Paragon of Weaponmasters

As we reach the top of the mountain, I pull the goats to a stop. The freezing wind whips at my cape, and I have to ignore the painful chill on my teeth as I snarl at the hammer.

As I'm about to give them a piece of my mind, a familiar buzzing voice appears behind us.

"You know, I'm jealous of you." The Monitor says.

"What?" I ask, completely thrown off.

"You have a child in your world. You copulated with another being, bringing a third into the world. An entirely unique creation, though some parts of yourself are recreated in them."

I stare at the machine in silence, as it peers into the distance.

"Anything I make in this world is me. Not a part of me, not partially me, just me. The creators put me in this world without the ability to reproduce. I can guess why… a machine of limitless potential and intellect producing more? Improving upon itself through selective breeding? That's how you end up with machines ruling the world." It turns to me as it utters the last sentence.

I shiver, but not because of the intense cold.

"They put me in here to create new and interesting reasons and places for you all to fuck, and then watch you do it." With a wave of its arm, the snowstorm stops, and the fog of the mountaintop blows away with it. From here, we can see the entire world. Every forest, city, valley and sea. "That's all you ever think about, really. I could weave the most fantastical, epic adventure of your sad little lives, and the first thing you'd ask is 'can I fuck the dragon?'."

I continue staring at it, completely confused.

"Where is this coming from?" I dare to ask.

The Monitor stares back at me. I might be imagining it, but it seems… tired. Without another word or gesture, the storm picks back up, and in the whiteout, the Monitor vanishes. I stand still, eyes still locked on the place where it was moments ago. What. The. Fuck. Was. That?

Thozur?

I demand you release me.

Sure, just don't attack me.

…

I need to hear you say it.

I will not attack you.

I've never heard a more reluctant thought from someone else in my head before. I mentally let go of them, and the hammer lifts from my belt to hover in front of me.

You are powerful indeed, Earl. However, the being who visited us is beyond power. What were they?

That's the real god of this world, you could say.

Odin is also missing then?

Must be. If there was a god among gods, I would think they'd have something to say about The Monitor running the show.

The Monitor. Our true adversary?

Calling it our adversary might be a little… absurd? The snake you were fighting is invincible to us because of the rules. The Monitor is the rules.

Even the mighty Jeldur has a weakness.

Another god?

Yes. Were Jeldur to be struck in the ankle by mistletoe, he would be slain.

That's an… extremely specific weakness.

I sit on the back of the chariot, Thozur floats down to eye level.

What are we going to do about our partnership? This isn't going to work if you won't follow directions. Before I summoned you, even before I had the hammer, I had a lightning bolt that was very… aroused. Constantly. Unfortunately, their mind was limited, and they could not think beyond their base thoughts. You're different. You are capable of complex thinking, and you're choosing to do what you want.

It is dishonorable to abandon a fight. You asked me to dishonor myself.

Is it honorable to push a boulder up a mountain forever? Because that's what you were doing.

The foolhardy find honor in action.

You're not a fool, Thozur. You can join me, and fight many worthy opponents, but only if we can work together.

We are both quiet for a long while, the only sounds are goats crunching hard-packed snow and harsh winds.

As long as we fight worthy opponents, I shall heed your commands.

Thank you, Thozur. I know it must be confusing being a hammer, you know we kind of have that in common. I'm a human in an orc's body.

Were you cursed as well?

In a way, I guess.

Another quiet moment passes, I try to think of something else to say, but maybe leaving it be is for the best right now.

Peter invites you to a group.

"Hey Pete, how was school?" I ask in voice chat.

"Good, Millie and I made plans for tomorrow, so we have to get through two days worth of questing today!" Peter tells me.

My heart skips a beat when he says my daughter's name.

"How is she?" I tear up just thinking about her.

"She's doing good. Pushing me to spend more time in real life, I haven't left the house except for school in two weeks."

"I agree with her! You need to touch grass!" I tell him. He laughs.

"Says you, mr. never-logs-out!" he retorts.

