B3- 32 - Promise of Blue Skies (Patreon)

Slayer of Tarvana

You’ve either got a serious hate on for one particular species or you just happened upon a fair number of them to farm EXP, either way. You’ve killed a lot…

+ 1 Foundation

+ 2 Physical Strength

Maya stared at the message like it was a rebuke from the System. She lifted her hand to wipe away the message, but stopped herself. Slayer titles only dropped after one killed more than two thousand living SIL of one species. How many had died? She didn’t know and that was troubling

The windows around her displayed half a dozen destroyed convoys. The entirety of the Flesh Mother’s attempt to reinforce her Blood Harvester army. Each group contained nearly ten thousands living, breathing people. Each had suffered the same fate as the first convoy, an oil tanker dropped on them, the soldiers firing missiles into their midsts, and so many thousands dying in a terrible inferno.

Was it mass murder? These were not soldiers that were fighting her, they were just the porters, haulers, and logistic chain that would keep the army fed and armed. They were at war, she told herself. The convoys were legitimate war targets. She was in the right to destroy them, to scatter their material and cause so much damage they were effectively unusable by the enemy.

She had did what she needed to do. This was the way of war. As Pops used to say, there was no such thing as a fair war. The best war, if it had to come to war, was one that ended quickly and without much collateral damage. A quick war was a good war.

Maya watched the Tarvana burn and felt her heart crack just a little bit. They might have been death loving fanatical cultist, but they were still people. Even Bad Blood’s mother loved her enough to keep her safe from being eaten as a weakling. The other Tarvana wouldn’t be much different. They had children, they loved, and they worked toward a future where their own children wouldn’t have to suffer so much.

The two dozen solider were all cheering and slapping one another on the back. In the span of less than an hour most had leveled more than they had in the last month. The Command Platoon dispersion of experience between the soldiers was incredible. There were thousands dying below, thousands of SIL who dropped an entire two percent in experience points. They might not be getting the same amount of EXP as they would in the multiverse at large, but it was still more than they would have gained wherever they were fighting.

“Fuck yeah, eat shit and die!” one of the soldiers hollered. He high fived another man and they both laughed hysterically. “I’m level twenty five!”

Maya watched them and then refocused on the windows before her. She watched a feed from the Hangy, it showed the Tarvana army beginning to move. She knew that they were stuck in a rock and a hard place. They either had to wait until a new logistic chain was set up or they had to attack. Right now they were running low on supplies, but they were still ready to fight. In a few days they might be out of supplies and weakening.

The High General didn’t have much of a choice in what to do next. He had to move his army. He had to attack the Hangy and gain a victory before his army fell apart due to their ill planning.

Another window showed Tender and Scotty rebuilding what they could. They didn’t have to time to begin fixing the entire manufacturing room, but Scotty had enough time begin churning out cheap weapons to arm the Tarvana near the Hangy and also use up the last of the volex na helix explosives they had. Tender was assisting in building defenses and setting up defense turrets that would only be fired as a last resort. They didn’t have the power to spare for those weapons as it was.

Tarvana’s Bane

You really don’t like the Tarvana do you?

+2 Foundation

+4 Physical Stats

Maya grimaced at the notification. A Bane title was five thousand dead at your hands. She shuddered at the thought. More Tarvana had died in the last few minutes. As she was the commander of this platoon, she was gaining the kills in her name.

Marcus and Chu Walked up to her. They had set down their own Javelin tubes and didn’t look as ecstatic as the other soldiers. Marcus frowned at the cheering men, who were pointing at display windows and watching as the Tarvana tried to salvage wreckage or help their injured compatriots. Maya stopped watching those windows, the scenes too much for her.

“What’s now?” Marcus asked.

“We wait until the army reaches the Hangy,” Maya said.

“Then we hit them again?” Chu asked.

“With the missiles, not the Javelins,” Maya said. “I think we’re done here. If those guys wanna go back, they can.”

