Tyrants of Earth - The Legend of Artigan

- What the fuck is going on in Ulverra? @Patlinger(Verified, R2)

- There is no way I’m hearing this right. A realm two, a freaking realm 2, caused a localized red alert, and they got away?! IN ULVERRA?!?!?!?:!!?!?K!lksdjlkjrLKAW @Mackingley (Verified, R8)

- Enforcers MIA? Hello?? Leaflegend60 (Realmer)

“Is the old man going to be okay?”

Gamielle materialized, floating next to him in her usual, showy position. They were deep in the Leafstalkers’ forest now. Ryan jogged and hopped over roots to make good pace, hoping it’d keep any pursuers firmly behind.

“Yup, you might’ve hit him a bit too hard, but I don’t think there’s any serious internal bleeding.”

Ryan had hit the old man in the solar plexus to make him stop coming after him. What felt like a light tap was strong enough to immobilize the old man until Ryan ran out of sight. Honestly, he couldn’t believe the veteran. He was pretty sure Jecharim just wanted to follow him just so he could drag him down.

That was the last time he’d ever try kidnapping a veteran. Ryan turned to Gamielle.

“You’ll watch over him, right? In case there's any monsters?

“A favor for a favor, Ryan.”

Gamielle put out a palm. She still wanted his guns. The [Rogue], being asked for his weapons, scoffed at her then just kept jogging ahead.

“Forget it. If he gets eaten, that’s on you, not me.”

The [Mage] floated next to him, tilting her head, curious.

“I don’t think I’ve ever met a newbie adventurer develop so much cheek so quickly. This has got to be a record.”

As a response, he just ignored her and continued to run ahead. Gamielle wrinkled her nose and floated in front of him, and Ryan ran right through her and scoffed. She then kept a constant pace in front of him, blocking his vision entirely with her very curvaceous, very fake figure.

Now that was cheating. He stopped and looked at the silly [Mage]. She had less humor than before. Clearly disliking being ignored.

“Drop the guns.”

“Why do you keep pretending to be Gamielle, Witch Tyrant?”

Instead of accepting her request he went in for a blind accusation. It was something he’d been thinking over. He knew [Witches] could form covens and empower themselves. But could someone really just borrow a Legendary skill like that?

Gamielle didn’t even seem phased by his suspicion.

“Only half right, drop the gun.”

“What do you mean, half right?”

“I’ll tell you if you drop them right now.”

Ryan thought for a second, then dropped his pistol to the ground… Then immediately picked it back up.

“There, now you have to tell me.”

Gamielle straightened from her lying position and put her hands on her hips.

“That is the most childish thing I’ve seen, and I’ve had to pick up after the Passive Tyrant.”

She pondered in thought, then shrugged.

“But fine, a promise is a promise, the truth is I’m mph-mphh.”

Gamielle’s lips closed, her mouth literally unable to be opened as she kept trying to talk. All that happened was that she made similar sounds to Jecharim when the old man had been gagged.

Then a presence descended into the area. It heralded the arrival of the Witch Tyrant as she descended from the skies.

This time, the grass started to blacken as the trees themselves stopped swaying in the wind. Was all of this an illusion too? Or was she projecting her aura from outside the leveled zone?

Or was it all the working of her illusory Legend?

The Witch Tyrant stood before him, next to a gagged Gamielle. The Witch in white robes looked down at him, archly. She seemed larger than she should have been.

"You wished for a discussion. Drop your firearms, and you shall have it.”

The [Rebellious Rogue] paused. She was definitely using her aura to try to throw him off. He crossed his arms.

“No, you said we’d have a discussion if I managed to escape Ulverra. I did that, now are you going to go back on your word?”

Gamielle’s eyes widened in surprise as she looked at her mother and started laughing, still with her mouth shut.

“mmhmmm hmhmhmmm”

The Witch Tyrant pressed her lips slightly then smiled at him.

His [Dangersense] exploded.

Goosebumps rippled across his skin as the hair on his neck rose. His brain screaming in all directions as his own skin started to pale.

For a moment he thought she was going to kill him.

Ryan pushed that thought away and stood strong against the aura. Logically, she wouldn’t kill him, not like this.

The Witch nodded.

“You have my attention little [Rogue], three mental threads instead of one, more than most will ever get. Name the price for the firearms.”

Ryan met the Witch Tyrant’s eyes, refusing to back down.

“Answer the question about the Manager and make me a promise.”

“Name the promise.”

He took a breath. He’d been thinking about this, it was what had driven him to take an old man hostage. There needed to be a line in the sand, one that he could believe.

“You won’t harm or threaten my family or friends or anyone else I’m close with on Earth. Promise that to me with the spirit of the agreement, and not the wording of the agreement. Your word on it.”

Ryan wasn’t going to make a stupidly long worded promise with the Witch Tyrant. Ryan knew he was outmatched in wits. But an argument like this? There was no way to interpret this in any other fashion.

The next time he met with the Manager, it was going to be done in the same way.

The Witch Tyrant’s expression gave nothing away. Her head tilted a little.

“So, this was what you wanted, more than money or even the Manager’s motives. This was your true goal.”

Then the Witch Tyrant leaned in, looming over him. The whole forest went silent. The Witch Tyrant’s presence became larger and larger—until she encompassed the entire world.

“It’s good to know what you truly value. What if I just took your parents hostage instead? Poor old Robert and Linda Robinson? What would you do then?”

