The Mook Maker

Salty rain fell down upon the scorched remains of the town. 

 

The sheer carnage here was on a scale unseen in any of our previous encounters with the hostile settlements and their fanatically belligerent inhabitants, with fields practically entirely turned to ash, and at least two-thirds of the buildings destroyed by fire, or demolished by the rampaging ‘siege crabs’, with population either dead or under the sway of the ‘Fleshspeakers’ still circling above the ruins. 

 

I stood atop of the fort’s watchtower, the only one that was untouched by the mayhem, and watched as hundreds of my monster girls rushing about among the ruined houses, picking through the ruined houses looking for anything we could use, or gathering the bodies to be fed as fertiliser to the ‘Corruptor’ alien jungle that now surrounded this accursed town. 

 

Humans of this town were more useful dead than alive.

 

I took no pleasure in this though. 

 

Every time I saw one of my girls, regardless of which brood, stepping inside of the burnt structures, I flinched, expecting the sting of pain should any of my followers run into yet another ward - rune or a warding glyph, whatever those were called. 

 

I encountered those before, back in the Viceroy’s castle, only a handful scattered in its hallways, rare and far between only to annoy us, but here, they weren’t limited to the shrine we burned down, but were randomly placed at nearly every second house preventing us from moving freely about the town.

 

We were still uncertain how they worked, but unlike the flashy barriers and the ‘sealing’ spells, the little warding glyphs were far more subtle booby traps that could survive the original caster’s death. Why those, and not others, I couldn’t tell. I didn’t understand the logic behind them. I didn’t understand magic at all. 

 

I just knew they existed, and were, as far as I understood, a single use, single charge. They were like magical landmines scattered around. 

 

While they didn’t ‘seal’ they could kill, and send any of my girls back to the mist, and then to me, with the message of pain and suffering shot through our shared link to remember them by. Even though the disruptions were lost in the sheer numbers of the host, they still hurt. They would have caused serious problems for a much smaller force.  

 

We didn’t know whether to disable them or whether they would run out of power after some time if we left. 

 

I didn’t even know they were there in the first place! They weren’t even triggered by the passing drones - a mind controlled human or animal - only my girls in person. 

 

First, my decision to burn the shrine felt like a knee-jerk reaction. 

 

Then we ran into more of those subtle magical traps, and I had enough. 

 

I never wanted it to come this far, but once I realised how many of the houses had been warded by those strange magical glyphs that brought us so much anguish and suffering to my girls, unlucky enough to trigger them. I did a little to prevent the town’s destruction at that point. 

 

It wasn’t a harsh lesson to us as it was to the town's original inhabitants. 

 

They would have to go. All of them.

 

When we realised that the runes could be carved into the surface, like wooden beams, the ‘Purifiers’ answered it by fireballs, and excessive burning was somewhat saturated by the still smouldering ruins by the rain of seawater controlled by our newest hydrokinetic breed.

 

Nereida and her sisters looked quite careless from a distance. Not only could they control the water, they could levitate above the sea surface with ease, dive, swim underwater, then emerge back up. 

 

Their combined power could even beach a few small ships with the sheer force. The humans attempting to flee across the water didn't make it far. 

 

Yet, I wasn’t confident in our ability to excavate the undersea treasure.

 

The ‘Tidereavers’ - Nereida’s anthropomorphic shark-octopuses - were uniquely suited to the task, but our short experience here made me reconsider sending them out right away. I didn’t have any definite idea what the human priestesses could do. 

 

This nameless town taught us so. 

 

Those little glyph wards weren’t anything new, but the humans were either getting better in utilising their priestesses’ respective magic without coming in contact with each other, or the dragons simply gave them specific instructions to counter us. 

 

I didn’t know. 

 

There was only one being that I knew - the ‘Lady’ - and she was still out. 

 

The dragoness that sided with us was now nothing more than a dozing presence within the host’s telepathic network, mentally stirring within her slumber, and was weakening with every passing moment, slowly dissolving into it. She wouldn’t be capable of the impressive jump-scares by materialising into the physical world as she once did when we met.

 

I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do to stop or reverse the process, and there was a real risk that all the information she wasn’t comfortable sharing would die with her. 

