XENAGOGY FOR BELLIGERENT AIS AND DUNGEON DENIZENS
CHAPTER 2:
MEET THE TEAM
The arena was under a starlit sky, albeit a faked one using whatever magic Yggdrasil had. As Church marched in, helmet in hand, and thanking whatever deities existed in the universe (though he was very much a misotheist, believing that God or whatever deities existed had it in for him, so it was an odd contradiction) that the Bullshit Ring(1), aka the guild ring he had swiped, worked, he wondered where the guardians were, and whether they'd be friendly too. It didn't hurt to be careful.
"Oi!" he called out when he came in enough. "Aura! Mare! Fall in!"
Leaping from the VIP seating came a figure, an androgynous figure that looked maybe ten, wearing white trousers and a vest over a red-scaled dragonhide bodysuit. Messy blonde hair, tan skin, pointy ears, and heterochromia in their eyes, one green, the other blue. They landed with a laugh, and bowed, before scurrying up. "Welcome, Lord Church!"
Ah, yes. Aura. Despite the masculine appearance, Aura was actually a girl…and her twin brother, Mare, was dressed as a bloody girl. Apparently their creator had issues with her own brother, who was also a member of Ainz Ooal Gown. And despite looking like kids, they were, in the world of Yggdrasil at least, 76. "Evening, Aura. Sorry, we'll be holding a meeting here soon, but I thought I'd come here beforehand, make use of the arena, if you don't mind."
"Not at all, Lord Church! You're the absolute ruler of the Tomb of Nazarick! We wouldn't mind at all!"
"Great! By the way, where's Mare?"
Aura scowled, before she turned to the VIP seating area, and called up, "MARE! HURRY UP AND GET DOWN HERE, YOU WIMP! LORD CHURCH IS HERE!"
"…But I'm afraid of heights!" called a wimpy voice.
"MARE!" Aura sighed, before turning to Church. "I'm sorry, Lord Church, he's not being insolent, he's just a scaredy-cat."
"It's fine, his loyalty is not in question, and neither is yours." Then, louder, he yelled, "OI! MARE! GET DOWN HERE NOW! I'M NOT GOING TO BITE! JUST DON'T ACT LIKE CABOOSE, AND WE'LL DO FINE!"
Reluctantly, Mare leapt down, and Aura muttered, "I don't know who this Caboose is, but he sounds aggravating(2)."
"Yep."
Mare scurried up, and bowed. "Sorry to keep you waiting, Lord Church."
"That's fine, just don't do it in future. You doing fine, kids?"
The conversation continued somewhat in this vein for a while, with a brief interlude while the two twins argued over Mare's timidness. He intervened after a certain point, because he felt that poor Mare was being berated too much by Aura. He then had Aura summon some straw figures and monsters so he could test his abilities, ranging from dark spells to possession. He even had replicas of his guns he could create from his memories using the Create Item skills, which he tried shooting the dummies with…and it seemed that, despite his problems aiming in reality, he was accurate as fuck this time. Looks like the tweaks he made to his accuracy were good after all. He grinned. He even had a mental replica of that sword of Tucker's, the one the aliens were so obsessed with, not to mention that Brute Shot thing the Meta had used. Scary as fuck, but useful.
On a whim, he decided to try the Message function. Not that he expected to contact any other players or a GM, but maybe he could get an update from Sebas. "Lord Church?" came the voice of Sebas.
Thank God it isn't that unhelpful prick Vic, and if anyone I speak to using this says 'dude', I am seriously going to lose it, Church thought, before he said, out loud, "Sebas, I'm testing something out. As you can hear me, I thought you could give me a preliminary report."
"Certainly. It's evening, and we appear to be on a grassy plain. No intelligent life around as far as I can tell."
From what Church knew of the Tomb, it was in a swampy area. So to go from that to grass… "So, no bogs? We're not in a box canyon or a frozen asshole of the universe?"
