Wild Wastes 5 -Ch30- (Patreon)

Standing at the edge of the camp, staring at the besieged capital, Vince was wondering how to make this happen as quickly as possible. To make this situation wrap itself up and move straight to the ending so that he could get back to the frontlines.

While he couldn’t deny that he was an important piece that should be here, to be part of the history of the situation and make it “theirs”, he also simply didn’t feel right here.

Felix would tell me it’s inefficient. That it’s inefficient to have me here.

That’s what this is, isn’t it?

“I think that’s what he’d say, yeah,” said the voice of Ryker from somewhere above him and to the right. “And no, I can’t be there physically right now. I’m kind of… fixing… things. Things that shouldn’t have been broken, but that’s how my life is. Trying to guide this whole thing back on track.

“All while assholes like the vile and just mentioned Felix keep knocking it off the rails, god damnit. God damn him. And you know what? God damn you, too. Damn all you Campbells.

“I never should have made you all. You’re all problems and catastrophes waiting to happen. Do you understand just how much-no, no you don’t. You’re already thinking about how lovely it’d be to go back to Ynes and Dionara.”

Dragging his thoughts away from the Dryads, Vince forced himself into the current moment.

“I mean, can’t say I blame you. Dryads are lovely. Been spending a lot of time with your mother-in-law. She and Shirley get along a bit too well,” grumbled Ryker. “Really, I should have known better. Should have known. But no… no, I’m a dumbass wizard who thinks that he can balance his love life as easily as he blows people’s heads up.”

“Wizard?” Vince asked, very curious about the conversation now. A wizard was a designation you’d give to a mortal, not a god. This was starting to line up with what he and Felix had spoken about a number of times in the past.

That the gods weren’t quite what they appeared to be.

“Hm. Something like that. I overhead someone explain it rather succinctly once and I’ll try to do the same,” muttered Ryker. It sounded like something was clacking repeatedly in the background as he spoke. A clicking, popping noise, that Vince swore he’d heard before. “You would never worry about going hungry given your position. Your worries are not the same as someone who is starving to death. That’s how you and I would be to one another.

“I have worries and troubles all my own. Some you’d be able to identify with, others you wouldn’t. As an example, do you have any idea how many times I’ve had to split my mind apart into different projections just to be able to view millions of worlds at the same time due to time constraints? Then having to recompile all that information into a usable source without going crazy? Well, more crazy? Crazy is far more subjective than you’d think. Just ask my ex-wife.”

“Uh… no,” Vince said simply. “Not really something I’d be good at, I think.”

“You sell yourself short. You’re just as smart as Felix or your father. You just… don’t want to go into that type of a situation. You’re not comfortable with it. I get it. That’s fine,” murmured Ryker. “I’m very similar in many ways. I try not to get too involved in a lot of leadership things. I don’t enjoy being at the head of a thing. I prefer setting up an infrastructure, plan, or system. Then letting others deal with it.”

With a grunt, Vince looked back at the camp behind him. He was currently waiting for the planned meeting time they’d put in the message to the one-time ruler of these lands. Taken up by Renata and dropped over multiple locations across the city from far above.

There would be no way for them to ignore Vince’s request to meet with and discuss terms of surrender.

At the same time, a mercenary group that he’d encountered previously would be entering the city. One Elf by the name of Colomnon Hyzing and his party. A fairy named Nixie, and Hilga, a minotaur.

They would be entering the city secretly. Acting the part of a mercantile group that ran the blockade. Then spreading rumors and the like in the city while selling things that’d be useful in a siege, but wouldn’t prolong said siege.

“We have some time,” Ryker interjected, apparently reading Vince’s thoughts, or deducing his intent from what was going on. “They’re currently ah… milking… Ynes. Then they’ll collect the others and join you. We have about twenty minutes, give or take.”

Clicking his tongue, Vince looked back to the city.

“Since you’re here, think you could get me Sam, Red, and Leila back? They got caught up in one of those portals and sent elsewhere,” Vince asked. “It’d be great if you could just… plunk them down here. That’d make my life a lot easier, really.”

“Can’t. Don’t know where they went. Those portals… those portals are all there because they’re the ones I couldn’t close. Every single portal that could never be closed across all the infinite universes are all condensed right there. Or at least, the side that opens from here, is there,” Ryker explained. “Rather than having them randomly open up all across the globe, we stuck them there. Didn’t have much in the way of time when we did it, and the end points are always the same location.

“The problem is figuring out which portal grabbed them up. There’s literally hundreds of thousands of portals there. Without knowing that, I have no way of knowing where they went. I’ll work on it though, I just can’t promise anything.

“Busy right now. Really busy. Working on almost too much all at the same time. I’ll add it to my list, and it’ll push a few other projects lower in priority. Leila was supposed to be here with you for much of this in particular.”

“Alright. Thanks. I appreciate you looking into it,” acknowledged Vince. He knew for a fact that Ryker and Runner were both incredibly busy. Almost at all times, in fact. If he was willing to look, that meant a lot.

