> Overlord: Dominate Equestria
>  by Jashin
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1 - Evil Always Finds A Way
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I can’t move, is this that sleep paralysis thing?” I thought to myself as I strained and grunted, trying to move at least one part of my body. All that accomplished was causing me to violently cough and hack, my throat felt like it was on fire and ants were crawling up and down it. I gave up trying to move, thinking that this would go away eventually if I just waited.

“Ah ha! I knew that spell was the one to work! See Giblet, alive and awake like I told you, and you said the tablet was probably a fake.” A strangely familiar voice said from above me. I slowly opened my eyes, wincing as the initial light burned my retinas. Most of what I could see was foggy and out of focus, but I could not mistake the distinct and very familiar sight of the impish thing staring into my eyes.

I played enough Overlord to recognize the face of Gnarl, “Am I dreaming?”

A second wracking cough that seized my body said a hard no to that, this was way too real of a feeling to be one of my dreams. And far too painful as well.

Gnarl looked over at someone else, probably another minion, “Hurry up and get the beetlejuice, can’t you see the Master is thirsty?!” Gnarl looked back down at me and singsonged, “Time to rise and slaughter Mast~er, Evil isn’t going to spread itself! And don’t mind the minor paralysis and the dry throat, a side effect of the spell we used to bring you back to life you see. We had a… minor mishap with the original summoning and had to improvise with a rushed Dark ritual, but don’t worry Master you’ll soon get feeling in your body once more!”

“I died?!”





Like Gnarl said, I was able to move not a few minutes later. Immediately after I got up I finally noticed I was in the personal chamber room of what I assumed was the Tower, Giblet began to strap heavy steel armor onto me and added small cape on my back, it was fit for an Overlord. I stared at and clenched my gauntleted fist, the one with the glowing orb thing on it, as I tried to piece together what the hell was happening. I wasn’t freaked out about this situation, or at least not in a way that would have me act like some sort of lunatic, but I was mesmerized by the surreality of it all.

Here I was, some nobody that lived in a crappy and cheap apartment while working a dead end job that somehow, through some leap in logic, got involved in something that I only knew as a game. I suppose this happening to me was for the best, it’s not like I had anything special in my life. No girlfriend, no real career, no family, I’m not someone who would be missed in any shape or form. Heh, my boss could replace me at the drop of a hat, I’m sure there were hundreds of people that could do my job. I stacked and worked in the back of a supermarket after all. My landlord probably wouldn’t notice I was missing until I didn’t pay the rent for the month.

The only things I could say I had going for me were whatever game I could afford at the time, the internet and all its glories, and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I had to scrounge up happiness wherever I could find it and while I can’t say I hold MLP as near and dear to me as others might I do enjoy watching it. Especially the violent stories some make with the show, I get a kick from those. So yeah, this was for the best, I could actually be somebody now and not some no-named and unimportant loser. With this new body of mine, and by the pure muscle on it it was absolutely not my original (I can likely thank whatever ritual they used to bring me here/back to life), I doubt I’d have much trouble physically.

Giblet finished with strapping on my last boot and Gnarl came up to me with my helmet in his claws, “You look like a proper Overlord now, sire. Here’s the finishing touch, I had to complete the last of the necessary enchantments on it before I handed it over. The previous Overlord’s helmet ended up in a volcano, it’s a long story.”

Gnarl held the helmet up to me and I took it, I held it in front of myself briefly and stared at the glowing orange light reflecting from its surface, my new eyes, before nodding and setting it down on my head.

“Perfect! You look absolutely menacing!” Gnarl bowed before me and continued, “Now, while I’m sure you’d love to get straight to the smiting I recommend some practice to loosen up your muscles and make it easier for you to use your minions. Then we can have a nice tour of your new Dark Tower before we go out and terrorize all the peaceful creatures out in the world.”

“Lead the way,” I said, noting that my voice was rather terrifying and unnaturally deep. It’s... hard to describe, but I know it is not something a normal person would have. If it was something being typed out in some fanfiction I've read over the years, it would be bolded in order to show just how menacing it probably was. Despite my new voice I wasn’t going to remain silent like the Overlords in the game, no reason to when I’m the one immersed in what’s going on.

“Of course sire,” Gnarl bowed one more time and lead me out of the chamber, I took my large battleaxe from Giblet as I left. It barely weighed a thing to me but I’d prefer a sword. The walls of my tower looked like the ones in the second game, which means that this is the Netherworld Tower. That’s good, I actually liked that tower more than the one from the first game, the throne was cooler too. Nothing says “Evil Overlord” like lava running behind the throne. Plus the floating stone platforms to different areas were a nice touch as well.

Our journey led us into the throne room and I got a good look at my throne, right now it was rather shabby and broken up. It won’t be for long, and it seems like the minions don’t care about taking care of the Tower if the Overlord isn’t around. I followed Gnarl past the magical teleportation circle that stood between the throne and the balcony that had the floating stones and stepped onto the same floating stone platform he did. We went to the forge and the minion burrows, which was uneventful and kinda boring, Giblet didn't have any other weapons for me to use either. So that kinda sucked.

“This platform we’re on will take you to the new arena we’re setting up, we're thinking about calling it 'Battle Rock Arena',” Gnarl told me and I grinned despite myself, the arena was the one thing I liked about the first tower over this one. Although I can kinda remember something about the second game having DLC that included an arena, sadly I played the game on the computer and didn't have the chance to play that particular expansion. “Right now it’s still mostly under construction and the arena proper needs to be mined out, but we put the minions on double time to set aside some room for you to practice. No sense in finally finding another Master after so long to watch him get killed because he didn’t know how to swing an axe properly! Don’t worry, we brought in a few lifeforms from above for you to kill, as well as starting to breed some beetles for you to harvest life force from near where the hives are to be kept.”

Gnarl sighed, “Sadly, the things above ground don’t breed like did in the past. Before, an Overlord could return to his Tower and come back to find everything had humped themselves back to a sustainable population. Nowadays the only creatures we’ve found that could do that again were these grotesquely adorable ball bugs.”

I stayed silent as we waited for the floating platform to take us a little deeper into the Netherworld, as we drew closer I saw that several brown minions were mining the rock out in a few areas. Really, it looked almost like a game of Dungeon Keeper. Gnarl and I stepped off the platform and I followed him to a separate area just through a small tunnel. We were greeted with a circular room with a high ceiling, almost half of the room was fenced off and I could see several baby seals moving around behind the fence. The other half had several targets standing up a little ways away from the entrance.

“Seals, the damned things can see straight through your soul!” Gnarl muttered. He shook his head and looked up at me, “Feel free to smash them all, you could use the lifeforce anyway. If you require some more swinging practice, we have some targets over there.”

“What about magic? I have never used it before,” I stated.

“Oh, you haven’t? What a shame,” Gnarl said. “No matter, we can work on that after you’re done.”

I nodded and walked over to the fence. I didn’t have any qualms killing these things, they were just animals and it wasn’t like I was doing this without a purpose. The next ten minutes was bloody, babies they may be but the seals still left quite the mess when a huge axe cut them in half. This was part of the game that you didn’t see, lest it became mature rated. Collecting lifeforce was an interesting experience too, when I touched it with any part of my body I felt its energies flood into my body and collect in my left gauntlet’s gem thing to be sent to the Tower’s life pool. When I focused on the gem, I knew exactly how many minions I could spawn.

After finishing off the last seal, and watching several minions come and take the bodies away for what I assume is for cooking, I started learning how to control my minions. That was beyond simple, I give them an order and they do it. I focus on the gem in my left gauntlet, move my hand around and they follow, it was much easier in real life than using a mouse or controller. When all that was done I told Gnarl I was ready for magic lessons.

“Magic is actually much simpler than you’d think. At least, it is for you sire and any other magical creature. Humans from the old age could do magic, but they had to study much longer to be able to do it, or use magical artifacts,” Gnarl said as he stood by and watched me raise my left hand. “Try and feel for that hidden power inside you Master, it should feel like it just wants to burst out of you.”

Gnarl was right, despite the fact that I’ve never used magic in any shape or form before I could feel something wanting to rush out of my body right now. I was able to direct and control it through my left hand, magical lightning shot out of my hand and incinerated the target in front of me. I could feel my magic restore itself to its original amount, probably because I’m in the Tower.

Gnarl clapped his claws, “Well done, sire! Well done! While we can’t say that you’re a proper wizard just yet, you’re on the right track!”

I straightened up and eyed the charred remains of the target, “Do we have spells for me to learn in the Tower?”

Gnarl rubbed his chin in thought, “Hmm, I can look for any old tomes of Dark magic we have lying around, and once you’re properly connected to the Netherworld all of the typical Overlord spells will become available in your mind. There wasn’t much of a chance for the spell stones to be scattered by wayward heroes when the world fell apart.”

I rose an eyebrow as the two of us walked back to the floating stone platform, but Gnarl wouldn’t be able to tell, “Am I not connected to the Netherworld Tower already?”

Gnarl winced, “That is a rather… complicated matter with a simple fix. You see, after the cataclysmic event that wiped the Humans and other races from the land, it was powerful enough to even affect the Netherworld. It knocked a few magical screws loose you could say. Since we didn’t have an Overlord at the time the damage was slow to fix itself. In fact, the last time I checked I’d say it was barely halfway done by the time we summoned you here.”

“So I take it that since I’m here now, and the new Overlord, that the Netherworld will fix itself faster?” I asked as we boarded the platform and flew back to the central Tower.

“At a much greater rate, yes. I’d give it a few months at most, The Overlord is a powerful position after all. If you begin your Overlording now, the time will practically fly by. But, I should warn you, the races above, and one in particular, are much more intuned with magic than the old races. The blue minions can negate and fight back their magic to a great extent, but even they can only do so much. I’m afraid that you will have to become much more magically focused than your predecessors, which is why your connection to the Netherworld is so important.”

“I see, then I will have to add magical lessons from you to the list of things that need to get done. If the races above are as magically attuned as you say, then I need more than destructive power. Theory and a variety of spells are just as important as the numbers of my army.”

Gnarl nodded, “You are correct, sire. Might I suggest sending a few minions out to search the various cities for the magical literature of the land? It would be a good idea to know how much they’ve advanced over the years. With you here now the various teleport stones should start charging themselves with magic and turning back on.”

I nodded and cracked my neck, “See that it’s done as soon as possible. Now, where do you recommend starting?”

“A good question my Lord!” Gnarl happily exclaimed as we stepped off and headed back inside the throne room. “Please, take a seat and we’ll bring up the map!” Gnarl hurried to the side of my throne and snapped his claws to a few minions.

I did as he suggested and leaned back on my stone throne. I should think of getting some pillows or just something to make this comfier, stone is not great to relax on. I did enjoy the heat from the lava running behind the throne, the fact that I wasn’t burning up or instantly passing out from the heat from such close proximity to it must be because of my new body. As soon as I got as comfortable as possible a huge cloth map dropped from up top. Several points on the map had a small glow to them, likely showing where the Tower could teleport me to.

The map itself… looked familiar.

“Ah yes, the current map of the world, it certainly has changed over the years. A small part of the world, to be fair. The map is magical, you see, and can adjust and change itself to suit the look of the world and your current reach. Most of the teleportation stones were destroyed a few thousand years ago and the glowing spots you see know are the ones that are left. We can repair and replace the old ones as we find them, but that’s expensive and for the future,” Gnarl explained.

“Which countries am I looking at?” I knew what I was looking at, I just needed confirmation. This can’t be real.

“Well, the prominent, and most powerful, is Equestria,” Gnarl pointed a claw around the middle of the map, “and this here is its capital, Canterlot. Their main population are… ponies, bleh, and they are the dominant species in the world. Not necessarily by population, although they do breed like rabbits.”

Gnarl shuddered, “And they have the most vomit-inducing set of worldviews I have ever seen! Happiness, friendship, sunshine, color! The world has certainly gone down a horrible path under their hooves, and not in a wonderfully Evil way! Just thinking about it makes my skin crawl with disgust! Peh!”

Gnarl spat and hacked off to the side and into a small stream of lava. I couldn’t help the minor wince in my face, I was actually in My Little Pony and I was a villain. I’m not necessarily proud of that, for now maybe, because the show is really great and all. Plus, the villains have a tendency to lose to Twilight and the gang when it comes to fighting evil. I pondered this for a bit and came to the conclusion that as long as I ignored Equestria for a while and built up my power, I should be able to beat them. Perhaps not in a one-on-one as they have the bullshit hacks of “Friendship Magic” on their side, but maybe more in an indirect sort of way.

I brought myself to attention as Gnarl started speaking again, finally done with his spitting and hacking, “I don’t recommend fighting them first, sire. As much as their continued existence disgusts me on a personal level, they are simply far too powerful a force for you as of now. Their rulers, Celestia and Luna, control the day and night cycle respectively after it was blown off the course the original gods that moved them set for them, and… well, the ponies somehow found some strange magical forces from which they draw stupid wins off of.”

“I see. So, where do we start then? The lands off to the east?” I asked.

Gnarl shook his head, “That is the Griffin Kingdom, and not even the entirety of it, lots of mountains and lots of griffins. I recommend waiting until you have secured the red minions before we venture there. They can burn the wings off of those stupid birds and in so, lessen the chance of death by falling. Much like your typical brown minion, they are easily flammable.” Gnarl pointed further south, in the middle of a desert, “Here, the fringes of the “Storm Kingdom”, although there is hardly anything stormy about it. A nice and easy target for your first Overlord venture, you only need to take one town and then a single castle!”

I eyed the map before us, trying to recall if the movie I watched a while ago actually showed the castle the Storm King ruled in, “Isn’t that castle on a small rocky island with storms? How do you suggest we go about getting there in the first place?”

Gnarl coughed sheepishly into his fist, “Yes, well. For that all you need to do is… “obtain” one of their many flying ships. Get one of those, fly the right flag, and you can land right in the middle of the castle and take it for yourself! With your new lands and the subjugation of the townspeople, you can make a tidy profit from trade that this kingdom relies on since there is not a lot of usable lands. Not much is illegal here and therefore, quite an extensive market for others to come by for things they can’t get in places like Equestria, which has a very tight grip on illegal goods.”

I admit it is a good starting point. Trade notwithstanding, the flying ship or ships themselves would be a huge boon for me. With it, it would make invading and moving things around much easier. Hell, Tempest and the Storm King’s army was able to move across Equestria with nary an objection from the country until they landed and attacked. I nodded to myself, Klugetown is my first objective.

“Then it's settled,” I said as I got back up from my throne.

Gnarl clapped happily, “Oh how wonderful! It’s been so long since I’ve seen a good ol’ fashioned Overlord smiting! I’ll prep the tunnel minions to dig a few pits to spawn more minions from right away! Just stand in the center circle sire and think of where you wish to go, the Tower will do all the hard work for you!”