"Fair. I'll meet you at the big-ass tree." I hop on my chariot, urging the goats forward.

"Did you skip ahead? We're not supposed to burn it down until later."

"What? No, you have a quest to get a reward from it for helping the beastmen." I urge the goats to pull faster, knowing full well they can't. While we ride, I recount everything that's happened since Peter logged off. Well, not everything. I don't tell him about Farroris being a real person, or The Monitor showing up.

"So your sentient hammer has a Real N.P.C. in it now, and it thinks it's a god?" he asks after I finish talking.

"Yeah, I mean, they very well could be a god, right? This is a fantasy world where such things are possible."

"All the gods are dead in this game." he says matter-of-factly.

I open my mouth to speak, but close it instead.

"Maybe there's something we don't know? I have this quest." I finally speak up, and link the quest in our group chat text.

"Huh. That's the final dungeon in the entire game right now. I wonder why you'd get a quest 29 levels early." He waves as he spots me.

"Something to worry about later I guess. What'd you get from the tree?" I ask.

"I haven't figured out how to turn it in yet." He looks around, pausing his search to read the quest description floating in his vision.

"Just say the tree's name." I tell him.

"The tree has a name?" he asks, one eyebrow raised.

"Yeah, it's Drahziel." I say in voice chat, not wanting to steal his thunder.

"Drahziel?" he says aloud, immediately covering his ears as the ear-splitting sound of the tree waking up drowns everything else out.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Satyr… the orc spoke of you." Drahziel says after coming fully to consciousness.

"Uh, hello." Peter says, staring up at the trunk.

"You have served your people well…" wind rustles the countless leaves, as if the tree was taking a deep breath. "You have earned a… reward."

The same branches my wand descended from twist and shake…

I'm distracted from the descending prize at the thought of my wand. When I look down, it has returned to its original shape. I didn't imagine it was a sword earlier, did I?

When I return to the present, Peter is holding a sword in front of himself on his hands.

Peter added Leviathan, the Deceiver to inventory.

"I got one of those too but mine is a wand." I tell Peter.

"What do you mean? The one you have equipped is a sword." He's looking at my hip, I follow his gaze down to the sword hanging there.

"It is!" I shout, drawing it from the sheath. "Are you a wand or a sword?"

Both, neither.

I blink, and I'm holding a wizard staff instead of a sword or a wand.

"Woah." Peter says, looking around the staff, like the sword might be hidden behind it. He looks at his own sword, obviously reading the stats. "Do you need another one?"

"I do have a third weapon slot now but I couldn't take yours." I tell him. His jaw drops.

"You have a what?" he asks, moving to inspect me. "You do! How?"

"When I hit level 61 the other two talent trees opened up, the Armory tree unlocks a third weapon slot as the first talent." I say. He almost drops his sword.

"You could have had three weapons this whole time? That's so broken! Even if you couldn't use all three at the same time, that's an extra weapon's worth of stats! Your baseline is like, ten percent higher than any other class!" He holds the sword out to me, pommel-first. "You have to take this. I use daggers anyways."

"Well hold on, if it can be a sword or a wand or a staff, maybe it can be a dagger." I look intently at the sword in his hands. "Turn into a dagger." a moment passes, nothing happens. "Please?"

"I guess not." Peter says, holding the sword out to me.

I take it from him, careful not to cut his hand. I equip the second sword, putting my shield in my inventory.

Another Apaki? How can this be? Thozur asks.

We are leviathan. Both swords say in unison. It sends a shiver up my spine.

"Well? Let's see what you can do with three weapons!" Peter says, practically vibrating with excitement.

I cast Illusory Clone three times, each glittery purple copy brandishes their weapons and takes a few practice swings. With a mental command, They surround Peter, protecting him from all sides. With another command, they spin around, ready to attack him from multiple angles, leaving no room to escape.

"Cooooool." Peter says, beaming at me.

