The Mook Maker

The vision shifted.

 

It showed me a simple dirt road sneaking through the terraced rice fields overlooking a vast, unfamiliar coastline under the mostly clear azure blue sky. 

 

I didn’t have any idea where the place was in relation to where I stood - or was standing just a split second ago. Despite the fact the sudden change didn’t produce any of the usual vertigo I often suffered from, the provided relief didn’t make the experience any less disorienting. The whispers lurking on the edge of my consciousness were still there, though, as my only anchors to my whereabouts amidst this bodiless perception. 

 

Should I even know where I am?  Nothing felt familiar.

 

Our current home was a relatively small valley entirely surrounded by the mountains, and so far, none of our scouts had reported reaching the sea while our rather involuntary expansion had proceeded further inland from where we started. 

 

I think it has. Our horde could be moving seaward instead, and we just didn’t know, lacking a map. 

 

What I looked at here was a coastal region, the vast expanse of the ocean on the one side, and the equally vast fields and forests on the other, with distant mountains being nothing more than a hazy distortion on the far horizon. The signs of human activity, the rice paddies and the terraced fields were numerous, only the beachside fisherman huts were somewhat blurred, almost as though the dragoness’ magic didn’t focus on the structures themselves as they were beyond the point of her request. 

 

She wanted to show me the fields, which she did.

 

However, when it came to providing the location of said fields, she did precious little.

 

There was not even a single landmark in sight. 

 

We must be somewhere further south - rice had implied warmer climate, but in truth, it could be anywhere, and my perception of what could be grown and where has been greatly skewed. 

 

I felt lost. 

 

At least, I didn’t remember hearing about the sea, even if we would eventually reach it should we follow the river downstream. It has been completely possible that Sora simply failed to mention it, too busy to either run the transportation we were increasingly more dependent on, or distracted by her drive to roam. Or she simply was lazing around, as I wasn’t entirely certain what she did when she was not within sight. Maybe the ‘Displacers’ were like cats they resembled - they were napping all day long. Perhaps I should get her a box.

 

I was not given time to wonder whether my teleporting felines could catch their own tuna by abusing their portals.The ‘Lady’ quickly grew impatient after showing me the land.

 

“You need to bless the field, Root! On our behalf!” 

 

The dragoness insisted. 

 

“How?” I asked. I doubted she asked for the ‘Corruptor’ to remake the farms according to their own peculiar design.

 

“Bring more bountiful harvest they prayed for! I saw your spawn do it. You are changing the land as you always did, but faster!” 

 

She said impatiently, allowing the vision to slip away.

 

I look at her coiling, snakelike body, floating among the clouds - an entirely different location, since the seaside weather was spotless the moment ago.

 

Being snapped from one spot to another was annoying, to say the very least.

 

Whether the rest of the host could see her floating in her personal heavens, I wasn’t entirely sure, but the link I shared with the rest of the horde never went away, even in the supposedly spiritual place where the dragoness dwelt. They didn’t appreciate the attitude. 

 

The perspective changed, focused. 

 

Back to the fields. 

 

This time, I saw the man dressed in the usual garb I learned to associate with the local clergy, sitting in the middle of the road, cradling his head in his arms, shaking. His wand - or was it a hand bell - along with a small gong, was cast away on the ground in distress. He lost his hat, too. 

 

A small group of the poorly dressed natives, ones in simple clothes, straw hats, likely the farmers, chatted and pointed, as the priest utterly failed in doing anything but simply muttering to himself. Perhaps he prayed for divine intervention. I didn’t know. I could hear words for some reason, mixed with the sound of the sea waves hitting the nearby shore, but didn’t understand any of it without Arke’s help.

 

Although the farmers seemed fairly patient with the priest’s poor performance, the ‘Lady’ was anything but. 

 

“It is customary to bless the crops before the harvest, Root. It was arranged for me!” 

 

Arranged? 

 

Was she acting like my business agent now? 

 

I didn’t know how to do it - other than simply dispatching either ‘Corruptors’ or ‘Mutators’ to give the rice paddy fields their own touch, turning this formerly lush, coastal region into a living nightmare - and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. 