I grabbed my axe and marched right in the middle of the teleportation circle. I did as Gnarl said thought about teleporting to Klugetown, in an instant the various slabs of the circle slid into the Tower and I ended up floating inside a pillar of mana with nothing under my feet except an expanse of nothingness. Immediately I flew upwards and in a flash of blue light, I found myself in the heat of the desert. I looked behind myself and saw a small circular magical stone glowing in the sand just a few feet away, the lines and runes faintly glowed with magical energy. Off to my right, a pit opened up and began glowing an ominous yellowish-brown.

I heard a tap, like the one you’d get if you tapped a microphone.

“Hello? Sire? Oh blast, is this thing even- Oh, good! Greetings sire, how’s the weather up there?”

“Hot and dry, like a desert.”

I heard Gnarl chuckle, “Oh, good one sire! Glad to see Evil hasn’t lost its sense of humor! Anyway, with this minor spell, I am able to relay any information to you through your helmet and see things from an outside perspective. Sort of like a scrying spell.”

I already knew this, but it's something that’s fun to experience for the first time. “Useful,” I said as I eyed the spawning pit.

“Quite. Now, while you might be tempted to take all one hundred and fifty of your minions out right now and storm the town, might I suggest taking only a smaller honor guard and scout around the city first? You shouldn’t be attacked unless you attack first.”

“So, I don’t have a limit on the number of minions I can bring out at a time?” I asked as I focused on the glowing pit, raised my left hand, and felt the call of my minions. Instantly, minions began jumping out of the pit and running towards me with cries of “The Overlord!” and “Masta!”. I pulled out twenty-five of my brown minions and eyed them as they formed up behind my back.

“Of course not sire, this isn’t some game with rules and regulations! You are an Overlord! You’re far above such petty trivialities.”

“Good to know,” I said as I cracked my neck and rolled my shoulders, experimentally shooting off some lightning into the sand to see if my magic regenerates unlike in the game. It did, seemed to be fast enough, and I was happy. I eyed the Tower gate, “Nobody can use this teleport circle, right?”

“Not unless you give permission or the invader is skilled or understands enough Dark magic. Don’t worry, sire, out this far and away from any place of learned magical pursuit you’d be hard-pressed to find skilled mages here. They tend to be scholarly and only a rare few have the stones to brave danger beyond a paper cut from a book.”

I looked around, trying to find where the town was when I saw a blob that looked like buildings off in the distance I guessed that was where I needed to go. I glared at the sun above me when some shiny bits of sand reflected its rays into my eyes. “This is going to be a long and tortuous walk,” I muttered as I reluctantly began my hike to Klugetown.
> Chapter 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was right.

The walk to Klugetown was a miserable experience filled with nothing but heat and sand, and I hate sand, it’s coarse, rough and irritating, and it gets everywhere. Just from a short amount of walking through the desert, I felt a few pounds heavier just from the stupid stuff piling inside my boots. As if to mirror the opposite of what I was feeling, my minions seemed to be having a blast kicking sand into each other’s eyes. I suppose I should just be thankful I wasn’t feeling dehydrated considering I was garbed in full body armor while walking through a hot desert.

Despite my internal grumbling, the trip itself was pretty boring. There were only a few things that broke the monotony, one was the occasional run-in with desert beetles. Luckily, I wasn’t really needed to fight and my mood lifted a bit when I received the life force my minions brought me. One of my minions even, somehow, strapped part of the least broken shell one of them left behind as a helmet. He is now the de facto lead minion in the field. The other interesting thing came from one of my minions breaking a cactus and drinking it, he promptly went delusional and high and began swinging his club at anything he saw until one of the other minions smacked him out of it.

Cactus juice, not even once.

After the trip, my minions and I finally entered the town and I had to say that I wasn’t too impressed with it, even in person. The buildings looked run down and stained, there were shady people everywhere I looked, and the sky looked super polluted and dusty. I mean, I kinda got that the town was not meant to be some pretty paradise, but the place looks even worse in person than it did in the movie.

“Hey mister,” a pig-looking merchant in a rickety looking wood stall called to me as I passed, “How much for one of them little imp guys? Three Storm Bucks? Four?”

I just ignored him and continued my walk through the town while pushing through the crowd, my minions dutifully staying behind me. The trip through Klugetown was a chore, it was a lot more crowded than the movie suggested it was and all of the inhabitants stunk in some way.

“This town has quite the character to it, wouldn’t you agree?” Gnarl asked.

“It certainly has something, alright,” I replied.

“Yes, it’s not the grandest of first conquests but every Overlord has their humble beginnings. Speaking of conquests, I suggest looking at the various docks for anything of interest, docks are very vital when an army relies on its ships to get about.”

“As grand a plan as any,” I couldn’t help but think to myself. I didn’t need to say anything and just continued my way through the town, I know this place has a few docking points around the city but if I was a gambling man I’d say the Storm King has direct control of the biggest and most important. He needs a way to readily supply a large army and ships quickly and scattering his forces would not be a good idea, the smaller docks were likely used by the civilians and thus not very important beyond wealth. From the movie, one would think he was just a goofy idiot, but I’d wager he’s at least smarter than he looks or acts.

I stopped and glanced around, looking for a way to reach one of the tall rock formations that the larger docks seemed to reside on. From what I could see from all the way down here, the rocks had a spiraling staircase that wound all the way around until it reached the top. My eyes lingered on one of the rock formations had had a few docked ships and a large cranking crane that was pulling supplies up from the ground, the ships looked like they belonged to the Storm King.

“Looks like you found your target, sire. Normally one such as yourself shouldn’t bother with taking the stairs, but the crane is probably well guarded up at the top and they wouldn’t like someone hitching a ride on it. Best keep the element of surprise for now.”

Bummer, stairs are not fun.

My posse and I began our climb up the rock’s spiraling staircase, about halfway up I paused a moment to gaze over the city itself. Seeing it from all the way up here... in a way, I’d give that Klugetown has its own charm about it. It was not a pretty sight, not by a long shot, but the smoke and dreary atmosphere did fit the town more than a bright and cheery sky would.

“Ooh, so high up!” One of my minions exclaimed, leaning precariously over the side rail of the staircase. He proceeded to fall immediately and if it wasn’t for one of the other minions standing close by and catching him he would’ve died. And I was not climbing all the way back down for him, just getting to this point took twenty minutes.

I tore my eyes away from the city skyline and once more began my upward climb. Odd enough, I wasn’t tired. I’ve been on the move all day and my body feels like I have barely done any exercise at all. Had I been in my previous body I would probably be on the ground gasping for air before I made it even a quarter up this staircase. I’m not complaining, far from it, but it was a surreal experience coming from someone who wasn’t used to it.

The top of the staircase finally came into view and when I crossed over the final step the only thing that separates me from the dock was a long paved path. A pit opened up in a small enclosing created by a few buildings off to the side, a brownish-yellow glow came out of its depths.

“Quickly, sire! Summon up your minions and launch a sneak attack on them before they finish loading up their ships!”

I motioned my gauntleted hand at the pit and more minions leaped out of it with glee. I took out all the brown minions I was able to and soon enough the space was filled by the impish devils. I grinned, I was happy to not have a limit to the number of minions I can have at my immediate disposal. I didn’t say anything and just began walking down the pathway to the dock.

As I came closer I noticed that there was a disrepaired gate and a walled section around the dock itself, one of the Storm King’s guards at the gate spotted us and jumped in surprise before sounding the alarm. Almost immediately guards began swarming towards me with weapons drawn.

I responded by pointing with my hand.

“Chaaarge!” My lead minion yelled as he sprinted forward with the rest of my minions following his example with hoots and joyful hollars.

My minions overwhelmed them with their superior numbers so I didn’t need to bother with joining the fight myself. The guards of the Storm King were slain quickly, minions were a lot stronger than they appeared to be. The first wave was finished and most of my minions were busy collecting new weapons and armor.

“For the masta!” I heard from my left. I looked down and saw one of my minions holding up a yellow ball of lifeforce. I just held my hand out and let it be absorbed into me, more and more minions were coming forth with more lifeforce and the occasional bag of gold stolen from the bodies of the guards.

I heard shouting and looked over at the ships, more guards were moving around on their decks.

“It looks like there are only six airships docked here right now. You probably won’t need more than two but more is always better. Try and send your minions in one ship at a time, they would be more effective fighting in there than your large frame and weapon.”

I pointed at the nearest docked ship and my mini army swept over the gangplank and began their fighting in earnest. The fighting didn’t take long and they came storming back out with more new gear, lifeforce, and gold.

“There aren’t as many guards as I would have thought, this is far too easy,” I said to Gnarl as I did the same thing to the next ship.

“While I said that this town relies on trade, it’s not as important to the Storm King as you’d think beyond being a potential staging ground for an incursion into Equestria. No, most of his wealth and supplies come from conquests on the other side of the planet. He doesn’t hold any territory over there, not enough manpower, so no need to worry about that.”

“I see,” I remarked as I worked on the fourth ship.

“Yes, it does not shock me that he neglects the garrison here. The Storm King isn’t one for caring about upholding the laws here as long as they give him tribute and it's not like Equestria is ever going to invade. As far as he is concerned he doesn’t even need to pay attention to this place.”

I had just sent my minion into the fifth ship when movement ou the corner of my eye caught my attention. The final ship was leaving the dock and there wasn’t anything I could do about it right now, my minions were still fighting against the crew of the fifth ship.

“Ooh, bad luck, sire. Seems like getting into the castle is not going to be as simple as we thought.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I replied, annoyed despite my words. “We’ll just have to do this the hard way.”

“Indeed, it’s a good thing I had the minions start on breeding beetles for lifeforce. We’re going to need a bigger army soon.”

I couldn’t help but agree with Gnarl’s words, but I also knew we were going to need to study the ships to know just how they worked. My minions came back from the fifth ship, giving me gold and lifeforce. I looked over at the warehouses surrounding us and shrugged.

I pointed at them and commanded, “Loot the warehouses and bring me back the valuables.”

My minions cheered and danced at the order and dashed to the first door of the warehouse, entering in through the smaller door first and opening the larger door from the inside. I heard the smashing of boxes and barrels and smirked in amusement when I saw a cloud of dust and splinters escape from the warehouse’s doors. Minions rushed out with gold and jewels in their arms.

“For the master?” It came out as a question from one of my minions. I looked down at it in confusion, it was holding a Storm King action figure up to me. I swatted the top of its head in anger.

“I said, bring me the valuables,” I grunted in annoyance. “Not… whatever that is.”

“Sorry, master! I go bring you shinies, yes?”

I just sighed and waved my minion off.

“Shall I have him flogged, your Darkness?” Gnarl asked.

“No, don’t waste your time,” I paused and looked around the dock, taking my attention off of looting. “Any chance of placing a teleport stone here?”

Gnarl hummed in thought, I could imagine him placing a finger under his wrinkled chin.

“From all the looting so far, I’d say we have a little more than enough for one. Our funds would be practically bone dry, I should warn you.”

“We can always get more,” I said. “Get whatever you need ready and pick a spot to place it down here. I’d rather not walk across the desert every time I want to come here.”

“Yes, that would be rather inconvenient. I shall get it done post-haste, sire. We can even grab one of those dock cranes when it's done, it would speed up reconstruction of the tower.”

I didn’t reply as I turned to one of the ships, giving it a curious inspection. The warehouse looting has come to a crawl and I suspect there wasn’t much left to get from them in terms of immediate wealth. I marched across the gangplank of a ship, it was time to start learning the ins and outs of the Storm King’s ships.
> Chapter 3
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Examining one of the ships was a bit of a time-consuming process due to the fact that I was a huge hulking figure in heavy plate armor carrying a massive ax and most of the people in this world weren’t as large as I now am. Seriously, these halls were narrow as fuck for me with all the things inside of them and I could barely turn around while carrying my weapon. I also didn’t trust the minions to find anything intellectually important when I was already standing close by and not busy so I had to carefully examine everything I could see by myself.

Each of the ships had a manual to go with them that taught about how to properly operate and fly the ship as well as keep them maintained in top performance. I took every copy of it to send back to the tower, making a note to go through the book at some point in the future while I stood outside deciding where to put the teleport stone.

I also ordered all flags and everything that had something to do with the Storm King tossed overboard and burned with an oil lamp found nearby. All images of his kingdom's symbol were crudely painted over with the symbol of the Overlord by the minions with some paint they found in the warehouses. No point keeping all of that now, they already know I’m coming and conflict is inevitable.

“Sire,” Gnarl suddenly spoke up. “I have some good news! The Tower is coming along much more nicely than I had originally thought! I was able to use only a bit of your, uh, still starting out treasury to make a new Nethergate instead of a simple teleport stone! This gate is able to drill from the netherworld straight to any location you have been to and marked! Plus, it even retracts back into the ground to keep any pesky meddlers from messing with it and leaves a tasteful tower of spikes when it does so if I must say!”

“Useful, how do I set a location?”

“Just feel your magic through your connection to the tower, sire. The spell should simply be a part of you. Though I should warn you, try and keep these gates for important locations only. These are very powerful Netherworld constructs so it is best to keep them only in important areas that require their strategic presence, like towns or places where great wealth is extracted. Minor teleport stones like the one you arrived on are better for more remote areas that aren't of immediate interest.”

I concentrated on my gauntlet and my magic, the power came rushing to greet me with eager anticipation, ready to be used. Gnarl seemed to be right, much like my Evil Presence spell I knew how to use a small bit of magic to place a spell on an area that the gate can connect to. I walked forward towards a nearby warehouse that had its front storehouse gates wrecked open and barely hanging on their hinges.

I pooled my magic into my gauntlet clad hand then pointed it at a spot in the center of the warehouse. A bolt of lightning shot from my fingers and slammed onto the ground, there was a small moment of time where I only saw a small red light on the floor until the ground started rumbling. Suddenly a twisting rock-like drill made of curved black spikes spun out of the ground, sending dirt, dust, and debris everywhere as the warehouse ceiling and parts of its surrounding walls were destroyed and flung away like confetti.

The Nethergate unfurled from its drill-like appearance into its more gate-like form and stood proudly in front of me as it spilled out a beam of blue magic into the air from its center. Smaller rumblings were heard as minion pits cracked the ground near the left side of the gate, though only the brown pit was open and glowing. I nodded, this is a good start.

I pointed at one of the smaller cranes, my minions didn’t need any more instruction than that and several rushed over to grab the device. They carefully maneuvered the crane towards the gate then set it down so that it could be teleported to the tower.

“Gnarl, is there a place in this blasted land to store the ships away from the town?”

“Hmm,” Gnarl pondered. “I believe so. Would you like me to send over some maps with the location? You can send some minions to park the ships near one of the teleport stones to await your orders, but they’ll probably only manage to get them in the general area.”

