Paladin 4: Chapter 59 (Patreon)

The way Morgana and Sasha clung to Darren’s sides, it felt like he’d been away for months instead of days. The two of them were completely inseparable from him.

But Darren had many responsibilities, and as much as they all would have liked to, they couldn’t slip away for some personal time at a moment like this.

“We just came up to the Fourth Layer when we saw the smoke. We knew it was the work of the Order of the Rod right away and had to intervene,” Sasha explained. “The battle was a little tougher than we thought, mostly because we’re used to you running rampant over the Order of the Rod’s forces and softening them up before we arrive.”

“You should have waited for me this time too,” Darren said.

“How can the men stand idle while you are fighting? And how could we let our man sneak off for another adventure without us?” Sasha poked Darren in the side.

Darren pulled her tight. He understood the sentiment.

Prime Saint Horon and his forces did most of the clean-up this time. They accepted the surrender of most of the Order of the Rod fighters. Darren and his forces didn’t have the facilities to imprison them, nor the skill to lock away fighters as powerful as the ones they’d just faced, so the humans left the seraphim to imprison their own.

Once the work wound down though, Horon and Gaviel were interested in meeting the newcomers. Gaviel had a heartfelt reunion with Natashiel and Kilean since this was the first time he’d seen his subordinates from Calabor since getting separated. The former Protectors Darren had picked up along the way seemed overjoyed to see Prime Saint Horon alive and well, for he was the founder of their organization.

Those Protectors crowded around Horon and seemed ready to throw a party in his honor. Horon himself was beaming at the sight of so many Protectors he’d thought lost, ready to join his cause, as they more than doubled the forces he had access to in opposing Kalaziel.

But Sasha had brought more than just the former Protectors. There were a lot of fresh recruits from the lower layers among the seraphim, as well as the true backbone of Darren’s forces, the humans he’d trained over the past year. While most were only at the third order, with a few in the fourth, they were by far the most numerous of all the groups present.

Moreover, the fact that they were humans was clearly displayed. The seraphim who’d been traveling with Sasha and Morgana certainly knew. Those who didn’t from Horon’s forces could see it for themselves with nothing but a glance as the humans patched up their wounded as they dripped red mortal blood.

“So it would seem the mortal world has come in aid of the Heavens...” Horon shook his head as he chuckled sheepishly. He wore an embarrassed look as his eyes flickered over Sasha and Morgana. “I can’t believe the humans came to help us.”

Sasha lifted her chin. “We’re more than capable. We made it this far into the heavens, after all.’

Horon held up a placating hand. “That you did. I don’t mean to doubt your capabilities. I just lament that it’s come to this. We seraphim of the Heavens are supposed to defend you mortals, not the other way around. It feels a bit like you might feel if an army of toddlers came charging to your rescue.”

“Toddlers?” Morgana glared.

Horon shrugged. “It is how many of the seraphim will feel. Most in the Heavens consider humans to be nothing more than baby seraphim, and only after their death and passage into the Heavens do they grow up.”

Darren frowned. “My people will win their respect.”

“Well, you certainly have. After our duel, no one can deny your capabilities.” Horon chuckled. “But it might take some time for the rest of my people to overcome their pride and accept the aid of your people.”

“Kalaziel grows stronger by the day. They must accept our help sooner rather than later,” Darren replied.

Horon ran his hand through his hair. “You’re right. You and your companions are cordially invited to our pocket realm to rest, recover, and plan our next move. It’s clear that you have had far more success defeating the Order of the Rod’s minions than we’ve had as of late. Any seraphim who has a problem fighting alongside humans will just have to learn to live with it! Perhaps a few hours in each other’s company will build the trust we need.”

***

This time, there was no hiding their return to Horon’s secret base. The third order humans didn’t even have wings to fly with, so they couldn’t soar it. But with the rate things were moving, Horon had decided that the time for hiding was at an end, anyway. When the rest of Darren’s forces arrived, they would go completely on the offensive and route the Order of the Rod from the entire Fourth Layer, leaving Kalaziel and whatever forces of his remained bottled up in the highest regions of the heavens.

The sun of Horon’s pocket realm dipped below the horizon and painted the sky with hues of orange and pink. Darren’s men pitched tents in Horon’s pocket realm and broke out the casks of ale to celebrate another battle well fought. Of all things, they hadn’t thought drinking would be the thing to cause strife between humans and seraph.