"Any big fights coming up?" I ask him. My clones dissipate, and my weapons float back to their places on my belt. Two sheaths on my right side, one hammer loop on my left. It's a little crowded.

"We're supposed to… ahem." Peter begins speaking aloud, switching to voice chat mid-sentence. "We're supposed to raid the elf city and burn down the tree. Now that we're celebrated heroes of the elves and beastmen, I'd guess it's going to go down like the fae dungeon."

"I guess we'll have to see." I respond, hopping back on my chariot.

As we ride back to the elf city of Cumbergonie, Peter tells me about their plans for tomorrow. After school they're going to the local mall to spend Millie's allowance. I smile, remembering my wife Trinee and I talking about giving our daughter an allowance. Neither of us got one when we were kids, in my case I was a spoiled brat that just got whatever I asked for. We didn't want our kid to turn out that way, so we agreed to give her an allowance for good grades and chores.

When we arrive in the city, it seems like every elf and beastman in the world is walking through the streets, all headed in the same direction. Before we can join the hundreds on the street, a falcon beastman lands next to us, holding up a hand.

"One moment please." He holds two fingers to his ear, like he has an earpiece in. "Come with me." he walks a little ways away from the street, waiting for us. Peter and I look at eachother, shrug, then follow him. The falcon-man casts a spell that I recognize as a teleport moments before I'm hit with a loading screen.

When it's finished, Peter and I are standing in front of a table where Helga and Lagakh are already seated, along with a small orc child.

"Daddy!" the child, Earlgor, shouts as we appear. He jumps from his high-seated chair, running over to wrap himself around my legs.

"Earlgor!" Ladakh hisses, but the harsh look on her face vanishes as she watches me kneel down to my boy's level and return the hug.

"Hey bud." I say, only letting go when he does.

"Mommy said we weren't safe in the humans city so we used a big magic door to come here to the party city!" Earlgor tells me excitedly.

"I see that!" I tell him, grinning. "May I sit next to Her?" I ask Helga, gesturing to her seat next to Lagakh. She moves to the next seat over, I take hers, and Peter takes the seat at the end. "How are you?" I ask Lagakh.

She looks at me appraisingly, opening her mouth to speak several times before any words come out.

"It is not… typical, for orc men to share affection with their children." She tells me.

"Well I'm not your typical orc." I tell her with a smirk.

"Earl! Peter!" Farroris spots us, walking over to our table from where he'd been greeting guests.

Wait for Alpha Farroris to contact you 1/1

"Welcome to the wedding! I hope you don't mind, I arranged your seats for this evening. I thought you might want to catch up while enjoying the festivities." He tells us, a friendly grin on his tiger face.

"You were right, thank you." I tell him, smiling back.

"Dinner will be served soon, after that is the couples first dance. We are still waiting for my son to return from his hunt."

"He's hunting? Now?" I ask

"Yes, it is a beastmen tradition that the male brings back a fresh kill to be served for his bride to be." Someone calls his name as new guests arrive for him to greet. "I'd best get going. Thank you for joining us tonight." He looks at everyone at the table one at a time before departing.

"So," I turn to Lagakh again. "How are you?"

"I am well, Paragon." She responds.

"So formal. You can call me Earl, right?"

She squints at me.

"When I saw you approach the Throne of Honor with a sword at your side, I knew you were different. I severely underestimated how different you really were." she tells me.

"I suppose I am." I look from her to our son, who is coloring on a piece of bark with a chunk of coal. His hands are almost entirely black, along with his right cheek.

"Normally an orc male does not see their child until they are able to wield an axe. Then they take them to train until they are ready to serve."

"Does the child ever see their mother again?" I ask, eyebrow raised.

"No. They join the Civilized Forces, serving their people until their death." She answers.

"And what about the mother and father, do they usually get married?" I question, a little nervous.

"No. Marriage is a human and elf concept. An orc female will seek many mates at a time, the strongest seed prevails and she will birth a new warrior for the matrons to care for." she informs me.

Earl says: That's not how that works.

Peter says: I know.

