What was supposed to have been eight days in Arcanis Praesyris and a tenday in G'eldantaar wound up being eighteen days of festivities, reconstruction, reconciliation, and organization within the Darkheart.
Regarding the former, that came almost immediately and lasted for two days. Freki descended to ground level to summon a literal train load of prepared food. Then called in another train of raw produce for Sam's Kitchen, constructed on the deep lake resting before the Darkheart. Similarly, music echoed from Rickley, Selph, and several others on nebulous asteroids orbiting throughout the space. Thus beginning a night of partying that began dreadfully slow. Though, with time, tension unwound in more ways than one could think.
Come 'morning,' far more asteroids had been woven throughout the cavern; one for each Troupe member and many more for those who flocked to them. By far, though, Blude's was still the most populous. Not just because of Sam's Kitchen, but because of the structures that'd been built around it. Her version of a strip mall, where after one was fed, they would enter to be stripped, cleaned, and clothed like royalty before they were sent on their way.
For many, that way led to Freki's asteroid. Not to join one of his regiments, but to join him in revelry. Beings of all types ate, drank, sang, danced, and cried until they slept in the open fields of that seemingly small rock. When they woke, however, many found themselves intrigued by a certain something in the distance: the Troupe, eager to teach and recruit.
Leary's asteroid, for example, had become a castle of bone that held full-time lessons for the many goblin-kin and several other species as well, such as the kobolds. Conversely, an army of dwarves and humans could be found alongside drow as they learned about the various types of technology within the empire; as was a gang of shady alchemists and artificers with Wilson, particularly the older ones fascinated with death and immortality.
Others took a more hands-on approach. With Rickley, a literal field of drow, including the former lore master, Selph, practiced Rickley's macabre style using the many 'strange' instruments I brought into this universe; their performance enraptured by the crowd of rogues and other sly types huddling around them.
Many, many elves and, surprisingly, orcs learned the true depth of Reina's power once her Life Center reversed the effect of consuming Darkworld cuisine for so long; thus making many, many elves and several orcs fascinated with the Divine Mother and her grasp on life itself. And between all of those worlds swept blue-white streaks born from Geri's asteroid, where she and her followers elected to give joyrides to any who dared hop on or in one of her crafts.
By the time the cycle of partying, resting, mingling, and repeating had been broken, nearly every structure had been claimed, bringing about the time of construction. In quick work, the barebones walls of the beating Darkheart had been fabricated into a grandiose Sanctuary of Twilight, fit for the Black Plume's newest Contour, Tava of the Blackblood.
Split into 4 chambers, the heart was filled with a matrix of cathedral-like spires, placed side by side in endless rows to mimic the muscled striations of the walls, leaving umbral avenues and paths of light to stretch between the crepuscular patches of nature.
The inverted pot that once held G'eldantaar was granted to Cononthoth, who claimed it with my Mana Domain version of a lair stone, Arcane Agate. Once infused, it became separate but connected to the Darkheart via a 'pulmonary artery' that pumped a steady stream of twilight into her lair, returning her gloom to the realms above and below.
With the Troupe having already claimed their 'asteroids,' all that was left before the real work began was a crash course on the many types of lair stones I could create, done via a flash of inspiration to those in charge of their various groups. Thus, we began with a head count.
In short, there were many drow immigrants to my kingdom - my Zed Legion. 47,559 drow. Of them, 5,682 used to be some sort of priestess, now cast aside by their goddess. The same was true for the 3,756 clerics who survived Lilith's final purge. On top of that were the 15,213 soldiers or lesser members of the various Houses and their 4,400 monks, coupled with the 18,508 commoners, vagrants, rogues, and other nameless drow from the Lower Falls.
Of them, the monks were the easiest to sort. Considering Etan tailored his power off of his class, melded with my Twilight and other aspects of my divinity, every Astral Monk plus Abbot Eiriol joined his organization with the sole goal of becoming instructors in the Noctis Hall of Excellency.
As for the forsaken clerics and priestesses, the vast majority of them chose not to follow any of my religions. 4,404 out of 9,438 of them; mostly the older ones. They only sought to become clerics of Lilith as a means to survive. Though deep in their hearts, they had other ambitions. Ambitions they could now pursue wholly.
Conversely, 2,517 of them made the seamless transition to Twilight before separating themselves by either seeking the Black Plume or by 'befriending' the Exalted Gloom, with the latter gaining the most followers at 1,510 members. On the other hand, 1,888 drow females of mostly younger ages sought to venture to the Order of Worlds in due time.
The rest of them, for the most part, found their niches in the domain of engineering. Though it had no true religion to speak of, it did have a philosophy and way of worship that served to resonate with 1,101 of them. Leaving the remaining 157 to associate with mana; mostly those with weak wells or spell craft.
With them and the monks out of the picture, that left some 18,282 drow to be added to my Zed Legion's citizenry. That said, somewhere around a third of them sought to live under Eban. And virtually all of them wished to join the Troupe, monks and forsaken clerics included.
Drow aside, the liberated slaves varied greatly and were much higher in number. In total, there was 705,704 of them. Like in the gray dwarven stronghold, there were many dwarves, deep gnomes, and goblins paired with their stronger cousins, bearbugs and hobgoblins. And so too were there elves, minotaur, a few giants, and many more kobolds.