“Yes, send four,” I simply said.

“Very well, Master. Give me a moment.”

I only really need one of the ships right now and I didn't want the others to be potentially damaged in the upcoming battle, the rest I wanted to send away as backups just in case I lose the one I‘ll be using. I only had to wait a few minutes when one of the tower minion guards popped out of the Nethergate with several papers clasped in its claws. It rushed over to me with a wide grin and presented the maps to me.

“For the master!”

I took the maps from the minion, it saluted then rushed back to the gate. I eyed the minion army I still had summoned, trying to decide how to choose who to pick to fly the ships. It was then that I noticed that four of the minions were each wearing what looked like a captain’s hat and decided that they were going to be the ones that will fly the ships.

They had the hats, it’s clearly fate.

“You four,” I said, pointing at each minion. They rushed forward to stand in front of me and saluted, “Take one ship each and take ten minions to help fly it. Now, wait until I say you may leave.”

I handed each of the newly minted minion captains a map, it had a helpful red circle that marked where we were at right now and a large arrow that pointed toward an ‘X’ where they needed to be. The four minions saluted me one more time then rushed around the rest of the army to pick out who was going to go with them before settling themselves in front of a ship each. I mostly tuned it out and focused on something else.

“Is there a better way of dominating the minds of the people here?” I asked Gnarl. “I really don’t want to do it one by one, that is far too tedious and annoying considering the population size down there.”

“Well, sire, if you stand on the Nethergate and allow it to replenish your magic you can do a more magic-intensive ritualistic channeling of your Evil Presence spell. It will allow you to influence the minds of all the weak-willed peasants in a large area in one go and get them working for a proper Evil, the bigger the area the more magic is needed. But I should warn you it is only meant for the particularly weak-willed so you may come across... eh, rebels that won’t take kindly to your new rule. It’s also a very noticeable spell while it’s being done, you will be vulnerable as you channel the spell so be sure you're well guarded lest you need to do it all over again.”

“How noticeable?” And where was this in the game? Hunting elusive civilians was annoying.

“It is a large beam of concentrated dark magic being shot into the sky, sending clouds of energy and corruption around the area in a spiral of darkness and Evil. As you are new to this magic business it may take you a while to complete it.”

“Very noticeable,” I dryly remarked. Well, it's not like control of the town was necessarily off the table with that information. The minions just need to keep the rabble off of me and since I didn't have a limit that is allowed to be out I'd have an entire army between the enemy and me. That and I don't want to have to come back to this place too much. I just want to dominate it, decide what the newly added "citizens" of my domain are to provide me, then move on to literally greener pastures and only bother to return if rebels happen to appear.

“Don’t worry sire,” Gnarl replied. “The stronger and more used to your strength you get the easier and quicker it should go in the future! Evil always has to start somewhere!”

I hummed, which sounded more like a growl, and decided to start off my decision in a smaller way for now so that I can learn some more magic before the battle. I’ll dominate this town once I have more than one combat spell available to me. This was a dock and therefore there had to be civilian dock workers and others who had knowledge of the ships hiding away from the fighting. I know I only killed guards and troops during my assault.

“Search the rest of the docks,” I ordered as I took a place on one of the higher steps of the gate. “Bring anyone hiding to me.”

My minion army cheered and yelled, leaving the more military part of this dock and charging the buildings just outside of it. I could hear the stomping of feet and their whooping alongside the occasional crash when something broke. I wasn’t worried about being unguarded, I still had forty-four minions waiting by the ships.

I heard screaming and yelling, it seemed that there were indeed some people hiding from all of the fighting. My brow rose when I felt my connection with two of my minions disappear but I put that aside. It seemed some had more spirit than I had expected.

About ten minutes later I had a large group of thirty dock workers knelt before me with minions surrounding them. They were a diverse bunch of creatures, some were cat people, some weird fish-looking people, even a couple of earth ponies. Well, the species mattered not, I just needed slaves to do the more complicated part of ship flying that the minions might not be able to do and workers to build the defenses for what is about to come.

“Oh sweet Celestia,” I heard one of the ponies mutter as he stared at me and the Netherworld Gate behind me in horrified awe. He was a brownish stallion that had several minions grinning, dancing, and jeering at him with weapons at the ready.

I didn’t say anything and just started. I picked the first victim that was closest to me.

“What are you gonna do- argh!” the fat thing with tusks started to ask before he started screaming as my Evil Presence spell did its job. I could feel his life force and mind as I channeled the spell, I had this man’s life in my grasp to do with however I wanted. Just a simple pulse of the spell and he will fall over dead.

What is interesting to learn about is that the spell is, lorewise, a torture spell and an enslavement spell and a killing spell all wrapped up in one multipurpose magical tool. Whoever created it was a utilitarian genius and should be applauded for their effort. It is easy to use and inflicts unimaginable pain across the target’s body using dark magic, a strong mind is needed to overcome that pain while a weaker one gives in to the evil energy coursing through them. It’s why it’s so useful against the weak willed, a fact that will likely serve me well when I get to Equestria proper.

Conversely, a twist here instead of a pulse will render him devoted to me. Serving whatever task I assigned with fanatic fervor even if it will kill him.

I almost gave in to the pulse of destruction, the feeling of this guy’s life in my hands was intoxicating and I honestly wanted to snuff it out just to see what happened, but I narrowed my eyes and twisted the mind of the dock worker instead. I was the Overlord, I don’t give in to anyone but myself least of all a spell that is under my control. I don’t let corruption control me as I was the one who corrupted and controlled.

All of this happened in a few seconds though it felt like several minutes to me, I moved on to the now terrified second victim as the first began loudly worshipping me on his knees. Then I got to the ponies, coincidentally the last in line.

I stood in front of the first, staring down at his shaking form to see what feeling a real life pony from Equestria would invoke in me. I didn’t care about the other races of this world as I didn’t spend several seasons watching them and a single movie with a brief glimpse just wasn’t enough.

Is it strange that all I felt was apathy? Was it because he wasn’t even a background character to me? Just some no-named and unremarkable pony? Would I feel something if this was, say, Lyra or Bonbon? One of the main cast? Is this apathy towards life because I was the Overlord or something else deeper?

I stared at this pony for well over a minute while I contemplated, his shaking getting even worse the longer he stared into my unblinking burning eyes. I just grunted and pointed my hand at him, his and his fellow pony’s screaming echoed across the docks like the others as I finished up. I ordered eight of the newly dominated citizens to split up evenly and accompany the four minion groups manning the ships. The rest stayed on the docks, worshipping me and awaiting my orders.

I watched the ships sail off into the distance then turned to face my new slaves and ordered in a thunderous tone, “Start fortifying this place. I want that gate to the staircase fixed and barricades between the docks proper and my tower gate. Find any and all weapons and armor and bring them here. Minions, guard this base.”

“Would you like Giblet to make some siege weaponry, sire?” Gnarl asked. “The fools of the Storm King's army seemed to have forgotten to install any in a military base and I can spy several good locations to place them.”

“He can do that?” I thought to myself. “Oh, right, the Overlord does have his own siege weapons like when he assaulted the Empire in the second game.”

“Yes, this place needs proper fortifications,” was my reply as I watched the slaves run around to eagerly work for me and my minions begin to guard entrances and exits as well was patrol the area. I now had time to kill so I moved toward the gate and stepped into the middle. I felt a pull and suddenly I was in my throne room suspended by magic until I was dropped on my feet to the floor.

The tower was busy, general staff minions were running around with brooms and hammers, cleaning and fixing things as they passed. I could even hear sawing going on somewhere.

“Welcome back sire,” Gnarl said by his place at my throne. “You’ll be pleased to know that the giant beetles we’ve gathered from around the desert wasteland have taken quite nicely within the Netherworld. They’re hardy creatures and the magics of this realm have mutated them to be able to breed rapidly. The guard minions are enjoying themselves as they constantly slaughter them, so be sure to check in every now and then to collect the gathered life force near the minion hives.”

I rested my ax over my shoulder, “Can we not collect it automatically?”

Gnarl scratched his chin, “Oh, certainly! But something like that costs money and, well… we don’t have nearly enough. Plus, Giblet is quite busy fixing the tower and making the siege weapons. He’s a hard worker but he has his limits. Best to prioritize and all.”

I grunted and accepted the logic, “Very well, what about any magic tomes inside of the tower? I want to start learning while I wait for the counterattack coming.”

I really need some spells with more range if I’m to break the army of the Storm King when they arrive.

“Ah! A proactive Overlord!” Gnarl smiled with all his teeth. “Very well, I’ll gather up the fundamentals and a few basic dark magic spells for you to learn. Should be simple enough for someone as magical as you, sire. Dark magic has always been more about intent and forcing your will into the world instead of working with it. It may take some time for me to grab everything, so take a visit to the hives and stock up on life force, we may need it. Or don’t, it is your prerogative as the Master.”

I dismissed him with a nod and briefly watched the old minion hurry off to one of the unblocked alcoves in the throne room. He must have stored the books in a place where they wouldn’t have been damaged.

I decided to follow Gnarl’s advice and walked over to the platform that the flying stones parked at. Giblet was missing from his spot but that wasn’t surprising, I saw Mortis standing next to the spot that would take me to the minion hives. I made my way to him and waited as the rock traveled over to us.

“Greetings, Master. You come to collect the Life, yes?” Mortis asked me as we stood in the center of the rock and flew off. “Good, good. If you need to bring back minions come find me. Balance must be maintained, death for life and life for death.”

I didn’t say anything but that didn’t put the strange minion off as he casually walked towards his usual post by the flowing water that held the souls of dead minions. Mortis paused and pointed at a rocky bridge that led to a small area with four tunnels dug into the rock, that definitely wasn’t in the game. Three of them had boards put up over the holes while the one on the furthest left was open.

“You find life force there, much death is happening. Brings much life.”

I went straight for the tunnel, not wanting to waste any time when the first official battle with the Storm Kingdom wasn't too far behind. I could hear yelling and cheering and the sounds of fighting going on. When I exited the tunnel I saw a large pit dug into the rock of a very spacious room with metal bars rising from the edges of the pit to the top of the room. Off to the side I saw rocky and bare windows that gave a small view of the tower. Minions were jumping and cheering behind the iron bar as they watched a large group of minions fight against a horde of beetles that rushed out of another hole on the opposite side of the pit. It was a mini and rough looking coliseum.

Every time a beetle died the life force, usually between one and three, was sucked up into a glowing blue magical device on the ceiling. I hummed as I watched the fighting, the minions were entertained at least. 

I turned and examined the rest of the room. It was mostly bare rock with a few of my banners hanging on the wall. The only thing not bare rock was another device like the one on the ceiling attached to the wall, though this one was smaller and near the exit. I figured that these were the things that stored the life force so I placed my gauntlet over it and felt the life force drain from its storage into my minion pool.

“Two hundred… not bad,” I mused to myself. “If only it was this easy to get life force in the games.”

With that done I left the minions to their own devices and headed back to the tower proper. Gnarl was waiting for me with several books resting on one of the arms of my throne.

“Ah, visited the minions I see. Good, good! Let’s get started then!” Gnarl grinned toothfully.

I set my ax down and let it rest against the other arm of my throne as I took a seat. Gnarl opened up a book that didn’t have a name on its cover and started his lecture.

“First, Master, I must begin by stating that all magical creatures have some instinctual use of magic and it can manifest in any number of ways. The humans of old were the rare exception, most had absolutely zero magical capabilities and the rare wizard had to study and practice often to use their abilities…”







Several hours later...

Thunder boomed and lightning flashed over the island that housed the castle of the Storm King. Rain battered the windows as the perpetually gloomy structure stood firm against the elements while overlooking a large military port and town that housed the army and armada of the Storm King. The walls of the throne room of the castle were a dark bluish gray, the banners of the Storm King hung in intermittent distances with torches and large windows between them as the room moved from the large doors to the throne. The throne itself laid atop a raised platform, all made from the same stone as the walls though the throne was carved with images of lightning and had several dark blue cushions laid over its seat. A similar color made up a lengthy rug that traveled from the base of the throne and down its stairs to stop several yards away from the platform.

The Storm King himself sat on his throne, legs kicked up over one of the arms while he examined one of his action figures.

“I just… I dunno,” he said to the mare standing before his throne. “I just don’t feel like they really got the left side of my face right. Do I really look that pale? Is my fur on that side going bald?”

“Your Excellency,” Tempest said, “You’re not going bald.”

“You could just be saying that!” He shouted, stretching himself from his throne to stare down at her. He sighed and resumed his lazing while inspecting his nails, “Anyway, what about that whole, uh, staff of whatchamacallit? The thing that’ll let me control the world, bring storms, and all that.”

“The Staff of Sacanas,” Tempest replied. “The staff that will allow you control over all the Alicorn magic in Equestria.”

The Storm King snapped his fingers, “Yeah! That! How’s that coming along?”

“I have some of our top soldiers already following my lead,” she said. “I sent them to several locations that, from my own research, is where I feel the staff may most likely be at. As these are powerful ruins with many magical defenses we must excavate them with great care in order to obtain the artifacts within without destroying them. Even if the staff isn’t in these areas you will have many magical items waiting for you.”

The Storm King scowled as he slowly inched his face forward and scrutinized the unflinching pony in front of him. Suddenly his face brightened and he smiled, “Great! I’ll be expecting-!”

The doors to his throne room burst open and one of his guards rushed inside to kneel before the throne next to Tempest.

“What?! You better have a good reason for cutting me off!” The Storm King yelled.

“Your Excellency! I have urgent news! The military port of Klugetown has been captured along with five of our ships! Only one managed to escape alive, they report that the rest of our forces there are dead!” The guard replied.

“What?!” The Storm King snarled. “Who?! I need to know who I’m about to destroy!”

“We do not know who. The survivors say it is some huge figure in heavy armor with glowing eyes and a large ax. This creature commands an army of some sort of small vicious imp creatures. Over a hundred rushed the port without warning, they had no idea where they came from,” the soldier answered.

The Storm King gripped the arms of his throne, annoyed that he'll have to further delay the acquisition of an important magical artifact more than he already has had to do. His fleet of airships just recently finished pillaging a surprisingly difficult empire and many were damaged, though he and his armada gave far more than they took. He knew it will take some time to finish the essential repairs needed for them to fly properly. He jerked his head to Tempest, “Prepare the rest of the armada once they are flight-capable, I don't care about the outside hull just focus on the steering and propellers! Cover the holes with planks if you have to! You! Go with Commander Tempest!”

“Sir!” Tempest nodded, turning around and quickly rushing off to relay the orders with the new soldier hurriedly following her.

