The Mook Maker

It was the morning of another day and the sunbeams shining through the loose shutters on the windows started wandering onto my face, urging me to get up and do something, continuing my struggle through this damn alien land. 

 

I didn’t feel like it. 

 

Maybe it was an endless frustration at my incompetence, the absence of any plans that would require my direct intervention, or perhaps it was simply the fact Miwah made such a comfortable pillow to rest against. Her warmth was both soothing and alluring in the same measure. With her pale fur and deep azure eyes, I found her exotically beautiful, almost completely forgetting she wasn’t a human, but an anthropomorphic wolf. 

 

Yesterday, when I finally had a chance to retreat to one of the houses near the sawmill, the desire to finally unwind after a problematic day had transformed into a night of passion. Tama wasn’t joking when she had teased and flirted with me the entire day, and Miwah, albeit considerably less vocal, wasn’t any less lascivious.

 

They wanted my affection - and I found out I wanted theirs.

 

Alone, and in their care, I couldn’t deny something deep within me must have changed to make them attractive to me despite their beastly form. Having them around, both in the intimate moments of this night and through the now mundane violent madness of the past days, felt natural, even welcomed.

 

They were the only thing I had. I couldn’t be without them, not only in terms of being dependent on them for survival but in this sensation of oneness I wasn’t quite able to explain. 

 

They had been there for me even if I had woken up through the night, sleep interrupted with frequent nightmares full of gore and flame, but also flashing images of movement seen through the eyes of the others, jumping through the dizzying heights the glimpse of which made me twitch with fright.

 

Miwah, or Tama, were there, each time I had woken up, and I buried myself in their fur and warmth. 

 

There has been so much noise through the night, in some moments I have been unsure if it was the ruckus outside that woke me up, or if it were disturbing images in my dreams that had thrown me back into reality. I never knew.

 

However, upon being assured we were safe, I succumbed to sleep again. 

 

It was a relatively quiet morning. 

 

Miwah held me in her arms, her clawed hand gently trailing my back, while Tama stretched herself lazily, showing off her feminine curves somehow perfectly accentuated by the patterns of her silvery fur. 

 

Looking at the furry vixen, I realised that this treacherous nubbing sensation at the back of my brain entirely robbed me of all and any feelings regarding the attractivity of human women. Tama was, of course, charming, but she was the anthropomorphic fox, not a human, though the sensation suggested it was how a female of my species looked like.

 

I didn’t feel, or see, any physical changes though, but in my mind, I didn’t care.

 

Humans felt distant, alien, different - a paradoxical stance, since my mind didn’t rob me of any of my past memories, sharply contrasting with what I felt at the moment.

 

It wasn’t the first time I felt I was unwelcome in this world. Even the magic my monsters - my girls - wielded, aggressively hostile towards the humans didn’t consider me one. To the logic of the broken, poorly explained system, and source of my furry horde, I was a monster. 

 

I felt strangely at peace with it at the moment and continued snuggling with my werewolf. 

 

Miwah was, after all, one of us. My monster, my girl, my mate. 

 

There was a sense of motion outside, my monsters - my girls - were likely milling out outside to do their various chores without the word while in the distance a mechanical sawmill clanked, still functional and somewhere far away, something fell with a dull thud, likely a tree felled by the overenthusiastic monsters in the process to reshape the land. 

 

Outside of the few giggles, and repetitive whispers, there weren’t any voices - my girls, as I already noticed, had some form of telepathic communication and if they chatted with each other, they did so without sound. 

 

There were, however, a lot of them around - they may not be chatty, but they weren’t stealthy.  

 

It made me, once again, wonder how they organised themselves. I still felt that the idea of the named ones acting as intermediaries between the ‘Alphas’ and the rest was quite plausible, though it made me question how this had worked back when there were few enough for me to name them all.

 

Tama didn’t look like she was organising anything, more likely teasing me with her body while innocently brushing her tails with the comb she found who knew where. 

 

It was probably Helmy who was forced to herd the mob of giggling ‘Purifiers’ towards more productive endeavours that hopefully didn’t require excessive pyromania. 

 

“Good morning, Master,” Tama said, softly, echoed by Miwah. 

 

I returned the attention back to her. 

 

“You have three tails,” I noted, almost absentmindedly. She, previously, had two, which was already an unlikely anatomical feature even for a species clearly gifted with supernatural powers.