He went cold. Ryan uncrossed his arms as he gave the deadest stare at the Witch. He had expected this.

And I am still fucking pissed.

“Mutually assured destruction.”

The Witch Tyrant simply tilted her head the other way, her pointy hat moving slightly.

“You don’t make the agreement, and I will post everything I’ve learned, step by step, online.”

The beautiful, impassive elven features gave way to disappointment. She shook her head. Even her white hat seemed to radiate disappointment somehow.

Ryan bared his teeth. His cold fury encompassing his entire being as his Epic activated on its own.

[Aura of Unrelenting Intimidation]

“ThenI will never take another step into The Realm. The moment you hex or touch a single hair on my family or my friends. I will stop. I will simply walk into a Trial and never walk out. My word on it.”

“Ah.”

The Witch drew back, and no longer pressed her aura down on him. No longer was she disappointed. She smiled faintly, satisfied that she wasn’t talking to a complete idiot.

The Witch Tyrant cared little about getting exposed. She did not care about throwing the son of two dragonslayers into a deathmatch. She didn’t care about the mess he’d made in the Archmage Tyrant’s city.

The one thing she did care about?

If the little pawn from the Manager stopped trying because of her own actions.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

His defeat of Zedart, his success in the Trials, his Epic skill and his daring escape from Ulverra.

All bargaining chips to increase his own value, making it more likely that he was the valuable last piece that the Manager had hinted at.

All of it would go down the drain if he stopped right now. That was the only piece he could play, and he had to have conviction. He had meant every word, and the Witch knew it too.

His unwavering aura stood firm amidst her aura of rot.

The Witch Tyrant nodded.

“As long as you continue to perform, then you will have no issues with me targeting you or your loved ones. To the spirit of the agreement. My word on it.”

Gamielle burst out of her magical gag.

“You idiot! Mom wouldn’t do that! She doesn’t attack civilians like that. Idiot! Idiot!”

Ryan looked at Gamielle. Whether this was a prank or to make a point that the Witch Tyrant had won the deal… no that didn’t make sense. Gamielle really was her daughter, who else could be so blind to their mother’s actions?

“Then what do you call Zedart and me if not civilians? Compared to your mother, everyone’s a civilian.”

Gamielle stopped calling him an idiot, then looked at the ground, then at her mother, and didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. The hesitation said it all.

Ryan threw his gun into the woods. It disappeared in midair. The Witch’s illusion, no doubt. It was probably still on the ground somewhere, he could probably follow the trajectory and pick it up from the ground. Not that he would.

A deal was a deal after all.

The Witch Tyrant stared down at him, her eyes bore into his little trick. Unamused.

Ryan sheepishly shrugged and took out Jecharim’s revolver strapped to his back. He threw that one away too.

A deal was a deal after all.

The Witch didn’t say anything. Like it was beneath her to chastise him for it. She stepped back and summoned a chair and a small circular table. The Witch sat and Ryan took a seat on a nearby root. A cup of tea illusioned up in front of her.

She took a sip of the tea.

“Now then, shall we discuss what the Manager truly wants? I do warn that knowing this secret will give you no advantage. People have broken under the weight of what I’m about to impart. We normally wait for dragonslayers who have proven themselves worthy. Knowing all that, do you still wish to know?”

“Sure, hit me.”

The Witch Tyrant’s upper lip curled at that. She found it distasteful that he was being so casual while she was trying to be so dramatic. She raised an index finger from the hand that held the tea.

“The Manager wants one thing and one thing only. It wants the completion of the Trial System.”

“What? That’s it?”

She let him fester in his confusion for a moment, then two. Then took satisfaction as his eyes went wide at the implication.

“Did you think that we Tyrants were capable of completing the Trial System? That we would go to that vaunted promise and make the Trial System available to all?”

That was always the promise. The Trial System promised everything and anything.

If you could complete it.

The Tyrants had promised to complete the Trial System in its entirety and promised that they would choose that as their reward.

The idea that they couldn’t complete the Trials?

That hadn’t even been up for debate.

If the Tyrants couldn’t complete the Trials, who could?

“Mezhar isn’t the final piece.” Ryan muttered.

The Witch nodded.

“Indeed. We believed we were infinitely closer with his Legend, but the lack of messages in the last few years had become... concerning.”

Ryan’s mind was racing ahead, the implications of a failure to complete the Trial System. What did it even mean? His mind went back to his last encounter with the Manager, something it had said that didn’t seem relevant until now.

“Wait, hold on. Has the Manager never completed the Trial System?”

The Witch lowered the cup of tea. Her eyes seemed to pierce right through his hood. Naturally, a minor [Shadowed] enchantment couldn’t do anything to block her gaze.

“Now that is an interesting question, and how, pray tell, would you have known to ask that?”

“How many iterations have there been?”

The Witch Tyrant lowered the tea onto the table entirely. If he’d known that knowing this was so important to her, he would have used it as a bargaining chip.

“So, the Manager has told you that too? Hm, you should have mentioned that sooner. There’s been hundreds of iterations. Perhaps thousands, and not a single one has completed the Trial System.”

“That’s…”

Ryan didn’t even know how to respond to that. Hundreds of worlds and all of them had failed? Surely, each world had its own Tyrants and Mezhars.

And not a single one had succeeded?

There was a feature in the System that he’d been ignoring. Just because it just hadn’t crossed his mind. It just didn't seem that important. Until now.