Chaotic Craftsman Worships The Cube

“How many today?” Toltho asked, trying to keep the weariness from his face as he asked his kin.

“Forty-five so far but there’s still hunters out.”

An answer he was expecting, even if it still left him with a headache. Forty-five today, thirty-two the one prior, a high of sixty-seven before that with sightings and attacks working out to within that range consistently since their god had told them that the second wave had started, with the demons they once raised and corralled flooding the whole of the world along with their small part of it too.

They killed all they’d see. With what they’d learned, both of what those beasts truly were as well as their own relation to them, they could do nothing else but days of endless battle had them wearing thin. There was always more to find, always more to kill and now that they knew just how little their home was compared to the wider world, the implications of it were staggering considering just how many they’d see.

It was to the point that hunting felt almost wasteful. They tried to eat what they could but it left more meat than they needed to go around and while the flesh of those beasts made for a decent enough lure for hungry members of their own insatiable kind, disposing of all of the rest was burdensome in its own way.

But it has to be done. He thought with a tinge of exhaustion, sending up a small prayer to his god and looking forward to the next chance he’d get to speak with the cube for all the ways it would ease his mind.

For all the changes that had come with it when the dark truth of their existence had been revealed, Myriad had been the most blessed one, showing them the love and compassion that they never realized a god should have been giving from any of their old ones, those evil deities who had both created the demidemons as a whole for their own selfish desires and through that act, helped doom the world.

No, unlike them, Myriad was truly worthy of faith, giving generously and strengthening them all in the process with both his blessing and his skill granting them all a new way to experience the world and deepen their interactions with each other too. The treatment was incomparable and the greatest gift they could have hoped to receive, building the faith he received on trust and love instead of the fear that powered what they used to give.

But as his mind wandered to their revered deity, the one with him lingered, taking an apologetic tone.

“And there’s one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“The four were the ones to discover and take on the largest group we saw today of twenty. All lived but there were injuries again.”

A sigh finally couldn’t be kept from escaping his lips as Toltho shook his head. “Thank you for letting me know. I’ll go talk to them.”

With a small nod, the other left, giving Toltho just a moment of peace to breathe before getting up. No matter how he felt about it, he was the acting leader of his people which left him with responsibilities to bear so leaving his home, he went out into the village to find a few of the bigger points of stress it housed.

Looking around as he did, he tried to take it in for what good it held. Their village wasn’t large by any stretch but it had changed completely in the last few years, with sturdy homes to live in now that they weren’t being moved constantly to escape the eyes of the world’s gods and a field where they farmed crops for themselves instead of just gathering, but more than any of that was the people within it.

In the past, the direction of their lives was simple. They lived for the sake of their gods, doing what they could to sustain themselves so that they might give all the faith they were able with every hour they had, only stopping to hunt and sleep, with the ones they’d worshiped feeling like they tolerated that fact more than they actually understood it. Now though, things were different. Despite the dangers of the world around them, children were at play and some adults were even joined in, with the sounds of music coming from others who practiced in their leisure.

The skills any one of them would hold had grown too, being shown that so many more existed than any of them had thought too which made different forms of training easier. With access to the cards, it was no longer a matter of fumbling in the dark to find which magics any of them were suited for and with books on topics they never had before, it was easy for their talents to blossom as they worked, making surviving just that little bit easier for everyone there.

Well, almost everyone. He told himself as he let himself into another building where the ones who’d decided to devote themselves to the healing arts were at work, treating the injured who’d returned after facing down the biggest crowd of the day by themselves. Those who’d once stood by his side as the leading figures of the villages, brought down by their gods and their faith with the orders they’d been given in the past. The other four who, like himself, had once acted as representatives of the forbidden gods who’d created their race.

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Neither he nor them said anything at first, with the others waiting for him to talk while he inspected their wounds. None would die but the scars were building up, the limits of their healers’ abilities meant that the process wasn’t perfect, though with how much those patients were putting their bodies through, they were certainly getting the practice.

Guilt and shame weren’t things easily fixed. Under their gods’ orders, they’d begun the slaughter of their own kind which was enough to separate them from the other villagers but the anger and hate of the rest of their kind had faded with time. After all, what was the point? They had been as misled as anyone else and it was all the more clear that nothing that anyone else felt for them was a drop compared to the hatred they felt for themselves, leaving them to travel their self-destructive road to repentance.