“We still have a lot of missiles left,” Chu said. “We could lend a hand in the attack.”

“Maybe, but the missiles from the VLS have a far greater range than the Javelins.”

“We could still help, somehow,” Chu said.

“It was the right thing to do,” Marcus said. “An army marches on ints stomach, like Napoleon said. If we allowed them to refit and resupply, then they would be a far greater threat than they already are. Right now they’re half starved and trying to finish the job before they run out of steam. This is the time to hit them.”

Maya nodded.

“‘You make dumbass mistakes when you’re desperate’,” Marcus said, repeating Pops words to her.

Maya nodded once again.

“Get your shit together, kid. We got a war to fight,” Marcus said.

“Kid? You’re the kid, cowboy,” Maya retorted.

“If I’m the kid, then why are you acting like one? Moping around when some fuckers are about to destroy everything you built in the last year and everything that’s gonna help save mankind?” Marcus replied. “Get your shit together and let’s go kick some ass and take some names.”

“I’m all outta bubblegum,” Maya replied.

“That’s the spirit.”

Maya chuckled. “Yeah,” she said.

“Cool. What’s next?” Chu asked.

“Fliers,” Maya said.

***

The Blood Harvester Army marched.

High General Deathblade sat within his palanquin, the two dozen officers and commanders marched beside him, updating the status of tier units and equipment.

“We’ll crush these heretics!” one of the lesser officers, Fangvoid, announced. “We have the power of the Mother behind us. We cannot fail.”

“If we hope to have enough mana reserves we’ll have to increase the mana stone consumption rate by ten percent,” another officer replied. “Or the diet of fresh meat.”

There was a rumbled of discontent about that. Already they were dipping to the walking reserves of the lesser Tarvana to feed the army. They might obtain a third of their daily nourishment requirements from mana stones, but many of the higher ranked Tarvana had never experienced true hunger before.

Deathblade had been born to be a general. He had been chosen by the Mother since the day he had slaughtered all his siblings among his litter. He was strong, powerful, and on the verge of Tier 2. There were few who could say the same. There were few who, like him, went out of the Motherland to fight rogue AIs and gain levels.

He looked at the ragged army he now commanded. It was supposed to be a grand affair, one that would rocket him up into Tier 2 and be acknowledge by the Mother as her strong right hand. The entire endeavor had not gone according to the plans. They had run out of food too fast, the commanders blamed one another instead of trying to resolve the issue. Now that their logistic lines were cut and they were marching for the heretics, the realization they might all die outside of the Motherland was beginning hit home.

That didn’t bring them together, though. It brought out the usual Tarvana instinct to save themselves. To try to gain power so that they would not be the ones fed upon later down the road. As the representative of the Mother, Deathblade was the one who would survive all of it even if the entire army had to be cannibalized to allow him to live. He was nearly Tier 2 and that was what the Mother wanted. She would not waste one of her high leveled generals even if it meant fifty thousand lower leveled Tarvana would have to die.

His guaranteed survival meant that all the other lower ranked Tarvana were crowding his palanquin in hopes of striking up a friendship, to prove that they were needed, to show that the Mother would need them too.

It was disgusting and Deathblade tried to ignore the worming patheticness that came with the realization that death might come for them all. They were Tarvana, death was the way of life. The strong ruled, the weak were food. The Mother was all that mattered, her will, her decrees, and her goals. They were her army and they would not falter in their duty, even if that meant they would all die.

“Incoming!” a voice cried.

Immediately a dozen mages rose up around the High General, casting mana shields and domes of protection against attack. A few of the survivors had the Skill Far Speak and had told the tales of what had occured. That machines of metal had fallen from the sky, spreading a thick black organic substance that was tasty, but also highly flammable. It had killed many of the lower leveled, but it was the impact of several hundred thousand tons that had done the most damage.

