"Lord Byron? The dining table has been set, and your guests have arrived in the antechamber. Lord Vernon has sent word that he will be delayed for a candle or two, due to the heavy rain near your estate. His carriage seems to have gotten stuck in the mud."
"Thank you, Merle. Send some riders in his direction, to make sure he will arrive before night falls. And make sure our some refreshments are brought to our guests, I will be joining them briefly."
The steward nodded, and slipped out the door with a slight bow. Lord Byron finished writing his letter, sprinkled some pounce on the wet ink and stood up from the simple desk he'd been writing correspondences for the past few hours. He exited his personal study, entering the hallway.
I suppose I will have to invest some gold into improving the condition of the roads leading up to Lirea. I cannot have it that carriages are slowed down this much, let alone get stuck during rain season. I'll have to remind Merle about inquiring into some options, although the Eastern Gnolls seemed to have solutions to muddy roads...
Lost in thought, Lord Byron ambled down the hallway decorated with large oil paintings of his predecessors. His mind wandered as he glanced at them, each a testament to the history and importance of his family. Briefly he paused in front of a large painting of his great-grandmother, who had been a celebrated strategist and commander in her time, thinking about his current role in the family.
Divide and conquer, I suppose. I hope sister is having more success in her campaign than I am trying to unite those unruly lords. Especially that-
The rain outside, which before was muffled and soft, seemed to flare up into a heavy rainstorm and reminded him of his waiting guests. Lord Byron shook his head, banishing the unwelcome thoughts. Now with a faster pace, he continued on down the hallway, past the rest of the portraits.
Lord Byron's footsteps echoed on the marble staircase, as he descended towards the oaken door. The flickering light of the candles lining the descent cast dancing shadows on the walls, making his eyes twitch, causing him to be even more nervous than he already was.
As he reached the foot grand staircase, he could already hear the murmur of guests mingling in the antechamber downstairs. His thoughts turned to the evening ahead — a gathering of the most influential figures from various estates, city officials and other high society. It had taken him months to plan another meeting, making sure everyone important was able to attend, even though in total it was quite a small circle of sixteen people — Lord Vernon excluded, who was apparently still on his way. He adjusted his simple coat with a practiced gesture, and swung open the door to the antechamber.
City Councillor Ardura was the first one to greet him, bowing with the impressive flourish of the city state of Ba-Qon. Her dark navy feathers shimmered almost green in the bright light of the mage-lanterns, and her beady eyes always twitching around the room made him somewhat uncomfortable. A shiver went down his back, and his tail curled up slightly, and he had to consciously push himself to relax. Maybe some of it was a Skill, intended to weaken the resolve of political opponents, but it was working either way. Lord Byron put a smile on his face, and stepped towards the Karuda with open arms, who chittered amicably as she started talking to him.
"Lord Byron! Hmm, thank you for inviting us to your estate. Although our travel to your homestead was quite arduous, we hope the stay will be as fruitful as it is pleasant."
His mind raced back to the lessons in politcs he had had as a hatchling, trying to remember the right steps to this traditional greeting, while he was fumbling over his words.
"Thank you as well, councilmember. May the winds be in your back ... and your feathers always dry."
The tiny smile in Arduras beak showing him he did well, he excused himself and made his way to the centre of the room, exchanging pleasantries and avoiding longer discussions — he had his mind made up to an important task, the reason why he invited everyone here.
The sound of silver cutlery ringing against crystal glassware made everyone stop chattering, and all eyes were on Lord Byron. He gently set down the silver spoon on the tray of a nearby server, who filled his glass with wine, and raised the glass.
"Thank you all for coming. Most of you already know what this is about, as we've had a few of these meetings already, but for those of you who are new - and haven't surmised yet what this is for - I will give you a brief overview. In the past months, we've been getting reports of attacks at the mountainous border in the west. They speak of creatures pushing out of Craven Gap, more than usual, and some even speak of sightings of monsters we only have records of in our oldest books. We initially discounted those reports as excuses for bad harvests, but I've sent groups of my own into the areas, and they have confirmed the reports. This alone would not be a cause to worry much, as you can imagine, but there have been other bad fortunes. The scholars of the city state of Ba-Qon have reported a decrease in childbirths in the west of the continent, and even an increase in deaths related to illnesses previously thought harmless, further to the west.
