Beyond All Expectations (Emerilia Book 8)

by Michael Chatfield

  ***

  “One more push—nearly there!” Jules yelled.

  Spell formations glowed all over the room. Deia, who could control flame as if it was but another limb, was unintentionally creating different spells in the room. The heat in the room had already soared as Denur and Fire did their best to contain it all from outside.

  Dave was focusing on tearing her spell formations apart from inside lest she create a flame storm or a fuel air bomb.

  The healers were frightened of the spell formations and increasing heat. Jules, however, didn’t seem scared in the slightest as she focused on the little baby in her hands.

  Deia let out a grunting scream; her hand crushed into Dave’s. He’d had to reinforce it with Mana so that she didn’t turn it into dust.

  There was a sound of crying. A healer used a Water spell, cleaning the little girl Jules was looking over. Her fingers glowed as she studied the little girl struggling weakly in her arms.

  Deia’s breathing was fast and heavy. The spell formations faded away as Dave let out a sigh of relief.

  Deia was passed a healing potion that she took with both hands, her eyes locked on the crying little girl in Jules’s hands.

  Dave numbly moved forward as Jules opened her eyes.

  “She’s a healthy baby girl,” Jules said with a smile to Dave and Deia.

  Dave was passed a blanket. He held it as Jules passed him the little girl—his baby girl. He carefully wrapped the blanket around the crying little one, finding water dripping on her forehead. He felt a wetness on his cheeks as he looked down at his daughter.

  Her eyes were forced shut and she was crying out about her injustices to everyone.

  Dave rubbed his finger against her cheek gently. She had stolen his heart so much that his chest hurt as he laughed and cried.

  “Let’s go see your mommy.” Dave gently touched his daughter’s slightly peaked ears. He looked to Deia, whose tired face was filled with an unreadable mix of emotions.

  Deia held out her hands; Dave slowly and gently placed his daughter in Deia’s arms.

  She held her in the crook of her arm, while Dave stood at Deia’s shoulder, looking down on her and their daughter.

  His hand rested on Deia’s back as she leaned back into it.

  Time seemed to stand still as the healers checked various things.

  “Let us know when you’re ready and we can let the others come in in small groups,” Jules said in a soft voice.

  Dave and Deia looked to Jules’s kind smiling face.

  “Thank you, Jules,” Deia said.

  Dave nodded, his eyes conveying his thanks as Jules’s smile widened.

  “Just let me know if you three need anything,” she said in a soft voice. She turned and left Dave, Deia, and their baby girl alone in the room.

  Dave sat down on the bed next to Deia. She leaned into him as he kissed the top of her head, both of them looking at their daughter.

  “Next time, try to not blow up the damn room,” Dave muttered.

  “Next time? How many kids were you planning on us having?” Deia’s eyes narrowed as she gave a saucy smile.

  “Enough.” Dave grinned.

  Deia snorted and shook her head. “You push a watermelon out from between your legs next time.”

  Dave smiled at the love in her voice as she looked down at their daughter, and knew that she believed all the pain had been worth it.

  The door opened as Mal put his head through it. “You fine with a few visitors?”

  Dave looked to Deia for a second before he looked back. “Get in here, Grandad,” Dave said.

  Oson’Mal, Fire, Bob, Kol, and all of Party Zero moved into the room, standing around the bed as they looked at the little girl in Deia’s arms.

  Fire held up Desmond and tilted him so that he could see Dave, Deia, and their daughter.

  “That’s your niece, Desmond. You are going to have to look after her,” Fire said.

  Dave smiled, looking from Fire to the wide-eyed Desmond.

  He looked at the people around the bed, and sensed those who waited in the hall to see the newest arrival. He cleared his tight throat and squeezed Deia to him.

  He had come here as a man trying to escape his life. He’d found a secret, a purpose, and he’d made a family from friends.

  The path forward was a hard one; there would be trials and tribulations, but he would walk it beside his friends and family, so that Desmond, his daughter, and Emerilia’s children could make their own destiny, instead of being entertainment for the Jukal Empire.

  BAE Chapter 8: Unexpected Change

  It had been three days since Dave and Deia had brought their daughter into the world. Bob was in a conference room looking at the different people sitting at the table with him.

  There was the Stone Raiders’ leadership; Alkao and some advisers from Devil’s Crater; Hamdir, the leader of the Aleph Council; and Koza, the leader of the security seat on the Aleph Council. Three dwarven master smiths and one dwarven war council leader. There were orcs and gnomes, humans and Beast Kin, demons and elves, with every race in between. Here every leader from the embassies with Terra sat, listening to a messenger from the Markolm continent and elven nation.

  People frowned as the high elf finished talking. High elves liked to talk but his message was short and simple.

  Someone had killed their first elder in cold blood. Anger and fear filled the hearts of the normally peaceful people, looking to find the killers and deal with them. With each day Markolm was becoming more violent.

  Bob let out a noisy breath.

  “Looks like they’re coming back to their homeland,” Bob said to Kol, one of the three dwarven master smiths.

  “What do you mean?” Josh asked from across the table as the conversations died down.

