>>70182684

Things picked back up again with a cry for help from the dwarven Fatherclans back in the mortal world. They found themselves on the receiving end of an underbug expansion - horse sized man-eating monsters - and true to my guess they had no real allies to turn to. The elves hated them, the human kingdoms didn't care, and the horde camps didn't work for free.

I didn't work for free either, as a general rule - but there was a bigger prize at the end of the path of charity, where doing the right thing paid off more than any amount of gold. And that prize was loyalty, earned the hard way. Aecus already owed me one when he came to ask my unit for help again like we were some kind of miracle workers. Lucky for them we were able to take some of Havarra's people out on loan. So on their honor they pledged to work off their debt to our realm for three generations, the kind of up front help they couldn't get from anyone else - and something their pride would never have let them ask for from anyone else either; the kinship Aecus' clan felt for me after being comrades for so long being the only exception. I never really wanted them to pay us back though, I just wanted an excuse for all of us to be together.

That was how the nor-easter dwarven nations joined our covenant. It was a critical moment in our history, to go beyond our keep and serfdom into true nationality; we'd also considered Nebaron our territory - or perhaps Havarra considered us her's. But from the viewpoint of the mortal world, this was where we really stepped into the scene as the movers and shakers of our time.

>>70182942

The most interesting development was watching the dwarves' reactions to our appearance, and later after a few victories how their perception of demons would be challenged - as we showed up in combined arms with Tel`ryn's portion of her mother's forces. Daies did most of the grunt work below while Hitsito and I focused on surface movements, and by the time things wrapped up we had embassies to the east and south, and could comfortably call all the northlands our own.

Daies, paranoid as he was, started to blame neighboring disasters and tragedies among the human kingdoms as Khe`lanya's work after that. He also had me ask Havarra for a good portion of land in Nebaron as our own extraplanar realm, as if it would somehow be safer in the nether dimensions than on good ol terra firma.

Summoning circles and visits were about as often as we were able to bridge the void between worlds to come to Nebaron before, but for the first time we began to build a permanent gate; and gave settling Nebaron serious thought. Along with how to make dwelling there bearable, Hitsito was also working on what industry would make migrating worth the stay. Most all of Tel`ryns sisters had been liberated at that point, so I just agreed to everything with a smug satisfaction that Havarra wasn't just marrying off her champions wholesale; and I told myself that my position was either valuable to her, or actually meant something to her on a deeper level.

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>>70183043

I got a lot of criticism in those days out on the fringes of our little sphere of influence, despite being in bed with the reigning authority, or perhaps because of it? It was mostly about whether or not I was causing more problems than solving, mixed in with some of my indiscretions and bad habits. Really not the big problems of our time. But the nature of most people, sadly, was to put up with oppression or relax from pushing themselves forward if they were able to get comfortable in their dead-end lives. Not thinking of their future fate, they waved a banner of peace and asked us to settle or deal with our neighbors. But I wasn't going to allow anyone to subjugate us, and they would have if given half a chance. Anyone that hadn't been on the frontlines or in the political arena really had no idea what they were talking about.

Tel`ryn helped me shut down the dissident 'heroes' in our realm with an Arms For Nebaron act which used magic detection by marshals in local provinces to identify anyone above a hedgewizard or with comparable latent power. Then behind the scenes the sisters and their agents would intervene before any real separatist movement could get organized. Standard stuff for dealing with mortals like us, she teased.

It was true though, we didn't have any problems in Nebaron proper, just with the kingdoms of man. I had imagined that governing a place of horrors like Nebaron, being in the abysse and all, would be quite chaotic; but the minds of demons and our other fiendish peoples were almost alien. They viewed time and authority from the perspective of eternities and covenants. They shifted and moved far less often, but always with great consequence.

>>70183288

Around Tel`ryn and her family was the only place I really caught a break. I wasn't expected to be anything more than myself. The level of welcoming and acceptance was more seductive than their enthralling power. I didn't have to prove myself to them, and they entrusted me with many things. For the first time in forever I didn't feel alone anymore and I started to let my guard down.

It was then that I knew this is what I wanted to protect, this is what I wanted to build. But nothing made that feeling more solid than Tel`ryn's very late confession that the charm that had enchanted her to come with me in the beginning had actually only lasted a few weeks - and everything she had witnessed and felt since then was truly genuine. It was a subject I'd avoided for the longest time, as if I'd prefer to have lived the dream, than asking a question I didn't want the answer to - but it meant a lot and I finally felt a sense of fulfilment.