The Storm King growled as he shot up from his throne, already ready to teach this new annoyance a hard lesson on why you should not cross him. He did not spend years pillaging empires and building his fleet of ships and soldiers just to let some no-name walk over his hard work. He also wasn’t willing to forgive those that interrupt his chances at obtaining ultimate magical power.
> Chapter 4
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tempest stood on the bow of the Storm King’s flagship, one of the few ships in the Storm King’s armada that avoided any real damage besides the ones stored at Klugetown while the rest awaited repairs at the main castle docks. Even her own personal ship wasn’t spared. She narrowed her eyes at the black speck of a town in the distance, anyone that got in her way from healing what she had lost needed to be gotten rid of.

Storm clouds rolled over the sky as they flew straight at the town, announcing their arrival with the typical flair the Storm King demanded while the desert blistered in the bright sun everywhere except their target. The city itself looked like it was being subjected to a storm as well, what looked like black clouds swirled over the sky of the dirty city with its center being the docks they were attacking. Tempest frowned and turned to one of the Storm Guards, “Spyglass, long distance.”

Said tool was grabbed from an open barrel of them and wordlessly handed over, the mare grabbed it with her hoof and held it up to her eye. Tempest scowled as she eyed the small figures running around, they didn’t look impressive but she could see the evil chaotic gleam in their slightly glowing eyes and sharp-toothed grins. The most heavily armored and equipped with more than a wooden club stood guard behind walls of barricades that blocked the way from the protruding piers to the inside of the docks proper. She estimated there to be at least two hundred of the small figures, an impressive number that should give a stiff resistance to their own forces. They also only had one ship, the missing four were gone, which was tethered on the other side of the docks away from where the fighting was going to happen and defended with black spikes protruding from the side of the rock spire to prevent damage to it.

The tall spire of rock the docks sat on had been turned into a fortress. Black spikes that gleamed in the sun had burst forth from the rock itself around two and a half stories tall, surrounding the docks in a way that almost reminded Tempest of a circular Venus Flytrap. More spikes were raised inside the walled-off docks, disregarding any buildings that may have already been there as they pierced through them, a clear deterrent to prevent them from simply landing behind their defenses and forced confrontation towards the piers and the docks nearest it. She didn’t like their chances against trying anyway, the black spikes did not look weak.

Tempest turned the glass, her open eye narrowed suspiciously.

The more lightly armored imps, in groups of eleven, giggled and danced at various points. Though what brought her suspicion was the fact that these points did not have any walls covering them and were left completely bare. Almost like invitations…

Tempest scowled and moved the spyglass to the biggest unknown.

It was foreboding in design. Black and spiky like the walls surrounding the docks yet also spilling out a blue beam of what was clearly a high concentration of magic. In all her studies of magical artifacts during her quest to fix herself nothing rang any bells as to what they were dealing with. The beam was spilling up all the way to the sky, purple and black lightning decorated and swirled around the blue beam as it traveled upwards to the center of the swirling black clouds covering the city. Tempest could see an armored figure inside the magic itself, it was floating in the air with one gauntleted arm raised as if it was grasping something and the other hanging by its side with an impressive ax in hand.

Tempest could understand the fear the survivors shared when she interviewed them. The armored creature was definitely unnerving to look at, something on a primal level that she was not able to place. Its deep blue almost approaching black skin seen in the gaps between some of the armor of its arms didn’t seem to have any fur yet it was obviously not one of the amphibian races. Its glowing orange eyes pierced through the eyeholes of its helmet as they narrowed in concentration, not even the magical beam kept Tempest from seeing them. The mare shook her head and grimaced, the closer she got the bigger this new headache she had just gotten became, and the more her horn tingled and occasionally sparked with magic. She took a moment to rub her head at the base of her horn.

“Well, any sign of the one I’m about to crush?” The Storm King spoke up from behind Tempest.

Said mare took the spyglass from her eye and hoofed it over to him, “Yes, your excellency. They are inside of the… magical artifact, doing something that I’m not certain of.”

“Magic?” He asked and put the spyglass to his eye. He grinned widely, “Well, well, well. That looks promising! If this guy wanted to hand over something like that he didn’t need to do all of this!”

The Storm King laughed loudly for a moment before he turned his gaze to the rest of the docks. “Hmm, I don’t remember there being spikes around those docks.”

“Most likely some sort of magic,” Tempest stated the obvious. “There are several artifacts that can do similar things. The Obsidian Wand of the ancient Dragon Lord Gargle the Glutton, for example.”

“Hmm,” the Storm King hummed. “We can’t land far inside the docks, the gaps are probably trapped, and the only entrance is through the heavily defended piers…”

He suddenly grinned evilly.

Tempest looked up at him, “Sir?”

“Order two of our most damaged ships to ram the docks at full speed, I want to stare at that artifact I’m about to grab a bit longer. Also, I want some of our ships to park next to the staircase leading up to them,” the Storm King told Tempest. “We’re going to shatter their defenses then storm the port from two sides!”

“Sir, you want-”

“Ha!” He barked out a laugh. “Get it? Storm! Because I’m the Storm King! Oh, I’m a genius!”

Tempest rolled her eyes outside of the Storm King’s view, “Your Excellency, what about cannon fire? We can do a lot more damage that way.”

“No!” He yelled, his previous jovial attitude gone. “What if you hit the magic artifact?! I already told you my orders Tempest, get to it!”

Tempest sighed but turned away and went to relay the orders.







The battle had started.

Tempest watched as their two most damaged ships headed straight on a collision course to ram the docks while the rest of the armada was to wait above the outskirts of the city. Movement caught her eye and she moved her new spyglass to see what it was.

The ground in front of the imps guarding the exposed sections of the wall shifted. Then towering rock-like structures burst forth and settled neatly into the spaces, leaving no gaps in the walls. On top of the new structures, which were twice as tall as the wall itself, were huge and very heavy-looking siege weapons settled on a mechanism that allowed them to turn. The imps rushed forth and manned them, loading up huge boulders as ammo and moving on unseen and unheard orders. Two large ballistae also erupted from the ground not far from the magical artifact, flanking it on both sides and giving them a direct line of sight to the piers.

Tempest’s horn throbbed and sparked.

The tower weapons fired at the approaching ships, a couple managing to hit them while the rest sailed past and struck the desert surrounding the city. The ship that had been struck and was already more damaged than the other began to slowly swerve away from the target, it sailed at a downward angle before crashing into the sands as it barely missed the city proper.

The second ship made it mostly to its target. Its steering seemed to also be compromised from a lucky hit so it struck the pier and docks at an odd angle, leaving a trail of wooden destruction and a few broken buildings as it slid to a stop. The Storm Soldiers that were still alive stumbled out of the wreckage though their lives weren’t long as the imps had avoided the crash entirely and mercilessly slaughtered the disoriented soldiers in a wave of bodies and steel. Tempest watched as one took the helmet off a soldier and placed it on its head as another grabbed its weapon and danced excitedly. More naked ones soon came running and equipped themselves with whatever they wanted.

“Hmm,” the Storm King seemed to be thinking to himself while rubbing his chin and staring at the wreckage. “Those imps are good minion material. See that gleam in their eyes? They have no qualms about killing, it’s like breathing to them and they’re pretty strong for being so small! Wonderful! I might have to recruit them for my army!”

Tempest didn’t say anything and continued to look over the battle.

The docks had lost a decent bit of their barricade defenses on the ground. However, the siege weapons were still active and constantly tried to hit the armada as they moved around. Once it was clear that they could do real damage from this range the Storm King ordered that no ships should stay stationary. Even with those orders a few of their ships couldn’t keep up due to their previous damage and succumbed to the onslaught, sending the ships, their crew, and their cargo into the desert sands.

The Storm King didn’t seem to care about the losses and raised a hand holding a magical talking device that relayed orders to the armada to his mouth, “Groups one and two, drop off the assault troops at the piers then circle back and wait for further orders. Fly above the ships and drop down by rope if you have to just do it quickly! Groups three and four, assault the gate from the staircase once you’re disembarked. I want that armored idiot at my feet before this day is over!”

He turned to the mare beside him, “Tempest, you’re going to lead the assault on the gate.”

Tempest stood straighter, “Sir! I won’t fail you!”

“You’d better not,” he growled. “As long as you remember that only I can restore your horn, you won’t let failure get in the way.”

“I’d never.. gah! Agh!” Tempest reeled back and grasped her horn as it suddenly sparked with black pops of magic. She shook her head wildly as the air around them began to feel heavy and charged, the swirling black clouds over the city formed by their enemy seemed to grow thicker and a dark haze covered the sky for miles past them. Tempest could feel strange magical energies start to seep into her through her shattered horn.

“No!” She suddenly screamed and jerked her head, her horn popping with magic several times in one last burst as what happened finally passed. Tempest lay on the floor gasping and rubbing her head between her hooves.

“What… what just happened?” the Storm King asked, rubbing his head as he briefly felt a small pressure but was otherwise fine. “Anyone getting this? Anything to add?”

“I don’t know,” Tempest replied. “The air… it suddenly spiked with magic but it felt wrong. It was invasive, and Evil.”

The Storm King glanced in the direction of the docks, at the beam of magic that had just intensified. He looked back at the other soldiers around him, all of which appeared to either be rubbing their heads or seemed fine and unaffected. His face twisted and his eyes narrowed in fury as the gears turned in his head.

“Assault the docks. Now! Leave nothing alive!” He roared at his army. He glanced down at the mare who briefly struggled to stand up before turning away from her and glaring at the distant enemy.







“You’re doing remarkably well, Dark One,” Gnarl spoke up. It seems those quick remedial lessons paid off.”

I didn’t say anything as I concentrated on channeling the spell. This was nothing I’d ever thought I’d feel. I felt thousands of connections that could be made with my Evil Presence, thousands of lives in my hands as magic was constantly drained and filled from my body using the energy from the Netherworld. I could feel every sketchy citizen in the city and even the soldiers of the Storm King's armada. It took a lot of concentration from me to keep from getting lost in the sensations as I channeled all this power.

“Oh, it seems that the pretender has started to attack us for real,” Gnarl said. “I was getting worried he was all bark and no bite!”

As the attack was started I was only able to give silent and simple orders using my gauntlet and connection to the minions. I couldn’t spare too much thought on them but I was able to keep my army from being crushed by a ship and set so-called guard points for my minions.

There was no banner like the game, it was more like an order to “defend this area” or “don’t let people through here”. It was even flexible for the minions, they don’t just stay in a tight circle like the game and instead actually use things like cover and choke points.

My general orders besides the ones given to the minions that manned the siege weapons were to kill attacking soldiers, defend the gates and docks, and keep enemies away from me. The slaves I mind-controlled a day or so ago (time is hard to tell in the Netherworld) had moved to stand in front of the gate to keep people away from me as the airships got closer.

The magic ritual strengthened once more, it was nearing completion.

“Oh! I do love to watch a good bit of bloodshed! It reminds me of my days as a younger minion…”

Then the first of the enemy armada latched onto the piers. With a resounding battle cry, the enemy soldiers jumped from the ships and charged the minions who let out their own war cry in response. The two armies then began the very bloody fighting, though I think only the minions were having a genuinely good time during it.

The second set of ships arrived right above the first. A few were struck with heavy rocks and knocked into others, creating a large mess that tumbled into the battlefield and the city below. The ones that survived had ropes thrown overboard and more soldiers dropped onto the pier to join their comrades. Some died with ballista bolts pierced through their bodies as the minions manning them fired.

The ships themselves weren’t inactive, some fired what few cannons that were properly aimed towards us and destroyed one of the tower siege weapons. Well, it’s good to know that this world does have some sense of weapons on ships.

“Ooh, we need to get some of those, Master,” Gnarl said. “Shame about the minions I suppose, though I never liked Ratty!”

More minions jumped out of the minion gate at my brief urging and rushed towards the fighting, only pausing to grab anything that looked like a better weapon. The initial charge of the Storm Soldiers was good, their larger frames and shields helped a lot to push the minions back. But the minions gave back far more, fighting with vicious and gleeful savagery as they struck at every bit of flesh they could find.

To me, even as I was channeling the domination ritual, the soldiers seemed to be better at intimidation than life or death fighting. Which made this a bad matchup for them. When the initial shock of their charge slowed down they had to stand against the constant fighting pressure of the minions who had no fear of death, unlike the enemy soldiers. Once or twice I could see a soldier here and there try to give up as the slaughter of their friends continued, only to be struck down without mercy.

Not to say that it was entirely one-sided, a lot of brown floating magical skulls that signaled dead minions were popping up across the battlefield. Hopefully, they were mostly the newborns, the ones with actual armor, weapons, and experience would be more expensive to bring back using Mortis.

“Master!” One minion came up to me. “Furry soldiers come attacking gate! Pony lead attack, is good at fighting!”

“A pony good at fighting? Huh, now this I must see!” Gnarl scoffed.

I was almost done with the spell.

“Take more minions and hold them off,” I managed to growl out an order as the final moments of the spell were about to take place. After summoning more minions I didn’t acknowledge the minion any further than that as the beam got stronger, for a moment I thought I heard a singular cry of pain past all the others going on in the battle.

Minions poured out of the minion gate and followed the minion that spoke to me, cheering as they headed to where Tempest was likely fighting. My eyes narrowed further as a flood of lives and minds began to slowly collect into my figurative hand.

Once more the desire to snuff out every life reared its head, but I snarled and shoved it aside. Now wasn’t the time to indulge in something like that. I felt what Gnarl called “evil energy” pulse inside of me as I used my magic to bring forth more corruption into the minds of the people around me. 

I can remember some kind of energy called that in the first game, it’s collected inside beings of evil and can supposedly be absorbed by the Overlord for power. If my memory serves correctly it was actually called corruption in the first game, you do sins like killing innocents or keeping food for yourself instead of starving peasants, and your personal corruption increases. Lore wise it was supposed to increase your power, though I think it was just cosmetic and affected the ending in the game.

Corruption was replaced with Tyranny in the second game. Whether you just straight up killed everyone or dominated their minds as resource-producing slaves. But it was clear to me that I wasn’t limited to a single game.

My hand twitched as magic power gathered around it, the minds of the weak overwhelmed by my evil energy and corrupting them to serve me. The energy seemed to feed itself, every mind that I overwhelmed fueled my power even further and in turn, increased the amount of evil energy inside of me. At one point I began to notice that the domination started to get faster.

My gauntleted hand clenched as I flew a few feet higher into the air then slammed back down. Magical lightning burst and arched around me and the gate as the magic spilled out. In a pulse of power, the beam of the gate sent one final bit of energy into the blackened sky as the connection between my newly enthralled citizens and me finalized. The swirling blackened sky and the dark haze further out from it was now a permanent feature of this town and area, showing to all that I was its new master.

I could feel the increase of my magic. The more evil I do the stronger I get. The more evil beings of the world that I kill and drain of their own energy the stronger I get. The more I dominate, the stronger I get.

I felt wonderful.

