Chapter 272 – Kids and Lists
As fate would have it, Mhyreth’s child was born the day before the courier arrived. Given how we had high-level healers around to help with things, her giving birth was a fairly straightforward affair, with nothing more than some cursing from the mother, though the Greater Tomebound Succubus did show off the range of vocabulary she had picked up in the books she read. I made several notes between her rants, since I was always happy to learn new ways to express my displeasure with fools.
Vyllan Greene
Voidblessed Greater Incubus Male
As one might expect, [Appraise]-type effects only brought back limited information on the child. The System was fairly brutal at times, but it was also brutally fair. Children who had not yet grown to the point that their System unlocked only gave back their name and race. The name part was obvious, since identifying someone was a valuable way to protect children, and the race was mandatory, since you needed to know how to feed a child, especially when their parents were different types of creatures, or in cases of adoption. A werewolf with dryads for parents was going to have trouble if people didn’t realize that werewolves required meat in their diets.
Another nice protection the System put in play for demons and other summonable creatures was that children were explicitly removed from the summon lists. Even if you had a child demon’s name, you couldn’t summon them until after their System unlocked. After that, well, they were grown up enough, according to the System. But at we didn’t need to worry about the kid getting summoned out of his crib.
Demon’s Mystic Armor Tattoo
Type
Tool
Rank
Rare
This silver pen is imbued with magic. When activated, the silver melts and forms a tattoo with protective sigils on the user’s skin. This tattoo may be hidden with clothing or magic, but it will be an identifiable marker on the user, no matter what form they take from that point onward.
Restriction: Only demonic races.
+100 Defense
+5 CHA per level
Mystic Armor – Add CHA to Defense. Reduce all damage taken, from any source, by the bearer’s CHA. Stacks with similar effects.
Demon’s Soulbrand Tattoo
Type
Tool
Rank
Rare
This silver pen is imbued with magic. When activated, the silver melts and forms a tattoo with protective sigils on the user’s skin. This tattoo may be hidden with clothing or magic, but it will be an identifiable marker on the user, no matter what form they take from that point onward.
Restriction: Only demonic races.
+10% resistance against mental effects
+10% resistance against hostile spells
Immune to Puppet Brand, Slave Brand, Familiar Ritual, Enthrallment, or other similar conditions.
Immune to summons below Deity rank.
Which is not to say that I didn’t pay to get some enchanted tattoos for the kid. All my children had similar protections, tailored to their races. I was an Emperor, after all, and, despite the System offering some protection to children, it was still easier for people to try and attack my kids than it was for them to attack me.
Circling back to Vyllan’s race, he had a template added to his race, rather than being a subrace, like his mother. A Greater Tomebound Succubus was a subrace of the Greater Succubus/Incubus line, with abilities that only showed up in that line. Voidblessed, on the other hand, was a template that sometimes showed up in children who were born in space, and was not specific to the Succubus/Incubus line. Sure, Voidblessed was rare, even amongst children who were born on space stations and amongst the nomadic Free Fleet types, but it was not exclusive to the Succubus/Incubus line, or even demons. In fact, about 1% of the children born on Ceres so far had the template.
As for what Voidblessed did? Well, it was actually a fairly useful template for people who lived in space. It offered the ability to survive in vacuum, and made the individual immune to the long-term effects of different gravities. In other words, they could go spacewalking naked and survive just fine, while also never suffering bone loss or muscle atrophy from microgravity. Same with visiting high-gravity worlds. They would feel heavier, obviously, but no risk of heart strain, muscle fatigue, bone fractures, and the like.
However, the biggest effect was that they were immune to the ‘Jump Sickness’ that people using Stitch Drives and similar methods of FTL were exposed to. That made them highly prized as navigators and tactical officers for merchants, pirates, and naval vessels, especially when they started going up in Tier. A pilot or tactical officer who could respond to conditions on the other side of a Stitch without being incapacitated for several minutes could mean the difference between life and death, if combat happened unexpectedly.
Hadriel Greene
Greater Infernal Angel Female
Vyllan’s half-sister, by way of my Greater Angel slave Harahel, was also born on the same day. As the child of a Greater Angel and a Greater Incubus, she was born with the ‘Infernal’ subrace, which was one of several options that opened up with that combination. According to the System Shop, she would have the ability to wield both Hellfire and Radiance. Just like Hellfire was a Tier 2 variant of Fire associated with the lower planes, Radiance was a Tier 2 variant of Light associated with celestial being. Very few beings were able to wield both energy types without great strain, and fewer were able to do so naturally. It was like trying to have Fire and Ice occupy the same space.
Angel’s Mystic Armor Tattoo
Type
Tool
Rank
Rare
This silver pen is imbued with magic. When activated, the silver melts and forms a tattoo with protective sigils on the user’s skin. This tattoo may be hidden with clothing or magic, but it will be an identifiable marker on the user, no matter what form they take from that point onward.
Restriction: Only angelic races.
+100 Defense
+5 CHA per level
Mystic Armor – Add CHA to Defense. Reduce all damage taken, from any source, by the bearer’s CHA. Stacks with similar effects.
Angel’s Soulbrand Tattoo
Type
Tool
Rank
Rare
This silver pen is imbued with magic. When activated, the silver melts and forms a tattoo with protective sigils on the user’s skin. This tattoo may be hidden with clothing or magic, but it will be an identifiable marker on the user, no matter what form they take from that point onward.
