Dao Divinity 2 Chapter 1 (Patreon)

The sun beat down over the stone cliffs, highlighting every nook and cranny in the stone with deep shadows. Dar wiped gritty sweat away from his brow with the back of his forearm, squinting in the bright light to take in their latest progress.

Two days had passed since they had broken ground on their fledgling village. Situated between the granite cliffs and the Bell river, they’d worked to plan out the basics together.

Housing had been their most immediate need. Cherry had taken the lead in building the first homes, much like the hut she’d made for Dar and Sasha on their journey to the city of Bellhaven.

Cherry had grown small huts for everyone, in a wide arch around the largest cave they found in the cliffs. Between the huts and the cave was a wide area where people had set up a large hearth for communal meals. All around the central hearth, the village came to life with work. Tables and stumps scattered between the hearth and the huts for people to congregate and work or eat.

Dar had been surprised when he’d watched Cherry wear herself out to build so many huts. All along the way, Cherry had been cautious not to show her real strength and to always hold something in reserve. Of his two women, Cherry was cautious and avoided drawing attention to herself.

Chuckling to himself, Dar considered just how much had changed since he’d died on Earth and entered this new world. The fact that his body now housed a space where he could increase his power and the fact that it felt almost second nature at this point was insane.

Breathing in the crisp air, Dar smiled. He definitely didn’t miss the stale air in his previous life. While there were challenges with being in a less developed world, he loved that it hadn’t been tainted by high yield industries. The wide open land around them held possibilities.

You could wring a living out of the land in a way that was satisfying.

Townspeople bustled around him, working to set up the village. They wore smiles, despite the exhaustion that was creeping in from all of the work. But they were doing more than manual labor; they were working to build their future, and he could see the fire it was igniting.

There were about a hundred of them in all that had taken a chance with Dar, fled Bellhaven, and ventured out to create their own life. They’d traveled inland and along the Bell River to a spot where a long line of granite cliffs protected them, and the Bell River helped provide what they’d need. It was the perfect spot for a new life, and it held potential for trade.

They were now positioned directly between Kindrake, the capital named after the small nation they were in, and Bellhaven, which was the center of trade. Dar hoped that they’d be able to play a part in the trade operations, allowing those that had traveled with him to also sell their wares and generate income for the village. He had every intention of making sure their lives were for the better.

Many that had fled did so because of the way they were treated in Bellhaven. The city wasn’t welcoming to those who walked the dao path, the ancient races, despite the power that they held. They were treated as inferiors and put under oaths that limited their freedom.

Dar sighed. Those in power always feared losing it and that’s what the ancient races represented to wizards and nobles.

Like that had done them any good though, the city under pressure from a devil horde had its nobles collapse in on itself, all the while directing people’s anger towards the ancient races. It wasn’t that hard considering the city had been attacked several times by masses of devils.

Dar shook his head. The city had never felt right to him.

Out here though?

It was grand. He got what he worked for and people were honest. Not the duplicity of the nobles in the city.

Mark and his wife Margret had played him like a fiddle. He never got the chance to pay them back. Helping all these people survive was his first priority, he’d deal with those two if they ever poked their heads out of Bellhaven.

He had a feeling that time would come sooner or later.

For now, he focused back on the task at hand. Picking up another cut tree for the palisade, he slung it over his shoulder. Sometimes the physical things he could do so casually boggled his mind.

His body had been enchanted by one of this world’s oldest and most powerful demons. It was her who brought him to this world. Apparently his soul had been here before and he had a destiny to finish.

Though right now, he just enjoyed the feeling of working.

“Right here, boss.” Glump moved away from another shallow hole he’d made with his dao of mud.

Dar lined up the lumber and sank it into the hole and held it straight up.

Glump was a demon. Whatever magic translated things for Dar when people described him, it came across as frogman, and accurate description.

“It’s in, seal it up.” Dar held the pole as still as he could and left only a small gap between it and its neighbor.

The frogman dumped a bucket of mud into the hole and his green lips pursed in concentration as he bent down and stuck his finger in the mud.

Mud moved on its own, sinking into the ground and solidifying around the pole.

“This is the last one for today. Want to go cool off at the river when we finish?” Dar kept holding the pole as Glump used his dao to pack in mud around the base. It would hold for now, but Dar would have Cherry come to help with this section later.

“Yes, but we need to be back for dinner. My companions were upset at us being late yesterday.”

Dar grinned. He’d watched the whole thing play out. They’d left Dar alone, but Glump hadn’t been so lucky. He’d been nearly hen pecked back into line by his eight dao companions. Glump was a demon, and harems were common in the ancient race societies.

They had small, wild families that tended to focus around a single male and a number of women. It was because spirits were largely female and male demons didn’t often get along.

“Sure. We’ll make it quick. But it feels so good to stick your feet in the cool water after a hard day.” Dar liked the moment of rest, and Glump was becoming a close friend after working so closely to get the initial structure of the city created.