A massive metal struture did not fall upon them, instead the High General saw scores of small discs clatter across the mana shields and domes. They slid off the fields and fell to the ground. He looked across his army and saw thousands upon thousands of them falling from the sky.

“There’s a dimensional threshold opened above us,” one of the mages said. She looked to the sky and waved her arms around. “It is not a Skill, it appears to be controlled by someone.”

“A threshold, Bad Blood stated that the Merchant Sullivan could open doorways via the ‘Cage’,” Deathblade muttered. “She can open them in the sky?”

“It is from a machine, weak.” The mage grinned, flashing sharp canines. “The Mother’s Dimensional Warlocks will be able to handle such a poor threshold.”

The High General looked up into the dark sky. They had none of the Dimensional Warlocks with them. The Merchant Sullivan had destroyed their logistic chain with her manaless attacks. Yet, the army was burning mana just to keep themselves safe even when it looked no attack was coming.

“Drop the mana shields,” the High General said. “We are not being attacked.”

“Here, High General,” one of the commanders offered Deathblade one of the discs that had fallen from the sky. “It is not a weapon. It appears to be a message.”

The High General took the disc.

Do you wish to play the message?

Y/N?

The High General snorted and tapped the ‘yes’ optioin; a hologram appeared. A figure in black armor, with the faceplate of her helmet opened, stared at him. It was the Merchant. Deathblade peered at the small representation of the person who had taken in the heretics. Without her, they would all be dead and so many thousands of others would still be alive.

“I’ve got no quarrel with y’all,” the figure spoke. The language was translated, another one of the Merchant’s tricks. “Your logistics line is snapped, you’ve got nothing coming to reinforce you. Stop now and return home. There is no need for more lives to be lost.

“If you stop now, then I will make sure you all are able to get back home. If you need food and water, I shall provide it. If you need to be healed, then I shall do that. If you trust me, then I can use my Cage to return you to your Motherland this very same day.

“If you keep going forward, If you still seek to engage in a fight. Then I will be forced to defend myself. Do not presume that this message is me begging you to stop or trying to stall for time. This is a warning and an offer. Stop and I will let you go home. Continue forward and I will have to destroy you.

“I will give supplies to any that do not wish to keep going forward. How many of you lesser soldiers, you low leveled SIL will your leaders kill to keep themselves fed? You are only walking meals for them. If you stop now, then you will be provided food and safety. The choice is yours and the consequences will be yours too. Maya Sullivan out.”

Deathblade snorted at the message. He crushed the disc in his hands and tossed the pieces out of his palanquin.

“It’s just meat begging not to be eaten,” he said. “She is desperate as all she has is the heretics to fight along side her. We shall win this battle and we shall receive the Mother’s blessing!”

The soldiers around him cheered, but as Deathblade tilted his head, he didn’t hear the cheering echoing as far out into the army as he had hoped.

***

“Well, they’re not stopping,” Marcus said.

“Hard to stop when your bosses start tossing you into a cookpot,” Chu said, viewing the screens before him.

Maya watched the video feeds and had to agree. There were some that had decided that continuing forward was a death sentence, as they were the bottom of the food chain. The leaders of the Blood Harvester Army made quick work and examples of them.

“The best seasoning is terror!” one of the commanders cried out as the ‘traitors’ were tortured before they were eaten. Maya could have gone her entire life without having to see that. It was on par with Samanco’s violence and murder, but without all the rape.

“This is what we expected,” Maya said.

“I don’t get why you wasted good resources on giving them a message?’ Marcus asked.

“You don’t tear down a mountain in a day, cowboy,” Maya said.

“You figure that little message is gonna get the low leveled grunts to doubt their leaders and the decisions they make?” Marcus asked. “Most of those psy-ops BS don’t do much besides give the enemy a chuckle.”

“If you corner an animal, it’ll fight tooth and nail,” Maya said. “If we give them an out, they’ll take it. No one wants to die, regardless of how fanatical they are. They’re always willing for other people to die, but not themselves.”

