-----Lilu Flauros-----
All in all, a good start to my campaign of Evil.
So what should I do next? I guess progress the main story? Yeah, probably the best thing I could do in this situation. I mean, I could summon the girls over, but there wouldn't be much for them to do until the Tower's cleaned up a bit, which doesn't happen until I recover the Crane and rescue Rose from Castle Spree and the Ruborian Raiders.
So, I guess I could head to Spree. Probably the best thing I could do for now. Locking in my destination for the Mellow Hills, I step through the portal and pop out in the Mellow Hills, then summon my 15 Browns. After securing the Tower Heart, I gained control of 5 extra Minions, so that should be enough for most puzzles in this area, at least the ones that aren't gated behind environmental restrictions like fire, poison, or water.
With that in mind, I begin my trek through the area and before long take the path that leads to the Southern Gate of the village of Spree. "Huh? A stranger? Should we let them in?" Asks one of the guards keeping watch.
"Nah, could be a Halfling in disguise! Look at them little critters following them around." Says the other guard.
"I dunno, looks kinda tall to be a Halfling to me." Says the first guard.
"Could be two Halflings standing on top of each other! Oi, you down there! If you want us to open the gate, you need ta prove you's ain't a Halfling! They don taken some of the villagers out yonder to cook em and eat em. Rescue them, and we'll know you aint's with them!"
While debating the merits and demerits of just using Telekinesis to pull the damned drawbridge/gate down, I turn to the nearby fields where there's a number of Halflings running around. Hmm, do I use my new Fireball Spell that I got from the Tower Heart, or do I go with one of my other school of Destruction spells?
Fuck it, we ball. I end up summoning two Flame Thralls, basically upgraded Flame Atronachs, and send them forth. These lovely ladies make quick work of the hiding Halflings, by setting everything on fire. The screams of my enemies is rather pleasant to hear actually.
"Ooh! Master, you've been holding out on old Gnarl! To think that you had such enticinglyentrancing fire spirits under your command! All the better to wreak havoc upon your enemies while giving you a pleasant view! Hahaha!"
Huh, that sounded surprisingly sincere coming from Gnarl. Well, I'm pretty sure that at this stage he's still mostly loyal to the Second Overlord and likely has some means of informing my "father" of my progress. But, Gnarl's first loyalty is to the "Overlord", and he'll easily betray one Master in favor of another if they're more suitable as "The Overlord" in his eyes. Therefore, I just need to demonstrate that I'm the superior Overlord and I won't have as much to worry about.
Showing off my Atronachs is a bit of a calculated risk since Gnarl might snitch to The Wizard about them, but that's not a big deal. I haven't shown off the ability to command more than a handful of "spirits" at a time, so The Wizard can still be caught flat-footed if I suddenly start spamming an Atronach horde during our final battle.
Well, an Atronach horde isn't necessarily the best I can do, all things considered. But it's still a decent option to keep in my back pocket. I've got plenty of other options to work with, but I'll work things out as I go along.
It doesn't take long to find and roast more Halflings, liberating some enslaved villagers. Then Gnarl starts giving me the speech about "kill 'innocents', get more 'Evil'" thing. Naturally, I decided to get some extra mileage out of this by bringing out the [Ebony Blade], the Daedric Artifact of Mephala. The villagers I saved are deemed as "friendly" and I imagine they're quite grateful for me saving them...
I order my Minions to capture the four freed villages and get to work cutting them down with the Ebony Blade. It seems that my theory was correct as each time I kill one, I feel the Blade's enchantment grow stronger and hear Mephala's voice echoing through the Blade.
Mephala:
"Excellent work, child."
Wait a second, who- what are you?! How did you-?! This- Nocturnal?! Hermaeus Mora?! What is this?!
Nocturnal:
Greetings Sister, it seems that my latest Champion's being quite the busy body. Well, I could give you a long, boring summary but-
Hermaeus Mora:
[EXPOSITION]
Nocturnal:
Thank you brother.
Hermaeus Mora:
No problem Sister.