 

Her obsession with worship suggested it was what all dragons needed to fuel their powers, but that was about it. There was nothing to go by. 

 

I was even considering human sacrifice, but I doubted it would work, and dismissed it. 

 

It would be a pointless experiment. We knew the only entity that wasn’t a human, and wasn’t a dragon - The Serpent - and he, or it, needed a host, an anchor person like Ari. 

 

I knew The Serpent was real, but unlike the ‘Lady’, it was remarkably passive, silently tied to Ari. 

 

This left us with the only remaining source of the information - the Scrolls.

 

We needed time to recover them. To do that, we need to get the humans - and their dragon ‘gods’ - to leave us alone. 

 

“Miwah?” 

 

I turned away from the scenery briefly. My pale werewolf lady was here with me, waiting. 

 

Tama, Narita and others were all accounted for, but the town’s watchtower wasn’t that spacious for the entire ensemble to be at my side at the moment. It was also only one, since half of the wooden fort was damaged as a demonstration of the so-called ‘siege crabs’ power. 

 

The ‘Fleshspeaker’ fleshy-drones worked, but this town, this entire encounter, felt more like an attempt to gauge of our abilities, a test bed of sort, rather than anything else - they attempted to seal as many of my girls they could, covered the settlement with overlapping barriers, carved the magical ward to every entrance, made use of gunpowder never seen before - yet they had very few soldiers, a little town to defend, with the little of value. 

 

What were they trying to do besides provoking our wrath? 

 

What if another attack was coming, this time utilising their capabilities to the full extent?

 

Or was something they were defending we weren’t aware of? 

 

There was something I didn’t see, and it worried me. 

 

“Master?” 

 

I looked around, thinking that the original plan with the mind-controlled animals was probably the best course of action. 

 

There were dozens of the scattered remnants of the ‘roach-hounds’. 

 

They didn’t work as well as Angela thought they would. The bodies were disposed of quickly and unceremoniously. I didn’t know if it was the idea of my ‘Overseers’, but the new versions spat acid and launched spikes. The innovation may not be enough. 

 

I looked around, still ignoring Miwah. 

 

Perhaps I should have the ‘Tidereavers’ focus on the fishing, both for food, and to provide the ‘Fleshspeakers’ with the animals to use. Their methods made me shiver, but the meaty living constructs were so far the power unique to us. 

 

The ‘Corruptors’ and ‘Mutators’ didn’t stay behind. There was even a pit, once a rice paddy, filled with the strange fungus and creeper plants that dissolved the corpses. They were giving the term ‘going green’ an entirely new meaning. I didn’t watch too closely, lest I turn green, too.

 

Maybe it was even intended to find the synergy between the ‘Defilers’ and ‘Corruptors’ and ‘Mutators’ and ‘Fleshspeakers’, but sometimes, their work could turn my stomach. Perhaps it was the best thing I didn't eat today…

 

“Yes, Master?” My canine beauty repeated after my continued silence, and came closer, allowing me a support to lean against. Miwah didn’t even return to her usual armour, and was wearing the local clothes, just an overcoat against her soft fur to preserve modesty.

 

“I am sorry, Miwah. I was thinking…” I said, “What should we do next?”  

 

“We are always there for you, Master.” Miwah answered, “All of us. Me and six thousand of my sisters.” 

 

“Six thousand?” 

 

I didn’t see that many, but it was rather moot: they were the ones that could turn invisible. 

 

“Six thousand, four hundred and eight.” She added after briefly consulting the host. I could feel when she did it, and once again I could notice the potent presence of the countless restless voices still whispering at the back of my head. 

 

They were not as overwhelming and terrifying as they once were - they were part of me as much as I was part of them. 

A clear memory that I was once terrified of them, and this new, cruel world felt almost strange, alien, as now I was concerned by their well being instead, and to fight the dangers the humans represented to my furry menagerie. The fact our numbers could double in a matter of days made the clash with the rest of this other-world inevitable, even if our breeds solved the food issue. 

 

More of my girls also meant more targets for the area effect spells the human priestesses used and stronger feedback shot back to the telepathic mind.

 

“Thank you. I will think of something. For now. We need to establish defences here.” I said. With the scroll still within its watery grave, and our rising numbers, we would have to stick to the coast. 

