"Oh, I've run into the Flame Legion a time or two. In fact, I think they are still pretty angry with me over how things shook down." I grinned as I chatted up a nubile young Countess.
Faren stood next to me unable to decide if he was envious or in awe of the way this hard to get woman was hanging on my every word. 'Pay close attention young buck,' I signaled with my eyes, 'You're gonna learn today.'
Or he would have if not for me catching Wanda out of the corner of my eye (a much diminished concept considering the loss of my 270 degree vision) turn green and hurry over to some bushes to hurl. Medusa, sweet heart that she is, helped hold her hair back.
"Excuse me, my dear." I begged the Countess's pardon, "There is a matter of some urgency I need to see to. Faren!" I barked startling the young man, "Ensure that the Countess is suitably entertained in my absence."
'Kid, if you can't seal the deal after I have left her this soggy you can consider your apprenticeship canceled.' I said with my eyes.
'I agree, sir.' he messaged me back, 'Cats really are better than dogs.'
I do believe our master-apprentice silent eye communication technique was only working one way.
As I approached Wanda and and Medusa, I overheard the later providing words of comfort for the former.
"Poor little Wanda cannot hold her party. Just like a little girl." Medusa spoke softly, "You puke, puke, puke. You are weak."
Such a sweet heart.
Medusa would have continued comforting Wanda if not for the fact that she too began vomiting into the bushes. I rushed over and was quickly holding two sets of hair back.
"Why is this happening?" Wanda groaned.
"Ha! Revenge!" Jack shouted as she leapt out from behind a nearby tree.
"Revenge for what?" Medusa moaned after wiping her mouth.
"For all the times you made fun of me back in Mass Effect for being a swollen baby factory!" Jack laughed, "Now suffer, skanks!"
"Please explain to me what is going on." I demanded from Jack.
"We picked up a lot of divinity in this world." Jack grinned, "It pushed us all the way up to quasi god status."
"Ah shit." I muttered then thought about the absolute bender I had been on across this continent, sticking it in every willing and able pussy I could find, "Ah shit!"
"What the hell does that mean?" Wanda growled.
"Grunt and I are more that three parts to one on the god to mortal ratio, so we no longer have DNA and instead just are." Jack explained.
"Explain in a way that makes sense to someone who is too nauseous to make logical leaps." Wanda commanded.
"It means that Jack and I can now breed with anyone, alongside a whole host of other awesome beni's." I told her.
"Ah shit." Wanda muttered, "I'm pregnant. I can't be pregnant. I still get off when thinking about how you killed my dad."
"What are the odds that the baby will be a Pegasus?" Medusa asked.
"Fucking zero." I told her.
"Good." Medusa nodded, "I am not having another horse come out of my birth canal."
"Move over bitches." Jack said as she pushed them aside and started puking herself.
"My kid is going to kid your kids' asses." Jack grinned after she finished ralphing.
Three pregnant partners along with hundreds of Kodan, Norn, Charr, and Human women I'd nutted in on the way down to Divinity's Reach from the Frostgorge Sound. That will put a damper in the adventuring spirit, but hey, I always said it was a shame I couldn't breed some real power into a pathetic gene pool. Now it is time to put my money where my mouth is.
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Unlike most fictional characters who get pregnant in the middle of an adventure, Jack, Wanda, and Medusa had nothing to prove and weren't going to go into combat with babies in their bellies so they can show that girls get it done. We all had a good laugh about the cheap drama authors use to up the stakes and show the costs of arrogance and all that trite shit.
With three kids on the way, we shifted gear away from adventuring and decided what we wanted to be doing during the down time created by the pregnancies. Ultimately, the choice was simple.
My connection to Hermeaus Mora allows him to view the worlds we go to through a looking glass. His field of view is limited, but far. As such, so long as a magic system is focused, but deep, Hermeaus Mora can view all of it with little effort. With more effort he can learn a system that is shallow, but wide reaching. In Tyria the Magic is as deep and wide as the ocean, and it was impressive that Mora managed to finish learning about the Archetypes and Crafting before petering out with about a quarter of an education from the Asuran College of Statics.
As such the greatest well of knowledge we could pool from without simply traveling across all the lands and learning the various cultural magics was South, in the Metrica Province among the Asura.
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"You can't really be thinking of leaving?" Faren asked us as we were marching through the south gates of Divinity's Reach, "You have only just arrived and the city is still clamoring about you and your heroics! You haven't even met my friend Lee! He fought at your side in Shaemoor and only just awoke. He will be awfully sad to have missed you."
"Tell your pal, Lee, we were sorry to miss him too, but we are moving on." I told my apprentice of a single day.
