Dao 3 Chapter 31 (Patreon)

The queen was dead, and they were far enough away from the hive that they were in the clear. Though he wasn’t sure if there were any devils left in the hive after their battle.

He was too exhausted for the moment to even move, but he also realized he had a family that was no doubt worried for him in his inner world. That and right now, he wasn’t sure he could lift a finger if a wild animal decided he looked tasty.

Pushing, Dar released all of his women from his inner world as he lay on the ground, catching his breath.

“Well. Something happened here. Wait, where are we?” Sasha did a slow turn, pausing at the smoldering devil queen’s corpse. “Oh. Looks like that finished up nicely.”

“We’re further northeast from the hills.” Dar replied to her earlier question.

“Oh, up towards where Toldove used to be.” Sasha shaded her eyes and continued to look northeast.

Frost’s Fang was that direction, but Dar guessed that it would still be several weeks’ walk to get there. It was hard to tell distances with something so large.

Sasha nudged him with her foot. “At least you don’t look beaten up to hell this time.”

“Of course. I’d hate to let you down.”

“But why is your hair so long?” She asked, bending down to pick it up as if to show him. His hair hung down his back and seemed to still be growing.

“Something with my enchantments. I pushed them further than ever before. Maybe the restoration rune was making it grow much faster?” He offered a plausible explanation, but honestly had no clue why his hair grew when he pushed so much mana into his runes.

“Want me to cut it?” Sasha offered.

“Yes, please.”

While Sasha did that, Neko wandered over to the devil queen and poked the smoldering corpse before jumping back, claws out.

When it didn’t move, she grew braver and dragged it back towards Dar. “For the little dao tree.”

Dar gave the corpse one last look, making sure it was truly dead, before absorbing it. “Cherry, that thing had insane regeneration, mind doing me a favor and burying it to put my mind at ease?”

“Nonsense. Let us do it.” Amber stepped forward. “All of you are so tired. Rest.”

Cherry shrugged, so Dar brought the maids, accepting their offer.

Tami awkwardly scratched at her arm. “So, it’s done? The hive near Bellhaven is gone, and the city is saved?”

Mika and Dar shared a look before the wave spirit spoke. “The hive is gone, but Bellhaven… it didn’t look so good when we passed through it.”

Tami’s expression fell. “What do you mean?”

“Blood flowing in the streets, ambushes by devils as we walked through it. There were people, but they were all holed up. Up in the noble district, we saw houses smashed in. I’m not sure what you are going to find.” Dar explained. He didn’t voice his assumptions about the nobles of Bellhaven. The way the noble district was smashed, made it seem unlikely that many survived.

Tami just sat down in shock. “Those poor people.”

He was somewhat relieved she was worried about the general populace and not the prince. “We can try to help them. But that won’t be today.”

“Why not?” She asked.

“Because I’m not getting up for a few hours.” Dar chuckled.

His comment made Sasha straighten. “Bring me into your inner world and pull me out in a few minutes.”

“Sure.” What was he? A ferry service?

He needed to find a better way for everyone to come and go from his inner world, but he drew Sasha inside again.

Blair fell down next to him and propped her head up on his chest. “I think laying down for a while sounds perfect.”

Cherry took his other side. “Agreed, my old bones need to rest.”

That made Dar roll his eyes. She looked like she would get carded at a bar, even though she was over a thousand years old.

Neko was the only one still standing as she walked over to some of the shattered trees, picking up a few choice pieces of splintered wood before holding it out to Dar. “Dry this please.”

He paused, but that didn’t take much effort. So lifting one hand, he washed the cord of wood in her hands with hot, but not too hot, air. “If you stack it up, I’ll just put a little lava in the center.” He said, realizing he could light it far easier.

The cat girl stacked the wood while the rest of the group watched, and Dar put a cup’s worth of lava in the center of the stack. The wood caught fire immediately, and they had the start of a fire.

“Maids and Sasha should be ready.” Neko reminded him.

He pushed the three women out, and each of them came laden with goods.