Mephala:
...I see. Interesting. Very interesting indeed. This "Devil" may not be such a bad candidate after all. To knowingly claim my blade and strike down those who would revere him for his heroism... Hehehe. If he succeeds in restoring the Ebony Blade, perhaps I may also name them as my Champion. After all, I am known as the Daedric Prince of "Lies, Sex, Murder, and Secrets", and I suspect that this Devil resonates quite well with my spheres.
Huh, dommy spider mommy's taking a shine to me? Well, worse things could happen. In the meantime, I kill the other two villagers, there blood of deceit fueling the restoration of the Ebony Blade bit by bit.
"I can feel their heartbreak swelling in my blade."I'm going to assume that's a good thing then.
In the meantime, I've located a Blood Pit where I can sacrifice a Minion for some fast HP.
Completely unnecessary due to my [Immortality] derived from basically copying the obscene Regeneration rate of the Phenex Clan, which kinda trivializes a large part of the game due to having obscene passive HP regen without any special armor.
I also found a Mana Pit that does basically the same thing as the Blood Pit, but for Mana. Again unnecessary due to my obscene Mana Regen and near infinite Mana Pool.
After opening a nearby shortcut that would've opened the path down to the Minion Command Upgrade that I'd normally need Blue Minions to access, I backtrack to the guard post that the Halflings have set up to keep people away from their territory. They toss some rocks at me.
I activate Mara's Wrath, Unbounded Freezing, and Unbounded Storms and rain elemental hell down upon the nearby Halflings. Hmm, I figured Gnarl would have some gobsmacked commentary on me being a walking engine of Destruction? Oh well. I then walk up the gate and rather than have my Minions turn the wheel to lower it, I channel and cast Fire Storm combined with Whirlwind Cloak to blow the whole damn thing apart.
-----Gnarl, Minion Master-----
What in the name of all that is Evil am I witnessing?! I have served many Masters before this one, and even served my previous Master twice over. First when he was still known as Lord Gromgard, then after his "death" which led to him possessing some nobody and becoming the "Second Overlord" of this era, and obviously during his reign as the Second Overlord.
I knew full well the extent of Lord Gromgard's talent for Soul Manipulation and his overall magical talent. I also knew that he had a son out there in the wilderness, a potential backup vessel for if he was ever struck down. Something went wrong however and Lord Gromgard was forced to reinvent himself after that.
Ever since that incident, he hardly ever took to the field himself, preferring to command his legion of Minions from the safety of the Dark Tower that he'd created as a means of amplifying his power and reach. It came as a great surprise to him and me both when the wayward son came as a member of that group of meddlesome "Heroes".
I could sense the raw magical potential leaking out of him, even as he prioritized melee combat for whatever reason. I knew as well as Lord Gromgard that he'd survived his fall to his apparent doom, and Lord Gromgard laid out a plan to not only restore his lost power following his latest "death", but to finally seize the ideal vessel for his proper "rebirth".
All he needed to do was gather massive quantities of Evil Energy, this would be done by corrupting the Seven Heroes and allowing them to spread the taint of Evil across the land unwittingly. Then when the time was right and the Corrupted Heroes were ready to be harvested, the wayward son would be awoken from his slumber and sent out to fulfill the role of the "Third Overlord".
The "Third Overlord" would be led astray by me to indulge in Evil and Corrupt acts to bring their Soul more into line with the Evil of Lord Gromgard. Lord Gromgard deduced that the reason why he couldn't possess his son was due to a powerful protective magic born of the power of Good, a protection forged by his late mother at the cost of her life.
Therefore, the best way to cripple that protection would be to drive the son to commit Evil and become Corrupt of his own volition, then have him absorb the concentrated Evil Essence of the Seven Heroes to further taint his Soul. Once that was done, the protective power of his mother would be insufficient to keep Lord Gromgard from possessing him again.
Well, that was the plan at least. Now though. Now I'm not so sure. The "Third" is suddenly displaying a talent for magic, mayhem, and carnage befitting of an Overlord already. He was entirely too willing to kill those "innocent" villagers to be someone innately aligned with Good.
