Prelude to Episode 36
I can't help how I feel, its just how and what I am.
And right now, I feel downright WEIRD.
Confused mostly.
But weird none the less.
Nothing really makes any sense, none of it has from the start.
But now, all this has just gone exponentially WEIRD!
An immortal invulnerable all powerful being who has the mind of a six year old has decided to abduct me from the world I grew up in and everybody I love, whisk me off into nowhere and keep me locked in this endless castle filled with unimaginably precious treasures from home while making moving pictures of molesting me for who knows who to see, while letting little ol me punch her straight in the mouth...oh...AND bite her tongue...because she thinks she LOVES me?
On top of this she is trying to bargain my love for material items of unimaginable worth and infinite knowledge.
Then what?
What will be left?
Sit around here and stack them? Itemize them or something?
Maybe I could get her to build shelves so they could all be placed properly on display.
"Or we could play hide and seek..." Lonnie said entering the room.
Huh?
"You know," she said, :I can go hide a treasure some place on the world below, and give you some clues and let you find it!"
Whaaaaat?
"You don't like that game?"
Well, [sigh] how do I put it...if I already knew what it is, and that its one of all these gadzillions...
"But it would STILL be an adventure, would it not?"
[sighing and looking toward the ceiling] I'm not so sure it would be as adventurous now that I know everything I know now.
"I was just trying to help my love." Lonnie made her eyes abnormally large to make herself look sad and pitiful.
You are really something else Lonnie, [shaking her head]
Episode 36
"All That Work For Nothing?! Zelas Takes An Army But Loses Her General!"
Now that Zelas had taken over the refurbishing of the countryside, this left a lot of people free to go back to their daily lives.
They were marched one and all out of the stockades and the people who had been needed to mind their upkeep were allowed to resume their normal lives and duties.
Young men were asked to volunteer to train to become a part time militia while the regular army was in need so that while over time some may go ahead and remain in the army as regular soldiers, others would sign on from the youth who were yet too young to join.
As the world in Zephilia returned as much as possible to normalcy, and in some places there were even improvements, many mourned the losses of loved ones, and the toll between pirate attacks and the great storm numbered in the thousands.
The queen gave speeches and had Zelas build a massive national cemetery on a tract of land which once belonged to one of the families lost in the storm, and all the dead were buried there, with their heads, and Zelas was ordered to make houses that suited the residents of the land better.
"Well," Naga said, "I'm glad that task is out of the way," then she turned to the inn and along with the maidens, sought out Alyth.
"You have clones?" she asked in amusement, "My you are a popular one!"
"Well," Naga replied, "They were initially designed to be weapons or super soldiers or such, but they failed to have any magical powers, so the idea was a total flop, thankfully."
"But you still want them?" she asked.
"I have a plan."
Alyth went to her room and set up stanchions, using a drop of Naga's blood and a tiny snip of hair.
A map showed the locations of the clones, and an astral view showed the direct locations and current condition of each of them.
Apparently they had not fared well at all without Naga's memories or powers.
"Wow this is bad." Alyth said, "Are you going to need help?"
"I need the exercise," Naga replied, "And I have my two lovely daughters to help run interference if I need."
"Well," the buxom innkeeper sighed, "You have my blessings on the venture," and she pulled out a box which contained some jewelry.
There were matching anklets, bracelets, and tiara with brilliantly glowing blue orbs the size of grapes in each, and they were all made very delicately from pure osmium.
"These greatly enhance one's magical powers," the otherworldly priestess informed, "While wearing these, your own powers are only a tiny fraction of the power you can wield."
"Wow!" her eyes lit up, "So they magnify my own power?" she asked.
"They are so much more powerful," Alyth pointed out, "Its beyond mere magnification."
She continued on, "These are the magical essences of the one day mushroom which only grows in the hidden sanctuary of Vashti and Valkyrie where all her worshipers go to worship and rejuvenate so we continue to live young and strong instead of aging and dying."
"These are elements of purified wild magic, natural and undisciplined." Alyth continued, "They can be used for any known kind of magic, black, white, holy, shamanistic or otherworldly."
Also, there was an amulet of deep black-violet stone emitting that same peculiar black-violet light she had seen the goddette Vashti use when arriving or departing.
Alyth directly placed this about Naga's neck and intoned some words in a foreign language. The amulet glowed more powerfully for a moment and caused a strange sensation to flow through Naga for a moment.
"This amulet will allow you to go literally anywhere." Alyth said, "Please return it to me when you are done, it belongs to the goddettes and is normally only for use by their priestesses. I temporarily imprinted your essence upon it so that you can borrow it, but that imprint is not permanent, so don't dally."
"Wow!" Naga murmured in awe, "This belongs to those goddettes!" her eyes lit up even brighter, "I shall care for it with my life!"
"All you have to do is hold it with both hands and think of where you wish to go, then grab hold of those you wish to bring with you, and you will all go to the same location," she instructed, "But if you lose it, or if they are not in direct contact with you, you or they will not make it back."
