A great rousing cheer erupted from everyone around them, especially from the crafters who seemed to be almost wildly ecstatic when she announced it. She glanced around, playing the part of a calm perfect leader to her people before she turned away and left with a slightly more rapid stride than their arrival. Man… I really shook her up!
“Allanar. To the wall’s top.”
“Yes, Matriarch.”
The two began walking back to the wall, and Joe joined them. Walking silently. Joe held his silence for a bit but found himself unable to remain silent for too long.
“May I speak?”
She glanced up at him, then around them before pulling out a small device that she held in her arm while her mana poured into it. A few moments later, mana swirled around them, covering them in a bubble.
“I wish for… privacy.”
Joe nodded, “Do I need to apologize? Was that a poor way to solve the issue?”
She stopped and stared at Joe, then laughed, “No. It was brilliant, but very costly. Your offer is… overwhelming! I am uncertain how I could ever repay you in any way.”
Joe shrugged and shook his head simultaneously, “There is no need to ever think of repaying me. Truly! I offered it freely expecting no return. Please understand, this is… not exactly common, but it does happen amongst my people. Please accept it simply for what it is. I want nothing in return and if you feel you must return something, then I ask only for friendship with you and yours.”
She smiled but shook her head, “My people will… find that difficult to believe.”
“Well, if you need more… selfish reasoning, simply tell them I had no use for it whatsoever.”
That caused her to stare at him before she asked in a soft voice, “Truly?”
Joe smiled, “Truly. I really do not have any need of it.”
Her breathing hitched, shuddering, before she nodded, this time her emotion a bit more raw before she stopped nodding and shook her head instead, “You… I… this…”
“Say thank you.”
She looked up at him quickly, narrowing her eyes. Joe stared back with a soft smile. Finally, she sighed deeply and chuckled.
“Thank you.”
“You are welcome, my friend.”
She stared at him again, but this time smiled. She seemed to consider for a bit before she suddenly rolled her eyes and shook her head, choosing to remain silent and allowing her actions to hold the conversation.
Joe laughed. She smiled and then joined him in laughter as well. They climbed to the top of the wall, a silent Allanar holding them in a fist of water that rapidly ascended to the top. This… wasn’t a bad day!
* * *
The Matriarch stood on the wall and looked on over, the wall where they were rather useless now as the line of warriors and defenders bulged out and around the corpse of the giant to protect the massive amount of crafters, hundreds begging to be a part of the process in the hopes of both growth and to gain access to incredible materials. Still, the wall was defended in case of catastrophe. Despite the defense, the eccentric proved diligent and still fired his weapon over the heads of the defenders every once in a while to help against the more difficult enemies.
The Matriarch sighed, then grinned. The entire corpse of the city killer… and a near perfect four core… Her heart quickened slightly with the thought and her grin grew. He truly is smitten with her. Such great dowries are… the great clans are truly beyond our thinking. Even as she rejoiced at their great fortune, she also struggled against the subtle fear that flickered deep within her heart. Why would such a great clanner be willing to accept someone … then again… he accepts the commoner … but… The Matriarch stood her duty, watching the wall with nothing to do, even as her mind whiplashed between ecstatic joy and a deeply subtle gnawing fear.
* * *
The Blacksmith watched the harvesting of the city killer for a while before finally turning away with bitter anger. He stalked back to his villa, but that was normal, while his face remained placid and polite. It didn’t remain so when he made it home and entered his private workroom. He saw the empty place on his desk where the bone of the giant rested and his fist clenched, his face grimacing as he allowed his rage free for a moment before he smiled, then grinned. Not all was lost…
He pulled out a small sphere and turned to his wall, pulling aside the shelf that was there to reveal his seed-metal store. He grinned, pleased at the massive amount he had, but also pleased to add another. He did not know what the eccentric used for his arrows, but he now had a small seed of his own. Stepping past his long wall of seeds, he placed it on the bottom, amongst the unknowns still to be learned and mastered. He paused, pulling it out and pulling from the seed-metal one time, allowing the strange alloy to play amongst his fingers before his anger turned to a pleased grin and he recaptured his mana before placing the seed-metal back in its place. So much to learn!
* * *
The priests of the Loki suppression unit prepared, their mission a new one. It was unimportant, only a new Loki faithful; an ultimately useless Loki member who could not increase their ranks. But if there was a new Loki faithful, someone had to have changed the job of that new Loki faithful. And whoever was making new Loki church members was a danger. They would find the faithful and then have a path to the few Loki elite who’d escaped.
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Granted, their seekers would have great difficulty in finding this Loki faithful, only having a poor image and no direct connection to the man, but they would find him. It was only a matter of time.
* * *
The newest scholar of the Taglisea clan jittered with avid excitement, proud to offer a future for his clan and even possibly recapture their former glory. Granted, they were still the only non-Ancient One Greatest clan but ever since their great Matriarch Ancestor, Taglisea herself, had gained the attention of the Emperor himself, the Taglisea clan had been in decline. Granted, the original progenitor Taglisea had never left the Emperor’s side, fighting with him and defending him until the day she died. Such loyalty gained much favor with the Emperor, but sadly none of the following Patriarchs or Matriarchs were able to capture the attention of the Emperor ever again.
