Disclaimer: I do not ownOverlord, Overlord:Raising Hell, Overlord 2 or Overlod: Fellowship of Evil.

Or any of the other cameo references thrown in there.

It took Velvet three weeks to recover; a long time given that she, herself, had some pretty powerful self-healing abilities, as well as the constant attention of one of the Blue Girls and a shoal of Blue minions. And, still, a chunk of her magical stores was completely and permanently gone.

Silk didn't take the attack on his mother well, and led his succubi followers against the Empire troops under cover of night, picking them off scouting party by scouting party, sentinel by sentinel, captain by captain, messenger by messenger, until the Empire's army (now a chaotic mass of paranoid wrecks) withdrew from the lands surrounding Castle Gromgard, all the way back to the other side of the burnt ruins of Mellowsweet Town.

Surprisingly, a number of what might have once been dryads (and I use that term loosely) wandered out of the Jungle Depths to help. They didn't speak Common, but they could pantomime well enough to convey a desire for an alliance to push back the Empire soldiers and their nasty fire.

Since they were now inherently Dark, if not Evil, I saw little problem with the alliance so long as they knew who was in charge.

Twelve Cultists had to be purged of the Plague as it had started to spread, and six more were either unknowingly spelled or were outright spies. The Cult's fanaticism was terrifying for the soldiers that where were kidnapped and either sacrificed (violently) or enslaved (if they were attractive).

The children of the Cultists and those taken from the nearby villages (who were usually brought along by their converted mothers) continued their indoctrination in the new base under the eye of the Barberoi and the Blue Girls.

It took some working (and some negotiations with Gnarl), but by the second month a second stronghold was unearthed high in the mountains, nestled in the ravine of an inactive volcano.

This Stronghold had once belonged to one of the far-previous Overlord's mother, a Grand Black Witch, so the area was still seeped in Darkness even centuries later, and had its own Waypoint Gate. It was a little dry for the Blues, but some digging into, sealing and flooding of some of the subterranean rooms provided an interesting base for a functional saltwater ecosystem that hadn't been possible in the cistern due to lack of heat (which now came through some cracked open vents right down in some of the former dungeons). The plant life, algae and corals were thriving with the influx of minerals and underwater lights.

Castle Gromgard was still occupied, but no longer the base of operations.

Not that the Glorious Empire knew that.

(space)

To Mother, he had been 'Boy', 'Brat' or, if she was feeling charitable, 'Mordred', which he learnt was the name she had given him after the Great Patricide.

To the villagers, he was 'Witch-Boy', 'Devil Child' and 'Freak'.

To Kelda (and by extension, her Uncle Able and Aunt Mila), he had been 'Witch-Boy', 'friend' and 'Pack-Mate', for all that he was unsure what the last meant. She also gave him a new name that he preferred over his first name; Calder, meaning 'Cold Water' in old Norde.

To the Minions, he was simply 'Sire', 'Young Master', 'the Heir' and, occasionally, 'The Boy'.

To Gnarl, he was 'Our Future Overlord', and 'Young Lord' and 'The Boy' if Gnarl thought he wasn't within earshot.

Then there were the tall female 'Minions' with almost orange-tanned skin, bone nubs all down their arms, outside joints and back, hair dark shades of brown and eyes tawny-gold.

To these 'Minion Girls', he was 'Lord River's Son', 'Little Lordling' and to some, though it was a few months in the Netherworld before he understood what they were saying exactly, he was 'Lord Brother'.

He had been introduced to the Brown Chieftainess, Triela, early on, since it was the smarter Brown Girls that taught him things like reading and writing and maths, and who oversaw the Brown Minions that ran around him doing 'chores'.

It was this Minion woman he sought out one day (night? It was hard to tell, underground) for clarification about the Brown Girls his own age that ran around the place and referred to a 'Lord Brother'.

"They are your sisters, Little Lord. You share your father, the previous Overlord, Lord River, as your sire." Triela puffed on her pipe and cuddled the little blue boy to her side in a manner that would probably have Gnarl throwing a fit about propriety and indecent behaviour between ranks, but made him feel warm and safe in a manner that his Mother never had, but Kelda and Aunt Mila came close to. "Spread throughout the four Minion Tribes are, in total, thirty-two children; Thirty sisters and two brothers."

Witch-Boy peered up at the warm, almost maternal female who reminded him a bit of Kelda. "Will I meet them?"

Triela smiled, sharp teeth flashes of white behind lush lips. "If they, and you, live long enough. Our lives aren't always safe. Though most of them should be safe as all but one of your siblings are Minions."

Witch-Boy frowned. "Why one?"

The Chieftainess ran clawed fingers through his wavy black hair, something he had been told he'd inherited from his father by his nanny, Glory. "Because all of your other siblings were born to Minion Girls, while your second brother, Silk, was born to Lord River's Mistress, Velvet."

The little blue face nuzzled into the soft leather-like skin between the female's underarm and armour-clad breast. "Will he try to take the Overlord title from me?"