But you know what they say, 'A teacher for a day, a father for a lifetime.'
So Faren is my son.
We left the dandy and pushed south through Queensdale and into the Kessex Hills and holy shit is this place completely overrun by scum and villainy. We barely entered the region before a gang of highwaymen offered up their valuables to us.
We reacted with such joy at their generosity that even the Centaurs encamped south of us at the Earthworks were so moved by the sight that they pulled back all their outriders and scouts and watched us go without even saying a word. Truly the nobility of the human spirit can move even the most brutal of beasts.
Or the screams and gore were enough to scare even the Centaurs… Who can say?
The Ettins (a race of two headed greenskin trolls) had collapsed the Giant's pass, so we detoured through the Triskelion Vale. Interestingly enough, despite the heavy Centaur presence in the area, the people of the area were suffering from non-horseman related reasons and were actually engaging in commerce with the filthy savages.
Dafaq bros?
The Lionsguard Sheriff manning the hillfort, Kessex Haven, explained that despite the Centaurs actively attacking and enslaving the rest of humanity, Lion's Arch didn't give a fuck and had a peace treaty with them. Apparently no one ever explained to them that when a pack of Nazi's are rounding up all your neighbors, eventually there will be no one left to hold them off when they come for you.
Anyway, the people of the area weren't suffering from the Centaurs, they were suffering from the Krait (a reptilian race serpentine below the waist that live in the ocean and have invaded the coasts and inland waters of Tyria after suspected displacement by the unconfirmed deep sea dragon). Knowing about the Krait almost made me happy I wasn't a lizard any more. These scaly fucks are like amphibian Batarians and their only cultural exchange is the enslavement of others.
Arena net was truly dedicated to making their bad guys completely unsympathetic.
At least the Krait taste great, so they contribute something to the greater good.
For those wondering, Faren's friend Lee is one of my Alts in GW2, a Human Ascalonian Nobleman Ranger. He and several of my other alts will be competeing for the role of Pact Commander, with the frontrunner being my super edgy Sylvari Necromancer, Sythe Nightstalker.
Remember bonus chapters every thousand stones, hundred reviews, and for donanting at
ko - fi . com / jmanm
I rose up out of the waters of Viathan Lake, glistening in the sunlight, pulling four dead krait behind me by their tails. The women of the fishing village, Triskellion Quay, waited at the pier.
"Oh my, Lord Grax." Spoke their leader, the mayor's wife, "With all the meat you bring to us, we just won't be able to take it all."
"Don't worry ladies." I grinned, "It may seem scary at first, but I am sure we will find a way to fit it all in."
"Why, I have already had to send my husband to expand the smokers three days in a row." the mayor's wife looked my body up and down, "It looks like we will need to send the men out for another day of construction."
"I am just doing my civic duty." I informed the crowd of hungry eyed women.
After all, before I got here this village was on its way from going from the last fishing village in the area, to a ghost town. Now all these hungry people who couldn't get food from the lake because of the krait have a whole new source of culinary delight.
And I don't mean all the dick I have been feeding these ladies.
"Ah, Lord Grax!" Shouted a gang of teenagers, "Another successful day slaying monsters and providing meat to the hungry. We can't wait to grow up and be just like you."
The boys said some more of that kind of stuff while they dragged the dead krait off to go be butchered and smoked to be eaten at a later date, seeing as fresh meat was in huge supply with my one man war against the sea lizards pulling in a bountiful harvest.
Our time in the Treskellion Vale and Viathan Lake came to its natural conclusion and we pressed on south, following the road atop the cliffs skirting the lake and into Caledon Forest, the safest part of the Maguuma Jungle and home to the Pale Tree and her children the Sylvari. If not for the Inquest I would put the Metrica Province as the safest part of the jungle, on account of Zhaitan's Risen constantly washing up on the beaches of this region, but a bunch of mindless and weak cast off zombies don't hold up as a threat versus the Hydra of Guild Wars.
The road through the Treemarch Estuary was a beautiful strip of causeway defended from the local Krait by the Lionsguard of Kraitbane Haven, a multi towered fort built on a small island in the middle of the river that fed Quetzal Bay. We wouldn't be going through the more scenic parts of this area as our path lead us straight to the Wychmire Swamp and just around the Twilight Arbor, the home of the Nightmare Court (Sylvari counter faction that reject the teachings of Ventari, the Centaur philosopher who tended the young Pale Tree alongside the Human warrior Ronan. They seek to purge all non-native thinking from the Pale Tree and the Dream of Dreams to bring about a pure Sylvari mindset. Ironically they are unaware that they are just slaves for the jungle dragon, Mordremoth and it is the teachings of Ventari that allow Sylvari to resist his influence.)