It's odd for a demoness to say that she's proud of you, and that she believes in you - but since no one else did, her word was worth it's weight in gold. I did wonder at odd times here and there, if this meant her realm was becoming softer, or if this meant I was becoming more corrupt; but the dwarves at least thanked us, and said they owed us their lives.

too long

>>70183568

This was about the time I met the brood-queen Sanshrax, a distant neighbor of Havarra's. The offer of what she could do was impossible to ignore, and impossible to avoid. I really did try everything else possible, before turning to her. She alone had the power to spiritually build from magic a replacement for the natural piece of my soul that Ildash had bitten out. A lineage with Tel`ryn was important to me at this point, and even if it wasn't such a personal matter - a lot still hinged on it. No one I knew could undo what Ildash had done.

So in taking great pains to go in secret, without ever telling anyone, I let Sanshrax and her gifts be the vessel for my firstborn son. She was the one who 'healed' me of my spiritual damage.

I traded that son to her per our agreement, and then I returned to Nebaron.

Even until now, no one had known this.

What actually happened to Storythread? It was supposed to start every Friday.

>>70183860

No idea but I would be so down for that.

>>70183733

That same year Daies and Hitsito, realizing the scope of our universe a little better than myself - kept getting into longer and longer talks about what we needed to do in order to defend our world and Nebaron from the other spiritual forces out there. Especially considering a good seventy percent of the world followed the rule of different nations and offered prayers to their various patron deities; referred to in the northern tongue as the 'pantheon of twelve'. There were others as well but they weren't as important, and their western names are garbage anyway.

Point is we weren't the only supernatural force on the block. Our story and rise to power wasn't even unique, the lost lands of Odneth were a wasteland now after they failed to get where we were - and in contrast the Shining Cities further out west had their own hero-kings and if the rumors were to be believed they actually outclassed us. In this light Nebaron was far from the richest or strongest.

We'd need one of two things to establish a permanent future; divine spark of our own, or a weapon that could pacify beings in a higher league than us. Daies wanted to puff up his chest with the former, I wanted to make everyone sit down and calm down with the latter - and Hitsito warned it was better to do neither and just avoid attracting more attention.

The solution Daies came up with then was to casually announce that this entire time he had a twin sister who was also a vampire and was a genius with magic. Real archmage material. She'd give us a leg up over our neighbors.

>>70183905

So the plan was I would consort with Khe`lanya and discover the secrets behind divinity, while Hitsito went to free Daies' sister - since Daies himself couldn't step foot anywhere near where she was sealed up lest they both get destroyed by ancient curses and a bunch of other dire warnings. Hitsito left with some instructions and her name - 'Destamona', while I explained to Tel`ryn and her sisters why I wouldn't be keeping them company for the next week.

On the way out of Nebaron, Hitsito and I were walking to the translocation circles by Zephyr's Court. He asked me why I kept doing this, getting in deeper instead of backing out. I asked him what he would give to be able to go back and save his wife and his old hometown? He said anything. I told him changing the nature of this world isn't going to happen by hiding under a rock and crossing our fingers, we're going to have to change it ourselves. He said we were going to regret playing at being gods. I told him we weren't playing.

Khe`lanya was to my surprise extremely generous, something that wouldn't make sense to me or any of us for a long time. She gave me both an explanation along with a tiny gift of divinity. Almost as if she was raising a prophet in understanding her ways. In doing so I was really disillusioned about what it meant to be a 'god' and what real power was. All kinds of beings grab even a scrap of power and start calling themselves demigods or even start entire religions around receiving worship to gain more power. I found the whole truth of the matter to be oddly mortal, despite all the boasting about how 'eternal' everyone was.

There was no supremely invincible, omnipotent, or omnipresent being to be found in our neck of the woods. Not saying it wasn't out there, but it wasn't here, the only thing we had here were a bunch of people who pretended. You could even kill gods, and the mythos is full of fallen gods - whenever two or more began to fight to the finish and other examples.

>>70184042

It seemed to me as if that's not a real 'god' and I had a feeling there was something deeper behind it, but those answers could wait. Whether or not our neighbors lived up to my theory - they were still stupidly overpowered.

Khe`lanya explained these things and then asked me questions about my purpose. After a while, with a wave of her hand, she summoned a wrinkle in space that looked like a glowy dandelion tuft - if it had a tiny bubble of electricity around it instead of fuzz. It floated gently my way. She said this was the truth behind a divine spark, it was metaphorically called a Throne like a seat of power for the divine to reign from. This one was the Throne of Sympathy - a toy to her more than a true power. It contained the wish of wanting to be known, and it was a kind of cursed fragment of it at that, it wasn't even the whole thing anymore after she was done with it.

But she said I could have it and experiment with it; as I would either master its compulsive suggestions and control its power to wish, or it would consume my spirit to fuel itself and then propagate after sucking me into it whole. It was an anomaly of space and time, the leftovers of a great primordial mystery.

I told her about Daies being paranoid and asked her to understand; she did. I also told her how thankful I was, and then just kept the rest to myself. She was still an enigma to me, and I knew that she knew how I felt without explaining it. But that didn't stop us from having a good time. Her presence was deeply rooted in my soul, and her nature had grown on me. So all I really had to do now was keep Daies from doing anything dumb; and I'm sure Hitsito was thinking the same thing about me.