“Of course. Though… probably time to get to the reason I dropped by,” Ryker mused, then cleared his throat. “You’re probably the only person I can send out that might be able to take a hit from Seville without exploding into chunky meat-bits.

“You’d end up on the ground in a mess faster than one of your Dryads after having an empty bed for a couple years after the first hit. He wouldn’t hold himself back after the first attempt and then go all out.”

“He’s that strong? The first time I met him, he acted like he was afraid of me,” asked Vince. “Like I could crush him if I tried. Since then, my instincts have screamed at me every single time I’m around him to run away.”

“The first time you-oh, yeah. That time. Got it. Yes. He was as strong as he is now, as he was then. He was just pretending at the time,” Ryker provided as an answer. “His whole goal was to draw out a guardian for the server. You weren’t actually a target for him at the time. You weren’t part of his ‘kill these people’ list that’s given to him.

“Because you weren’t on that list, he didn’t want to kill you. It was likely easier for him to pretend to be weak, rather than trying to talk his way out through bluffing, or just crushing you.”

“That’s weird.”

“Is it? I don’t think it is. Seville is a man living with a gun behind his head at all times. Our collective opponent is quite literally holding his entire family hostage. Keeping them all in such a way that the man can never go too far outside of his orders, or his family would be slaughtered.

“Or… so Seville believes. Believes it so firmly that he’s never tried to actually do anything that might cause someone he loves to be killed. To push that boundary to see how far it might go.”

Frowning, Vince had a hard time believing all of that. That this wasn’t the truth and some type of elaborate hoax or political type of game.

“I swear it’s all real. Seville’s real name is Steven. Steven Brill. He was put on a world very similar to your own in fact. The entirety of his life was stripped away from him, and his existence is a fabricated one,” continued Ryker. “His whole life was fabricated in the blink of an eye. Taken from a piece of literature elsewhere, forced onto a broken remnant of a world, and brought to life.

“From the very beginning, when he woke up, he was manipulated. Being told a series of lies that made him think he’d already failed, when in fact, he hadn’t even existed before that moment.

“The gaslighting that he was put under, as well as the constant press on him, caused him to spiral down a violent and ugly road. Where every time he would make positive steps, our enemy would deliberately put something in front of him, or take something from him, to push him back down that road to hell.”

“From the beginning?” asked Vince. “In other words, his entire life was made and structured to turn him into what he is now. That’s what you’re saying?”

“Yes. That’s what I’m saying. Zeus fashioned Seville, from Steve, one hammer blow at a time. He even made it seem like Seville had exchanged his memories away in a trade. When in fact it was just the starting point to get him started.

“A tabula rasa provoked, prodded, and guided toward a bloody and terrible path. Think of all the positive influences in your life. Then remove them, or skew them so they’re twisted and broken.

“While Seville is responsible for his choices in the end, as that’s how free-will works, his choices were fairly terrible in every situation. From start to finish, the man was on a road to the depths of hell. While he walked that road with his eyes wide-open, there was no other road for him.”

“Okay… that’s a great history lesson and all, but what bring this up at all to me? What does this have to do with me in any way? I’m not related to him, and I’ve only met him a couple times. You said I’d be able to take a hit from him, but that doesn’t really matter much if he’s that strong. Does it?”

“It does, given the task I need to ask of you. You’ll remember that we’ve bartered back and forth for a number of favors over time. That I’d want to ask you for your own help in time.”

Vince nodded his head to all that. He did indeed owe Ryker and Runner. And it sounded a lot like they were going to have him handle Seville.

“I need you to talk to Seville. To approach him, talk to him, and see if we can’t turn him around from his current course of action. If we could get him to cross the line, to step over to our side of the war… well… I can’t even begin to describe how much that’d shift things.

“Imagine if we had you and Seville on the same side. The two of you could wade through hordes of armies. Literally just barreling through them to the point that it’d be almost impossible to stop either one of you.”

“I dunno, I almost lost my head to the alcoholic-wannabe back there,” grumbled a Vince. “And that’s why they have to ‘milk Ynes’ as well.”

Ryker’s laugh was sharp and full of mirth.

“I mean, I think you under-estimate yourself. You were fighting a goddess of magic, originally from a plane that had a deep and profound religion for magic. She’s a shadow of what she should be. Even now she’s incredibly strong and terrifying.

“Any other mortal on this plane wouldn’t have been able to handle her at all. She’d have just crushed them outright in a few seconds. That was a battle between equals in many ways, but also opposites. You’re a purely physical type, she’s a magical type. Each other’s worst weakness.

“As to her… recent addiction… that’s something else entirely. That’s her own head getting tied up in a false belief that became one. Did it to herself without even realizing she was doing it.”

“You’re saying the reason she thirsts for me is all her own doing. Not something my Dryads had any part in?”

“Not even a whisper of it. Your High-priestesses were able to correctly identify early on that the need is now part of Johanna’s divine makeup, but they weren’t the cause of it. Johanna did it to herself.”

Thinking on that, Vince slowly shook his head.

