It wasn’t just a matter of keeping the lost city from exploding. The Eldritches had no idea how Auros enslaved his hosts and the hybrids had discovered during the War of the Griffons that their life forces were weak by design against that kind of spell.
Orulm and Abthot couldn’t risk falling prey to a Forbidden Magic similar to the Unwavering Loyalty array and in turn exposing everything they had worked so hard for.
Orulm answered her worried look with a nod, keeping up with the façade and using the black aura of Chaos surrounding him to pretend that he still had energy in spades.
[“What deal?”] The colossus said and then made his own mouth disappear to avoid the further humiliation of screaming in pain.
[“I’m not going to tell the Council about your current position and weakened state. If you are lucky, you’ll be back to your feet before they find you.”] Orulm replied. [“All I ask you in exchange for my mercy, is for you to hang around here.”]
The Skinwalker-Abomination hybrid took a map out of his dimensional amulet and sent it in front of the lost city’s left eye.
[“Keep away from here, here, and here.”] Orulm circled the human outposts of the humans and the reverted monsters, Medolin, and lastly the area where the mines of the Master were. [“Don’t bother the buildings and its residents, but make sure they don’t cross over.”]
The area between the mines and the outposts was hundreds of kilometers wide and extended for even longer. The Eldritch drew a line that split it in a rough half.
[“I need you to hinder their plans long enough for my own to come to fruition. Be a deterrent, not a threat. If needed, clear the other areas for the humans a bit so that they’ll focus their attention elsewhere.”]
[“How long am I supposed to remain here?”] Auros nodded, inwardly swearing that he would use that time to grow even stronger than he had ever been and destroy whatever Orulm held dear the moment the lost city understood his enemy’s endgame.
[“Until I tell you otherwise, old friend.”] The Eldritch smiled.
The Master needed to slow down the colonization process, not stop it. Urban development also meant crime development and the Organization would control it on the other side of the ocean as well.
On top of that, once the Kingdom focused on the colonization effort, the attention of the authorities would be diverted elsewhere, leaving Vastor free reins. Thanks to Orulm, now the Master had the power to slow down or facilitate the colonists at will.
The Organization needed just enough time to get its hands on what it needed and then exploit the Kingdom’s distraction to put them to good use. Orulm was certain that it was more than enough to buy himself a spot in Vastor’s good graces.
[And just in case you have some funny thoughts about revenge or betrayal, here’s a memo.] The Skinwalker-Abomination hybrid put everything he had left in a final Break Annihilation, blasting a spot on the side of the golden giant’s head open.
Auros wanted to scream, but his mouth failed to form. His vision turned black and he thought that pain had blinded him. Yet once the Chaos gnawing at the injury faded away everything was still black.
To make matters worse, as soon as the cursed object calmed down and stopped screaming in his own head, he noticed that Mogar had plunged into complete silence.
‘Somehow that bastard used the initial blasts to probe my spell matrix and found my sensory arrays. I’m blind, deaf, and mute until I manage to repair the damage. Unless…’ Auros tried to shapeshift back into a city.
This way, even if his mystical senses would still be useless, he could use the mind link with his hosts to use them as his eyes and ears. Pain ravaged his body as his pseudo cores glitched.
Entire sections of the city of Auros were now missing from the internal schematics, making the transformation impossible. The living legacy cursed Orulm’s name one last time and focused his efforts on mending the damage.
‘That bastard! Either the Council finds me or I heal in time, he gets what he wants. I would become a landmark that everyone would avoid and to ensure my confinement, the humans would still focus on me long enough for Orulm to get what he wants.
‘He didn’t offer me a deal, he just bet my ass!’
***
Griffon Kingdom, City of Lutia, a few days later.
The Royals had kept their word and soon after the local branch of the Mage Association had been opened, the construction of a local mainframe for the Tablets had begun.
The presence of the Warp Gate ensured that in the near future Lutia would expand into at least a medium-sized city thanks to the easy exchange of goods with the rest of the Kingdom.
That plus the presence of the Supreme Magus and the promise of one free Tablet to every family unit of residents, made people flock to Lutia from all over the Distar region.
The empty houses left by those who had moved away back when Lith had been declared a criminal had been sold like hotcakes and new ones were being built. Once again, Lutia was expanding in every direction but the farmlands.
Lith was known to love his privacy and every attempt to buy the lands near his home was met with a firm rejection. The farmers refused to sell their ancestral houses and were proud of being the neighbors of the first Magus of the country in over a century.
The local mainframe had been quickly completed but the line to collect the free Tablets from the Association was bound to last days. Until that moment, communication amulets had been the mark of nobility or wealth.
Getting one for free was a dream come true. Everyone was eager to add their first contact rune and make their first call, no matter if to a friend standing right in front of them.
“By my Mom, what a mess!” Solus looked at the queue of farmers that twisted and turned for entire blocks around the Association. “People are going to lose days of work this way.”
“Not really.” Lith shrugged as he used a hologram to return the constant smiles and waves he received to avoid developing carpal tunnel. “It’s one Tablet per family. They can send the kids or the elders to collect their amulet.
“What worries me is the incoming explosion of violence and quarrels.”
“What are you talking about?” Solus asked while checking the grocery list stored in Soluspedia.
The start of the distribution of the Tablets was a big day for Lutia and even bigger for Solus. She was proud of seeing the fruits of their labor getting publicly recognized and wanted to enjoy the smiles it was supposed to bring.
After so many fights and the constant struggles of the members of her family, Solus needed a win.
“Again, one Tablet per household.” Lith repeated and when she kept staring at him with a puzzled look, he added: “For Newton’s sake, Solus, each family gets only one Tablet and only one of them can imprint it.”
