300. The Scramble for the Peripheral Worlds (Patreon)

300

Fifteenth Peripheral World

The Empire of The White Statue

“Emerald waters, and white sandy beaches. Mountains of white stone and marble, and cities that shine.” Edna said as she looked at a city so white and beautiful it could be seen as she crossed the hill. Humans, strong, muscular lived there. An honest life, of farming, of craft, and of fighting. 

Things were simple, but functional. Clean. Organized but not overly so. 

“A place I cannot quite admire.” Kafa smiled, but the stresses of travel were temporarily gone. Lizardfolks like Kafa were so used to a state of organized chaos that the overly orderly scenes of this place reminded them of the world of Angels. Still, he was in a cheery mood, hidden in plain sight that none of the humans of this world saw him. 

As we approached the city, we began to see towering white marble columns in the distance. The temples on the top of the hill looked transplanted out of an ancient civilization. They walked and explored for days, and found a world strangely ancient, and yet advanced in its own way.

“Welcome to Raeko, traveler. Your attire is foreign, so you must’ve come from a place far, far away. Come, come, our code dictates that our foreign visitor’s first meal and board is free. Let us lead you to our communal guesthouses.” A man in white tunic greeted Edna as she approached the gates. The walls were white, and beautiful as if they’ve never seen battle in ages, and yet the guards took their work seriously. 

Edna nodded, as they were ushered into a fairly basic but functional guesthouse. Food was warm, though there was a particularly pungent taste that the locals seemed to love. 

Before long, the host and the guest began to trade stories, and the host’s pride in their nation was clear. He was eager to impress on the greatness of their nation, and Edna soaked it in. Edna gave a generally vague description of a land far away, which the host presumed to be the land beyond the White Shores, commonly referred to as the Untamed lands. 

This was a fairly small world, and home to a large nation called the White Shores. It was ruled by a really old white statue that stood as the guardian of the birthplace, and administered by a council of the wise men, who would routinely elect one amongst them to be the decade’s Philosopher King. The Philosopher King would then shape the White Shore’s policy for that decade, though changes were often incremental rather than revolutionary.

Eventually, the host spoke of the home city, the White Capital, and home of the White Statue. The host spoke at length about how every citizen of the White Shores would make a pilgrimage when they came of age, to the White Capital to receive their calling. 

“I should go there.” Edna said, realizing that there was something about it that hinted to the presence of a domainholder, or some kind of immortal guardian spirit. 

The host, naturally, was more than happy to assist. It was fairly easy for Edna to change into the local’s attire, though Kafa would then play off as her attendant. 

Raeko was one of the many cities of the White Shores located closer to the fringes than the center, and so, the pair set of on a leisurely journey towards the heart of the White Shores. 

They traveled with the common means of transport, which mainly consisted of horse-drawn carriages that went on well maintained pebblestone and cobblestone paths. 

It was on these cobblestone paths outside of the small town of Raeko, where the smaller road joined with a larger one, an intersection, that stood a replica of a giant white statue. There were smaller statues all over the place, but Edna felt drawn. She commanded the driver to stop, for them to take a look at the statue.

The small clearing around the giant white statue was covered in marble flooring, and there were a few guards standing about, mainly to supervise traffic. 

Yet, as Edna looked at it, she felt there was something here.

“I didn’t sense a thing.” Kafa said, at first. 

“You were not there when we visited the beast deity Bitu. I sensed a faint link from these statues elsewhere. Once you get used to it, you’ll even see it in Aeon’s trees.” Edna said as she stood in front of the statue. 

Faint strands of divine influence. 

“Really?” Kafa walked closer to the White Statue. “Maybe it’s my level.” 

A guard immediately walked over, gave a warning, and walked away. “Citizens. You are permitted to remain here but do not conduct any unsavory activities. I would like to remind you that touching the White Statue is not permitted. Have a good day.”

“Takes his work seriously.” Kafa looked at the guy. 

Edna nodded. “That is good. They are quite strong. Do you not notice the way they are blessed?” 

Kafa frowned. “I’m a warrior. Sensing such auras is harder for me.” But he squinted just to try and see, and when it clicked, it clicked. His eyes widened, as he looked around. “No way. It’s everywhere.”