"Your power has increased, sire. What a great day for Evil, hahaha!" Gnarl cackled with sinister undertones.

As I stepped down from the gate with my ax in hand I observed the ongoing battle. The pier was largely handled battle-wise with the more armored minions doing a good job holding the now slowly retreating enemy back. Nonetheless, I pointed my hand at the groups of enemies and let loose a blast of lightning at them. My magic seared through several of the soldiers and many more as I kept the magic spell up. When I was finished a score or more of the soldiers lay dead and blackened on the ground.

Then I turned my hand up and a black flame of dark magic appeared hovering over it. I let it condense and shoved more power into it before pointing my hand at the slowly retreating ships that decided to simply leave behind their own soldiers instead of facing me. Like a flamethrower, the dark flame lashed out from my hand and covered the ships as I swept my hand through the air. Soon the ships were aflame and the soldiers on board were panicking, though they were still flying away from the docks.

"Oh, nothing like some good old-fashioned arson to really get the evil blood flowing!" Gnarl almost seemed to sigh dreamily at that. "Why, I can almost feel the flames from down here!"

I decided that they’d probably make it out of the city before succumbing. Klugetown wasn’t that big of a city widthwise, mostly thanks to the sands of the desert and the fact that most of it was settled on a large rock outcropping with large and lengthy gorges surrounding it.

The minions cheered and began fighting with greater vigor against the remaining soldiers left behind. The few that weren't fighting were happily dancing on top of bodies or pools of blood as they watched the ships burn in the air and their fellow minions kill the remaining enemies. I decided to keep them here to keep guard just in case the Storm King tried another attack and pulled fifty more of them from the minion gate before moving towards the gates that led out of the docks. Tempest was easy to spot, being the only pony in the fight and all. She seemed to be weary and in pain as she fought for some reason, though that didn’t seem to keep her from knocking around my minions.

I raised my hand as I clenched my fist, a black spike of Netherworld rock pierced out of the ground. It snapped out of the ground and floated next to my hand as I readied myself as if I was about to throw a javelin. Tempest noticed my approach and I threw the rock, she agilely jumped to the side and the spike instead lodged into the stomach of one of her soldiers.

I loved dark magic, it was such a simple yet powerful way of using magic. It was also perfect for someone in my situation as the magic was all about using my power to force my will and intent upon the world. Since I was limited on time and didn’t have the luxury of staying indoors to practice my spells in a typical way of studying magic it was the quickest way of increasing my chances to do damage and survive. It wasn’t super efficient though, at least right now, and I was mostly limited to combat applications but I can just get better the more I use my magic. Dark magic also kinda fits with my domination way of bringing tyranny to my new domain.

…Shit, to the Equestrians and Crystal Ponies I’d just be Sombra number two, right? Well, at least I’d better make sure I don’t die such a lame death then.

I pointed at the battle and my minions charged. Tempest tried to hit me with one of those green things she used in the movie but I just jumped to the side and ignored the area it struck and broke upon after it flew by. For someone of my size, I was kinda deceptively quick and agile. The relatively slow hulking gate of the Overlords in the games has to be only for intimidation purposes.

I threw another spike at the mare and she jumped on it as it passed by before springing off and landing a kick on one of the minions across the battle. It was a newborn so it died pretty quickly and left the signature floating minion skull, no real loss. I continued forward into the battle, swinging my ax at the nearest enemy soldier that tried to attack me. It blocked my ax, though it was flung back due to my strength, it’s tiny shield was torn in two, and I could see a lot of blood gush out of the wound on its arm. The downed soldier was swarmed and quickly killed by my minions. When I joined the battle proper the minions grew into a heated frenzy, laughing, howling, and fighting even harder than before.

"Remember sire," Gnarl spoke. "Minions are always at their best when in the presence of your Dark magnificence! Whether through increased strength and speed or a better sense of fighting ability. Because while they can fight well when away from you it is merely passable, only when you are guiding them do they shine with true murderous intent! This can be boosted even further with the right spell, but we'll have to shelve that for now."

Another tried to attack me but a minion stabbed it in the leg. As it fell to the ground I lifted my ax and stabbed the head down over its head as hard as I could, crushing its skull and helmet into a mixture of fine paste and crumpled metal. This fight at the gates was going well despite the presence of Tempest and the many dead minions by her and her soldier's hooves/hands. But it couldn't last long, the enemy soldiers were thinning out more rapidly due to the increased zeal of my minions and some even started running down the stairs. They simply couldn't fight against beings that thrived on being in battle, were decent fighters, quick and strong despite their size, and were easily replaced.

“Hrrah!” Tempest yelled, one of her legs lashing out at me. I managed to turn mostly away from her hit but her hoof still caught me on the shoulder and forced me to stagger back a step before I caught myself. There was a very loud clang that rang across the battle as her hoof met the metal of my armor but it didn’t manage to dent the magical and minion-forged steel so I only felt a bit sore. It seems that I was a lot tougher than I previously thought.

“This impudent pony dares to harm our Master?! Teach her a lesson, sire!”

I ducked under another strike aimed for my head and retaliated with a swing of my ax at where she landed. Tempest leapt to the side and tried to send some sort of magic blast at me with her sparking horn. She suddenly stopped as her magic fizzled out and she gasped with strain.

“Grah!” She yelled while violently shaking her head and sending tiny magic sparks across the road. “I can’t lose now! I have too much at stake!”

"It seems she's already on her last legs, she certainly didn't last very long," Gnarl commented.

I didn’t know what was going on but took advantage of her weakened state anyway and pointed at the mare, the minions around me followed my unspoken command and charged her. They had the opportunity as her soldiers were either dead or running away. Tempest snarled and stood her ground, giving up on using her limited magical abilities and lashing out desperately. Even in her weakened state, she gave a good fight by knocking minions around and tanking hits, sadly even with all her skill the sheer numbers and the minion's own skill slowly overwhelmed her. Several cuts appeared over her legs as minions scored slices, her armor around her chest (barrel?) was cracked, her tail was now half of its previous length, and she was breathing heavily. I took hold of a minion by its neck and flung it at Tempest, she almost didn’t notice the flying minion but managed to strike it in the air with a well-placed buck.

She didn’t seem to expect me to charge her as her hooves were still in the air, nor the heavy soccer kick I gave to her underside with my armored boot. Tempest cried out in pain as she went flying towards a wall only to slam back first and collapse in a heap, she struggled to get up as my minions approached her.

“Oh ho ho! And that’s two points for Evil!” Gnarl commented.

“Nighty night!” a minion cheerfully said before slamming its club into the side of her head. Her neck almost looked like it stretched from the force her head was subjected to as blood and what looked like a tooth flew out of her mouth. The mare crumpled to the ground while the minions cheered and danced.

“Clasp her in chains, cage her, and imprison her somewhere in the tower,” I ordered as the battle came to a close. “I’ll be speaking with her later.”

My minions, the ones not grabbing every bit of armor, loose weapons, life force, and other assorted valuables anyway, roughly grabbed her by her legs and dragged her away from me. I was lucky that she seemed to have been weakened somehow, between the two of us she was clearly the more skilled fighter and I still don’t know my true limitations just yet. I really needed to learn how to properly fight, maybe Gnarl has some actual combat lesson that was more than 'smash this' or 'kill that'.

Sigh, it was just another thing I needed to do to ensure I don't die stupidly.

A loud explosion drew my attention and I quickly ran to the piers to see what that was about. I caught the settling smoke and debris of one of the ships I had set alight as it fell to the ground in the desert. Since there were cannons here I assumed the flame managed to catch the gunpowder store. I was also a bit surprised that it wasn’t as far away as I’d have thought, but I guess that battle tends to make one's sense of time do weird things. The other ship was also still on fire and was slowly sinking and falling apart in the air.

The rest of the Storm King’s armada slowly retreated while my remaining siege weapons flung more rocks at them, including the ships that were around the staircase that spiraled around the rock formation of the dock. I was a tad surprised that I lost more of them as I hadn’t noticed them being destroyed. I needed to work on keeping track of the battle at large in the future.

Well, at least they weren't any great loss.

I summoned more minions from the pit and set them loose to do more guarding and collecting. I lost a good chunk of them during the battle even after spending time learning about magic and getting more life force from the minion burrows. About half my total army was gone and I didn’t like that, clubs just didn't kill as well as sharpened metal and flesh was weaker than armor. I’m going to really have to make sure they were properly geared up in the future, I think the main reason most died was because they didn’t have enough armor to go around.

With the battle done I just flexed my will using my gauntlet to let my newly dominated slaves get to work collecting the tribute for me, like the blacksmiths making weapons and armor for my minions alongside usual business or excess wealth from trading reported and given to me. Enslaved to my will they may be but they still had enough autonomy to be able to interact with other people, trade with visitors to the city, and generally live their much more simple lives. They just worship me and let me do anything I want.

Actually, now that I think about it...

I stood near the crane that moved things from the docks to the city below and stared at the city itself. I raised my gauntlet and a loud bellow echoed through the minds of everyone connected to my will, my minions briefly stopped what they were doing to stare at me and the few dominated citizens on the docks did so as well.

With the attention of my subjects gathered I forced my orders into their minds, "Subjects, I order you to bring those not under my thumb to my minions at the military docks."

If I had any luck the previous ruler or other decision-makers of this city were already dominated, but if it turns out they weren't then it was best they be brought to me. I needed someone to do all the boring shit I didn't want to do, like go over files and organize trading, and have the experience to do it.

I needed to prepare for my assault on the Storm King anyway, as it was only natural that I do so in kind. Life force is easier to come by though arming the minions will take a while even when the citizens were happily working for me day and night. Plus I had a mare to interrogate for information or, if she was not going to be cooperative, simply enslave to my will.

I stepped into the gate and once more found myself in my throne room.
> Chapter 5
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Ah, good work Master,” Gnarl said as soon as I arrived back at the tower. “It’s always nice to see the world slowly return to the hands of proper evil.”

I landed on my feet as the magic lowered me back to the floor. I glanced around and saw that scaffolding had finally been placed around the throne room and the general rubble had been cleared away. My throne even looks a bit nicer now, instead of a simple bare stone back the stone itself was a bit more ornate in its carving with some black spikes sticking out of the backrest’s sides and a red fabric covered part of the front of the seat’s backrest. It looked like the next level of the throne for the Overlord before you get to the different ones for the mistresses.

Must have fixed it up for me while I was busy fighting.

“Yes, rebuilding the tower has started rather well,” Gnarl said as I ascended my throne and took a seat. “Though if you want more decorations you’ll need a mistress to spend your hard-looted gold on baubles and knick-knacks. Mistresses like baubles and knick-knacks, I’ve found.”

“And the prisoner?” I asked.

“Unconscious,” Gnarl replied. “For one so able to kill the minions she is remarkably fragile. That blow to her noggin will keep her out of commission for a while but we should be able to keep her alive and contained indefinitely even without the blues to mess up her magic. Though I’m afraid we won’t be getting anything about the Storm King from her any time soon.”

I grunted, I had something different to pick her brain for anyway, “That’s fine. About the tribute of Klugetown, have the minions direct the slaves to store weapons and armor in one warehouse and wealth in another. Preferably near the gate.”

“Stocking up I see,” Gnarl grinned. “Very well, Master. Consider it already done.”

“Good, I’m going to take a break then collect more life force and train,” I leaned back on my throne and just did my best to relax and feel the magical energies of the Netherworld flow through me. Perhaps if I spend some time just getting a feel for them it would speed the recovery of the Netherworld and bring it back to full power. I could use the Halo spell.

Gnarl bowed then scurried off to get my orders done.

“Hail! The Overlord!” Quaver cheerfully exclaimed as I rested and enjoyed the heat of the Netherworld. I didn’t have a chance to interact with the jester minion much but he was amusing. “Now we minions brought a Master we’ve been missing and soon he will send the whole world pissing!”

Though his poetry left a lot to be desired sometimes.







My time in the Netherworld was spent well. My minion pool was well-stocked with brown life force and I took the time to practice using magic and swinging my ax. Granted, a couple of days wasn’t exactly much when it comes to fighting experience but getting to know my body a lot better helped immensely anyway.

I stepped down from the Nethergate into Klugetown after a flash of magical blue lightning from the gate announced my arrival. I glanced at the brown summoning pit for a moment but decided to not bring any minions out just yet. I needed to examine what was gathered from the town first.

I looked around the port and noticed two warehouses that had several minion guards outside their large entrance gates. One had a picture of a spear and shield and the other had a bag of what I assumed to be gold. I fought the urge to go to the warehouse full of promised wealth no matter how hard my greedy heart wailed and instead walked over to the new armory.

“Open the gate,” I ordered a minion guard who saluted and promptly followed my command.

“Yes master!”

The gate creaked open and I stepped into the well lit warehouse. It was surprisingly organized, though that might be the fault of the slaves bringing things in. Or Gnarl, he might be evil but he likes to keep things tidy.

On my right I saw barrels of weapons lined up against the wall, most of it wasn’t things you’d arm a proper military with but they were made of sharpened metal and thus better than a wooden club. Plus, minions weren’t picky. Next to the weapons were boxes of just about anything that could be placed on a minion’s head and provide some sort of protection. I was just glad most of it could be considered actual armor if squinted at long enough. To my left were more boxes, though it was a more smattering of things than the helmets. Metal bits with dubious looking leather straps, what was supposed to look like shirts of leather but were actually a bunch of leather straps and belts, bent metal that was meant to be bracers or leg armor.

“Yes, not the best quality armor for your minions,” Gnarl said. “But it should be good enough for now. Do remember that almost all of this is just what was immediately gathered from the town and not something properly produced by the locals. Proper armor and weapons take some time to make especially when the town isn’t set up to be a smithing hotspot, which is probably why so many Overlords just like to burn and go. No patience whatsoever.”

“How many minions can this warehouse fit?”

“Assuming nothing broke? About three hundred and forty, give or take.”

I summoned that amount from the minion gate then pointed at the warehouse, “Arm yourselves, do not break anything.”

“Yes master!”
“Yippie!”
“Pillage!”
“No pillage, stupid!”
“Forward!”

As I watched the minions arm themselves I couldn’t help but snort, it was a chaotic mess of jumping over each other or pushing others aside to grab something they liked. I looked around at the rest of the port as that was going on, my ship was officially recoloured and an image of my helmet was now covering the Storm King’s symbol. The dock workers were busy supplying my ship, I was almost ready to leave and finish this fight.

“Finished!” I heard a minion gleefully shout.

I turned around and saw that all of my minions were now armed and armored in some way. Many were chuckling and bouncing on their feet.

“Gnarl, any place to put the wealth in the tower?”