More kobolds than anything else, actually. 162,312. of them. And almost all of them showed utter devotion to Cononthoth. Though 69 of the crafty bastards slipped away to work for Leary and another 22 went off to find Wilson, the remaining 162,199 kobolds freely drank the umbral draconic arcana flowing from above. It made me lament Snusz Silentjaw didn't join the legions. But I was sure there was one among them who could rise to his prowess in due time.
At 141,140., there was nearly just as many goblins. And unlike the kobolds, each of them pledged their fealty to their Goblin Emperor, Leary, alongside the 70,570 hobgoblins and 14,114 bearbugs, motivating Leary to create a harsh training regiment to 'make the weak grow.'
Approaching the population of hobgoblins was the Minotaur, at 56,456. Throughout the following days, I learned they could be quite sociable and weren't just the dumb creatures many assumed them to be. They just couldn't speak any of the common or even uncommon languages. With the Tongue of Cradle and Grave, however, I could converse with them easily. As such, they grew amenable to the idea of being gifted speech-capable vocal chords in the Flesh Kitchen and all but several thousand expressed an interest in traveling between the Sanctuaries, given overwatch by the Plume.
While the rest of the Troupe still got a few, most of the remaining 16,137 Minotaur were more or less split evenly between me, Blude, Etan, and Eban, either as citizens, subordinates, party members, or students, giving us roughly 1,500 each.
Some 15,000 of the 49,340 deep gnome paragons migrated further up or downstream from Cononthoth's lair, yet remained on the edge of the Darkheart's territory to form new communities. And yet, nearly 7,000 more joined Etan under Tacnan Gemeye. A few thousand more devoted to journeying to the surface after hearing of Nyella and the Order of Worlds, albeit after 12,000 of them, joined Iris.
Of the 21,170 dwarven paragons, 16,936 joined Iris as well, with most of them being the former slaves of House Hun'ana, whom they still remained loyal to even after they became Iris' M&M's. Another 2,562 decided to join Freki in some capacity, while 836 chose to live under the ArcaTech's blessings, leaving an equal number to relocate to Shujen's Underground to forge a new stronghold.
Conversely, the 49,399 gray dwarven paragons split themselves among the Troupe's darkest members. 5,900 went to Rickley. 6,200 went to Blude. 6,500 went to Wilson. 18,900 came to me, leaving 11,599 to dwell with Cononthoth, seeking to forge and create from her Shadowfire.
Surprisingly or not, around 9,000 of the 28,228 orc paragons became paragons and went with Freki and roughly half of that went with Geri, leaving a whopping 12,728 with Reina while the remaining 2,000 or so sought to join my Legion, or in some cases, death monks.
Like every other species, each of the 21,170 ogres became paragons. And only then did they divide themselves among everyone in the Troupe, amounting for around 1,920 for each of us, give or take a few.
As for the 63,513 humans and the 29,000 or so elves, many wished for a new life somewhere in the Empire. Quite a few of them were even willing to regress in both age and memory in order to grow up in ours lands while yet more were willing to die and be reincarnated in the realm. A lot of elves gained an interest in the Dusk Marsh, and consequently, in Reina. Conversely, many humans gained an interest in Iris' technology. By large, however, they all wanted to join the Zed Legion.
And so it was. Days were spent teaching and educating the newly liberated before pledges were made and changes began. Not for the newly liberated, however. Besides them becoming paragons and falling under the wing of the Zed Legions, everything else was to be earned.
On the contrary, the changes were for my clergy. For Tava, my priestess who had proven herself so, she was given my blood on which to feast and a copy of the Owl's staff for her personal use. For Limy, a sacred tome that detailed Zimysta Falls' Era of Twilight and the lessons contained within. For Kele, a blessing of twilight for her steed. For the Exalted Gloom, the birth of a certain project involving me and the Eldritch Engineer. For Opal, my first cleric, a scroll detailing how to summon my devils, elven or not.
For the Plume as a whole, I gave them Zimystian Dawn; the last remaining piece of G'eldantaar, corrupted with twilight into becoming the catalyst of this Darkheart.
With that done, eighteen days later, it was onto the next order of business. A last call was made to split up the survivors who wished to remain here or elsewhere in the Empire and those who wished to join my Zed Legion. Tava took charge of the former, leading them deeper into the Darkheart while Etan and his Nebulous Monks went ahead of us to rendezvous in the Darkroom with Doyle, stating that they'd come up something that would impress even me.
Leaving them to it, I set a timer to issue a recall order to the Legions in 75 hours, then beamed us up to my Divine Realm of Eotrom. And with that, one half of my task for the Eternal Path was complete. Now, it was up to the Order of Worlds to mirror their actions by uplifting those on the surface. Thus, I had no worries about the Eternal Path for quite some time, and with only one level left in my monastic path and my plateau on Artificing reached, there were only two paths to take for the road ahead.
Two paths to be taken simultaneously after the mid-year ceremony. One by me. One by The Owl. For he had time to kill. And I had immensely more people who, for whatever reason, wished me dead. Ironically so.
Which meant I had a few toys to make before I returned to campus.
***
[The Path of Zefroth: Step 6 - The Hand That Gives. - To be accepted in the Underworld's dojos, a devil must possess no less than ten thousand souls. Only then can they learn the ways of Devil Kenpo.]
[Soul Mastermind, Rogue Devil: Step 6 - The Brutes. To be unbranded as a Rogue requires you to corrupt good-aligned warriors as you guide them to their deaths, and once reborn as devils, have them serve as an elite task force in your fiendish endeavors.]