I woke up vomiting in a gigantic crater, and immediately regretted everything.

Taking a little break, to resume as signal allows on road trip time~

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>>70184140

As I held my stomach I wondered how I ended up on my knees in front of Daies. The both of us were covered with lacerations and burns. His clothes were tattered and about half of my finest suit of armor was still intact as I found myself wearing what was left of it. He was holding up an amulet, and grinning a crazy grin.

His story was that I had started acting weird and distant, visited Shalba De`Aise again for some unknown reason, and then went missing. Tel`ryn and the gang searched for me, which should have been a piece of cake since I was bound spiritually to several succubi at this point. But after a few months it seemed like I really had completely disappeared.

He said that later he was was deployed to the southern human duchies to figure out why Hitsito's supply train of magical regeants had stopped coming in - and found several cults dedicated to the demigod Driter hiding in the human cities. Driter served Our Lady In Dwindling Lights or otherwise known as The Spider Queen. Dark elf sorcerors and Handmaidens were after all about the last thing you'd expect to find on the surface several hundred miles from home. Driter himself was feared for two things; his ability to possess, and to transmute victims into abominations. He'd always been active, kept coming back from being smited in the legends, and always knocking at the door of his Queen's abyssal prison. But the sealing work keeping her away had been done in such a fashion that the only way to release it involved smashing the temple obelisks topside which constantly received power from the moon and sun. To reach just one, you'd have to cross hallowed ground, get through a vigil of guards, and then the magical barrier for it that the Pantheon worshippers refreshed daily.

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>>.70185728

If one were actually taken out, it would no doubt invoke the immediate involvement of said Pantheon; let alone orchestrating how to take out all five, being placed as they were nations apart. Daies however saw this cult in it's early stages planning to do just that, and followed them to an abandoned mining town they'd been using as a staging area. He said he used his own brand of special tactics to get help and infiltrate the lowest dungeons of this makeshift stronghold - which was his way of telling me not to ask questions because I wouldn't like the answers - but the point is he got inside.

In order to make sure no one could escape, he'd hired two covens of mages and had the area boxed in with barriers. He had hexes to dispel translocation and planeshifting, and then had left them with orders to dump siege grade spells on top of it while he started to clear it from below.

It would have been a milk run for him, honestly not much more than cleaning house, given his abilities. He was like an army into himself, even without the support of magic.

Then he met me, decked in full war gear.

Then he said the whole mine exploded.

>>70185897

His vampiric arts saved him, and some supernatural force was protecting me; and when we both rose from the rubble he said I came at him to finish him off. He described a lot of my usual moves, arts, and mixing in firebreathing, but he said that me using telekinesis and psychic attacks was new.

He took the beating like a champ and then paid me back pound for pound in melee. Through attempting to end it by dominating me he discovered a spirit of possession infecting me. The strange thing was, instead of his usually cruel methods and his 'cut losses' mentality he decided against destroying me utterly, and he took a stab just to get in close and get me into a submission hold.

I suppose the only reason his brain didn't melt out of his ear trying that against a psychic demon of that calibre was that he was already undead. Anything else nearby was getting blown apart or juiced by invisible forces. Then he commanded the covens to exorcise me with their sealing abilities.

That was how he ended up wagging an amulet in front of my face and appearing quite pleased with himself for having bested me.

I asked him why he didn't just kill me and he shrugged and said that it was because we were friends. I asked him what was in the amulet and he teased me, asking me if I really wanted to know. I insisted, so he asked me again. And then he told me; it was Chaos, the avatar of Driter.

>>70186368

He said he had to dig really deep to get him out, it took every trick he knew and the lives of about twenty wizards, and that was even after they'd boxed us in and gained the advantage by cutting Driter off from all the other dimensions he could reach through. He started talking about how he didn't know I had such a messed up life. He said now he knew all about me, and then he promised it would be our little secret.

He also said that since we were such great friends, surely I wouldn't mind covering the hazard fees from the two guilds he hired. Also to be aware that the survivors blacklisted us. And also the king's court would probably prefer to see me instead of him, him being a vampire and all. I groaned, and he patted my back.

He asked me when this all started, and I told him about Khe`lanya's gift. His expression fell a little like he had some choice words to say about that and then he helped me up. We promised to talk more about it after we got back, and he seemed really excited all of a sudden. I asked him why.

He said "Now you get to meet Desta."

There was rejoicing in Nebaron upon my return, as well as with the news of Daies' victory. His sortie with Driter served as a proof of concept for how we'd be able to engage a being that could pull ridiculous amounts of power down onto us from their home dimensions. It was the first iteration of the only real viable tactic we had, head to head fights would be out of the question. The price to employ it wasn't cheap either - as it involved the most powerful mages we had being willing to go up in smoke as cannon fodder to land our heaviest enchantments - and then throw honor to the wind in a beat down reminisce of a schoolyard jumping.

