Chapter 213 - On the Precipice

Nate listened as Aisling’s voice boomed over the city, driven by some spell using wind, based on what he sensed through Conceptual Insight.

“All members of the Adventurer’s Guild are to make their way to the Guildhouse. Evelynn Allais, former Platinum member of the Adventurer’s Guild and violator of the Guild’s oaths has been slain along with her allies, Helen, Kartier, and Portos Jamison. As the remaining Platinum ranking members of the Adventurer’s Guild, I, Aisling Teigland, along with Evindal Ravalynn and Luc Crozier will be assuming control of the Guild functions until a Guild Investigator arrives to determine what should become of the Etruan Branch of the Adventurer’s Guild. Failure to heed this call will be viewed as a violation of your oaths and your names will be struck from the records of the Guild. You have one hour to present yourselves.”

Aisling floated back down to the ground and Evindal was by her side a moment later, continuing to heal her. It seemed the venomous light wielded by Allais was not so easily cleansed and Nate felt a moment of thankfulness that Coralie had shielded him from joining in Aisling’s suffering. That wasn’t to say he didn’t have other things on his mind. The Guild was retaken, though he suspected some of those who had been loyal to Allais or committed crimes at her or the city's behest would choose to flee rather than face the potential consequences of their actions.

That, however, left questions about what to do next? He wanted to go help Cutter and the people of the slums, but he was also in bad shape. Frick was still banished and Nate himself was running on his last dregs of mana. There was a question of what the Palace would do now that they had won this victory. Would the red-haired fire mage sally forth? Or the guards in the palace? Would Bordain return, ferried by his personal Portal Mage? Nate liked to be prepared, and right now, he wasn’t. Or mostly wasn’t. He had something for the Portal Mage, or more specifically, he had something for Luc to use against his half-brother. But for Bordain, he had nothing. He didn’t even truly know how the man fought. It seemed soul-based but that was a pretty loose ship to set sail on. Maybe he wouldn’t even need to fight the man. Maybe Bordain would just capitulate when he saw the forces arrayed against him. Nate knew he was lying to himself, but he could dream.

Deverell broke the silence as he sat near the pile of Orbs and flicked through a tome.

“Princess Morgane and her forces are five days from the Capital. She is asking if we can use a portal to speed up the travel time?”

“I can go get them,” replied Luc tiredly. “I used a lot less mana than expected. And I felt kind of useless so I can help by doing this.”

They all looked to Aisling to get confirmation and, when the Amazonian woman nodded, Nate handed over one of the portal plates. He might’ve tried to use the escape trinkets he had created instead but he didn’t know how many people Morgane and Hildi had with them. At the rate Luc could teleport, it meant the Princess and her forces would likely join them in the Capital within the next twelve hours. No time at all to prepare for himself, but on the upside, a higher chance that he wouldn’t need to fight at all.

As they gathered everything together, Nate asked to be excused and return to their hideout. Only Kiri and Jorge asked to come and Nate could see why. Kiri wanted to stay with him and see her mother, Rania, since they were now on the clock for when Arikanvil would call in the tasks owed to him. Jorge was just staying close to his daughter. Handing Jorge an escape trinket, Nate used Conceptual Spatial Manipulation and after a few teleports stood back in the Smuggler’s Nest. Kiri joined him a moment later, followed by Jorge.

Stepping out of the teleportation room, Nate watched as Rania crashed into her daughter and husband, wrapping them up. He smiled, only to find a hand grabbing him and pulling him into the mass of bodies. His barrier was yet to be restored and he used a part of his mind to start directing mana from his vastly reduced horde of gems into the Legendary item. Quietly, he noted he should raise the item to Mythic sooner rather than later. That led to him thinking about how he would likely need to completely re-outfit both Kiri and himself. The whole time he enjoyed the closeness of being held by people he considered family and who clearly felt the same about him.

All too soon the family hug broke apart and while Rania looked them over for injuries, Jorge said what Nate had been thinking.

“We need to talk about what happened, and what it means.”