“It is, and it swirls around us like a subtle fog that’s almost invisible to see.” Edna’s eyes looked at the Statue. “I wonder what it’ll take to get its attention.” 

Kafa looked about. “I think that can wait?”

Edna looked back at the lizard warrior, and after a second. “You are right. Let’s see this world for a bit.”

***

Aeon

We have seen fifteen worlds, and now back home, I was fairly clear on my first course of action. I would flush out all the demon kings with all my domain holders, and let them level up. This was the easy part.

The one I had trouble with, was what comes after. 

Do I even bother establishing a position here? Should I force a presence on all of them, or just don’t bother? The demons are not playing games, and so, I need to grow. I need to grow faster, and quickly. Good, high quality growth. Growth that will bring us to the next level. 

I decided to pull in my domain holders for their views. 

Kafa went first. “I believe that talent is key, and talent exists where the population is biggest. We should have a bigger presence in a world like Twinspace, where it’s overpopulated and people are eager for a better life. That’s my first pic. Second pick, I’ll pick Capra.” 

“Capra?” Edna responded telepathically. “Why Capra?”

“Because the Caprans seemed to gel well with us.” Kafa countered. 

Edna decided to reframe the question. “Okay, i think let’s work through this by elimination. Which world do we don’t want?”

Lumoof thought for a moment. “I kinda want all of them.”

“No, you’re not helping with that! We have to eliminate some of these worlds. Worlds where we just maintain a casual presence.” 

“I’m going to understand that as worlds that have their shit figured out and we’re not necessary. And worlds that are already wrecked. So that’s Deadworld, Three Ringed World, Caval and Khubur. All these three worlds are strong, and have people designed to sort out their own shit. Khubur even has a domain holder of some kind. I say we leave them alone. We visit occasionally just to check in, but otherwise, we leave it as it is.”  

Roon nodded. “I’m generally with you there. I think we should just be insurance, just in case this domainholder acts unnaturally, but yeah, I think we can leave the Osroids alone, whether they are friendly or not.”

“Edna should claim the world of Caval. That world just meshes super well with her set of abilities. If we wanted to arrange for someone to speak to the administrators when they are offered the Faith System, Edna should set up a significant presence on Caval.” Ezar countered. “It’s human, it has a strong knightly tradition due to the presence of historical hero-swords.” 

“Alright. Caval’s contentious. Let’s put that aside.”

“I like Gigantadragon. If we take Capra, we should take Gigantadragon. The two dragons and drakeworlds have some value together.” Johann advocated. “Synergy effects and all that.”

“If so, Magisar and Caval as a set. Swords and magic.” 

“Are we pairing up worlds?” Stella asked. “I say we take Twinspace and move the heavily populated folks to the Deadworld, since that world’s dead. That can happen with just nodes, so we don’t really need Aeon’s clones there to boost everything else.” 

“Are you sure we need the Deadworld? It’s dead.” 

“I think Landas is a node-only world. The hot and cold world of Sarlpi, the Centaur world of the Great steppes and Shasan, the flood and desert world, I rank them in the middle. Not a priority.”

“Magisar?”

“Magisar is an upper tier world.” Edna said. “They are naturally magically talented. There’s some things we can use to offset our current magical shortfall- Together with the world of the floating islands.”

“You like the floating islands?” Stella asked. 

“I thought you did.” 

“I did like the world, personally. But I don’t think it’s that great for the Valtrian Order. Would Aeon’s abilities work well in a world where the lands are fragmented. Where each piece of land is cut off from other lands? I think Aeon’s clones would be functionally weaker in such a world.” Stella countered. 

Lumoof nodded. “I could test it out by using [Aeon’s Spirit], but my intuition agrees with Stella’s conclusion. Aeon’s clone would be suboptimal in a world where each island is separated from others by magic. Aeon would not be able to fully exert his benefits across the entire world. This also applies to the Three Ringed World.”

“Wildcard idea here. Aeon should be on the Deadworld. Like, perfect world to reconstruct from scratch. We’ll offer the people of the overpopulated worlds a place to move to.”

“Too long. We’ve seen Tropicsworld, and it takes forever to rebuild. If we want to scale quickly, we should hit places with the largest existing population and supercharge them. That means that twin continent world. We could even sell it, by starting an expedition to the Cursed Continent and clean it up.” Kafa suggested. “We’ll call it Aeon’s Crusade. Imagine the impact it’ll give to the population that someone successfully cleaned up the Cursed Continent.”

