Chapter 618 - Interlude - Auri - Overthrowing the Tyrants XI (Patreon)

It was weird being on my own. Ever since I’d hatched, there was always someone there. Even the Phoenix Peaks, having my own mountain, my friends would come over and say hello. After having a spot of fun with Fenrir though - pretending to breathe fire was hilarious, the shocked look on monster’s faces before I went FWOOOM and they turned to ashes would never stop being funny - we had to split up, and I just didn’t know what I wanted to do.

Okay, okay, Elaine was trained in this, and I’d seen enough planning that I knew how to do this.

What was my goal?

Making Elaine, Fenrir, and everyone else happy. Living our best lives.

How was I going to do that?

Their goal was to stop nosy people from poking into our business. We were going to accomplish that by removing the [Tyrants] of the New Remus Empire. We couldn’t directly fight them, so…

Blah.

I should just burn their stuff until they gave up. That should work, right? No need to overthink it. This was basically super-permission to be the [Arsonist] I always wanted to be.

Burn, baby burn!

Bah! It wasn’t that easy! Blasted philosophy and knowledge and ‘thinking out the consequences of my actions.’ Sometimes I longed for the innocent days of my youth, where I simply burned things. Oh well!

I flew around the area of the New Remus Empire, thinking through Operation: Arsonist Unleashed. The upside to philosophy and knowledge and ‘thinking things out’ was I knew a number of things I could burn, without a single shred of doubt or guilt crossing my mind.

I stared across fields of golden wheat, surrounded by orchards bursting with fruit. There was nobody here. Not an elf, not a rabbit, and nearly all insects were missing. Skills kept the fields well preserved, skills kept out the pests and vermin. Songbirds sang sweetly from the nearby branches.

I started to sing as well, the most beautiful song the world had ever heard!

“I see grass of green, and roses of flame/

I see them burn, for me and for you/

And I think to myself/

What a wonderful fire!”

The other birds gave me the stink-eye, then turned around and started singing even louder.

Jerks! Plebestrians! They wouldn’t know good art if it came up and smacked them!

[*ding!* Oh Auri, oh most wonderful Phoenix of the Flame, oh most beautiful Mistress of Colors! In your infinite wisdom you have chosen to dispense justice, and I, your humble servant The System, am here to notify you of your exploits! You have made the world a better place by slaying a [Thrush (Sound, 22)]! The world holds its breath, waiting to see what you will do next.]

A few dozen similar notifications scrolled past, each one praising me in a different way. Yes, yes, good! All was right with the world. No more peanut gallery to interfere. No more background singers ruining my song! No more critics!

… also no more audience. Drat.

I’d done my research. I’d looked around. Burning this farm to the ground would be fine. The owners had a few, and most of the food here was going to the nearby city. There was enough excess that nobody was going to starve now, but it was going to raise prices and start putting pressure on people. Burn enough farms, and people would need to start abandoning the city. Civilization, towns and cities and large concentrations of people, relied on excess food production from the agricultural section. Remove that, remove the city. Remove the city, remove the military. No more fighting if everyone has to be in the fields! Everyone would have to go home, grow food, and stop being jerks to each other.

Hurray for logic! Hurray for thinking it through!

I ignored the part of me insisting that I was being naive, and the rich and powerful would totally let everyone else starve if it meant they got to keep being rich and powerful. Also, they might raise taxes on everyone else…

But if nobody ever raised a wing to [Tyrants] out of fear of reprisals, they’d continue to be wet wipes. I wasn’t going to be held hostage to compassion. I wasn’t going to start murdering people in a fiery inferno, I was going to think about the consequences of my actions, but I wasn’t going to let fear of other people being dicks as a consequence to my actions rule my life.

Now… the best way to burn this place down… oh, choices, choices, so many choices! This was a rare opportunity. How often was I allowed to simply torch as much as I wanted? How often was I handed a blank canvas and told to perform my most spectacular art? How many times were a hundred thousand flowers offered to me, pastels of every color to paint the world with?