"That's scary," she shuddered.
"Its a heavy responsibility." Alyth warned, "Mind it well."
"What would happen if I lost the amulet?" Naga asked.
"It would return to me." Alyth replied, "But if I did not know where you were," she continued to caution, "I would not be able to come find you."
"We will be most cautious." the White Serpent promised as she rose, embraced the priestess and went out to gather the maidens for their trip to rescue the clones.
Ep 36, Chapter 2
As Zelas and Lemmy marched their prisoner slaves southward upon completing their agreement, they came across various groups of bandits tied up and even captured some along the way.
They were gathering quite a formidable army of slaves, and at one point Zelas thought of less noble ideas for them, imagining making an army and conquering the mainland, but then she would remember the fact that Naga, Luna, Filia, and twenty other heavily armed airborne adversaries would easily render that plan dead in its tracks quite literally.
To the shock and astonishment of many rulers along the way, she made basically the same offer to one and all: effect repairs in exchange for criminals worthy of dire punishment.
She even carried a letter of endorsement from the Eternal Queen, which was made purely of holy magic and could not be forged, especially by a Mazoku.
Of course, being an item of holy magic, she had to rely on Lemmy to carry and display it because it caused her severe discomfort to be in contact with it.
As they were marching along the roads making repairs as they went, Lemmy led the pack pointing out every little detail with Jack in her hand, while far to the rear Zelas was inspecting the final work to make sure it was up to par.
Their labor gang had grown quite large by now and consisted of more than three thousand men and eight women.
Lemmy was not jealous of any of the women though, because she was just not that kind.
Granted, Zelas seemed to show no interest in their feminine wiles either, so they worked doing menial tasks like cooking and finding food.
As they crossed along the borders of Kalmaart, they entered into a wilderness between Bezeld and Solaria, where the roads had been terribly damaged and it seemed that they were in many places impassible.
There they set up camp and began opening up a new path through the forest where the ground was higher and more stable.
Lemmy led an expedition of ex sailors who were navigators and cartographers to generate a map of the projected new roadway.
This left her with a relatively small contingent while the others were busy shoring up the eroded edge of the roadway where the flooding had taken the water up out of the stream bed and totally washed away the road.
As they were fitting stones which lesser demons were carrying in from the north, this put quite some distance between the main crew and Lemmy with her small crew of five.
A lesser demon of the demon lord Dynast Grausherra just happened to be on patrol in the area at the time, however, and since the recently recovered demon lord was lacking any minions of any power at the moment, and wanted another lovely general to replace the now dead Sherra.
Upon hearing the report of this lovely visage of cruel beauty to Dynast, he immediately ordered her capture.
Moments later, fifty lesser demons appeared around Lemmy and attacked.
She lunged at them and put up a valiant battle with Jack in hand, slashing and shocking them right and left.
The demons who went after the men found that they fled quickly back the way they came dropping everything they held and decided to let them go as of no importance to the demon lord they served.
Lemmy did not hesitate to begin chopping off arms and legs.
With every lunge she scored a mark.
She took off a head here, cut through a torso there, took off both legs on another, plowing through them with ease.
Even though she had them beaten one on one though, the thirty or so who remained realized they had to act fast and they dog-piled the young swords-woman.
Wrestling the powerful weapon from her hand, they finally subdued the kicking screaming cursing young woman and teleported back to their lord.
All this magical activity caught Zelas-Metallium's attention and although she was worried her new found slaves would scatter, she realized something was up.
"Tend to the slaves." she telepathically told the demons who had been cutting stone, "I think we have an emergency." then she told the bearers of her litter, as she pulled the curtains, "I think I shall take a little nap, mind the slaves for me while I sleep." and teleported to where she last sensed the magic.
Ep 36, Chapter 3
Naga had tried and tried to imagine every possible prison and dungeon in all of the land from high to low.
It seemed that none of them were the right ones.
She and the maidens were teleporting back and forth, asking guards and town police for anything but they all came up dry.
Without magic to pinpoint them, they were worse than a needle in a haystack, they were a piece of hay in a haystack!
After a couple of days at this, she finally gave up and returned to Zephilia to ask for more help.
"I have searched EVERYWHERE in every city, town, village, castle and keep!" she cried in distress.
"Well the scrying never lies," Alyth replied, "They are indeed gagged and bound as you saw them," she shrugged, "Somebody wanted to keep them quiet, yet they had some reason to keep them alive."
"Well with so little to go on at the present," Naga declared, "The next best thing is to search the past."
"I can do that," Alyth replied thoughtfully, "But I need to put you into a little trance to recall some of your memories to find clues."
"My memories aren't the greatest," the sorceress warned, "I've had a lot of head traumas, thanks to my lovely Lina and many others."
"Our memories are pristine!" Gracia volunteered, "We've lived a healthy peaceful life since those events!"