“You’re mad, but I like it.” Ezar laughed. “That does sound like a good idea.”

Lumoof nodded. “Seems sensible. That means Twinspace pushed up a notch.” 

“Our key resource shortfall is crystals, and that’s aplenty in the Floating Islands world.” Edna said. “Along with Delvegard.” 

“That doesn’t mean we need clones. We could use nodes.”

“Aeon has a crystal-producing titan. Those titans will work better with a clone’s blessings. Production titans must be linked to Aeon since they are pretty much unique trees. So we’ll need a clone.”

“It doesn’t have to be on any of these worlds. These Crystal Titan could be based out of our existing worlds.” Roon countered. “It’ll be closer to where the crafters are, anyway.”

“Fair. So where does that put the Floating Islands world. What’s with the drawbacks of the Floating Island world?”

“I don’t know how it’ll play out. But just like Delvegard, our presence can force them to change. Aeon’s clone has a ten year cooldown. We could test it out, build a presence, and if it doesn't work as well, Aeon could swap it for a node.” 

“Or if Aeon gains levels, we’d have more clones.” Roon countered. “I think let’s just summarize a little. A node on Twinspace, Capra, Magisar, Gigantadragon, Deadworld? Clones currently proposed to be on Twinspace and Deadworld?”

“Why not Capra or Gigantadragon?” Johann countered, in rare disagreement with his fellow partner. “Aeon’s ability to meddle with fruits and supercharge breeding of drakefruits could be beneficial to the drakes and dragons of these two worlds. Done properly, we’d have a really powerful flying force.”

Kafa shook his head. “Only domain holders matter, Johann. Against the demon kings, everyone else falls short.”

“I disagree with that.” Johann didn’t think so. “Our organization is built upon the support of thousands of support staff. Someone makes our equipment, keeps our supplies stocked, and does our planning.” 

“Yes. But ultimately, the organization must be designed around producing domainholders as it’s core objective.” Kafa defended. “So, population, thus talent, matters more. Aeon has 3 clone slots. With Lumoof’s [Aeon’s Spirit], we technically don’t need to keep any as spare. Or at least, we need to choose two worlds. Twinspace should be one of them by virtue of its population size. Blessing such a world to produce even more potential talent will supercharge our talent pipeline.”

Stella paused. “What if we don’t bother with clones at all? Let’s just go with [node trees]. Aeon has 7 node trees left after the ones on Landas, Delvegard and Gigantadragon. Let’s use all of them. Twinspace, Magisar, Capra, Caval.. Those Four have the most potential. We can add in Triotuga and maybe Shasan or the Floating Islands just to round it out. The rest of them, we’ll leave it as portal-only worlds.”  

“Really?” Johann paused. “Why?”

“We cannot be relying on Aeon’s clones forever as a crutch. We need the Valthorns to outgrow its current abilities, and to do so, it must first gain the ability to function and prosper without Aeon’s clone presence. [Lords] and [Kings] grow faster in times of peril, and the Order will learn to be better with the challenge.” 

Kafa paused. “A clone would make a big statement.” 

Stella countered. “Agree. But, the people of Twinspace don’t know that.”

A story emerged in Lumoof’s mind. “The story of winning over Twinspace will be simple. We create a small node tree with limited abilities, and sell the Cursed Continent as a promised land. Then, we launch that crusade as Kafa suggested, then once we succeed, a clone gets deployed and then we can create a new great nation in that resource rich continent.”

That made my void mage freeze for a moment. “That’s kind of unnerving, even if I know how it’ll work.”

“As priests, our jobs often involve crafting mythos. We will need to create one for each of these worlds. A story. We need the people to buy in. To hope. A reason for them to join in our journey, to take part in a tale we create together.”

“I think to venture into the heart of the demon’s territory and slay the source is a pretty compelling story.” Roon said. 

“For some. But again, variations. We could craft smaller tales about our journey in each of these worlds. Like how we have the venture to the Cursed Continent to create a promised land, on Gigantadragon, Landas and so forth, our story will be one of restoration and revival.”

“But what if what we are reviving is terrible.” Stella countered. “Not all of these old civilizations are great.”

