Chapter 35 – Trials of the Thunderous Cats

“Time’s wasting let's do this outside. I don't want to ruin any more of my new floor tiles,” I said, glancing side-eyed at a blissfully ignorant Dalton before standing and creating another portal so it exited outside of the castle while restoring the portal to the town.

With my triple portal, you could walk between one and appear at either of the others if you were focusing on the destination.

“Dum Dum, did you forget how to walk,” said Shart.

“No, I have an opportunity to get this done much faster than expected,” I replied cheerily smiling at the portal and gesturing patiently.

The Falconians were milling about, some started walking through the gate immediately.  Others, like the Duchess, stayed behind looking contemplative.  She was a highly ranked Cleric of Grebthar.  Because their god was overcome, they Clerics determined the only possible solution was to renounce their god which effectively gave up a hefty chunk of their personal power.

To say doing that was unpopular was an understatement. After much hemming and hawing, I’d eventually had to bring in the big guns.

I walked through the portal to the town square and brought back someone who could reason with them.

“Why are we here?” asked the Progenitor, again.  She was being philosophical today, which was making her moody.  Beakatrix wanted to go back to her shop so she could develop the weapons to defeat Grebthar and I was interrupting her. I felt bad, given how devoted she was to the task, but this needed done.

I presented her to the recalcitrant Falconians, “The progenitor is here to answer your questions.”

“Most holy one, is it true Grebthar has been overcome by the Dark Overlord,” asked the Duchess.

“Grebthar is the Dark Overlord, only a fool couldn’t see that,” Beakatrix proclaimed.  The dozens of assembled clerics fell into a hush as that terrible news was dropped on them.

The Duchess stood in shock, before finally asking, “Is there any way to save our god?  Godlings are immune to mental corruption!”  Beakatrix was unimpressed.

“Saw him with my own eyes I did!  He is the Dark Overlord,” said Beakatrix, brooking no further questions.   Beakatrix’s unfolded her wings and stomped off, the temerity of questioning her was enough to put the raven headed woman into a tizzy.

“The progenitor doesn’t like being asked so many questions, maybe you should discuss any other questions you have amongst yourselves before asking her again, I’m going to go do the trials,” I said. At that many of the lower level clerics started to follow me while the Duchess returned to converse with the other high-level clerics of Grebthar.

“That’s another of her power bases,” said Bashara walking next to me.

“You claimed you were staying in the lab,” I said at the woman who clearly had not.

“I tried,” replied Bashara, “But it was boring back there and I really want to hurt my father if I can, though I’m not sure how I’ll manage it.”

“Have you tried sleeping with someone he disapproves of,” I grumbled.

She eyed me, and I realized I was the one who her father hated most.

“I’ll have to come up with another trick, unless,” she said leaving the question open.

“Grebthar would be immune to that sort of mental manipulation,” I said.

“He should be, Jim,” said Bashara. “Or at least they are more resistant than even you. I don’t understand how the Dark Overlord overcame Grebthar.”

“Nor do I,” I replied.

“Nor,” said Shart as Bashara slipped away like a social ninja.

“It’s a word,” I said as I spotted Lance, Cole and several others talking. There was a Cleric over there casting a spell that made it impossible to listen in, but I tried anyway. Her anti-eavesdropping barrier was too well constructed to be easily picked apart though, and I lacked the fine touch required to bypass it without alerting her.

Annoyed, I walked towards the portal, spotting Julia and Bashara having a quiet conversation.  Both were versed in talking around people with high perception skills, and that meant that while they weren’t quite talking in a cypher it was a near thing.

“Like totally,” hissed Julia.

“Fer sure?” replied Bashara.

“Baby’s been on board for like ever, but pretty was?” asked Julia.

“Not expecting baby to have been so friendly with his imaginary friend nasty, fer sure,” replied Bashara.

“What are you two talking about?” I asked.

Julia looked at me and shrugged, “Girl talk.”

Bashara rolled her eyes and communicated with me telepathically, “The Duchess has been totally devoted to Grebthar her entire life.  Lance, her baby, was using the Sphinx to off rivals, and he knew that the Sphinx was real.”

