Blude.
A few hours earlier.
***
"Come, girls. I have much to tell you. And something to show you to boot."
Although I wanted to see what was to become of Iris, I followed along behind Lana. Though her appearance unsettled me, I couldn't deny that she struck me as an exceptionally strong and wise woman. More, I couldn't help but see her as an aunt if not a motherly figure. Even after one little interaction.
"What did you have to tell us, Madame?" I cautiously asked once we followed her outside. But she kept walking towards the hills. So we followed. Even though our hearts began to drop.
"Don't worry." Lana calmed us with a gentle tone once we crested the hills. "You're not in trouble. And you'll never be in trouble with Amun."
"Really?" I asked in disbelief.
"He's a tolerable man. But even he has a rule," she said, turning a stern gaze over the three of us. "Only one. So it is not to be taken lightly. It's taboo to take another person's freedom without a just cause. Enslaving people. Taking a person's innocence. Imprisoning someone.
"However," she added. "Amun is the god of freedom. So we are free to do such things if we truly please. But should we test the waters, there will be Dire consequences." She said that with a grave finality that made for a long moment of silence as we ventured beyond our hot springs.
"That was the story of my life," Lana said as we began to approach the rocky outcroppings that signaled the approaching coast. "In life, I was from a land in Maru called Odissi. Amun is the heir to the royal family of that land. The Grand Duke."
"I knew it!" Sam whispered to herself.
"Now, I don't know if you've heard of the House of Cole or the Nox Clan, but that is Amun's family."
"Cole sounds familiar," I admitted. But that's all it was. A familiar name.
"The House of Cole is the opposite side of the Lux families."
"The ones of light?" Redd asked.
"Yes." Lana nodded. "Amun comes from an ancient line of dark sorcerers. They- he is a man of darkness and death. A shadow necromancer. Among other things.
"Honestly." Lana threw her face into her palm after a long moment of silence. "They don't tell these stories anymore?"
"We were never ones to listen to stories." I laughed.
"Fair enough." Lana shrugged. "Anyway. Odissi is a land without want. There's food and shelter and free education for everyone. But, for whatever reason, I thought it was a boring place. So, I decided to cause trouble. I grew worse and worse until I was eventually killing people who didn't deserve it. That stopped when the Necro King's shadows got me.
"The Necro King." I echoed.
"Yeah." She nodded. "Amun's great grandfather. You recognize that but not anything else?" She shook her head and laughed, and I couldn't help but laugh with her. "Jeez." She finished with a huff. "Yeah. I was caught by the Necro King's undead and sentenced to death for my crimes. And the executioner was none other than Amun.
"I watched him break his arm to splinters against stone without flinching. Then he carved open my face with the bone before everything went dark." She pointed to the web of glowing skin marking her face. "He was a little older than you are now when that happened. But I wasn't made to report to the land of the living until last year.
"The reason I'm telling you this," she continued past our agape expressions, "is because you're Amun's dearest cousins. Which means we undead respect you greatly and will listen to your commands. So." She motioned her chin forward, looking at my rings. "Touch your ring to the man you drowned and raise him as your first undead."
My clothes didn't get wet, but it was very unsettling, reaching my hand into the cold bog to touch and grasp for a bloated corpse. It wasn't unsettling, it was disgusting. So bad I nearly threw up after turning to listen to Lana's instructions to send some energy through the ring.
I did throw up once the corpse kicked to life, spewing that disgusting water right into my mouth. Thankfully, I missed it crawling to its feet and turned to see the filthy rat had grown twice his size from the water he took on.
"Normally, that would be your shock troop and labor force," Lana said. "He and those like him will do any leg work you don't want to do. Under normal circumstances, you'd also get a clone. Your Doppelganger from the Shadow Realm. But, uh, you three and Iris are special. So you'll have to make your own."
I could hardly focus on her words, as the words that persisted on the edge of my vision bobbed and blinked as if they were desperate for my attention.
