Dao Divinity 2 Chapter 25 (Patreon)

Only a sliver of light made its way through the trees as the sun set beyond them, marking the edge of the river. Dar thanked his lucky stars that there hadn’t been any major hazards in the river itself.

“Drop the anchor.” Mika commanded Lou, who had awoken and had helped spot for any issues along the water. Dar had been lost in his own head.

“Come on.” Mika disengaged the boat’s enchantment, pulling Dar off the boat. The village had started stirring as they’d been spotted. They were back far later than had been originally planned.

When Sasha spotted Dar, her smile flattened to concern. She grabbed his arm, ignoring those who tried to approach Dar and bringing him away from the villagers. Mika followed.

“What the hell happened out there?” Sasha hissed at Mika.

“Dar will have to fill in a bunch of it, but maybe we go back to the hut first?” Mika suggested.

Sasha nodded, steering them all back over to the hut and motioning for Cherry to follow.

Cherry was quickly on their heels. “What’s wrong?” She looked to Dar, and her face immediately grew concerned. She pivoted with eyes of fire to Mika.

Mika just held up her hands in surrender. “We went to check on Bellhaven. Something happened in the village; Dar came back with his armor covered in blood. And we also brought back a demon named Lou and a spirit named Mer. He’s been like this since he returned. That’s all I know.”

“And where were you during all of this?” Sasha started turning on Mika, so Dar stepped in.

“I asked her to wait with the boat and Lou, and make sure they weren’t taken if anything went wrong. Lou’s friend was going to be killed in the morning, and I promised him I’d help her. I took the opportunity to also purge the city of Mark, Margret, and the Tints, who had taken control of the city. Now the prince stands a chance of saving it.”

“And you thought this was your problem to solve?” Sasha’s tone wasn’t happy.

“It was only bound to get worse, and it has since we left. When I entered the city, there was a spirit’s body hanging from the duke’s manor like a decoration. Maybe I was rash, but I did what needed to be done.” Dar’s exhaustion showed in his face, and he sat down on the bed, putting his head in his hands.

The three women curled up on the bed around him, rubbing his back and wrapping themselves around him.

“I’m so sorry Dar.” There was understanding in Sasha’s tone.

Cherry spoke first. “There’s more though. You wouldn’t look like this if that was all of it.”

Dar nodded. “There was protection around Mark, Margret, and the Tints. I slaughtered a lot of soldiers in order to get to them and finish it. It wasn’t much of a battle; they didn’t even stand a chance.”

“I’m not saying you’re not powerful, Dar. But have you really grown so strong you could take out entire groups of soldiers?” Cherry said it softly, clearly not wanting to upset him.

“I am when I’m the Black Knight.” Dar whispered, and instantly Sasha and Cherry understood. “And now the Black Knight is tainted. Too many died at my hand without any type of trial. The prince promised to hunt the Black Knight now, to show his control of the situation.

“Shit.” Cherry cursed and bit her lip. “But I think what you did was right. Killing the prince would have caused more problems, and it wasn’t like you implicated Hearthway, yourself or any of us. And the suit of armor already had a gruesome, if heroic, reputation.”

“He can’t wear it openly now, though. We don’t want it to be tied directly to him, or spotted by those in the future who may from Bellhaven.” Mika argued, looking between the group, trying to figure out where she fit in.

“No, Mika. I cannot wear it openly anymore. But then again, I don’t want to walk around in that tin can, anyway. All the more reason to focus on making my own body stronger.” Dar looked at his women. “I am going to start meditating on the other lesser daos in our family and prepare for the ettercaps.”

Cherry nodded slowly. He knew she didn’t love the idea of his meditation, but she seemed to understand the need.

“Tonight?” Sasha asked.

Dar looked at the three girls and sighed. “Not tonight. Tonight, I’d like to feel the comfort of the three of you.”

“Three of us?” Sasha’s eyes gleamed in the moonlight before she looked at Mika. “You know, Amelia is going to be so frustrated.”

Mika snorted. “Bitch can wait her turn.”

It was so sudden that Dar couldn’t help but burst out in laughter. Being back with them, in their hut, he felt his gloom start to melt away a bit. He’d do whatever it took to keep his women safe and create a world that would make them happy. If that meant having to destroy threats to them, he’d do it in a heartbeat.

They all undressed and laid down together, and Dar reveled in the feel of each of their flesh pressing against him.