“That’s bad,” I said.

“It’s worse, the Duchess didn’t think the Sphinx was real so she thought baby was quite a bit more capable than he apparently is,” said Bashara.

“How frequently were people assassinated,” I wondered.

“Less than you’d think, being an adventurer is dangerous, but more than you’d like,” said Bashara.

“I’d like it to have been none,” I offered.

“Then much more than you would have liked,” replied Bashara. “Politics is mean, you shouldn’t trust anybody.”

“Including you?” I asked.

“Especially me,” replied Bashara.

It was obvious that I shouldn’t, but it was impossible to forget she was deeply involved in the politics of the various kingdoms around Ordinal.  She had an astute mind for political intrigue, greater than mine and probably greater than even Julia’s.

“Try to distract ‘pretty’ for a bit, I would like to do the trials without her help,” I said. Bashara glanced over at the Duchess and started walking that way.

“What about baby,” said Julia hoarsely, hoping I understood the codename.

“I can handle ‘baby’,” I said waving at Lance, who was busy having a conversation with many of the people I’d seen earlier who were disturbed by the Sphinx’s death.  They left the protective bubble so I could hear them, but seeing as they knew I could hear them they moved onto more mundane topics.

“Throw Richard at him,” muttered Plasma Julia.  It bothered me that both Plasma users were in the tainted pool.

“Oh, that sounds fun,” I said, looking around until I spotted the large man.  He looked unmovable.  “I like a challenge, send him over.”  I strode through the portal, dismissive of the efforts.  They scurried after me.

Lance was flustered as we stepped outside into the guild’s training area.  Glorious Robert was supposed to be busy training a new crop of Windfallian adventurers, and everyone looked quite annoyed to see everyone blocking his field.

“What’s going on,” asked Glorious Robert.

“I’m completing the trials of the Lion to become King of Falcon,” I said.

Glorious Robert stared at me for a long moment before his shoulders slumped, then turned and told his students they would be using the other practice field.

“I’m probably going to need to get a report on how the guild is going from him eventually,” I said to Fenris as he stepped next to me.

“There’s one on your desk,” replied the ever-efficient Warden.  I nodded.  I didn’t know what I’d do without Fenris.  It was important to have a capable second in command to deal with all of the problems that kept getting heaped on my shoulders.  Fenris coughed slightly, “You should probably have the desk cleaned first.”

“Seriously,” I groaned.

“When did you turn into such a prude,” replied Fenris.

“It is not being a prude to not want people having sex on all your stuff,” I replied.

Fenris snorted, “That sounds like the very definition of prude.”

***

The Dark Overlord stepped over the twitching corpse of a desperate man who was praying at the door of the tomb and shook his head.  TriBlade was dead, so he wouldn’t be helping anyone.  “Except me, of course.”

Not everyone betrayed him in the final battle, after all.  Some of the guys had actually died fighting the Dark Overlord in one of his previous incarnations.  The dead were still loyal.    TriBlade, the swordsman that didn’t betray him, was one of those patsies.

Charles could remember it like it was yesterday, the Dark Overlord brought his divine army over the hill catching his forces out in the open.  It was a slaughter, until TriBlade personally held the flank and allowed a withdrawal.  At which point he was promptly killed by the Dark Overlord.

Because only the Mayor can kill the Dark Overlord.

So, Jim?

“Oh, go fuck yourself,” said Charles as he pushed open the door to the crypt.  He took a moment to quiet the Dark Overlord’s visage.  He spotted himself in a mirror, hideous like always, and prepared to walk down the stairs into the crypt.  A particularly unobservant woman was sobbing and holding her child.

“Grebthar, please, save my son!” she begged.  She was a little late, the kid was certainly dead.  Charles reverently took the child, muttered an incantation and set the wide-eyed boy back into his mother’s arms.

He left when the zombie child went for her throat.

The stairs down to the crypt were nice, just like he remembered.  The old cleaning runes that he preferred were still working, but of course they were.  His boot’s heels clicked on the marble until he got to the very bottom of the stairs.

