Board & Conquest: A Godly LitRPG

The mage Gaspar was about everything Renarde expected from a human wizard: old, falsely humble, and hungry for any morsel of knowledge.

Obtaining a one-on-one appointment with him had been surprisingly simple. All she had to do was offer an edited copy of the research documents she wrote on Grand-Loup's tomb to his secretary in Saguenay to be invited for a meeting within an hour. The wizard was clearly on the lookout for information related to the lunarians.

Of course, Renarde didn't come to him unprepared. She had taken the shape of a charming human woman with long black hair and a pretty face. She had considered also giving herself large breasts and a voluptuous figure before deciding against overplaying her hand. The 'pretty, innocent scholar girl willing to do anything for her research' archetype was the kind that nearly all male human wizards found irresistible, because it appealed to both their lust and intellectual vanity. They desired a sounding board who could understand their theories without challenging them.

The mage's office was relatively small and located on top of Saguenay's library on the western side of town, beyond Epona's Influence. While well-stocked with bookshelves, mahogany desks, chairs, and astrolabs, Renarde could immediately tell this place was just for show. The mage likely kept the good stuff elsewhere.

"Fascinating." Unlike his colleague Melchior, Gaspar did not bother with a wizard hat and stuck to a more fashionable rounded one. He dressed in a grey coat more fit for an old banker than a mage and kept his beard short and well-trimmed, which he stroked as he read Renarde's scroll. "Where did you find this, Lady…"

"Carmen Darwine," Renarde replied. She had begun to miss her acting roles on the stage. "As I told your secretary, I found them in a tomb in the north of Kathay during my university break year. However, I have been unable to fully translate these documents." That was a lie. Lord Wepwawet's translation blessing had allowed her to do so months ago. "I figured that a great and learned scholar of your caliber might help me with this task."

"I am flattered, and you did well to come to me. It must have been a very long journey, Kathay… very long indeed." The mage looked at her with sunken grey eyes. "Is this all that you have collected?"

The question sounded innocent enough, but carried a certain edge to it.

"I have a few more stashed in safe hands," Renarde replied. She caught the twinkle in the archmage's eye. If he had intended to kill her on the spot to steal her treasure and silence her, then he would now have to wait rather than risk having those documents vanish out of his grasp. "I thought it preferable not to keep all of my precious belongings on my person. I'm sure you will understand."

"Wise girl." The magician studied her for a moment, his wrinkled hand rolling up her scroll. "What did you manage to translate?"

"They seem to be records of an ancient, primitive wereling civilization older than our current historical models," Renarde said, blending truth and conjunctions. She was wary of looking too knowledgeable. "It seems they were locked into a war with another civilization of what I assume to be werebugs."

"Fascinating… and a keen intuition, albeit incomplete." She could almost taste the pleasure in Gaspar's voice. Like all old scholars, he enjoyed the position of the teacher slightly ahead of the uppity student. "Truth be told, we've found similar ruins in both Mortis and Valentine during archeological digs; which would indicate those ancient civilizations stretched worldwide."

"Truly?" Renarde feigned confusion. "I never heard of them."

"We are not ready to publish our findings yet, because they raise more questions than answers." Gaspar sat behind his desk. "Tell me, how do you think we humans came to be?"

"Through evolution and natural selection."

"A scholar's answer, and one that most priests would dislike… and yet, I fear it too may be false." Gaspar joined his hands. "Don't you find it odd how biologically adaptable we humans are? Current research would indicate that humans and werelings share a common ancestor that took on the traits of beasts; elves descend from some of us mating with dryads; and demons reproduce by assimilating us. In fact, the only sapient species we know of that cannot breed with humanoids are magmorians and intelligent monsters like dragons."

What was he leading her on? "Humans are hardly special when it comes to adaptation," Renarde pointed out. "New forms of mimics spawn every decade or so."

"True, but there are few to no other species with such… malleability in the wild. If humans are indeed the common ancestor of werelings, then they adopted the traits of birds, fish, quadrupeds, reptiles… entirely different branches of the animal kingdom. It stretches disbelief that this would be a quirk of evolution." Gaspar hung back in his chair. "What if humans were not a common ancestor of the werelings, elves, and demons, but a template?"

"A template?" Renarde didn't hide her curiosity. "Are you suggesting we were created?"