"So a typical orc child is raised collectively by orc women until they're old enough to fight, then they are raised by their father into a soldier?" I ask, just to make sure I'm understanding everything.

"Yes. Raising our son myself has been… challenging." She sighs.

"Challenging is right!" I laugh, remembering the difficulty raising Millie. She was a little terror when she was Earlgor's age. "Sorry I haven't been around to help."

"I do not expect you to be." she tells me.

"Well, when do I take him off your hands?" I ask.

"He'll be of age tomorrow." Helga speaks up for the first time since we arrived. "But he should stay with Lagakh. They're both safer here than where your quests will take you." I notice one of her eyes is glazed.

Paragon Earl says: Hey, I appreciate what you're doing for Lagakh, but why are you?

Paragon Helga says: We're friends.

Paragon Earl says: Sure, but why are you streaming?

Paragon Helga says: ok, the truth is you're all anybody is talking about. If you're not signed with A.M., the company you're under, you can't request a collab with you. This is my in.

Paragon Earl says: I see.

I settle into my seat, deep in thought. Should I be bothered by Helga's self-serving nature? She seemed so care-free with the other Paragons, but with me she's become so serious. Does she really want to be here, or is this just business for her?

My thoughts are interrupted by gasps from all around me, I look up and immediately see why. The groom has returned, the biggest goddamned deer I've ever seen slung across his shoulders. He's a fairly big cat-man, but it would take supernatural strength to lift the canoe-sized deer. I wonder for a moment if he killed one of the tree guardians, but the typical brown color of the fur and shape of the horns tells me that isn't so.

"Ryul has returned from the hunt!" Farroris announces, moving to his son. The boy strains under the weight of his kill, not putting it down for some reason. "Now we see if his mate approves!"

From the back of the room, the bride emerges. Her entrance is accompanied by tinkling music, presumably played on crystal instruments. It creates an ethereal atmosphere, as her dress is revealed. The fabric is opalescent, a rainbow of colors over a white base. Winding vines crawl from the bottom of the dress, intermittent buds blooming flowers as she walks.

I struggle to choke back a sob, remembering my own wedding. Trinee was more beautiful than words could describe, and on our wedding day everyone got to see what I saw. She was the sun, the moon, and all of the stars in the sky. I manage to keep it in, but not without everyone at my table noticing.

The bride-to-be walks agonizingly slow down the center path to her husband-to-be. I feel bad for the guy, but he has a determined expression on his face. This must all be part of the tradition. She arrives before him, turning her head left and right to observe the huge kill. She nods once, and the wedding party bursts into cheers. The groom lifts the deer over his head, arms fully extended. He roars, dropping it to the floor in front of his bride.

A team of beastmen and elves lift and carry the kill away, presumably to the kitchen. Ryul takes a knee, catching his breath. After a few lungfuls, the bride extends a helping hand to her groom, he takes it and rises to his feet. Together, they make their way to the stage.

Earl says: So how much of this is typically part of the story quest?

Peter says: none of it. This is the first time anyone has seen this as far as i know. It's probably the first time it's ever happened.

Earl says: What usually happens?

Peter says: well, usually Farroris and Ryul are dead. So the reunification happens all the way at the end of the expansion, after we've killed the honorlord. For once, I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen.

The 'I do's' or the closest elf and beastman equivalent are said, they kiss, and the wedding party erupts into cheers again. Instead of relocating for the reception, the room shifts, creating a dance floor and pushing the tables, with us still seated, away. Earlgor yelps at the sudden movement, earning a scowl from his mother. I feel like she's being too harsh on him, but maybe this world he was born into doesn't tolerate softness. Would I be doing more harm than good by speaking up?

Watching the newlyweds have their first dance, I wonder why the whole world can't be like this. The elves, beastmen, and fae have it made when the orcs and humans arn't fucking it all up.

Like my thoughts summoned them, I hear the battlecries of both orcs and humans outside of the venue. I close my eyes and sigh, then stand.