It was only a short time before he drifted to sleep, sandwiched between them.

***

Cherry entered his inner world and kept him company as they fell asleep. He had a sneaking suspicion that she was keeping an eye on him.

That feeling only grew when he woke up to Sasha coaching Mika on what he liked best, and the girls continued to pass him around as they got ready for the morning.

There was always one engaging him, keeping him distracted. He bristled a bit at being managed, but he knew their intentions were to help him.

Once they were ready, they headed out to breakfast.

“You look like shit.” Amelia said, sitting down on a stump near him.

“Uh. Thanks?” He wasn’t quite sure how to take that one.

Mika glared daggers at Amelia.

“What? He looks like shit, and coddling him isn’t going to fix it. No one in the village knows what happened, but he doesn’t look injured, just… hollow.”

Dar grunted. He was still mentally exhausted from battling inner demons the previous day and didn’t feel like dealing with it again.

But Amelia didn’t take the hint. “He looks like a demon that just went on… oh.” Amelia’s mouth went wide as Sasha and Cherry joined the circle.

“What were you saying?” The dryad asked with an edge.

“Asking if I can get into this game of distracting the newly blooded.” Amelia answered honestly, taking a bite of food.

Dar scrunched up his brow at that. “Newly blooded? I have killed before.”

“Not in cold blood.” Amelia answered. “I bet you’ve fought for your life or hunted out of necessity. There’s so much that drives that. But killing in cold blood is different, like pushing a boulder up a hill, only for it to roll back on you afterwards.”

“Enough.” Cherry snapped.

Raising his hand, Dar stopped Cherry. “You sound like you’re speaking from experience? How did you work through it?”

“Sex works wonders.” Amelia answered with a shrug. “You need to distract yourself and come to terms with what you’ve done. Only then can you process it.”

“She’s not wrong.” Mika chimed in.

Dar remembered that Mika had mentioned similar looks in the eyes of warriors in her tribe. “How did you get past it? All the times a tribe was killed, or your tribe killed another?”

“Purpose.” Mika said the word with gravity. “Find a purpose and keep to it. Tell the world that it is better off with you alive than the ones you killed.”

Neither Cherry nor Sasha argued with that statement, and they all sat in silence, continuing to eat their food.

Others slowly trickled over. But it was still a relatively quiet breakfast until Russ sat down, nearly bouncing out of his seat, seemingly oblivious to the broader mood of the group. “So, the boat is good to go? We’re all ready.” 

Dar nodded. He knew the chances of putting Russ off another day were slim, and he also knew the village would enjoy the bison if it worked. “Mika, do you think you could give them the rundown and pilot it for them today?”

Mika looked to her other dao companions for a moment before nodding. “Sure.”

“Good. Then today I think I should focus on getting more foundations into the ground. And help Bart and his men set frames into the foundations too.” After thinking about what Mika had said, he’d settled on purpose. 

“Great.” Sasha did her best to smile.

“Dar!” Neko jumped into his lap, knocking the bowl out of hands and clinging to him.

He let out a chuckle. “Morning Neko.”

Neko paused, her nose immediately going into the air as her eyes narrowed in on Mika. “Dar, she smells like you.” Her words were clipped, but he gave her credit for the full sentence.

“Yes, she does. She’s now my dao companion, like Sasha and Cherry.”

Amelia’s head snapped up. “Fuck! I knew something was different today.”

Neko nodded. “Fuck.”

Mika turned slowly back to Amelia. “Dar and I formed a connection before you even met him. Better not fall too far behind.” She stuck her tongue out at her friend.

The salt spirit narrowed her eyes at Mika. “Challenge accepted.”

Satisfied, Mika turned back to Russ and led the eager demon away, waving a hand high in the air as she left.

“Neko next?” The cat girl asked excitedly.

Amelia buried her head in her hands. “Not so fast Pussy Cat. You’re with me today. No way I’m leaving you with mopey or he’ll be seven inches deep in you.”

Tilting her head in confusion, Neko stared at Amelia, then back at Dar to answer what she hadn’t understood in the spirit’s comment.

Dar held his hands up in defeat. “Not going there.”

“Also, seven is low.” Cherry commented, causing Amelia to sputter into her oatmeal.

