GREED: ALL FOR WHAT?

The wood elves considered the fight for the plane an investment. But the demon god is making that investment very costly while the first appearance of the ghouls threatened to make the investment a waste. The second coming of the ghouls is the proverbial last nail in the coffin of their ambitions for the plane. 

The Origin gods became silent after arguing. That silence ended until one of them sighed and asked, "So are we of one accord?" 

One of the origin gods replied. "Yes. We will do just like this Ragnarok and go all out. If we can't win, then we must make sure that the demon god wins very little."

Some were quick to reject. "No no no. We vetoed that." 

Someone else rolled their eyes and said. "We are not going to cause further damage to our beloved plane. We are not barbarians."

The origin god wanted destruction and mayhem sighed. "Fine. We will just watch then." 

She slammed the table despite agreeing with the decision of the majority. "I am just so angry."

"Yes, we know. We are angry too. But the least we can do is not to add to the burden of the plane."

They tried to convince her not to go about wreaking havoc because of vengeance. Most of the Origin gods have decided to give up on the plane. The issue is what to do before giving up or how to give up. Some would like to simply watch while others want to hurt the demon god by damaging the plane.

Another person suggested a middle ground, "How about we just target the Vampires? Let's go for one last blowout before we leave the plane."

That suggestion had a lot of Origin gods in agreement. It is something they wouldn't consider normally because they are outnumbered against the Primogenitors. But things have changed now. The Primogenitors are running about for their lives. They are currently scattered and unable to mount an ambush. 

Most of them have left the protection of their territory and are on the surface. They are prime targets to be killed. The Origin gods won't even worry about the ghouls either. They will just kill as many Vampires before they die. 

The Origin gods were conversing amongst themselves and planning their assault when they received a request for communications. They would have ignored it had it not come from the chairman of the plane council. 

She is the representative of the fountain of life after all. She deserves to know that they are pulling out of the fight. Maybe the fountain of life will be able to help them with the locations of the Primogenitors too. So they took the call.

"What is it?" One of the origin gods asked.

She started. "I have bad news."

That made the origin gods laugh. It was not the reaction that the representative was expecting so she was visibly confused.

They told her. "What is one more bad news? Go on. We have a piece of bad news for you too." 

That didn't calm her down at all. But she continued nonetheless. "Rinoz has run away."

The origin gods were not moved. Some shrugged while others yawned. This would be catastrophic news at any other time. Now, it is just another one of the signs that they are on a sinking ship. The water just keeps rushing aboard. And soon this ship will sink.

She continued when she didn't get any reaction from them. "She is not working for us anymore. And I have it in good reason that she might be working against us."

The pink-haired origin god asked, "Is this because we tricked her into giving us Ragnarok's position? What a child."

Another origin god added. "It is refreshing really. This is how a child should behave. They fail to see the bigger picture."

They didn't take the threat of Rinoz seriously. After all, what's the worst that the child of the plane can get up to? There isn't another secret stash of hidden Ghouls that can be found with the eye of life or with her connections to the plane for her to release. Besides, the plane is going through a tough time now. How strong can she really be?

If anything, they find her reaction to being tricked to be refreshing. It is like a child throwing a tantrum to them. It is amusing instead of being alarming since they are forsaking the plane. It is just right for the child of the plane to forsake them too.

The representative corrected their assumption. "She didn't quit being our ally because she was tricked. She turned against us because some wood elves tried to use the forbidden ritual on her."

That stopped the origin gods cold. They turned to the sphere in the middle of the table that showed the real-time image of the representative.

"What did you just say?" They asked in shock.

They really didn't see that coming. The representative filled them in on what exactly happened. Apparently, some wood elves were discontent with working with the Warrogs. They could have done something foolish like lashing out and attacking Rinoz to kill her. That would have been expected due to the bloodline hatred.

But these wood elves didn't lash out. They considered the situation very carefully. They understand that the treaty with the Warrogs is because of Rinoz's potential. They also understand that the wood elves need her help. They need her to realize her potential and help them beat the Vampires. So eliminating Rinoz, while therapeutic, wouldn't solve the problem that is the Vampires. Hatred or not, they still need Rinoz. Or to be more specific, they need her potential. 

So they decided to take her potential for themselves by using the forbidden ritual. It is the method of binding wood elves to a living thing and forcefully using the living thing as a source of power. Vitality and energy can be siphoned from victims of this bond. It is exactly what some wood elves wanted to do to the captured Paragons which led to the civil war that split the race into two many Origin cycles ago.