 

“Yes, Master.” Miwah said, in agreement. 

 

“We need to find a defensible spot here on the coast, too.” 

 

“Yes, Master. Scouts are out.” 

 

“Where is Sora anyway?” 

 

“Sora left to look around, Master.” 

 

“Of course she is.” I sighed. She seemed to have an unquenched desire to roam, but we needed to get the lay of the land, anyway. Only thing I could do was hope she wouldn’t make herself an easy target. 

 

“Master! Master!” Meowed the little cat-girl rushing up the tower’s ramp. It seems I had my ‘personal Displacer’ back too, assuming it was the same one, and not a new attendant designed by the ‘Alpha’. There were so many now… it would take more than a glance to tell.

 

Perhaps I should get another fruit of Arcane and turn the small blue-ish anthropomorphic kitten into a panther-like beauty. Name her, give her something I could use to tell her apart from others. 

 

It reminded me of something unrelated. The ‘Displacers’ and their large ‘Warpstalkers’ relatives could teleport away with such an ease it somewhat directed our attention from the other endeavour. Namely, the second scroll, one is the mountains. 

 

There was no guarantee that the piece tossed to the sea contained the information I was looking for. I was underestimating how fragmented it all was. Even if this ‘Oscar’ - I still couldn’t pronounce the long dead sorcerer’s real name - recorded all this knowledge in his mystical grimoire of sorts, but never bound it together. It wasn’t a single book. It was an equivalent of the six hundred pages, hidden separately. 

 

I could be as well as looking for the wrong piece of the entire puzzle, and it frustrated me. 

 

“I want to resume the scouting flights to the northeast of the Valley to search for the burial mound with the second scroll…” I said, “I want to assign a Warpstalker here. A group of Fleshspeakers and a Mutator, perhaps. Maybe even the Eviscerators as claws on the ground…” 

 

“Yes. Master.” 

 

“Maybe a thousand Eviscerators could turn the woods into their hunting grounds…” I mused, there were so many of my werewolves, and so little space: “They would search the area, look for food, and report if they encountered any other humans. Another large group could be allocated to the city as a police force…” 

 

The number was, I realised, insane, but we grew too fast, and we have to spread over the enormous areas, hoping we find more than just enemies to fight as it has been to this point. 

 

“Could even Displacers transport as many?” 

 

We were going back and forth… the valley, then here, to facilitate the attack, and then relocate again. It would strain the teleporting felines too much, maybe. 

 

“Master. Master!” The little ‘Displacer’ was the one who replied this time, cheerful, excited, with her girlish voice. All the smaller versions sounded this way. It doesn’t seem that they were exhausted though, and she implied they didn’t mind going back and forth, so I turned my attention back to the safety concerns once more. 

 

“We need to discourage the humans from messing with us again too…” 

 

In truth, however, I didn’t know what I should do about that until the ‘brain-bug’ - Arke’s proxy created in a questionable way - crawled its way atop of the tower. I had asked ‘Fleshspeakers’ to catch someone too. 

 

We would discourage the humans if they believed they didn’t have an advantage. 

 

“Arke…” I asked, “Did your sisters capture their gunpowder manufacturers?” 

 

Though the locals didn’t figure out guns, they used the flame arrows with the small gunpowder charge tied to the projectile. Though primitive from the modern context, gunpowder was still something I couldn’t reproduce on my own. I knew it was a mixture of saltpetre and charcoal, but the details - the ratios - were beyond me. 

 

“We don’t know…” she answered. “We would browse the minds of the captured ones…” 

 

It was probably for the best. We couldn’t afford humans getting away. Not this time.

 

I wasn’t sure where I could obtain the sulphur, too. Wasn’t that found near volcanic vents?

 

“And the priestesses?” 

 

I asked, watching Helmy with the few tagalongs ‘Purifiers’ testing whether the sword recovered was the special one the ‘Alpha’ had got from the ‘Ravagers’. She seemed quite obsessed with having the flaming sword. And helmet, of course, though the smaller foxies considered the straw hat worn by human soldiers the worthy alternative. 

 

Distraction was soon over, though. 