Sasha took the lead immediately as she glanced at them all collapsed on the ground. “Mika, go find something we can sit on. Neko, thank you for the fire. Tami, go help Mika.”

The maids didn’t seem to need any orders as they got to work setting up a pot over the stove and making a meal.

Sasha was pulling goods out of her pouch and laying down some medicine supplies. “Now, who needs to get patched up first.”

“Cherry.” Dar and Blair said in unison. While they had both managed to come out with just abrasions and bruises, Cherry had a few nasty looking cuts.

She might have avoided most of the queen’s attack, but that didn’t stop the spray of rocks and wood from clipping her.

“Fine.” Cherry crossed her arms in a pout. “Do my right shoulder. That one is starting to hurt.”

Sasha spoke to no one in particular as she worked. “I’ve decided that my dao path is going to lead towards that of mending. While I don’t enjoy fighting, I recognize that there will be much of it around all of you. So if I’m not going to fight, then I need to be there for all of you afterwards.”

“You don’t have to—” Dar started.

“No. I do.” She interrupted. “I need my part in this family, and I think I found it. This feels right.”

“Good for you.” Blair said. “Apparently my part is to get smacked around by a big devil.”

Cherry laughed before Sasha pushed her harder against Dar, trying to get her to hold still. “You did it really well. And don’t forget, you also make a great spear.”

“Talk about being dizzy. Do you have anything there for that, Sasha?”

“No, but I’ll consider it in the future. You were a spear?” Dar’s head wife asked.

Dar gave a tired smile and started to tell the entire tale to Sasha and the maids, knowing they’d want all the details. They worked as he spoke, taking in his story from when they’d gone into his inner world to when he’d managed to wrap the queen in magma and kill her.

By the time he finished, the three of them were properly taken care of by Sasha and sitting on split logs while the maids were about done with dinner.

“The question becomes, what will we do after all of this?” Cherry proposed the question that had been on everyone’s mind since Dar started his story.

Marcie came over and served Dar a thick, hearty bison stew first, and he ate a spoonful before replying. “This is great girls.” And it was. There was more flavor in it than anything he’d had at Hearthway.

“Thank you, Milord. We were able to prepare better with the trip to Bellhaven.”

Dar had underestimated just how much the flavor had perked him up. “Cherry, we’ll start an herb garden in my inner world.”

“One bite and you have him declaring that. Let me try this. And my question still stands, Dar. What next?” Cherry held out her hands for the next bowl the maids ladled.

“We need to go back and check the main hive. It felt like they threw everything at us, but we need to make sure it is clear. In terms of timing, that’ll be tomorrow after a night of rest. After that, I’m thinking we check on Bellhaven as we go back to our boat. From there, on to Hearthway to join everyone for the winter and start training everyone up.” Dar took another sip of his stew, feeling confident about what came next.

“Should we leave anyone in Bellhaven?” Tami asked. “They won’t be able to defend themselves should more devils come.”

“You stay with me.” Dar made that clear. “Maybe we could send someone down from Hearthway after a little while, but they’d need to be prepared to empty out their coffers for our help.”

“Pretty sure we could just go loot one of the smashed in noble houses if you want money, Dar.” Mika commented.

“It isn’t about the money, it is about making a statement.” Dar grumbled. “They did this to themselves; if they want our help, they need to pitch their wallets.”

The group quieted down after his statement.

“Kittens?” Neko asked hopefully.

That broke the group's mood and had everyone laughing.

“Neko, now isn’t the time.” Sasha admonished the cat girl. “We have a guest, and Dar is exhausted.”

“Let’s focus on other things for now.” Dar tried to divert the group away from laughing at Neko. “Forget the near present. What is everyone hoping for in the future? We all know Neko wants kittens, but what about everyone else?”

Sasha calmed down and sighed. “I dreamed of making clothing for kings and queens. But at the rate you are going, I should just keep making your clothes and I’ll meet that goal.”

Dar nearly choked at the idea of being king. A village leader, sure, but a king?

The idea was wild. Although she was right; if he kept how he was going, that might just happen.

“What about you Mika?”

