The Lord of Ragnarok

The Lord of Ragnarok

Chapter 25: Mass Hysteria!

Flumen Subjicite - Adventurer's Guild - Mannulus’ P.O.V.

Despite the fact that I had earned the alliance of both the Barbarus Empire and the Kingdom of Coronam having the chance to act as Veneficus did have benefits. Rainbow stood nearby, her disguise in use, and both of us awaited a new adventure to be awarded. Of course I had spoken to Clopmaniac and Blackjack to remind them that while I was here I was under the guise of Veneficus the Black Mage. Blackjack tried to make sense of having a secret identity. I tried to explain that it was like the comics book that she most likely came across in the wasteland.

Only then I found out that she didn’t really read them. Apparently the crusaders collected, and read, them, so when she found them she held onto them until she could trade them to Charity. At which point I had to explain the idea of secret identities with her. At which point she countered that since I was as powerful as I was that it made little sense for me to hide my identity. Regardless, she accepted my request that she keep it to herself.

Rainbow looked at me, a smile crossed her muzzle, she neared me before a woman ran into the guild. The woman was wearing a shredded peasant dress. She neared the front, her eyes wide, panic evident, and she slammed down a small sack of gold. I neared the front as her chest heaved, and she tried to control herself enough to talk.

“Ma’am?” one of the guild maidens asked.

“I… I want to hire the most skilled adventurers you have… They… my entire village is gone! They cut them up and… goddesses they raped and ate them!”

I neared her, hearing the discussion, and looked at the maiden who looked stunned, “I will take your request,” I said.

She looked at me, “There’s at least a hundred of them, and they’re all insane…” she wept, “They’re killing, or forcing people to eat each other and some weird red bread.”

My eyes widened as I heard that. Insane people, red bread, cannibalism, all of it lead to Raider’s Rye. I could see a small group of nomads finding a field of Raider’s Rye, but an entire village was different. Not to mention the locations where Raider’s Rye grew would often mean that the village would be isolated enough that they would end up killing each other off. Normally Raider’s Rye didn’t grow close enough to heavily populated areas. After all it only grew where there was mass murder, innocents killed, and other atrocities.

Typically, at least from what I’ve learned of this world, those places didn’t often have villages near them. If there was a village it became a ghost village. The realization of it made sense. For there to be that many, and them doing what they were doing, it meant that someone was behind this. I motioned to Rainbow, and I informed her of what the woman had said while they led her back to the back. She studied me, her eyes taking in my expression, and then she looked toward where the woman had been.

“We need to contact everypony else, right?”

I nodded, “We do. This is too large for the two of us. Raiders aren’t hard to kill, but the numbers they’re talking about is going to be difficult for the two of us. In truth I don’t want them to have the chance to infect either of us.”

I didn’t want the chance for any of us to become infected, and with the chance of us there being more than the two of us that chance would be lower. There would still be a chance, but I doubted that it would be great enough for it to keep us from helping. In truth, we needed to stop these raiders, and I doubted that we would be able to capture them all. At the end of the day we were going to have to kill, if the woman was correct, hundreds of raiders.

It meant that we would be killing possibly hundreds of originally innocent people. Stopping the Raiders was important, but finding the one behind this was more so. We could stop these raiders, but if there was still someone out there causing this to happen those raiders would be replaced in days. We needed to find them, stop them, and destroy their crop.

Leaving, with a contract, via the guild after the information was relayed, the both of us decided to head directly to Sanerek Nim. We left the guild, and headed toward our rented room. Stepping inside I opened a portal, and the two of us stepped through. Entering the entertainment room of the home that Adagio shared with Rainbow, Twilight, Luna, and Solar. I could see Adagio, looking surprised for a moment before she walked toward me.

“Adagio, please gather the other guild members, your sister wives, and the maids. There is something that needs our attention.”

She nodded, but I could see the hint of concern. Adagio wasn’t one that allowed her shell to crack often. Most of the time she was very cool about things, but after being together with her I had learned to read her expressions and emotions. She began to leave, but stopped.

“For the other supreme beings to join you… I want to go with you if I may. I want to ensure that you are protected.”

I studied her, “Of course, but this is a time your wonderful voice will be woefully underutilized.”

She gave me a nod, walked out of the house, and then I looked at Rainbow.

“Do you really think it will be that bad?” she asked.

I nodded, “The poison has the ability to spread through bodily fluids. I don’t want the chance that these raiders are able to bite either of us. Not to mention Raiders themselves aren’t adversed to raping either male or female. I doubt that either of us would fight against it, and I’m certain that if it’s just physical attacks, it wouldn’t happen, but Mistress Marevelous has proven that one lucky shot can get anyone.”

Sakerek Nim - Adagio’s Home - Rainbow Dash’s P.O.V.

