"Unto the last we obeyed our masters honorably."
Many miles off the coast of Papura was an uninhabited and unnamed atoll, and on it was left the sarcophagus of the soon to awaken Demiurge. Those who left it there made their escape almost not quickly enough to avoid his unbridled rage. The magic binding the coffin dissolved, then the metal itself exploded with great force, and Demiurge emerged with the ferocity of a dragon. In short order, the atoll was somewhat the worse for wear. Then a blast protected buried capsule emerged from the ground, and a booming recording of Lord Ainz repeated over and over a simple message: "Demiurge, I order you to return to Nazarick immediately!" The trip back was hurried but unencumbered, his flight path cleared of any other traffic, and watched at a safe distance from the ground and relayed to the authorities.
When he entered the throne room, Albedo, Rubedo, Victim, Pandora's Actor, Shalltear Bloodfallen and Cocytus were present. Lord Ainz was not. "Demiurge! Prostrate yourself before the Throne of Kings!," said Albedo, with an angry command voice. Only then did she check the NPC list, for the second time, to insure that Demiurge had not been subverted. He had not. There was still a pregnant pause before Lord Ainz made his entry.
After briefly conferring with Albedo, Ainz seated himself on the throne and ordered Demiurge to rise.
"I have already spoken with (newly promoted) Rear Admiral Shasha and the survey crew who were with you when you were stricken, but I have yet to have sufficient answers to our satisfaction", said Ainz, not using a royal 'we', but implying the other guardians were on high alert. "But first, let me welcome you back, and I hope you are in good health, and able to explain what happened during this expedition. Yet know that I am not pleased at all with any turn of events that incapacitates one of my guardians."
"My Lord," said Demiurge, "from the moment I set foot on that world, what I felt would can only be described as an overwhelming sense of deja vu, and I now think that among the guardians, perhaps even for you, Lord Ainz, this would not be unique, as I believe that this world was once our home in Helheim.
A feeling best described as an "electric chill" was experienced by all in the throne room. Every guardian remembered the Great Tomb of Nazarick in Helheim as their first home. Perhaps the least inviting of the worlds of YGGDRASIL, chosen for that very reason by the Supreme Beings of Ainz Ooal Gown as their impenetrable sanctuary. Lord Ainz was fully aware the attraction his servants might feel, to return to what they might think of as the place of their birth.
Demiurge continued. "Once I entered the small stone building there, and divined that which was laid before me was the broken crown of a Tuveg Priest Lord, I suddenly saw an inscription that had not been on the wall in front of me just a moment before. It said that this monument marked the sacred location where once stood the Great Tomb of Nazarick!"
The electric chill was redoubled with a palpable tension. Ainz felt like squirming in his seat, but could only imagine what emotions were flowing through the guardians right now.
"I was struck with confusing yet impossible guilt, that when Nazarick was taken away along with all of us, these Tuveg kept to their station, and probably called forth to every one of their kind in the swamp to defend a gaping hole that had been Nazarick, against hordes of attackers, until they had been slaughtered, to the last, unable to respawn." This set off alarms within Demiurge, as such feelings were alien to him, indifferent to the slaughter of unimportant foes or allies.
"That would have broken Queen Aura's heart!", Shalltear chimed in, to an angry stare from Albedo, before she softened her glare with the realization that Shalltear was right. The Tuveg had been Aura's charges, and she cared for them deeply like her other creatures.
Demiurge continued, "The few Tuveg that survived, knowing their days were numbered, built the monument, not to themselves, but to honor the Supreme Beings of Nazarick." This hit home to all the other guardians, as being abandoned by the Supreme Beings had long been their greatest fear. Even Ainz could feel their disheartening change in mood.
So Ainz interjected, "But this does not explain what happened to you." He was desperate to change the subject, however slightly.
Demiurge explained, "On seeing the writing, that had appeared before me, I realized that I might be under serious mental attack, an attempt to control my mind, so I was about to order a retreat, when I realized that I appeared to no longer be in the stone monument, but alone, and by what seemed to me, within a corridor in Nazarick. Right then I heard someone call my name, and felt a profound shiver down my spine. And turning about, I stood face to face with a very angry Lord Odle! I screamed and that was the last thing I remember."
