“Recent events have made me realize I need to focus more on big picture planning than immediate goals,” Sable said.

For this discussion, she intended to go with full disclosure, explaining her aims and needs and hoping Roman could provide meaningful guidance. During magic lessons, Sable had kept an arm’s length away from Roman, both of them keeping their secrets. Sable couldn’t afford to keep doing that. The risk that came with divulging her true goals and thoughts to Roman was simply outweighed by how much value she could receive from having an informed adviser.

With that said, Sable didn’t want to lay all her cards on the table. The obvious bits she would be keeping to herself were her reincarnation, and the extent of her hopeful altruism. Neither should be ultimately relevant.

“Mm,” Roman replied. “You look banged up. Has to do with that?”

Some of Sable’s injuries had carried over from her dragon form, though not extensively. The two forms reflected each other to a minor degree. Most prominently, her elbow ached, and a nasty bruise covered it. Her arm had nearly been cut off.

“Of sorts,” Sable said. “I flew to Verindale with a contingent of Skatikk’s most powerful classed, intending to capture the city. There was a cultist there. He used some sort of gem to sacrifice several dozen classed to summon a monster called a ‘Lesser Aspect of Lady Xenaya, The Exalted Consumption’. I fought and barely won.”

The summary, of course, made Roman pause. From her place over at the counter preparing tea, she turned an incredulous look to Sable.

“So I want to start there,” Sable said. “What do you know of ‘Lady Xenaya’?” She glanced Aylin’s way. “Aylin says she’s an ‘Old God’?”

Aylin shifted, seeming suddenly hesitant. “That’s what the Elders say. But I’ve also hear them say all kinds of ridiculous things, so, you know.” She shrugged.

Aylin did seem to be oddly open minded, not freely accepting superstitions or the stories her people peddled. It wasn’t a trait Sable wouldn’t have expected from a goblin who’d grown up in a remote tribe.

“Old Gods,” Roman said. “Yes, well, it’s not unusual to characterize them as such.”

“Characterize?” Sable asked.

“No one knows what the Primal Energies really are,” Roman said. “But they don’t seem to be fully sapient beings. At the same time, they have some sort of intent or guiding force behind them.” She frowned. “This isn’t a topic that’s really understood. By anyone, if I had to guess.”

“Aylin said they were replaced by new gods?” Sable asked.

“New ones?” Roman asked, sounding confused.

“The gods of order,” Aylin said. “The System.”

“Ah. Well, yes. Ancient histories say the Primal Energies were more prominent thousands of years ago, and that the System repressed them. Again, this isn’t a subject that’s understood in any meaningful capacity. Let me emphasize ‘ancient history’.”

“But are these new gods real?” It was a blunt way to phrase the question, but Sable wanted to know if she had actual deities to worry about, alongside whatever these ‘Primal Energies’ were.

“You mean what’s demonstrably provable?” Roman asked. She spared a glance for Aylin before facing back to Sable, and Sable got the impression Rom had been wondering whether she should go for tact—to not offend Aylin by dismissing whatever her belief system was. That hesitation only lasted for a second, though, and Roman barreled forward. “Plenty of societies have built a religion around the System, but there’s no concrete proof. There’s priests, paladins, and other classes that form divine links, but whether they actually draw power from a higher sentient being, rather than simply their class, isn’t known.” Roman hesitated. “And there’s the Keepers. I would say those are clearly real, and are deities, or ‘higher forces’ in the way most would consider the term. Gods, of a sort. Why are you asking?”

“I’m figuring out what I need to worry about,” Sable said. “Seeing how I was nearly killed by this ‘Lady of Consumption’, I want to be aware of what other unimaginable powers might be turned against me.”

Roman considered that response, then snorted. “There’s no harm in learning, but freak incidents like emergences of the Primal Energies aren’t really something you ‘plan for’. Or should need to. They’re calamities the world deals with as they come, and are exceedingly rare. Frankly, you got unlucky. And the Keepers aren’t something you need to worry about, either.”

“What are those, again?” Sable asked. “Aylin said they ‘keep the world from turning into a cosmic stew’.”

“Oh, I like that. But yes, that’s more or less it. The Primal Energies are actually one such place the Keepers will intervene, should things get bad enough.”

“They certainly didn’t help me.” Nor had they Gadenrock, which had been ravaged by a ‘Greater Aspect’, not a lesser.

“You’re underestimating the scale those beings operate on,” Roman said dismissively. “They stop people from trying to crack open space, turn back time, brainwash a continent, or so on. There was an Intervention for a High Avatar of Growth, I believe, some six centuries ago … but let me remind you that we’re talking about forces we can’t comprehend, and events that happen on a scale discussed in centuries or millennia. The Keepers mostly come out to squash immensely powerful mages from meddling in forbidden disciplines. Specifically, too deeply in them. Reality-breakingly deep. The Children usually handle minor infractions.”

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“The Children?”

“A cult,” Roman said. “Sort of. They track down people working with taboo forces or arts and clean up problems before the Keepers need to bother. Fancy themselves their studious disciples.” Her nose wrinkled. “They’re creepy ones. Met an initiate once, at the Tower.”

“And what are the ‘taboo arts’?”

“Soul necromancy, messing with time, certain workings of space and dimensions, mind control, peeking into the future, you know, anything that goes too harshly against the natural order.”

One of those, obviously, alarmed Sable more than the others. “Mind control?”

“They might bother with coercions, too, and other smaller applications of mind magic,” Roman said. “Depends. They can only spread themselves so far.”

“And how do they track offenders down? Are they strong?”

“Rumors say the Justicar is a level fifty,” Roman said. “One of the few max levels on the continent. So yeah. Not much they wouldn’t be capable of dealing with, assuming it’s true. Even if it’s not, he’s a heavyweight in the Kingdoms, and there’s several members of the Children who aren’t pushovers themselves.”