“Aren’t you a little young to be drinking not just one, but three mugs of ale?” A seraph asked a rugged-looking archpaladin. She was a fourth order priestess from Horon’s Protectors, and she stood with her hands on her hips.

The archpaladin scowled back at her. “Lady, I’m a sixty-three-year-old man. I didn’t march through the Seven Hells and back again, slaying demons all the while, to not have a tall mug of ale or three in celebration afterward.”

“Sixty-three! Why, I didn’t drink any alcohol at all until I was well into my second century! You need to take care of your body and soul so that you can grow up to be a big, strong seraph someday!” The woman crossed her arms, glaring at the flabbergasted archpaladin looming over her.

That wasn’t the only such scene Darren witnessed. The seraphim on Horon’s side was oddly awkward and protective of their human comrades. It was a peculiar sight, and Darren didn’t know how to address it. Until now, he’d spent most of his time catching up with Sasha and Morgana and hoping Horon would fix it. But the Prime Saint of Honor seemed just as helpless as Darren to quell the descent in the ranks.

“These seraphim are super judgy,” Morgana pouted as she leaned against Darren’s chest. “I can see them watching us. One even told me I was too young to engage in sexual relations! Can you believe that?”

Darren let out a low chuckle.

Sasha snorted. “They’re a lot better than the seraphim in the Order of the Rod we’ve been meeting, though. I’d take judgemental over murderous any day of the week.”

“Still, it is a problem. One we must solve.” Darren thought on the issue a bit, but his instincts failed him here. He was good at cleaving through his problems, but issues of a less physical nature were challenging in a way that he had difficulty dealing with.

Nobody had come up with a solution for him, though, which meant he’d have to come up with something himself. Darren pondered the question a little longer, but when it became apparent that he would not think of anything, he turned to the advice of other minds. Unfortunately, neither Cassandra nor Thalia was there. He would have asked one of them to fix the problem if either had been present. Ashe, Morgana, and Sasha were all as clueless as he was.

He had one companion who had an opinion on everything, though. So he opened his Realmvault and pulled out his genus loci, hand-crafted for him by Laura.

He placed it on his head and immediately heard the voice of the Dungeon Queen in his head.

“Ah, come to consult with the wise mistress of traps and tales of daring and do at last?” the Dungeon Queen asked.

“You see what is happening?” Darren asked.

“How could I not?” The Dungeon Queen sighed wistfully. “It’s a classic tale of cultures clashing. Exciting, and yet full of strife at the same time. I’ve played through this exact scenario a thousand times!”

Darren perked up at that. “Tell me more.”

As the Dungeon Queen explained what she knew, Darren finally started to form a plan.

***

Darren started gathering firewood. With the warm weather of the pocket realm and the increased resistance to temperature that everyone at or above the third order enjoyed, it was hardly necessary, so few had lit any. But the Dungeon Queen insisted setting up a campfire was crucial to establishing the right atmosphere.

With a few slices of his sword, he cut logs into sticks. He stacked them into a neat pile, cheating only a little by summoning some extra kindling by conjuring it into existence within his Realmvault.

Eventually, the small pile of kindling lit, and Darren found something in his Inventory worth cooking. He wasn’t sure if it was a plant or part of a demon, but according to Absolute Analysis, it was full of Divine Aura and would smell very nice cooking over his campfire.

Morgana and Sasha found a log to sit on and laid down on either side of him, taking turns winding the crude spit he’d crafted in a hurry.

A few people wandered over, enticed by the smell of what Darren and his companions were cooking.

“Tell me what I missed,” Darren asked his companions. They’d already told him much of it, but now Sasha and Morgana went into greater detail about the battles for the Second and Third Layers. A few pockets of resistance hidden in the far corners of each that Darren had missed and still harbored fighters from the Order of the Rod. Sasha and Morgana had been responsible for caring for most of them. However, Asuriel certainly didn’t shy away from her share of the work either. She, Cassandra, Thalia, and Callum were still on the Third Layer finishing up their work there and would join them on the Fourth Layer as soon as they were confident the last of the Order of the Rod had been rooted out.

The stories drew some attention from Horon’s followers. Sasha and Morgana had tales of many victories won against the Order of the Rod. Considering how much harder-fought each victory came to the Protectors fighting under Kalaziel, news of victories was something rare and worth celebrating.

Each time a seraph arrived, Darren would entice them to sit by the fire in an empty warm spot and join them. Before the seraph he’d lured in even knew it, they were sitting on a log with a hot mug of tea in one hand and taking turns turning the thing on the spit over the fire.