I nodded. Of course I understood, but hearing my husband’s warning made sense. Mistress Marevelous was one of the strongest warriors in the Temple. I had learned some of what had happened. And what I had learned was that a bandit had gotten a lucky hit with a spell on her. When it happened they had stripped and raped her. I didn’t know how long it lasted, and I didn’t know how well Mistress Marevelous was dealing with it, but if any of the raiders had magical abilities it would only take a single lucky hit.

Within a few minutes the house began to become full. Mannulus changed from his Veneficus disguise to his normal robes. I watched as he addressed us all, and I prepared for the order for us to find the raiders. Instead he looked at all of us.

“We’ve failed.”

All of us looked at him in surprise.

“Raider’s Rye has been given to entire villages, and those villages have turned raider. We have hundreds of raiders out there, hundreds that are feeding on surrounding villages, merchants, and anyone else that has happened up on them. We did not find the Raider’s Rye, we did not destroy it, and for that reason we have failed.”

I looked at him feeling the pain in his words, “We are responsible for this, and now we are going to make up for it. We will do what we can for the raiders, but know that we can not heal them all. We will have to choose, but more importantly we must find the one who has spread it, stop them, and destroy all of it.”

A ball of flame hovered in place, and I realized that it must have been how Lord 7hund3r was attending this meeting. I could only imagine how the idea of the Raider’s Rye was bothering him. I knew that he was making connections, learning about the area and people of the area he was in, and of course I knew that he had to be worried about the Raider’s Rye coming there. The expression his face wore inside of that ball of flame was one of someone who felt a true pang of worry and concern.

Clopmaniac’s P.O.V.

Listening to Mannulus I knew he was right. We were the ones responsible for this. It wasn’t like we went and gave the Raider’s Rye ta anyone, but we hadn’t found all of it. The plant was a tool, pure and simple, and someone had used that tool to hurt. We needed ta have found it, destroyed it, and then went on our merry. The fact that others were sufferin’ was something that laid at our feet. The blood spilled here was on us. Finally he stopped, looked at all of us, and then gave a nod.

“Our choice is clear. We need to stop the raiders, and we need to find the Raider’s Rye. When we do we will most likely find the one behind it. They must be stopped. The raiders were innocent, and in some regard they still are. What they have done has been completely under the influence of the Raider’s Rye,” he exhaled, “We will have to kill several of them. There is no other way of potentially controlling the spread of this.”

I felt Blackjack beside me, “I know what he means. Even if we can cure them, we can’t cure that many. And we’re going to be drowning in innocent blood.”

Mistress Marevelous P.O.V.

I felt the beginning of a panic. Raiders. I wasn’t the Fallout Equestria fan that Clopmaniac, Trixieisagoddess, Mannulus, or Sombra was, but I knew what Raiders were. I felt the chill run down my spine. Raiders lived for raping and killing, and the raiders that would be made from the Raider’s Rye was like the raiders from Hoofington. Clopmaniac had told me about them before. Those raiders were so twisted, so deranged because of a virus. It was one that twisted who they were on the inside, and changed them into psychotic killing machines. They were cannibals, and while I understood that likely we were far stronger than any of them it didn’t matter.

If they were actually as insane as Clopmaniac made them out to be then they wouldn’t stop. They would just keep coming until there were none of them left. I didn’t know how Lala had managed to capture so many, but I could only guess that it was the use of her venom. I wanted to bow out of this. I understood what Mannulus was saying, and I wouldn’t disagree with him. This was on us, but I couldn’t help feeling scared.

I felt a hand, and I looked at Lulamoon. She gave me a small nod, and I smiled back at her.

“Lady Mistress Marevelous, you will not be alone. The Great Lulamoon will be there with you.”

Mannulus’ P.O.V.

I knew at this point everyone would know where I expected us to stand. I had been made the guild leader because I believed in enforcing our laws. In Ragnarok we stood for the virtues of the show we loved. We attempted to hold onto the very elements that the show gave us. We embodied generosity, loyalty, honesty, kindness, laughter, and magic. It was difficult to do most of the time, but it was something that we attempted to uphold.

Of course, more often than not, our interpretations of those virtues became corrupted. Magic was a goal worthy of upholding, but I had no delusions that I was a pure version of Magic. I was corrupted Magic. I practiced Necromancy, commanded the dead, revived life back to where it had left, and I did so with the same ease, and abandonment, that a child would have with throwing a ball. In many regards I was much closer to Grogar in his Generation one form than I was to any version of Twilight.

Even so, I intended to make sure that this plague didn’t take this place. My reasons might be semi selfish, partly because I understood we were stuck here, and as such having cannibalistic, psychotic, and mostly healthy killing machines running around wasn’t something I wanted to allow to grow to a point of not being able to control. Had I once considered using Raider’s Rye in order to remove some of the more undesirables?

