Chapter 545 - Preparation
Soon flames lit up in the Burning Heights castle, this was the start of Asmodeus's invasion, Dave didn't want to be here at all when the armies of the lord of hell are here. He has enough trouble with the calamities and their shenanigans to care for Asmodeus.
"Let's go Dagla," Dave said and the two left.
Once Dave and Dagla arrived at the Qin capital, they noticed a great deal of chaos ensuing. The broken skies were cause for worry to many of the Qin Residence. Thankfully the undead army was more than capable of containing the situation and stopping any signs of riots before they started.
"Childe!" The Undead King's voice came into Dave's hand, "Come meet Us, make haste!"
Dave rushed along Dagla to the Bone Palace, the undead king was unusually on his nerves. He was not seated on his seat but was moving in circles.
"Your majesty," Dagla bowed.
"Yes, you both are here. Child, today is a grave day, the calamities have come with hostility. Our undead legion could survive, but your subjects, the humans that you rule over them will die and perish once the first wave of the calamities assaults this domain."
"I was thinking of doing a mass curfew, hold the men in their houses."
"Not a bad idea, but I have a better one," a new voice sounded from behind Dave.
Dave turned to see Demitri, the Russian Pakhan.
"Demitri, what are you doing here?" Dave asked.
"We have summoned your consultant because We deemed that his wits about these types of situations were worthy of thought."
"I guess that means that you have a good plan?" Dave asked.
"Yes, I'm by nature a skeptical person, so I had made sure that if the Undead were to one day turn against us, we'll have a place to safe keep the citizen and a way to restore order if chaos ensues. No offense," Demitri said to the Undead King.
"We cannot take offense from a man being cautious. Do not worry, Keep speaking."
"Yes, so I made bunkers and hideouts all over the capital of Qin and in the major cities of the Qin Kingdom. And thanks to the investment that you proposed on the first day of capturing the region. We bought great deals of wheat and raw materials, jerky and unperishable goods, and stored them for such cases. We have enough food supplies to sustain the whole kingdom for at least a year."
"Holy damn, that's good. This will guarantee the survival of the kingdom."
"Yes, I have already given the order for the citizen to move to the bunkers. All that remains are the people who are living in towns around the region. We'll need to send in messengers and they'll have to do a risky pilgrimage to get to one of the cities. So I'll need a few soldiers to help gather the people and safely escort them back to the cities."
"We shall manage four brigades of undead for you, councilor, four thousand strong to help you collect the people living in the east." The undead king spoke.
"Good, that'll be more than enough, I'll head out and give the order for the Undead to start marching and collecting the dead."
"You are dismissed," spoke the Undead King then turned to Dave and Dagla.
"This is a great test for our unity, we need to be strong in facing the upcoming battles. But first things first. Son, there come to my notice that a few Calamitous beings have fallen near the capital's borders. You'll need to get rid of them in haste, as the danger that these calamities pose, being so near to this city will cause a lot of worry for the people."
"I just need the location and I'll be on it."
"West of the front gate, the calamities, two of them have taken a position on the main road. This will be harmful to any of the people that the Councilor brings to the capital. Take them out, and rid us of their harm."
"As you command!" Dave nodded and turned.
"Dagla, I'll need you for another matter." The Undead King asked and the Arch Lich replied.
Dave left the two to talk and sent a private message to all of his friends.
"Everyone, I need your help," Dave said.
"TNT is up and ready, where are we needed?" Perfect Shot said.
"East, what about the rest?"
"Tess is offline, she has an important meeting she said." Human Fortress replied.
"Okay, I think we can compensate on the DPS from Tess, but it still sucks. Ralph, what about you?" Dave said.
"Yeah, on my way, I got nothing else to do, but Mercy won't be coming," Ralph said.
"What? Why?"
"Protection Contract, someone just contacted their guild and bought their services."
"Crap. Z, what about you?"
"I can't come, my dad's legacy, he needs one last hunting quest to fully unlock his legacy. And he needs an archer, I can't trust anyone with that role so I have to go."
"Okay, good luck with your dad's legacy upgrade, hopefully, he'll get it because as it's looking right now, we'll need all the power we can get. Any news on the guilds though?"
"Devastators are the lucky ones, none of the calamities dropped anywhere near their cities, they're already amassing people to defend against the upcoming calamities."
"Heavens Dawn's case is rather peculiar, the majority o the calamities have dropped in the Southern Desert, yet none of them directly assaulted any of the Oasis as of yet. The sand snakes have done a great job in stopping the calamities. Some even died to being digested after falling directly into the stomach of one of those sandworms."
"That's good news, thankfully, the monsters of Conquest are extremely hostile to the Calamities, they'll probably aid us."
"Yeah, also the dragons haven't made a move yet. Seems like The Chrome Strom Dragon was attacking a few players at the borders of the Devastators capital and ended up rushing after a calamity that fell near the players." Ralph said.
"Oh, that's nice. We met that guy once, but seems like he has a good head over his shoulders now that he attacked the calamities."
"Still, we have not witnessed a single Greater Calamity, all the ones that fell were lesser ones."
"I suppose the Seal on the Greater Calamities is far stronger, otherwise even for Alfred this would be unfair."
"I suppose you mean ALBERT," Ralph said.
"Oh, no, Alfred, the twin-tailed sparrow suited penguin. I just met him, he was the guy in robes in the last Ash King war."
The rest of Dave's party were silent for a moment then Ralph said.
"You're saying that Alfi went Skynet?"
"Yeah, Flanker was right after all."
"I TOLD YOU HE WENT COOCOO IN THE HEAD!"
"My ears!" Fortress groaned and said, "Just because you're right doesn't make this any good. Shouldn't the Devs handle this?"
"I don't know, but I think it's impossible. Albert confirmed that his brother managed to link his existence to every player in the game. Deleting Alfred means deleting all the game accounts."
"That's messed up, smart but messed up. So basically we're on the mercy of Alfred's shinanigans."
"I suppose that didn't come with just benefits for him. He basically became an NPC."
"That doesn't change the fact that killing him will still delete all our accounts. If it's even possible."
"No, Alfred might be messed up in the head, but he won't make it impossible for players. He always worked by that logic, there has to be a way out of every scenario he made."
"Reminds me of Enigma…" Human Fortress said.
"Who's Enigma?"
"Edward Nigma, the Riddler, even against himself, his puzzles always need to have an answer. Same as Alfi, there must be a way to kill him. What about the box?" Fortress said.
"Pandora's box? It should be in Ashkar's Hands, if he is still alive that is."
"Why would you say that?" Ralph questioned.
"The bald Monk just got insta-killed in front of me, all thanks to Alfred."
"Well, even if Ashkar is dead, we still need the box," Fortress added.
"What's in the box? I mean, all I ever saw was calamities."
"No, if we're based on the myth of Pandora, when she opened the box, all evil came out to the world, if she had closed it, it would have meant the end of everything the world had ever known, yet she kept it open until the last thing came out. It was hope. And thanks to hope, the evil was subverted."
"Right, that's a long shot, but I'll keep it in mind. For now, let's go, meet me at Qin's front gate. We have two calamities to slay."
"Aye aye captain!"