“Hmm, the gold, perhaps, could simply be placed in your Private Quarters. The Storm Bucks could be used as toilet paper for the minions… Hmm, no, just the precious metals and gems for now. There was actually a surprising amount of wealth gathered here and what’s in the warehouse isn’t even all of it, of course it was all from the storehouses of the corrupt and wealthy businessmen but they don’t have a need for it anymore now that you’re here. Much of the wealth is actually trading goods, exotic cloth or other rare goods and the like. This being an airship port and trading town and all that. Might be good for decorating once we have the tower all fixed up.”

I hummed and waved for a guard to open the gate. The warehouse was indeed filled with a truly grand amount of wealth taken from the town. A quick order to my minions and a very strong emphasis on not breaking a single bit of my new wealth and the warehouse was quickly emptied of the gold, silver, and gems, leaving only boxes of trading goods that I wasn’t going to fill my tower up with.

“Perhaps we could sell some of this to passing merchants, get some more money and not let this all go to waste,” I commented.

“Do you wish for me to take inventory of your newfound wealth and sell, say, half of it to whoever wants it?”

“Yes, gold or usable materials to make better minion equipment with.”

“Your will be done, Dark One.”

Once everything was sorted I sent all but fifty of my minions back into the gate, leaving me with a decent honor guard. I didn’t need an army everywhere I went and just in case something happened I won’t lose all my better-equipped minions. I wasted no time and boarded my ship which had finished being loaded with supplies as I talked with Gnarl. My minions quickly got to work taking whatever station they wanted, some even hung by some ropes and another took his place by a large drum that had been added. I stood behind the steering wheel and directed us out of the port, ready to take the fight to the Storm King.

Nothing happened for the next few hours as we sailed through the sky and I quickly grew bored of sailing an airship. I thought it’d have been more fun than this but all I’ve done is correct the course and watch the empty sky. Even my minions were getting restless.

“Master! I see big castle!” One minion suddenly yelled, energetically pointing a claw at something in the distance while hanging off the side of the ship while holding nothing but a rope to keep him on board.

I grabbed a spyglass from a minion that was acting as my personal servant for the trip and held it up to my eye. I saw a very stormy island with a castle sitting somewhere in the middle of it all. There was a very unnatural looking storm centered around the island, the circling clouds almost reminded me of the ritual I used to dominate Klugetown only with a lot more heavy rain, lightning and thunder. The entire island was shaped sort of like an oval, the landscape was rocky and hilly and reminded me of the typical terrain you’d find in Greece just on a smaller scale. There was also a large bay with a small port and shipyard connected by a road to the castle, the port was very busy with workers running around and airships docked and floating in the water waiting to be serviced.

I spied several cannons placed on cliffs around the island that pointed outward to the surrounding sea, providing coastal defense and making this harder. At least five sets of three and all of them rather large.

“Well, at least their homeland defense is better here than Klugetown,” Gnarl said. “You won’t be able to make a safe landing with those cannons armed and very dangerous, sire. You should eliminate some to make yourself a staging ground. Also, I think this storm around the island is magical in nature. Give me a moment…”

I directed the ship to circle the island once to get an idea of where to land as Gnarl muttered to himself. Once that was done I ordered to start the cannon fire at the defenses closest to the port and did my best to let the returning fire miss my ship. One shot came close, flying through the gap between the deck and the underside of the balloon. A minion yelled and pointed his saber dramatically at the island, the shot from the cannon he was directing at one of the cannon defenses next to the town got a lucky landing and blew up the gunpowder stored there. The resulting explosion killed the guards and disabled the cannons. The minions cheered at the carnage.

I directed the airship up a bit more as more cannonballs flew through the air at us. I hated missions like this and the constant rain, even if slightly blocked by the giant balloon over my head, didn’t help.

I brought the ship lower again and the entire port side of the airship fired their cannons, the minions cheering as some hit their mark and removed another set of cannons. That made two out of five cannon defenses gone and all of them from this area of the island. I could see a small beach next to a rocky path that led upward to the rest of the island. A potential staging ground.

Suddenly the sky lit up and a flash of blue lightning shot down from the sky, barely missing my ship and catching me off guard. I swore under my breath and quickly maneuvered the ship a bit further out from the island so I could see what just caused that.

“I think I just found the cause of this storm, Master,” Gnarl interjected as I began my search. “See those tall black obelisks?”

I did see them and directed the spyglass at the closest one. It was a very tall monument that tried to reach into the sky and was made of a black stone, with glowing blue runes in a straight line from bottom to top and small sparks of electricity coming from the pointed tip. One of the runes looked like the Storm King’s symbol. There were three of them surrounding the castle at high points, two on tall cliffs next to cannon batteries and one near the port on another tall cliff overlooking the bay that only looked to be reachable by a path that was connected to the city. Each was heavily guarded and formed a triangle of sorts around the island with the castle as its center.

Another lightning bolt tried to strike at me but it missed by a bit of a wide margin, it seems that those obelisks have a range limit. As I glanced around the island I saw one of the obelisks dim a bit and more magical lightning started to collect near its tip.

“I see!” Gnarl cheerfully said, I could almost see him throwing a finger in the air before rubbing his chin in thought. “Each obelisk only has one shot before it needs to recharge its magic but as you can see the third isn’t firing its own magic. That must mean that there needs to be at least one of them active to keep this perpetual storm rolling. Take out two of them and they can’t use those things offensively anymore!”

“But this is still a rather dangerous situation, sire. Perhaps it’s best if you stick to the ground where you can do the most damage with minimal risk to your Dark personage. It might be a bit of a walk but it’s better than drowning or being electrocuted to death by being a large flying target!”

“Yeah, I agree,” I said as I eyed the magical obelisks and shoved the spyglass into the arms of a minion. Maybe the Storm King found these things and decided to brand himself based on what they did.

I waited until another lightning blast was launched at us then directed the ship to the beach I spotted earlier. I wasn’t as good at landing this thing as I was flying it through empty air so the… docking was a bit rough. Still, the ship was safe on the beach and a ramp was dropped to the sand to allow us to disembark.

As I stepped onto the beach a rumbling near the end of the beach where the proper island began and the sand ended was heard and a brown-lit pit erupted from the ground. I raised my hand and called out all of the minions I equipped earlier. With my army summoned I began the march further into the island, the rain constantly striking my armor and being annoying.

I followed the path as it led me up a rocky hill. Once I reached the top I was able to see the port from my new vantage point. It took up the entirety of the bay and extended a bit out from it to make room for whatever the Storm King needed for his army. The port was walled with a palisade, keeping me from simply waltzing in from any place I chose. The only gate into the town was the one that was connected to the road that led to the castle.

The road split the port town in two distinct areas where the docks had a straight shot towards the castle. The two areas of the town were a bit chaotic in street design, nothing was necessarily a dead end but it was like looking at road spaghetti when the buildings were all close together. The only real neatness in town planning was the main road and the docks, showing what the Storm King thinks is the most important aspect of his temporary domain.

I looked at the castle itself, it wasn’t far from the port. The castle had a moat around it and a drawbridge that was currently up so I wasn’t able to assault it just yet. I wasn’t able to get any exact details from this distance but I was fairly certain I’d have to knock that drawbridge down before dealing with the defenders inside.

I turned to face the port town again and began jogging in its direction.

“You’ll have to get rid of the armada first, Master,” Gnarl said. “Don’t want them thinking they can just leave while you’re busy smiting them or just blow you up with their cannons!” 

The minions followed me as I made my way to the gates of the town. I was hoping I could just get it over with, but I somehow doubted it’d be that easy. As the gate came up I could see that there were no actual gates on the frame, as if they were taken off for whatever reason. Oddly, I did see several metal rods with bluish writing like on the obelisks covering their length sticking out from the wooden frame

“Halt!” I heard a voice say, sounding like it came from a speaker. It was vaguely familiar…

I paused on the road, my minions halting their advance and eagerly waiting for me to give my orders.

“Another step and you’ll feel the wrath of the Storm King’s second-in-command!” I looked at the gate that had a small barricade blocking the road where a short blueish-gray creature with white hair along its spine was standing on top of and talking into a device that I recognized from the movie. Also the creature, but I never bothered to remember his name. He flinched when my gaze locked with his.

“B-Behold! The power of the Storm King!” He loudly announced and threw a finger into the air as three guards dropped what looked like a lightning rod behind the gate in the center of the road and just in front of the barricade, quickly getting out of the way after one fiddled with something on the rod’s base. Soon the rod was zapped by lightning and the balled tip of the rod buzzed with electricity before spitting bolts of it into the several metal rods implanted into the frame of the gate, forming a sort of electrical shield that prevented passage through it. The creature was getting more nervous the longer I stared at him.

“You shall not pass you strange and very t-terrifying armored creature that I will not be fighting! Your acts of defiance will be crushed by the evil foot of the Storm King!” Then he quickly threw the device he was talking into at one of the guards nearest him and bolted away from the area with great gusto. I grunted in annoyance.

“Well, you won’t be getting through that without becoming an extra-crispy Overlord,” Gnarl commented. “But I have a feeling that breaking that obelisk in the town will get rid of that blasted lightning shield. Find a way inside the city and take it out!”

I doubled back a bit and looked around for another entrance into the port town. As I crossed the rocky terrain and kept an eye on the wall of the port as I did I spied a small hole in the wall next to a large boulder, it was just large enough for a minion to run through. I spent the next few minutes looking for a safe spot, finding one hidden away from prying eyes amongst the tall rocks and hills. It was a slanted bit of rock that stuck out of a hill and created a sort of roof over my head with several rocks acting as walls.

I looked at the ground in the middle of the little area and reached out towards the Netherworld. My connection to it did grow as I had continued to just feel the energies of it through my body when I had the chance. As such I was rewarded with the ability to sprout small pieces of it (a separate thing from the spell I used to throw spear rocks at Tempest) from the ground as a shard of pure Netherworld rock. This shard was more magically charged and enabled me to use my magic in a different way to control a minion of my choosing, just like the second game.

I placed all but forty of my minions as guards for my body, the rest were dancing around the now taller pillar of Netherworld shard as one danced on its top. I stood in a less easily spotted location from the entrance to this area and charged my hand with magic. When the magic was ready it lifted me into the air with my arms outstretched to my sides and I felt my consciousness leave my body and slam itself into the eager mind of my minion.

“Oh, I can never get used to seeing this…” Gnarl bemoaned as I dropped from the shard and back to the ground. “Please hurry, sire, I don’t wish to see you like this for much longer.”

I just snorted and led my smaller group of minions towards the hole in the wall. Being this small after finally getting used to being so tall was a little jarring but the distance from my shelter to the hole in the wall wasn’t that great. I and the rest of the minions slipped through the hole, finding ourselves in a maze of towering boxes and barrels.

Not wanting to make too much noise we snuck past the boxes without destroying any. I did my best to try and stick to the edge of the palisade wall and any cover I could see but luck ran out when we came across a building that was right next to the wall and did not leave enough room to squeeze through the gaps. The building itself, much like the rest, looked like a bit more of a modern version of a building I’d see in one of those Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

With nothing else to do I looked at my minion and using my connection to them I silently ordered them to duck down. The building had a door close to a three-way intersection of smaller roads. I waited for a moment then quickly checked down the paved streets for any sign of enemies.

Spotting nothing the minions and I ran down the road then down another that led us into an opened door. The minions giggled and snickered as we inadvertently smashed the place apart with just our mere presence passing through before smashing a table to make a ramp so we could jump out a nearby window and run along the wall once more. I saw the port come up and we stopped behind a building near the edge of it.

“Hmm, the ships aren’t manned right now,” Gnarl observed. “Perhaps they’re all too busy guarding the town and other important places on the island.”

When I was sure the coast was clear the minions and I rushed to the nearest ship. It was a bit apart from the rest of the ships docked here but that seemed to be by the design of the pier. Once aboard I ordered the minions to take positions on the ship’s cannons. When they were all in position they all took aim at their own targets and readied for my order.

“Try to aim for the powder stores, you don’t want to be there for longer than necessary and have the entire town’s army on your head before you’re finished!”

“Fire!” I did my best to thunderously yell my order with the voice of a minion, it didn’t really work. With gleeful cheers the minions fired their cannons, the roars of the shots echoed through the town and slammed into the sides of the unprepared enemy ships. We managed to do this several times in a row before I could see the enemy response start scrambling towards us from the main road.

“That’s it, Lord! Crush those ships! Burn them into cinders and flotsam! Oh, those explosions are music to my ears!” Gnarl eagerly cheered. “After so long without doing Evil under a master this is getting me all fired up! Destroy that infernal obelisk and take over this town for your Dark Domain!”

The ships were already burning and exploding by the time I saw the first few soldiers come running to us so they were too late to stop me. With one final order the cannons of the ship aimed upwards and pointed at the obelisk sitting on the small hill on the other side of the town. I didn’t want to try and find a path through the city and try and assault the obelisk when it only had one entrance to its location. Well, not with my current forces as a posed minion anyway. With the crack of several rounds of cannon fire the obelisk eventually exploded into shards of dark stone that then caused a secondary magical explosion taking out the surrounding people.

Quickly abandoning the ship after dropping a lit torch near the barrels of powder the minions and I engaged some enemy soldiers on the pier. The enemy was a disorganized mess right now, there were no tactics being used unlike back in Klugetown. The empire in the game was a tougher nut to crack even though the individual units would have been weaker than the ones we were fighting.

If I had to guess, this was the short one’s fault.

The minions rushed forward with battle cries, stabbing any and all flesh they could find. The guards went down quickly and we didn’t stop to check if they were dead. When we were far away from the ship it suddenly exploded as the powder had finally caught from the fire of the dropped torch, taking that part of the pier and the bodies of the enemy soldiers with it.

The enemy was disoriented from the blast so I ordered the minions to take advantage of that and charge them down to cut a path out of the city. Just as I was almost certain we’d be able to take the whole town by ourselves I heard the now very familiar boom of cannon fire and the ground near us exploded into chunks. I was saved from injury but a couple of my minions died from that so I glanced at where I heard it come from.

A large cannon, almost more of a mortar really, sat near the main road and pointed in our direction. I didn’t want to deal with that so I did my best to wrap up the fighting and led us out of sight of that thing. Another shot echoed through the town and a building near us crumbled to the ground. I heard screams of pain then silence, there were people hiding away in some of the buildings it seemed. Well that was a good thing, I did need civilians working here. Nevertheless, we pressed on, killing enemy soldier after enemy soldier in the narrow streets.

“We could use that big, overcompensating cannon of theirs, Master,” Gnarl said. “Would be a neat little door knocker to open up that castle for an Evil visit huhahahaha!”

I lost another few minions to an ambush when some of the Storm Guards showed some tactical knowledge by dropping from the taller buildings and stepping on the heads of some minions when they landed. I managed to kill one as a minion, it was much harder than my actual body which wasn’t surprising.