The room was not very large, or impressive.  TriBlade had never been much interested in that.  He was an austere sort of person who only wanted the bare minimum in order to do his job of leading the Dashing Dandies.

It was still a stupid name, but Ordinalese did not translate directly into English.  Here the Dashing Dandies sounded scary, but Charles always thought it sounded dumb.

She liked it.

“She’s dead, I killed her, remember, maybe I’ll make a new batch and call them something I like.”

The sarcophagus was closed, as was to be expected, there was a body in there.  Ordinal had a zombie problem since he’d locked up the other annoying gods, and a warded sarcophagus was one of the few ways to preserve a body without that happening.  TriBlade belonged to a religion where that was a thing, and Charles respected it at the time.  Thank god he was gullible once.

Of course, the problem with a regular zombie was that they lacked souls.  Without a soul, the body was going to be stupid.  Charles wasn’t sure what he was more upset about, confirming that souls exist or that all they were was a place to hold your character sheet.

It’s all a damn game.

Charles muttered a spell forming a magical hand.  It flipped him off.  The hand extended and gripped the lid of the sarcophagus, lifting it off easily.  The body sat up almost instantly, as to be expected in such a magically rich area.  The one armed zombie scrambled out of the crypt causing the legendary TriBlade, the sword named after … TriBlade, to fall to the ground.  Heedless of the high tier artifact, the zombie headed straight towards him, which made everything easier.

Dropping the lid to the sarcophagus, Charles used his magical hand to grab the zombie and lift it into the air.  As the zombie squirmed, the sword was just sitting there.

· The Legendary TriBlade, Sword of the Talon: The Sword made by the Sorcerer, this three bladed sword has the capacity to shoot off two of the three blades for long range attacks.

“Still perfect,” thought Charles as he examined the blade.  There were three blades mounted in parallel, equidistant to the tips.  Of course, it functioned like a sword breaker and you could pull the blades apart if you really wanted to.  Charles shook his head.

“You wanted to fight with three blades, I mean, who did you think you were Zoro?”

Shaking his head, Charles plucked the stone off the pommel and walked over to the squirming zombie as he began enchanting the corpse.  “You know, transferring a soul into a sword is complicated.  I tried, but I hadn’t figured out the trick when I captured yours. That was good luck, I suppose.”

He clicked the stone into TriBlade’s armor and patted him on his good shoulder.  The bad shoulder was missing an arm, and had been as long as Charles knew the guy. The spell finished, the soul reattached to the body easily enough and the formerly mindless undead suddenly looked around with genuine curiosity.

“Grebthar, what happened?” asked the former general.  The spells operating his eyes flickered for a moment before the old general could see.

“It's bad, old friend, the Dark Overlord overran Windfall.”

“Impossible, what about the companions,” asked TriBlade.

“Fallen, mostly, I’m still seeking them out, but we are going to have to do this alone.”

“Well, it is said that with a War Badger anything is possible,” said TriBlade, flexing his dead hand.  “I’m going to need moisturizer.  And you, stop looking so sad.  We’ve pulled through worse.”

The Dark Overlord smiled, shadow overcoming him.  TriBlade didn’t notice, because of course he couldn't.  The enchantments on his eyes only showed the old general what Charles wanted.

“We will manage this, we always have before,” said Charles.

“That’s what I wanted to see, Grebthar.  You bring people hope, that’s why I follow you.”

“Of course, I remember.”

***

“So, the first trial is the trial of might, I believe I have to get someone out of a circle,” I said as I walked over to the circular arena in the training ground.

The Princess had her book of Grebthar out and was carefully reading through it, as were many of the other Falconians. Despite Grebthar’s fall from grace, the trail was still outlined there. They were devoted members of the church, but there were limits and no one invoked the right of Trial.  “Yes, you have to get the most unyielding member of our family out of the circle.”