 

Letting the ‘Corruptors’ perform the so-called ‘blessing’ was an enormous risk, both to us and to the natives. 

 

“Should you do it?” I asked, “It’s your priest and your ritual, and those fields don’t look like they need much help” 

 

Why was I even involved in this? 

 

Wasn’t she the self-professed goddess of fertility? 

 

While I did now know for certain the celestial dragons the human natives worshipped as gods were very real — after all, the ‘Lady’ was one — there was a very little incentive for me to get involved in the religion in any shape or form. Their clergy caused us nothing but pain, and the whole alliance, or pact, was a way for me to avoid them rather than vice versa.

 

So far, the ‘Lady’ stopped paying attention to us once the work she required us to do had been done, leaving us sitting on the powder keg in the form of fifty, maybe eighty, of her own priests with questionable mental faculties. Now. she wanted the help again, and she sounded slightly more desperate than the last time. 

 

“It is necessary, Root,” the dragoness, invisible once more, insisted. “My power is waning too quickly, and my surviving priests need your direct involvement to establish our new cult beyond the reach of my brothers! We need to perform a miracle to bolster belief! ” 

 

So, she did want me to unleash the ‘Corruptors’ on the coastline, in order to prove the poor fishermen and farmers I was real.

 

“I am not playing god.” I refused. 

 

“We are not playing gods, Root.” The ‘Lady’ said, “We are gods.” 

 

The dream-like perspective did not shift. I was still looking down on the priest, still mumbling to himself, and the farmers observing the ritual, which clearly wasn’t going the way they, or he, expected.  

 

“Why don't you intervene here, then?” I asked again, even though I did know the answer - she had said it herself, she was losing her power, but then, why to even spend said power here, “The fields don’t look like there is some major crop failure.” 

 

While I would certainly consider feeding the starving masses in order to stop the never-ending spiral of violence, our current predicament made it feel like a futile plan, not to mention I had to worry about my people first. 

 

“The plants are not a concern. We need followers here!” the dragoness' voice said. “More than ever before now my brothers have deposed me, and the scroll is buried out in the sea nearby!.” 

 

Was this an attempt at bribing me?

 

The scrolls were hunting for, and were an object of our arrangement with the ‘Lady’ were supposedly scattered over the land, and even sea, and it was a matter of accessibility rather than any real order. 

 

Why didn't she bring it up before? 

 

The city, a provincial one, at that, was more than we could chew already, and even if there was one of those scrolls we sought for so badly, I had no power to lift them from the seafloor as yet, making this venture quite pointless. 

 

Although we would have to come here eventually, it was a serious risk of spreading our force too thin. 

 

“Where is the scroll?” I queried, and the view had changed once again, rushing above one of the lone cliffs into the sea, only to return to the original perspective of the fields, the dirt road, and the few humans on it. 

 

It was not far away from the coast.

 

“My brothers don’t know we are here. I can’t alert them to our presence, Root, by attempting to show you the chest buried in the sea,” she explained.

 

Maybe it would be possible for even a normal human to dive in there, however, without seeing the container itself, there was no way of telling what powers or resources I needed to lift it from the seafloor, not to mention there was no telling how deep the sea even was. 

 

None of my girls were swimmers.

 

I wasn’t in a rush. 

 

We wouldn’t be able to get down to the sea floor, unless I had the ‘Fleshspeakers’ actively control the sea life, which created an entirely new set of problems for us. I needed my chiropteran companions elsewhere. 

 

I would be forced to move on the area, eventually, but considering how many distractions we had faced in scouting the large swathes of forest for some lost burial mound, I was not looking for any gain in the immediate future. 

 

“That’s the reason you want followers there? I can’t protect them here if you ask us later and. There is quite a …” 

 

Although, perhaps that was a point, and I was looking at it from the wrong perspective. 

 

Instead of looking for the way to contain the large group of dragoness’ former followers, and worry about what they would do once they inevitably snap, I could send them to their Promised land the ‘Lady’ herself had selected, fulfilling the agreement. As harsh as that selective process has been, we had confirmed those men were, in fact, reasonably able to survive the ‘Displacer’ portal. 