 

“You nourished me very thoroughly last night, Master.” Tama said with a vulpine smile and then added in a sultry tone: “I am not against … repetition.”

 

“Nourish?” I asked, slightly confused.

 

“I feel stronger, Master.” She continued, briefly abandoning her beautification routine and moving closer to me, gently nudging me with her muzzle before leaning on the kiss. It felt more natural than it had the right to be.

 

“Perhaps I need to be stronger to make this land safer for our future progeny.” She continued after I didn’t reply. 

 

Despite our last night and two others before, I never truly considered how reproduction would work, considering that not only Tama, but the entirety of my furry menagerie, were formed from the mysterious, ruby mist, rather than born from the union of man and woman. 

 

I was attributing her comments to her instinctively flirtatious nature rather than anything else, though they did experience a certain longing for intimacy which didn’t seem to make sense if their numbers were fueled only by conflict and death. Names, and the rewards for bestowing them, didn’t make any sense either, with consciousness and life sparking out seemingly out of nothing else than the red fog, appearing and disappearing without any regard for nature or physics.

 

With the powers of the ‘Defilers’ and ‘Corruptors’ taken into consideration, it was a very weird ecosystem, though the deceptive parts of my brain urged me that it was my purpose to continue its spread by any means. It was alien, yet it was part of me, as it was part of them, and they were part of me. 

 

It defied understanding, yet I didn’t want to reject it, fearing the loneliness among all the hostility. 

 

“I am not sure how I feel about…” I said, with hesitation in my voice, “...progeny.”

 

“Oh, Master. But you worked on them with such vigour.” The vixen nudged, giving Miwah a brief teasing glance adding, “And not just with me, Master.” 

 

Strangely enough, my fiery vixen welcomed Miwah’s presence, and never behaved competitively, she just apparently felt the need to ruffle us for her amusement.

 

“This damn place isn’t safe either,” I replied in a dejected tone.  

 

“Back to work, Master? But we are making it safer. We have collapsed the mountain pass already.” Tama said, calmly, “The bridge has been destroyed too.” 

 

So, they found the way, I thought. I could only hope that my decision to seal the valley was the right call. 

 

Despite the fact that there was a small group of nearly super-human individuals among the local human populace, those ‘elites’ seem still reasonably rare and far between, likely holding the position of power and prestige among the largely mundane soldiers we encountered. 

 

The ‘elite’ may be capable of extraordinary feats, and wouldn’t be stopped by a simple cliff or a landslide, but their stamina didn’t seem to be endless as the strongest of them still largely preferred to ride horses to conserve their strength for the combat ahead. 

 

They would either hesitate to go where their ordinary soldiers couldn’t follow, giving us some peace, or would rush ahead alone allowing us to use the only advantage we really had against them - our numbers. 

 

Although I had my doubts the peace would last, I hoped that we wouldn’t have to deal with the natives for at least several days, if I was not counting inhabitants of the mining town entirely left to the crazy human girl under Brave’s watch. I still had to find out what kind of metal they mined out there. 

 

“Destroyed the bridge already? How?” I asked, confused, training my mind to recall: “Did Mai manage to crack it with the roots from the distance?” 

 

The river on the other side of the stretch of land we inhabited would also create a natural barrier, not impenetrable by any measure, but discouraging random, misguided travellers. At least, assuming the inhabitants of the castle were stuck in its walls, guarding the only connection with the outside world they had in the form of the solid stone bridge. Aware of its tactical importance, I wanted it destroyed, yet I didn’t put any significant effort into arranging it. 

 

“No, Master. Sora led the attack this morning.” Tama said, “We destroyed the bridge before the woman in the fortress cast her magic, knocking her out.” 

 

I was unable to cheer at the success. Mention of the ‘woman in the fortress’ reminded me of all the worry, all the panic from the backlash her magic had on me, and my girls, and the thought that more of my girls may have suffered the same fate while I slept filled me with irrational dread.

 

“What?” I barked out, freeing myself from Miwah’s embrace and sitting up.

 

“Overview!” 

 

The floating screen came up in all its dull monochromatic glory, silent and uncaring, while my eyes desperately danced to read the numbers. 

