Madman’s Retirement

 

School's starting up again, and it's looking to be a busy semester, for those wondering why this is taking so long. someone also stole my turtle story, and I've finally gotten them to take it down, but goodness, it took a great deal of effort. That's why it took me so long. Sorry everyone!

Edit: Annnd my laptop broke so now I'm using my chromebook from highschool, which pushed this back again. I knew it was coming but woof! It was a sight to behold as it tore apart. 

From here, things began to escalate.

If the small fights in the bars were signs of discontent, then brawls in the street were signs of outrage.

Blood painted the walls as the bodies of beastmen and other nonhumanoids could be found littering the streets.

Elves stabbed with stakes, dwarves suffocating underground, monsters skinned and hung like kills. Words of mockery littered over all of them.

The humans were not left untouched either, with many humans dying in equally gruesome and painful ways.

Violence had filled the streets, and blood ran.

The whispers of the church seen as one of kindness fueled the rage and cruelty.

All the while both the local government and adventurer's guild freaked, soon finding that none of their messages are getting out.

At this point the outpost had become a storm in a bottle.

The tensions had risen as the followers of Isis had hoped for.

---

The followers were also suffering harsh losses.

The number of their followers had died so rapidly that they were dropping like flies.

For every person that they had killed or even gotten killed, one of theirs had disappeared.

As if for every person who's life they cost, they in turn lost one of their own.

It had gotten so bad that paladin Peter's had stepped in, desperately trying to stop the drop in numbers.

But recently a dense fog had appeared, settling over the whole town, as if it were a dark warning, encompassing everything and everyone.

He didn't know what it was, only who could be behind it. For only when he began his attempts to track Grant in the midst of his actions did the mist block his every move.

There was nothing to it. No divine power, no mana.

He wasn't stupid. Peter quickly figured it was likely qi then, but that just led to a dead end. No one amongst his group knew how to manipulate qi, leaving them in a dead end.

It was clear that Grant had also chosen to speed up the process, as things rushed to a climax. The man had switched from trying to stop him to egging him on, and taking his troops. 

Fine. That was good for his purposes too. Peter grit his teeth in determination.

Things would end as he had intended. And once this was all done, it would all be over. 

And he could rest.

---

Grant chuckled, watching as Peter wandered around helplessly, searching for him.

Grant was lucky that the fog counted as a legendary rank item, otherwise he would've had to accept a few casualties in the process of war with these crazy acolytes.

Looking behind him, he saw the countless comatose bodies of the victims of this quiet war.

Victims he said, and yet not a single one of them had been hurt.

The fog was the source of his trick of course.

Fog he called it, and yet the substance surrounding this town was so much more.

The fog, as he called it, was one of the most powerful weapons that he, alongside the 8 supervisors of the system had developed around 400 years ago as a compromise with the catholic church. The catholic church was averse to the magical world, willing to go on the war path with it, and the magical world was wary of the church, whose paladins and an immunity to magic thanks to their devotion to their God, in addition to the ability to summon true angels.

Ultimately, after many centuries of conflict, both sides recognized that endless wars would go nowhere, with incidents like the Salem witch trials being common. There was also heresay that a higher angel had descended to tell them to knock it off, though that was merely rumor unconfirmed.

Regardless, a compromise was made. To hide the magical world from man, to blend them in.

The fog, as he called it, was a substance that covered the eyes of man, and blended the lines between illusion and reality. Nonhumans were covered in the guise of man. To monsters, everything looked the same, though were they to focus, they could see as man could. LIfe went on. But for men? They merely saw humans. The reality of everything had changed. 

Goblins? Men.

Beastmen? Men

Wyverns? gigantic birds like eagles or hawks.

It was easy to pierce the veil on first glance, as long as one directly exposed them to magic or qi. But that was because they made it easy. The fog in reality, was the divinity of illusions, gathered from many gods of dreams and illusions, with the promise of more followers gifted to them in return for the fragment of their divinity.

Grant and all the higher ups in the supernatural world were content to wait. They knew that as time went on, the church would lose its influence, or lose its extreme stance towards magic, and that was the bet they won in the end. After which, they could just reintroduce magic. In a world more fueled towards appeasing their audience, which major power could afford to offend their base of followers? And major politicians were easily bought out with the offers of youth to offers of true power, the kind of protection that only a cultivator could offer. 

They even got the church to agree to let them spread this fog as far as the church could reach in its prime, allowing the fog to wrap around the world. The cultivators didn't care, and the gods of faith wholeheartedly supported the idea, to lure a new age of followers in with the appeal of the occult.

They thought a veil, when in reality it was a net that allowed them to capture the world. The fog could control the way one saw reality. Why would it only separate the natural and the supernatural? Nonsense! It controlled all forms of perception. The men had invited the fox into the farmhouse.

With one command, Grant could make the world a living hell, and everyone else would merely watch a man go mad, screaming about the end of the world, demons rising from the pits of hell. Crazy, would be the only thought a passerby would have.

They could give people delusions, as they mow down their enemies, imagining hordes of foes coming at them when in reality they slaughter their friends, hang them from trees, bury the half way into the ground. It could turn the most devout follower into a heretic believing in their own vision of the world.