The thought had crossed her mind for a while. The lunarian in Promesse boasted about creating the Grand-Loup when he mistook Goreville for him, according to the werewolf's testimony, and her research on the ancient wereling civilization indicated that they had appeared alongside the lunarian one. The news that a blackstone of colossal size—a material which lunarians were extraordinarily skilled at manipulating—had likely helped the magmorians develop as a species also aroused her suspicions.

She had the sharp intuition that the origin of many mysteries traced back to those bugs.

Gaspar smiled upon sensing her curiosity. "Would you like to know more?"

"Of course, sir."

"Then I will be sure to involve you in the project… if you bring me the rest of your findings, of course. We must corroborate them with our own, you understand."

The fool thought he could use the same bait she used on him against her. Perfect. "I will bring everything I have shortly," Renarde promised with a bow. "I hope to be useful to your research team."

"I'm sure you will," he replied while dismissing her. "My secretary will see to your next appointment."

Renarde moved towards the door, but then subtly shook her travel bag on her way when Gaspar glanced back at her papers. She sensed a small form hop out of it and quickly scurried away to hide in the room. She had served her role as both bait and decoy.

The true spy was now in place.

Life as a mouse wasn't so different from life as a wererabbit, at least to Filou.

His senses hadn't changed all that much, although it was scary how everything looked so… so big all of a sudden. A chair was a mountain, a room a battlefield, and a book was like a building. No wonder rats were so scared of everything. It was terrible to be small in a world where anything could crush you by accident.

Keep it cool, Filou, he tried to tell himself as he scurried on a bookshelf near Sage Gaspar. Lord Wepwawet trusted me for this mission. I cannot fail it.

The plan was simple enough. Lord Wepwawet had cast a Miracle that transformed Filou into a mouse for a day, a duration which his god could renew. Filou would stay close to Gaspar to spy on him until Renarde returned to extract him.

This vile mage and his cohorts were after his lady. He had to find out about their plans for her sake.

Gaspar touched a small crystal on his desk. "Secretary," the mage said. "Has our guest left the building?"

A voice came out of the crystal to answer, startling Filou. "Yes, sir."

"Have her followed, discreetly. I am certain she used a glamour of some kind, but I couldn't see through it." Gaspar's lips curved in distaste, as if such a failure was a stain on his honor as a mage. "Which means she is either a spy or a lot more powerful than she pretends to be. Have someone look up her name in the university's registries."

"Yes, sir. I will send a report as soon as possible, sir."

Filou held his breath and contacted his god through telepathy. "Your Godliness–"

"Do not worry," Lord Wepwawet reassured Filou. "I already warned Renarde, and the Free Brotherhood provided the paper trail for her false identity. They will find nothing."

Still, it proved that the wizard was sharper than he looked. He had given no hint that he doubted Renarde's story until after she left.

"Fascinating… and disturbing…" Filou heard the mage mutter to himself as he reread Renarde's scroll. "I wonder if these documents were forged to sow distrust, but… they look authentic enough, and they corroborate… mmm…"

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Gaspar shook his head and then turned towards the bookshelf. Filou's heart skipped a beat in his tiny chest, and he barely managed to hide behind a thick grimoire. The mage pulled at a set of journals in an order Filou didn't catch, before something clicked and the ground started shaking.

The shelf is moving, Filou realized. A secret passage!

He waited until he heard Gaspar walking down the steps to enter his hiding place. The bookshelf had partly slid to the right to reveal a tiny passageway barely large enough for a man to squeeze through. Filou rushed inside as the hidden door quickly closed in a song of mechanical clinks and clanks, his feet hopping from one step to the next.

The effort left Filou panting. A small step for a wererabbit was such a giant leap for a mouse!

Nonetheless, he discreetly followed Gaspar down the steps of stone that seemed to go on forever. The mage had summoned a phantom flame in his hand to light the way, so Filou had little difficulty tracking his movements.

The long descent ended in a great hall deep beneath the earth. Filou immediately picked up on the acrid, metallic tang and inky smell hanging in the air. The place appeared to be an alchemist laboratory filled with worktables, shelves of tinctures, powders, ancient books, preserved animal parts… and living ones.

Filou nearly choked in surprise when he spotted three living lunarian parasites kept in jars next to slate boards covered in mathematical diagrams. The creatures screeched inside their prisons, but didn't struggle much to escape. Unfortunately, as much as Filou wanted to investigate, he had no other choice but to hide under a table to avoid detection.

The other mages were here.

Filou had already fought Melchior in Lavaland, but it was his first time meeting Balthazar, the last member of the trio. He appeared slightly younger than the others and dressed in rich, gilded robes with a hood falling on his bald head. He favored a goatee over a beard, and a pair of tinted glasses covered his eyes.