Both he and Kiri agreed and they found themselves in Nate’s room, dragging in chairs from the workshop. Using his room had been Kiri’s idea and he found out why as Rania looked over the paintings Nate had created on the walls of his room. Jorge gave them a glance, but his focus was mostly on Kiri, with a little spared for Nate himself. Nate used one of his anti-scrying cubes as Jorge began asking the questions upon his mind.

“Nate said you took a step. The next step. Does he mean…?”

Kiri nodded, sighing loudly, though a smile was on her lips, “We’ve both evolved a Skill to the tier beyond Mythic. It’s called Divine… and it’s different. Different to the tiers that came before. And different in what it means when we evolve our Classes at level sixty.”

Kiri began explaining everything that had come afterwards. Their meeting with Arikanvil, the things the True Divine, as Nate could no longer view him as a god, had revealed about the nature of this Reality. The idea that there were other Realities and that mana came from one of them was an idea that Nate was still getting his head around. There were other questions they could have asked Arikanvil, things he had even considered asking, but seeing how the True Divine was only able to demand two tasks from them rather than three or more made him comfortable in his decision to work them out himself, or better yet, ask The System.

“You’re still there, right? You are going to honour your agreement with us?” he sent mentally, hoping The System would hear him.

When the time comes, I will assist. You may ask for something else, if you wish, but I know what is coming and what will best serve your Path.

The instant response from The System settled some of his nerves and he let the issue lie for now. Arikanvil had seemed to despise The System, and while Nate didn’t exactly relish the idea of ‘big brother’ looking over his shoulder, he had no reason to hate The System. He did, however, have a multitude of questions. Some of which he had hypotheses for. Like, why did a being bound by the Embodiment of Reciprocity give every sentient a Class Core. Did it need processed mana? Were they just batteries for it and because of its Embodiment it needed to grant them something in return, so it did in the form of Classes and Skills and the ability to use mana? And Arikanvil had mentioned how Divine Energy was needed to advance Divine Classes and Skills. Did that mean The System was taking some of that Divine Energy in the exchange or did it all go towards the Class Core changes? He didn’t know, but a being based around Reciprocity had to be performing some sort of exchange. To what end, though? He didn’t know, and he doubted he would be able to get answers in a backwater, as Arikanvil had put it, like Galle. Perhaps their tasks would take them into proximity of those who knew, or at least, knew how to find out.

His attention returned to the present as Kiri finished talking about their deal with Arikanvil, and how they would be leaving Galle for a time after their Classes evolved. Jorge had a look of worry on his tanned face that his black beard couldn’t hide, though his body language didn’t reveal a thing in Nate’s sphere of awareness. The training of a Royal Ranger, he supposed. Rania, however, had tears in her eyes and a smile on her face as she warred with the opposing emotions of being elated for her daughter following her dreams and the risk that those same dreams came with.

“I’ll be fine, mum!” Kiri groaned as Rania wrapped her up in a hug.

“I know you will, honey. I know you will. But I’ll worry anyway. It’s what mothers do. You’ll look after each other, won’t you?”

“Of course,” replied Kiri. “Besides, it’s not like we’re leaving right this instant. We’ve got a while. A month at least?”

The last was said as a question directed at Nate and he added his own thoughts.

“I think more like… three months. Arikanvil didn’t seem like he intended to rush us. More importantly, he can’t just give us something unless it is something he wants badly enough. He said he would return to us in a month with the details. I think we’ll have a little longer afterwards before we have to leave.”

“We’ll just have to make the most of that time then,” said Rania firmly, a mirroring grunt of agreement elicited from Jorge.

“Now we just need to… what? Topple Bordain and replace him with Morgane? Help Aisling get the Guild under control? Deal with the Asmuisillans?” Kiri commented sarcastically.

Nate shook his head, “We’ll just help our friends, to the extent that we can, so that when we are forced to leave, they aren’t left picking up all the pieces on their own.”

Kiri grinned her agreement, which transformed into a full-bodied smile as Nate added, “Besides, Asmuisil still owes me enough Orbs for us to max out our Stats. Seems like something we’re going to need.”

“Morgane better reward you as well,” growled Jorge. “For now… you should both rest. It’s been a day for the history books and you’re both owed some recovery time.”