“I’ll go get your woman to fix the pole so you don’t have to wait for the mud to dry.” Glump’s monotone could be misleading. He put enthusiasm into his work, he just didn’t emote much.

Dar smiled as Glump went to get Cherry and busied himself getting the mud off his hands with a large leaf.

“Is this all of them?” Cherry’s youthful voice called as she approached with Glump. The petite dryad surveyed their day’s work.

Dar let his eyes roam appreciatively over Cherry’s curves. She looked like she’d fit in as a college cheerleader, her toned body curvy in all the right places and a bounce in her hair that barely looked natural. But she was old, ancient even, and while she sometimes played stupid to protect herself, Dar had gotten to love a deeper and wiser Cherry.

“For today. How’d the planting go?”

“Good enough. I’m about to just go rest for a while. Speeding up the growth of so many plants is tough work.” Cherry stepped forward. Because she possessed a grand dao, she didn’t even have to touch the poles before limbs sprouted from the two dozen poles they’d set, intertwining and solidifying their palisade wall.

Dar let out a soft whistle. It was always impressive to see Cherry’s grand dao at work.

“There you go. Now, I’m going to go get a quick nap before dinner.” Cherry stretched her arms over her head and let out a cute yawn.

“You do that, babe. Maybe we won’t stay up all night tonight.” Dar had to admit his body was also tired from all the manual labor and evenings with his dao companions, but it wasn’t a bad way to live.

Cherry didn’t have a lick of shame in her, grinning widely at his statement. “That’s why I’m getting a little sleep now, so I don’t have to later.”

Feeling his cheeks warm at that, Dar waved goodbye and pulled Glump along for their brief respite at the river.

“A happy dao companion makes for a good life, boss.” Glump added as they headed to the river.

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. They are both quite happy. But at some point I need to get some sleep.” Dar knew connecting with dao companions was important for their relationship itself, but it was also a way for them to help share and grow on their dao paths. For a little while after sex with his dao companions, he was a touch closer to understanding the daos they had mastered and them his.

“Have you managed to get closer to your greater dao?” Glump asked. The river starting to come into sight as they walked. The Bell River was massive, providing the main trade route across the small nation. But Dar knew a few tide pools near their area, where they could be more comfortable.

“No. I haven’t been able to form it yet.” Dar tried to keep the frustration from his voice, but he was getting tired of waiting. It felt so close now.

He’d managed to quickly get three lesser dao with the help of his body and its ability to absorb dao from trolls he’d killed, and he’d hoped they would solidify into a greater dao, but nothing had happened despite his efforts.

Lesser dao allowed him to manipulate the attributes within his body or in something he was touching. From his kills, he’d gotten the lesser daos of heat, weight, hard, and strength.

He’d hoped weight, hard, and strength would form some sort of rock greater dao. As he looked over the granite cliffs that sheltered their small community, he knew exactly what type of rock he was focusing on.

“Don’t push yourself too hard. These things take time, and the community looks to you.” Glump padded up to the edge of the tide pool and wiggled his webbed feet into the mud.

Dar did his best not to sigh as he took off his boots. Ancient races were immortal, and he was too now, but it didn’t feel like he had forever. Maybe that was the part of him that was still human, his desire to grow and progress ever faster.

“I know, but if I could form the dao of granite, think how much easier this would all be.”

“And if you bled out from forcing it, the community would be in shambles.” Glump shrugged, wiggling his webbed feet deeper into the mud.

Dar rolled up his pants and found a nice rock to sit on. Using his dao of heat, he warmed it to make a nice seat while he dipped his feet in the cool wading pool of the river. Leaning back on his palms, he let out a sigh of contentment.

“This really does relax you.” Glump added, forcing Dar to crack an eye open to look at him.

Glump was more obviously not human than Sasha. He had an almost olive skin tone, but with just a little more green than he should have. His hands and feet had overly long digits and were webbed. Finally, and he did his best to hide it, but Dar had seen his throat expand like a frog when his companions doted on him.

“Well, sticking them in the mud seems odd to me.”

Glump croaked, looking away quickly, his face starting to turn red.

Dar was fairly certain that had meant to have been a more human huff. “You don’t have to hide what you are.”

“You are young and don’t understand. Many of us demons have spent a long time trying to blend with human society.”

Dar knew he was right. He’d seen bits and pieces of the lifetime of discrimination many in their new town had endured, but he hadn’t known it firsthand. “Still, doesn’t The White technically rule all that she can see from Frost’s Fang?” Frost’s Fang was a lone mountain at the trailing edge of the mountain range that marked the northern borders of Kindrake.

“She is not concerned with the noisy going-ons of mortals, or even us demons and spirits. She is meditating on the dao, trying to form another celestial dao. And it’s not always best when she gets involved. She—” Glump stopped himself.

“What?”

“It’s nothing, just an old tale some of the older demons say.”