"Are you seeing this, Your Godliness?" Filou inquired in the depths of his mind, his eyes set on the jars. The creatures inside were still, their antennae stiffer than old trees. "They keep bottled lunarian parasites!"

"No, I do not see anything," Lord Wepwawet replied with a hint of concern in his voice. "Whatever Miracle Beelzebub cast on these creatures prevents me from observing them directly."

"You are late," Melchior chided Gaspar. "I was beginning to fear that something had happened to you."

"My apologies. A pleasant, welcome distraction delayed me." Gaspar glanced at the lunarian parasite in the jars with a hint of caution. "Must we keep them here?"

"It is for the best," Melchior insisted.

"Worry not, I have developed an alternative," Balthazar said before presenting his fellow mages with circlets that seemed made of blackstone. "Here."

Filou flinched as Melchior removed his hat… to reveal absolutely nothing underneath. The three mages put the blackstone circlets on their heads and sat in a circle.

"Are you sure this method of communication is safe to use?" Gaspar said, his voice startling Filou because his mouth hadn't moved. Instead, words echoed inside Filou's own mind, the same way he had heard the trees of Broceliande whisper warnings back to their lady.

They were using telepathy, and Lord Wepwawet's Miracle allowed Filou to eavesdrop on them.

"I'm certain," Balthazar confirmed, his face completely blank. The three mages would have appeared to be sitting in deep meditation to outsiders. "Our Benefactor was correct, Epona cannot perceive telepathic messages sent through these organic telepathic symbiotes."

"But she knows something is up," Melchior warned his colleagues. "Some of her inquisitors asked me to remove my hat and double-checked me for signs of disease. We should limit these gatherings until her suspicions wane."

"The Hood was right, these three are worse than mindslaves… they're traitors!" Filou simmered with rage. How could they betray their own country and fellow citizens to monstrous slavers?! Such wicked hearts ought to be staked!

"Record everything they say," Lord Wepwawet ordered. "The enemy's magic prevents me from eavesdropping on them, even through you. I'll need a report."

Filou's eyes widened. "But if you cannot hear them speak then–"

"Then it means that these circlets are under Beelzebub's influence." Lord Wepwawet marked a short pause. "Those three have less control than they think they do."

"I wasn't talking about Epona," Gaspar told his colleagues with a frown, his eyes glancing at the bottled parasites. "Are we certain that keeping these symbiotes so close is safe? I fear that their presence might allow them to alter our thoughts in a way we cannot perceive."

"We've been over this, Gaspar," Melchior replied with a dismissive shrug. "They can only affect minds through direct physical contact. Besides, our spells protect us."

Balthazar nodded in support. "Our Benefactor has been nothing but helpful and generous so far, Gaspar. They have provided us with knowledge, magic, and a promotion to the rank of Commanders–"

"But for what purpose?" Gaspar presented Renarde's scroll to his colleagues, who double-checked it. "A visiting scholar brought findings that corroborate some of my own research on our Benefactor's civilization. It seems more and more credible that they were overthrown in a wereling revolt."

"How should the fate of beasts concern us?" Melchior replied, brushing aside his colleague's concerns. "That was then, this is now."

The way Melchior dismissed his own species infuriated Filou. How thankful he was that he had left his sword behind when he had to transform, or else he would have already drawn it.

"But our Benefactor promised that their enlightened race sought to bring the torch of science and civilization to lesser advanced creatures," Gaspar replied. "If they were so benevolent, then why would the werelings fight against them?"

"For the same reason all apprentices eventually seek to upstage their masters: greed and ambition." Melchior sneered. "Our Benefactor has learned their lesson and now only shares their knowledge with the wise, such as ourselves."

"The intel and knowledge they provided has proven accurate as well so far," Balthazar said after reading the document. "Their motives do not matter to us for now, since we share a common goal: saving the republic."

Melchior rolled his eyes. "This again?"

"We didn't kick a king out of Valentine just to answer to a queen in the sky," Balthazar replied with passion. "Epona's meddlesome influence on this country continues to grow, and her zealots' party is beginning to make waves at the parliament now that we rely on her for our war effort. I tell you, she will dismantle our institutions within years unless we intervene! Once we have the Archon under control–"

"If we can get him under control," Gaspar cut in with skepticism.

"Our Benefactor's demon-control spell has proved effective," Melchior replied.

