Popularity

"Uh, yes, uncle. It wasn't too far from here, just a short while in that direction." Gror pointed back to where they came from as he finished talking.

"My BOY!" he yelled, a smile forming on his old and hairy face, apparent even through the big beard. He gave Gror a hard, proud smack on the back and yelled to the others around him, "I raised him! I'm his uncle!!"

He even bent down and bellowed into one of their prisoner's ears, "HE'S MY BOY!! HAHAHA!"

He came over to Zeeth and Page, wasting no effort and time in shaking their hands as hard as he could and patting them hard. Thraz soon popped out from another secret doorway in the ground and yelled, "the battle ended! We won, I saw them being captured and rushed over!"

Page handed the shield back to him. Staring at the shield, he hardly even noticed all the dwarves encircling the five and staring at them. Looking up, he was surprised to see people happily chatting amongst themselves and staring at Zeeth, Page, and, in effect, the rest around them.

"Then where are the merchants?" Someone asked.

"Right! The merchants, they should be trading! Uncle, the merchants have recently had a change of situation, adopting numerous children and they wish to stay with us. I don't think it would be bad, humans can help with agriculture or talking with others."

"This is something I wish to discuss in private," Drawk responded solemnly, seemingly not up for the idea.

"Why? I think it's a great idea."

Drawk sighed, "Gror, you have done great work, but you want us to take in humans and then live near a volcano with elves? You should understand, whenever there are separate races, there will always be trouble unless one is considered submissive to the other. And I doubt any of these races wish to be on the lower rung, there will be trouble."

"Why would there be trouble?" Zeeth asked, "if dwarves with different minds and bodies can live together, why would that change with race? I'm sure everyone thinks the same, everyone just wants to be on equal standing, it's just each race thinks the other group wants to be superior. but if this can be cleared up, then no trouble should arise right?"

"How do you know that? How do you know elves won't want to be our owners, or humans want to exploit us for our metalwork?" someone asked.

"The elves recently had a battle amongst themselves, a greedy and power-hungry leader was recently imprisoned and his followers arrested for trying to kill us, hoarding artifacts and hiding incredibly helpful information, and the humans we have brought have done nothing but help, they personally adopted many children they had no relationship with simply because they felt it too dangerous to leave kids alone in a city and one of their men died fighting the dragon with us. I can personally vouch for each of them that they are humane." Page said.

"What is this battle amongst the elves?" Drawk asked.

"Are you simply interested in the artifacts?" Thraz said, smirking, clear that Drawk simply wanted to naturally ask about the artifacts.

"W-what?!"

Page chuckled, "It's fine, we can tell you. There was an old man named Tatio who wanted to keep all these hundreds of magical artifacts to himself and he wanted to sacrifice us to make more for himself. We found out, all his men were arrested and the rest who were not part of his little group took all the magical artifacts for use and are in the process of repairing the village."

"So basically, you have ousted many of the greedy elves and now those in power don't hoard anything," Drawk said.

"Yes."

Back underground, the underground tunnels were much more crowded with the extra Dwarves standing around with their bags, children playing on the floor with their small swords and bows. He heard a mother saying to her child, "don't swing that sword inside, you'll scratch others."

"Drawk, the battle with the humans just now has destroyed many homes, they dug up everything in their way and many of us have lost our houses." a dwarf said in the elder's room, where a few extra dwarves were crowding.

"Yes, I can see that," he replied. "We must be leaving soon, the overcrowding is really affecting all of us."

"What if we left now?" Gror said. "I know the way to Fahlhala."

Drawk said, "We cannot all leave at the same time, a group as large as this will be far too hard to move and we will not be able to have enough food for all of us. We can accommodate about half of us at most but even that is a stretch."

"Then how about half of all the dwarves leave, prioritizing those who have lost homes first, and then the rest who wish to leave. We will then take the other half and follow when we are ready."

"Gror can leave with the first group, Zeeth will take the second and if needed, I will take the third, if needed," Page said.

"And each group should have at least one elder with them to lead the Dwarves."

"Yes, so who wants to leave first?"

Drawk immediately said, "I will go along with Gror."

Half of the dwarves, along with Drawk, Thraz, and Gror, packed up immediately and quickly left. Many of those leaving had already packed away all their things since having their houses destroyed so they quickly left before the sun had even gone down.

Taken along with them were half of the teaching records. From a distance, they looked like books, but there were only two sides that opened like a book with no pages and two massive covers. Packed away safely in their heavily guarded, Dwarf made carriages, they quickly rode off, with the other half left-back.

Night fell by the time the rest were packed and ready to go but they were preparing to leave when the sun came back up in the morning.

That night, Zeeth asked Page what the hell babies were like and how they would be defeated, along with how the rip in the gate can be mended. "Hell babies kind of remind me of featherless chickens, they are pale, yellow-white, and fight very dirty. They use any method they can think of and if they can't win, they all run for their own lives. No loyalty or consideration for others, even their partners and they will gladly sacrifice any of the others if it means they can live. Hell babies are one of the weakest, but their numbers make them hard at times.

They can be killed by normal means, ripping off heads, stabbing hearts, and whatnot. Although, they do not bleed. When cut or pierced, their body instantly hardens and covers up the wound but that means they can't heal back an arm or regrow a leg.

After the hell babies, there are creatures that I call hell cows. Resembling cows, they have thick armor and slow movements, but they will ignore any defense they can, walking through walls and people if it is the fastest way to where they need to get.

Sometimes they intentionally destroy things for the fun of it, so they are pretty dangerous."

"Have creatures from hell broken through the games before?"

"No, not to my knowledge. But many have already experienced the world. All hell dwellers have the innate ability to make contracts, the higher the intelligence, the better contract they can make."