“Alright. With that, I’m going to get to work.” Dar passed Neko off to the girls and got up, heading into the cave, using his dao to sense where the walls were in the dark cave until he worked his way to the spot in the back. He smiled as he approached the home he’d been carving into the back of the cave, happy to be back in the familiar surroundings.

Taking chunks of the granite out and leaving them in spots for future foundations. Glump still had to dig out spots for the foundations.

It wasn’t long before Amelia came in with Neko in her wake. Dar watched, curious about what she was going to do with Neko. The salt spirit held a crystal of salt forward that glowed brightly in her hand, illuminating the cave.

“Wait a second, do you have a dao of light?” Dar asked.

Amelia shook her head. “Dao of light would be a grand dao. No, this is just the dao of bright. It needs some level of light to work, but then my enchantment can cast a glow from that.”

A bit of excitement went through Dar. Bright might help him on the way to flame. But then he paused. He wasn’t there yet with Amelia, and he shouldn’t push it just to get further in his dao journey. But damn, it was tempting.

Realizing he hadn’t responded, Dar quickly added, “Fantastic dao. I’m guessing that’s not part of salt?”

“Nope, I’m working towards other things as well. Almost have my third greater dao.” A smug smile spread across her face.

Dar failed to hide his surprise. “What is the second?”

“Not telling. Not until I’m in your bed, at least.” Amelia winked.

Dar resisted rolling his eyes.

“Is that the project you’ve been working on?” She peered around Dar, looking deeper into the cave and the home he had been building into the cliffs.

After setting so many foundations, Dar had removed dozens of tons of granite from the cliff, and the house here had grown considerably. Now he was starting to focus more on the details. But he wasn’t ready to show it off yet, and he didn’t want anyone to see it before he was finished. Shifting his weight, he blocked off her view.

When she raised an eyebrow, he just shrugged. “I guess I am being a little secretive about it, but I’ll show it to everyone when it’s ready.”

Looking into the dark space, he had an idea. “But would you be willing to make bright enchantments? For this area, and for the village?”

“Sure.” She gave a wide grin and pulled Neko along with her as she went to find a spot to pull salt from the cliffs.

Neko looked back beggingly at Dar, but Dar thought it would be good for Neko to spend some time with Amelia. He wanted her to have more friends in the village.

Pulling another stone cart from the wall, he wheeled it out of the cave entrance, only to find Bart setting up around one of his foundations with dozens of split logs.

“Are you ready to start building up the frames?” Dar asked.

“Morning. You are getting to work early.” Dar didn’t miss the way the old blacksmith looked him over carefully. “Want to help us here?”

“Sure. Just setting these into the foundation?”

“Yeah, but careful of that end. There is an enchantment on it. One of Russ’ girls has a dao of sticky that’s on the bottom of each of the framing pieces. I’ll still put nails in the upper sections, but we thought it would help.”

Dar looked at the enchantment and then back up at Bart. “We could use something like that for the roofing tiles too.”

“Already on it, We’re keeping her busier than Russ would like.” Bart grinned. “Though I don’t think we are going to have enough tiles for more than a few.”

“Let me see these for a second.” Dar looked at the split logs and pulled his knife from his belt, adding sharp notches, almost like barbs in the wood.

Bart watched him work, curiosity burning in his eyes, but he didn’t speak until Dar had finished. “What’s the idea there?”

“Think of it like barbs on an arrow, only the frame pieces are the arrow, and the foundation walls are some poor deer. I can fill in these gaps, so hopefully it works as well as wood joinery.”

Bart nodded. “I get it. Let’s give it a try.”

Dar lifted up the first log and leveled it with the short foundation wall before softening the granite and pushing the split log into place. Feeling with his dao, he filled in the notches as he went until the log was set with the foundation bulging around where the log was pushed in.

Bart grabbed the frame and started throwing his weight around, trying to shake it. The piece didn’t budge an inch.

“Okay, that’s as solid as it is going to get. Let’s put in a few more and then my boys can start on the roof. Hopefully, we can get enough lumber for framing all the walls.”

It wasn’t going to be more than a single story square box, but furnishing the insides would have to be a winter project.

Bart moved ahead of Dar and started doing his best to notch out the logs ahead of him, leaving Dar to the mindless repetition of pushing each framing piece into place.

While they worked, Dar realized that it might be the best time to talk to him about the dao fruit. Nobody else was around, and they’d gotten into a pattern that didn’t need too much focus.