The statement lined up with what he’d been thinking of the deities for quite a while. That the more you believed in something, or feared something, cursed it, or blessed it, the stronger it would be.

Even reinforcing certain aspects based on those things.

“She thought the binding would grant her power. She felt rejuvenated from the blessing, being cut free, and then tied to my pantheon,” Vince summarized. “Then she missed the other two parts of that and fixated on the tie being formed. Drinking the binding agent and how it made her feel.

“She created a loop for herself by asking for a second go of it. Reinforced that belief in her own head. Turned it into some twisted ‘source of incredible power’ and now can’t ween herself off. That it?”

“That’s it,” agreed Ryker. “Though, her belief in it has certainly done other things as well. She believes the more of it she drinks, the more perfect of a goddess she’ll become. The more of an ideal ‘goddess of magic’ she’ll turn into for you. It’s already working, in fact. Her power level is already twice what it was when you fought her the first time.

“She’d wipe the floor with you outright if she’d fought you with the amount of power she has right now. Use your damn head like a sponge while dunking it in your chest cavity to get more blood in your hair.

“Then again, she now believes quite firmly that no one could stand against you. Not even the… heh… hahaha… not even the Dark Lord of the North could stand against you. Ha… that’s funny.”

“Dark Lord of the North… that’s the Unsatisfied or whatever?”

“Yep. It’s a Demon. Eats people. Most of the English Isles don’t even know it exists. Just their leadership, really. That and those who send out the clouds to collect offerings. People.

“Otherwise they just feed the poor, destitute, and homeless to the Demon. Often making it out to be a false-flag attack from the mainlands. Clear out entire villages every now and then. A meal and then nothing more.”

“A Demon. Hm. Well, I don’t think it’s a Demon,” countered Vince with a shake of his head. “It’s just a petty spirit that made itself bigger than it should be. I’m sure it’s strong, but not anything I can’t handle.”

“Uh… yeah… sure. That’s a good belief to foster in others to grow your own strength and diminish theirs. I’ll be honest with you though, he’d just pick you up, pull an arm off as an amuse-bouche, then contemplate what kind of a vintage you’d be.

“He’s out of your league. At least for now. Even if you took him on with all your deities from your pantheon, it’d just be a sampler platter for him. Trust me. He’s not something you want to take on just yet. Beyond you and yours.

“An issue for later. Now… if he projected an avatar, you might be able to deal with him to a degree, but not very well. That’s more of a sixty-forty split in favor of them, but more doable than their real form.”

“Uh huh. Right. Anyways. Thanks for explaining Johanna becoming a demon for semen. Was there more about Seville you needed to tell me? Like how I’m supposed to deal with him? I can’t imagine me trying to talk him into letting his family die would work out very well.

“In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s right about when he’d try to punch me to death. Isn’t it? Even you said I couldn’t handle more than a single blow. That’s probably not if he’s enraged.”

“Ah, too true, too true. In this, it’s actually far simpler than anything like that. Far, far simpler. His family? I already got my hands on them. Saved them all.

“Runner found them accidentally, figured out who they were, and pulled them all out of Zeus’ clutches. They’re all now on a world that’s tied right up next to my own. Like neighbors, really. We have their world on pause, in a way. They’ve aged maybe… three days since Seville left. Most of that was Runner and I collecting information on that world.

“On him, really. What was done to him, how things happened, and how it was able to be done. Surprisingly enough, Seville is more like you and I at the start, then became far more like Runner. It’s provided some very… interesting… research to go through.”

“Anyways,” Vince prompted once again, getting tired of the way Ryker seemed to ramble off into different rabbit-trails.

“Anyways! Yes. Anyways. Seville’s family is actually quite fine. We brought them all into a place of safety and they’re no longer in Zeus’s control. Not that Seville would ever know it. It’s certainly not something Zeus would ever tell him,” admitted Ryker. “Before you say it, yes, I know. There’s no way for him to believe you just with your words alone. So we prepared something specifically for this situation.”

There was a loud clack, and something appeared in the air in front of Vince. It looked like a small electronic device. Similar to many things he’d seen coming from Legion and their world, in fact.

Reaching out, Vince took it and then looked at it carefully. Rotating it one way, then the other.

There was a series of buttons on one side. They reminded him a lot of the buttons he’d seen on the reel-to-reel type projectors his father owned and left behind.

“Hit the arrow-like button. It’s the play button. The square is a stop button. The two arrows to the left is re-wind, the two arrows to the right is fast forward,” Ryker instructed.

Vince tapped the play button.

“Could you sing me Steve’s song again? It was very pretty. I’d like to let my wife hear it. Would you mind?” said Runner’s voice from the device.

“Of course not! This is my Steve song, he’s my daddy,” proclaimed a small-sounding little girl.

Immediately a song of profound strength to weather any storm started. A song that was sung without words or accompaniment.

One that was warmth, strength, and determination never-ending. A father figure that would forever be a barrier to the enemies that were in the world.

Vince suddenly missed his father very much as he listened, and suddenly understood Seville in a way he didn’t really want to.