“That would be Richard, the Unmoving,” said Lance, pushing a massive Paladin. Obviously, Richard didn’t move. He shrugged and walked towards the center of the ring.  Richard said nothing as he stopped right at the center of the circle.  His armor was almost comically large and instead of weapons he wielded two massive shields.

“You have five minutes,” said Angela, activating a system timer.

“You are going to do the obvious thing, right,” asked Shart.

“Obviously, a true king would order the person to leave, not force him,” I said walking towards the center.

“Good, I was afraid you’d do something stupid,” said Shart.

“Richard, leave the circle,” I commanded, and Richard didn’t move.

“He is deaf,” said Lance.

I glared at Lance before casting Regeneration on Richard, but the spell didn’t seem to work.  There was nothing to regenerate.

“By choice,” said Lance.

“Well, I could tap the command in morse code,” I offered while walking over to Richard, who stood unmoving like a big tempting target.

· One Punch:  You convert all of your stamina into damage.  Rank up, One Punch has improved to Advanced One Punch.  Reason: You hit an unmovable object.

· Damage redirected: You have suffered 800 points of damage to your right fist.

Well, shattering every bone in your hand really stung. I flexed my knuckles and forced enough stamina into my palm to repair all the bones with an audible click. I started to cast a portal spell underneath the unmoving object, but nothing happened.

“He has an anti-teleportation aura?” I asked Shart.

“Yeah, just because it was dangerous for humans to teleport, doesn’t mean some monsters didn’t,” said Shart.

“Is the mighty mayor failing,” chuckled Lance.

Grumbling, I summoned a massive burning demon blade and held it up.  It was the size of a surfboard and I could only lift it through the use of Skills.  Richard tensed, preparing for an attack.  He activated a skill, rendering him even more damage resistant than before as I thrust the blade… into the ground beneath him.

Then I summoned the Anvil of Creation to use as a fulcrum.

“Hey, what’s that over there,” I said, pointing off to the distance. Everyone looked either because they were gullible or possibly because I had skills that could force people to do what I told them to, but not Richard. He was deaf.

Then I drew up to strike the blade with my left fist.  Richard realized the problem and took one half step back as my fist impacted the hilt, at half step he would regret. The ground exploded upwards in a shower of dirt and sand.  Richard moved back enough that the blade didn’t tear up the ground underneath him, but the sword was longer that he anticipated by well over a foot.

The flat of the sword impacted his armor with a mighty clang.

· Richard has suffered a catastrophic groin injury

The codpiece on his armor was inverted, which looked painful. I could see the whites of Richard’s eyes as he stared at me, unmoving.

“My god, that man is built out of iron,” I hissed.

“I can’t believe he’s still conscious,” said Shart.

Time was running out.

“Shoot, I’m going to have to do that again using my full power,” I said grabbing the sword and activating plasmatic blood. My entire body started to glow as my stamina reserves rapidly replenished and expanded beyond their usual maximum. I slammed my foot down hard enough to cause nearby birds to fly away as I glared at my lever. It was now or never.

“You’re the mayor, I concede,” said a very high-pitched Richard.

“I thought you were deaf,” said Lance.

“The Mayor restored my hearing,” said Richard as he gingerly waddled out of the circle.

“He has healing powers,” exclaimed one of the Julia’s.

“Or catastrophic groin injuries have some beneficial components,” said the Princess.

· Mayor Jim has completed the First Trial of the Lion.

“Is he okay?” I asked as several zealots ran towards where Richard was bent over and heaving. Then he curled up into the fetal position.

“He’ll be fine,” said Princess Julia, giving the side eye to Lance.  “Might need to change his name though.”

“Richard?” I asked.

“The unmoving,” said Julia.

“Oh, that makes sense,” I stated as Richard, the moved, wept. Probably because he’d been moved or something. “I mean, I’d suffered four worse groin injuries than that and I didn’t complain.”

“You did, Dum Dum,” said Shart who started counting on his fingers, “I thought it was more than four.”

“I don’t count those ones,” I replied, glancing over at Lance and cleared my throat.

“You completed the first trial, excellent, I knew you could do it,” said a stunned Lance.  “Four more to go until you are …”