"Was the devil contract Rolas talked about the same thing?"

"No, that contract was amongst the devils, creatures of pure madness and anger who make contracts if it fits their desires, chaos. But they don't come from Hell, they are creatures made on Earth and an incredibly powerful and intelligent species. They are masters of domination and iron fist ruling, their subjects hardly ever retaliate. Actually, there is a good chance that dragon was sent by the devils, they are the only group I know that can tame Dragons to such an extent."

"Are there differences in their contracts? What if a person had both of them?"

"There are differences, but that really depends on the contract makers. Contracts with devils, that live on Earth, are usually not life-threatening with their contents, it is more like 'give me all your money' or 'become my servant forever' in exchange for things that the people want and the contents can usually be conferred about and changed but contracts with Hell beings, usually with things like Demons, are almost always about 'give me your life' or 'give me a sacrifice' in exchange for some immense power or knowledge.

And as long as the contracts don't coincide, nothing changes either of them. If it does, the weaker one has to stand back but the first contract usually has priority. Not always though, if the second contractor can overwrite the first one, they can change the first contract. But that takes immense power and those that can are very cherished, usually well protected and owned by a large industry."

"But if they are dead, why would they need immense power?"

"Exactly, which is why many people choose to sacrifice others by somehow tricking or intimidating them into giving up their life for the contract. Demons will take any life as long as it is worth the power granted."

"Also, I thought Devils and Demons were the same, are they not?"

"No, they are similar, but Devils are born here on Zorbia and Demons are evil creatures from Hell. Devils are powerful creatures that tend to act by themselves to simply live a good life of self-fulfillment. Demons are experts at taking souls and secretly manipulating people. They can only make contracts when both sides create a portal, and demons almost always have portals on their body that are active, and we humans need to go through very specific steps and replicate their wheel to open a gate, each gate is different and opens a portal to a different Demon. That gate isn't a rip, it's a portal that only allows them to communicate and create contracts with the demons who have portals." Page explained.

"Maybe I should ask god a few things as well."

"Oh, right. The last time you went did he say anything about talking about him with Black in your presence?"

"Strangely, he didn't. Everyone I went, he never really looked at me, he always looked really occupied and was always looking around at his surroundings instead."

"What do the surroundings look like?"

"A lot of them are caves, there were a few museums and deep storage places. But mostly just old caves."

Page thought hard for a moment, rubbing his chin, then asked, "Are they part of this world?"

"I'm not sure, any signs that I see are in a different language and, I can't tell for sure since the air is frozen, but you think the mana is different too. Although that might just be because I'm with god or, you know. Frozen space."

"Yeah, interesting. I think before you go, you should store some of your memories somewhere else."

"What? Like how god stores my past memories all over the world? You can do that?"

"No, not right now. I will in about two years though, combining my lie detector, de-buff skill, endurance skill, and body strengthening, which can become mind strengthening if taken a certain pathway."

"I have so many questions. First of all, can you combine all those skills to make a memory extrapolation skill?"

"Yeah, as long as you know what to do. The first time is always the hardest, trying to find out how it's done, but I've got the memory and technique down. I just need to level up these skills some more with use."

"Also, I can't possibly wait two years that will look far too strange. And he's god, wouldn't he be able to tell?"

'Memory extrapolation?' Black asked 'what magic is this? I've never heard of it.'

'I dunno. Ask Page.' Zeeth thought, allowing him to take over the mouth so Black could talk.

He felt his throat itch a little as the magic took it over and a hoarse voice came from Zeeth's mouth that said, "Friend of my human host. What is this memory extrapolation you talk about, I've never heard of it."

"You haven't? It's become a pretty sought after skill, I'm surprised you haven't learned it in all this time."

"I was mighty; I had no need for such a skill. All my skills were battle oriented to make me stand far above the others. But now that I am just an eye sitting in my host, I have far too much free time when I just clean his body out. I need something else to focus on, now what is this new magic, I wish to learn it."

"Do you have a mental skill? Things like lie detectors, or some kind of intention revealer."

"You mean a Will Sensor? I have something of the sort. If needed, I can tell if someone has bad intentions."

"Can it do more?"

"You have too many questions, boy."

"I understand that skills are a touchy subject, but I just need to know if the skill is a high enough level for this skill."

"Fine. If I really try, I can see if they desire something from me, or if it is to kill or hinder me."

"Can you not see if they want to help you?"

"Why would I need such a thing? If they aren't bad, then they are fine to stay. Positive emotions don't need to be spotted."

"Maybe that's why you're so gloomy all the time, you only look at people's negative side."

"It's the only side that matters. Practicality is needed for survival, I don't need to know they wish to help."

"Well, it seems like your skill is strong enough. Now you just need to combine the skill with a few other strengthening ones to be able to dig into memories and pull them out. You know how to combine skills, right Black?"

"Of course, but what are the specifics?"

"Ok, use the skill on Zeeth."

"Yes, nothing is coming up. Like usual."

Zeeth thought, 'Like usual?'

"Yes, I use it on everyone daily. I need to make sure everyone around me isn't dangerous." Black said, monotone like always.

"Now use a strengthening skill on it and focus on the front end of his brain. A flash of memories, his memories should appear on your face. Now look for the one that shows him talking to me about God and pull it out, you should be able to scoop out the memory with something like a spoon made from mana that has gone through your mental skill. You can make a mana spoon through your Will Radar and use that to scoop it up. Make sure not to scoop up anything not part of it, and if you can, fill in the hole with something else, something that seems to blend in perfectly.

It can be a memory of yours, or his, but make sure it matches perfectly with its original shape and the memories around it."

"I got it," Black said, not a second after Page finished talking.