This had been exactly why Sable had wanted to talk to Roman. If there was a cult-like organization who made it their mission to hunt down people who dabbled in taboo arts—one of which was mind control, which Sable had literally used against Aylin, and had been considering leveraging more thoroughly, even—then Sable should obviously be aware and prepared for them.

Though by the sounds of it, she couldn’t be prepared should their gaze somehow turn her way. A level fifty? Sable could hit above her weight class, but not forty levels above it. She’d be squashed like a bug. Even the smaller heavyweights Roman had mentioned would demolish her.

Sable’s head started to hurt, because it sounded like she hadn’t even broached the surface of the ‘world at large’. It was an entire world. How the hell was she supposed to prepare herself for that?

The enormity of her task almost took the fight out of her, but it was a short-lived exhaustion. While headache-inducing, she had to start somewhere—and at least there was no proof she was being actively hunted by an organization like these ‘Children’.

“But how do they find offenders?” Sable asked.

“Wondering about your minions?” Roman asked, sounding amused. Like usual, she read Sable without much difficulty. The necromancer could be unfortunately perceptive. “Don’t worry. The Children are more concerned with people, not monsters. Though I suppose it’s not impossible they come after you if you start really ramping up the war crimes. Specifically while using taboo arts. But right now? Even if you were public knowledge, I doubt they’d care. Dragons ensnaring a few people and stealing from local cities isn’t really their domain. They’re not that big of an organization. And they’ve got lots on their plate. The world’s a chaotic place.”

Roman could say that again. And the response relieved Sable. Still, it seemed she had an extrinsic motivation to not get too excited with things like mind control. Brainwashing every political leader she came by to build her empire could very well turn the Children’s eyes her way, and level fifty opponents were something she wouldn’t be able to face for a long time. And that was putting the moral concerns aside.

“And what should I worry about, on the large scale?”

“The Adventurer’s Guild, obviously,” Roman said. “Specifically the Slayers. And whatever million smaller forces simply want a set of dragonscale armor. Defending forces of who you want to conquer, too. That one’s obvious. Basically, pretty much everyone you come into contact with.”

Sable repressed a sigh.

“The good news,” Roman said, sounding amused, “is that while there’ll definitely be people interested in a dragon once word gets out, is that as long as you keep putting on levels, you can make the amount of people capable of really dealing with you into a tiny pool. Already, it’s not like the world’s swarming with them. Well, this part of the world. Definitely stay away from the High Kingdoms.”

“High Kingdoms?”

Roman paused. “Hm. Have you heard of aura ratings?”

“No.”

“It’s a simplistic way of breaking groupings of geography into certain ‘levels’ of magical density. Most of the area around us is a green zone—which aren’t that common. There’s nearly no latent magic here, and because of that, people can’t reach meaningfully high levels. It goes green, yellow, red, and black. Essentially, you can consider it ten level increments, where if you stay in that zone, progress becomes incredibly slow past the peak.”

“Hence the strongest Red Plains warriors being around fourteen to sixteen,” Sable said. A green zone fielded opponents on average around one to ten, and that matched with the Red Plains, where the ‘typical mob’ was around four to seven. The strongest warriors, after a lifetime, could go further, and in Skatikk’s case, reach up to the fourteen to sixteen range, but they were rare.

Sable supposed the Fang Hollows might be considered a tiny, honorary yellow zone, and rarely, strong dungeons appeared—but the Red Plains in general was a green zone.

“Right,” Roman said. “And the High Kingdoms are the Kingdoms where almost everything is red or black.”

“How do people live through that?” If the average monster there was between twenty to thirty, even Sable would struggle.

“Very carefully,” Roman said dryly. “Civilians stay in safe places. There’s lots of high-level defensive forces, of various types, gained over the years from the absurd amounts of latent magic in the air. But yeah. People stay within walled cities, or move around in heavily guarded caravans, in the High Kingdoms. There’s patches of green and yellow zones, too, which is usually where the capitals and largest cities are. There’s bonuses to living in dangerous areas, but it also becomes prohibitively difficult, in cases. Still, the point is that where there’s red and black zones, there’s opportunity to progress. The High Kingdoms have the most, so they field the highest amount of high-level classed. Doubly true because people seeking higher levels of power tend to migrate there.”

“How come they don’t conquer the world, then? If the other Kingdoms are weaker?”

“They’re mostly concerned with other High Kingdoms, first off,” Roman said. “So it’s a self-balancing system. If they move off to attack a weaker Kingdom, they’ll be pounced on by the other High Kingdoms. That said, don’t be mistaken. There hasn’t been a year in the past thousand that nation lines haven’t been redrawn. The Kingdoms are conquering each other, constantly. It’s one of the reasons you’ll have some modicum of safety if your name ever reaches the general public. Most powerful people are too busy killing each other to bother with you.” Roman paused. “Well, to an extent. I’d say mostly it’s the free agents you’d need to worry about. People without much locking them down. People like some of the Slayers in the Adventurer’s Guild, rather than a High Kingdom’s champion.”

“I see,” Sable said. She was continuing to be overwhelmed by the flood of information. Obviously, an entire world had a lot to be briefed on. But Sable hadn’t even gotten to planning. She had a feeling this talk was going to last a while, and even once done, she’d be left with far from a watertight plan. She was starting to get the feeling that there was no such thing as a ‘watertight plan’ in a world with so many powerful, chaotic moving pieces. Then again, that chaos seemed to be providing a blanket of safety to her, too.

Still, it was better than her previous fumbling through the dark.

“Tell me about these Slayers,” Sable said.