"…Your terms are unfamiliar to me, but I think I can safely assume that the correct answer is no. I can't see any man-made structures either."
"Right. In another twenty minutes, I've got the Floor Guardians assembling in the 6th Floor Arena. Come there then, but make sure you get as much information as possible, as well as thinking about possible problems with defences and concealment."
"Understood," Sebas said.
Church looked at the staff in his hand. It had some innate powers, so he thought he should show these kids, as a bit of an object demonstration, what he could do with it. "Okay, kids, you want something big to fight?" Aura nodded enthusiastically, while Mare looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here. Church then channelled his power into the staff, and yelled, "Summon Primal Fire Elemental!"
When the burning figure coalesced out of the resulting inferno, Aura looked positively feral, and Mare looked like he wanted nothing more than to run. Maybe I overdid it, Church thought, before remarking, "Well, have fun."
The following battle was actually quite enlightening. The twins worked well together, despite Mare's timidity, and they made short work of it. And when they came back, he pulled something he had nicked from the storehouses of this place, a pitcher filled with water that never ran out. He also got some glasses. He poured them out some drinks, taking one for himself. "Here. Just think of it as thanks for helping me out, kids."
He managed to get them to drink the water, and sighed quietly after drinking from his own glass. While they were technically older than him, he felt like they were younger siblings. He couldn't really remember much about his own family, now that he came to think about it, despite having fairly clear memories of much of his life. And that disturbed him, if only because it led credence to Washington's bullshit hypothesis that he was the Alpha.
As he reassured them, he heard a voice echo from nearby. "So I'm the first to arrive?" A shadowy portal appeared, and through it stepped a beautiful young woman, pale of skin, silver of hair, and red of eye. She was dressed in what they'd call Gothic Lolita fashion.
"Shalltear, teleportation in Nazarick is restricted, and I…how did you end up like that? Looking older?" Aura demanded, changing mid-tirade in astonishment, staring at Shalltear's full figure, where once it had been somewhat more petite. No longer a teenager, she was an adult in appearance.
"Through the grace of Lord Church," the vampire purred, as she walked up to the former Blue soldier. "Unlike you, who needs more time to grow into her full figure, hmm?"
As Aura growled in annoyance, Church said, "Yeah, look, no fighting, or I'm going to have to possess you and make you dance the Macarena." He had the oddest feeling Sarge of the Reds would be better able to deal with squabbling subordinates, if only out of sheer force of personality.
"What's the Macarena?" Mare asked timidly.
"The only thing as annoying as Caboose," Church said.
"…What's a Caboose?"
"Annoying," Church said bluntly.
Soon, the other Floor Guardians arrived, with the massive hulking arthropod form of Cocytus entering first. Church was almost certain that Cocytus would fit in with the Covenant. Then came Demiurge and Albedo.
Demiurge got on Church's nerves. It wasn't the natty suit, nor anything about the demon's appearance. The tanned skin, glasses, and long tail protruding from his backside wasn't what it was. What it was was the air that this guy was like Wyoming, or maybe O'Malley, like he was plotting where to stick the knife. That unctuous nature that didn't fool him one bit, even when he was just an NPC.
Eventually, they knelt and began pledging their loyalty to him. Church had to admit, it was one thing to be the de facto commanding officer of a bunch of screw-up soldiers. It was another to be effectively a dark lord with an army of monsters and demons, including at least one who wanted to have his lovechild. So, basically, he was O'Malley of a fantasy world.
And disturbingly, that actually appealed to him. No more Blood Gulch. No more Red vs Blue. No more Project Freelancer bullshit. No more Tex…well, that was a sad part, he had to admit. He'd miss her.
"Okay, well, enough of the bowing and scraping, as much as I enjoy it," Church said. "Thanks for all coming here. Now, let's get to this briefing, people. No interruptions for the moment. I've received some word from Sebas about outside. Somehow, we got transported to another area, and we don't know why. Now, were there any signs that this would happen? Anything strange on your floors?"