>>70187002

We were convinced that we all needed each other at that point. Together, we could do it.

Destamona was incredibly happy to be free. Her quest since before her banishing was to be reunited with her brother, and now there they were. A nice little reunion. Where Daies' arts were fueled by his appetite, Destamona had devoted herself to the spiritual study of that same gift and used its secrets to open a path to high arcana - which put her in the same league as most demigods; for all of the two minutes she could keep up in casting their class of spells. But thats not really a criticism, if we're doing things correctly then her spiritual limit shouldn't even enter the equation - done right, an opponent should fall in the first few blows.

Tel`ryn and the family let me know they had been worried sick about me, and it was really awkward actually.

I'd never seen a demon cry before.

The mosh pit of greetings we received in the palace courtyard made its way inside, and I remember it being pretty easy just to tell everyone I had amnesia, and Daies didn't volunteer anything damning. I felt like there were still some missing pieces but whatever he saw in my head he kept quiet about it even to me.

I was really glad for it to be over so I just filed it away into my past. To be buried and never brought up again. Daies' possession of the amulet sealing Driter lead to a discussion about what to do exactly, and also what to do when we brought in other artifacts or prisoners that should be sealed up forever. Nebaron already had several dungeon layers, but we decided it was time to translocate the palace into a new capitol realm, with Nebaron proper safe from whatever we put inside it.

>>70187165

To effect this I shared the gift Khe`lanya had given me with them, as whatever that ordeal was I'd obviously survived it, amnesia or not - and we all became confident in using it. Destamona suggested we fuse The Throne of Sympathy into the palace and channel its reality bending influence rather than trying to use it directly, and immediately won the approval of the safety conscious Hitsito. The days of Daies' and I outvoting Hitsito into doing something reckless were over. I tried to object about how that's not how I heard it works but then they started talking about routing and it became pretty obvious that their understanding of magic was going way over my head.

That was the time when we all worked together to create Shivan De`Harren, a realm that could house just the capitol and the palace, with the tightest vaults we could enchant descending into the underlevels, and near the bottom we locked away Driter.

Destamona taught me a lot about magic after that, not that it helped me cast anything. It worked out well for her though, being the brooding-in-darkness type with a sly smile, airs of nobility, and a voice that wanted to sound important. Perfect for lectures actually, but she'd glare when I said that. She had no patience at all for my slow grasp of written language, and my mispelling words resulted in more than one failed scroll-writing. But I was a warlord, not a scholar, and I paid scribes for that.

She had no patience for excuses either.

I mostly got a grasp of magical theory, and in turn it helped me understand more about my own innate draconic abilities. I told her my strength came from a noble dragon bloodline and being blessed by a grip of supernatural people, that's really where I felt home and in my element - sword in hand, keeping it simple. Daies could crack jokes about me using the power of friendship all he wanted, the truth is that nothing had ever been able to kill me.

>>70187398

She told me that fighting spirit wasn't going to be enough if we really started to use a wishgranter properly. I told her there was a difference between the artifacts she'd known and what Khe`lanya had given us. A whole dimension of difference. She asked me what was the right way to use it then? And I got frustrated at not having a clear idea - so I eventually accepted her education, and later Havarra's.

I felt great, and refreshed, after learning divine theory, the curse of misfortune that had been following me to plague friends and loved ones was gone; and I no longer suffered from any headaches or hallucinations.

She was right in the end, having the correct idea of arcane principles really did help me focus clearly on what exactly I wanted, and how I wanted the Throne of Sympathy to execute that wish. We started small and in secret, mainly inside Shivan De`Harren. We built an infrastructure, and started taking on roles as we grew into places of legitimate leadership.

It was strange for me, since I was used to leading by merit of strategy, tactics, and good old fashioned guts, that kind of thing. With my mind always on how to crush any conflict that came my way, that same zeal for being a commander put me in the position to be responsible for, and answer for, a lot of the things we did. I ended up speaking for us and spearheading most of our political movements, in addition to the military affairs I shared with Daies.

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>>70187636

We called it an alliance, which popularized into being called "The Lords' Alliance". I was called a lot of names at that time, but we'll go with Lord of Valor as the most appropriate one. Daies was always put in a position to do the dirty work whenever we took his leash off, and so he was The Lord of Blood. He handled judgement, and all the things relating to death. Destamona was known as The Lady of Pain, and handled our secrets. Hitsito was the Lord of Arms but we still just called him Hitsito the Armory; he was put in charge of security after a show match between him and a simulacrum of myself that Tel`ryn helped make. Havarra disappeared from public light at that point, as that made it much easier for her to work as she pleased, and delegated a lot of things to us; which was kind of how she'd been grooming us. I remember her spending a lot of time with Lynchbolin.

