“Sorry I kept you waiting!” said Duchess Elaria Valen, as she swept into the room, smiling brightly.
Mark and Isoko had only been waiting 15 minutes.
They dropped off the gourd flesh and milk to the guy at the receiving station of the Healer’s Guild a little while ago, and asked the guy if they could meet the duchess this afternoon. Mark had been prepared to make an appointment, but without even asking the nature of their query for a meeting, or taking their names or anything like that, the guy had immediately smiled and said that the duchess would be happy to see them, and if they could please wait over in this room then that would be great.
They had wanted to check out the Guild, but they had only managed a glance at the rows of potions and shields and enchanted ‘Breastplate of the Healer’s, which looked really nice and which Isoko wanted to look at later, before they gotten shuffled into a nice room above the Guild’s headquarters. The room was nice, with plush furniture and books on shelves and a coffee table that Mark was pretty sure he had seen on the Grey Whale.
Freshly brewed tea and cookies were brought to them, and then they waited.
And now the duchess was here, and Mark wondered why he didn’t notice the family resemblance before.
Elaria Valen had slightly different coloring than her prismatic-white daughter, but Elaria was clearly Aurora’s mother. Her hair could have been mistaken as dirty blonde, going grey with age, but her hair was actually a uniform distribution of pure white and dirty blonde. Bi-colored hair; not grey at all. Typical noble-coloring, according to what Mark was seeing around the settlement, now that he knew to look for it. Mark was pretty sure the hair-thing was a side effect of ‘good breeding’, as he had heard one time, possibly due to the innate magic in their lineages. Mark wasn’t sure and he hadn’t looked into it too much. He was pretty sure it was a part of the bi-Talent thing most nobles had going on.
Maybe that sort of coloring only came out in the Tutorial, and the Awakening, though.
Mark used to be brown-haired and eyed, but these days his hair was darker than black, and his eyes were deeply silver and black. If he had a third color then he didn’t know about it. Isoko, with her singular Talent of Platinum Body, still had normal earthling colors, outside of Full Platinum mode, and so did Eliot and Sally, so maybe… Mark had no idea what coloring meant on people.
Eliot only had one Talent, though, so Mark’s whole idea about noble coloring might be off.
Elaria’s eyes were clearly full of strong power, though. They were the brightest color of amber that Mark had ever seen in a pair of eyes, while her facial structure was the same as Aurora, but a bit plumper, a bit softer. More motherly, for sure.
All of those thoughts flashed through Mark’s mind the moment he saw Elaria.
And then Mark and Isoko both stood from their chairs, bowing—
“No no no!” Elaria smiled gently, sweeping into the chair opposite of them. “I won’t stand on circumstances from soldiers, and especially not soldiers of my daughter. It keeps us too distant from each other, and distance inside of a warzone can be deadly. Please sit.”
Mark and Isoko sat. Mark said, “I apologize for not recognizing you the first time, Duchess Valen.”
“Elaria,” Elaria gently corrected. “And I’m glad you came in! There’s more to talk about here and now than back on the ship. You’ve been a great asset in the settlement, Mark. You and Isoko both! I wasn’t sure how good of an asset you two would be— You never really know when meeting new people, you understand. But you’ve been wonderful! I have some things I would like to discuss, but let’s start with you. You first, Mark. What brings you in today?”
“I want to put down Tartu for 2 days, without severely hurting him.”
Elaria stared for a moment.
“Okay then!” Elaria looked to Isoko, smiling gently, and said, “And I can’t forget about you! I hear you’re doing quite well, Isoko. You wish to be a mage, yes?”
Mark was fine with letting his goal percolate.
Isoko glanced to Mark, and then said to Elaria, “That is correct. I am most interested in Flying magics, and Aurora said that if Grand Mage Solari wasn’t willing to engage then I could go through House Valen, alongside Mark, who I know still wants at least Flying Magic?” Isoko looked to Mark.
Mark said, “I’d like to learn Protect as well, but I am thinking about a growth spellbreaker to fill the gap for now. Adamantium, if I could get it made. Julia Sacredcut, our Artificer Guild caseworker, suggested one of those but made of mithril, and looking into them got me interested in a better option than the one I think she can make. I admit, I haven’t talked to her about making an adamantium one. Or a growth one. I understand both are difficult?”
Mark wasn’t sure which was more difficult than the other, either.
“I’m looking for the same sort of loadout,” Isoko said. “Until we get the real spellwork.”
Mark had promised to get all of them adamantium-based growth items, if they wanted them. Isoko wanted pretty much the same things that Mark wanted, but her spellbreaker would be tuned truly high, because her Power Levels in all categories was already trending higher than 75. Eliot wanted a Power Level Shield that would grow with him, and he was probably going to get one of those through channels different from the ones Mark went through, but he’d need a source of adamantium and Mark would give him some whenever he asked. Sally wasn’t sure what she wanted. She needed to take damage for Retribution to function, and she always came ahead on those exchanges, so her having weaknesses was actually a good thing for her. She was thinking about a truly high-tolerance spellbreaker, just in case, though she hadn’t made any decisions on that yet.