Oh, I was so spoiled for choice! 

Did I simply turn the entire thing into a blazing column of red fire reaching to the sky? A single grand flare reaping the entire field, a spectacular moment for all watching? A testament to the beauty and glory of the flickering flame?

Should I leave my mark? Burn the field in the most beautiful pattern - myself, of course - and burn it with all the colors of the rainbow? Let all behold my splendid visage? It kinda painted a huge target on me… but then I’d be famous. Everyone would know me, and try to murder me. Not that they wouldn’t try to murder me anyway… and they could probably figure out who I was. This would let the non-hunters figure it out.

Did I want to invoke dread and terror? A tiny spark of cursed green and black flames, a slow-burning inferno? They’d have plenty of time to see what was going on, to try to fight the fire with dirt and water. It’d be futile in front of the flames I could conjure. It would creep across the field inch by inch, devouring the entire harvest in front of their disbelieving eyes.

Subtle and insidious? Burn just the roots, let them all slowly die?

No no, that one was all wrong. If I was trying to be Properly Sneaky, sure, it was an option, but there were too many Classers on the other side who could probably fix the problem. Or just harvest everything first. 

That was also a point against ‘dread and terror’... they could just rapidly harvest everything and ignore my flames. Boo!

Swarm of flaming locusts? It had a certain poetry to it, and it was quick enough that the farmers couldn’t out-farm it. 

I could try smoking the entire place out, a haze of terror that would slowly drift from place to place. Oh! It’d be like one of those scented candles the [Candlemakers] made! Flavor: ‘Hopes and Dreams’.

Then there was simply spamming [Meteor Strike] all over the place, and using Lava instead of Inferno to get the job done. It wasn’t as effective as making sure everything was done, but it would inspire fear and terror. It would send a clear message, and I didn’t need to contain myself as much. Burning a road was hard. Dropping a meteor on it was much easier. It sent a message. It was a clear declaration of war, and I could repeat it time and time again. A calling card of sorts.

Mmm… the last idea was to quickly, quietly burn it down. No fuss, flares, or flourishes. Calm, quiet, lethal effectiveness.

Ugh… that was a little boring. Elaine and Artemis were the Sentinels and Rangers. They were the ones all about getting the job done with as little mess as possible. They were the operators.

I was an artist, and I’d been handed a canvas and a mission.

Hmm, was it possible to do something with baking? Like make a super cake and drop it on - no no no, I was going from good ideas to ludicrously bad ideas. There could be something in combining nectar with [Spun Sugar]... but perhaps another day. That could be a baking exhibition! 

Oh! Oh! I had it! I figured it out! I knew what I was going to do! This required some planning!

I flew off from the branch, and shamelessly drank the sweet nectar from the flowering trees. A girl had to eat! There was no sense in letting the delicious sugar go to waste!

I flew around, going from field to field, marking my targets. Farms here, farms there, a lumber operation, a mine - that one was going to be super tricky, I didn’t want to murder anyone - a shipyard, mill… so many targets in so many places. This was going to be hard, but I was totally going to do it!

Targets acquired! It took me a few weeks to grab them all, but that was fine. Ripe field, new field, burning it all down had an impact no matter what stage it was at. Okay, time to map them out, then calculate the arcs on each one… holy math, why was there so much math in art!? I mean, sure, baking had ratios, chemistry, and curves, but that was… totally the same thing. Alright, fine, I knew why there was so much math in art. 

I made two dozen [I am the Brrettiest], carefully tweaking each one to a different color of the rainbow. Because rainbows had all the colors in a spectrum, not just eight! People were kinda silly trying to divide it up into such clean lines.

Then we flew!