Triela smiled down at him again. "It is doubtful. I have heard down the grapevine that he has been claimed as a Prophecy Childe and Future Ruler by the Succubi, and his own inherent magic is not compatible with the magics that go with the title of Overlord."

Witch-Boy hummed. "And the other brother?"

Triela chortled in amusement. "Acheron is no threat to you, for all that he was Lord River's first child and son. Acheron takes too strongly after his mother, Lethe, the Minion Mistress and Chieftainess of the Blue Girls. He is as much a Minion as I am, and, if you really work at it, chances are he'll be as fanatically loyal to you as Lethe was to your sire."

He wiggled his nose. "So he's a Blue Girl, only a boy?"

"Yes."

"And he will follow me?"

"Once you get the Blue Hive, yes."

"Will he love me like Kelda does?"

Triela almost broke out laughing, but knew the little Lordling wouldn't take it well. Lethe's little Wolf-Queen most definitely did not have platonic designs of the next Overlord, but still, this could be interesting…

"…Perhaps, though you may need to work on your relationship with him first."

The boy nodded seriously. "Then he will be mine. They will all be mine."

"And Silk? Your other brother? I hear that he and Acheron are close. If you take one, you will need to take the other."

Golden eyes narrowed. "They will all be mine." He repeated firmly, childish voice certain.

Triela hummed, amused by the innuendo that he would probably forget without understanding by the time he was old enough to get it.

Witch-Boy tilted his head so he could look at her. "Tell me about my father?"

She smiled. "Of course."

It was only later, as he left for his afternoon training, that the fierce and fear Brown Chieftainess giggled and made for her scrying mirror.

'Wait 'til Moira hears about this!'

(space)

A pretty little girl with glossy brunette curls, mocha skin and large doe eyes sniffled quietly under some ferns, her toga tattered and feet bare, and a black iron collar and dangling chain denoting her position as a slave.

Juno, aged eleven, had just managed to escape from her owner, an obese Imperial Commander who had a taste for little girls, by throwing herself off the warship near Everlight during a storm.

She hadn't liked swimming when she was little, but her mamma made her learn, back before the Empire came and turned them all into slaves.

One of the first things the Empire did when they took over was to always enslave the noble classes and either annex or completely eradicate the military.

Just Juno's luck, she'd had a noble mother and a General father, making her prime breeding stock after her brave father was publicly executed rather than being allowed an honourable death in battle and her beautiful mother had taken a poison rather than being forced into the bed of Governor Bovinius.

She didn't know what happened to her elder sister, Astoria, but she had seen her baby brother's body, his little skull bashed in, on a cart used to haul the dead out of the fortress corridors as she was marched out with the other new slaves in her age group.

And now she was all alone, far from home and in a completely new environment…

…But at least she was free.

The sound was small, just the slight rattle of rocks, but little Juno turned and suddenly found herself face to face with a strange woman-like thing with big yellow eyes, leafy green skin and a smile full of needle sharp teeth.

There was a moment of stillness before the heavy air shifted and Juno caught a nose-full of something so rank she fainted on the spot from sensory overload.

Stheno chortled to herself and picked up the ragged but undeniably pretty child. Perhaps Lethe and Freesia would have a use for the girl.

(space)

Malady was a gaunt, ragged, jagged girl who would one day grow up to be something fearsome, I believed.

She had come in with an elderly Necromancer and Black Witch, who had died in her sleep sometime after reaching Gromgard and joining the Cult of the Dark Moon, only to arise as a Lich.

Between the Lich and Velvet, Malady was shaping up to be something of a femme fatale despite being younger than my own daughters. After finding out that she had been raised/indentured to the Sisterhood of the Fair Breast (the sign was supposed to say 'Bread', but apparently the sign maker was illiterate) in Heaven's Peak, all the Girls who had come from there had installed themselves as a series of sisters, aunts and cousins to the girl. Apparently the Sisters were just as bad to the orphans in their 'care' as most of the men had been to their females.

I didn't care overly much, aside from the brief consideration of breeding Acheron to her for a strongly necromantic Blue Girl like Thetis, but she bore watching since she was very intelligent and ruthless.

Fortunately, she appeared to be inordinately fascinated by me and how I interacted with everyone I actually interacted with to the point where I had gotten a few comments about her asking about me.

According to Velvet, Malady really admired me, but also admitted that her fixation was slightly worrying. Mara, the second longest Blue Girl after me, admitted that she was a lot like what I had been like as a child, from what she had heard from some of the Girls I had grown up with, even if Malady had been shattered much younger than I had and since festered where I had still been red and raw when I became the First Blue Girl.

So I resolved to keep an eye on her and told my daughter to do the same.

(space)

It had been an eternity or a few years for him to find where the Nameless God had seen through to the Other World, but, as he viewed his Mistresses and children as they went about their lives, it was worth the effort of Smiting those Draco-Lich.