Tree of Aeons

The Third Peripheral World - The Deadworld

Lumoof landed in the third peripheral world only to find a world without survivors. This was a dead world, there was no one here, and as far as he extended his senses, it was all demons. 

It was a world at the very edge of full conversion into a demon world.

Not a whiff of mortals. 

He sighed, and spoke to Stella.

“Send me elsewhere.”

“Already?”

“This world is dying. I sense no survivors.”

“Are you sure?” Stella said through their shared communication network.

Lumoof spent another few days scouring the world and found nothing. Ruins. Death. Corpses that were easily a decade old. There were some trees, some vegetation that survived the destruction wrought by the flying fire demons. 

“Is it me, or are there a lot of flying and fire-type demons?” Lumoof asked. “Stella, are you going to investigate the originating demon worlds?”

“Later-” Stella said. “Still moving.”

Lumoof looked at his partner for this mission. “How was your stint on Delvegard?”

Kafa shrugged. “Nothing much. I am glad to be reassigned to the front lines.”

“Delvegard is the front lines.” Lumoof laughed. 

“Not for me. It is for the Dwarven Lords, and perhaps alchemist Alka.”

“A pity. Alka would’ve loved the place. Or hated it because it has too many damned dwarves.”

Kafa related with the response, and chuckled along. “I feel that way whenever I’m in Wetport Lapule.”

“That’s racism against your own kind.” The priest teased.

“I didn’t say our kind is without flaws.” Kafa smiled. There wasn’t much to do in this world except destroying demons, so the two domainholders took the time to catch up and chat. Nothing threatened them. Ten demon champions were nothing before a level 200 avatar. “My people are still changing, and it’ll take a few generations.”

The priest understood it keenly. The hearts of the people are often hard to change. He could preach the truth, show the evidence, and some of their hearts would still deny it. The heart believes in what it believes, and it is a primal thing. 

It is why the Central Continent’s priests and the Order tried very hard to reach the young children and embed their values as soon as possible. It is something the parents resisted, after all, some of them believed the children should be free to make their own minds. But Lumoof, as an avatar of a rising god, saw it differently. 

The truth in the heart of the people needed to fit reality. The beliefs they hold must match the society’s needs and wants. They tried to step in where possible, and it is why orphans were so often roped into their circle of influence. 

It’s an area where Lumoof frequently disagreed with Stella, who believed in the independence of mind. Thankfully, Stella was a void mage, and her views did not affect how the Treeology approached the issue of education and shaping society’s cultural zeitgeist. 

They had to.

The society needed to be ready to fight wars. The society of Treehome must accept and believe in the cause. The society as a whole must possess the industrial and military capacity to support a war throughout the multiple worlds. 

Perhaps someday, Stella’s view of the world could come true. A world where beliefs develop organically. 

A wartime government has no choice but to make choices differently, compared to the government of a world with no existential threats. Lumoof believed in it wholeheartedly, and that all of them, even Stella, are wartime leaders.

Of all the races on the three Core worlds, the lizardfolks, treefolks and elves have a very high level of support of the Central government. Dwarves and humans were generally split between Centrists or Order-believers, the noble-royal groups and the guildsmen. Aeon once remarked how ironic that the human groups could be summed up to the stereotypical trio of the priests, the nobles, and the merchants.

“Do you think the Delvegard Dwarves will fold obediently, or will it be violent?” Lumoof asked.

“Generally, I expect it to be violent.” Kafa countered. The craft-kings of Delvegard won’t give up their supremacy so easily. 

“Should we just kidnap them and spare the world of Delvegard from an unnecessary war?” Lumoof proposed. 

Kafa stared back at the priest. 

He was unable to answer. 

Lumoof could feel the lizard warrior weighing the odds. A war would have tremendous casualties, and in most cases, unnecessary. A kidnapping in the background by a sneaky, hidden group like them would truly enable them to get around and avoid such conflicts, especially if a transfer of power could happen peacefully, or if these craft kings realize where they stand along the true scales of power. 

The lizard warrior sighed. “I admit kidnapping the leaders and forcing them to bend the knee may be the wiser choice, but I cannot help but feel extremely uncomfortable with it.”

Maybe it was his class. A warrior class did not sit well with such clandestine methods. Their ethos is excellence through combat. But a priest is a type of subversive class. The natural state of the priest-class is to change minds without violence. To convert others. 

The avatar patted the lizardman’s shoulder. 

“It’s hard to make such choices, isn’t it?” 

Lumoof pointed to the world around them, and then, the portal whirled open before them.

There was nothing else to do on this world, other than to destroy the demon king. With that knowledge, it was time to move on. 

“Time to go.” 

***

The Fourth World

The Drakeworld Capra-Terban

Roon, Johann and Ezar arrived in a world and felt the similar presence of demons in the air. The environment around them was filled with rocky spires and deep valleys, and the energy levels in the air seemed to match the shape of the terrain. At the bottom of the valleys were usually fields of dark rocks filled with bugs that survived off the things that fell down or raging rivers. 

