age as decrepit relics painstakingly cared for to the limit. She has no doubt he’s just as dangerous as when her grandfather was in her position and his equipment was fresh, he may even be more dangerous. His armor guards his face, but she can see his glowing red eyes from behind the visor, she knows it’s him sitting across from her at their rounded table.
The second dark knight, Samael of the cleansing flame. A woman with strong arachne genetics and sharp teeth. She’s young for one of the three, but she felled members of the dragon clan as a child, as a lord she would not question her prowess nor her cold and distant way of speaking. Her voice is like a chilly breeze, and in all this heat, the lord finds it refreshing. Politics are annoying, someone like Samael who’ll tell you to your face that you’re an idiot is very refreshing. Her dress is what any young woman would conventionally call, a little revealing and shameless, but she’s not going to mention it. If she needs her clothes to breathe, let them breathe. Vibrant red hair falls down her front, a spiral flowing over her shoulder, and sharp eyes take the lord in as if she’s the threat here. It helps that she is.
The third dark knight, Akari of the Kagai clan, sits on the table with her miniature stature. She disrespectfully lets her feet kick off the table as if just a playful child, but not a single one of them is fooled. That bright smile exists on the black lips of a carnivorous shape shifter that looks at them all with the most innocently malicious eyes. They’re a little wider than they should be, dark and pretending they won’t light up a sadistic red that would brighten the night at a moment’s notice. Malice seeps from her body, causing a miasmic aura around her. It’s uncanny, and she’d be a lot cuter if she was actually trying to be. The message is clear, they’ve interrupted her playtime and she’s not going to take them seriously until they apologize.
Sadistic, is a good way to describe their unhinged third. She won’t be treating any of them lightly during this meeting, or the events that will likely proceed from it.
Lastly, entering the room after them all with a great smile on his green face, is the grand scientist. A goblin ten times older than most goblins ever get, with white hair on a frazzled head and dark beady eyes that misleadingly underplay his intelligence. A backpack twice his size rests behind him, showing his strength, and wrinkles remind them not to ignore his ancient wisdom.
“We have gathered.” She calls out to him, “please begin before Samael starts breathing fire, or Akari twists the space around us into a funhouse for a giggle.”
“Of course, my lady.” The grand scientist kneels, not that it lowers him much with his already quite tiny stature. “I have called you all here because my devices have detected significant amounts of dark magic in a distant land. The land has no precedent for this type of signature, so I looked deeper, and it aligns with that of Fierro, the elven slaver our lady hunted down last year.”
“Why was I called for something that simple?” Samael, the second dark knight, asks with a glare. “The lady handled it as a political showing, a group of ghasts could have dealt with it on their own.”
“He means another world.” The third dark knight points out with a melodic titter that puts the lady on guard. “We’re here to discuss what to do about a now interdimensional criminal that’s escaped our clutches and is terrorizing another world. It may not even have the forces to deal with her.”
“Is that what you mean?” The Lady clears her throat, and gives their scientist her full attention. Akari seems to be in a good mood today, which is good, she wasn’t looking forward to the cleanup if they had to fight.
“I do.” The goblin’s thick and old nose twitches, she swears goblin noses just get bigger and bigger as they age. “As you can imagine, this is bad.”
“Quite.” She grumbles, palming her cheek and resting her armored elbow on the table. “I do believe the apt word at hand is, shit.”
“I concur,” Reaver, the first nods his armored head at her, “shit indeed, my lady. Your eloquence reminds me of your grandfather’s.”
------------------------------------------------------------
“It’s called Fire Country, in the Elemental Nations.” Their great scientist says with his palms on a quickly rigged display model of the land and its towns. He’s still making little adjustments to the map while they’re standing around and looking at it. “Fierro’s building up an army there, I haven’t figured out why but it can’t be good.”
“If she’s building an army, we might need to do the sssame.” Their lady says, her snake tongue accentuating a sound she’d rather it not have. She bites down on it gently, punishing it for daring to betray her. To their credit, the only sign anyone noticed is Samael’s red cheeks.
“You’re suggesting we invade?” The second asks her, eagerly trying to hide the flush by moving the topic along.
“I’m suggesting we might have to. We cannot let necromancy spread to another land with unethical roots, it could cause cataclysmic issues.” The Lady’s hot air huffs out, her armored arms crossing over her black metal breastplate. “Ending Fierro takes top priority, prepare the portals, I’ll supply the crystals from my own vault.”