 

“All dead.” Arke said, through her ‘brain-bug’: “We are sure none of the humans got away.”  

 

“Good.” I said. As much I wanted to avoid a fight, it was clear this was a war which I didn’t know how to win. 

 

“I guess you are now free to experiment to get those drones of yours down to the sea to get that buried scroll. Take who you would need. Nereida would help you as well.” 

 

“Yes, Master!” 

 

As disquieting the ‘Fleshspeakers’ and ‘Overseers’ were with their flesh-shaping powers, the quick gaze at my vixen reminded me that some humans, like the ones that sealed her away, probably deserved to be turned into living processors in the living puppets. 

 

I was almost certain I could feel the ideas forming within the host. 

 

It did not, however, solve the very obvious problem. Next time, the locals could muster more men, more casters, and be more organised. We needed to go better - do better. I needed to be better for my girls.

 

What if some larger human city had more of those casters - priestesses? What if there were forty of them, instead of just four? And those ‘ninjas’ - the ‘elites’ -were a problem, too. There couldn’t be a lot of them, since the humans were still forced to employ the mundane soldiers, but there was a chance for more. 

 

A concentrated force that knew what to do would cause us a lot of problems.

 

Especially if I didn’t know what I was doing. 

 

I looked away and looked again at the ruins. Miwah, sensing my worries, put their clawed hands atop of mine, resting on the railing. 

 

Arke’s puppet flesh construct was about to skitter away, when I realised something: 

 

“Arke, wait!” 

 

“Master!” Her voice once again sounded from the ‘brain-bug’. It was essentially radio when I thought of it, a magical version. 

 

“Do you know why the humans fought us there?” 

 

“No, Master.” she said, “They are humans…” 

 

The certain level of misanthropy was a constant among all of my girls. 

 

“It’s not what I meant.” I explained, gesturing towards the now ruined settlement overrun by my monster girls. There wasn't much left now, and the rest was experiencing the excessive re-modelling, the ‘Corruptor’ style. Locally, there were more monster-girls than the town had, and some of them would even stay. It was, however, not about the occupation. 

 

“Did your sisters, or any other breeds, find anything they were defending?” I continued

 

“We are not sure…” 

 

Neither was I. There were thousands of my girls combing through the ruined buildings as we speak, if there was anything of value it would be found by now. 

 

“Who gave them orders to defend this town? With all that barriers, and wards and magic. Search the memories of some drones you captured here…”

 

The ‘brain-bug’ made a few idle motions, swaying on its spider-legs up and down, as the true mastermind behind it was verifying something. I looked at Miwah. Then in the city. 

 

“Miwah, spare a few of your sisters to search for what was left of the shrine.” I said, “Hidden caches, buried treasure, artefacts, that sort of thing. Even the trinkets that the priestesses had.” 

 

I still remembered the stave. There could be more, I thought, and my mate got my meaning:

 

“Yes, Master.” 

 

I once again looked around. 

 

A few of the ‘Fleshspeakers’ were clearly interested in reshaping the captured humans. Maybe they dug for information in the native’s brains this way, and perhaps, they would even find something. 

 

Only problem was if there was a secret on the need to know basis, and all humans in-the-know perished during our assault, but knowing who was giving them orders may provide some clues as well. I was impatient to find out what they would dig out. 

 

After a brief moment of silence, interrupted only by the random noise, Arke came back. Her voice, once again, sounded from her proxy. 

 

“They were ordered by the dragon,” was the answer.

 

“Which one? Lady was there?” I asked. 

 

The ‘Lady’ had disappeared after trying to convince the fishing village up north. Helmy came from that direction, just made a trip on horseback. A thought made me pause. It could be her. 

 

“No, Master.” Arke said, “Lady is green. This one was red.” 

 

So, it wasn’t the reason for ‘Lady’s’ disappearance. 

 

“The bastard.” I cursed. So, it was him, one that was sending his priestesses to seal away my girls from the start. 

 

Although it changed a very little, I already ordered the destruction of the local shrine exactly because such was the warning I had issued to ‘Red’ for messing with me, and it was all obvious ‌it explained something: How could the humans, isolated from each other by distance, without the modern methods of communication, could know about us. 

 

As I thought, the dragons told them. At least, one specific one did. 

