Chapter 87 – Dig or Die

The first imps that approached the swirling vortex scooped up gold into their claws and ran back to a spot Shiny pointed at. They dumped their haul out, before returning.

Master said not to, but Shiny wasn’t happy with the pace. Every coin mattered. Every shiny needed collected. So, he gnashed his fangs and sprinted forward, helping the brood.

“Like this! See!” he said, digging his red claws into the sand and coming out with two generous heaps of gold.

Bean wasn’t far behind, his orange tainted claws chomping at the bit.

Together, they worked with the rest of the brood and began to transfer as much of the wealth as they could. Besides, if any creature was meant for work such as this, it would be imps. Their clawed feet and small stature let them ferry out gold without falling or stumbling in the growing winds and howls of the vortex.

As they worked, Shiny kept noticing Bean stealing glances at the scary vortex. Most of the brood imps went inside, grabbed the nearest coins, and ran off. But Bean kept going deeper than he needed and stopping.

“Bean! Careful!”

“It fine,” he mumbled.

It not fine. Maybe Bean was becoming stupid too. Shiny decided to keep an eye on him as he worked.

Midway back from this third trip, he paused to glare at the big tornado. “Mine! Mine! You do not take!” he shrieked. “Faster! Faster!” he ordered the imps.

“Fast!”

“We go!”

“Weeeee!”

For the next several minutes, over forty imps worked as one to make a pile of wealth bigger than Shiny was tall. He was careful to ensure that pile stayed a healthy distance away from the tornado.

If they had the other brood imps, they could have done it twice as fast. That was simple math. But master had said no to that.

After thinking about it, Shiny understood why. It was simple, really. If this went wrong, the storm might eat the brood.

It came down to one thing.

“Redundancy!” shouted Shiny, dumping off another clawful of coins.

Shiny needed to stay though. He was the manager.

Not long later, as the storm was getting so big that Shiny was starting to feel even his claws begin to slip as he ran back and forth, master gave him an order he wasn’t expecting.

“It is time, Shiny. Your role here is shifting to strictly oversight. The vortex is reaching a new threshold… I can feel it. I want you to step back. Way back. Allow Bean to take over.”

What was master saying?! Bean? He just looked at the farms all day. He wasn’t ready to manage something like this.

Shiny was about to scream as much, but then remembered master couldn’t hear him from here. Hissing in frustration, the little imp pondered what to do. Didn’t master see? Shiny was strong. He was safe. And he was running more than twice as fast as the other brood. And they themselves were moving even faster because he was here, managing them. Which meant a bigger pile. Which meant more gold.

Duh. Didn’t master want more gold?

He wheeled around, waving his claws angrily in the distance. “I help! I can help!” he shouted. Master couldn’t hear, but he must have understood the meaning.

“You are my best manager, Shiny. What comes next is risky. You’ve grown a lot with me. Now it’s time for some of the brood to grow too. For today, it is not your turn. Not just yet. But it will be. Soon. Very soon. Trust master. Your turn will come, and when it does, the wait will be worth it. What Boney got, and what Bean and the others will get. It will pale in comparison to what you shall have, my friend. But not yet. Not just yet.”

Shiny didn’t fully get what master meant, but he had a hunch. One that he trusted master to not lie about. It pained him, but he listened. After dropping his latest batch of coins, he stood by the pile and began shouting.

“Bean! I need check on the brood! You in charge! Do not let down!”

Bean waved a claw over his head. The little imp was standing at the foot of the vortex, gazing up at its purple and green gusts of sand and metal.

Begrudgingly, Shiny began to depart from the storm. Not a dozen steps later, the sand twenty paces to his rear exploded. A massive rock had smashed into the pile of wrath corpses the imps had gathered. They’d planned to leave those and respect the dead, but it seemed the storm had other plans.

Then another rock, and another came crashing down. Three imps squealed so loud Shiny nearly turned around, but he bit his lip and kept dashing away until the roar of the storm began to get a bit quieter.

Even when he heard the ripping of bones and a dying scream of one of his workers, Shiny did not turn.

Sometimes, a manager had to make hard choices, master had said.

This was one.

What did he call this?

Investment.

***

“Child! Did you see that rock! It just hit one of the little ones!”

Sythara was still hunched over the void imps, panting in effort.

“Focus on keeping the calling going with the void imps! I’ll handle it!” replied Kairon. He’d seen it too, but hadn’t meant for everyone else to know of it. Not yet. He needed them doing their assigned roles.

“Hit?!” shrieked Nod. “Master! What she mean!”

“Erm. The storm is growing, it seems. Quickly. It’s a race against time now. Who will win. The brood, or the calling.”

“Stop it! Stop call! No hurt!”

“I can’t. This would all be for a waste. I think… I think this is a massive opportunity. One I can’t let go.”

“If imp hit…” said Bob by Nod’s side. “This bad. Risk! Big risk!”

Shake was furiously scribbling the names of all the imps in group one that had retreated. He looked up, nodding in agreement. “Yes! Big risk! Supervisor Nod… Should classify injury event.”