The idea that another Supreme Being was extant left those in the Throne Room speechless. So Demiurge added, "Of course I realize now that this could not be, but at the time I thought it was no mere apparition, but the real Lord Ulbert Alain Odle, my creator. In retrospect, an impressive illusion, one that I did not think was possible."
Ainz, as was typical for him, was wrapped up in his thoughts about this, pondering the possibility that however improbable, his friend Ulbert might somehow still be alive. But Albedo faced the prospect with cold calculation, even bloody mindedness. Her thoughts were how to convince Ainz to let her reassemble her squad, that to her purposes was to seek and destroy any other Supreme Beings, and to travel to this world on the unlikely possibility that one or more of them somehow dwell there? It was a truly savage part of her personality infrequently explored yet hazardous beyond measure.
At this point, Ainz ordered a pause in the briefing. He had long understood the risks of strong emotions in his guardians, so each in turn, other than Demiurge, he demanded to know their thoughts and feelings. Cocytus and Shalltear seemed least perturbed, seeing Nazarick as their home and having little attachment to where it had formerly been, and fundamentally enjoying their lives now much more than they ever had before. Victim was curious, as they had never ventured outside Nazarick, other than briefly being carried to buildings in the New World and back.
Pandora's Actor was generally disinterested, other than by the possible acquisition of another world by the Empire. This made Ainz slightly wince inside, wondering if that was a desire for 'lebensraum', a holdover from his original design. That feeling was dispelled by just glancing at Albedo, having that hard expression and penetrating gaze that he had learned to fear as dangerous. It was not eased by looking at Rubedo, who he wondered, had learned to use a "geisha face" from Aureole Omega, to conceal her emotions.
Breaking the silence, Demiurge added, "There is more, but I cannot discuss it in the presence of the other guardians, but to Lord Ainz alone. It is not a matter of trust, but of a severe threat to Nazarick."
All the other guardians were outraged and agitated at the suggestion, especially Albedo, who was livid, and Ainz himself was taken aback. "Let me apologize in advance," he continued, "but I beg you to accept my rational judgment that it is not you, as loyal guardians, but the information I must convey, which is the risk. It is solely up to Lord Ainz to determine how much, and to whom, it will eventually be disseminated."
"I respectfully insist that if Lord Ainz will accept it, before you go, that I be magically, possibly physically bound, as I cannot with certainty say that even I am fully aware of the situation, and may unknowingly represent a threat myself, because of this information." The emotional impact of this last statement to the other guardians cannot be described, and sent them reeling, caught up in their own thoughts and fears.
Ainz then issued a directive, first that Demiurge sit on a chair in his presence, which under almost any other circumstance would have been an insulting breach of decorum, permitted only as a special indulgence by a Lord for a subordinate who was either crippled or very old and infirm. Then Lord Ainz cast a litany of spells that encased Demiurge in complex magical restraints limited to that spot on the floor. He further cast spells against surveillance, and cautioned the other guardians, especially Shalltear, to not attempt to bypass them. She briefly expressed her annoyance at being singled out once again.
Finally, Ainz ordered the Throne Room cleared of all but he and Demiurge. Albedo was furious at being separated from her husband and Lord, but complied.
After all was done, Demiurge began. "For no reason should Albedo, Rubedo, or Nigredo, individually, or together, ever be permitted to go to that world. For them to do so would be a hundredfold worse than the eruption of Hephaestus." This riveted Lord Ainz attention.
He then apologized and admitted he had been disingenuous in front of Lord Ainz and the other guardians, but necessarily, as he could no longer attest to the unreserved loyalty of any of the guardians, including himself, and could not risk giving out key information in front of them.