 

What was worse: I couldn’t do anything about it. 

 

Except, perhaps, discourage the humans from doing the dragon's bidding. Acting through followers was, it seemed, their default modus operandi. I had to find a way to disturb that. 

 

“Find me a survivor from this town.” I ordered, “A few of them, their minds and bodies uncharged.” 

 

“Yes, Master.” 

 

I walked down the tower, through the half-ruined fort. Miwah followed me, and Tama, Narita and Ekaterina joined me. They did, however, keep quiet for now, and it seemed Tama and Helmy, the white and red vixens, have the uncharacteristic time socialising among all the destruction. 

 

It was quite a sombre atmosphere here, even if the horde was whole again. 

 

My mind wandered to something else. 

 

Until now, for the first time, I didn’t particularly care what happened to the town’s inhabitants, the phantom pain caused by the ‘sealing’ their priestesses performed, their barriers that shot pain through the host, their warded houses to cause as much suffering to my girls even passing through their town - it all doomed the town in my mind. 

 

It felt different from the entire episode with the Viceroy. Different from spiteful people throwing rocks, from the city’s problems that didn’t quieten much right now. 

 

I didn’t know why. 

 

But I wasn’t going to let this one slide, even if they might be unwitting pawns in the game of dragons. 

 

They dragged five random humans into the scorched fields. They were all unconscious. Four females, one male.

 

It surprised me that ones doing the dragging were a mixed force that included humans, humans who were not zombified. They, upon throwing the captives into the mud, bowed down. No one bowed down. I saw no practical benefit from it. Only Ari did so, and she didn’t have to either. 

 

They seemed rather confused, nervous, but not scared, and were a strange group indeed. One that led them was a man, in a typical armour I’ve seen among the Viceroy’s guard, but the other was, I guess, a former priest in tattered robes, and three seem like village women. 

 

All looked like they went through the battle. They were unlikely to be local, from this nameless town, but from our holdings to the north, which meant they would need to survive the trip through the portal…

 

The leading men said something. I desperately needed a translator, but I would deal with this later. 

 

If Ari worked with us, the other humans could too. I guessed. 

 

They jerked a little when an ‘Overseer’ landed nearby. They were bigger than the ordinary ‘Fleshspeakers’, but she said nothing 

 

It made me feel certain … assurance… in what I wanted to do. 

 

“Could you wake them up?” I asked. 

 

I didn’t know if the stun induced by my bat-girls could be turned off. I only know, once the contact with the claws was made, it was practically over for the human. 

 

The ‘Overseer’ hummed the tone, more a series of chirps and clicks than the actual screech they made otherwise, and the captives began to wake up. It was strange this worked through the sound, rather than anything else, especially if the associated element was ‘mind’, but it didn’t matter. 

 

There was no time to ponder this. 

 

One human tried to run, getting faster up than the other, but his collision with Ekaterina didn’t end well for him, and he was rag-dolled into the other captive trying to fight back. They groaned in pain, but I didn’t quite care. 

 

The other three humans were slower, and tried to get back to their feet, but this time, it was the ‘loyalists’ - I had no better word for the humans on our side that found their way there - pushed them down. 

 

I took a deep breath and asked, 

 

“Translate for me, please.” I said, and the ‘brain-bug’ skittered closer. 

 

It terrified the captives, and they started to struggle. I didn’t understand what they were saying, but at this moment, it doesn’t matter.

 

“I never wanted to fight any of you. I never wanted to attack your town…” I said aloud this time, paused, waiting for Arke to finish translating through her personal construct, ignoring the cries from the captives startled even further by the disembodied voice. 

 

“... but your priestess sealed my people. This means war. You will go to the nearest town, and the town after, and you tell them, all of them, what happened there ....” 

 

I waited briefly while the construct once again translating into the local tongue. 

 

“...tell them, if they ever seal away any of my girls, we will kill not only your priestess but also every single person in the village, in the town, in the city, she came from…” 

 

The ‘brain-bug’ once again continued, it seemed smoother than it was with the usual, zombified villager doing the talking, hinting at the improvement in the way ‘Fleshspeakers’ and ‘Overseers’ handled things, but I couldn’t say for sure. 