It was a land meant for flying creatures, and it just so happened that the demons responded with flying demons of their own. They were the type of flying demons also found on Ulara.

“Well, we’re bumping into more of these buggers.” 

“Well, fuck. I dislike flyers.” Ezar cursed as he immediately sensed the presence of demons in the air. Without Stella around, they have to rely on their movement abilities, but the mountainous terrain was not meant for sprinting. They would be hopping from spire to spire, since their levitation and flight artifacts would not last that long.

The spires were everywhere, as if the earth itself protruded out of the ground like thorns, covered in small vegetation and bushes. 

“Demon king.” Roon frowned, and they spotted the demon king quite a distance away. “Let’s get some distance between us!”

The demon king of Terban was a gigantic flying dragon with two large heads, both blasting the terrain with its energy attacks. The three quickly fled the confrontation with the demon king. It wasn’t time yet, not with their lack of knowledge. 

As they explored the rest of the mountainous world, the three eventually discovered the natives of the world. The natives were a type of goat-people that rode drakes of their own. These goat people lived along the cliffs and made homes in caves and crevices along the cliff walls. Their society was similar to villages and towns, stuck in the standardized medieval era.

Capra. The Goat People, and they rode the domesticated Drakes. Drakes, or the domesticated variants, were friendly smaller drakes that have grown used to the goat people’s lives. 

“The more worlds we see, the more I wonder why everyone’s weapons and development seem to be stuck in this particular era.” Johann said as he rode his own flying dragon.

His flying dragon was hugely interesting to the Capra. The first sight of Johann, they immediately bowed to him as if he was the next incarnation of their hero. 

The heroes of the Capra were legendary drake riders, and the old gods granted the heroes an ability to supercharge their ‘partner’ drakes, that even allowed those flying drakes to transform into larger dragons, and also strangely, into humanoid forms. For male heroes, apparently the drakes would take on a female form, while the opposite was true. 

Roon thought the god’s meddling with the sexes of their partner dragons to be rather disgusting, and even wondered if this was a form of honey trap or honeypot.

The heroes of the Capra world could also take on human forms, on top of their Capran forms.  

They landed on what looked to be one of the larger populated cliffs, and immediately noticed the huge magical protections covering the cliff. There was also a massive illusionary magical formation that hid the cliffs from the demons, powered by hero items. 

***

“So there were no heroes in the last thirty years?” Johann, Ezar and Roon stood as they were welcomed to the Capran Cliff Lord’s home. It was a fairly small place, but the lush decorations of the room made it feel much bigger. 

“No.” The Capran Cliff Lord answered. “Our god and benefactor, Hawa, has not responded to our prayers since two decades ago. But we cling faithfully, and continue to pour our prayers into these ancient items left behind by the heroes that came since time immemorial.”

Roon heard the updates from Lumoof and Edna. This was a common occurrence for the peripheral worlds. They are peripheral worlds for a reason, and the distance from their protector-gods meant they didn’t get much protection. 

At this distance, it must’ve cost too much to inform the Caprans of their doomed fate. 

The flying demon-drakes of Capran, the same type as those on Ulara, found Capran to be incredibly suitable and made those same cliffs into the demon nests. The magical energies of Capran seemed to be correlated to the height of the cliffs, the tallest mountains seemed to have stronger leylines, and so the demons were naturally drawn to them. In the same manner, the old Caprans also found these tall mountains to be places where they could grow and breed strong Drakes.

The Caprans thus fought against the demons for control of their strongest cliffs, though that war was mostly lost over the last three decades. 

“Why didn’t the demon king dig underneath the earth after these thirty years?” Johann asked. 

The Caprans didn’t know the demon king did that, so they had no answer. But the three domain holders glanced at each other and thought about it. 

“Maybe it wasn’t ready?” Roon wondered.

“Or is it searching for something?” 

“Or it needs more hero-souls.” Ezar countered. “You know, like what’s written and recorded during the Rottedlands incident. The demon king killed the heroes, collected the hero souls, and used it to poison the earth.” 

Roon and Johann glanced at each other. “So you’re saying the demon king has not killed enough heroes to start digging?” 

“Maybe, if the Core’s resistance is strong enough.” Ezar proposed. “There seems to be some kind of resistance from the Core, maybe not super strong, but enough that a demon king won’t attempt a dig to the core until it possesses sufficient kills.”

“I want to say it doesn’t make sense, but at the same time, maybe there is some variability in the demon king’s range of abilities.” Johann frowned. 

“If that’s true that is a good sign, and may explain why the demons sometimes seem to just wait it out.” 

“If it’s true, it does feel a bit too good to be true.”