“Live life and enjoy it. I have no need to push a specific way, as long as the current I’m on is pleasant.” She smiled, leaning back lazily.

Dar loved the relaxed way she approached life. Mika reminded him to enjoy the moment and live in the present.

“I want my tree to be the biggest in the world.” Cherry gave him an exaggerated stare. While it might seem like she was joking, her tree was everything to her. That meant Dar was too.

Dar leaned around Sasha to see the maids taking their seats. “You two?”

“We have everything we could want already.” Amber answered for both of them.

“Nothing at all?” Dar pushed, hoping to get more out of them.

The two maids looked at each other, a silent conversation passing between them. “We wish to be your shadows. Always there, often unnoticed, but when you need us, we’ll be ready.” There was a slightly predatory glint in both of their eyes.

He was baffled at how his two soft maids had turned into wanting to be deadly assassins. But he also understood that they had already been in the shadows for so long. Now they could do something about it. And with all the enemies they seemed to have, he didn’t mind having them watch his back.

“I guess I’m running out of time to come up with something witty.” Blair said. “I just want to find a place where spirits are treated fairly. Hearthway is what I want, but I also selfishly want to expand our culture outside that community.”

“That’s not selfish at all. I’d say that’s a fantastic goal, and I think Hearthway is going to expand. Technically, we are our own sovereign nation and the closest city to us was just sacked.” He paused, realizing what he was suggesting.

Though with the prince dead, he wondered how much weight the document he had would hold.

“You wouldn’t.” Tami gasped.

But he could. Dar could roll into Bellhaven and take over, force them to acknowledge Hearthway’s treatment of demons and spirits.

“Now, your turn.” Dar avoided the question.

“I…” Tami hesitated, looking around the circle. “A family full of love sounds nice. Nothing too grand, just a place filled with love.” She tensed up, as if waiting for a rebuke.

Dar knew that he’d opened her eyes to just how harsh her own family had been, but he didn’t realize to what extent she’d idolized what they had in his family and Hearthway.

“That’s a great goal.” Neko rubbed Tami’s back.

The tension melted out of the girl, and she ducked her head to hide a blush.

Dar raised his bowl to the group. “Then to a great future. May we all strive towards our goals together.”

“Here here!” Everyone shouted, but Sasha smirked. “Dar, you didn’t think you’d get out of it, did you?”

He smiled. Part of him had. “What I want? To make all of you happy.” He enjoyed the scowls he got in response.

“Boo. Give us something real. Come on.” Blair heckled him.

Dar didn’t have to think. “I want to be able to protect my family and my community. Shelter each and every one of you so you can achieve your own goals. And the prerequisite for that is power. So in short, I want power.”

Lilith had pushed him to defeat the devils, but in his mind, that was a secondary mission to keeping his family safe. And he had a feeling the world was going to push that upon him either way.

Everyone around the circle nodded. Power meant everything for survival as the devils became more bold. For his goal and all of theirs, they’d need that power.

“I’d like to add the rest of my dao to your family’s dao book.” Tami hesitated. “If that’s okay?” She’d asked once before, but Dar didn’t have time to let her actually do it.

Dar knew when Blair had put hers in the family dao book it had been a sign of something. Of accepting her into the family. So instead of answering, Dar let his girls speak.

All of them focused on Sasha.

“That’s fine. You can do it tomorrow. Tonight is for resting.” Sasha said between bites, as if it was the most casual thing in the world.

But Tami was practically vibrating on her log at the answer.

It definitely meant something to her. Her putting her dao in his book tomorrow would be an acceptance that she’s part of the family.

“Of course.” Tami realized she hadn’t said anything back after a moment. “I look forward to it.”

“Would anyone like more?” Amber asked, finishing her bowl and standing up.

Everyone sitting around the fire held up their bowls. Amber smiled as she took them and filled them up. The sun started to sink in the night sky, and the group chatted idly about Hearthway and the kingdom.

Dar relaxed. It wasn’t about what was said, but the feeling of comfort of having his family around him. Dar sank into the moment, taking it in.