Though out of our way, I did snag a few Nightmare Courtiers for a snack and found their unique plant bodies to have a surprisingly meaty flavor. They were a functional plant recreation of the human form, and had all the organs and infrastructures of a normal human body. I'd be very interested to do a more scientific analysis of effects of consuming Sylvari, specifically their macro and micronutrient profiles, but there just aren't enough of them in the world for them to become a sustainable part of a balanced diet for any but the eccentric.
Too bad, as I bet they are great for heart health.
Our last leg of the journey through this region brought us to the Trader's Green and the Town of Cathal, a location full of structures grown from plants and fastened together. The Sylvari mostly used these shelters for their food stocks and dinner tables as despite the capacity for photosynthesis, the plant men are omnivorous and prefer to be outside mostly.
With no reason to stay in the settlement, we continued into the Metrica Province.
The theme of bad guys owning the borders continued as built into the cliffs alongside the path into the Province was an honest to God Inquest stronghold in all its shining glory full of Inquest Agents that attacked people traveling on the road so they can be used in experiments.
How do we know this? Well the guy shouting 'Fresh Subjects!' right before the little house elf looking mother fuckers swarmed out of their fortress to subdue us was a solid hint.
Too bad for them, this was a 'Fresh Meat!' situation and I always win those.
The fortress incorporated the Asuran love of cubes and anti grav magi tech. They especially enjoyed making cubes float with said anti grav tech, either in whole or in deconstructed puzzle pieces. Puzzle pieces being the third big theme in Asuran architecture.
I for one am pro all of those things, so I had a real fun time moving through the Inquest stronghold seeing all the neat little features that the Tryian House Elves love so much. Thank God that Asura love being in huge rooms and hallways despite being a diminutive subterranean species, so I had no problem navigating their base. Hell, I could move a company of Jotun through this base and those guys are both huge and stupid.
The Inquest themselves were substandard warriors, using their advanced tech to make up for their physical limitations, the greatest of this is their many many many golems. I looked foreword to learning golemancy at the College of Statics, then what the Asura are researching to improve their golemancy at the College of Dynamics, then learning why golemancy and all other fields of magic work at the College of Synergistics.
I sure had a lot to study once we get to Rata Sum.
After killing all the Asura, I made sure to take all their swag. Bags of Holding are fucking dope for guys looking to loot. I even considered prying up the floor tiles in honor of Meng Huo, but his story didn't really end well, so best not to emulate the guy.
The rest of our journey through the Province was smooth travelling despite the presence of enormous bugs and spiders giving me flashbacks to Tuchanka and the Insect Armageddon.
Good times.
Our last steps in the Province were though the town of Soren Draa, a location housing an Asura Gate (portal tech) to the new capital Rata Sum. Soren Draa was a large series of labs and demonstration fields for newly graduated Asura to show off their research projects, talent, and knowledge to prospective Krewes. The Krewe system is how the Asura prefer to organize themselves, and are temporary working alliances and corporations that form around a single task and dissolve after the task is completed with the various members going their separate ways in search of new projects and Krewes to join.
That temporary preference is common throughout the lives of the little creatures, as even their marriages are structured with a final separation in mind after a set amount of time or children. Hell, the couple will fight harder over who gets what research and equipment rather than who gets the kids.
It boggles the mind that these eggheads think they deserve to rule Tyria. Academics make even worse governors than politicians, due in large part to the fact that the typical academic is a poorly rounded person. Politicians tend to be round, it is hard for their crooked spines to straighten out under the weight of all that special interest money they are raking in, or better yet all the money they have embezzled, stolen, or betrayed their country for.
With all that going on it may seem strange that academics are worse than politicians, but that lies in the belief in ideas. Academics more than anyone else live lives that allow them to spend massive amounts of time playing out bad ideas without ever paying the consequences of them. If you don't believe me, how is that Women's Studies degree helping you in the job search.
A college professor can be a devout Marxist, despite the over hundred million people slain in the twentieth century by the Communists and the purge of collegiate professors carried out by Stalin and Mao after the Communist take over of China and Russia. Nothing like a person so sheltered and ignorant that they can espouse an ideology that if taken up by everyone else will have them dragged into the streets and beaten to death.
That is why academics are shit at running countries.
But the Asura are cool. They are going to teach me some neat shit.
Alright people, my updates are going to take a hit as I have family in town till Sunday.
In other news, I have updated the summary for the story. Take a read of it and let me know if you think I did a good job explaining the story without spoilers.
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