The Guardians all responded in the negative. "Lord Church, if you wish, I would investigate the fourth and eighth floors," Albedo said.
"Once we're done with the briefing. Now…" Sebas appeared, and knelt. "Yes, Sebas?"
"My lord, my apologies for my lateness."
"Very well. Let's hear it." On his hesitation, Church snapped, "Oh, come on! This is a general briefing, not a frigging spy novel!"
Sebas grimaced, before saying, "For a kilometre all around, there's only grassy plain. No buildings or other artificial structures, other than the Tomb. I saw a number of small animals that could be expected in such places, but nothing larger, and no people either. No monsters of any kind that I could discern."
"Nothing in the sky?" Maybe they were on a planet with UNSC presence?
"No artificial lights in the sky or on the ground as far as I could tell, my lord," Sebas said.
Hmm, well, even if it was quiet for now, there was no guarantee that things would remain that way. They might be on someone's lands, or on the grounds of a base or something. And while the magic these guys wielded could work against modern weaponry, he wasn't sure whether he should take the chance. Then again, maybe he lucked out and ended up back at Blood Gulch. Or else in a fantasy world, where the biggest normal weapons were crossbows and cannons.
"Okay, people, here's the game plan. We need to be at full alert, so that we don't let any cockbites get down here. Any dungeon-burgling douchebags who come in, I want captured alive and preferably intact for interrogation. If they don't seem hostile, negotiation would be better. Now, intel sharing. I know Demiurge handles that, but I'd like to get it improved. Actually, never mind the order I gave you, Albedo. We'll leave the eighth level to Victim, and allow for teleporting between seven and nine. Now, camouflage. If we are exposed in a field, is there any way we can hide it?"
After a moment, Mare spoke. "We can't use magic to hide the parts above ground, but…maybe we can cover the walls in dirt and grow grass from it?"
"And sully the glorious walls of Nazarick?!" Albedo asked in a dangerous tone.
"Albedo! Don't be a bitch!" Church snapped, and she instantly flinched. "Mare's got a good point. Between having clean walls that act like a bloody advertisement to idiots to come here and try attacking us, and camouflage so that we have some time before aforementioned dickheads come around, I'm going to choose the camouflage option. Though there is something. Sebas, are there surrounding hills or something?" On Sebas' shake of the head, Church muttered, "Okay, but if we can fake them, we might have a better chance. What do you reckon?"
"It's a good plan, my lord," Sebas said.
"Right. Mare, Aura, you go do that ASAP. Get what you need from the other levels. If we need illusions or other crap to deal with it, we'll burn that bridge when we come to it." Of course, it'd do shit for dick against satellites in orbit and anything aerial, but he wasn't sure what he could do about that. "Okay, you guys can take five or whatever before you get started. I'll see you shortly."
As he left the arena, he was unaware that the guardians were talking about him behind his back. If he was aware, but not of the content of their discussion, he would have been worried. Had he heard the discussion, he would have been even more worried…but not because they harboured any thoughts of treason. Quite the opposite: they were sycophantic to the extreme, for the most part…though Albedo and Shalltear nearly got into a catfight over who would receive Lord Church's affections, before determining a harem would be to his liking.
Instead, Church decided to head to the palatial bedroom he had commandeered as his quarters. After so long with just a crappy bunkbed in a room littered with Tucker's porn mags and used tissues, he felt like indulging. He was the Lord and Master of the Tomb of Nazarick, dammit, and he wanted to feel like it!
CHAPTER 2 ANNOTATIONS:
So, Church has laid down the law. Unlike Momonga, who tried to speak more like a ruler and an overlord, Church obviously speaks as his idea of a commanding officer. His idea, but not the right idea, though at least the denizens of Nazarick are going along with it. Plus, unlike Momonga, he hasn't asked their opinions of him.
1. The Bullshit Ring is the name Overlord Abridged gives the Ainz Ooal Gown rings.
2. This was my spin on the running gag about Yamcha from Dragonball Z Abridged.