The options for magical items were practically endless, as far as Mark knew.
Mark sort of knew what his request for an adamantium growth item would entail; he had seen a documentary on it, after all. First, you needed high grade materials or something that was worth more than the materials in question, which Mark already had, and then you needed the person to actually make the items, which Mark did not have at all. According to the one documentary, there were tens of thousands of crafters across Daihoon that could make Mark what he wanted, but Mark wanted something that would let him kill dragons.
No-selling Tartu would be an easy side effect to getting proper dragon hunting gear.
Mark got a little mad thinking about that asshole. He had goals far beyond some little fucker’s idea of who he should be. Endless Daihoon awaited in several years, when Mark and his team were actually capable of going there and not dying instantly.
The sorts of magical items that Mark wanted, though, were the city-defense level things, though. Stuff that cities gave to their kaiju killers.
Elaria might have those sorts of connections.
Elaria took in Mark and Isoko’s words, thought for a moment, then asked, “The items you speak of are empire level artifacts and are inherently difficult to acquire, but not because we don’t have that capability. House Valen has four such crafters among our people. We could get such items made for you, but there are problems. Big, insurmountable, personal-for-you problems.”
Mark expected as much.
Elaria continued, “The Aluatha Empire has a violently-enforced monopoly on any crafters capable of making such items. That’s the first problem, and the base that you’re starting at. Smaller issues include a moratorium on resale of items, so you can’t buy anyone’s castoffs, or estate sales; that stuff is thrown in vaults in Aluatha and almost never seen again, outside of rare occasions. Auctions do happen, but you’d need to get an auction invite, and that’s not happening. But! If you prove to the Empire that you are more valuable with such items than without, then you’ll get your items, no problem, but the proof of your power and loyalty that the Empire requires is difficult.
“Aside from all of that, you have been stolen from in a very public way. You have proven that you cannot hold on to what you have. Therefore, the Empire is not going to sell to you on that basis alone.
“To speak freely, you are too young and too unattached to any known powers, and the powers you are attached to are dangerous.
“Some people think you’re a hidden dragon, and therefore they’re fine with you not having access to good artifacts. They don’t even like you having adamantium, so they’re happy that Tartu took it from you.
“The only real option you have for the truly good growth items is to learn how to make them yourself, and that means learning magery with a focus on enchanting. That path to that sort of power demands a different sort of walking, though it is the surest way to self actualization, and it is not without the Empire meddling in your affairs.
“Any young crafter that goes through arcanaeum and achieves true enchanting capability always meets the Empire at graduation, or before then, to ensure that the crafter signs enchanting contracts with the Empire. The only options for such a crafter are to either produce for the Empire —which is a rather fantastic livelihood; do not think that I am denigrating that path in life— or to sign non-seller contracts and promise to never sell or give or lose items to anyone else. Making gear for yourself is fine; selling kaiju-killing gear to non-kaiju hunters —or worse! Possible demonists— will get a Sentinel of the Empire after you.
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“That’s for truly high end gear, though. If you want something lesser, like a normal spellbreaker or even a sequencer or any of the other items on offer from the Artificer’s Guild, you should take heart that we have exceptionally good crafters here. The items you get from anyone there are as good as any you’d find in any high-end store in Crytalis or anywhere else in the Empire.”
Well that made Mark both… concerned and happy, he supposed. The spellbreakers sold here in the settlement were good items, which was great, but Mark couldn’t get anything better? Mark might have had more thoughts about all of that—
But Elaria continued, “If, however, you wish to announce that you are adamantium blooded for the Empire, then everything changes. Your options for life open and close in unequal measure. In such a life, such defensive items will be thrust upon you, along with an assigned Sentinel to defend you at all times. Maybe two Sentinels. It will be a life similar to that of a True Healer, like your uncle, but vastly more serious, considering your brother.” Elaria asked, “Is that something you would want?”
Mark had a visceral, internal reaction to being told that safety and a cage for life were intrinsically linked. The fact that Elaria knew that Mark was adamantium blooded was concerning, but of course Aurora would tell her—
“Mark isn’t adamantium blooded,” Isoko said, completely serious. “Addavein teleports the adamantium to him sometimes.”
“And that’s the lie we’ll tell people, like you already told Barba Sacredcut,” Elaria said, as though it was a completely reasonable thing to say, and she hadn’t just announced that she knew Isoko was lying, and that she was willing to go along with the lie. As though she was a friendly instructor in Xerkona Etiquette, she added, “Good try, but Mark gave the game away with his expressions.”
Isoko just blinked, opened her mouth to say something, and then she stopped.
Elaria grinned, but she tried not to.
Silence.
And then Mark had a realization.
Mark frowned. “You didn’t know I was adamantium blooded until just now. Aurora didn’t tell you?”