"Also," copy Lina pointed out, "they happened almost immediately before we were born, so they're really clear and at the top of our list."
"Also," Gracia blushed slightly, "We always wanted to find them and raise them as our own children!"
Although this brought about a surprised look from Naga, she had to realize that these two were very much still children themselves and had the tendency to like to play family, so it would only be natural that Nagas with no prior memories would in fact be much like infants.
"Well," Naga said, "That might be novel."
"So then ladies," Alyth asked, ready to proceed, "Shall we?"
Ep 36, Chapter 4
Zelas-Metallium materialized at the exact point the conflict had happened.
Pieces of lesser demons lay around as did surveyors tools, but no humans were in sight.
"I think my darling has met an enemy." her eyes reddened, "But this is not the time to take action..." she leaned over the corpse of a lesser demon and sniffed... "So...hm," folding her arms, "You're BACK." and with that, she vanished.
Meanwhile, far down below, Naga and the maidens appear at the RIGHT prison, where the ten clones are all in one cell, laid out as if they were dead, and yet their hands and feet are bound and there are gags over their mouths.
"That's strange," Naga said, "Why bind and gag them if they are dead or asleep?"
Copy Lina replied. "Because you sometimes laugh in your sleep momma."
"Do I?" Gracia asked.
Lina blushed with a pained look but instead said, "So what do you want to do now?"
"Well," Naga said as she got on her hands and knees to look across their chests, "They're still alive, just unconscious, so we need to get them out of here and back to the inn where we can figure out who put this spell on them and undo it."
"That may be easier said then done." copy Lina surmised, "There are all types of barrier spells here, and any one of them may also have other trap spells attached."
"Well then we may have to fight our way out." Naga said, "We can't abandon the plan."
"It sounds like a really good idea to me," Gracia said fearfully.
"So you would abandon her?" Naga pointed at copy Lina, "because of a little fight?"
"Well..." she blushed and looked away.
"Would you?" copy Lina asked, looking very hurt.
"Noooooo..." Gracia finally protested, "I'd just be terrified the whole way!" she whimpered.
"Well be terrified all you want," Naga said, "We're here on a rescue mission for those children you said you always wanted, so buck up missy and lets get to it!"
Meanwhile, Zelas-Metallium had materialized at the new throne of Dynast.
His lesser demons all startled and turned spears at her.
With a finger she pushed them away smoothly with an oily yet seductive smile.
"Dynast," she said smiling, "How interesting to see you back."
"Why are you here?" he asked.
"Why," she leaned forward so her cleavage showed more clearly, "To take back what you stole from me naturally."
"I didn't steal anything from you." he grumbled in a warning tone, "I have purchased or captured everything I have in the free and clear."
"Oh, you say?" she eyed Lemmy who was strapped to the wall hands over head, blindfolded and gagged," then whose scent is on that little one you have hanging on the wall beside you?"
"I'm not into sniffing my slaves," he said in a disdainful tone, "I take them and I make them into my minions, that is all."
"Well that one in particular is special to me." Zelas said with less softness in her tone, "I would propose it would be in your best interests to give her back."
"It would be in your best interest to leave now and never return," he snarled belligerently.
"You sure seem confident in your returning strength," she said with a faintly cynical and mocking tone in her voice, "Whereas in recent months," she smiled wickedly, "I have indeed grown very powerful."
"Are you challenging me?" he growled.
"I am trying to reason with you." she replied growing sharper in her tone, "But apparently you lack the intelligence in your primal mind to detect such subtleties."
Back in the dungeon at that very moment, with a few counter-spells, they soon had the barrier spells all down, and with a few more, they woke the clones out of their slumber.
Without unbinding them or un-gagging them Naga first made a shushing sound because they all looked terrified.
"Its me Naga!" she whispered, "We're here to rescue you!"
They all nodded consent, and they were untied and un-gagged, but as they arose from where they lay, each pillow they had been laying on began to burst into loud warbling, which was even more ear splitting then their laugh.
"Argh!" copy Lina cried out, "The pillows had a rouse-me-not spell on them!"
Lesser demons began to appear immediately.
"Keep them safe while I clear a path!" Naga shouted over the din, "And shut those stupid alarms off!"
Naga unsheathed her sword and went into her calm place and began slicing her way through the pack, while Gracia and copy Lina froze and burned the pillows into silence and then used Wind Shield to hold back lesser demons.
While their fight was intensifying, back in the throne room Dynast shouted out, "So you were trying to distract me while you stole MY minions!"
"I have no EARTHLY idea what you are talking about!" Zelas replied honestly indignant, "I came here for what is MINE!"
At that precise moment, Naga came charging around the corner freezing, blasting and slicing lesser demons in all directions while Gracia and copy Lina followed using Wind Shield with the clones protectively in tow.
"I caught you in your lie!" he roared, "You will get NOTHING here but DESTRUCTION!" and immediately he aimed a bolt of his deadly ice breath directly at Greater Beast Zelas-Metallium.