We burned the first farm down with two dozen colors of fire, almost immediately reducing it to ash and smoke, then glassing the fields. I wasn’t going to let the [Farmers] just come back and immediately restart it all! What was the point in that? Classers could rebuild things almost as fast as I could burn them down if I didn’t think about it. Then we flew out in a curling formation, arcing through the sky to hit the second farm. Our burning trail left a beautiful rainbow in our wake, and we barely touched down on the second farm before soaring up through the air again, hitting the first mill, and continuing to bounce around, a beautiful rainbow of utter destruction. It popped, it crackled, it sizzled! Some of the flames were cursed, some were divine. Hot were next to frozen. Some left ashes in their wake, others twisted light. 

It was so pretty!

[*ding!* Auri! Auri! You leveled up again! [The Auri] leveled up! 1513 -> 1514! +2048 Kindling, +2048 New Juice, +2048 Flame Size, +2048 Fire Control, +512 Reflexes, +512 Zippiness per level! Oh, and +128 Fancy Flying per level! There’s also the element and species stuff, but you know that already.]

[*ding!* Auri! Auri! You leveled up again! [Ancient Undying Raging Inferno] leveled up! 1501 -> 1502! +1500 Kindling, +1500 New Juice, +1500 Flame Size, +1500 Fire Control, +500 Reflexes, +500 Zippiness per level! Oh, and +100 Fancy Flying per level! There’s also the element and species stuff, but you know that already.]

[*ding!* Auri! Auri! You leveled up again! [Majestic Mythwing] leveled up! 1499 -> 1500! +1024 Kindling, +1024 New Juice, +1024 Flame Size, +1024 Fire Control, +512 Reflexes, +512 Zippiness per level! Oh, and +128 Fancy Flying per level! There’s also the element and species stuff, but you know that already.]

Burning things letting me burn more things would never get old. I finished my artwork and turned to admire it, the flames reflected in my eyes.

It was beautiful. Possibly my masterpiece. A shame it only lasted a moment, but hopefully it would touch the hearts and stomachs of thousands.

[*ding!* Oh Auri, Greatest Phoenix to ever Blaze, oh most splendid Painter of Infernos! In your infinite wisdom, you have chosen to dispense justice, and I, your faithful servant The System, am here to praise you for your exploits! You have made the world safer by slaying a [Lizard (Fire, 27)]! All of Pallos watches eagerly to see what you will do next.]

And! And! Not a single elvenoid kill notification! Quite a few other animals, but that was totally fine.

Oh whoops, that was a lot of angry looking elves… curse past-me for never taking [Identify].

Time to fly away!

==========

Argh! These people wouldn’t leave me alone! I flitted through the forest at top speed, a trio of elves hot on my claws. Quite literally, I’d set two of them on fire and they were totally ignoring it! I mean, sure, I’d killed the other five, but why won’t these ones die!? Team in life, team in death, your ashes aren’t even going to mingle at this rate!

“Oi! Leave me alone!” I protested, throwing down a hot flame behind me. The heat radiating off the flame disrupted the [Wind Vortex], breaking the fragile balance behind the attack. Ice melted as it came close to her [Domain of Fire] - why was the pointy-horned idiot still trying? - and-

Auri exploded into embers as a rock larger than she was slapped her out of the sky, obliterating her.

“RAINSTORMS! RAINSTORM AND TYPHOONS!” I cursed at the top of my lungs as White Dove fluttered next to me.

“Problem, cousin?” White Dove asked.

“Stupid elves are mad at me! I burned down a bunch of their stuff, didn’t kill any of them, and now these three don’t even have the good grace to embrace you! Any chance you could, you know, lend me a wing here?” I asked White Dove.

She snorted - somehow, even though she was a bird, don’t ask me how that worked - and spoke.

“The elves have already rejected me, they won’t take my embrace. If you truly wish for external intervention, petition Thanatos. He may be willing to assist.”

I eyed my cousin suspiciously.

“And how many times has Thanatos responded to that request?” I asked.

“Four times since the world began.” White Dove answered serenely.