Isoko very quietly huffed.
“She did not tell me anything, and you didn’t give it all away right now. This here was just confirmation,” Elaria said. “I have my own ways, as do many others. Being metal-blooded is nearly impossible to hide in a place and situation like we have here in the settlement, if you know what to look for, and you’re pulling out a rather standard increase in the amount of adamantium you have on you per day. A truly well-tuned wealth finder will be able to deduce what you are without issue. I do approve of the idea of telling people that Addavein is teleporting adamantium to you. I will continue with that rumor. The only real issue I see with that lie is what Addavein might say when he eventually shows. Also, there will be a major reckoning with the Aluatha Empire if they decide to let you continue this lie. They do not want to traffic in dragon goods. I assume that Aurora has told them the truth; it’s what I would have done.”
Elaria stopped there, opening the floor to Mark and Isoko.
Isoko was silent.
Aurora had told Second Princess Walaria Aluatha, according to Eliot, so yeah, they knew.
Mark wasn’t sure what to say, except to ask the big question. The sudden question that appeared right then and there to Mark.
Mark asked, “Are you a cultist?”
“Of the dragons, yes,” Elaria said, clearly and without pause.
Mark felt dumbfounded.
Isoko just stared, too.
Elaria let them have some emotions before she began, “I was 29 years old during the Reveal, and everyone back then was a dragonist. If you weren’t a dragonist then you didn’t get anywhere in life. Back then, as it is today, the only doors to higher power were through contracts and signings with a noble house, which were all ordained by the dragons. Power was heavily controlled right up until the Reveal, until the Veil tore and Earth was merely a boulder toss away.
“Imagine the world ripping and showing other lands right beyond. It was a miracle we survived at all. We almost didn’t because, as you already know, dragons wanted to dragon. They like to dominate and have domains, you see, and Earth was a whole new domain, right there. Only two dragons stayed behind on Daihoon to keep the Empire intact. To fight the crazed kaijus and the newly demonized dragons and the sudden explosion of the Demon Cult, and the sudden outpouring from Endless Daihoon.
“Gedahowla the Bright of Aluatha, and Darvonika the Obsidian of Okuana.
“They tried to keep our peoples from falling to the horror, and they even made peaceful contact with Earth.
“It was through them that our two worlds met on good terms… Or as good as could be.
“But all of the other dragons in Aluatha did not like that the humans of Earth wanted to remain free.
“The Grand High Coven of Aluatha wanted to subjugate and take, as they always did. Gedahowla disagreed, and so they murdered her and Darvokina of Okuana, though some suspect that Darvokina survived by escaping to Endless Daihoon.” She breathed. And then, with an ambivalence likely gained through decades of attempts at ambivalence in the face of deep memory, Elaria continued, “The fight weakened the Grand High Coven, and we saw an opportunity to throw off the shackles of dragonkind, so we killed the rest. It was all a very confusing time, and some of those assassinations took months to enact, but we threw off the dragons, and for good reasons. Their capriciousness. Their inadequacy in governing. Their desire for more and more and more...
“I mostly remember the fury, Mark.
“I had a husband before the Reveal, long, long before Aurora and Kandon’s father came along. I ‘had some work done’, as they say on Earth, 35 years ago, when… Well. I will spare you the details.
“Gedahowla was amazing. A better mother to me than my real mother, in many ways. Gedahowla was the best of them. She never tried to use power against any human. Only words. Of course, she had the Sentinels and the Imperial family, so it wasn’t like she wasn’t without human-sized enforcement of will. But she kept the food growing, the warriors healed, and the schools open for all. And, more importantly, she kept the other dragons in check.” Elaria looked to Mark. “It’s not polite to speak about how dragons saved the world for many thousands of years, and everyone always focuses on how the dragons were tyrants —and they were!— but the fact remains that power is never balanced. Most of us can only hope that the powerful use their power well.
“Dragons, well birthed and well raised in Contracts made for such, give even the lowest of humans a way to die to save us all. For a long, long time, it was the only truly reliable way to defend humanity.”
In the depth of that statement, while Mark was still trying to figure out where he stood, and if Elaria wanted Addavein to be her ruler, and—
Elaria said, “But that’s enough about that nonsense.”
She didn’t seem to want to give him time to think at all!
“I doubt we’ll see a proper good dragon in a long time. Possibly not ever again. But it’s the thought of it, you know? The idea of a good dragon. The dragon culture doesn’t exist anymore —not on Daihoon, and certainly not on Earth, so it’s impossible for any of them to be actually good. Growing up alone? Without a community? It’s a recipe for disaster. Believe me, I know.” She added, “Anyway. That was all I wanted to say on that topic, and I am sure it was more than you wanted to hear. I believe we were talking about advancements in power? Because that’s what you’re truly after, right?” With a cheerful tone, she added, “Everyone always wants more power, and for good reason! There’s kaiju out there, after all.”