Around this time the southernmost kingdoms of our world were beset by the monsters displaced from the midlands between us and the shining cities. A horde, but unlike Sethuk's, they were raiders and slavers. The kingdoms of man needed us, and I used it as leverage to bury the proverbial hatchet, and unite our realms.

To the gang and a few new faces, I told them that if we weren't willing to go all the way, a lot of people would die. We'd either commit ourselves to saving them, or give up and return to selfish border wars. The choice was theirs; but we didn't have the army to do both.

Daies returned to our world then to conquer a lot of the monstrous territories, which netted us both the creatures he dominated, and the loyalty of the kingdoms of man. That was how both of those factions and their nearby neighbors, ended up joining our covenant. I gave everyone the same promise to the same future, monster and man alike. It wasn't easy, but a system of indentured servitude took the edge off our greatest threats to peace.

>>70187677

The "Spare The Servant" canon was oddly embraced for the veiled slavery that it was. But I suppose it made sense after we enacted the far greater mercy of banning death or eternal punishments with very few exceptions.

Protestors compared this act to my word against accepting Pantheon subjugation and called me a hipocrit; but what I did built people up, not tear them down. Big difference between us and them. I felt no shame in it then, and I still don't today.

The Pantheon declared us as heretics that same year, and started sending their priests and holy warriors to remind the local kings where their loyalties were supposed to lie. Our people got into it with their people on a few small scales but the Pantheon still hadn't shown themselves directly.

Tel`ryn and I started a family around that time, we named the crown prince Lachlan, and the first princess we named Ancaria. My other illegitimate children that had no claim to the throne were honored in different ways depending on their ability and who the mother was. With a complicated family which I imagine was Havarra's plan from the start, bias and favor could have been major issues of dissention. It still was a little bit, but we counteracted most of it through The Meritocracy, and The Common Councils. What would happen in future days was projected to be a period of ambition, and for better or worse I would lead them all to be as strong as I was, when the time came, through The Bastard Legion.

Through expansion new heroes joined our cause, Van the bounty hunter, Stefan the troll, Scryver pledged to me directly as a dark elf paladin, Khayotica the master theif, Rauntek the rat-man, and Drake the silver dragon. There were a host of others, too. A variety of people, from all walks of life. Different cultures, different races, good and evil both mixing under our banner of freedom. We had a place for everyone and there was harmony to it. These were the happiest years of our realm, and we felt invincible.

>>70187784

I would soon personally respond to the charges against us by the Shining Cities and I requested trial by combat since I knew they were by this point looking for a fight. It cut them off from dragging our militaries into it, and they agreed to it as I took responsibility for the realm, and I offered a bounty for my own defeat. They'd echoed the call that Nebaron was heretic, and they assumed ownership of the failing guilds that had suffered from Daies' influence.

So, after making a public notice of it, and me offering directly what their people wanted - justice and gold - their high lords couldn't back out unless they went against their own people. Which was a possibility I supposed, but I gambled all their honor and white knighting didn't leave room for subterfuge. Without them being able to leverage their superior force, and without being able to steamroll us with their economy, what proceeded next was a series of one on one duels between myself and their best champions.

This was exactly what I wanted, and I was in the zone. I crushed them mercilessly over the course of a week under their custody. I didn't come out of it unscathed, but being able to go all out against a single foe was just way too much for them to handle individually. Duke Weylon was so furious about the indignation he donned his greatest artifacts, got the blessings of light to counter my dark gifts, and brought a set of plate down in order to come and be my final judge.

Him, trained by the best knights of the order, armored to the gills, a veteran and no slouch by any means. He was feared in single combat, and his name got passed on after the wester tourneys as champion of champions. But here's the rub, he was only feared by people like him who played by The Code. He was a second line leader, in the traditional way of western kings. He was the kind to take the field, and pick some sorties to join, fight and take his licks to win glory: but he wasn't a vanguard leader like I was.

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>>70187917

I put myself on the front line; first time, every time. He didn't know how to handle getting stuck in the crunch, or slogging through the hell of a breaking formation, butchering and being butchered; to hold it when no one else could. He hadn't used his own body to break the enemy where they were strongest, like I had.

He was good, but he was just not prepared at all for the level of savagery with which I was willing to fight. His armor was sectioned better than mine, and he radiated with a power that suggested he was ready to beat his way through mine. Enchantments like the ones we used in the elite class would make any smith cry. His claymore to my bastard was a problem, a lot of good reason to be scared. But this was nothing new to me.

It cost me a wing to get in close, and it cost a rib to stay close. He was unimpressed by my fearsome arts, and warded against my breath of fire, and so the fight devolved into a melee. It was rough, a ferocious series of knocks, kicks, and half-swording, punctuated by breaks in distance which we monopolized on with the fiercest full-hipped swings - but by the end of it everyone was quiet. His joints broke, where mine endured. Not because my armor was better, because it wasn't, but for every swing of his I was cranking a shot up under his arm and would press him with two or three more, to the hip, knee, head, back into the arm again.