The Master
<The Root of All Evil, level 6>
Skills	<Scorched Earth lvl.29>
	<Slayer of Men lvl.27>
	<Great Devourer lvl.16>
	<Green Hell lvl. 40>
	<Slayer of Champions lvl. 10>
	<Stalker on the Boundary lvl. 7>
Mates	Miwah, The Bride of Shadows
	Tama, The Bride of Flames
Units (Active)	Helmy, The Purifier Alpha
	Brave, The Eviscerator Alpha
	Narita, The Defiler Alpha
	Mai, The Corruptor Alpha
	Kuma, The First Obliterator
	Sora, The Dislacer Alpha
	691  * Purifiers
	27 * Named Purifiers
	710 * Eviscerators
	60* Named Eviscerators
	126* Defilers
	8* Named Defilers
	696* Corruptors
	14* Named Corruptors
	5* Named Ravagers
	39* Ravagers
	4* Named Displacers
	32* Displacers
Units (In queue)	None
Sealed (per caster)	15* Eviscerators
	6* Purifiers
	3* Purifiers
	1* Purifier

 

I breathed out the word of relief when I realised that Sora wasn’t in fact ‘sealed’ - and neither were any of her kin.

 

The ‘sorceress’ - or whoever that woman in the castle was - didn’t have yet another victim. It didn’t make me any less nervous. 

 

“Knocked out? Did you say knocked out?” I said, inspecting the floating window with its dull, and from my experience, often miscalculated numbers. The section that normally hinted at the heavy losses was left either empty or showed the same numbers of my girls held captive same as it was earlier, suggesting the encounter went without even a single casualty.

 

Not even a respawn, since it would have dropped a new fluffball into my bed, quite literally. 

 

It was, in a way, the perfect victory. So why did I feel so bad just looking at the same, featureless window? 

 

“Yes, Master. The woman did something to disturb the Displacers.” Tama explained, seemingly uncaring, or at least, impassive.  

 

“You said knocked out? Is she all right?” I pressed on, feeling uneasy. 

 

“Yes, Master.” I was assured. It didn’t help.

 

“We will keep you safe, Master,” Miwah said, in an attempt to quell down the unexplainable anxiety. 

 

“It’s not myself I am concerned about, Miwah, but my people.” I refuted immediately, and ordered: “Bring me Sora, please.”

 

“Yes, Master.” 

 

With the bridge destroyed, the castle should be isolated from any source of manpower or supplies, giving us the advantage in the theoretical siege, and was, as far as my limited knowledge went, a valid tactical move, but I still didn’t feel we were winning. Which was, once again, quite irrational. 

 

It, however, wasn’t just that. 

 

The strange sensation of loss grew somehow stronger, and the distance between me and the already ‘sealed’ companions longer, almost as if someone built a wall between me and the cage at which my little ones were held. The urge to free them returned, beckoning me to take action. 

 

Staring at my ‘overview’ screen made it worse. 

 

There was something that made me more agitated, waking me up from the previous stupor of indecisiveness, and sleepiness, but also comfort. Miwah hugged me from behind, feeling my discomfort while I just stared at the screen. 

 

Numbers did change. I didn’t notice it before, but weren’t there more of us? 

 

“Master?” The meowing voice brought me back from my introspection to reality, with my feline companion standing in the doorway.

 

Sora was, like all others of my anthropomorphic companions, quite pretty, as long as my mind slowly slipped away from the pesky human concepts that defined it, and her outfit consisted merely of an oversized local tunic doubling as the mini-dress only accented that, but she somehow felt worse to wear. The fact she didn’t teleport in suggested she may be, indeed, quite exhausted. 

 

“Sit down, Sora, please?” I asked.

 

“Yes, Master.” The feline did, collapsing on the collection of bedrolls we used as the impromptu bed. It was quite awkward. I was naked and held by Miwah, something I didn’t think about before I called her in. 

 

I almost expected Tama to say something about me being overtly blatant. The vixen, surprisingly enough, did not tease, but I was more worried about Sora's current state. She wasn’t injured, or physically battered, but the dulled reaction from the previously restless cat girl made me concerned about her well-being. Her heterochromia-struck eyes glittered in the dark but were filled with fatigue.

 

“Tama? Tell Narita to come, please, and give Sora an energy infusion.” I ordered, and added: “And get me some clothes.” 

 

“Yes, Master.” 

 

“Sora, what happened?” I asked, worried. 