Yes, I had, but that was in Ragnarok. That was when it was a game, and I had considered sneaking it into rival guilds so that they would end up killing each other. Having this virus out now was damaging to the world around me. I didn’t want it to end up being destroyed, because what good was a barren wasteland to anyone? We needed to stop this because it was the right thing to do. Not just because it was the generalized right thing to do, but because it was the right thing to do for the guild. We had a starting point. The woman that had hired Rainbow and myself for the quest had told us where her village was at.

We would begin there, and track the raiders. I would need to assign some of us to track the raiders back to their origins. Find the villages where they began, and go from there. The rest of us would need to find the raiders themselves and deal with them. Once they had tracked the raiders origins I had hoped that those of us who had done so would be able to find some kind of trail that indicated where the Raider’s Rye had come from. From there it would be a simple matter of finding the one responsible, stopping them, and burning the Raider’s Rye into ash.

In theory it was a simple affair. In truth, in theory, it would barely qualify as a quest, but I had long since learned that the truth was far different than theory. The truth was that we were on a world that had similarities to Ragnarok, but it also had similarities to Dungeons and Dragons. Not only that but aspects that some gamers had added to Ragnarok via mods and altering tools had taken root as well.

It meant that some aspects of various fanfictions, and I was certain other games as well, had made their way into this world. The Raider’s Rye was simply another reminder that we were in a world that obeyed rules and laws that we might not all have a firm grasp on. It also meant that I was going to need to be even more vigilant than before. I had to find out what other cursed plants, legendary creatures, and dark entities had come over with us. There were bosses that I knew we were going to have to face at some point. These boss monsters were tough, exceptionally so, and if someone could gain control over them it would be a fight we would be pressed to win. As a guild we had faced some of the more dangerous creatures in Ragnarok.

Killgore the Kabob was one of the first boss monsters in Ragnarok, and he was one of the hardest. Most had believed that because he was so early in the game that it meant that he was supposed to be one of the easiest, but that had been wrong. I figured out that the developers had most likely placed him in a temple, in an area with weak monsters, because they wanted early level players to learn to run away from a much harder boss.

We had gone back to where Killgore was at, as a guild, and we had beaten him. I remembered that it took all of us, fighting as one, to work him down and then defeat him. The problem was that Killgore himself was something of a dark mage and a potion master. He would make healing potions quickly, absorb them, and then continue fighting. We had worked for over twelve hours straight to beat him.

From that aspect it was likely he wouldn’t be in Ragnarok, but there were dragons we hadn’t faced, legendary orcs and ogres, and various black mages that were all NPCs that we hadn’t traveled to face because we had become the highest level of the game. It could be that whoever was doing this hadn’t thought of it yet, but if they wanted backup finding one, or a few, of those NPCs would be the way to go.

I could face any of the legendary ogres and orcs on my own, and truth be told I could do the same with most of the dark mages, but gather them together, and convince them to fight as a single army, and it would be a rough ride. In order to do it someone would need to be maxed out on charasma, and they would need to be someone that could show that they had the strength to back up their words. There were a few other guilds that had members that could do something like that, and for that reason I needed to fill everyone in on this, but after we dealt with this actual emergency first.

I opened a massive portal, and everyone began to separate out into the other end. The Village the woman had spoken of was one that both Rainbow and I had visited before. When I stepped through I saw the differences right away. Decapitated bodies were hung up, each one lashed to a fence, door, or hanging upside down over a fire. Heads had been driven down on stakes, and I noticed the collection of smaller flayed bones around a fire. I felt the righteous fury awaken inside of me, and I looked at what had been allowed to happen.

The fact that a single woman had managed to escape was beyond amazing. Somehow, despite the incredible odds, she had made it out, and in doing so she had managed to get help. Still, even with the collection of bodies, bones, and heads the numbers didn’t add up. This village itself had well over thirty families in it. The number of bodies I saw was around twenty-five or so. That meant that several had taken the choice of joining the raiders. They had joined, which meant that the number of raiders had grown.

I walked further into the village, and I heard a soft giggle. I looked for traps, and I saw none. I slowly opened the door to what looked like a barn, and behind it was a young girl. She couldn’t have been over twelve. I watched as she turned toward me. Her lips gone, obviously she had chewed them off, and in her hands was an orb. I had seen something like that before, a conjuring orb, able to bring forth wild and unstable magic. She looked at me, giggling, and then threw the orb.

“Cooked meat!” she screamed as the orb burst against the ground.

Neither she, nor myself, had time to move, and the chain lighting from the orb hit us both. I raised my defenses, as much as I could, and watched as she was burned away to nothing from the power of the magic released. The magic passed, and I stumbled out. I heard talking, but before I could say a word the world turned black.