I was wheezing under his own strikes as our brawl wore on, but he didn't have what it took to end me. When the sections of his mail split I roared; the strength of dragonblood and a magic sword would cleave through. Some lucky parts remained firmly attached upon him, unlike others. But whether missing or pulverized it all bled out - dangled and broken. What was left of Weylon limply flopped down, and no longer breathed.

It was messy, on us and around us, and I was unashamed of the sense of brutal satisfaction.

>>70187999

I appealed to them then, that they needed to abandon their useless gods. They hadn't been favored when they sent us mage covens, they hadn't been favored during the horde war that the gang and I had to go put down, and they hadn't been favored today either.

I was gambling to see if I'd remain standing, un-struck by lightning and un-smited after blaspheming their gods. And it was a gamble I won. For as active as they were, I thought it was odd that they'd even bother to proclaim us as heretic instead of simply showing up to end us. So I told the people of the Shining Cities that I was sorry for what happened to them, especially to the ones entrusted to me - I didn't mention Daies - but that I'd make it up to them if they gave up this foolishness.

I struck a deal to give them half the treasures they'd wanted as payment, and since no one else was willing to fight me on honorable terms to serve me my 'justice', I was released. Nobody left happy, but at least the worst case scenario had been averted.

I had a hunch afterwards that the Pantheon was actually spread thin - across more worlds than just our own - and that the people were secretly upset about not being as blessed as they expected. This was not the Pantheon's favourite world.

I got healed up, and due to the nature of the curses that accompanied my wounds we started using deific power to expedite the process. We fabricated a new eye for me while we were at it, which would only last as long as we held on to a divine spark - but that wasn't a big deal, we'd have more to worry about than my eye if we lost that.

In general we started using deific power more and more, until it became a part of us. We developed a structured religion, directed prayers and offerings of treasure our way, and became the very thing I'd mocked.

>>70188057

I remember telling Daies that I was afraid of what would happen if we drank too deeply of cosmic power. He asked if I was going to chicken out like Hitsito? I told him no, I wasn't afraid of the attention, it was about ourselves. I asked him how much he thought our minds would change, unburdened by mortal concern, dimension, or at its greatest heights even time? He shrugged and said it was nothing new for him because he was a vampire. I told him this was going to be different, and I didn't know at what concentration of deific power that a mind would snap, its worldview permanently changed. He told me not to worry about it too much, since we weren't common or weak-willed people. I asked him if we usurped other divine thrones and consumed them, would he still be the same? His word that nothing had changed him in thousands of years was a comfort to me.

Hitsito had given up asking us to stop making waves at this point, and instead focused on how the kingdoms of man could stay relevant without all the monstrous gifts or elder powers. He wanted mankind to come out of this un-corrupted.

So that's why he helped us build the Planar Cannon.

It was really more of a gigantic tower than a traditional cannon. The basic concept, was to strike with something that was the bane of whatever it touched, of a size that could not be dodged and at a speed that could not be reacted to and with a force that could blow through even a divine being.

To do this it would consume a ridiculous amount of raw magical substances and enchanted ores, shrunken down from the site of a mountain where it would have to be prepared in advance, as each attack with it would expend literally that much material.

>>70188089

Over a dozen planar gates and a slew of siege class magics would be used to accelerate our weapon down through the tower using the most intense cosmic forces we could find, which would then arrive preceded by an antimagic cascade, pass through it within the bow shock of its own aura, and in the same moment it penetrated all defenses, strike, as it burst, discharged all magic and a core charge of our divine energy, while unshrinking.

I had though it of a power to humble our rival 'gods', or level a belligerent town perhaps. But we were no where near prepared to witness the scale of destruction brought on by our own creation.

The Pantheon however was.

Despite my predictions about their lack of good information, and poor reaction time, we were unable to complete it before they responded. Back then I didn't know how they were tipped off, or able to bypass all of our defenses without warning; but one of the Pantheon's heavyweight god-squad members, The Knight Of Endless Glories, literally blasted through the shelves of our library as he arrived in the heart of Shivan De`Harren.

I was at the time personally screening the result of a side project Tel`ryn and I were working on. She and I would have meetings with various guildhouses and get copies or originals of as many chronicles and religious histories as we could get our hands on in order to know our enemy better.

In the process we were also gathering a compendium of one of every spell - a work in progress, but it was worth millions at least.

And in an instant it was sundered, pages flying everywhere as this radiantly armored man almost twice my size grabs me by the neck, and slams me back against the wall.

>Dinner break time, maybe 4 posts left to the end of this part.