 

“They found a faster way to destroy the bridge than Mai, Master.” Sora explained, with some degree of pride hidden under the noticeable tiredness quite uncharacteristic for a monster breed which previously displayed almost reckless hyperactivity, “We dropped the stones… a log … through the bridge, destroying it, we just need to be … close…to aim properly.” 

 

“Were you hurt?” 

 

“No, Master.” She shook her head, her voice feeling heavy, struggling: “But there are disruptions we can’t teleport to.” 

 

“Your powers are gone? You can’t go anywhere?” 

 

“No, Master.” Sora repeated the gesture, “Valley is accessible, all places we have seen, except… the castle…there is disruption.” 

 

The feline moved to rest against me, and I let her, deciding to hold her tight. Miwah, still embracing me from behind, considered it perfectly appropriate behaviour, though any witty comments from Tama were interrupted by the arrival of Narita. 

 

Sora jolted up from the sudden infusion of life essence, almost as I shook her awake in the middle of the night, but immediately gathered her wits, her unusually coloured eyes darting across the room in a brief moment of disorientation. She still settled in my arms, almost as if it was the place where she wanted to end up in the first place.

 

Miwah, in spite of all the sayings about the cats and dogs, didn’t seem to particularly mind. Tama, almost dispassionately, had a couple of ‘Purifiers’ bring in the buckets filled with water, opening the shutters on the window, then scrambled away with their typical girlish laugh almost as if they forgot something. 

 

Only Narita’s expression was unreadable. 

 

“Sora?” I asked. The feline, still keeping herself close, continued her explanation, this time accompanied by the soft gestures of her clawed hand on mine. 

 

“Yes, Master. We are no longer able to connect with the area of the castle except a few outlying parts of the outer wall, making it inaccessible to us, as if we never visited it.” She explained, her eyes now fixated on the unseen horizon, or indoor, an unspecified part of the wooden wall almost like she tried to gaze through it, rather than on it. I was already familiar with what it meant. 

 

“One of my sisters is hidden in the grass with a direct view, yet we can’t bring us through on the spots she sees. Others, on the other side of the river, have the same problem.” Sora explains, now sounding more like herself, seemingly analysing information seen from the other ‘Displacers’ eyes: “The invisible barrier ends…” 

 

She paused, and continued: “A hundred metres above the highest tower.” 

 

It was quite an impressive estimate - not the distance itself, even if I wouldn’t want to end up anywhere that high, but the fact the ‘Displacers’ were able to extrapolate this simply by eye while describing some intangible phenomenon. It must be one of the inherent abilities they had in order to accommodate their portal creation.

 

“You destroyed the bridge, but they did something to prevent you from entering the castle.” I summarised. 

 

“Yes, Master.” 

 

It would seem our secret weapon was just revealed to the enemy, adding more obstacles between me and freeing my imprisoned companions, hampering my effort and increasing the pulsing forced feedback between me, and the rest of my furry horde. 

 

This barrier, this ward, was what created the unease that crept inside of my brain each time I thought about the ‘sealed’.

 

The window, still hanging in the air, pulsated, almost taunting me. I blinked it away. 

 

I underestimated the locals again. 

 

The imagination of simply waiting, letting Mai to toy with the plants turning our little corner of the world into an oasis, faded away. 

 

However, I couldn’t just order my girls to charge the walls, the mere risk of ‘sealing’ made this an unbearably risky gamble with their lives, sent against the only true weakness I was aware of. It may not be only one, even, the true range of the abilities of the locals was still a great unknown. 

 

There was not any guarantee I encountered the strongest of their kind. 

 

“Withdraw your sisters immediately.” I decided, without thinking, and the rash nature of the ‘Displacers’ manifested itself instantly as soon after, two smaller anthropomorphic kittens dropped into the room through their usual space-bending portals on the spot their ‘Alpha’ was looking at. I should be more moderate, and more considerate when ordering them around. 

 

“For Master!” 

 

Two meowed, shaking and adjusting the weird dress made of the green grass covering them that they weren’t quite keen to wear. We might have had a shortage of equipment and cloth, but they were looking quite ridiculous. 

 

It took me a moment to realise that ‘Displacers’ in fact figured out camouflaged spotters, and I called them away from their posts, possibly ruining the positioning they took during the night, since their rifts were, in fact, quite visible. 

 

I felt stupid again.

 

“Miwah,” I said, turning my head, “Send some of your sisters to watch the movement from the castle instead.” 

 

“Yes, Master.” 