He said that, in truth, he had quickly recognized the planet as Helheim, and was amazed, more than unnerved, to have finally returned to the home of Nazarick. He was a little disappointed to see only a depression where at one point there must have been a great crater formed by its disappearance, almost erased by the swamp over time. But seeing the detritus of so many great battles, fought over a hole in the ground? Likewise, the puzzling lack of skeletons or exoskeletons, yet all the weaponry left where it fell. That the dead might be brought back was obvious, but who would be indifferent to such more or less valuable gear?
Even at first glance he knew that the stone building monument had probably been built by the Supreme Beings, but outside of the easy visual range of Nazarick, as they did so discreetly on an unused approach of tactical disadvantage. This piqued his interest.
His assumption was that it was a trap, and it was, but with unfamiliar magic attached to it. But it was so much more. It seemed to be designed to reveal its secrets to some of the Supreme Beings, but not to others.
The subtle traces of those allowed it secrets included his creator, Ulbert Alain Odle, as well as the Supreme Beings Bellriver, Punitto Moe, Luci Fer and Tabula Smaragdina, who seemed to use the building as both a meeting place, and later as a laboratory for extraordinary experiments. While no obvious indicators existed of this, Demiurge somehow knew, though he had no conscious memory of this place at all.
Those blocked from entry included Lord Touch Me, though he had never attempted entry, and Lord Temperance, and perhaps others whose identities had been concealed, who had tried repeatedly to get in and failed. But why would this group of Supreme Beings exclude others?
He suspected that something within him had activated a notification device in the monument. By being able to read the Tuveg message on the stone, it acted as a password and turned on the message on the wall before him. This message did not say anything at all about Nazarick, which he said was a colorful deception for the other guardians. In fact it was an execution order directed at him specifically. It also engaged a much more powerful part of his subconscious mind.
From his point of view, right then someone called his name behind him. Turning about, he saw, projected from his own mind, Lord Odle, whose angry appearance only lasted until Demiurge's authorization to be there, indirectly from Lord Momonga, a trusted individual, indicated that Demiurge had not be co-opted by someone else using the admin function on his programming. This also explained what had happened to entire armies sent to destroy the place. Magic like Negative Burst, but at a much more powerful scale disintegrated all of them, if not their weapons, as soon as they attacked the building. Why they had come to do so, and who they were, remained unknown.
Then Demiurge was hit with a tremendous burst of data locked within him. It was what knocked him out, as it flooded from his subconscious mind into his rational mind, and installed a plug, or block, in his rational mind that would give him enough time to analyze that data and act accordingly, before he had regained control. Until that block was gone, his mind would be active, but he would be physically inert, though his body and his magic, without direction from his will, would be able to fight off all but the most powerful attacks. It did not account for supportive individuals just moving him for medical care, which did not register as an attack.
Ainz was amazed. His friends had somehow hacked the YGGDRASIL servers, and inserted an incredible Trojan horse into Demiurge without a dev or admin knowing about it. But how, or more importantly, why?
Demiurge admitted that he did not know who had devised this scheme, but believed its impetus had been the murder of Bellriver. Both the radical Luci Fer, and Ulbert Alain Odle, bitterly wanted revenge, but strategist Punitto Moe likely planned the elaborate and dangerous scheme, which could only be carried out by the brilliant technologist Tabula Smaragdina. Lord Temperance, they suspected, was a spy seeking to discover if Bellriver had shared his evidence with any of the others, which would have likely result in their murder as well.
Their scheme was made possible with the discovery, within YGGDRASIL, of an unbelievable capability to physically materialize virtual data. How and why this existed, even the devs did not know, as it was not their machination. Creating inert physical objects from data was not particularly hard, but creating consciousness, intelligence and awareness was truly amazing, a magnificent achievement, not technologically possible as far as Ainz knew. Yet what could not be explained at all was the realization of magic. It did not exist in that world, so it must have been stolen from another world. And somehow this stolen flow of magic was being built up for some unknown purpose that required a vast reservoir to accomplish. Ainz needed to ponder this, that someone in his world had known of the existence of magic, had found a vast amount on another world, and most of all had come up with a way to bring it there and store it. And, he guessed, store it within the servers, integrated with some of the data of YGGDRASIL. This would explain how his guardians had come alive to some extent, even as virtual things, before they became real.