Jorge shepherded Rania out of the room and finally alone with his sister he looked at her seriously.

“Plans?” he asked.

“Short sleep, then scout the city. You?” Kiri countered.

“Restore my mana reserves and gems. Try and come up with something to counter Bordain. Then sleep once Frick is back and he can take over.”

“I won’t tell if you won’t,” Kiri said with a grin, mostly asking him to stay quiet about her plans to go scouting.

“Together,” Nate agreed.

“Forever,” replied Kiri, before curling up in his cloud-enchanted bed with a smile.

Nate dimmed the runic lights along the walls of his room and moved over to the table he kept in the corner of his room as he started considering ways by which he could counter Bordain. They’d need to be widespread since he didn’t understand the specifics of what Bordain’s Skills or even Concept was. Regardless, he would come up with something. He just hoped he had a few days to make it worthwhile. As he worked he took out the puzzle box, sitting it on his desk. He knew what lay beyond Mythic now, the nature of it, and how it worked to an extent. The puzzle box had held its secrets tight up until now. But now that he knew about Divine Energy, he finally had a clue as to why the images looked like Sigils but refused to react to mana. Now he just needed to trigger another connection with Reality and let some of the resulting Divine Energy leak into the puzzle box. With a smile he got to work, listing out Sigil combinations that might achieve his goals.

*************

Bordain howled in fury. In the days since his battle against Kalista, Commander of the Third Army of Asmuisil, and Theora, Wind of the East, he had found himself on the back foot or evenly matched every day by the Asmuisillan Champions. Previously he had been winning the battles in a one versus three. Now he was being pushed back by two. That reduction in the force he was able to handle had resulted in the first losses for his side as the Asmuisillans had used the freed up Champion, along with reinforcements from their Capital, to kill one of his nobles. The issues had cascaded and he’d lost a second a day later. Now, he’d lost one of his strongest combatants besides Topaz. The Duke Desmarais had fallen, the Storm Mage smote from the skies by Theora herself.

Bordain had lost and he could recognise where it all began. The failure to assassinate his sister had been the first misstep, leading to a paltry number of the nobles of Etrua rallying behind him against a common enemy, culminating in the reduction of his forces as they fought to keep the Asmuisillans at bay while his sister gallivanted across the countryside swaying the nobles who hadn’t elected to take a side to join her cause against him. Now, Obsidian was telling him that Evelynn Allais, his vassal that had kept the Guild at bay and helped control the Capital was also dead, along with all the forces loyal to her. 

He was losing on the battlefield. He was losing his Capital and. if the spy among his sister’s forces was to be believed, if he didn’t do something drastic, he was liable to lose his crown. Looking in disgust at the churned battlefield, he growled out an order to Obsidian.

“Gather our forces that remain. We are returning to the Capital. Then you are to go and collect Sapphire and Amethyst and any forces they still retain and ferry them to the Palace grounds. It’s time to deal with my sister permanently. Then we will crush one Asmuisillan army at a time. Let them have this battle. We will win the war.”

An hour later, sitting upon his throne, he watched as his gems presented themselves before him. One by one his vassals knelt, acknowledging his might. Topaz, looking feral even in her human form. Garnet, colder than he remembered her, as though the fire in her had gone out. Sapphire, his ever-present smirk on his face as he looked upon a world he viewed only as a mechanism for bringing him pleasure. Obsidian, an obedient dog with his head down. Malachite, sword held off the floor in its sheath, bound by duty to serve. Amethyst, beautiful and distant as ever.

Behind them, the nobles who remained, with Duchess Charlotte Desmarais at their head, ready to serve, their eyes scheming as they plotted how to carve as much out of his Kingdom for themselves as they could.

The doors behind swung open, disrupting the scene and setting tongues aflutter as  Headmaster Verian Thavian Mazet strode into the room and joined his gems.

“I have taken my rightful place, my King, and am ready to serve.”

Bordain smiled for the first time in days. His forces were ready. When his sister came to topple him she would find that his Supremacy could not be matched. He had lost, but in the end, undeniable might always won. The final victory would be his.