 

“Keep your distance though,” I added, raising my hand to touch Miwah’s muzzle gently, “I don’t want more of our girls sealed. Sora almost didn’t get away.” 

 

The ‘caster’ - or whoever the woman within the castle was - had a broader range of abilities than I originally estimated, and had seemingly made steps that effectively prevented us from taking the fortress by surprise, by simply teleporting my monsters behind the walls, forcing us back to the square one regarding the siege. 

 

Not only were we forced to scale the walls in more mundane ways, to approach them in the way a more conventional army would have, making me wonder whether the locals did have some kind of counter against their super-powered ‘elite’ as well making the fortifications we struggled against relevant on the strategic scale. I was terrible at such planning. 

 

However, even I realised that the humans may have not yet run out of the aces in their sleeves - on the other hand, so could we.

 

After all, not all fortresses were taken by force, a deception, a surrender, a treachery, it was all in the books, at least it was so in the Earth’s history. 

 

There was only one problem. 

 

I couldn’t talk to locals. 

 

There was this crazy girl - Ari if I recall correctly - who seemingly sided with us, but she wasn’t an answer to everything. 

 

From experience, I knew she wasn’t exactly popular with natives, even if I didn’t understand why it was so. 

 

The peasants were still willing to stone her to death even if surrounded by my monsters, and if I sent her towards the castle, she would walk into the volley of arrows. We needed some other way. 

 

I looked at Narita. Though she didn’t look bad to me, my mind, adjusting herself to the normality of my monster's presence, rejecting the human standards the longer I was with them, was hardly a judge of what locals considered acceptable. 

 

My anthropomorphic rodent was smart and was picking the words faster than any of us, but she wouldn’t be able to negotiate on our behalf. 

 

If I could only send the humans in the fortress a letter. 

 

Ironically enough, we had captured the supposed scribe, yet without the means to actually communicate, his normally invaluable profession for sending correspondence to the feudal lords of this land was next to useless. 

 

“Can we make planks?” I asked - this village had a sawmill, after all.

 

“Yes-yes, Master,” Narita answered hesitantly, though the question wasn’t directed at her I still kept my eyes on the rat girl, thinking. 

 

From my experience with the older man the locals had a very poor understanding of pictograms, though considering the almost inevitable violence our every encounter with natives we wouldn’t lose much by trying, 

 

Instead of the likely expensive parchment that would be easily lost, I considered dropping a plank of wood in the middle of their courtyard, hoping it wouldn’t splinter on impact after a drop from a hundred metres. 

 

There was a problem. 

 

I needed to draw. Not only was I terrible at doing so, but the pictures also needed to be relatively delicate, which a simple piece of burnt wood wouldn’t do - a drawing of the cage, and my ‘Purifier’ in it wouldn’t be recognisable otherwise. 

 

I was dejected. 

 

“Did we find any ink or dye?” 

 

“Not sure, Master,” Narita replied again, strengthening itself. 

 

“Sora?” I asked. The feline meowed in response, for the first time unwilling to just dash away.

 

There was a city, in the distance, the one the fortress was likely supposed to protect, and such places likely had people who could read, write, and perhaps enjoy art. 

 

“Are there any of those sorceresses in the city?” I queried. 

 

“There might.” Was the reply. There was a risk involved, similar to or greater than the one in the fortress out there, with possibly even more grave repercussions as more and more locals would be drawn into the fight. 

 

I had no reason to assume that the city would be entirely undefended, even if the fortress that covered one of the main access routes was outside its limits. 

 

Perhaps the whole idea of stealing ink was insane, but truth be told it wasn’t the only thing we had a shortage of. 

 

I noticed the group of ‘Eviscerators’ preparing Miwah’s outfit, one that has already been visibly lashed by flames, the lamellar armour as its breaking point. 

 

We needed a better target - preferably one that had fewer defences, and more items we needed should my artistic expression fail. Food, armour, tools and weapons would be useful too, atop of writing supplies. 

 

If I was going to press the locals to surrender, I would have to deprive them of resources.

 

“A trade outposts anywhere?” I asked - small merchants were likely able to remember their meagre stores, but someone had to keep records for large amounts of goods.

 

“A camp, at the other edge of the valley. Collecting goods. It is within range.” Sora answered, almost unwilling to go. There was no reason to rush her until I got my pants. 

 

“I need an idea of the places which have anything of value. We should go shopping.”