"I didn't get kicked out!" Riez was one bright smile as Celeste appeared in front of her once again.

  Next to her, Spif and Spaf were wrestling and doing their best to choke out one another. Celeste gave a weak smile. The way things had turned out with the noble merchant wasn't quite what she had wanted. Even so, her experience with Raffael Moordet before had taught her that striking with full force as soon as possible instead of waiting for an opportune moment was better.

  "I need you to go get Jasmine."

  Riez gave her a look. "Are you okay?"

  Celeste shrugged. "I mean..."

  She let the words hang, not really wanting to dive into the fact that she had likely killed thirteen entire families with little regard for their crimes other than being related to someone who had worshipped the god of demons.

  Riez blinked and nodded slowly. "Don't you worry about it. I will get her in a jiffy!"

  In an instant, roots reached from the ground, wrapping around her and pulling her into the earth. It was less than a minute later before a large knot of roots appeared, and it burst in a cloud of dust and tree fibres as Riez Teleported both herself and Jasmine to Permersland.

  Celeste gave the stone Riez was clutching a look. "... So wanna explain what that stone is about?"

  Riez shrugged. "Turns out that it is a lot more powerful than people expect. We did some testing, and this thing is hungry. It keeps making a network of roots or expanding an existing one under your feet. Doing so each day for roughly a thousand years means that the root network covers the entire world." Riez explained as Celeste walked over to Jasmine and put a hand on her back, letting her Health Domain roam the woman's body to determine if there were any injuries beyond a lack of Energy.

  "She just needs some rest," Celeste explained, before turning her attention back to Riez. "And that is kind of what I would expect."

  Riez nodded. "Yeah, me too, but it is one thing to expect it and one thing to know it. Practically everything is part of the root network at this point, meaning that this stone can teleport me effectively anywhere... and it doesn't count as teleporting as far as the game is concerned. But that is not really the insane part. The really insane part is the fact that the leylines that Jasper made way back, and that he is using Impact to maintain... The roots have slowly integrated themselves into those and are branching out to other spheres, meaning that at the moment, this thing can effectively be used to teleport between planes."

  Celeste gave a groan of frustration. The sound made Riez laugh wildly. "WOW! That was the exact same reaction that Jasper had."

  The idea brought a smile to The Architect's lips, and she was honestly glad that she had chosen Riez for this adventure. She really did make everything so much brighter.

  Pulling out her tools, Celeste soon constructed a wagon from the wood fibres that were covering the ground from the multiple teleports that Riez had done. It even included a pair of harnesses for Spif and Spaf so they could pull the wagon. It wasn't a hard task as the wagon had been divinely optimised to minimal friction, but Riez insisted that the two gremlins would be better off pulling the wagon and burning off some of their abundant energy, rather than having to sit still for long periods of time. Having had her own experiences with the goblins, Celeste had to agree.

  "So, what is the deal with this area anyway?" Riez asked, clearly not having paid any attention to the multi-staged PowerPoint presentation that Jasper had made for him. Celeste honestly had a hard time listening as well, though mostly because she had been sitting with a wide smile listening to her favourite person talk about something he was passionate about.

  "So, this is Permerland. It turns out that the most lethal job in the entire game is being the Duke of Permersland. This area has had 74 dukes over the last year... And just like the real world, there are 52 weeks to a year here... so every duke usually gets less than a week as head of the country before being overthrown by a revolution. It has gotten to the point that when the Empire gets confirmation that the new duke has been installed as the regent of the area, they send the next candidate." Celeste explained, condensing what had been a twenty-minute tangent Jasper had been going on about.

  "Okay, so it is high enough that it could definitely be a bug," Riez said, nodding, crawling up onto the wagon while Celeste moved the unconscious Jasmine into the back of the cart.

  Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

  "Yup, combined with the fact that there are currently 43 active revolutions in the country, all with minimal differences, indicates that there is something seriously wrong here," Jasmine said, swinging herself up onto the wagon, and Riez gave a smack of the reins, before holding out a large piece of ham on a pole in front of the pair of goblins. The pair of them instantly focused and scrambled to grab the meat off the long pole that Riez was holding.

  "So why are there so many different revolutions?" Riez asked, leaning back and savouring the surprisingly smooth ride.

  "We don't actually know. It seems like they have really minute differences as well. Apparently, there is a Soup-revolution, a Stew-revolution and a Pie-revolution, all of them fighting among each other for power, and only really uniting whenever the empire reinstates a new Duke of the area. That isn't even mentioning the skirt-revolution, the trouser-revolution and the monday-revolution, which are also deeply entrenched in some internal warfare." Celeste explained.