Ezar countered. “There is probably a limited number of abilities the demons could cram into the normal sized demon kings. Think about it, these demon kings are immensely powerful, and from what we know of the powers of creatures, there has to be a tradeoff somewhere. A combat focused demon king or a corruption focused demon king may not be as well equipped as a demon king designed to ‘take over’ a core.”

“It would be a sensible tradeoff to make, too.” Johann went along with Ezar’s thought process. “If demon kings could capture hero souls and use their own energies to power the planetary corruption-”

“It explains why both Adrian and Kelly were not killed but rather captured when we found them back on Mountainworld.” 

“Sorry, may I know what you three are talking about?” The Capran Cliff Lord interjected. 

“Ah, our apologies, we were merely lost in thought.” Ezar politely apologized. “We mean no offense.”

The Capran Cliff Lord didn’t dare to be offended. Johann’s beautiful dragon was a powerful beast that signified the rider’s immense position. Such a unique beast could only have an equally powerful master. So, he was polite in response. “It is nothing. It must be important if it merits the great master of the beast to think about it so seriously.” 

***

The three domainholders accepted the hospitality offered by the Caprans, though they found their choice of food mostly unappealing. The Caprans seemed to pride themselves on all different sorts of cultivated grasses, weeds, and plants as delicacies. They did not eat meat at all.

They were pure vegetarians, and Capran cooking was mainly through seasoning the various types of grasses, weeds and plants with sauces derived from fruits. It was odd, but they ate a little anyway, if only not to insult their hosts.

But they did find something amusing. Their drakes were fed on special types of fruit. 

“Aeon would love this.” Roon said as he picked up the strange fruits. They were ‘meaty’ fruits, they had a tough, stringy texture that looked, felt and tasted like meat. It was as if nature created its own natural plant-based meat. “We should ask for one for the [Biolab].”

Johann’s dragon tried one, and seemed to enjoy the taste. He was given seconds. And thirds.

“The place that you come front, there is no Drakefruit Tree?” The Caprans were very amused, because the Drakefruit’s sole purpose was to feed the Drakes. There were sub variants to the Drakefruits, such as those infused with more magic so that the drakes gained additional magical properties, or those that gave the drakes extra armor, stronger claws and so on, In the good old days, the cliffs’ drake breeders competed on training the best drakes, with the best combination of magical properties. 

“It would please us if you could give us a small sapling of these Drakefruits.” Johann asked, and given his status as a dragon rider, his request was as good as a command. They gave Johann three saplings, each a different subvariant. They would be sent back to Treehome where they would be properly studied,

Johann wanted to ask for some drake eggs, too, but he knew his own dragon seemed fairly possessive and like a jealous pet, would show some attitude. 

With nothing else to do in this cliff town, the trio went on their way. 

The trio soon visited a few more cliff-towns, and rescued a few of them from champion-class attacks. The Demon King was just roaming about, as if the presence of the natives were nothing. It was puzzling behavior. Why did it not eradicate the natives? 

Was it to farm more hero souls? 

If so, it would be risky to deploy heroes on worlds where the demon king wanted to find heroes. 

***

Landas

Lausanne watched as the rest of the eighth demonic nest was destroyed by the army of beetles. They’ve launched attacks relentlessly, and the mages worked tirelessly to send them from battlefield to battlefield. 

Portals were extremely powerful. They invalidated traditional limitations of space and expanded the operating range. For warriors like the Valthorns and their augmented bodies, they could fight as if their stamina was almost limitless. 

“Six more nests and all that’s left is the demon king.”  There were still smaller pockets of demonic nests, but with the major nests removed, the frequency of the demonic raids on the surviving cities reduced tremendously.

Yet, the demon king’s behavior on Landas was strange. The demon king ignored the cursed hero. 

Lausanne wondered why, perhaps it either concluded that the elven hero was not a threat, and so decided to bury underground. But the data contradicted how certain demon kings on other worlds seemed to wait forever before starting its ‘dig’. 

But their presence brought a huge sense of relief to the five elven races of Landas. Almost all of them were sent to Treehome to meet with Aeon, and when they returned they found a world not at war. 

Mostly. 

It took another three months, but Lausanne and the rest of them finally crushed all the major demonic nests, and all that was left was the demon king.

The hero still needed time to prepare, but for the rest of Landas, an era of peace had finally come. 

The magical interference vanished, and with it, the ancient magical communication networks between the various elven cities could be restored. The surviving elven cities began to reconnect with other nearby settlements. 

But fear still permeated the elves’ lives.

Many grew up being told not to venture too far. 

It would take some time for this foul memory to fade, but Lausanne felt joy.

It made her happy to see the elves relaxing. A fuzzy feeling when the injured elves didn’t have to rush back to the front line, and were allowed to heal.

She came to help the peripheral worlds heal, and was eager to move to the next one. 

“Well, where to?”

“The 5th.” 

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