AO 6 Ch 18

After my heart-to-heart with Aurelia, I returned to the house to see what plan they had cooked up. "Finally back, are you?" Emlyn bounced her eyebrows. "Did Aurelia take you for a spin?"

My red-haired anchor next to me stayed stoic. Meanwhile, I put on a cheesy grin. "Aurelia likes her time to be private, and coincidentally, I can't say anything about what happened." I shrugged with a giant grin on my face because I was having trouble holding back my laughter, if only she knew.

Emlyn scoffed, "Just don't break his hips." Predictably she misinterpreted it.

"I'll try not to," Aurelia said quickly.

My mantikitten's cuddly persuasions were a sort of secret amongst the group. She was not ashamed, but she was cautious about sharing her preferences. Most people assumed between being a badass with every weapon, and having no compunction staring down ferocious beasts, that she would be a wild untamed creature in bed. And every time someone made that mistake, I couldn't stop grinning, knowing she was the softest and sweetest lover. Her most ferocious move was to cling to me like a barnacle. 

"Well, since you got that out of your system, Emlyn, I wanted to see if you have made any more progress on plans." I looked over at the group.

"The way I see it, our options are limited. We'll do our best to draw out the chancellors. Once the goddesses finish with the captive, maybe we'll have more information." Zuri offered.

"Oh right," I said, refusing to admit that I had forgotten about the Garrish mage that I had saved from Lord Snappikins. "How is she?" 

"Not dead," Maribelle said, "but she has two goddesses picking through her brain. I don't know if she's going to be the same once they're done with her.”

I shrugged. Given that her prior iteration had been trying to kill me. I believed in treating people well, but a lot of that went out the window after they were part and party to a group that burned villages and chased me down to put a lightning bolt in my head.

They all came out from the back room.

Ditzy was wearing a new white dress that happened to part neatly around and show off her navel which was a relatively odd design but nonetheless, she looked like she was about to attend a noble's ball and make a scandal. She definitely did not look like she had just finished torturing a woman.

Although, as the mage came out from behind Ditzy, I realized that the goddess’ version fo torture was a little different.

The Garrish mage looked completely doe-eyed and in love with the goddess.

"Why don't you be a dear and tell them what you told me," Aphrodite said, putting a gentle hand on the woman's shoulder, only for the woman to crumble to the floor crying and sobbing. 

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that." The woman cried and I shifted back and forth on my feet. I never knew quite what to do around a sobbing woman.

I looked over at the radiant goddess. "What did you do to her?" 

Ditzy shrugged. "Just made her really, really regret her choices in life. Also she’ll do just about anything for you or me right now." Ditzy pursed her lips and shook her head. "Really ashamed she nearly killed all of the people she loved." 

"You made her love me?" I ignored the woman sobbing on the floor. “Consent is a thing you Ditz.”

"Not love, love," Ditzy said, rolling her eyes. "Don't worry about it. It will go away.” She waved my concern away. “Just don’t do anything.”

“But you could do that to any of us?" Emlyn asked with a raised eyebrow, looking down at the woman and then back up at Ditzy with a new respect. 

The blonde goddess gave Emlyn a wolfish grin. "Would you like me to try? I don't know if your bond with Ard here will give you any protection. I'm sure he's at least marginally resistant to me, but happy to give it a try. You are quite lovely, Emlyn." 

My anchor made a face and glanced at me from the corner of her eye as if warning me to be careful. Not that I blamed her.

Emlyn's subtle warning wasn’t necessary. Knowing Ditzy was the goddess of love and her shifting some woman's perception were two very different things. Seeing it for myself made me wary of the goddess, but it was going to take a lot more to get me to change her nickname.

"Well, this should at least make the questioning easier. Thank you, Ditzy. I guess you're not a complete ditz." I offered as a compromise.

Aphrodite gasped and covered her mouth. "If I didn't know better, that would be one of the signs of the world ending. Ard apologizing seems downright outlandish."

“Now we just need a wolf to bite off Odin’s head.” Missy said from where she’d been quiet and outshone by the other goddess.

"Well, don't get used to it." I frowned, ignoring the wolf bit. "I think I'm going to ignore this," I gestured at both of them, "and focus my attention on what we can solve here. So, random woman who loves me, how are you doing?"

She wiped at her tears, mucus beginning to stain her face. "Do you forgive me”

“Sure. We can say that for now. You followed one of the chancellors to come after me?" I asked.

"Of course, every mage needs to listen to the chancellors when they call. And they had pulled me off the front lines, which was great because then I could spend more time with you." Her pupils swelled like a kitten begging.

"Uh-huh. Uh-huh." I nodded awkwardly. "Glad we got that covered. Um, where are all of the chancellors?" 