 

“...and we will continue to do so until your red dragon runs out of worshippers.” 

 

The more translation. 

 

“This is your last chance to sort this out peacefully.” 

 

I didn’t know if my speech worked. There certainly were protests from the captives. Words I once again didn’t understand, but they were very quickly silenced by their own former countrymen. It was rather strange to see one of the human females kicking another, but they apparently didn’t agree. 

 

“Am I clear?” 

More protests. 

 

“Am I clear?” 

 

Once I raised my voice, they quieted down, and I waved them away. 

 

“Take them away. Release them at the edge of the town, let them run towards the nearest town. There must be more down the road.” 

 

“Yes, Master.” Miwah said, and this time, it was the ‘Eviscerators’ that dragged the screaming humans away. I have a feeling that it didn’t go well. 

 

“They said they will never submit, Master.” Arke provided the helpful translation. I thought they weren’t happy with the terms, considering the overall tone, and this confirmed it, but considering how disastrous our relations with the humans were at the moment, anything other than total war could be counted as an improvement. 

 

Strangely enough, the five ‘loyalists’ stayed, kneeled down, their heads bowed to the ground. I was wondering which of my girls brought them over. 

 

The man said something. I didn’t understand, and spared a glance at the ‘translation engine’ - the idling ‘brain-bug’ swung up and down on its spider legs, and Arke, on the other end, finally translated. 

 

“He said that they will serve you, and in return, grant them the blessing of the dark gods.” 

 

What? 

 

I paused, even though, the second later, I remembered Ari once had called the unspecified change the ‘Fleshspeakers’ did to her a ‘blessing’. I had doubts it was one. She was the only one which was immune to the negative side effects, and I did recall she could easily break the grown man’s arm despite her diminutive stature, which 

 

“Tell them it may kill them. Ari was the only one which didn’t end up deformed.”   

 

There was no telling what exactly he said, but the man, the speaker for the tiny group, replied. I looked towards the ‘brain-bug’. 

 

“Your choice survived. Their faith is strong too, he said, that they survived the first test.” 

 

What was the first test? A portal? Which of my girls ordered this? 

 

I would sort this out later. As much as I was opposed to experimenting on humans, especially the rarely cooperative ones, I still made a split second decision: 

 

“Try to make the same changes first done to Ari?” 

 

The ‘Overseer’ came closer, and it was quite eerie to watch the humans eagerly await the bat-girl to step on them. 

 

A first one, the young man in the torn priestly garb, had died screaming as his flesh suddenly experienced the unsuspected cancerous growth tearing his skin apart, reducing him to nothing more than the same deformed drone as the other zombified villagers were. It shabled away. 

 

It was horrifying.

 

Yet, they weren’t cowed, and the next suppliant, a middle-aged human female, threw herself under the bat-girls claw, willing to risk the same death as the former priest had experienced, mumbling to herself something in her tongue. 

 

And, to my shock, she survived. No abnormal growth, and if anything, she was better for it. 

 

She was immune! 

 

How? 

 

More murmurs in the remaining humans grew stronger. Maybe they were praying, I didn’t know, but since it sparked a reaction within the host - the ‘Fleshspeakers’ were eager to find a better test subjects - it was likely not important 

 

Next transformation, the next human woman survived, her body not hideously mutated. 

 

And the other one did as well.

 

Impossible, we never found anyone immune, except for Ari! 

 

I was about to stop them when it was time for the former guard to be transformed - after all, the Viceroy would not be happy if his few remaining soldiers had died - and I was starting to suspect that, for some reasons, only women could be immune. And then, he survived too. 

 

This sparked a reaction in the humans, which now continued the chant, and I was about to ask which of my girls dragged them here to this fight even though it was, originally, meant to include just drones. 

 

“Master…” 

 

But then, I was greeted by the sudden stab of pain. 

 

The ‘Tidereaver’, the anthropomorphic shark-octopus, materialised from the burst of the ruby fog, and then two ‘Corruptors’ did, all writhing in pain on the ground. Narita rushed to help them. 

 

I was about to demand the explanation, expecting the attack, but Miwah announced: 

 

“Master. Nereida did it.”

 

“What?” 

 

“They brought the scroll to the shore!”