9 9. Orario’s Reaction
Freya had recently noticed that the Loki familia were acting very strange. Granted it was only recently that they had liberated Orario from the lecher Zeus and that uncompromising wife of his Hera so she first thought it was normal for them to first want to consolidate their power and then focus more on delving into the dungeon allowing her to reign supreme among the mortals. That was her thought process until she cast a curious glance at the Twilight Manor where Loki had taken up residence and what she saw scared her for a second but then that turned into intrigue. What Freya saw was the soul of a dragon sleeping! Had she been more knowledgeable about the looks of the dragon, she would say it was eerily similar to Alduin. Alas, all Freya saw was a very aggressive looking dragon that seemed ready to fight tooth and nail and succeed no matter what. The first thoughts Freya had was that Loki had found a new type of Dragon in the dungeon and that it had been tamed by one of her familia. This theory was discarded however because the dragon just kept sleeping and not to mention that after a few days Loki had made no claim at the guild. Freya was a patient woman when something like this took place, she wouldn't leave it until the next Denatus before she confronted the trickster goddess. Maybe even get some benefits out of this.
After some time the dragon woke up and moved around the manor a bit, this told Freya that it couldn't be too big. The size of a mintour at the largest. It had only been a few days and out of nowhere a massive hedge was erected around the manor, only a select few knew what happened and Freya knew that the little dragon had something to do with it. It would fly at night when the moon was covered so that nobody knew, but she did and she became increasingly more interested, the cherry on the cake was the news of a flower within the hedge between the thorns that would spew a paralysis toxin that was never before seen and apparently very potent. Freya would leave Loki to her machinations and allow her the privacy she wanted to give the little dragon, after all, she would have probably done the same. This also led her to understand that this new dragon was of the nature affinity, something very useful in the middle floors. "Get me Hogni and Hedin" Freya said to a seemingly empty room, only to hear the door behind her open and close. 'I'm gonna need some advice on the nature of that hedge and anything that might look amis in that Manor' Freya thought.
A few more days have passed after that day and the information Freya received about the hedge was still rolling around in her mind. "The hedge was crafted using magic, there's no doubt about that. What is really interesting is that to maintain the sleep inducing spores active, the leaves themselves draw a minuscule amount of magic from the air" this caught her attention and the next part made Freya really interested in whatever it was that Loki was doing. "As the hedge grows older, those flowers will only become stronger due to taking in more magic over time." This bit of news frustrated Freya immensely because it put a time frame on when she could gather knowledge before she forced it out of Loki at the Denatus. Seeing the dragon go to the back of the Manor as it had done the last couple of days to do whatever it did there, Freya was wondering when it would make itself known, surely Loki can't expect it to remain hidden forever. As she was musing at the dragon's actions a magic pressure built up that it formed a small aurora borealis only visible to her due to her being in the Tower of Babel's top floor. After that the aurora got pulled into the earth as a small figure shot up into the air, Freya was certain that was the dragon and lamented the fact she couldn't see any further. She watched the dot climb and climb into the air, going further than the height of Babel and reaching the clouds. It was because she was watching the dragon loose conscience whilst in the air that she almost missed a massive tree spring up out of the ground from where the dragon had jumped from. She watched with rapt attention how the small dot returned to the back of the mansion and went to sleep again, this confirmed a few things for Freya.
1. The dragon was either young or inexperienced, this could possibly lead to her snatching it away from Loki.
2. The dragon had unparalleled nature magic, with a little guidance from herself they might just find out the possibilities.
3. It is totally an unknown, and the unknown can be exploited in many different ways.
'I will find out what your secret is Loki, no way I am waiting for you to show your hand' were the final thoughts of the goddess before she sauntered off towards her bedroom.
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Ever since that hedge had grown overnight around the Loki familia, the general people had grown interested in what the goddess had planned. The guild had made a notice to the surrounding houses that there might be some minor changes made to the manor but it should not take long before the alterations to the manor were made and that there would be very little inconveniences for the surrounding people.