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>>70188146

I could sense his murderous intent, and he said he'd make an example out of me. Everyone would learn from me, that when you take heresy this far, the result would be complete annihilation. Im sure it comforted him to posture a bit, the Pantheon always wanted to be seen as the top dog. In that last moment before I was blasted to kingdom come, I wished for a way to bring myself back, and a safe vessel to keep that secret where the Pantheon could never find it. After I was eradicated, witness was that The Knight vanished as quickly as he came.

This began The Great War.

In it's opening months Hitsito and Stefan used guerilla tactics to raid the places of worship for the Pantheon. It was the first part of a two step plan to bait them to spread out their forces and reduce what they kept behind in their home realms. They'd have to reinforce temple locations and the idea was that they didn't know that we didn't know how many they actually had. So by picking random locations as far away from each other as possible the pressure was turned up on them.

Stefan took a special interest in this conflict as it escalated into divine realms. He was willing to go to many lengths to discover true immortality, the secrets of life, regeneration and resurrection. Him and Hitsito were like two sides of the same coin, where Hitsito wanted the same thing, but was absolutely critical on not becoming corrupted or compromising himself. Hitsito wanted to remain fully human, and lead by example into the path humanity should take. I had been somewhere in the middle.

The Pantheon weren't idiots or powerless, however, and responded by wiping our southwestern provinces completely off the map. Whatever they wished for, it broke the barrier between those locations and the Abysse, making hell on earth literally spew up in those townships; before they were translocated wholesale down into damnation; far beneath the middle dimensions near Nebaron, put to rest beside the Queen of Spiders.

>>70190426

This agitated the other demon kings of renown, as some of the biggest names we knew of down there had all been banished from our world much in the same way. They were all itching to have access to the prime real estate which was our world, as ripe in magical creatures and wonders as it was. They saw our world in a totally different light than the Pantheon.

So our misfortune would later lead both to our most powerful comeback, and simultaneously the greatest catastrophes ever seen by our generation. This revelation about the lower realms made Daies and Hitsito curious, what other shameful secrets had the Pantheon sealed away?

Daies then took Destamona and were on the hunt for a way to bring me back, after receiving missive from a scribe near the fringe cities that he had a scroll to give them from me. They arrived to find that the Pantheon had found him, arrested him, and had transported him into one of their farwester strongholds, past the Shining Cities; which had the misfortune of being in between us. Pantheon legions began to muster there, and the first of our head-on engagements happened in their country.

During these conflicts Daies was watching for an opportunity when the Pantheon seemed committed to the frontlines - although for all of our repositioning to conserve lives, frontline is really a strong word - he and Destamona took that cue to grab Scryver, Dansuko the ninjutsu warrior, Minion who was Daies' pet skeleton, and an abomination that had once survived Driter's curse named Ko`Oh`Ri. They cloaked their divinity, cast some spells to camouflage their magic aura, and then did a deep dive through translocation into a Pantheon aligned city to get as close as possible to the scribe I'd blessed with my visions of returning.

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>>70190955

As soon as Hitsito and Stefan heard that Daies had shifted out, they enacted the second phase of their plan to try to catch one of the Pantheon in-transit to that same region, and warp in on them for a two-versus-one surprise party - where Hitsito provided support for Stefan. This worked incredibly well as they caught Luridrazigal The Ocean Lord doing just that. Luridrazigal used to be a dragon, before it became the embodiment of the Pantheon's wish for domain over all the seas, as if the lands were not enough.

As soon as that happened, Nebaron had only Tel`ryn and the covens as final line defenders. Taking advantage of this, the Pantheon's core members left their main armies behind. They then breached Nebaron's planar boundaries directly and came in with a half legion of elite troop. Tel`ryn's sisters were getting smashed in this engagement so she took to the field herself as a dark sorceress with the reserve guard.

The first public quarter of Nebaron fell almost instantly, and after protracted fighting Tel`ryn began to realize that backup wasn't going to be coming to help her. All our comrades were in the thick of their own missions and she was on her own.

And then the Pantheon just left.

It was obvious that whatever had just diverted their attention, was more important than us. We had no idea what it was at the time, we were just thankful that we'd contributed to inspiring as much discord as we could so that situations like these became possible.

In hindsight, I regret it a little. Peace would have been nice after all. But there was no talking with them, they wouldn't speak; not to the demons they were sworn to conquer, nor to monsters like me. The few times we tried we heard nothing but prophecies about end times, ragnarok, and how the rising evening star was the sign for the end of our world. They were convinced we were a cancer that had to be destroyed before all that took place.

>>70191025

But we never had a greater sign for our cause then during this war. To protect her people alongside all of us, and especially with me and her family in her mind, Tel`ryn became the first demon we'd ever known to shift from having a darker aura, to a lighter one.

Daies and Destamona returned with the scribe about a half-day later. They'd lost Ko`Oh`Ri as a casualty and in the process had escaped by destroying the entire town with a burst of divine grade pyromancy. When questioned they answered it didn't come from us or them, but Ko`Oh`Ri had channeled the elemental force of the fire spirits with his final breath.