  “Markolm was not the elven continent at first. It started off as Light’s continent.

  “She took plots of land from all over Emerilia, making the four different areas on the continent. She made the entire place somewhere people could pilgrimage to, in order to worship her. It was the original Per’Ush island. It floated around Emerilia so people could see it and devote their power to the Lady of Light.

  “It was the home of the angels. With their devotions, the Lady of Light was more popular than ever—she was one of the strongest gods in the Pantheon.

  “Things might have been great, but as good things rise, so must they fall. When the demons disappeared, the angels were more aggressive in how they got people to devote themselves to the Lady of Light. In their eyes, there was only one goddess. As many believed in other gods and goddesses, there would only be conflict.

  “As Markolm floated over the lands, the angels would descend day and night, purging anything and anyone that was devoted to the other gods. The battles with the mage’s college and guild were spectacular. They did so much damage to Markolm that Light had to overdraft her power from her divine well.

  “She was readying her counterattack when the angels were imprisoned. The Lady of Light had a terrible reputation. With the angels being banished, she didn’t have the power to keep Markolm suspended and also fight off the other gods who, seeing her in weakness, were gathering their forces. Markolm descended into the seas as the fanatics fought against the other members of the Pantheon who were getting retribution for the killing of their Creatures of Power, champions, or simply to try to wrestle control of her divine well away from her. The fanatics were cleared from the continent, and more issues came up, with people leaving to deal with other problems in Emerilia.

  “Markolm didn’t have dungeons or many resources. The land was burned and Mana-deficient from the battles waged on it. However, the elves who were being persecuted across Emerilia needed a place to retreat to. They moved to Markolm, a place where they could defend themselves. They created a free elven society, rescued elves from slavery and restored Markolm. They brought life back to the land with their magic, and used the different weapons and items from the v
arious churches and halls in Markolm to improve themselves. Dungeons grew on the continent. Portals happened and Markolm grew into what it is today. From what you’ve said, it seems that Khanundra thinks that Markolm hasn’t changed at all. She sees the elves as mere subjects to be monopolized in order to increase her lady’s power. It doesn’t matter that you’re not the same fanatics. To her, all should bow before her lady, or in her mind, the true and proper goddess,” Bob finished.

  The elves, dwarves, Aleph, and Devil’s Crater faction nodded, many of whom still had records from that dark time. Others around the table frowned, learning this history for the first time.

  With so many conflicts, kingdoms rose and fell quite a bit in previous centuries. Ashal might now be regarded as a constant war zone between different groups. In the past, all of Emerilia had been like Ashal.

  History was hard to record if it was constantly destroyed in wars. The older races had collections and libraries that held information on things that the younger nations never remembered.

  The smarter representatives paid attention to who was nodding. These people were some of the strongest in Emerilia, and were dragons sitting on a deep ocean. There were hidden depths behind them. People are people, whatever their forms, they knew without a doubt, angering them would be the height of idiocy.

  Many of these eyes lingered on the three humans who wore identical cloaks with blue, green, and black inner layers.

  Their levels were hidden and their last names were all Dracul. None had heard of a Dracul clan with enough power to stand at a table of people who could get nations to move. However, the faint feeling of power and their knowledge on Markolm raised the others’ interest in this trio.

  Josh’s face was unreadable with this information. Slowly he sighed and looked to the envoy.

  “We are not yet strong enough to contend with someone like Khanundra,” Josh said bluntly. “However, when we are strong enough, we will help you free yourselves of her and her goddess’s influence. In the meantime, we will do all we can to aid you.”

  Just a year ago, this kind of declaration might have been laughed at, but now the Stone Raiders stood at the peak of player guilds of all time. Terra was a hub of commerce; their people were strong, inventive and loyal. When they made a promise, they kept it, no matter what. One would only need to look at the people of Devil’s Crater or Aleph. These two groups had been incredibly weak when they returned to Emerilia. The Stone Raiders had sacrificed a lot in the name of their alliance. Now Devil’s Crater was an adventurer’s dream; they had one of the strongest militaries in Emerilia. Their DCA soldiers’ strength was equal to the leading elites of an Ashal military.

  The Aleph produced goods faster than the dwarves and were closely connected to the Mirror of Communication schools, as well as the mage’s college and dwarves. They had become an economic superpower with their factories and underground greenhouses.

  The high elf messenger bowed his head. “Thank you.” Their words were simple, but a high elf doing more than simply tilting their head showed their respect toward the other party.

  Josh returned the gesture before he looked to the table while the messenger sat down. In this, they would also be acting as a secret envoy to the people of Markolm. They might not be able to act out in the open but they would help where possible. Every race and group was threatened by this event.

  “We have twelve more days until that spawn point opens under Goblin Mountain,” Josh said. Someone had come up with the nickname and it stuck. The number of goblins inside was massive, making it one of the biggest goblin settlements in known history.

  “Now we know what we’re looking for with the spawn points. Though, with the spawn point being right next to a portal, we’re not sure what’s going to happen,” Josh continued on as Bob zoned him out, going over the information they had.

