"So cool…" Astrid broke me out of my trance, again.
'I need to find a way to interact with my system without phasing out from the real world, that can get dangerous.'
"Thank you but you haven't even seen half of it." Matt smirked at her admiration as he felt really proud, recognition is always after days of hard work.
Matt grabbed a wooden water bucket from the kitchen and walked closer to the fireplace, extinguishing the flames with a splash of water.
The last rays of light had disappeared behind the dome's edge a while ago, leaving the unlit house completely dark and giving place to the real pieces of art Matt had created.
His tattoos dimly lit up in a neon color, giving the two lovebirds a cyberpunk like appearance that enhanced the somber atmosphere.
The tattoos were not only made using his 'ink sac' mutation but also his 'phosphorescent' one, making his pieces of art visible at night.
It also gave them a wider range of colors and brilliance he could use. But what he played on the most was the double meaning his art could have.
His black kraken tattoo completely changed when in litteral darkness, the kraken was replaced by a long purplish snake that twisted and turned around his body amidst the now tempestuous clouds.
The purple thunder was even more present than before and was even accompanied by small streaks of lightning that surrounded the snake.
The snake itself had identical skin and eyes as the kraken, a thought out choice that served to show that the two mythological beings were one and the same.
(More irl lore, the kraken and Jormungandr both come from Nordic mythology. While Jormungandr, the giant sea serpent and also Loki's son, has a mythological backstory, the kraken does not. The kraken is only feared by the vikings for its supposed ship sinking habits.
Some theorized that the two are actually one and the same, which is why Matt is a snake squid.)
(Also did you get why Fenrir and Jormungandr? Brother and sister?) :)
Astrid's tattoo on the other hand didn't change into another animal but into another ambience.
The clear and blue theme was completely replaced by a red ominous color palette.
The blue streaks in its fur now looked like stains of blood that dripped from its open jaws, chewing on the blood moon.
The snow and frost on the boulder that gave it a serene climate were completely replaced by crystals of blood rising like sharp blades to threaten heaven.
And just like today where Matt walked in on his stripping girlfriend, they started their daily or rather nightly workout. Where they could enjoy the sight of each other's lustful and euphoric expressions even when the lights were out.
As the first rays of the morning sun shone into the crater-like village, a busy collective of people stood up and started working, some of which had already been at the task long before anyone else.
A figure entered a wide hall leading to a round table. Most elders loved this design since for them this was a way to represent the equality amongst each member of the council but the true reason Matt had chosen this shape was simply to make talking amongst each other easier.
The one that rudely entered the room while all elders were already seated and discussing what to do was obviously their king, Matt.
He walked around the table, trying hard to look as elegant as possible and sat down in his orned chair, like he did for the past few weeks.
His "throne" is nothing glorious, just a wooden seat engraved with celtic shapes and partially covered in gold plates or wool cushions to make it a little more pleasing to the eye.
"As you've probably heard by now, I will start the Scrapper plan a little sooner than expected."
"Makes sense, we could have done it even sooner though…" The one that spoke was the new military counselor, Grettel, the general.
"We could have but I do agree that focusing on the pressing problems and the village is the most important." Said a tanned middle aged man. His badly shaved neck beard, impressive muscles and brown tunic gave him the aura of a seasoned farmer, and that's exactly what he was before becoming the agricultural counselor.
"I second that. " One of the remaining elders in the information counselor position said.
"Me too. "
"Me too."
"Alright, let's just focus on putting everything in motion." Matt stopped their talk to go back to the matter on hand.
"I will immediately send some of the warriors stationed in the fort to the tunnels." Grettel started.
"Thanks to your idea my king, we have successfully been able to keep one of the ancient doors open, we can immediately do the same with the others." The idea Oslo was talking about was quite simple, put an object between the doors to keep them open.
But it wasn't that simple, Oslo remembered as they tried using a boulder or dozens of logs to jam the closing doors but no matter what they put in between, it always got crushed in between the huge steel doors.
One of the artisan apprentices then had the idea of pulling out one of the ancient war machines stuck within the tunnel, except that too was problematic.
Those giant metallic tanks weigh multiple tons, their broken and frozen tracks wouldn't help in moving them either. So it could hardly have been an easy task.
And yet when Oslo announced that they found a solution he omitted the part where they spent hours defrosting the tank, needing multiple "kids" to be scanned by the door to stay open and pulling the tank a long distance all the way to the door.
He also omitted to talk about the fact that he transformed himself into his Jaeger form to pull the tank out which almost caused the tunnel to collapse when he hit his head on the ceiling.
The other artisans had never seen Oslo transform, so when met with a ten meter tall bear monster, all of them ran away in fright of being crushed, by the bear and the falling rocks.
Waiting for his new underlings to evacuate the tunnel after his sudden transformation, Oslo pushed the giant war machine on a long distance until it reached the doors.
A few minutes later, both steel gates closed, bending the tank in the middle. The artisans and scientists anxiously watched the tank and the doors creak, waiting to see if the tank was resistant enough to stop the giant crushing doors.
Only when the tank was pressed together until it became half as wide did the doors stop, smoke and metallic grinding gear sounds coming out from the frame.