It didn't register as divinity to poor Peter because the fog fooled perception, one of its most dangerous aspects. He was leading the man by the nose.

All the while, he picked off the followers, and quietly saved their victims, replacing them with the appropriate replacements.

Grant had already been called in by the guildmaster, who had more than just a few problems with what had been going on. The facts of the matter had been that Grant had bee pushing for violence, and in a sense, he was at fault for the current carnage. 

Grant disagreed. Violence was just human's nature, nay, everything's nature. Had the radical anti non human sect of Isis not gotten what they had desired, he was sure things would've gotten just as bad as they were now. 

So he promised the man on the river Styx that not a single one of the victims had been hurt. The man hadn't believed it, but given Grant had promised on the river styx, a divine river tied to Anubis god of contracts, there was validity to his words, for if he lied then he would be hunted down by the god of contracts and promises, and as a demigod the guildmaster couldn't help but believe his words. 

Yeah, the guildmaster was a demigod. Perhaps in the height of his power, he could've held his own against the paladin, but at nearly 1000 years of age, he was starting to slow down, even a mere SS rank paladin could beat him. 

Well he said a mere SS rank. Everything was relative, and Grant hadn't bothered to check who's progeny the guildmaster was. It could be a minor god. 

And irrelevant. All that mattered was the guildmaster would prioritize protecting the citizens and the adventurers leaving Grant to his prize. 

A few more days, and the fog would completely set into their brains. And reality would be whatever he wanted it to be. 

---

The kid was eating. 

Grant was watching from the door, and though the boy was wary of him, he did not stop eating, merely watching him warily. 

It was progress. Just the other day, the boy had even tried venturing downstairs, before seeing him cooking and quickly fled upstairs. 

Before quietly going back down to watch Grant cook. 

It was an amusing sight as the boy began wandering the house, curiously investigating the house. 

The ecstatic expression the kid had when he sat on the couch was so adorable that Grant had to take a photo. 

Snap!

Aaaaannd the kid ran back upstairs hearing the mysterious flash of a camera.  Grant chuckled a little at the sight. 

The boy had yet to try going out the door yet. Seeing the forest and being wary of the window. Perhaps a fear of windows? 

More likely the forest itself brought brought bad memories. 

It was probably better this way, since the sights outside would more than likely make the child faint on the spot. He could always slowly introduce it all to the kid later.

As for the sights outside. 

Looking at the progenitors he determined some of them should be strong enough to be taken out to fight Peter. Did he need them to fight for him? No, he could probably drive Peter insane with the fog alone, to drive him to kill himself, or even kill his own followers. 

The drows and dravens were clearly not ready yet, but the shroom father was ready enough, as was the progenitor of axobodl's, though unfortunately the korvold progenitor was far from the strength necessary, especially with her tendency towards merchantry rather than combat, though she had her own uses in the long run.  

Some other of the shroom progenitors should be enough to deal with some of the foolish acolytes. 

The scenery had been set, the pieces had been placed, and the players were all ready.

Why put it off any longer? 

The curtains should rise.

---

Theodore groaned as he read the reports.Over a 100 people dead, slaughtered within the last 5 days. 

He eyes the man across from him, casually sitting around and watching the arguments erupting outside with a quiet stare. The man was unsettling in that way, how he kept the mask on at all times. Even now, he wasn't sure what the man was thinking. 

Clearly over 100 people had die, meaning he had broken the promise of the river styx, yet he seemed to nonplussed. Indifferent. 

And none of the hounds of Anubis had shown up. Whatever that fog was, there was no way it or Peter could block the vision of a god. 

Which meant that he wasn't lying, and no one had died. Or he had sworn allegiance to a heinous god that allowed him to make false oaths, but that seemed highly unlikely. The man hardly seemed the religious type, or fanatical. 

He could be hiding it though...

If only he could see his face, he could read him better. 

As the guildmaster pandered how to get the mask off the man, Grant was quietly waiting watching for something. 

Boom! The guildmaster looked at the window startled and worried, while Grant silently grinned under the mask.

There it was. There was his call.

Time for the play to begin!

Grant is weird. Even as his friend, I'll admit that. A side effect of absorbing all those memories into him is that he has many contradicting factors to him. 

At times he'll be cold and indifferent, and other times the most affectionate comrade you could have, sometimes too affectionate. 

Sometimes he'll just crush his foes, and other times he'll play with his food.

I've watched him go into a brothel for fun, and emerge bathed in blood because he was bored. No one dead, but many wishing they ad died, and the fog needed to cleanse their minds.

Entire plays constructed so he can crush his foes eloquently, and other times he'll just squish them because the play has become too much work, or he is dissatisfied with the play.. 

It's given him a reputation as an uncontrollable madman, dangerous and unhinged. He was even called the demon god by the martial artists, before they realized that title tuly did not encompass the whole of his personality. 

Grant does his best to reign in the uncontrolled nature he has, vindictiveness and kindness as likely as heads or tails. You never know with him.

As his boss these are merely miniscule issues, things I can waive given he is such a useful tool. 

But as a friend? As a friend I recognize that what I had drove him to do was wrong, and what I've costed him with my actions is more than it should've, and turning a blind eye to his suicidal desire is better for all of us. For him. 

I owe him that much.

-Flamel