“During work! During work!” added Bob. He was busily writing down the names of the other imps. The ones that had stayed.

Nod let out a growl. “Technically during operation. Not work. Classify as… As…” he turned to Kairon, scrunching his nose.

“Environmental hazard,” supplied the city lord.

“Yes! This… This hazard! Log!”

“Yes supervisor Nod!” the DR imps called. Bob took out another piece of bark, and scrawled out a few simple words. “Master… What imp hit?”

Sighing, Kairon thought back. “I…” For a moment, Kairon realized he didn’t know the names of all his imps. At a surface level, he knew that. But it only now hit him. Should he change that?

A thought for later. “It was hard to see. They did have three claw marks on their calf, and an orange mark on their cheek, I believe.”

“That’s Pebble,” sighed Bob. “Pebble… Decease. Suffered environmental hazard,” he said as he notated the event.

This just cost me a brood imp. It’d better work.

Meanwhile, the swirling vortex in the distance had gotten so large and shone so bright that anyone on the wall could now see it, magnified vision or no.

Clearing his throat, Kairon got Nod’s attention. “Listen up.” Then, making sure he was in view of the great eye above the tower behind them, he put a claw on Nod’s shoulder. “I’d like to formally log the purpose of this operation with our DR department head.”

“Oh? Purpose? Now you tell?” Nod crossed his arms. “Fine. What is?”

Stepping back, Kairon raised his voice nice and loud. “Corruption is at an all time high, with over seventy a day. In order to safely respect the integrity of the realm we reside in, we are taking emergency measures. I am hereby classifying this as a controlled substance release event, sub category remediation operation.”

As he spoke, the massive eyeball above the tower shone, glimmering with a flicker of light. “Nod. Log this event with our remediation emissions ledger, if you please.”

“Understood! As compliance representative… For city. For demon, I log event.” He began scribbling furiously on a piece of bark, muttering something.

A distant boom sounded as another rock pummeled the hellscape leagues away. The noise of it was loud enough to make Nod pause mid writing. He gave Kairon a very unamused look, shook his head, and got back to writing.

Kairon, however, drew his gaze back over the city. “It’s almost time.” When he’d last checked, the leash of green and gold energy that had been growing into Bean was still the smallest of the named imps. So, this was going to be interesting. Kairon was effectively jump starting the little monster’s evolution—assuming this worked, of course.

But if it did, it would not only be an invaluable data point for how demonic ranking and power worked, but also serve as a stepping stone for future experimentation of the like. Boney’s power had been much larger, and Shiny’s…. Well. His had grown to surpass even where Boney’s was.

Then again, as he studied the hundred meter high vortex of ravenous hunger and demonic creation, he wasn’t certain he’d be able to do this again. Events were starting to spiral, and fast.

Frankly, Kairon wasn’t certain this would end the way he hoped.

But just this once, he was putting his claws on the table. It was time. Because besides the gold, the corpses, the imps, and the calling, there was one more variable at play. One more thing that no one but him and one little farmer imp seemed to be considering.

A hole. A very, very big hole. And it was right under that massive storm.

***

Bean stood, letting the vortex slice and claw at him. Sand whipped around his body, the other brood imps furiously finding the rest of the freshly created gold. To their credit, they’d found the bulk of it. Now they were practically spending more time scavenging and searching than they were hauling.

When Bean felt master’s presence in his mind, he didn’t even need to listen. As soon as he understood just the barest sense of that feeling, one thought slammed into his mind.

DIG.

Without hesitation, Bean stopped standing. Instead, he moved. Quick, rapid steps took him to the edge of the vortex, where the wind was so strong it nearly sent him sprawling. Three coins of gold whipped back, leaving nasty scrapes along his forehead.

Still, he ran. Forward. Faster and faster.

Then, he wasn’t running. It took him a minute to realize that was because the ground was gone. He was falling, and fast.

“Yes! I do down! To dig! To ground!” he screeched. The walls of the darkening crater flew by as he descended, a sense of exhilaration and rightness filling him.

“Woooooo!” His voice echoed through the enormous cavern until the storm whisked it away.

Bean was thrilled. He was finally going to see what was in this big, big hole.

Unfortunately, he only had a few blissful moments of descent before something ricocheted off his back and sent him flying the opposite direction. Up.

“No! I dig! Need go down!” he said angrily.

Despite his words, Bean kept flying back upwards, swirls of green and purple collecting around him as he went. Like some sort of miniature imp rocket.

This wasn’t right. Master wouldn’t want this. Bean didn’t want this. He wanted one thing, and one thing only.

“NO! DIG OR DIE!” This time, his voice didn’t just echo through the crater. It erupted outwards, seeming to nearly freeze him midair.

Something inside his chest gave, and a sound like a hammer striking an anvil filled the storm. Whatever he did had worked. This time, when Bean dropped, he didn’t go back up.

His body plummeted through the vortex and into the hole with the inevitability of a falling meteor. This time, he didn’t stop until he struck the subsurface far, far below.