Yeah… that wasn’t going to happen then. Yay math!

“Would you like to go onto the next grand adventure now?” White Dove asked.

“Ye - NO!” I said. Holy crafty bird! White Dove almost tricked me!

She clicked her tongue and I found myself back in the real world, my thousand scattered embers pulling themselves back together. The elves were closer to me now, much closer. The shocked looks on their faces quickly ended their argument.

“Surprise!” I shouted. Then I immolated them.

[ding! Oh Auri, oh True Winged Wilder of Fire...]

[ding! Oh Auri, grand baker who deigns to reshape our world...]

[ding! Oh Auri, loveliest and fairest of all that has ever burned...]

Ha! Take that!

=========

I’d hit the fields and mines, the mills and the ships. Time to hit the city! Fenrir was probably around here somewhere.

The place was spooky. Like a ghost town. Tons of huge buildings, and like, no people. Well, there were people, a lot of them, but not nearly as many as there could be. The scars of the Immortal War were still engraved in the skyline, some skilled elves using a massive [Repair] variant to fix things up.

I was trying to shake the tail here, while scouting out new and interesting problems I could make. A park…? Nah, that would just be too cruel. Although nobody would be hurt… but kids could play… but the whole point was hearts and minds…

The market? Oooh, excellent! Yes, yes, I’d totally hit the place. I’d need to be careful not to hit anyone, it was going to be tricky! A surgical hit… now how to make it pretty…

The place was practically swimming in enchantments, runes, and auras. [All The World’s Magic Is Revealed To Me In A Teardrop] was quite useful in seeing it all. 

An Idea hit me, the same way I hit the mango juice. I had [Everything Burns]. Could I burn a skill out? Probably not… but maybe? I knew I could burn an aura’s effect - temporarily - but could I burn it back to its source? Questions, questions, and oh, so many targets!

The elves had their children’s quarters in the center of the city. I wasn’t going to touch that, and I carefully noted which auras originated from the zone, which skills emanated from the center. Wasn’t going to touch any of them. I was no egg-smasher!

Apartment building, no good… One of the elves library-museums, Elaine would murder me if I torched it… aha! An empty apartment building! One scheduled demolition, coming right up!

My target list was growing, and that squat building over there looked fancy. Fancy meant important, which usually meant I could burn it down. What was with elvenoids and that sense of style? Important granaries were plain as could be, but worthless political buildings were done up all fancy. It was like slapping on a huge sign saying “Burn me”, and well, I wasn’t going to say no to such a tempting invitation.

What did we have here! Paper, paper, so much glorious paper! It all burned at 451 degrees, and oh, I was going to be the BEST [Firebird] ever. 

Wait.

WAIT!

THAT WAS ELAINE!

She flashed a few quick hand signals to me under the table.

Hidden. Secret.

AHA! She was… doing something. Something hidden. Something secret. Why didn’t she tell me!?

Oh wait. Probably because it was secret. Okay, okay, I can’t blow her cover.

Waaaaait. Those were two auras coming from Elaine that I’d seen all over the city. She was doing her full city thing. Which meant I didn’t need to worry about burning people! Sure, they might be in brief agony as their flesh peels from their bones and their blood boils out of every orifice, but they’d get better! Elaine would stop them from dying! I still wasn’t going to touch the kid’s district though, nope.

I knew nobody would be able to tell what I was saying except Elaine.

“Hey! Mind if I burn this whole place down?” I asked her.

Elaine winked at me, then turned and ran screaming.

“Ahhhh! A creature slipped in! Monster! Help! Help!”

Oh god, I hope other people were fooled by her acting. It looked really bad to me, but maybe that was just because I knew Elaine so well.

I couldn’t resist cackling.

An entire city, all for me?

You shouldn’t have.

I flew outside of the building, high up into the air, and laughed to myself as I looked down on the city. No need to be too careful or subtle about it at this point.

[Auri’s Mighty Meteor Storm]