121. Arrival

“Sam, I swear to God, if we fall from the sky because you cast some bullshit inside the plane, I will kill you,” grumbled Q’Shar, looking in my direction.

I shrugged. “How else would I check whether Blink preserves a target’s acceleration?”

“Anywhere other than on a fucking private jet, you moron.”

“Darius said he would catch me. And I knew it was between 80% and 100% preserved, so no worries.”

The cat kept his hateful gaze fixed on me as I sat down.

“Was kinda hoping you would slam into the back of the airplane,” Luna said, not lifting her eyes from a book on blood magic.

“Woooould be funny,” Myhur nodded.

“Aye, that would be funny. But I would catch ya easy,” said Darius, flexing his muscles.

“We will begin landing in fifteen minutes,” said the pilot over the speaker.

“Okay, before we land, one last thing,” the cat said, looking at all of us. “We are not—and I repeat, absolutely fucking not—causing unnecessary issues. Do you understand?”

I, the dwarf, the vampire, and the mycanoid rolled our eyes at the grumbling animal.

“No harvesting people’s souls,” hissed the cat, looking at me.

“No murdering men in back alleys,” he said, switching to Luna.

“No honor duels for fun,” this time, Darius got the scolding.

“And no putting others in the ground to feed the trees.” Lastly, he shouted at Myhur.

“And you two,” he turned to Ophelia and Will. “You two are really reasonable, and I’m thankful for that.”

I caught Ophelia’s gaze. “Teacher’s pet,” I said while fake-coughing, to which my apprentice looked at me with disbelief.

She was really a goody-two-shoes. I’d need to fix that one day.

I sat down next to my apprentice. Once we had our seatbelts fastened, I saw her pipe up as if she remembered something. Her gaze then met mine.

“Quindi dovremmo prepararci all'atterraggio,” she said in relatively good Italian, looking proud of herself.

I frowned. “Okay?”

“What do you mean ‘okay’? Was it good?”

“I guess so—I speak Latin, not Italian, but it did sound good to me.” I could see her grow slightly sad.

“Oh, so I brushed up on my Italian for nothing?”

“Why would you brush up on your Italian?”

“I mean, we are in Italy for a meeting—will it be in Latin then?”

“No… It’s the 21st century. It’s gonna be in English.”

There was a pause as Ophelia processed what I just said.

“In English?”

“Yeah, the majority of the arcane world uses English ever since the colonial era. You can actually roughly tell a book’s time period by the language it is written in. If it’s in the arcane, it’s most likely from before the war, and it’s the original. If in Latin, then it’s after the war, when the Church gained significant power and became the central government. Then, after the Inquisition, much knowledge was lost. Later, the British colonized half the world, and many younger people didn’t want to learn an archaic language like Latin. So ever since, we’ve used English like the rest of the world. A lot of lost knowledge was rewritten into English.”

“Oh,” Ophelia said, slightly downtrodden.

“Did you really not tell her anything?” Q’Shar grumbled.

“I did tell her the flight time, and you told her the plan, so I don’t see why you’re whining.”

The cat sighed and turned to Ophelia. “Did he tell you the schedule?”

“No.” Ophelia shook her head.

The cat sighed once again before speaking. “The first day will be Justice Day. It’s when any complaints or legal cases can be presented before the High Judge. This is so that no one tries to commit suicide attacks against another family to stop them from voting. The actual sabbath can begin only once all cases affecting voting rights are closed. This can take from one day to an entire week. The next three days will be the most important—they are the days for presenting propositions to the whole gathering and drafting laws. Once all the propositions are finalized, the last day is the voting.”

Ophelia nodded as she listened intently.

We landed in Rome 15 minutes later and, after stuffing Myhur into a crate, left the plane to be greeted by someone from the Vatican. She was a middle-aged woman radiating second-circle power. Someone like that, sent for a greeting, could be interpreted as a sign of great respect, but I had the sneaking suspicion it was to make sure we didn’t cause any trouble.

“Welcome to Italy,” she said in English with an accent.

After that, the woman explained to us—and Myhur in the crate—what the plan was. We had a hotel very close to Vatican City. The entire building was under construction, with scaffolding covering the windows and special precautions to allow members of other races to walk freely inside. The entire massive building was ours, with protections against normal people getting in.

Shipping and travel were also prepared for the Vatican so that mycanoids and other races could travel in buses alongside everyone else, keeping their dignity. Usually, they would stay in a massive underground complex of the Vatican, but this time around, it was reorganized. It was clear this sabbath was much more important than any other.

We went to the hotel and unpacked our things, making quite a few greetings along the way—from cold ones with some religious and noble officials, to some warm banter with warlocks and a couple of dark elves.

Finally, we went to our rooms.

The Vatican had enough sense to separate the three main factions into separate wings of the hotel. The rest of the clans and cats also arrived today, making the whole place quite lively.

After two more warnings from Q’Shar not to cause any problems, we decided to go to the bar to possibly cause some problems.

The place was quite crowded, but we managed to find a table and got drinks from a bartender. The funny thing was that, judging by the wide-eyed look of the man, he must have been a relatively new recruit, his head on a swivel each time an elf or a mycanoid ordered something.