"On lesser fiends, not the bloody archdemon." Gaspar squinted at Melchior. "Must I remind you that your last 'docile archdemon' project ran away and began a career as a highway bandit? I thought you would have learned your lesson about overconfidence since then."

"Past failures pave the path for future progress." Melchior joined his hands. "I assure you that ungrateful mongrel will learn his place the moment I catch him."

"All tests point to the spell being foolproof," Balthazar insisted. "Once we control Archon, we will wield enough power to both bring Zoramesh to heel and purge foreign divine influences from the Republic."

"Moreover, our Benefactor promised to make us Commanders; and only those with that title may become gods," Melchior added. "Certainly immortality and divine power are worth taking a few risks, my friend."

They are insane, Filou thought. Or at least two of them were. Gaspar remained clearly skeptical about his colleagues' boasts. They are under lunarian influence and don't even realize it!

Thankfully, it appeared the so-called Three Sages of Valentine weren't entirely united. Gaspar had his doubts about whatever lies the lunarians told them to cooperate; Balthazar appeared more concerned about the republic's future rather than mere greed, but Melchior was just an ambitious blackheart.

"I feel the two of you are too eager to trust this Benefactor," Gaspar said. "Especially you, Balthazar. You speak of purging Epona from Valentine, yet you would answer to an entity we still understand very little about."

"This is different," Balthazar insisted. "Epona keeps asking for more power and political concessions in return for her 'help,' while our Benefactor has only given us everything we asked for without asking anything in return. All they ever asked was for us to keep their existence a secret. They have chosen us."

Gaspar squinted at his ally with suspicion but waved the subject away. "Anyway, all of this is pointless talk so long as the Royal Vault remains closed to us."

"Not anymore, my friend." Melchior grinned ear to ear. "I called this reunion to announce the good news: I've finally found a spare key to the vault."

His words startled everyone in the room, from his colleagues to Filou. He tensed up in alertness, drinking each word.

"You did?" Gaspar inquired with curiosity. "Whom?"

"Some urchin boy, unaware of his parentage. King Lefou likely bedded his great-grandmother at some point or another." Melchior chuckled to himself. "I should thank Lady Victoire when the opportunity comes. Had I not touched her with the blood analysis spell, I would not have been able to refine it enough to track down other bastards."

"Will blood alone suffice?" Balthazar asked with skepticism. "The royal regalia are still in the princess' care. The vault might not recognize our spare."

"The princess remains uncrowned," Melchior replied. "As far as the Royal Vault is concerned, she has no greater claim over its contents than any other bastard prince of blood. It will open for the spare."

"Then… no, even so…" Balthazar shifted in his seat. "Even so, the goddess will know the moment we try to open the vault. Her inquisitors might disturb our spell before we can turn the Archon against–"

The parasites hissed and tensed all at once inside their jars, their antennae rising up towards the ceiling.

Filou sensed a pulse of power across the room, like lightning coursing through the air. The three mages sank into their chairs as a mighty, invisible presence hung over them and connected to their circlets. Filou could hear its voice echo in his mind, genderless and eerily soft.

"Open the vault in two days' time, when the skies burn over the Wyld," the voice said, sweet and serene. "Then the false goddess' gaze will turn south, far away from this city. She will be blind to you. Bind the Archdemon and wield him like a sword to take your freedom back from the invader. Only then will you reach the highest of highs."

The lunarian parasites relaxed all of a sudden as the presence vanished. The three sages gathered their breaths as if they had survived a stroke, while Filou remained shaken. He knew exactly what kind of creature had spoken to them.

An actual lunarian.

Melchior glanced at his colleagues. "You have heard our Benefactor. All in favor?"

Although shaken, Gaspar quickly shook his head. "All this shows us is that the circlets aren't secure," he replied. "I say we delay until we learn more about our Benefactor. I am not entirely convinced about their intentions."

"Delaying would mean losing a unique opportunity," Balthazar pointed out.

"Hastiness is the folly of the young," Gaspar retorted. "Opportunities will come again."

"I am not letting your foolish cowardice keep us away from the prize," Melchior complained. "I haven't worked so hard to chicken out now. I vote to open the vault on the promised day."

"I vote for it, too." Balthazar faced Gaspar. "Two-to-one, my friend."

Gaspar sighed in defeat. "Let it be written in the annals of Valentine that I fear we are making a terrible mistake."

"Such words will age like milk," Melchior replied with a chuckle as he rubbed his hands. "It is settled. We shall open the vault and take control of Archon in two days' time."