Bean felt no pain. That didn’t surprise him. He knew he wouldn’t. Bean knew he was meant for the ground, and it seemed the ground knew that too.

The energies of forge reshaped what was around him into a column of dirt. It stretched upwards, green and orange gemstones glinting off its surface. A feeling between hunger and envy warred in his stomach. With a grin, Bean did what he saw Shiny do. Sort of. Only instead of sucking, he dug. Both his little claws stabbed downwards.

He felt intelligence and power beneath him, each responding to him. They flowed upwards, bursting inside his body. Bean’s thoughts connected in new ways, his body morphed in more, and his senses flared.

“Not… Quite… Right.” Shiny’s words came back to him. “Brood.. Not… Strong Alone. Weak… Alone. No…” He bit his tongue, tasting iron as he spat out the words. “Brood is one!”

Somewhere above, a new presence descended. Not of hunger, nor creation, or any other aspect. A much, much scarier one.

It seemed to take one look at the chaos, nod in approval, and disappear.

Bean wasn’t entirely sure what happened next. All he knew was that the vortex did something. Then he felt what he could only describe as a meteor shower.

The first of those meteors smashed next to him. Then another. And another. They got faster and faster.

In full, Bean counted thirty nine meteors before the shower stopped. Thirty nine impacts that, while not as strong as his, were just as eager.

Bean didn’t need anyone to tell him they weren’t meteors.

“No,” he growled. “They brood.”

***

“Sythara! It’s done! Only, I think I need your help now!” Kairon had rushed over, tugging at her insistently.

Both groups of voidlings were stuck in their trance. He’d considered moving them forcefully, but Sythara had warned about that. Premature conclusion of a calling could have catastrophic consequences. And not just for the void imp in question.

“I… Gah. Child. Did I not tell you this would happen?”

Kairon turned, studying the storm in the distance. When the other brood imps had dived into it, the tornado had become a storm of imps and metal.

Then, they’d disappeared. But checking his population readout made it clear only one brood imp had died.

Meaning the rest were still alive. Evolving, he hoped.

The storm itself had begun to dwindle. From a hundred meters to fifty to thirty to ten.

Unfortunately, it seemed that whatever energy the imps needed was accepted. The forge, the brood—all of it. It’d been used.

Now, the storm was feeding on something again. Kairon didn’t know what. His fear was that it might be the imps below, ruining what they’d just done.

“Sythara. If we don’t do something, those little ones are going to become food. Little ones that might not be so little anymore, if we can save them. Please. Can you stop this without… how did you put it the other day… angering the plane?”

The demoness gave him a hard look. Her tendrils were trembling, each like a cord holding the void imps together.

“Listen. I know I’ve asked a lot of you lately. I promise, when this is all over, I will see what I can do about returning your given power, and then some. I have some ideas that I think will allow you to grow, just like the little ones. I promise.”

Those two sapphire pupils spun, prisms within them studying Kairon closely. “I am placing a great deal of trust in you, child. I hope what you said was true. That this is not just a deal, but a partnership.”

Without another word, for the second time since coming to this world, Sythara The Unraveler did as her namesake was bidden.

She unraveled. Shapes flowed from her body, traveling along the tendrils and onto the skin of the ten void imps. All of whom had begun to be tainted by forge and brood. Orange and green had spread not just to their cowls, but to their skin.

Hush in particular was morphed, with his clawed feet looking more like anvils than appendages. Even his cowl felt more alive than dead. It was quite unsettling.

A sharp shriek cut the air. It was a voice that Kairon had only heard once before—when Sythara had boosted the wrath brand comprehension in exchange for her shaping.

This time, it was the same. Only now, it was to unravel a calling.

As her power took hold, the strangest sensation entered the air. It took Kairon a minute to realize what it was.

Void. Lots and lots of void. A slothful, terminal feeling that told him to lie down and let it all end. Who cared what happened if the void would take its rightful place over all of creation?

Moments later, the feeling ebbed away.

To Kairon’s relief, so too did the chanting of the void imps. They all collapsed in a heap of limbs, cowls, and claws.

The slothful impact didn’t stop there. The effects on the void imps slowly drained away, their taint unraveling into green and orange mist that hissed as it dissipated into the air above.

Not long after, the storm in the distance slowed and slowed until it all but unspun itself from existence. Like something had cut off the connection that had been formed. Or, more accurately, simply unraveled it.

She must have used the connection from the void imps to somehow unravel that storm.

Otherwise, it would have continued feeding on the imps below, calling stopped or no. At least, that was Kairon’s theory.

“Thank you, Sythara. You’ve shown your loyalty today. I vow to repay it, councilor of void.”

She didn’t reply. Her body went limp, falling into unconsciousness atop the group of void imps.

Walking over, Kairon placed a claw on her forehead. Then each of the void imps.

They lived. They all lived.

“Master,” said Nod slowly as he lowered his bark. “We not do this again.”

“No, Nod,” sighed Kairon. “I don’t think we will. Not like this, anyway.”