“I don’t think human psychology is gonna work on a bunch of aliens who’ve never seen a sun before or even blue skies,” Chu said.

“Oh, you’re reading my mind,” Maya grinned.

“What now?”

“You remember push notifications?” Maya asked.

“You mean those annoying ass applications on phones?” Chu asked.

“Yup. Those.” Maya waved her hand and a control panel rose up from the ground.

“Jesus, it’s weird you can do that,” Marcus muttered.

“I’m not Jesus, but thanks.” Maya grinned. “One thing I realized when I was setting up the recruiting for the Infantry was that I can use a type of push notification to get people to read or look at the recruiting windows.”

“Yeah, they were annoying too,” Chu said.

“It’s a weird System thing. Once you agree to accept a message from a source, then the System allows system recognized corporations the ability to spam you once a standard day with messages and offers.”

“That’s stupid,” Marcus said. “The System allows that?”

“System additions are stupid,” Maya said. “All these rich and powerful SIL gather up and make dumbass rules to benefit them.” She shook her head. “Anyway, it’s not widely used anymore. But I can and will use it this time to get them to see what they’re missing out on.”

“You’re hitting them with a sales pitch?” Chu asked.

“I’m a Merchant, buddy.” Maya said.

“Vacation in Beautiful Mordor,” Marcus said.

“Totally.” Maya slapped her palm down on a button.

***

‘This is the rainbow sky hellscape, where nothing lives but the rogue AIs and the stalwart Tarvana,” a voice said.

The High General Deathblade jerked back as a window opened before him, displaying a video of some sort. He tried to swipe at it, but it would not go away.

The screen displayed the dimensional plane in all its gloomy blue glory. It was the world he knew and lived in his entire two hundred years. Towers of debris and trash spread across the horizon, rogue AIs stamped about killing one another, and among them the Tarvana dug in their dark holes, seeking mana stones and killing one another.

“What is this?” Deathblade muttered.

“A message from the Merchant?” a mage offered.

“Foolish creature,”

“I offer you, the Tarvana, something different. I offer you a place where you do not have to eat your friends. Where you will be allowed to level as you please. A place where you can grow and shape your own destiny.”

Deathblade stared as the video changed to a scene he had never seen before. The sky was not the rainbow vertical stripes he had seen his entire life, instead it was a singular color, marred by white shapes. Blue, the sky was blue and the ground, if it was ground, was green. He watched as living creatures flew across the sky, fluttering around on wings that were not metal.

The video moved among giant growths with green sheafs that hung from them. Among those growths walked creatures, four legged and covered in brown fur. They looked up and with outstanding speed, bounded away.

“The rainbow sky hellscape is only one of the worlds that you can live upon,” the voice continued. “I, Maya Sullivan, will offer any and all who wish to, the chance to leave the rainbow sky hellscape. To build your life anew, under a bright star, on a living planet, with food that is so plentiful and with mana mutations that will let you level at your own pace. There will be no rogue AIs coming to kill you, nor will your fellow Tarvana be hunting you for food.”

“You can live under a glorious sky. Just like your ancestors did. You can live under the stars just like the Mother did. You can return to the multiverse and live your lives there.”

The video showed a white orb crossing the blue sky. It set upon a horizon of white capped mountains that sat towering over a vast pool of water, soon the sky turned dark. In that darkness hundreds and thousands of white pinpricks appeared across the sky.

Deathblade stared. He had seen some videos, salvaged from the trash that filled this place. It had shown such things before. Stars. They were stars.

A yearning so deep and powerful filled him. He wanted to see those stars. He wanted to stand under those skies. He wanted to see that blue and those great pools of water.

Deathblade roared, tearing the top off his palanquin.

“This Merchant sells lies!” he screamed. “Death to her and all she represents! Only the Mother offers us the blue skies and white stars! Only the MOTHER!”