"What you see is NoxNet, and it works by thought." She explained as she began guiding us back. "The Channels tab will allow you to watch the actions of the other Legionaries in the guild as if they were bards on a grand stage. The Contacts tab will allow us to communicate telepathically. Go ahead and try it.
I didn't need to as Redd soon echoed in my mind with a dumb sounding, 'Hello?'
'Woah.' Sam's gasp echoed in my mind next.
"The Units tab details your living subordinates, undead, and Doppelgangers to keep track of their locations, orders, and pending promotions. You'll see your new Zombie flagged for training in the Shade Palace, which you'll learn about later. The Map is self-explanatory and you can worry about Infrastructure later.
"For now," she glanced at us as the carriage came into view, "focus on the Archives and Lessons tabs to learn anything you want to learn and to go over everything Amun requires you to know. Other than that." She shrugged. "Browse the Store or Apps tabs or sit back and relax until Iris is done. It should only be a couple of hours."
Rather than look through the Net, we took the first moment of downtime we had since Amun first appeared to explore this strange carriage and claim what Lana described as our rooms.
The first things I investigated were the strange mounds hugging the lower walls. They had what looked like rolling doors in various places that, when I opened one of them, contained that massive white wolf from before.
It only looked at me when I opened it but I closed it immediately and was almost fearful of my room being directly above it. Regardless, I climbed the ladder and was reminded of a tree house when I entered a trap door and found the nicest bedroom I've ever stepped in.
A bed large enough for three of me sat in the corner of the room below a large white wood headboard with a beautiful orca carved into it. To the right, leading into the corner closest to the window, were bookshelves, benches, sconces, and tables nestled around a corner fireplace that made for a pleasant sitting area.
Opposite the window was a bar filled with… juice. But I had a nice sitting area that allowed me to look down on the park-like space below, leaving the rest of the room open for whatever I wanted to place inside.
After moving around a bit, I learned the other upper rooms on the longer sides of the interior were for Redd, Sam, and Iris, with the others being unmarked. The three rooms on the ceiling to the rear held a large kitchen on the right that made Sam drool, and a large workshop on the left that similarly made Redd start breathing heavily.
Sadly, the center room didn't make me excited. It just had a large table at the center with many reclined seats arranged around it and what felt like hundreds of paintings, tapestries, busts, and other art pieces arranged within.
A door at the far end of the room was marked as Amun's room, though. But we didn't enter. Instead, we looked inside the rooms below it and were led down a hall ending in two doors. One on the left, below the workshop, was filled with mountains of wood, stone, and metal while the other was as cold as the outdoors and piled high with food.
Our tour ended in the front, where a room similar to the one before Amun's was found. The only difference was the windowed wall and the many seats that faced it; some with strange wheels positioned before them.
That took over an hour. But still, Iris wasn't done so we went our separate ways. Redd to the workshop, Sam to the kitchen, and me to plop down on my bed and look through NoxNet to my heart's content.
I was drawn to the Lessons tab first and was met with a checklist that seemed to be projected on the ceiling. As if it could read my mind, it contained everything I'd ever dreamed of learning and more. Business. Finance. Politics. Logistics. Distribution. Beauty. Leisure. But it also had a number of written, spoken, and non-verbal languages, fighting, warfare, and criminal science. As well as something of great interest called psychiatry.
Thinking of Iris brought me to add something else to the list and thankfully, there was not just an option to add it, but hundreds of courses involving the subject. Even then, though, I only picked three. Witchcraft, REST, and Wellness. Then, I moved on to the other tabs.
As Lana said, there was nothing in the Infrastructure tab just yet. And the Units tab displayed my zombie as an unnamed bloated zombie undergoing several phases of training in the Shade Palace to become an Undead Captain.
Whatever that was.
Again, as Lana said, the Map was self-explanatory but also something I never thought possible. Opening it made lines of silver light spread all around me to form buildings and plants and people that moved as if I was looking down on the city. People moved about on the streets and I could see highlighted shapes that pointed out Amun and Iris as blue lights placed next to each other.