She shrugged. "Wherever they need to be. King Martin moves them around daily or even weekly. Not to mention, they have the ability to travel between cities in a day."

"Right, right." I nodded. "Makes perfect sense. So if I were to want to find some of them," I tried to rephrase my question, "where would I find them? Or perhaps King Martin?"

She laughed. "Well, if you want to find King Martin, he's in the capital. He’s always in the palace, and he probably has several of the chancellors there with him. He never seems to move very far from them. One chancellor is always close by." She reported.

"Oh, really? I didn't know that. Well, that's good information. The other chancellors?" I urged her to continue, and she seemed eager to please.

"Well, there's usually one or two at most of the major bases along the border of the war," she replied quickly, her eyes shifting back and forth as she tried to find answers. "Oh, there's usually at least one stationed up near the barbaric lands."

"Oh, really?" I asked with a smile. "Why would you keep them up there?"

"Because you never know when the barbarians are gonna come down and try to hunt mages. They have a disdain for magic.” She threw extra tidbits in with a hopeful expression.

This was seriously creeping me out. I preferred my women with some spine and to challenge me, not… this.

“Of course, I've heard the stories. Everyone has. So, the chancellors are being used as high-level watchdogs." I suggested.

Her eyes went wide with fear and her hands came up. "I would never call them that. Particularly not to their faces."

"No, of course not. Of course not. But if you would sum it up, that's a correct assessment?” I pushed.

“Maybe. There are some moving through the interior." Her eyes continued to shift. "But there's not a ton of those. For the most part, they just do whatever King Martin asks of them.”

“Like good little doggies," I grumbled. "Alright, so there's one or two up at the northern border," I held a finger out. "There's probably a handful around the war. He keeps one or two with him. And there's at least five that I know are dead. How many were there to begin with?"

"Twenty-two," the woman said.

I glanced over at Zuri. "Best guess for where they are near the war front?"

Zuri already had a pad of paper out, working some unknown problem. "If we're talking major locations at the front, then there's at least eight they would probably be guarding," she said, continuing to scribble on a piece of paper as she talked through the exercise. "So if there are twenty-two and five are dead, we have seventeen left. Let's go with nine on the war front. Two with the King. And there's probably one on the northern front, maybe two."

She worked on the map. "So that means there's probably four or five more in the interior.”

“Chances are they're at the other four biggest cities given we did not come across any. He can’t pull them all around with him because he needs to keep control of the populace," I followed the logic that most rulers would use.

Zuri stared at the pad of paper before nodding. "I think you're right. Does that make sense?"

"If we have an idea of where all of the chancellors are, then we can start making our move. Do you think if we go after them that King Martin will directly interfere? Or perhaps one of the noble families?" I asked, fishing for more information from our docile informant. 

The mage blinked at me. "Noble family?”

“Yeah, there are noble families in Garrish, right?" I said, suddenly looking strange and turning to my anchors for confirmation. 

Zuri gave a quick nod. "There are, Ard. However, there hasn't been much information on them since the war began." 

The female mage shook her head. "There's only five noble families remaining, and they're all cowering away in their estates." 

"I'm sorry, what?" Zuri said, twisting around in her chair. "Only five? Are you saying that the rest all are feeder families, or..." 

The woman shook her head. "No, I'm saying all but five are gone, completely ripped up by the roots, and either largely absorbed by one of the five, or directly taken by the king and conscripted for war." 

Now all of my anchors were giving the love-struck woman a very queer look. "You mean to say that all of the noble houses of Garrish are gone, except for five?" Zuri asked for clarity. 

The woman nodded quickly. "So some of them are bigger, because they've taken falling factions of the others, sheltered those that were relationally important, but yeah. The noble houses are gone." 

"Okay, this is clearly more surprising than it seems to me based on all of your faces right now," I said, glancing around, "someone clue me in why this is a big deal? I mean, aren't these our enemies?”

“Dissolving a noble house is not something you just feel like doing. Ard, imagine someone going up to your grandfather and saying, 'House Aldis is no more.’” Zuri offered.

“Well, he wouldn't stand for that. He'd throw a complete fit." I smiled, thinking of my stickler of a grandfather. 

"Which is why it is horrific that King Martin has managed to rid Garrish of so many noble houses without Avente even knowing." Zuri answered.

"Oh, that makes sense," I said, now completely understanding why they were all so concerned. It meant King Martin and his support structure was completely unchecked and he had consolidated enough power that he could do such a thing. "So what do we do with that information?" 

"Well, we at least know there's probably some allies to find amongst the noble houses or the remnants of the other ones. But truthfully, I don't know if we can do anything with that right now. That’s a much longer game," Zuri said, rubbing her chin as she looked back along the map.

"I think the chancellors up by the barbaric north are likely the easiest targets." Zuri tapped on their locations on the map.