  "And all of these groups are just rallying people and, what, fighting among each other?" Riez seemed to question the entire setup.

  Celeste sped up their travel considerably with her Journeying Domain, allowing the wagon to barely touch the ground as the pair of goblins pulled them along. "Essentially, yeah. Martin says that it is probably a bug, but since it keeps the country in a constant state of flux, it is probably kind of a positive bug, you know?"

  Riez gave a shrug and sighed. "Fair enough, so what is our plan?" She asked, adjusting the pole with the ham to the left, making Spif and Spaf drag the wagon to the left in a clawing and desperate motion, jumping over one another to get to the ham.

  "I was thinking we would pretend to be adventurers and then investigate this whole thing. I don't think the people here take lightly to authority figures, especially ones that- Sorry, I gotta ask, where did you get that ham?" Celeste couldn't take her eyes off it. She could create a convincing-looking ham, but it wouldn't be edible, and that piece of meat was the most delicious thing she had ever seen.

  Riez got this smug, self-satisfied look on her face. "Oh, it isn't a ham. It is a log... I am using my Deception Domain to disguise it as a ham."

  The wagon paused as both Spif and Spaf learned the truth of the piece of meat they were hunting.

  "IT NOT BE REAL?!?" One of them asked, and Celeste really still couldn't tell which one was which.

  "NO DUM DUM IT BE MAGIC LOG THAT TURN INTO HAM!" The other replied.

  "ME WANT MAGIC HAM!" The first one screamed.

  "IT NO BE MAGIC HAM! IT BE MAGIC LOG!" The other screamed, and once more the wagon started its course down the road.

  It took them less than an hour before they reached the first sign of life. It was a trench that stretched as far as the eyes could see, though it seemed abandoned. Few people were milling around, but none of them seemed to be taking cover.

  Jasmine gave a groan from the back of the cart, and Celeste threw some Health Domain magics at The Scribe, just to make her feel a little better.

  The divinely chosen of the forgotten god stretched and made herself sit up. Her hair was wild even from this small nap. "W'ere de 'eck am I?"

  The accent was slurred, and Riez gasped. "SHE LIVES!"

  "You are in Permerland, and if my navigation is correct, and it always is, then we would be at the first great trench," Celeste explained.

  "Why are there trenches? Isn't this supposed to be a medieval setup? Guns don't seem that widespread." Riez asked, pulling the illusory ham up, making the two goblins stop in their tracks.

  "It’s ta ward against siege spells, an’ in general just elemental spells," Jasmine said, letting her hands run through her hair and clearly some kind of magic to tame it back into shape. "It is rock, paper scisshors. Guns are good at takeng sengle high prihority targets out at a distance. Mahst spells are in general only viable at a five-meters range, though I know it might seem oderwise hangeng around with de god av magic, but mhortals aren't dat effective at casteng spells, and guns are a viable option against dem."

  Celeste blinked. She had honestly assumed that spells didn't really have a range and could just be cast willy-nilly. "Oh, so to protect people who don't have guns, you make trenches?"

  "Spot on, lass," Jasmine said, slowly standing up in the now stationary cart and stretching a bit. "Spells are good at takeng out large secshuns av armies. De spell Sea av Flames are a known instant fight ender. However, it is hard to cast a spell with a bullet through yoehr brains. However, a persahn with a gun will avten fend de bullet blocked by armhor, and in essence dere is not much point in takeng out a sengle persahn in a warband av thirty. So traditional warfare means dat you make a trench to protect yoehr army against mages, and yoehr mages against guns."

  That seemed reasonable, though not really something Celeste had been aware of. "Fair enough, I guess."

  "So what are we doeng in mud rose av de Empire?" Asked The Scribe in a much more casual way, compared to what either Riez and Celeste had heard her before. Both of them gave The Scribe a look. "What? It is shite and squeezed between de Cheeks av Nhorthland and Southland."

  Celeste couldn't help herself. Years of being a teacher kicked in, and the words just slipped from her mouth. "Language, young lady."

  Jasmine blushed and cleared her throat. "Shorry."

  The Architect nodded, and before the mood of the entire trip could get soured by some light scolding, she continued. "In any case, we are investigating the reason for all the revolutions in Permersland. So we are disguising ourselves as adventurers." She explained.

  Jasmine nodded. "Sounds fun"

  Celeste nodded, and with a slight effort, she quickly managed to turn some only slightly rotten plants nearby into five sets of clothes that she judged a normal group of adventurers would be wearing.