And that destructive power he commanded, not to mention that sword... I don't know where he got it, but I can tell that there's some positively Evil power coursing through that blade, power that only grew once it was used to kill those villagers. Perhaps Lord Gromgard was mistaken.
Maybe it's not that the mother was keeping her son safe even beyond death, maybe it's that Evil had found a way. Perhaps whatever dark force that weighed the balance of Evil decided to measure The Second against The Third, and found Lord Gromgard lacking.
Perhaps... perhaps it was time to consider acknowledging a new Master in earnest... Hmm, it's too early to tell just yet, but maybe I'll forget to mention a few things to Lord Gromgard in the next report. It is inevitable that the two of them will clash over who wears the Dark Crown. In the end, Evil finds a way... And so shall I...
-----Lilu Flauros-----
Making my way through what was left of the gate, I follow the path leading towards the Slave Camps, my Minions and Flame Thralls close behind.
I pass by a few more enslaved villagers bitching and moaning about calluses on their hands and how they've got to keep working. Blah blah blah, I cut them down with the Ebony Blade, but apparently they don't count as friendly. Damn.
I press on and find a small outpost where some villagers were being kept locked up in a cage. I order my Minions to let them out of the cage, which they're immensely grateful for. Be a real shame if- *schink* *slash* *splosh*
And that's another five friendly villagers down.
"Their tears shine the ebony to a sharpest gleam."
"Ah, the blood of deceit is a nourishing flow."
I'm sure it is. Just one more friendly villager and the Ebony Blade'll be fully restored.
I make my way down the path and enter the "arena" where I face my first Troll. A big, fat tub of lard who definitely treats Intelligence as a dump stat. Apparently not even the upgrade I made to people's general intelligence was able to do much of anything for the Trolls IQ.
Oh well, I could fight it the normal way, or I could do the cool way. Charging up Blizzard and Unbounded Storms to keep the Troll and accompanying Halflings from being a nuisance, I then fire up Lightning Storm.
"Ka- Me- Ha- Me- HADOUKEN!!!!!!!!" I scream as a pillar of lightning is shot from my cupped together hands forming a nearly solid beam of plasmatic death and destruction. I deliberately disabled the Disintegration Perk because I want to collect the Troll's corpse for use with my Necromancy. I should really start looking into that stuff for real.
Anyways, the Troll gets positively roasted by the fury of God, the Halflings are freaking the fuck out as while I disabled Disintegrate for the Lightning Storm, the Unbounded Storms are fair game and the lightning strikes from that are having surprisingly good odds at procking Disintegrate.
The Halflings are running around in terror as the seemingly malevolent lightning is striking at them like some venomous serpent that rends all it touches to glowing piles of smoldering dust. Suffice to say, the Minions are cheering me on like I'm the second coming of the Dark Messiah or some shit.
The villagers are all cheering in their cages, everything's hunky dory, although Gnarl's been suspiciously quiet for a while now... I can't tell if that's a good sign or a bad sign. Oh well, I'm sure it'll sort itself out.
In the meantime, I open the gate leading out of the arena and the liberated villagers who weren't still locked in cages offered me a Crane. As in, the Tower Crane that the Heroes stole... You know what, I'm just not even going to bother.
Instead I task a group of Minions to take the Crane back to the Tower Gate while having the rest turn the wheel to free the villagers who are still locked up. The now free villagers are busy thanking the Gods and celebrating their freedom.
Yeah... No... With a quick slash, the closest to me loses his head, making for the final kill that I needed to restore the Ebony Blade to its full power.
"At last, my blade is returned to its full glory. Now, go forth, child. Continue your tiny subversions against the orders of trust and intimacy."Well, if you insist. I then order my Minions to capture the remaining villagers and I cut them all down with the fully restored Ebony Blade. Sure, it's not getting any stronger for it, but I'm sure that Mephala appreciates the gesture nonetheless.
I most certainly do, my newest Champion. I'm looking forward to how much more disharmony and discord your actions will bring. The occasional blood sacrifice of betrayed allies is also appreciated.Wonderful. Now with that out of the way, time to return to the Tower.