Hitsito and Stefan then returned with what we really needed, the divine spark of Luridrazigal and all the Thrones that came with it. True, we'd lost more irreplaceable court wizards breaching Luridrazigal's deific veil, as projected - but by cannibalizing this power the lot of us could finally stand up against the Pantheon pushing us around, and the viability of a head on fight began to seem actually plausible. Hitsito said there was amazing news on what they found inside this God's lair as well; but Daies and Destamona had him wait until they finished bringing me back.

The rest of the requirements for the ritual of returning were mundane things like an artifact here or there, and about a day's worth of endless spellcasting, topped off with a burst of death miracle from Daies, as backwards as that sounds.

I'm not sure if it's better to say they brought me back, or rebuilt me, but I know when I woke up I was in such pain I had never felt before. My spirit kept leaping out of my body and had to be anchored back in magically. My heart kept stopping after that, and Tel`ryn realized why. The parts of my spirit that had been touched by demonesses and other fell beings were irreparably damaged, and the pieces didn't fit back together right after what The Knight had done to me. Several parts also remained annihilated and were never coming back.

>>70191070

So something of a spiritual transplant had to be done to fix it. Tel`ryn had the closest connection to me in that department, and so it was her who volunteered.

They exorcised from her spiritual body one of her Succubus Fangs, it's the invisible force they use to sustain themselves and feed on energy.

There are many types of fiends like that, and this was her kind. You can see the fangs better with the right detection spell, looks kind of like translucent whips that come out the back, but you can move them, taste with them, feed with them, touch things with them, stab with them. Not physically, but spiritually.

It was the piece she used to glue me back together, then finally I was able to come to and stay that way.

We were all very happy to see each other again, and regaled each other with the tales I now know of how the beginning of the war was fought.

Hitsito then told us he knew why the Pantheon kept distancing themselves from us, and sealing everything off in our neck of the woods, knowing full well there was a prophecy concerning it's end. We found what the Pantheon truly cared about, where it's interests really lay.

Stefan and him had found a handful of portals. Portals that would lead to another world, and the ones beyond them.

***

>End Part 2

Actually, how many pages in Word this story has? I can see it's way longer than any typical storythread one.

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>>70193127

24 pages D`nesathia
17 pages Nebaron
27 pages The Core Worlds
17 pages Terra
37 pages The Bow Of Genesis
?? pages [Est. 20?] Elysia

142? Est. total pages

Having noticed that and seeing how it posts out - I'm thinking of dividing the posting of part 3 into halves and part 5 into thirds to make it easier to read in one sit.

>>70182684

Archived @ http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/70182684/

>If anons prefer bigger or smaller posts let me know

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>>70182684

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Banjo bolts

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>>70191025
>In hindsight, I regret it a little. Peace would have been nice after all.

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>>70188057
>I appealed to them then, that they needed to abandon their useless gods. They hadn't been favored when they sent us mage covens, they hadn't been favored during the horde war that the gang and I had to go put down, and they hadn't been favored today either.

How is this appealing to a group instead of just telling them something?

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>>70187784
>The Pantheon declared us as heretics that same year, and started sending their priests and holy warriors to remind the local kings where their loyalties were supposed to lie.

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>>70195799
>Poor monitor.

>>70198715
I don't get it :/

>>70200118
I plead the fifth.

>>70200145
It sounded like a cool way to word it at the time, and slightly more compelling than

>I show him my sword
Or
>I show her my sword

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>>70187636

>I felt great, and refreshed, after learning divine theory, the curse of misfortune that had been following me to plague friends and loved ones was gone; and I no longer suffered from any headaches or hallucinations.

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>>70182684
What system is this?

>>70202005
Ah, the cleansing joys of Divine Metaphysics. Makes perfect sense.

>>70202305
Difficult question to answer without sounding retarded because my answer is "we began with dnd 3.5 as a base." We kept track of how we supplemented it or changed it with a master copy of the core books that had all kinds of printouts stuck in it and rules written into it for easy reference, taken out of entire libraries of D20 material. Sounds a lot more difficult than it actually was, I was blessed with savvy players and I had already obsessed with the system until I mastered it and rebuilt it into "the perfect system" in my autistic eyes.

It was regularly stress tested by Hitsito's player who'se other name was Technicles The Rules Lawyer.

Beyond that there were also many segments that were uncontested or just involved conversations, we'd ad-hoc rp whenever we had some free time, with or without dice.

Some segments were inclusions of freeform rp players we liked. We'd have a co-DM sometimes play a minor cohort instead of their main to chat on the side, or simply just do one session at a time and then 'the other group' would have that information to work with at their next get together.

Complicated question, but with the right tools, prep, and players, it was actually smooth sailing IRL to run because the rules facilitated the game - not the other way around, and I had a lot of feedback and training on how to play fair and run something fair.