We sat down in the corner, all with our chosen poison—or literal poison in the case of Myhur. Many different languages could be heard in the room, from more common ones like German to a few that were thought to be extinct.

“So—who is who in this place?” Ophelia asked in a break in the conversation, looking over the crowded room.

“Well, that depends on what you’re asking about,” William answered.

“Like the main groups. You said that we are the Third Chamber.”

“Or the Dark Faction, as some blokes still call us,” William added.

“‘Bloookes’, my good sir?”

“Oh, the abyss, not the ‘blokes’.”

“Shut up,” William barked at us.

“So, what other factions are there?” Ophelia pressed on before we could start arguing.

“It depends on what we are voting for. In normal votes, there are three main factions: the nobles, usually the most traditional ones; the religious faction—representing organized religions; and the Third Chamber—representing mostly the dark mages and warlocks; and a fourth, much smaller group: unaffiliated people who don’t subscribe to either of those.”

“Yeah, but the powers can change depending on what you are voting for,” Luna broke in. “For example, we vampires usually vote with the Dark Faction, but if the law concerns outsiders or demihumans, the Inhuman Faction forms, where almost all other species come to form one voting bloc so that we don’t get discriminated against and present a united front. The same goes for the cats. They usually vote alongside their supporters or clans they work with, but if the vote is about something to do with information or the brokers, they will come to form one united voting bloc.”

Ophelia nodded as she listened intently. “So what will be the vote spread about the mortal world?”

“With a decision like that? Impossible to predict.”

“Well, well, well, if it’s not the dreaded leader of the Dark Faction,” came a mocking voice from behind me.

I slowly turned around and saw that a few of the conversations around us quieted down as people turned in our direction. An involuntary sigh left my lips as I turned to see the source of the voice. Judging by the robes, there was one possible answer. A fucking cultivator—young master at that.

‘Why do they always have to crawl out of somewhere?’

“A wizard who sold his soul to a dark god, a vampire healer, a mushroom, a fallen noble, and a dwarf that can’t fit in a mine. What a gather—” he tried to continue, but I interrupted him.

“And a cultivator without an ounce of courage. Come—bring a chair, you’ll fit right in.”

I could see his jaw tighten as his courage was questioned. God, these idiots were easy to provoke. No wonder they used him.

“I’m not gonna take the words of a coward.”

“Me? Coward? It’s you who approached us in a crowded place, just in case I decided to break some of your bones. I’d like to see you shouting that bullshit alone in an alley.”

“If you think that you’ll get to run around doing what you want like last time, then you are mistaken. Without your father around, nothing is stopping us from teaching you a lesson,” he said, trying to sound domineering.

“Uh-huh. Aside from the fact that you can’t beat anyone at this table, then sure. Hey, if we are making shit up, why don’t you imagine you already won and fuck off?”

I could see he was getting progressively angrier. They really picked someone easy to rouse—to the point I started wondering if he was acting.

“The ways of the water sweep away all filth,” he replied through gritted teeth.

I noticed the decorations on his robe—so he was using the water element. That was quite rare.

“Oh no, not… water,” I said in a flat tone.

“My ancestors drowned entire cities.”

“Do I look like a city, dipshit?”

I could see him choke slightly as the rest snickered.

“We will see about that,” he said, and turned around.

I followed him with my gaze, seeing if he was dumb enough to go straight back to his owners, but sadly not.

“What was that about?” asked Ophelia.

“Did you sense that?” I asked the table.

“Yes—someone wanted to sense our strengths.”

“Yep, they probably roused that moron to distract us. Did you sense who that was?”

“Two tables down,” William said, tilting his head in the direction.

I wasn’t one for subtlety, so I did a full rotation to meet the eyes of a few people, who quickly turned around.

“Who the fuck was that?” I asked, not recognizing the clown show sitting there.

“The Riswalt family,” William offered. “They control most of the West Coast.”

I then extended myself to the most important-looking person at their table and, without hiding anything, brute-forced myself toward his mind, trying to sense the power he was trying to hide. I realized his level—halfway through the second circle—before quickly pulling away as they sensed that something was wrong when their leader winced visibly.

“That was rude,” commented William.

“Then watch this,” I said, and flipped them off when the man I just sensed looked at me with questioning eyes.

“Lovely,” William winced.

“You’re always this popular?” Ophelia asked, looking at the spectacle.

“More or less.”

“Especially amongst the cultivators,” Myhur snickered.

We finished our talk shortly after and went to our rooms. As I went back, my senses picked up something. It was a woman at the reception. I could sense something… wrong. I couldn’t really tell what it was. I was sure she was a normal person, but at the same time, there was some magic inside, and her eyes… I’m pretty sure those were contact lenses similar to the ones I used.

Before I could check more, I sensed magic from her necklace covering her, preventing any scanning unless I wanted to brute-force it. It wasn’t that unusual. I was currently suppressing my power as well, so that no one could tell my circle, but why do that for a receptionist? I stood there for a few seconds before walking back to my room, leaving the incident at the back of my mind.

The next morning, after a good night’s sleep, the buses arrived to take us deep under St. Peter’s Cathedral, where the real Vatican had its headquarters.

It was time to start the sabbath.