"It’ll be doubly effective if we can increase the pressure on the northern front for Garrish, it should deal some not insignificant damage to their overall operations. And we get to go say hi to the barbarians. I always wanted to go up and meet a proper Northman. I met a bunch with the exile X on their cheek. And then of course the bear man." I rambled.

Ditzy frowned at me before shrugging and shaking off her question.

Missy took the opportunity to coach her with a smug smile on her lips. "The bear man is Melida's anchor." She said before turning back to the group. "If you're going to go hunt all the chancellors, we can take a couple more passes at Freya." Missy twirled a lock of curly black hair. "But if we're going to do that, I'm going to need a new plan because she'll be ready for me if I try to use the same thing. She really had Thor by the balls, didn't she?" Missy glanced at Ditzy.

The two goddesses were a sight and I felt strangely happy for them to be bantering and spending time with our group. Since Missy had stepped down from acting all high and mighty, she was also smiling a lot more.

The other goddess might be helping part of it, but I think being amongst us was for a lack of better wording, normal. It was far better than the fucked up shit the gods talked about as if it was just another day.

Not that I’d ever point any of that out. I wasn’t suicidal.

"I told you. And he still has that terrible, terrible temper of his." Ditzy stuck her tongue out in the face of disgust. "He really does kind of look like a giant pimple now, doesn't he?" The two goddesses giggled looking more and more beautiful.

"And really inept with that hammer," I added in, only to get a funny look from Missy. 

Aphrodite, just over Missy’s shoulder, gave me an expression that said there was more to the story, but I did not want to get into how she pulled one over on me.

I steered the conversation away from the goddesses. "If we have what we need, then I am all for going after the chancellors. Perhaps, Missy and Ditzy, you two can prepare for the next fight with Freya?" They grew serious again. 

"Of course, it won't be easy and the best way to surprise her is to bring a new friend," Missy glanced at Ditzy.

"Bastet, she’ll hit her right in the aspect of the pussy," Ditzy said, and then squished her lips together to prevent herself from laughing at Missy’s eye roll.

With that, the dark-haired goddess grabbed the other and the two of them disappeared. 

"I'm not sure why they can't just, you know, wave their hands, be gods and end all of this?" Eva asked, having been quiet for most of the conversation. 

"Rules," I said. "Rules that I don't entirely understand, but are supposed to be fairly absolute. Like, they can't directly attack the worshippers of another god. At least that was the gist that I got.”

“So Thor shouldn't be able to come flying in and smash your head in?" Emlyn smiled. “Not like he hasn’t already tried twice.”

"Perhaps that's why he couldn't do it before.” I nodded.

“Maybe," Emlyn offered, "perhaps there's nothing special about you, Ard. Besides the fact that you’re mortal."

Her words made sense and I latched on to the reasoning. It might have even been something that slipped Ditzy's mind in the thick of it. Perhaps if I had been a god, he would have been able to attack me.

Pushing that aside, I focused back on the conversation. "Yeah, so they can't just straight up attack the worshippers of another god amongst a plethora of what I'm sure are other rules. It seems Missy was weakened in the first place because she went against the rules and so she's being careful. On the other hand Ditzy's playing a little fast and loose. When the gods attack each other, it's like a chess game of who has what aspects and where they rank in said aspects. Ditzy might not look at it, but apparently she's like the major goddess of war.”

“I can see it, as I already said. Love is kind of like war, just a different battlefield." Emlyn replied.

My attention shifted to the once again sobbing woman at my feet that the goddesses just happened to leave for me. What was I going to do with her?

"All right, all of you. It sounds like to me we're going to move north and since Cyam can't carry all of you. That means we get to go for a ride on an ice sled.” I told them.

“What do we do with her?" Emlyn pointed at the woman who was looking at me with adoration, hope and tear stained eyes.

"I have no clue, but she has information. Let's bring her with us. If she ever stops being all puppy dog in love with me, just make sure to give her a good whack in the back of the head." I nodded to myself at my plan.

"You treat the women who love you so well, Ard." Emlyn rolled her eyes.

I shrugged helplessly and flashed her a smile. What was I supposed to do? "Ah right. Do you at least have a name?" I glanced down at the woman. 

"Diana." She replied timidly.

"Okay, Diana. Well, I think we're going to go for a ride. This lovely lady here," I pointed at Zuri, "is going to take care of you while I focus on my magic and she's probably going to ask you a lot of questions." I smiled and Zuri echoed my smile though with far less warmth. 

"See? Now, come, come, let's all pack up. Put things in the shadow bag and we'll get moving." I opened up a small portal with dark magic. 

"I thought we agreed we weren't going to call it the shadow bag," Emlyn said, already beginning to pack. 

"I think you asked me not to and I declined," I said, before hopping away and into Maribelle's sphere of protection while I helped clean up.