“Renewal.”

Kafa frowned. “I think to just say that these worlds will now be part of a community of wider worlds could work, though that doesn’t actually inspire loyalty.”

“The generation that saw the most change and improvements will be loyal by virtue of our actions.” Edna stated. “It is the successor generations that would see the need for a finely crafted narrative. Something to convince them to be a part of our crusade.”

“Will Lumoof take the lead on the narratives?” Ezar asked.

“A bit. But I’ll likely leave it to the other Decarches.” Lumoof said. “It ties into our mythos, of a tree expanding its roots and branches into the other worlds, to purge them of the demons and spread the fruits of growth.”

“And the roots to suck up talent.” Kafa chuckled. “But Stella’s [node] idea is logical. A clone is a decision that has a long term impact. A test case with nodes would work.” 

“Speaking of the myths, we should just call this whole thing the Fifteen Revivals.” Roon laughed. “Or the Aeonic Expedition.”

Stella rolled her eyes. A part of her disagreed with the colonial, imperialist methods of our Order, but unfortunately, it’s part of the developmental stages these worlds have to go through. 

“Eh. We shouldn’t be touching the worlds with the domain holders. It’s pretty dangerous unless we want to fight another domainholder. That means Khubur, and the world of the White Statue.” Edna said. 

“I don’t think we’d lose.” Ezar said.

“I don’t think so either. But the battle is the easy part, replacing the power vacuum it creates is what’s hard. Unlike the Crystal King, these two worlds have fairly intertwined domain holders that run what seems to be fairly well put together.” Edna countered. “If these worlds are working well, we don’t have to mess with it. We can just drop in, deal with the demon kings, and go out. Let things remain as they are. That’s all we need to tell the existing domain holders, strike a non-interference treaty, say our whole job is just to deal with the demon kings, do it, and go. If they are willing to help us, it’s a win.”

The consequences of betrayals were self explanatory. They could test us, but if we made the statement with Lumoof and my own avatar form, the difference in power should be clear. 

“Okay, wait, Seven nodes. We are choosing to ignore the Deadworld, Sarlpi, Great Steppes, the Three Ringed World, Shasan, Khubur and White Shores?” Roon decided to repeat the conversation. “Wait, that still leaves one spare.”

“Wait. Why Triotuga over Shasan?” Stella asked, out of curiosity. 

“Shasan seems like they got things figured out, while winning over one of the three factions of Triotuga seems a lot easier.” Kafa countered. 

“The dryads there have something against spirit trees.” Lumoof said. “Or at least, they’d find our trees a target. I think I’d go against Triotuga out of principle.”

“But the human population there is fairly healthy.” Kafa added, once again taking the point of view that populations matter more. “That world sort of resembles Threeworlds.”

“Shasan’s wider skill set and unique creatures is more interesting to absorb into our fold.” Roon jumped in. “Though I suppose Shasan is not exactly friendly to trees. That place is either too dry or too wet.” 

“Actually, let’s skip both and go for the Great Steppes.” Edna said. “I’ve seen the two centaur clans and I think their strength could be a welcome addition. It’s also decently well populated.” 

“Or the Floating Islands. A node tree on a floating island, ideally one of the large ones. Just to gain access to the resources.” Lumoof suggested, and recalled the resources of the Floating Islands. Control over any of the main islands could improve our resource situation, at the expense of the locals. 

“Do we really want Capra over these four choices?” The lizard domain holder didn’t strongly buy the dragon argument. “Or Landas.”

“Landas is largely settling in its place.” Edna said. “Our infrastructure is built. The population is lower than we like, but they welcome us.” 

In the end, I wasn’t sure the Valtrian Order was large enough to successfully build new branch establishments across nine new worlds. We would have to recruit as we go, and augment our strength. The larger native component would be key to our success. 

There was no need to rush on the nodes, and to me, [node trees] with their fairly short cooldown times meant we could change our minds. “It is fine. Let’s go with it and respond to what happens.” 

And so, a decision largely made, thousands more left the comforts and safety of Treehome, and spread out across the stars. 

I thought it fitting, this was the moment where we consciously tried to move up to the next level. Our scale would have to increase to match our growing ambitions. 

[ Author Note : Well, it's chapter 300! Naturally, something with greek/roman influence :) ]