“You all can’t keep this up,” He finally said, getting an empty smile from Pleht in exchange.

“Ah, but we all know it’s for the best. Someone needs to be culling any that come too close and it makes such good practice for the healers too. Why, I think it was just yesterday one got a new level, a blessing for the village all around.”

Toltho just shook his head. “I can’t make you forgive yourselves but at least understand that you’re all more useful to the rest of us alive. If you really want to help then do it by living as long as you can and contributing all you can. Whatever lingering feelings there might be in others, I hold nothing against you and neither does our god. You know that’s all that truly matters.”

None of them responded, none of them cared. Their new god was not a judgemental one but that still left the judgment they placed on themselves once the truth of their existence had come out, leaving only the reality of what they’d done and the weight of their sin that no amount of forgiveness from others could lift from their shoulders. They’d nearly slaughtered their people because the ones they’d worshiped demanded it and that was something that would never be forgotten.

“What matters to him and to use are two different things,” Pleht said as he looked away. “Pay us no mind, Toltho. We won’t die so easily.”

“I’d believe that if you’d put in the slightest amount of effort to preserving yourselves. You were all dragged here again I take it? Not going to use your own life magics to heal yourselves?”

Of the original priests, he alone was the only one who wielded death magic, with the other four holding life, but each and every time he saw them, not one used that power for themselves despite their skill in it. Every time, it was up to the others to find them when they got back and force them to be healed when it only ever became more and more clear that they had no desire for it themselves.

With it being a question none of them wanted to answer either, the group fell to silence, leaving him to wonder if there even was anything they could do until a distant sound changed things. A scream, off in the distance but still clearly close enough to be from the village had him and the other four on their feet and running without a word being spoken as they tore through the streets where the sounds of movement came from, letting them see that their day still wasn’t yet over with a new group of at least twenty demons attacking the village propper.

To the best of their abilities, but with limited success. Nearly every member of the village had experience hunting and even as some of the more powerful among them, the rest of their people weren’t weak with the ones who’d gotten there first already drawing blood, bringing one demon down at the same group of old priests joined the fray, not needing to say a word after all of those years as they all moved as one.

While three went to help in areas that looked like they were struggling, Toltho and Pleht went to the biggest, seeing a beast that towered twice their size that didn’t seem to have any magic to attack with, instead just swinging its arms in powerful blows to throw anything that came close enough away that made it harder for others to deal with as it shrugged off the magic attacks it fell under with ease, looking to be the greatest challenge there.

Pleht took the front, drawing its eye as he ran forward to challenge it head-on, ducking under one swing to get in close to attack while Toltho moved to the monster’s back, staying hidden with his invisibility with an attack of his own and at the same time it reacted to the one before it. Squeezing down on Pleht instead of lashing out, Toltho struck, his claws gouging out chunks of flesh at the beast’s neck and forced it to lash out in reaction, barely clipping him as he tried to dodge and leaving a cut running down his chest as blood leaked out.

One injury given though, Pleht got another, reaching up with his own hand to slash the other side of the demon’s throat and having far more success with his own escape, no matter how rough rushing in had left him. The demidemon was left with broken ribs and a wet cough but it was their victory in the end as the giant they felled took a single, intimidating step forward before collapsing, the blood loss too great for its large body as it died with a single word on its lips.

“Abominations.”

“Wise ones are always a pain to deal with,” Pleht spat, a glob of blood splashing against the ground when he did as the two observed the surroundings. The rest of them had been killed while they’d fought as more villagers had gathered to come and help, ending that small invasion. “Looks like we didn’t do a good enough job clearing the area today, we’ll go back and…”

He trailed off as Toltho raised a hand, his eyes closed in concentration as he listened to the world around him, past the celebration of his people to experience something farther. A pounding.

A sound in the distance that had started off small but only grew with every passing second until he could feel the tremors in the earth beneath his feet, making his eyes shoot open as he yelled out around him. “On guard! We aren’t done yet!”

A warning that was barely even needed by that point. The fastest of what was to come was already running through the trees with another dozen demons coming into sight but they all knew it wasn’t going to be all of them. A dozen wouldn’t shake the earth itself and with his senses telling him there were hundreds more following, he knew it was about to become a very long day.