Upon closer inspection, the hedge was 3 men tall and ensured privacy for the inhabitants. Now the only chance an outsider had of catching glimpses of the familia members was when they left through the gates. When one brave soul decided to try and catch a glimpse of the rumoured 'beauties of Loki' he was in for a rude awakening. The man wanted to scale the hedge, claiming that it was simply another barrier to test his determination against. He gave a speech that made the surrounding men look at him reverently and the woman to roll their eyes. This preacher only placed a hand on the hedge and passed out, asleep and snoring, right then and there. This wouldn't be too surprising if the man hadn't been a level 2 adventurer, this event caused some of the more cautious adventurers to carefully look within the hedge and find green rose-like flowers facing in all directions. Reaching out to grab one, it puffed a cloud of spores onto his hand and he fell asleep as well. Learning of this the public dubbed them Trickster's Roses and once this was brought to the attention of the goddess in question, she simply asked what these people were doing climbing her hedge and started selling the spores in little vials to the alchemists because regardless of how much protection anyone had, once they touched the rose they would fall asleep. Many wondered how the Loki familia harvested the ingredients but non ever dared to ask.
An uproar in the streets was caused today by those surrounding the Manor. A tree had grown to unnatural heights within the Manor's backyard but clearly visible to all. The elves who saw this shed a few silent tears before returning home to do what elves do when the saw a giant tree, reminiscing about their home forest. Demands were made at the front gate but non were granted entry with only a notice that Loki will address these concerns within the immediate future. 2 days passed and Loki could be seen on a makeshift podium telling the people that they had found seeds within the dungeon that could have potential. When asked about the giant tree, it was actually Riveria that stated it was one of her magics she was studying and that after the tree incident she highly recommended no-one follow in her footsteps lest they make the same mistake. The Loki familia gave out an estimation of the damages (which was only the price to build a new training ground after Marlet claimed the one as her own), making a lot of people satisfied. After this though rumours started spreading that Loki had grown a fetish for elves with the way she had so many already in her familia and now with a giant tree to attract fresh recruits towards her. The locals dubbed it the 'Fool's Tree' because any elf looking from a distance would mistake it for a juvenile world tree, only to become part of the Loki familia.
Loki was not happy that the public had unanimously decided she had a elf fetish.
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All their plans had been coming along nicely. A few higher level adventurers had been snuck into the city and all those so called 'Justice' familia's patrol routes and habits had been noted down for when the big assault was to take place. The members of Evilus were even happier when those annoyingly strong familias were removed from Orario. With the Hera and Zeus familias gone there was considerably less pressure placed on their agents. The playing field had evened out and their plans could be acted upon.
That was how everything was supposed to happen! So why had Loki, the annoying goddess she was, became an even larger annoyance for them. The gods belonging to Evilus had always accounted for her unpredictability but never imagined that she would fortify her mansion and then grow a tree as easy as shopping for a new knife! How!?!
This didn't change their plans too drastically, many of the biggest goals and plans remained the same save for a few alterations having to be made because of these recent events. What really halted some of the more immediate actions some of the familias wanted to do that would have caused damage to the Loki familia was put on hold. Growing anything at that rate and that size must have been the cause of something and until they found out what it was, they would act cautiously when in proximity to the Manor. Secret attempts had been made to procure a Trickster's Rose so that they might be able to study what put a person too sleep and find a way to counteract it but it was all for naught. At the moment, the best option to invade the Twilight Manor would be to burn a hole through the fence and rush whoever was on the other side. There were a few problems with that option though. Some people had even claimed to see faint lights at the top of the Fool's tree and if that were true and members of the Loki familia were using it as a lookout, that would create even more problems for them.
'Pawns would shift and plans changed' these were the words spoken by the gods belonging to Evilus. The members of these familia would always ask who were these pawns and where they fit into their glorious god's plans only to receive a laugh from whichever god was asked, it didn't matter if you were the newest member or the captain of their familia. To some they knew they were pawns, to others they looked at others as though they were the pawns and to a few they grew motivated to break free of any possible plans their gods had that might lead to their deaths. This last thought was actually exactly what these gods wanted, the stronger these pawns got the more mayhem they could cause and that sounded perfect in their books.
Right now, Evilus was looking at the Loki, Freya, Astreae and Artemis familia. Although they are nowhere near as strong as the previous two familia that enforced their laws, they had the largest potential to become their next biggest threat.
'What would you do if you found weeds in your new flower patch? Many would say remove the weeds, but that was where these gods differed. They would poison the soil to get rid of everything, then replace said soil and grow vegetables instead of flowers just because they can.'