The hole through the wall came into sight and we squeezed through without incident. I led us away from the town, keeping doubly sure that none could see us make our way across the terrain. I heard another lightning bolt go down and took a moment to check to see where it struck.

The town’s gate didn’t seem like it had the lightning field on it anymore. That being the case I glanced at the castle instead, my assumption was correct when I saw that the lightning now covered every inch of its walls. Meaning that I can’t just take the cannon from the enemy and assault the castle, looks like I’ll need to get rid of the other obelisks before the final assault.

“Joy,” I grumbled to myself as I made my way back to my body. Once I was close my magic cut me off from the minion’s body and I landed back down on the ground. I cracked my neck, even if I was floating in mid-air it was not good on my body.

“It’s not the worst situation, Dark One,” Gnarl commented. “Just think of it this way, you’ll have just that much more satisfaction bringing that overgrown monkey down!”

I just snorted in amusement and rested my ax over my shoulder as I contemplated my next move, “Guess it’s time to get to work…”
> Chapter 6
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A short trek across the terrain and I ended up hiding near the exit of a path that led to the road between the port town and the castle. The minions and I were behind some rocks, waiting for the right moment to strike and charge the gate. I peered over a rock and stared at the nervous guards shifting in their spots on the blockade. I was glad that the rain and darker lighting on the island helped keep me from being easily spotted.

I strained my ears, listening for the signal over the sound of rain hitting the metal of armor and weapons.

It didn’t take long for shouts of surprise and panic to erupt from somewhere behind the barricade into the port town. I chuckled darkly as the guards on top of the barricade turned around to see what was attacking them from behind.

I quickly stepped around the rock and my minions and I began sprinting towards the gate. I raised my left hand and clenched my fist, multiple large black rock spikes pierced through the ground and floated next to me as I ran. I felt my magic begin to drain as I poured more of it into the spell and thrust my hand forward. The rock spikes shot at the crudely constructed barricades and blasted the feeble wood that they were made of apart. The guards on top of the barricade were sent flying and the wood itself knocked over several others on the road.

My minions let out a cheerful battle cry and rushed forward even faster than me at my command to crash into the disoriented enemy soldiers on the road. From my vantage point of simply being tall, I could see the other half of my army engaging the enemy as a distraction just as I had planned. I almost didn’t expect them to be able to follow my order of using the hole in the wall and then navigate the streets to strike from behind but I was pleasantly surprised. I could see several disappearing magical minion heads from the minions that died during the fighting but a lot more of the enemy soldiers were dead on the street.

The clash of the army I was leading into battle took the disoriented enemy off guard as they were a bit distracted by the combat happening behind their defenses and their barricades being knocked into their lines with great force. By the time I joined in, the enemy ranks were squeezed tight and already unraveling under the pressure as they were swiftly struck down without mercy.

My ax swung in a horizontal arc, cleaving the heads of two of the enemy soldiers off their necks. I slowly made my way through the battle, striking and knocking around the soldiers with my strength. I laughed when one of them fell to the ground after being accidentally knocked down by one of his allies in the frenzy. I placed a foot on his back and raised my ax into the air as I forced it into the ground before slamming it down on the soldier’s skull.

“Yes!” Gnarl hissed the end of the word with great enthusiasm. “Blood! Death! Carnage! Witnessing an Overlord in his element after so long fills my black heart with glee! I can practically see those blasted ponies begging for your mercy!”

I was ready to rejoin the slowly ending battle when I noticed a small figure trying to sneak around the feet of the Storm Guards. My eyes narrowed and I started to jog through the battle with intense focus, barely pausing as I swung at any enemy that got too close.

The figure was about to flee into a nearby street, and as I didn’t want that to happen I had no choice but to block his way forward. With a grunt of annoyance, I pointed my hand and aimed just in front of him to send a blast of dark flame forward that flew out and exploded in front of the short thing that had spoken to me earlier.

Said creature reeled back in fright of nearly being roasted and scrambled on the ground to quickly back away from the slowly petering out flames. I reached down and roughly grabbed him by his throat.

“It seems the power of the Storm King is rather pathetic if this was all he could bring against me,” I smugly told him as I lifted him up to eye level with one hand. The cowardly thing was shaking in my grasp, grabbing at my hand as I kept his neck in a crushing grip and was giving me a very uncomfortable sheepish grin.

“W-Well, oh glorious evil conqueror. I-I didn’t say that he was more p-powerful than you,” he barely managed to stammer out as the last of the enemy at the gates was being slaughtered and looted for anything of remote value.

I raised an eyebrow but he wouldn’t have been able to see it, “I distinctly remember you saying that I’ll be crushed under his foot and that I’ll feel the wrath of his second-in-command. That wouldn’t happen to be you, would it?”

He was starting to sweat, “O-oh, well, you know that was just a local greeting around these parts. A-And, uh, well... please don’t kill me!”

He started sobbing and pleading in my grasp, if it didn’t look so pathetic I’d almost feel bad about it.

“I won’t kill you,” I told him.

“You won’t?” He looked at me pleadingly and with a stupidly hopeful look of relief.

“You know all about this port town, right? How to run it and direct the people around?” I asked, pulling him closer to me so that I could practically see the reflection of my eyes in his.

“Y-yes! I know all about that! I do a lot of the stuff that the Storm King doesn’t want to do around here! I’m a huge coward, I'm no good at combat stuff!”

“Good,” I simply said and he shuddered and convulsed in my grasp as I channeled my Evil Presence spell through him. I quickly pulled the magic away before I killed him, it seemed that being this close to me greatly increased the speed of corruption. Or maybe I was just that much more powerful compared to his weaker will?

Without ceremony, I simply dropped him to the ground. Slowly he picked himself up to his knees and bowed before me, “What can this humble servant do for you, Dark Lord?”

“When this town is taken you will be the one to manage all the other slaves in my place for shipbuilding and repair,” I told him. “Now, how many soldiers are left in this town?”

“Little, Master. The ones at this gate should be the majority of the garrison in this town,” he droned. “The soldiers remaining will be the ones wounded from the last few attacks. They are kept in the medical building a few streets down from here.”

He pointed to the other side of the town that I haven’t been to yet. I looked at the minions who had finished commandeering a nearby building to store looted equipment out of the rain. I pointed at half of them, “Half of you will follow him to this medical building and get rid of the soldiers, I want their life force before I leave this town.”

“Yes, Master!” The minions chorused before following my newest dominated slave. I already received more life force than I lost during the battle at the gate but getting more wouldn’t hurt. The rest followed me to where the docks and the road joined.

“Smart, sire. Those wastes of space would just take up much-needed time and resources. Better to give their lives some real use,” Gnarl commented, approving of my blatant war crime. Lifeforce wasn't the only I got from it too, I could feel the evil energy in me increase at the cruelty I displayed. It was a small trickle, but it was something.

The intersection was well paved and worn from frequent use and the building to my right as I stared at the ocean seemed to store more of those repulsive Storm King action figures. I casually kicked the door open and pointed my hand at the ground, lightning shot out and splintered the flooring as I set the spell to summon the Nethergate here.

I quickly backed away as the ground began rumbling and once more I was greeted by the sight of the spinning black drill of the Nethergate as it unfurled and set itself down. The building shattered apart, like the warehouse at Klugetown. Another crack opened up in some free space between the gate and the road as a glowing brown minion pit appeared.

I summoned two hundred more minions, “You are the garrison for this town. There is a building near the gates that has looted equipment, use it. If there isn’t enough take from the town and guard this place against attackers.”

The newly spawned minions all saluted and eagerly obeyed my orders, scrambling to be the first to get the best things to kill with and put in their heads. My new slave and the rest of my minions marched down the street from the direction of the wounded soldiers as the new minions I just summoned raced down to the gate, presenting me with life force.

I looked at my slave and pointed at a small building near my gate, “This is your new office to run this town. Once the rest of this town is dominated I want organized tribute brought to the closest warehouses near my gate. Also, ready that large cannon near the gate for my attack on the castle.”

“Yes, Lord. I shall do whatever you say,” he replied and walked into the building.

With that out of the way and my armed minions rejoined to my army, I set out of the town.





“The nearest obelisk should be in the direction that the well-worn path over there leads,” Gnarl supplied, pointing out a rocky and well-worn path near the road that led somewhere to my left. “You only need to get rid of one more obelisk, this kind of magical artifact always needs more than one of the type to be even remotely useful. Though, if you’re feeling particularly vengeful for wasting your time, you can get rid of the other as well.”

“I’m not wasting time getting rid of both right now,” I said as I turned to follow the path. “I’ll just destroy it later if I need to break something in anger.”

“Ooh, a stress ball fit for an Overlord, I approve!” I heard the clapping of Gnarl's claws.

The journey to the next obelisk was rather uneventful other than several very brief clashes with scouting patrols. My minions chased them down as soon as I saw them and as we encountered more and more of them the longer we walked I surmised that we were getting closer to our destination.

Speaking of walking, I really hope to conquer a place that wasn't as boring as this one was. The landscape sucked and the ocean view offered in places around this island also sucked, though that last part might be because of the perpetual storm that is rolling around thanks to those obelisks. This area was completely void of anything entertaining, just rocks, dirt, and cliffs. I really can not wait to finally be done with this place, I can't even see any convenient tower objects laying around for me to collect.

Well, I suppose that is one part of the games that isn't going to happen in real life. Those tower objects are pretty obviously magical and anyone seeing one will probably store it someplace once found.

Anyway, the first real obstacle I found while on this boring trek across the shitty landscape was a series of barricades that blocked a rocky passage towards the coastal cliffs that held the obelisk and the cannons. I eyed the far too steep to climb hills made of loose rocks that overlooked the passage I was supposed to walk through with distrust. There was no way I'd fall for something like this...

“Quite an obvious choice of ambush, wouldn’t you agree?” Gnarl tittered to himself.

“Indeed,” I replied. I raised my hand and two large spikes pierced through the ground, each making a ramp that led to the top of the two overlooking hills. I split my minions into two groups and directed them up the ramps and to charge and kill any enemy they saw.

They cheered and gleefully stomped up the ramps as fast as they could with their weapons raised.

I lowered my hand and carefully took the ramp that led up to the right. My balance was pretty shit in this armor (I really need to get used to it when walking tight spaces) and small wall space but I eventually reached the top and carefully eyed the situation. As I suspected there was indeed an ambush in place on both sides and my minions were making quick work of it.

I guess I should say there used to be an ambush.

I jogged forward as the last of the soldiers were killed and made my way down a path that twisted across the terrain towards the cannons and obelisk. The minions on the other side of the hills rejoined me, the hill they were on had their own connected path that joined with mine and the exit of the passage on the other side as a sort of trident-like intersection. With my army regrouped we moved across the twisting road, killing more and more soldiers that tried to run away to warn the rest the closer we got to the obelisk.

The cannon encampment was like the others that I saw from the sky. It had what looked like a barracks, a canteen, several large campfires around the place, large storage shed, and several boxes and barrels placed around the very large defensive cannons pointing out to sea. The only thing that separated this one from most of the others was the large black stone obelisk in the center of it all with its glowing blue runes and, now just learning about, slight hum. The obelisk crackled with lightning at its top and I watched as it sent another bolt into the sky.

A crude defensive cover was partially erected at the entrance of the encampment though it was far from complete. Judging by the surprised expressions on their faces, these guys didn't have helmets for some reason, as they paused in their construction the enemy soldiers likely thought I was going to be delayed a lot longer than I actually was. Admittedly, if I wasn’t able to use my magic to forcefully make a makeshift ramp up to the tops of the hills back there I would have actually been delayed as they thought.

But, well, I avoided that annoying slog entirely and made great time. Magic solves a lot of inconvenient problems like that.

Wasting no more time I simply pointed at the encampment and my minions all charged. All I saw was a sea of minions running across the ground or jumping over the cover to stab or slash at the soldiers. It reminded me of Warhammer, but instead of a green tide, it was a brown tide which doesn't sound like something you'd really want to see. I didn’t join in on the fight this time, simply taking the time to sweep some of my minions across the battle. I pointed at each building when the initial conflict was over, making certain that there wasn’t going to be any more of them left.

When I was satisfied I pointed at the barrels of powder sitting near the cannons, “Grab everything flammable and explosive and place them at the base of the obelisk.”

“Yes Master!”
“Okay!”

My minions rushed to follow my command, barrels and other explosives started to stack up around the obelisk. When everything was gathered from the camp and either given to me if it was valuable or placed around the artifact, I didn’t know how much was needed but overkill was always best, I pulled my minions back and we quickly put as much space between us and the encampment as possible.

I summoned a black flame over my hand, then sent the concentrated magical flame into the pile. It didn’t take any time for all of it to catch and explode in a very satisfying manner.

“Wonderful fireworks, Lord,” Gnarl congratulated me. “With that gone all that’s left is the castle and the Storm King himself and soon the first part of your Dark Domain will be secured! Try not to get yourself killed in the final battle, sire, it would be a most anticlimactic end.”





I stood near the gate of the port town and waited as eight of my minions pushed the large cannon out of the town down the road on its wheeled platform. Twelve more were carrying ammo and powder on a palette just behind them. The road to the castle wasn’t long but this slow pace still got on my nerves a bit.

“Hmm, if you’re getting anxious Lord then you can take your frustrations out on those enemy soldiers trying to stop you from getting that cannon to the castle,” Gnarl said.

I looked down the road and saw the advancing enemy running down the road at us in more organized rows, I'd say they formed a shield wall but they'd have needed bigger shields. Just past them I saw the castle's drawbridge slowly moving back up, the Storm King must be getting desperate to stop me from getting into his home. 

Without delay, I ordered the minions with longer weapons to make a rudimentary spear wall (not exactly the greatest as they were kinda all short and their weapons reflected that) and charge the enemy back with their other brethren right behind them. My own presence wasn’t far behind but I made the first move of the battle with fireballs blasting into different areas of the enemy formation and spikes of rock piercing from the ground only to impale the storm guards through their bodies. Altogether it was enough to disrupt their formation a bit and let my minions slip into it to cause confusion.

The minions were pretty tiny and agile things and they loved to attack the legs of things taller than they were. The enemy wasn't super agile and their bigger frames worked against them in such a chaotic close-quarters situation.

I left a hundred minions to guard the cannon and ammo supplies and charged into the middle of the melee. One of the enemy spears nicked part of my exposed arm (I might need to workshop some more arm armor in when I get the forge up and running properly) as I shoulder-checked another and knocked them to the ground. I sent a ball of black flame into its face as retaliation and buried my ax into the arm of another. One of my minions jumped and grabbed my arm and I flung it at another one of the soldiers. The minion latched onto the face of the soldier and enthusiastically started stabbing his sword point into the eyeholes of the soldier’s helmet.