“No, go on. I want to hear it.”

“I must warn you I have not experienced it myself; it was some five hundred years ago.” Glump looked to make sure Dar took note of that.

Dar nodded, noting he should ask Cherry for more information. “That’s fine.”

“Well, they say there was a fourth major city in Kindrake, called Toldove. However, it is said Toldove started indiscriminately enslaving the ancient races. The White left Frost’s Fang, and then there was no more Toldove.”

Blinking, Dar stared at him. “You are terrible at telling stories. What did she do to the city?”

Glump shook his head. “That is the most terrifying part. No one knows. One day she caught wind of what was happening, and the next day the city was destroyed, with no survivors.”

Working through that disturbing picture, Dar tried to wrap his head around it. Even if an army attacked a city, there were large traces of what happened and always some survivors. For The White to destroy an entire city in less than a day and leave no survivors…

A chill went up his spine that had nothing to do with the weather.

Dar had seen Cherry’s strength when the nobles had lit her dao tree on fire, but extending that to the power to demolish an entire city was hard to imagine.

“I can see you struggle with the concept. That is why most think it is just an old tale. Truthfully, I’ve never met a celestial demon and would be happy to never meet one.” Glump squished his feet in the mud.

“She sounds downright terrifying. Still, all of you are much stronger than the humans. I was surprised to see you in such trouble in the city.”

“It has been the way of things in Bellhaven lately. Things used to be much better, and I had heard Kindrake was better. I’d thought about traveling there.”

Suddenly worried he was about to lose his new friend, Dar tried to sound casual as he asked, “Are you going to head to Kindrake?”

“No, not yet, at least. This budding village is nice. It’s wild, yet we’ll see some luxuries of a human city. I’ll stay for now.”

Dar let out a sigh of relief. Glump as a male demon and one of only a handful of ancients in the village with a greater dao was another pillar of the community. “You’d be sorely missed. Your temperance in the community as a demon has set the tone for the younger ones.”

“I know.” Glump grinned. “Russ would be challenging you every day if he didn’t see me between him and yourself in the pecking order.”

Russ was one of the other male demons in the village, a gnoll. He and his companions were among the youngest in the community. Russ had been eager to prove himself.

“Good thing we send him hunting every day to use up some of that energy.” Dar teased.

But Glump responded seriously. “Oh yes, or he’d be challenging me rather than trotting around camp showing off the head of his latest kill.”

Dar could practically see Russ dancing around the fire with a large deer's head. He wasn’t very human looking, but it made sense. Russ didn’t see humans as strong and his first step on his dao path used his limited imagination to reform himself. Most would become more human as they progressed.

It was only the really old demons that became more monstrous with each step of their dao. Their sense of strength more bestial than human.

The bushes behind Dar rustled, and he turned enough that he could watch for attack out of the corner of his eye.

“Milord, Sasha sent me to fetch you for dinner.” Marcie stepped out of the foliage with a few twigs stuck in her mousy brown hair.

She was one of two girls Sasha had picked up to become maids, though she had a habit of fading into the background. Shy was an understatement for her.

But he had to give her credit; she’d been trying harder lately. And he’d been working to make her feel more secure. Apparently in their society, allowing maids to pleasure the man of the house was considered a part of the role in the household, and being shunned from the bedroom would give cause to believe their job may be tenuous. Dar hadn’t felt comfortable with the idea, but he’d eventually given in when he’d seen how happy it had made Amber.

Now Marcie was the odd one out, and he was being sensitive to it around her.

He tried to keep his thoughts off his face and give her a wide smile. “Thanks Marcie, we’ll head back right now.”

Dar pulled his feet out of the water, and with a little focus, used his dao of heat to steam the water right off and slip back into his boots.

Glump just carried his shoes as his muddy feet slapped on the ground.

“One of your women is going to complain if you track that much mud back.”

“It’s fine.” Glump waved Dar’s concern away. “Besides, if I don’t have to worry about trying to blend in, I’d rather not wear shoes at all. I like the feel of the dirt on my feet.”

“Then no shoes for you.” Dar turned to Marcie. “Any idea what is cooking tonight?”

“Right now it is still just vegetables. We are still waiting for the hunting party to come back.” Marcie stepped up to his side, away from Glump as they walked back.

Marcie was human, like about half of their village, though she was still wary of many of the ancient races.

Glump was a friend to Dar, but he knew his friend was dangerous given his power, and so did the rest of the villagers.

“Maybe Russ will come back without spoils. It would do him some good. Temper his confidence.” Glump mused.

Dar snorted. “Yeah, right. If he fails to find a kill today, I’ll bet he doesn’t come back until tomorrow.”

Glump let out a sigh of agreement. “Yes, I think that’s likely. Then let us hope he gets something, because those huts Cherry made are comfortable.”

“I’m pretty sure you got the biggest one.” Dar jabbed.

Glump only gave him a thin smile. “As it should be. I have many women to please.”