 

The vision, an out-of-body experience of sorts, persisted, and I was still witnessing the entire scene without a pause, and briefly wondered whether the man in the priestly garb could hear the conversation. He seemed seriously distraught. 

 

I would reunite him with his brothers in faith, I supposed, the ones which ‘Lady’ placed under our care. 

 

Then I could focus on wrapping up the situation within the city, establish some kind of defence line at the mountains should the second human faction send their own army in, mount a proper expedition to the forest site, and do all of it while all the former followers of the ‘Lady’ enjoy a trip to the beach.

Exactly as their dragon goddess has wished. I could see her, for a split second, above in the skyline, before she phased out of reality again. 

 

I didn’t think that the humans could see her. 

 

“I am sending my girls…” I decided, “Brace him for impact.” 

 

I still had my doubts whether this was indeed a good idea. 

 

The man we were watching yelled out. 

 

Enough. I wouldn’t be wasting my time arguing with the invisible dragon while being reduced to a disembodied spirit hovering above some clearly distraught man in the middle of the fields. 

 

“Thank you, Root…” the ‘Lady’ said, quiet, weary, but strangely enough, grateful. 

 

The dream ended as soon as it began, and I suddenly opened my eyes back to the palace garden, sitting on the ground, being held in Miwah’s furry embrace, and inspected by Tama and Narita. They seem worried. However, I didn’t feel any worse. Instead, I was better, likely thanks to the liberal use of Narita’s magic. 

 

“Root…” The dragoness reminded me of what I just promised, yet, it was the smallest of my problems. 

 

No longer locked to the omniscient view, there wasn’t much more to see with Tama leaning over me with her luscious tails fanned out, but even the briefest of glances revealed the gardens were very quickly turned upside down.  

 

Kirke was close by, her power causing the plants to surge should Narita need their energy to channel, only to wane away to dust in the small circle around us as their vitality had been transferred to me. 

 

“Master?” 

 

I almost wanted to jump out with far too much energy present. The exhaustion was gone in the blink of an eye blink, but at the same time, the restlessness came by. 

 

“I am fine, Narita.” I breathed out, “Thank you.” 

 

“Yes-yes. Master.” The rat-girl said, clearly relieved.

 

As much as I would like to spend some time with my girls in private, there was simply no chance for it right now, between the chaos within the city walls, search for the scroll, and the dragoness’ demands. Times of respite were brief and far between. Later, maybe. 

 

Now it was yet another task, yet another struggle, yet another problem. 

 

“Recall Sora here. I want a Displacer here.” 

 

Where is she at again?

 

For all her constant wandering, the now rather panther-like looking Sora appeared from her twisting portals, while her smaller kin dropped from her slightly less powered rift and landed much closer, throwing herself at me. 

 

It was rather awkward, considering I knew because ‘Lady’ - the self-professed goddess that got us into this - was watching us from above, in her immaterial state, but it doesn’t matter..

 

I couldn’t cut her from the host any more than I could cut out the unseen serpent's presence of free lodging in our telepathic connection. He, or rather it as I wasn’t certain if the mind serpent had a gender, was interested in the sea to the south. So far I gathered, but since it didn’t communicate in words, I wasn’t able to gather more. 

 

“For Master!” The anthropomorphic cat yowled in her typical voice, and I questioned whether I even needed the ‘personal Displacer’ for all of this. I was assigned one, it seemed, even if there was no real reason for me to venture out myself. 

 

I petted the little anthropomorphic kitten. She was the unnamed one; I was certain. 

 

“Kirke.” I asked, “Did you see the vision? Sora, did you too?” 

 

“Yes, Master.” 

 

She seemed to be a good choice for the job, more so than Mai would have been. As far as I knew - and I knew nothing - the natives didn’t imagine messengers of the ‘Lady’ as anthropomorphic lizards, otherwise our arrival to this world would have a considerably better reception. Perhaps a moth would do.

 

The skill that was associated with them was called by the same colour that symbolises our allied, if annoying, dragoness. 

 

“Sora?” 

 

“We see what you see, we go where you go, Master.” Sora confirmed. 