  Some inhospitable worlds were used to seal up creatures. It would only be possible to reach them with a portal. The angels were sent to one of these worlds.

  “So, right now it looks like it’s once every three weeks one of these spawn points open up. We’ve got to keep an eye out for more of them. This is just the first couple of waves. We’ve shown ourselves and the people of Emerilia what we can do when we work together. In the future, our abilities will only grow,” Josh said, drawing the meeting to a close.

  ***

  Captain Adams looked at the latest feed from Emerilia. She knew that the event Of Myths and Legends was starting on Emerilia.

  It was supposed to be a baptism by fire that could change Emerilia forever.

  The feed had been sped up, as it showed a brown cloud spread out over a forest, rapidly destroying it. As clouds then covered the skies, she switched to heat sensors and watched as powerful artillery shells slammed into a dome of organic matter, burning it away slowly.

  Each of those strikes has a tenth of the explosive power of our interceptor missiles.

  Even these massively powerful weapons weren’t that strong in the face of the creatures on Emerilia. As we continue to monitor their situation, we can see that every day, all the people on Emerilia were fighting for their lives, with opponents who were just as smart and, some are much more powerful to boot.

  Electronic signatures overlaid the heat signatures as mushroom-like items were revealed, and then finally a massive electrical disturbance distorted the image. The distortions flickered and died off before being replaced with roiling brown clouds. As the clouds broke up, a barren wasteland was revealed below.

  She paused the video, taking images from before the brown clouds started to spread out to after when the clouds cleared.

  The destruction left behind was incredible. The landscape had been completely changed within a day.

  “That was just their first battle. What are the others going to be like?” Adams said to herself.

  She closed her different screens and looked out her window. It was a feed from outside the asteroid she was now stationed on. Shipyard three was the newest shipyard they had and one that was wholly devoted to using just methods from Emerilia to make vessels.

  With a sigh, she got up from her desk and moved to the door.

  She left her office, nodding and smiling to people she passed. As the first captain to not only take a ship past the Deq’ual system, but to also bring them back information, pictures, video and sensor logs from within Jukal systems, she had become something of a hero.

  Now there were five other ships that had taken up the mission of plotting out the Jukal Empire and its influence.

  They had changed a lot from when Bob got his information. However, the major systems and routes were all the same.

  There were more people in the military than ever before. Ships were being worked on every day. New habitats were being set up and people who had been put into cryo due to overpopulation were being woken up.

  The active population was quickly growing. People were having more children and a sense of hope filled the air.

  As she stepped through a series of air locks looking into the central hub of the facility, she activated her Mana shield. Edwards had taken the technology and nanites that made up the Jukal interface and reverse engineered it so that it was wholly his design, and there was no chance of the Jukal getting into it or somehow having a kill switch in it.

  The new hub didn’t need to rotate as gravity runes kept everything secured.

  It looked as if there were a series of crystals glowing inside the asteroid. All of the facilities within the asteroid were made from soul gem constructs. With powerful AIs, combined with massive power plants and the information that Dave had given them, they had been able to make the shipyard habitable in a matter of weeks instead of months.

  The soul gem constructs were still turning the inside of the asteroid into a habitable area and a place to work. The first ships had been started. These were basically soul gems that were held in one position as they followed their instructions and grew from crystals into superstructures. Once thi
s structure was completed, then armor could be mounted to the exterior. The soul gem construct could make a non-slip surface and also appear in any color instead of just looking like a glass container with motes of light slowly moving around. As long as they were supplied with power, these soul gem constructs would continue to grow to completion. They also had the ability to hold charge over a long period of time to be used in an emergency, as well as self-repair functions.

  They were an amazing construction material, though programming was a pain in the ass that required multiple AI and human controllers to get all the runes right.

  Adams moved from the air lock, leaving through an incomplete hallway where the soul gem was just touching in the middle, with the rest slowly growing to seal the space up. With the yard still in construction, there were multiple areas where there wasn’t any atmosphere.

  The people in Deq’ual were taught from a young age about how to live in space, and the dangers that were a part of where they lived.

  “It would be strange going to a planet with wide open spaces as big as this without a helmet.” Adams shivered a bit, remembering decompression videos as she thought of wide open areas.

  She moved through the different areas; some didn’t even have gravity yet, but that was easily handled by Adams. Finally, she reached a workroom out of the way and buried deep in the asteroid walls.

  Server banks covered the walls as Edwards was having a quiet conversation with an AI hologram that floated above his desk.

  The AI looked to Adams, drawing Edwards’s attention to her.

  “Hello, Admiral Adams. What can I do for you today?” Edwards asked.

  “I’m just seeing how everything is going with the magical coding for the soul gem constructs.” Adams looked to the AI with a frown. “Is that a new AI?”

  Edwards’s annoyed look turned into a brilliant smile as he moved to the side so that the AI was visible.

  “This is Shard,” Edwards said with a flourish. “AI to the Aleph people on Emerilia.”

  Adams’s face was a picture of shock as she looked at the dwarf/elf face that seemed to hold a gentle but aged quality to it.