RE:WRITE

43.0 Candela_Chapter 8: Castle

My head hurt like it was being pressed down by an anvil. I raised a hand to my forehead and rubbed it but immediately stopped. There was something...slimy on my hand. I tried to wipe it with my robes but the ensuing squelching noises told me that they were covered in this filthy sludge too. What the hell was this?

I opened my eyes and surveyed my surroundings.

The Alderan Wastes? Shit, not good.

I recognized the sea of viscous ooze and the roiling purple gas. The Alderan Wastes were at once the most famous and the least popular attractions in the Dark kingdom- everyone wanted to see it but no one stayed for long. And you couldn't blame them, this wasn't exactly the most picturesque place I'd ever seen.

It was also a very dangerous place. The purple mists and the bubbling sludge would instantly kill anyone below level 50. In fact, I could feel my HP dropping right now but luckily it regenerated immediately. I probably didn't need to worry about this place and most of the others should be fine too. And as long as Zoe was with Kai, he'd probably figure something out.

But how did I get here?

Last I remembered, I was climbing the stairs to the top of the tower after leading the laborers out of the catacombs and telling them to leave the city. Then I heard a rumbling sound, stumbled and hit my head.

But I was in the middle of the Air kingdom. How did I get all the way to the Alderan Wastes in the Dark kingdom? The Wastes might be right next to the floating island but that doesn't mean I can just wake up in the middle of the damn place!

I took a deep breath to calm myself. This was only a slight inconvenience, the plan was coming along perfectly. Or well, almost perfectly. The appearance of Origin and Circle was not expected and had made me rework my plans several times, but as it stood, I felt confident that I could achieve my aims.

I'd received a power-up from the Air Goddess and reached level 498. She'd been surprised to learn that I was still alive so I could conclude that Azoth hadn't told the Goddesses that he'd failed to kill me. This confirmed my hypothesis; Azoth wasn't working for the Goddesses. In fact, it was entirely plausible that they didn't know about his actions at all.

Either that or the Air Goddess was just a hopeless shut-in that didn't know anything anyways. However, in either case, the fact that Azoth did not have the support of the Goddesses on his side meant that I could use them against him, if needed. The actions of the Air Goddess suggested that not only were they able to involve themselves in the affairs of mortals, they were willing to do so if it affected them. Now I just had to make sure that it did.

Shouldn't be a problem, since my plan pretty much affected everyone. I'd already ruined a couple of countries, though in my defense, only one of those was on purpose. Circle's rebellion wasn't something I could have hoped to plan.

But when I learned about the bonded laborers and met Zoe, I knew I'd found the perfect way to complete the next stage of my plan. Of course, I did not like the way the laborers were being abused and a part of my motivation for freeing them had arisen from a noble desire to help the oppressed.

But does anyone really lead a revolution or undermine a government because of a desire for social justice for someone who is completely unrelated to you? Some people might, but I wasn't one of them. I could condemn evil or objectionable actions when I learned about it, maybe even do my bit and sign a petition or something but I'd never go as far as kidnapping a king and leading a prison-break to help someone else.

The reason I was willing to go so far was because I'd soon realized that the Air kingdom's economy relied on the mana from these laborers the way humans on Earth relied on fossil fuels. Free the laborers and you take away their energy source, thereby crashing the economy completely.