 

It solved the situation by finding the ‘mystery beach’ without any directions or landmarks to follow. 

 

“Could you change the rice crop to a greater yield without making it toxic to humans, Kirke?” 

 

“Yes, my Master.” The moth-girl confirmed, and her eyes shone with her magic, or perhaps just the enthusiasm she had for the job at hand. I could feel her understanding of the concept. It gave me confidence to go ahead with this. 

 

The ‘Lady’ didn’t protest - she must have expected this. I would give it a try, then. 

 

“Then go. Sora, portal the Mutators above the coastline, and have them bless the crops…” I decided.

 

It sounded weird - blessing - as I didn’t consider our powers, let alone ourselves, inherently divine, and I turned to Kirke. 

 

“Your power works at a range, don’t they?” I asked, as in verifying, “You could make small changes in flight,” 

 

“Yes, Master. We will guide the world to your light.” She replied. 

 

The large portal - one that could be summoned only by Sora in her ‘evolved’ form - opened above, and the ‘Mutators’ took flight, buzzing through, making me wonder what the reaction of the natives would be on the prayers being answered by the group of anthropomorphic moths falling through the hole in the reality. 

 

A panic was likely, even expected, but I was certain that Kirke and her sister could retreat before the things went awry out there, or ‘Lady’ would somehow justify this through her own priest present.  

 

I got back on my feet, with the help of Miwah. On one side, Narita acted as support, her body encased in that organic armour the ‘Fleshspeakers’ created, while Tama pressed herself to my other arm. 

 

A small ‘Displacer’ encouraged by the fact I wished for one being present decided to also embrace me, which Tama did not dispute, or even comment on. 

 

I looked around.

 

There wasn’t a single soul who would judge me for having an overly affectionate female company. Not because the garden was devoid of life, but because the very few humans still left within the palace walls would not dare to enter. 

 

Leaving ‘Mutators’ unsupervised for even a brief moment felt suddenly very unwise. 

 

They worked even faster than ‘Corruptors’.

 

Much faster, to an even more extreme degree. 

 

What they could change, they changed, irreversibly transforming a serene garden into the nightmarish parody of itself, with the wild, unearthly blooms, and unnatural looking leaves in the fleshy-and-blood red or toxic, overly vibrant green. A soft, glowing hue was settling in. 

 

A few oversized roach hounds and what seemed like the blade-legged spider were already scuttling through the foliage.

 

The ‘Ravagers’ standing guard paid them no mind. 

 

A ‘tree’ of arcane, a strange amalgamation of the trunks of several trees braided together like rope by the eldritch forces stayed untouched in its centre, its leafless branches reaching towards the sky, waiting for my moth girls to come back and cultivate another glowing fruit.   

 

How long did I leave the ‘Mutators’ unsupervised?

 

We were here, in the city, for a few hours only! What ‘Corruptors’ could do with the sheer numbers, the ‘Mutators’ doubled down on scale. 

 

Sending them away to carry out a so-called blessing could soon prove to be a terrible mistake. An imagery of sudden, uncontrolled growths sprouting from nowhere at the nature-denying speed cropped up in my mind.

 

Was the dragoness even fine with this kind of help? 

 

“Lady?” 

 

She did not reply, even though I was certain she was out there, in her immaterial form, perhaps overseeing what the ‘Mutators’ were doing. There were no complaints about them scaring out the inhabitants of the coastal region, yet, but it seemed unwise to let them rampage out there without even verifying their work afterwards.

 

I patted the little ‘Displacer’ on her head. 

 

However, before I had a chance to speak, expressing my desire to visit the coast personally, I was interrupted by Helmy riding into the garden on the horse, followed by the three more riders. 

 

The hooves would have ruined the immaculate grass before, but now, with my moth girls changing whatever came in range of their magic, there was no genuine loss. 

 

Perhaps ‘horse’ was a strong word. 

 

Normal horses didn’t have six eyes. Or spiky horns. Or mandibles.

