Ewan’s heart sank when the Governor stepped out of the portal, gazing at the fruits. His exploding thoughts brewed a list of reasons for his failures in seconds, yet only two stuck with him, and the rest faded away. He was either betrayed or was outplayed, once again...
“You didn’t disappoint after all.” The Governor’s voice echoed, and his words lacerated Ewan’s pride, or what remained of it. Strength escaped him, his shoulders dropped, and he lowered his head with his eyes closed. If death came to him, he would struggle with all his might, he would strive till the last flicker of his breath, but in regard to the trophy, he lost… Now, his only concern was to walk away with his head intact.
“Congratulations, sir, you finally got what you wanted.” He put on a genuine smile and faced the threat, without flinching, without backing off.
The Governor chuckled and caressed Ewan’s head with trembling hands, his touch soft and gentle. “Kiddo, you trust your instincts too much and you don’t hide it well, learn from this, or you might stumble hard in the future,” he said. “The enemy you face then will not let you get up.”
The implications of his words thumped Ewan’s heart and birthed a slew of presumptions in his head. Even though the Governor caught him red-handed, he would let him go.
Kidd hadn’t betrayed him; the old man merely outwitted him again.
And the reason for his failure lay in the relationship between his instincts and the Ryvia.
“Sir, may I know…how?” Ewan gathered the nerves and asked.
The Governor showed him his wrinkled finger and pointed at the ground. But there was nothing there, and Ewan frowned. He wasn’t careless, he always kept an eye on his surroundings, he hadn’t missed anything that the Governor could use against him…or so he thought.
Lens!
The spell changed his sight, and a gray rug of micro threads carpeted the whole place, wriggling in his enlarged view. He took his seconds for it and stacked the spell a few times, and when he recognized the threads, the light bulb lit up and the fog melted away. They were the Governor’s Ryvia, buried in the ground, their minute heads barely inching out and surviving against the suppression of this place. The threads were too tiny for naked eyes, but they were still Ryvia and carried its sensitivity, and he stepped on them when he came here…
He could’ve succeeded if he flew… No, the air pressure and the speed would change when he passed through… He could’ve succeeded if he flew carefully…. But he would displace air just by existing….
Another barrage of thoughts went off in his head.
“The peace meeting… Was it a bait for me sir?” Ewan asked.
“When you put on a play, you have to believe it’s real yourself. You deceive others not by lies but by truth,” the Governor said and looked back at the fruits. “They’re all waiting for me, the church might even attack to stop us, but I never intended to sign the treaty. With the fruit in my hand, everything that happens here is meaningless.”
“You really overestimate me, sir.”
“It’s better to overestimate and succeed than to underestimate and fail,” he said. “Let’s stop the chit-chat before I become the mastermind villain who failed because he talked too much. I’ll take the fruit, you can have the Warship if you want, it doesn’t interest me.”
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“That’s more than what I expected to walk away with,” Ewan said and bowed to the Governor. “Thank you, sir. I’ll take my leave from the city now if you let me.”
“I never intended to hurt you kiddo, you’re free to leave anytime you wish or stay if you want,” the Governor said and moved towards the tree. “If you stay, I’ll try to find you a way into the masked conclave with Kiev. You will forget this, but I will remember, and I will fulfill it when the year comes back to this point. And If you leave, I’ll bid you goodbye.”
“When year comes back?” The expression confused Ewan. But before he had the chance to dwell on it and understand what it meant, Kidd jumped out of the tunnel that led here and bolted at the Governor, clutching the Obsidian Dagger.
“Boss, I’ll distract him, go get it!” he yelled.
“You retard!” Ewan erupted his suppressed Ryvia to the extent possible and halted Kidd in his steps, preventing him from even opening his mouth. “Stefan, drop it!” he said to the man trembling at the tunnel’s entrance, gripping a kitchen knife with both his hands.
“Sir, I apologize for this. They’re dumb, they don’t know what they’re doing. Please forgive them.” Ewan bowed again, but his back bent much deeper this time. “You apologize too, you fucktard.” He grabbed Kidd’s hair and shook him before forcing him to bow down. “Stefan!” He hollered.
“I-I apologize, sir.” Stefan too bent his back and dropped the knife.
“You have good subordinates,” the Governor said and plucked off one fruit from the tree. “And they have a good leader.”
The tree withered when the fruit left it, its shine faded away, and even the remaining fruit wrinkled into a dried husk. The chamber darkened with the tree’s death, and only the glowing fruit in the Governor’s hand shed some light on them.
“Sir, what about the second fruit?” Ewan asked.
“The tree only lets you take one fruit, it’s not possible to take the second,” the Governor said. “I’m leaving now. Things will get chaotic very soon, leave quickly if you want to get away safely, though none of it matters this time…” The portal opened again, the other side showing a glimpse of the Ensil Villa, and the Governor stepped through it.
The only source of light went away with him, and when the portal closed, Ewan couldn’t contain it anymore and gulped with his fist clenched and his heart racing.
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Status: Healthy
Step-1 Severynth [Spirit-Nebula: Zeroth Surge]
Subtype: Step-0 Elementalist
Name: Ewan Ayres
Species: Human
Vitality: 7.0
Spirit: 25.3
Anima: [Fire – 25.3 | Ice – 25.3 | Blood – 25.3]
Astylinds: 4 [Potential: 1]
Rolling Cat [Toast]: Step-1 Severynth [Spirit-Nebula: Zeroth Surge]
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Fire Monkey [Orange]: Step-1 [Level-10] [Grade-B]
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Imp [Frost]: Step-1 [Level-10] [Grade-B]
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Bloodthorn-Lotus [Iris]: Step-0 [Level-4] [Grade-D]
Equipment: Common Clothes; Yurn [Neck Gaiter]; Moonkeeper [Crystal-Ball]; Rainwarden [Staff]; Blackfeather [Overcoat].
Storage: Journal; Elementalist—The Path of Anima [Subtype-Book]; Spellbook; Bloodlust [Spell]; Transmute [Spell]; Unknown Book [Radon’s Legacy]; Anima-Crystals [Novas Coins]; Obsidian Dagger; Hub-Connector; Ingredients.
Novas: 28,245
Crelith: 1,298