The bear melted into the form of a man that couldn't stop heartily laughing, an infectious positivity that spread to all the other workers.
The memory made Oslo laugh by himself as the other counselors continued providing their resources for the scrapper project.
"I will send my hunters to scout ahead as well."
"I WILL ASK SOME OF MY SCIENTISTS TO STUDY EVERYTHING !"
"Everything is settled then. Tell me if you find anything but make sure not to damage anything that looks rare, important or part of the structure." Matt nodded at them.
"Yes, your highness."
"Next matter, there has been some unrest amongst the people. Many don't approve of you trying to force the way inside the Gods' corridors and question your legitimacy. Some have also seen a giant bear almost destroy the recently opened tunnel and want to punish the one that broke the transformation law."
Oslo had a drop of sweat flow down his forehead as he heard the last part.
The transformation law was made by the previous elder shaman when he himself transformed into a giant, like really giant turtle that made the dome above them shake and broke a piece of the glass and ice dome.
A lot of ice debris fell down that day and while they luckily didn't crush anyone they did destroy a lot of the primitive houses they had.
Since that day transforming within the dome could result in a death sentence for endangering the entire clan, something Oslo obviously did not think of when he recklessly transformed.
Matt was thinking about what was just said, knowing Oslo's personality he highly suspected it to be him but just to be sure he still decided to scan him.
'Scan'
(I've decided to stop giving the power levels since I figured they were kinda pointless)
____________________
Name : Petra Neha
Title : Cultural advisor / counselor
Age : 32
Mutation : Coal lynx
Name : Oslo VanBirheiminger
Title : Artisanal advisor / counselor
Age : 67
Mutation : Brown bear
Name : Gerard Lane
Title : Agricultural advisor / counselor
Age : 40
Mutation : Mule
Etc…
______________________
'Fuck, alright. I obviously can't kill him for it… I'll just bail him out and start changing that law a little sooner than I planned to.
"The transformation was a normal occurrence, I allowed Oslo to transform if he really needed to to keep the doors open, we have very few young ones left that can still open the doors so we need to do everything we can to do this fast.
As for the religious unrest… Do you have any ideas?"
"We can lend them the Starvckirke surrounding the tree of Janus. It will give them a place for prayers and make them regain faith in you." The intelligence counselor proposed.
"Speaking of making them regain faith, why don't we make our king a god too?"
"Ohh, that's a won-" Gerard
"Anyone that seconds this idea will be removed from my council." Matt spoke coldly.
"-terrible idea, of course."
"Force them to join the army!"
"They are also pretty angry about the unequal pay and restrictions on their personal freedom that were put in place, a military drafting isn't a good idea."
Matt thought for a while, conservative people were always a problem whenever you wanted to make a change and he didn't want his new policies to have any backlash on his rule.
"Keep the new working hours, pay and food laws, you can make the land and point system a little more generous. As for the believers… I don't want a sect within my country but I can't antagonize them either…Lend them the Starvckirke like you said, we can always try the religious victory.
But make sure they don't attribute the gods as the ones in charge but as passive observers.
Ah and Grettel, all Valhallans are already reserve warriors, they will come fight for Valhalla if there ever is a need for it. So no need to force them to become full time soldiers."
"Uhm… Of course."
"Next up?"
"I believe we need to talk about our military and outside exploration. We still haven't done anything even after being freed from taking over the outside world."
"We don't have enough Intel."
"It wasn't and still isn't our priority."
"Why is this addressed in the council? This should strictly be a military issue."
"YOU COWARDS! We have to do some-" Grettel burst out in anger from the annoying excuses the other counselors made.
"GRETTEL… We will, but not now, the expansion of our military and gathering of outside information will have to wait until we finish the Scrapper plan, after that I'll give you everything you need to make sure we have a safe stay outside."
"Hmpf, alright then."
"I have a proposition concerning one of your earliest demands, your highness." The culture counselor spoke up. She was a black woman that looked to be in her thirties with her frizzy hair tied in a mohawk braid.
While she may not seem important, culture is an essential part of a nation and is the driving force to its success. You don't remember and recognize a nation by its inventions but by its defining social traits after all.
"Which one, Petra ? Is it the flag design or is it the clothing?"
"The flag sir. We are still having trouble finding adequate clothes that may fit all of our clanspeople." Petra smiled and placed a rolled over piece of cloth onto the table before letting it roll open.
The design was quite intricate, a dark blue rectangular background holding a double layered shield in the middle. Said heater shield was decorated by multiple screws on its edges and a cross made up of different tools. The cross wasn't completely visible as a cog and a mountain covered its center.
"That's pretty good."
"Oh it is. I'm definitely going to hang one at home once there are enough of them."
"We don't even know if the king approves, now shush."
Everyone turned to look at Matt who was still studying the flag.
"It's incredible, make the blue color a little lighter and then you can put it in production."
"Thank you, your highness. I will make the adjustments and have a few couturiers start with the sewing."
"Perfect. If that's all, I'll let all of you get to work. I will take a look at your progress in the next few days so don't fool around."
"Of course."
"All hail Valhalla."
"ALL HAIL VALHALLA!"
2212 words