 

This one did. Rather than the conventional animal well known on Earth, Helmy’s personal riding creature was a re-imagination of the poor animal. The creature’s reddish, brownish colour was relatively plausible, as well as the rough shape allowing me to recognize it once used to be a horse before its fateful encounter with ‘Fleshspeaker’ magic, but that was where all the similarities ended. The hoofs had additional claw-like protrusions; the belly had vestigial protrusions reminiscent of spider legs, and the whole body had a badly formed chitin covering that was dubbed as horse armour. 

 

It was an abomination. 

 

I shouldn’t be surprised. They did it with bugs, but I was. 

 

It never occurred to me that my girls would seek to have a riding animal, especially after all horses had fled upon sensing us, but apparently, they did. 

 

“Helmy.” 

 

“Master! We have closed the gates, and Arke is sorting the humans out.” Helmy announced, saluting me with her brand new sword. I wonder where she had seen that. However, I wasn’t able to fault her for making the gesture, as my original plans did involve a rather official procession to the city rather than the current rampage. I still didn’t expect the mutant horse. 

 

Nevermind. It was a stark reminder I should, in fact, visit the distant shore sooner rather than later. For now, I stared at Helmy’s abomination of a horse and her attempt on a cavalry unit, strangely enough compromised not of other ‘Purifiers’ like her, but the ‘Devourers’. An ‘evolved’ version of ‘Defilers’ was terrifying, more so with their organic armour. Helmy, with her token helmet and the typical lamellar armour taken from humans, looks positively tame in comparison.   

 

I should, however, do something about the aggressive changes to the environment.

 

Mutating the garden here, in the city, was not part of my original plan. 

 

A shriek associated with the ‘Fleshspeaker’ echoed around, but the city was,‌ relatively put,  under control.

 

The coastline was not.

 

The moment the thought passed through my mind, another notification popped out and another batch of the new ‘Mutators’ had formed from the sudden, unexpected outburst of the red fog. 

 

Skill “Viridian Dominions Unbound lvl.4” Gained..

 

It made me jerk in surprise. 

 

“Tell Kirke to not kill humans!” I ordered immediately. “Retreat if they are hostile.” 

 

“Yes, Master.” 

 

There was no reason to assume that the humans in the other regions were, for all the ‘Lady’ meddling and supposed isolation, any friendlier that one of them encountered thus far, but I didn’t expect Kirke to be attacked. 

 

Or rather, the need for her to fight back, since there weren’t pesky magical barriers or other traps to worry about, while Kirke and her sisters could fly under their own power, while the ‘Displacers’ could extract them in quick succession. 

 

My idea was to do the bare necessity. Bolster the plant growth, possibly send over some exiled ‘Lady’ dumped on us, and leave further actions for the time when we are better posed to act. 

 

It did not happen. 

 

What have humans done this time? 

 

What I originally thought to be a simple fly-by done by the ‘Mutators’ was now turning into a crisis of its own, with all the ‘Fleshspeakers’ being overburdened with even managing this city.

 

I couldn’t afford to send them there - and I needed to tell them to stand down. 

 

But was there a way back? 

 

“Is Ari busy?” 

 

Ari was human. I could hope she would leave a much better impression, even after there was an incident that might kill one local. It was what happened in the mining down, not that long ago. 

 

I have to once more salvage the entire situation.  Again.Would we ever not have a crisis?

 

I considered even sending Helmy in. She would certainly scare a few humans with her new toy, scattering the crowd. 

 

Why do the ‘Mutators’ even engage? They could fly.  

 

However, as I struggled to make up a solution, the ‘Lady’ had once again spoken to me, though this time she didn’t go for the usual jump-scare of manifesting in front of me. Her voice, however, could be heard, less booming, and more ordinary sounding - as ordinary as the disembodied voice could be. 

 

She sounded weakened. 

 

Among the countless voices of the host, she didn’t seem that prominent if she didn’t attempt for the grand show to bamboozle the witnesses. 

 

“There is no need to involve your priestess, Root. Have your spawn proceed.” She stated dismissively. 

 

The moths have not returned yet. 

 

“It doesn’t seem good. A human must have died.” I objected, looking at my companions for confirmation. It was the dragoness who provided the answers: 

 

“Do not worry. The morals would cause us no trouble. They were awestruck by my appearance.” 

 

It seemed someone else got to put on the show this time.