------------------------------------------------------------
“The crystals have charged the dimensional portal by sixty percent.” The grand scientist reports to them the very moment he enters the room. The group sits around the round table, having convened in the recently used meeting hall for a very important discussion about what card game to play this Sunday. It has to be one that Akari can’t cheat at with any sort of spatial distortion, but old enough Reaver still knows how to play it.
“It has only been a week, you must have provided very powerful crystals, my lady.” Akari snickers at her, eyes gleaming with treacherous curiosity.
“This is important.” The lord in the room points out.
“You could likely charge the rest yourself.” Reaver points out, “we could be there tomorrow.”
“And weaken myself enough that one of my siblings can stab me in the back?” She shakes her head, “if it wasn’t you, I would consider the very suggestion an attempt on my life.”
“My apologies, my lady, siblings didn’t kill each-other so freely in my time.” Reaver lowers his head, a flame puffing out through the visor slits in shame. “I do believe the given emotion back then was love, not hate.”
“You’re forgiven.” The lady waves his statement off. “It is not a bad consideration, though even ignoring my siblings, I worry the elemental nations will react poorly to the sky opening up and spitting out undead monsters and hellish atrocities.”
“Benevolent hellish atrocities.” Their resident genius goblin points out, “I can’t imagine why you would need to fight there. You could rest up before coming back and avoid the issue of your siblings entirely.”
“You wouldn’t know this, as your expertise is applicable science and not social science, but appearances matter a lot to the common people. Even should their army possess the flexibility to not reflexively attack with prejudice, their people will be caused great duress. I need my power to demonstrate my abilities if it comes to that.”
“If I may ask, why would that matter?” Samael asks with the slightest expressive twinge to her lips.
“Because the best way to prove to a frightened animal that you will not hurt it, is to demonstrate the ability to do so without a thought, and then not do that. Trust is built on the threat of death, followed by kindness.” The lady says. “To calm a public in panic, I must take their lives into my hands, and then pet them instead of crushing them.”
“I feel like that’s probably not a catch all for every species…” The second dark knight trails awkwardly and coldly. Her tone does not shift in the least even when trying to rebuke her.
“Regardless, brute forcing the portal is not an option. We will wait. Great scientist, please keep an eye on Fierro while charging the portals with the crystals I have provided. In the worst case scenario, let us not forget that a target for us or not, Fierro is merely an elven slaver. She is not worth war with an unknown force. Should we cross over to get her, we will need an escape route.”
------------------------------------------------------------
“My lady! My lady! My lady!” Wiping her eyes of a groggy glaze, she can’t help but look to the door and its incessant banging. A dozen men and women to her side roll over and groan, and she barely spares them a glance. As fun as last night was, she doesn’t know any of their names and she won’t think about them again after an hour.
The individual banging on her door with a grouchy old voice however, is someone she will think of for another hundred years if they’re both lucky enough to survive that long. They just don’t compare, her bedmates are gone from her thoughts instantly. “Guh, I’m coming, you can stop!” She shouts, reaching over to her nightstand to grab a goblet. Its contents are a stale red, a glossy wine left out but one she doesn’t hesitate to down with a grunt at its lukewarm state. ” She reaches up and palms her forehead, while her door continues to be banged on by the grand scientist despite her already telling him she was on her way.
She hears someone open their mouth. “For a lowly goblin, he sure is a pain in the ass-” the wet splash against the wall stuns the rest of her bedmates into immediate silence, a simple wave of her hand and the voice is gone, what remains of their corpse thuds back into the bed a second later. She doesn’t look back.
She doesn’t explain her actions either, they all know why she removed him, and none dare to speak up again.
She stands, allowing a dozen flowing black tendrils to disappear back into her spine, and for her clothes to slither up her body from under the bed, conforming to her like living fabric. The pitch black plate armor comes from the wall, slapping into place on her body a moment later with just a flick of her wrist. “I’ll be right there, great scientist, you can stop before you bother my respectful guests. Their heads are likely throbbing from last night!” Her laugh reaches through the door just as she gets to it.
“I’m sure much was throbbing last night.” The scientist says from behind the door, and she holds in a snicker, sparing a single glance back at them as she approaches the door.
She ignores the blood which now bathes them. “I do apologize, use the guardian baths to cleanse yourselves of the stench. Lucky you, the process of taking in power from such precious baths should add a few years to your lives.”