And the Archives. The archives held knowledge and blueprints of… everything. All of Amun's knowledge of how to create and master everything from math to magic was able to be searched instantly and studied for hours and hours more. And more, the things made by others could be purchased on the Shop Tab and delivered right to me in mere seconds.
I would have thought I was dreaming were it not for me getting a little shopping done before I moved over to the Apps tab. And then my mind was truly blown.
It had… games. That was the only way I could describe them. Games that assisted in doing things, mostly. The first I chose at random didn't, however. Peek Pocket. I picked it because of the name, but all it had was a readout of my mind-numbing two thousand gold coins and a description that said the app would keep track of anything held in my traveling pack or any other storage device I held.
Another, Sic Script, wasn't a game either. It was a bit like the Lessons tab, but it explained… classes. Everything about them from perks to subclasses, including the classes of legend I could obtain and what was needed to obtain them.
I thought long and hard about what I wanted to be, about what I wanted to do, and added the appropriate lessons to my schedule before skimming through the other game-like apps. All of them involved the same field of lines as before but were made to design or build something.
One was meant to design enchantments. Another was meant to design new spells. There was one to design things like this carriage, another to design weapons or armor, and yet another to design homes for creatures like those giant wolves.
But one- the last one, was an App I got lost in.
It was called RadWorld. And, like the Channels app, I spent what felt like days watching people do all sorts of things.
There was a lot of fighting on the Channels app. Battles, they were. Grand battles that were worthy of being written in the books of history. But, were it not for these devices, they would've never seen the light of day. Now, they were seen by countless eyes from the comforts of their bed. Like me.
Among other things, there were people cooking, gardening, training, driving different versions of these horseless carriages... everything. I was so lost in watching them I didn't even hear Amun and Iris return. Only his voice, echoing in my head told me it was time for dinner. And then later, cries and whoops and praises of celebration found their way to my room.
The guy with weird clothes from earlier was here too. As were Horace and Lois. And of course… Iris. Walking- running around on legs that didn't stop moving, even as her arms wrapped around my body in a back-popping squeeze.
There were questions, obviously. But they came with answers. Only, the answers hardly made sense until more visions flashed in our minds to explain it all. Then they became unbelievable. Even hours after our guests left, I could hardly wrap my head around it all.
Through our wishes and our actions, we garnered the attention of a God- Amun. A new deity capable of walking the Mortal Plane freely. And so he sought me and my girls, and Iris, to become his chosen. His Champions. And so, a mere half a day later, we were made richer than we believed we'd ever be. Rich in gold. Rich in knowledge and wisdom. In resources and land.
Rich in care and support.
And so... "I know what I want to do." I looked him square in those weird eyes of his. And like before, they seemed to stare into the depths of my being as he leaned across the table.
"Oh?" His brow rose.
" Me and my girls. We will become dignified rogues. Organized to the highest order. Matriarchs of the greatest organization the realms have ever seen, like your Legions. But to aid them, this… industry of recreation, entertainment, sports, and tourism; of leisure and hospitality, they will be made by our hands."
If there was any indication of anything other than pride and acceptance in his eyes, I could not see it. All I saw was his excited smile before images, designs, and memories of domes and bubbles spread across the sea floor appeared in my vision.
"Alright." Amun leaned back, nodding slowly as if he were imagining it spread out before his eyes.
"Yeah." I mimicked his motions, not of my own accord. "On the sea floor."
"So, uhm. My Apps said I can become, like, a magical chef. So… can I use the kitchen?" Sam asked.
"Of course." Amun turned his smile to her. "That's why I made it. Your lessons will teach you how to cook everything in the land, air, and seas."
"Then the workshops are for me. I can build ships?" Redd shot up, slamming her fist into the table.
"Well, I'll be using it too. But of course. You can make whatever you like." Amun smiled at her. "You all know the rule, right? Other than that, you can do whatever you want." He paused to turn to me. "Even smoke."
"So, I can swear?" Iris beamed.
Amun shrugged. "If you want."
"Fuck yeah!"