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The most important of information however is this: Magic is fading. The cities of Redridge, Lolk and Vefast have all reported that lower level magic casters are unable to cast spells above level five, even with the support of Skills like [Mana Transfer]. Now, this information, as you can surmise, is highly volatile and cannot, under any circumstances, leave this room, lest it cause widespread panic."
The room was silent, apart from a few gasps that escaped the newer members of this meeting, and the nervous shuffling about of the two servers. A human man spoke up after a few brief moments of silence, with some insecurity underlining his sharp voice.
"Lord Byron, I don't mean to discredit you or your sources, but do we really believe all those stories? I'm sure the scholars of Ba-Qon are quite distinguished, but have our own scholars double-checked their work? Or maybe verified the stories with spells of truth? I personally know quite a lot of [Mages] that could verify -"
The man, increasingly nervous being the only one speaking in the group of nobles and officials, got cut of mid sentence, as a large, old Gnoll stepped forward and thumped her walking stick on the ground. Once again silence fell over the antechamber, and heads that were turned towards Lord Byron and the human now turned towards the [Tribespeaker].
"No. We do not need to verify, as we have verified already. My tribe, the Waterhand tribe, has been experiencing this for months. We also have spoken to humans of the city of Lolk, as well as scouts from Redridge, and they all report the same things. Monsters are pushing in, and something is killing our magic. I have personally conducted several Rituals of Truth to verify accounts of my own tribe, and will not let it stand to hear them insulted with accusation of lies."
"Nobody was trying to accuse you of anything, esteemed Grashkr. I am sure as a new guest, Lord Veortim meant only to ask for verification of this new information, right? Now please, let us mingle and trade information, so that we may find a solution that is satisfying to all of us."
Nervously nodding, the embarrassed Lord stepped back, and the [Tribespeaker] harrumphed and did the same. The gathered crowd seemed to relax somewhat, grabbing glasses and morsels from serving trays and getting comfortable on various pieces of furniture, as the whispering that started during Lord Veortims interjection grew to a pleasant noise of multiple conversations.
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Several hours later, Lord Byron fell into an armchair in his study. He was exhausted, he'd been talking with everyone without a break, trying to hash out plans and figure out a solution, but nobody had come up with anything new - in fact most of the talking had been exchanging plesantries and reassurances for upcoming political campaigns or agreements on exchange of goods. Apart from this however, the outcome of the evening had been less than mediocre, the best thing to come to fruition being the trade agreement with Banfar. He had gotten away with quite a good agreement, the First Merchant of the city of Banfar had required some giant mandrakes, and due to the good harvest this year Lord Byron was in a position to sell quite a lot for quite little - in exchange for some of their finest warhorses, of course. Lady Valdersby had been trying to get a claw in the door of that city for months now, but had not been able to due to the proximity to Craven Gap, the lack of magic seeminly impacting their harvest quite a lot.
Lord Byron chuckled as he recalled the suggestions Lady Valdersby had made, pouring buckets of mana potions into the ground around afflicted areas - it would be brilliant, if it wouldn't just delay the problem further. He almost felt compelled to send her a personal letter to thank her for joining, but that would probably be seen as too forward of an old draconian to send a thank you to a young human that just recently came into power.
Either way, her suggestion had been better than most other ones, more short term and focused on making the land livable rather than avoiding the problem.
Increase the ambient mana by planting more magical plants! Send more investigators to figure out what's going on! Alright, that specific one had actually had some merit, and Lord Byron had internally already drafted a letter to several towns to request scouts and scholars to move around the area. But some of the suggestions had almost driven him mad, there had even been some conflicting ones: Move spellcasters away from the magic-less area! Move more spellcasters into the area to increase magic potential!
Short of relocating droves of people with skills like [Mana Forge] or magical auras, none of the suggestions would ever help solve the root problem. Magic was still dying, and people were as well. Something had to be the cause of it, he just did not know what. Yet there was one solution that none of the lord's and ladies, councilmen and women had dared bring up, due to the sheer vastness of gold and patience it would require. Lord Byron sighed, rubbing his eyes with his claws, mumbling curses to himself before he raised his voice.
"Merle? Send word to the Guild of Adventurers. I suppose we have need for them after all."