Be that as it may, the conspirators decided to co-opt this materialization capability for their own purposes, extraordinarily violent ones. And because they figured that any of them might be murdered at any time, it was to be activated by these final instructions programmed into Demiurge, after the final approval of Momonga, himself upset over the murder of Bellriver. But he also knew that other, undisclosed to him, means existed to activate it as well.
Lord Touch Me was too honest a policeman to bring into the terroristic plot, and Momonga was "an honest man" according to the others. So he was brought in to be a safety, in case the plot executed incorrectly, so he could order it terminated. Otherwise, the others decided to trust to his judgment, even though he had been kept in the dark for his own protection.
But what was the plot?, asked Ainz. Demiurge explained that Lord Tabula Smaragdina had created the three sisters, Nigredo, Albedo, and Rubedo, in a model of the alchemical process that would lead to the creation of the Philosopher's Stone. But the secret was that if the three came together under the proper conditions, they would unite to form a being of unique power in YGGDRASIL. Attracted to the stone meeting place by Demiurge, who was tasked to bring the World Item that Summons Devils as their primary weapon, at the moment of their joining, they and the World Item would disappear from YGGDRASIL, and be materialized, in all their terrifying glory and power, in the "Real World", said Demiurge, still personally unclear of what "real world" meant.
And this unparalleled weapon, fully powered by this stolen magic, would systematically destroy all that the assembled lords-conspirators considered as evil in the world. A godlike being of selective Armageddon among mortal humans.
Demiurge would come along as well, as he contained the target list of that which would be destroyed by the sisters, or their endless supply of demons from the World Item.
But what happened? The plot was never executed, the reasons for which were unknown. And one by one, the conspirators eventually left the game with little fanfare, leaving their catastrophe still armed and ready to go. Momonga was their safety, but he was never made aware of the scheme. Had circumstances changed, or had the authorities or mega corporations become aware of the plan? Was one or more of the other players also a spy?
It confronted Lord Ainz with the problem that while Demiurge knew the exact sequence of actions he had to take to interrupt, to suspend, if not end this process; there were other such systems of which he knew nothing other than their existence, but they most likely were still active, and possibly existed in the other NPCs. But as long as they lived, Albedo, Nigredo, and Rubedo, individually or collectively must never, ever return to Helheim. And likely it was for the best that the distrust Nigredo felt for Rubedo should be encouraged, at least insofar as it kept the three sisters from being together.
Demiurge urged Lord Ainz to concoct some story plausible enough so that the other guardians would at least give it the benefit of the doubt, and not remain distraught or curious.
For his part, Ainz suggested that the crown of the Tuveg Priest Lord might be the key to this, that while the individual pieces contained only a small amount of magic, when arranged again into the shape of a crown, they acted as a trigger for an energetic burst contained in the building that first scrambled his senses, then overloaded his mind. As such, that building and the rest of the planet should be placed off limits, for other such traps might exist as well.
Demiurge complemented Ainz on his brilliance.
But then, almost as an afterthought, Demiurge asked that since Helheim exists, what of the other eight worlds of YGGDRASIL? Might they also exist, as opportunities, or perhaps threats?
Much later, after Lord Ainz had at least interrupted the Apocalypse plan, if not canceled it, and the various guardian egos had more or less been mollified, Demiurge acknowledged to himself his duplicity, having told Lord Ainz one story, mostly true, having lied and told the other guardians, in front of Ainz, a different story, and last but not least, what had actually happened in that building on Helheim, for which he felt some degree of shame for his helplessness.
For Ainz' part, he began to form the idea that perhaps the stolen magic had been something like a rubber band. After it had been stretched all the way to the World of 2138, when the YGGDRASIL servers shut down, it released the tension on the magic, which snapped all of virtual YGGDRASIL that contained magic, and him, back to the world of stolen magic, or some other world. Perhaps to the other, possibly real, worlds as well, where it became real. Yet there were so many unanswered questions. Was Hellheim only in the game, or was it real before the game, and was Nazarick created there first, before being moved to the New World?