That handled, she opens the door, finding the goblin a panting mess, dripping sweat onto the floor while on his knees from exhaustion. He’s a little old to be running around like that, she should get him something- “ah, and someone bring that body to the condensers.” She pats the goblins head with her armored hand, feeling his white hair, it is getting rather rough.
“My lady, Fierro’s been killed.” He gasps out, around shaky breaths.
“... What?” She asks with a blink and a focused gaze.
“Her killer has inherited Necromancy.” He continues, “I worry-”
“Let us talk outside of the ears of potential traitors, grand scientist.” She picks the man up without ceremony, plopping his behind on her pauldron and making her way out of her room. A tendril slips out from behind her to close the door. “Enjoy the ride, thank you for rushing for my attention.”
“Yes, my lady.”
------------------------------------------------------------
“This is a dungeon. How in the hell did that world get dungeons?” The lady growls, claws radiating hot mana as they scorch the war table the great scientist has set up for them. It shows the dungeons, starting with a manor of all things, then through tunnels, a broken apart town, a sewer system, another manor, all in a non-euclidean form. At the end of it, is where Fierro was killed. There’s no mistaking this structure, this is a dungeon, Fierro would have recognized it and fled into it, but why is it even a thing?
“I do not know, my lady, but she was pulled into it along with a large group of undead, a small army mostly consisting of naive children, and a small force that inevitably killed her.” The great scientist supplies three pictures that float up on the war table.
“Children?” The Lady stares at the pictures, committing them to memory, especially the golden haired one, that picture has a golden border indicating she’s the one that killed Fierro and obtained her magic right. “You mean to tell me children of this land did what we were planning an entire invasion to do?”
“To be fair, invading a world for a low level necromancer might have been a bit of an overstep.” The second dark knight points out with her common emotionless drawl.
“I can see that.” The Lady growls ferally, reminding everyone of her family’s background experimentation with lupine genetics. The sound reverberates throughout the entire room, but shakes no one. They did not get here by being unable to handle her. “The issue remains. This girl has obtained necromancy, but her only knowledge of it is Fierro’s treacherous misuse of the dark art. If left alone, she may become a bigger problem than Fierro was. She may spread undead slavery to that world without even realizing what she’s doing.”
“You’re suggesting we invade and kill her?” The grand scientist asks, “the portals are charged to eighty percent, with a magical donation split between each of you, the only limit to how fast we could deploy would be gathering the army.”
“I would advise against that, why not watch her?” The second suggests, “or try to send a message? We could do so fairly cheaply.”
A stroke of her chin with a clawed finger, the lady leans back and thinks.
“I wasn’t thinking of killing her. Perhaps we can be a little lighter handed with this.” The darkly armored head of state says, holding a focused gaze on the portrait of the blonde girl in the photograph, “figure out how to get into contact with whatever systems govern her world, and see if we can negotiate a subspace meeting with her. She deserves a reward, and perhaps a little guidance.”
“By your will, my lady.” The goblin kneels, and she rolls her eyes.
She’d kill a thousand people for him without a thought, but he’s still kneeling just like when she first came across him fifty years ago.
“I’m having the vitality essence from a fool condensed, drink the damn juice you old coot.” She orders him as she takes her leave. She has a meeting to plan with a little girl, and needs a lot of time to try and figure out how to make herself less intimidating. Maybe she should kidnap a few human children and see how much she has to change herself to appease them before she returns them, “and finish charging the portal, one thing from our world is a coincidence, two is an indication of a rift somewhere, we need to be able to react should something worse cross over.”
“Like the lord of light?” The third dark knight asks with a playful titter, “he’s fun, maybe we could invite him?”.
“Humans invading another land for its natural resources and land? No, that’s completely out of character, they would never do that.” The lady jokes with a huge, face splitting deadpan, ignoring the dumb suggestion from the chaotic eighty year old lady dressing in a child’s skin to mess with them. “I’m certainly talking about my long buried grandfather.”
“Your grandfather wasn’t bur-” the second dark knight begins-
“I know, my mother ate him, I was making a joke.” The lady palms her face, “forget it, just keep the portal charged. If we’re lucky, they won’t even notice we were there if we need to cross over.”
“If we are lucky, you will never need to cross over.” The second dark knight points out.
‘If I was that lucky, Fierro wouldn’t have reincarnated.” The lady growls again, before marching off to figure this out. Children, how to not scare children, there has to be a damn book somewhere.
Comments
Dopplerdee
I guess systems are normal for some worlds which is intresting.