As I cut, slammed, and burned my way through the enemy the middle of their formation collapsed and the minions quickly took advantage of that. Swarming through the gap the minions began to attack the backs of the soldiers that hadn’t noticed the break. It didn’t take long for the rest to crumble under the combined onslaught and the road cleared of breathing enemies. All in all, I only lost a dozen or so minions.

As the life force and other valuables were collected and the road cleared of bodies the cannon and supplies passed through without further delay. Admittedly, I did feel a bit better after the fight and wasn’t annoyed at the snail’s pace anymore. I guess violence was something of a good stress reliever.

The castle slowly got closer and as there were no more delays on the road it was quicker in the long run. Which was good, I really didn't want to deal with a fighting advance. 

“Sire, while you were busy fighting and shedding blood I’d taken the liberty of having Grubby mark two areas where I feel will let you hit the drawbridge in the right spots!” Gnarl informed me.

I looked around and noticed a small circular black spot of black Netherworld stone glowing with magic on the ground. With a gesture of my hand the minions placed the cannon down and rotated it so that the barrel pointed at the chains holding the drawbridge up. The supplies were placed behind the cannon and everything was ready.

"Load the cannon," I ordered, the minions quickly getting the cannon ready to fire. When I saw a minion working the cannon salute me I said, "Aim for the chains holding the drawbridge up, the one on the right."

"Yes, Master!"

The cannon tilted and shifted in its position as the minions aimed the contraption. When the same minion saluted me I simply gave the order to fire and the cannon belched out the payload. I watched the stone around the chain explode but it didn't break, either the shot missed or it was tougher than I originally thought.

"Fire again, same target," I ordered. The cannon was reloaded and fired once more, this time striking true. A loud clang of metal and stone exploding everywhere announced the destruction of the first chain. I heard the drawbridge groan while the minions quickly gathered everything and moved the cannon to the spot Gnarl chose on the other side of the road.

Once the cannon was put into its new place I ordered it to be loaded and aimed at the other chain. This time it took an embarrassing five shots to hit the target, two of the shots hit the stone on the wall surrounding the chain and one went too wide and dropped a large cloth picture of the Storm King himself pointing at us off its place on the wall. I did consider that one a hit and it made me feel a bit better from the other misses.

The last shot hit the chain and the drawbridge dropped to the ground with a loud crashing thud. The cannon was abandoned as I pointed at the castle and ordered, "Kill everyone inside!"

With cheers, the minions started sprinting into the castle itself. I saw enemy soldiers killed, boxes and barrels broken, vases with the face of the Storm King smashed, and just general destruction all around. It felt right, watching this happen. I entered the castle as the minions were busy breaking things and killing and couldn't help but note that it wasn't super big. Not like those other fantasy castles at least, it was almost utilitarian.

I saw a decent chunk of the minion army break into what looked like a barracks for the soldiery as I passed the gate.

"You have the funds for a small teleportation circle, sire. Would you like to have Grubby make one in the courtyard of this place?" Gnarl asked. "With your slightly stronger connection with the Netherworld, it won't even cost as much thanks to the decreased strain on its magics!"

"Do so," I said as I neared the now cleared barracks. I pointed at a small alcove between the barracks and the main castle building, a different spell than summoning the larger gate formed in my head and I blasted the spot with my magic. Soon both a smaller teleportation circle and a brown minion pit burst from the ground in the courtyard and settled in so nicely they looked like they were always there. I pulled thirty more minions from the pit as a quick honor guard while the rest stormed the place.

I entered the castle proper with my new minions, idly watching as a group of my attacking minions chased a naked storm guard down the hallways while laughing. Snorting, I moved on to find the throne room of this place. As it wasn't super large, at least not as large as I figured a place like Canterlot would be, it didn't take long to find the room I was looking for.

I stood in front of the large and ornate double doors that were the entrance to the throne room. Without pause I made one of my minions hold my ax and placed my hands on each of the doors. I pushed them open with my considerable strength, sending them flying open with a crash against the walls of the throne room. I took my ax back and entered the throne room proper.

"Careful, sire..." Gnarled warned.

"You finally arrived," I heard the Storm King say, his voice echoing around the room.

My eyes narrowed, I didn't see him on his throne or anywhere else in the room...

My head snapped up to the ceiling, my ax already being brought up as I watched the body of the Storm King launch himself down after hanging off the wall. I grunted and fought back the force that was brought upon me as our weapons shook in our respective grasp, my ax managed to block the leaf-shaped tip of his spear from stabbing into me and if my eyes were right it bent the tip a bit. The floor cracked under my feet and I shoved him back.

"Attack him," I ordered my minions while I regained my stance.

I threw a ball of black fire at him as my minions charged before joining them. He dodged the magical attack that flew past him and shattered a window as he smacked away a couple of the minions with his spear, one dying from having its throat cut open with its edge. He jumped and moved around the room as the minions gave chase but most weren't able to hit him with more than a glancing blow. I was regretting sending my more well-equipped minions to attack the rest of the castle. My ax swung for his center mass as I followed him with greater success than my minions, the yeti-like annoyance blocked the strike with the pole of his spear but he grimaced as he must have realized that was a bad move.

The pole of the spear chipped and cracked as my ax's blade dug into the metal it was made of with the aid of my Overlordly strength. Whatever normal metal it might have been didn't matter to the magical one my ax was forged with, the diminished magical energies of the Netherworld's forge plus the lifeforce of many brown minions that were used to make it aided the attacks made with the weapon in ways regular smithing techniques just can't do. The quality between the two was simply too great and that's not even considering the fact that once the red minions are brought back to turn the forge back on and a couple of forge stones are found I'd be able to make even better armor and weapons.

The Storm King snorted, clearly annoyed, "So you have magical toys to play with as well? Well I- whoah! Ow, you bastard!"

I just summoned a rock under him with my magic to try and impale him through the torso as he talked, I wasn't about to waste an opportunity like that. Never stop to talk in a fight, I was never even a fighter before all of this and I knew that. The sneak attack didn't work as I wanted it to but it left a large wound on one of his legs that he was grabbing with a hand in pain. It definitely crippled his movement and the minions weren't idle, they charged him as he was distracted by the pain. One of them managed to smash his club into the stupid face of the soon to be deposed king, lighting his face up in an impressive-looking rage as he reeled back from the force. He was a tough son of a bitch I'll give him that.

The fight continued in that vein, much easier now with his movement more restricted. He still dodged most of my magic attacks, the fireballs and lightning bolts doing a lot of damage to the windows and walls of the throne room in my fury to hit the dodgy bastard. Part of the rug running down the length of the room was now on fire and several of his banners were alternating between being on fire from the fight or soaking wet from the rain being blasted into the room from outside. I scored a hit on one of his arms with my lightning blast while he was busy knocking away more of my minions, sending him reeling back with the force.

"Enough!" He yelled as the minions took advantage of the opening to smack him with their clubs or kick him. He raised his arm and before I could interrupt whatever he was trying to do he slammed a slightly glowing lightish-blue orb he pulled from a pouch on his hip onto the ground. When it hit the floor a wave of frost erupted and covered everything around him, including himself, in a layer of ice. The magical frost killed all but the furthest of the fires in the throne room.

I was covered in ice and frost as well but I was able to power through it with physical strength alone and shattered the ice on my body. My minions weren't spared the same fate and were stuck as minion ice statues, I hit one experimentally, and as I thought it broke into pieces. I don't have the control right now to use a non-lethal version of my dark magic flames, nor do I have the red minions that would probably be able to safely melt the ice.

The Storm King was gasping and kneeling on the ground while covered in far more ice than I had been, though it probably didn't affect him as any other creature would have been affected and I was much farther from the initial blast than he. While he was distracted and weak I charged forward as my gauntlet let out a bellow into the minds of every minion in the castle, summoning them to me. I needed minions to start tearing down the "art" of this place and replace it with my own.

As I drew nearer and brought my ax down towards his head I just barely caught the smirk on his face. He showed another orb in his hand, this one much brighter than the other, and he flung it at my ax as it descended, quickly scrambling back as best his wounded leg would let him while the ice and frost on him fell and shattered off his armor and fur as he moved. The edge of my ax met the orb and it exploded, my sight was filled with ice and whiteness as I felt a small chill over my body.

I grunted and did my best to try and move through all the thick ice covering my body. I was an ice statue with a much thicker layer of ice and frost, like my minions but bigger. I could hear the Storm King laugh as I struggled.

"I can't believe you actually fell for that!" He laughed. "Whoo, I had the whole last desperate struggle thing down pat! Haven't done that in ages, almost forgot how much fun it was!"

The ice encasing me cracked a bit as I grew very angry at his taunting and the realization that I was far too careless and confident in my very basic abilities.

He shook his head, almost like he was dealing with an amusing child, "Ah, anyway, I'll be taking that ax and armor of yours for myself. Can't let such good quality go to waste! Now, just gotta find the right artifact to get past that armor of yours if its as tough as your ax..." He pondered while tapping his chin thoughtfully.

"For the Master!" I heard being bellowed by several different voices and I was really glad that I summoned them before this happened.

"Whoah!" The Storm King yelled, backpedaling away from a sword swing that nearly ripped his throat out. He growled as more and more of them started to attack him, desperately trying to keep the much more dangerous weapons away from his body. "Just what is with creatures interrupting me lately?!"

"Sorry, Master. No reds to melt ice!" One minion said to me as he inspected my ice prison while the rest were busy fighting the Storm King.

"Maybe get dragon?" another helpfully chimed as the throne room got more and more crowded with the bodies of the minions pouring into it.

"No, dragons too smart now! Gnarl says brain go from gooseberry to orange!" I was beginning to get annoyed at the back and forth of the minions instead of them doing something to actually help my situation. Then again, that anger that was burning inside of me helped fuel my struggle to break free. I could already hear and feel more cracks on the ice.

"Blasted creatures!" The Storm King interrupted their little chat, swinging his weapon around and crushing the skull of another minion with his hand. He was fighting valiantly but sheer numbers were quickly overwhelming his ability to do anything, "Die already!"

Numbers matter people, realistically one person can't expect themselves to fight off an entire army by themselves without some sort of bullshit anime protagonist power. As this is the world of My Little Pony there isn't really anyone that can do that besides Discord and his bullshit reality-warping magic. At least not for long, magic was a good equalizer in most circumstances but it wasn't infinite in people and only one mistake was needed to end the fight.

The battle didn't last long once the minions arrived and the Storm King quickly found himself pinned by several of them with great wounds covering his arms and legs. Blood was covering his fur as he slowly bled out on the floor of what was once his own throne room and his armor was shattered and scattered across the throne room from the damage the minions wrought upon it. He gasped and wheezed past the wounds covering his chest and the minions dancing on his dying body.

My hands were the first part of me that was freed before I felt the ice weakening around my arms and I began putting more and more effort into breaking free of my annoying prison. The ice around me shuddered and shook as I forced more of my physical power into shattering the ice encasing me. Then with one last yell, once the ice around my mouth was gone the ice shattered and my ax slammed into the ground with a mighty crash, the force of the ax's strike struck the ice on my lower body and freed my feet and legs. I stood there gasping a bit amongst a circular pile of broken ice and frost.

"Oh, good. I was almost worried that was going to be the end of everything! Glad to see you in one piece, Dark One," Gnarl said. "Now, what are you going to do with that one?"

I shuddered and shook my shoulders as a bit of ice fell to the ground. I quickly stomped my way over to the Storm King and slammed my armored boot into one of his chest wounds making him gasp and groan in pain. He looked like he wanted to say something as he laid there dying but I just raised my ax and split his head in two, I didn't want to listen to his annoying voice anymore. As I watched his head leak brain and blood I saw black energy start to flow out of his body and gather into my own all the while the Storm King's body slowly disintegrated into the stuff until nothing was left. I could feel myself growing stronger.

"Ah, evil energy," Gnarl mused. "Such a useful thing. Very important for anyone in the Overlording business as it increases your powers. You've gathered plenty from dominating all those minds but you can gather even more by killing other evil creatures and absorbing their own into your body or doing particularly heinous deeds. So long as you are doing Evil you will gather evil energy. While it mostly increases your magical capabilities, as you yourself are a magical creature, it also aids in growing your physical abilities as well."

"Anything else about it?" I asked after taking some time to cool my anger a bit and shake off the lingering frost still on my body as a minion informed me that they found the treasury. I followed the minion as Gnarl expositioned.

"Indeed! You yourself, as a being summoned and resurrected using lots of evil energy and dark magic, can hold a tremendous amount of it before it starts to affect your appearance, small things like black spikes and an aura. But! If you ever find something that can store your excess evil energy then you have far more options! You can channel the pure evil energy you've stored in this object into forming Dark Crystals with a spell, very potent forging materials and useful in some advanced Dark Rituals."

Soon I was greeted by the treasury of the Storm King. Mountains of gold, gems, and other basic wealth. Racks that held various objects both mundane and, probably, magical. But the real treasure was the two totem-like objects sitting next to each other in one corner of the room. A health and mana upgrade, the Storm King must have found those while looking for magical items and stuck it in here when he couldn't figure out how they were supposed to work. They would have been clearly magical to him, the red and blue glowing energy around them proved that, so I couldn't help but laugh at the frustration he must have felt.

"Lucky find, sire!" Gnarl excitedly said. "Those tower objects work hand in hand with your evil energy, further increasing your physical, or 'health' I should say, and magical abilities. They act as a channel for your dark power in specific ways, making certain that the evil energy you've acquired is efficient and never wasted as it boosts you. The more you have, the greater the efficiency. Once all five of a totem is gathered they properly synergize together and an even greater boost is gained, and perhaps even a small boon on the side!"

"This applies to the minion totem as well, strengthening them as more are gathered and their own evil energy is optimized. This works best when summoning minions using more than one lifeforce, but that is something you aren't able to do just yet without stabilizing the magics of the Netherworld first," Gnarl added.

I pointed at the totems as other minions began gathering all the wealth, "Bring those to the teleportation circle, now!"

"Yes, Master!"
"On it!"

Yes, please, to something that will give me an extra boost in the survivability department. Hell, if I found those earlier I might not have had as much trouble with the Storm King as I did. Maybe I'll keep this as a lesson to explore a bit more before engaging the final boss of an area, perhaps look into learning a spell to track and discover evil artifacts like those.

"I'm going to dominate this area now," I told Gnarl after summoning more minions to guard this castle and to collect all the weapons and armor lying around to send to the tower. Most of the armor was too big for minions to wear but Giblet could use something to do when he's not making my weapons and armor or upgrading the tower. Won't even need the red minions too since I wasn't about to waste lifeforce on minion equipment. With those orders given I sent the ones that had been fighting with me to clear out the soldiers and supplies at the other cannon encampments on the island.

Best to not let them fester into something more annoying in the future, not that there was any escape on this island.

"Very well, Lord. When you return I have some information and a new target I think that you'll enjoy!" Gnarl cheerfully replied.