“So Bart. There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.” Dar started off.

The old blacksmith looked up at him expectantly. “Is this about what happened yesterday or what’s changed with my daughter?”

Blinking, Dar realized Bart already knew something was up with Amber. “Have others realized something is different with Amber and Marcie?”

“I don’t think others have noticed anything about her or the other girl. But she’s my daughter, of course I noticed. But she wouldn’t say a word. You gonna tell me?”

Dar paused. He’d aimed to talk to the man about the fruit, not have a conversation about how he’d essentially changed his daughter from being a human. He wasn’t sure how Bart was going to take it. “So, you know that I may seem human, but I also have dao.”

Bart nodded, stopping what he was doing to give Dar his full attention. “I do.”

Dar continued, “Well, I helped both of them do something similar. They’re now humans who can follow the dao path.”

Bart’s eyebrows climbed into his hairline. “And that doesn’t seem like the sort of thing you should ask somebody’s father about before you do it?” Bart gave Dar a hard look, making him shift uncomfortably before Bart broke out into laughter.

“You should have seen your face!” He continued laughing for a bit before settling down. “I know my daughter. Amber wasn’t going to give up a chance like that. We’re good.” The man turned, going back to his work.

Dar tried to broach the subject again. “So, that was related to what I wanted to talk to you about, but it wasn’t quite it.”

Bart looked back up, curiosity in his eyes as Dar continued speaking. “I want to offer the same to you and your wife. I’d need to help the two of you, and we’d need to find somewhere private to do it, but I’d like to make you both immortals.” Dar paused, hoping he wasn’t butchering the speech.

Bart looked shocked. “You can make anybody immortal? It’s not limited?”

Dar shook his head. “No, there're limits, but there will be more in the future. For now, I’d like you and your wife to join us.”

Bart fumbled for a moment, seeming torn. “I’m fine waiting if you give a couple of the boys cutting lumber. Hell, Frank would be a great choice. My wife and I can wait.”

Dar smiled, even more sure that he’d made the right choice in trusting Bart if he’d be willing to step back and give it up for others. “I’m not looking for this to be obvious. At least, not yet. Having Frank suddenly act half his age would be too much.”

“Ah. That… makes sense. So you are going in the order of people you trust?” A smile fell into place on his face. “I’m honored.”

Dar shrugged. “You bet everything on this trip; you brought all the craftsmen. If I can’t trust you, then I think this’ll all fall apart.”

“Tonight?” Bart asked hopefully.

“Sure. Tonight after dinner I’ll send Amber with what you need and have her coach you through it.”

Letting out a heavy breath, the blacksmith shook his head. “Crazy times.” He turned to go back to work before spinning back. “What sort of dao will I get?”

“The Quiet Dao.” Dar said, feeling a little funny at the one he was offering. “But you can form others on your own after this, and it comes with longevity and a stronger body.”

Bart shrugged. “Maybe Tabby won’t complain about my hammering in the house if I can be quieter about it. There’s a use for everything.”

Dar nodded. “You could learn some enchanting and make your house quieter.”

The blacksmith’s eyes crinkled. “Maybe we should do that to all the young couples’ huts.” He chuckled at his own joke and Dar joined him while considering that it really wasn’t that bad of an idea.

“So, if my daughter is going to live forever, is she going to remain your maid?” Bart asked.

Dar nearly choked. He hadn’t given that any thought, but now…

Bart laughed again. “The look on your face. It’s fine. I have no doubt you’ll treat her right. Heavens, what you’ve already done for her is enough that I doubt that girl will leave your side, even if you try and pry her off.”

Bart snickered. “I’ve been meaning to thank you. I said I noticed a change, but I mostly meant just how darn happy she’s been. And her body had changed a bit, but I figured she was just dressing differently or something.”

Dar laughed, realizing he’d assumed so much more. “Oh, of course. I want everyone in my house to have the best I can give them. Even if their stations are a little different.”

“Good. Now, if you make Tabby feel years younger with this immortal deal, and we have another girl, you better keep your mitts off her when she turns into a ripe woman.”

“Like I’ll have time for another girl.” Dar let out a sigh. “At this rate I’m going to be surrounded.”

Bart shrugged. “That’s a measure of the man you are if they keep coming.”

Dar and Bart kept chatting idly as they worked, setting the frames for all of the foundations Dar had made.