Restriction: Only angelic races.
+10% resistance against mental effects
+10% resistance against hostile spells
Immune to Puppet Brand, Slave Brand, Familiar Ritual, Enthrallment, or other similar conditions.
Immune to summons below Deity rank.
She got the ‘angel’ versions of the same tattoos Vyllan got, obviously. I wasn’t going to show favoritism to one of my children over the others. That was a great way to wind up with a child who thought about leading rebels to try and take me down. And I was allergic to having my children attempt to slay me.
I often made jokes about the old ‘Evil Overlord’ list that you could still find online, but they were useful guidelines to keep from getting too caught up in my own power, and forgetting that other people would take me down if they had a chance. And some of them were just solid advice in general. For instance, my military definitely adhered to several rules on the list. “1: My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear plexiglass visors, not face-concealing ones.”, “21: I will hire a talented fashion designer to create original uniforms for my Legions of Terror, as opposed to some cheap knock-offs that make them look like Nazi stormtroopers, Roman footsoldiers, or savage Mongol hordes. All were eventually defeated and I want my troops to have a more positive mind-set.”, and “130: All Members of my Legions of Terror will have professionally tailored uniforms. If the hero knocks a soldier unconscious and steals the uniform, the poor fit will give him away.” were all very useful guidelines, even if I had an army, navy, civilian bureaucracy, and so on. Not allowing people to set the narrative for me, and ensuring that it was difficult for people to infiltrate the ranks of my advisors was always a smart play.
However, I’d obviously not followed rule 18 (“I will not have a son. Although his laughably under-planned attempt to usurp power would easily fail, it would provide a fatal distraction at a crucial point in time.”) and 19 (“I will not have a daughter. She would be as beautiful as she was evil, but one look at the hero's rugged countenance and she'd betray her own father.”), given how long ago that train left the station. Especially since my daughter from another timeline helped ensure that she got born in this timeline before I even became an ‘evil overlord’.
Instead, I’d ended up going with rule 141 (“As an alternative to not having children, I will have lots of children. My sons will be too busy jockeying for position to ever be a real threat, and the daughters will all sabotage each other's attempts to win the hero.”), through the simple fact that the cat was already out of the bag. Of course, I was equal opportunity about things, as evidenced by Lilith being my Crown Princess. Both the sons and daughters would be taught and raised the same, and I figured being a decent parent to my kids would help curb attempts to stab me in the back. Because I still wasn’t over the last time someone had literally stabbed me in the back.
That aside, I was happy to say I fully abided by other rules from the Evil Overlord list. Number 40 was a personal favorite of mine. ‘I will be neither chivalrous nor sporting. If I have an unstoppable superweapon, I will use it as early and as often as possible instead of keeping it in reserve,’ was basically the motto of the Ceresan military. Number 48 was another good one, especially considering the number of people who were enslaved to me. ‘I will treat any beast which I control through magic or technology with respect and kindness. Thus, if the control is ever broken, it will not immediately come after me for revenge.’ While most of my slaves weren’t beasts, the point remained. Treating them decently, despite their enslavement, built up a lot of loyalty, especially when they saw that I did, indeed, take care of my people. Making sure the people with all the guns and the people who did all the work were happy with you meant that it was hard for someone to organize rebellions against you.
That kind of thinking is also why I followed Number 188: ‘I will funnel some of my ill-gotten gains into urban renewal projects. Although slums add a quaint and picturesque quality to any city, they too often contain unexpected allies for heroes.’ My efforts throughout South America, helping the different areas recover from the Initialization, and adding the teleporter network so that people could more easily move around, as well as instituting the Ceresan legal model, including the Black Zones and judicial duels, had quickly built up a great deal of loyalty amongst the common people in my Empire.
Oh, and Number 102 was another classic. ‘I will not waste time making my enemy’s death look like an accident. I’m not accountable to anyone and my other enemies wouldn’t believe it.’ Like I did with the Russians, and some of the others who have tried attacking me in the past, I found that a public display of why I was the Demon Lord was a better defense for my empire than anything else. It showed clear cause and effect, and consequences for people who rarely experienced them, which, again, added to my popularity with the masses.
“Master,” Mhyreth’s voice shook me out of that line of thought as she pressed up against me, Vyllan sleeping in his crib. “The courier contacted me. They just entered the system at one of the designated entrance areas. They’ll be docking in an hour.”
“Excellent. Have you figured out a good spot to put the [Contact Mirror] yet? It ought to be somewhere that you can access it easily, and where you can speak privately, but not somewhere that he would be seeing a bit too much of his little girl if he called at the wrong moment, or where someone calling may be able to see and accidentally see classified material.”
Mhyreth nodded, and I could see that she actually had been putting thought into this. “I was thinking about the sitting room off the main Royal Suite. Not the ‘Harem Lounge’, but the other one. That would have the best balance of confidentiality and personability. I don’t want to have Daddy accidentally peaking on the others.”
“Good choice,” I nodded. “Go ahead and set it up the moment it is delivered. I’m sure your father would love to see his grandchild, ant that will give us some more time to figure out where to put his [Transport Beacon], which is the bigger concern, in my point of view.”
“Naturally, Master.”