“That sounds quite dangerous. So you two really took on a pair of of those Fifth Order members of the Order of the Rod on your own?” A seraph asked, wings fluttering behind her.

“Sure did!” Morgana grinned. “Stabbed one right through the eye. I would say he never even saw me coming, but...” Morgana giggled to herself.

“We’ve done our share of fighting. We’ve been battling the Order of the Rod for some time back in the Sacred Seas. You could say we followed them here.” Sasha added, taking a sip from her own mug.

“That’s something I meant to ask about,” a familiar voice said from Darren’s shoulder. He turned to see Captain Gaviel looming there. Darren patted the log next to him, and the captain took a seat. “Where did these Order of the Rod guys come from? How did Kalaziel amass an army equivalent to all the Protectors in the heavens so quickly? I know the Order of the Rod was his organization as a mortal long, long ago. But how did he transform that into a real fighting force?”

Darren wore a grim frown. “I wondered that too. You won’t like the answer.”

Darren explained what he’d seen back when he fought the Clockwork Construct. The Order of the Rod had performed a demonic ritual to sacrifice their human bodies, steal the souls collected from living seraphim, and reforge themselves into something one order stronger than they otherwise should have been. What had once been merely a fairly strong mortal organization instead became a force mighty enough to shake the very foundations of the Heavens.

By the time Darren finished his tale, Gaviel’s expression had taken several turns for the worse. He had shattered the mug in his hand beneath his clenched fist, spilling hot tea all over himself. He didn’t even notice the pain.

“To think demonic sacrifices were happening right here in the Heavens under our noses!” Gaviel growled. “I can’t believe we missed it.”

“Those poor little humans... tricked into cutting their mortal lives short for power...” a seraph shook her head sadly.

Morgana shook her head. “I wouldn’t feel too bad for the Order of the Rod. They chose their fate. I do feel a bit bad for all the people of Whiteguard though. Kalaziel’s goons took over the Golden Temple long ago, starting with their nation. And they twisted their dogma specifically to prepare people to sacrifice themselves for this day. If it wasn’t for Darren, they probably would have spread the same message across the temple branches across the Sacred Seas.”

“A shame. The Golden Temple was a truly noble organization of charity and defending humanity back when I was alive,” the seraph who’d spoken earlier sighed as she ran her hand through her hair.

Gaviel murmured in agreement. “Perhaps we’ll rebuild it one day.”

Morgana grinned. “Well, if you don’t, I will. Can you imagine me as a holy prophet? You might as well write down your holy scriptures for me now for when we return to the Sacred Seas. Don’t worry. I’m very trustworthy.”

Darren shushed Morgana before someone actually took her up on that offer. But he was pleased with where the conversation was going. So, bit by bit, he nudged things in the direction the Dungeon Queen suggested he lead them in.

Seraph or mortal, a human spirit ran through everyone present. They were comrades in arms fighting against injustice and Kalaziel’s ruthless grab for power. They had more in common than they had apart, and he just needed to open a line of dialogue to show everyone that.

Each story they spoke highlighted the commonalities between humans and seraph, and one by one, speakers shared tales of courage, love, and sacrifice. Their triumphs and tribulations were more similar than either group knew.

The group sitting around Darren’s fire grew as the night wore on. They found more logs, boiled more tea, and cooked more mystery food from Darren’s Realmvault. Finally, everyone got a piece of something, and everyone said their piece.

“You know, I never knew seraphim actually had a sense of humor, “ the archpaladin said earlier, hefting a mug of ale. “I thought you all were just stuffy old dead spirits out to command us not to have fun.”

“And I always thought humans were such hapless children. I know I was. But perhaps not all are as foolish as I once was.” The seraph who’d been arguing with him about drinking ale gave him a warm and understanding smile.

Darren nodded to all his comrades in arms, human and seraph both. He raised his cup.

“We’ve sat together. Talked together. Tomorrow, we fight together.”

“Hear hear!” Cheers went up all around.

<Author’s Note>

This chapter was more fun to write than I thought it would be. It was a nice little break and a chance for character interactions before we dive into the dramatic conclusion.

Edit: Copying this info here.
The old version of the last chapters was posted to Patreon on Monday for the highest tiers, going up to chapter 66 (the epilogue).  However, I have already made some edits to the book. So the ending you  guys read here over the next two weeks will be slightly different.