He hoped to change that, his scholarly work a powerful new dao for the elevation of the Empire. He’d just proven the Law of Attraction and greatly enhanced that dao. He hoped to prove it in test once again, just to be certain before releasing it to the public for verification. Lodestones had proven easy. Even masses as well, but proving the Universal Law of Attraction had proven incredibly difficult as while like attracted like appeared to be true, certain things appeared to contraindicate it. But, he’d found the key. Like attracted like on three variables: similar materials, similar mass, and now, his newest proof, similar shape. He’d been able to attract a small wooden block shaped exactly identically to another small piece of granite. The shape was a simple crescent moon. But he’d been able to have them attract. And the joy at seeing it had kept him jittering with joy all week; the standard waiting period before verification of dao Laws could be attempted again within the same cradle.
He stared at the two crescent moon objects, and prepared himself, calming and removing his distractions before he initiated the test, putting the two objects a short hand apart. Then, with cautious focus, he watched, excited, then grinned in joy to see the two objects twitch, slowly moving before suddenly slamming together.
He leapt with joy, shouting and leaping in the lab. It worked! A new law! A new law! A… no… not a new law, but an extension … an additional variable to understand the dao! He paced wildly in excitement before quickly pulling himself back under control and skittering across to his memory crystals to make a note. He had to be cautious to choose a better quality one, hoping this one could last for a dozen or two uses. He immediately began taking notes.
“A log entry for the further study of the Law of Attraction. Third variable. Scholar Scilinar Taglisea. Log entry start. A third variable of the Law of Attraction has been found. As we all know, similar materials has been long known, with lodestones the most powerful and least mana intensive use of like Law of Attraction. Similar mass is less powerful, and the second most mana intensive. As all know, similar materials of non-lodestone varieties proved the most mana intensive, and now, a new third variable proves to be of similar mana intensity of the first variable. That variable is similar shape. Similar shape mana cost for attraction is nearly identical… verification… it is almost identical as similar non-lodestone materials. It will require further testing to verify what the true mana cost is, but we may begin to use this new variable for the Law of Attraction to greatly increase the utility of the Law. If we postulate options such as…”
Scilinar lost himself in his excitement of discovering a truly new and powerful aspect of the dao, his mind ran rampant at the implications and possibilities and the log entry, like all true scholarly work, went on for an extensive time. His excitement gave him the energy he needed to continue.
* * *
Captain Stephliquen, star captain and the hope of her family struggled to understand what was happening to her. Events flashed past her in strange fits and starts, travel and simple actions easily perceived by her but any conversation leaving a wash of noise that stuttered into her mind so slowly. She realized that it seemed to be coming almost a minute after she heard it but she was only able to realize that in the slower moments when they traveled between cities in the more traditional ways instead of passing through inter-dimensional gates.
All she could do was listen to the strange alien language as it flowed around her and take almost a whole day to parse it. She was able to slowly come to understand some of the words, guessing at their meaning but even if she knew what they meant, something was causing her mind to be so slow, causing her to be both confused and terrified that her mental capabilities had somehow been compromised.
At first, she’d found herself overwhelmed and fearful with that realization, but as time went on, her mission returned to her and she sought escape from fear in accomplishing it. She began taking an approximate census of the various cities they were going through, most likely quite poorly done as all she had to work with was to count the various people and guestimate the sizes of the cities, and number of buildings, then multiplying that out by the size of the cities then people per building to give her a population.
Counting the cities proved easy but remembering them was a bit harder. Remembering their estimated populations even more so after she had nine or ten cities. Some scratches on the wooden benches helped her and some mnemonic efforts helped her in transferring it from bench to bench, her military training helping her. But after a while, she began to despair as the travel seemed to continue on and on, with city after city beginning to blur in her mind.
She found herself traveling from city to city, sometimes in long walks that left her exhausted, sometimes with some form of teleportation system that seemed completely at odds with the apparently medieval technology. She couldn’t understand almost anything. All she knew was that each city she traveled through, each merchant group she found herself passed on to, grew more elegant, wealthy, and larger. Surprisingly, the latter also often applied to the merchant as well.
Despite the various merchants’ increasing sizes, the merchants seemed impervious to the extreme distances traveled when they chose to travel on foot. She didn’t know how long it took, she was struggling to remember and count the number of days she had been planet side, but she grew tense when it appeared her journey had come to an end. She’d been unable to be certain of her status in relation to the merchant, but each city they passed through found other young women of a startling variety of races, going against everything she’d learned growing up. However, they all somehow possessed human beauty sold off to obvious brothels and the fact that she was held for so long only increased her fear.
The only signal that gave Stephliquen a hint to the end of her journey was the look of greed the corpulent merchant that currently owned her gave her. A look of avarice intertwined with satisfied victory. Whatever this last merchant wanted to do, it was going to be in this next city.
This moment of travel proved a mercy as the merchant’s train of people and carts stepped upon a teleportation pad and prepared for the teleport. As always, Stephliquen bent down and attempted to stare at the teleportation pad but found nothing but simple stone, mortar, and various plants or dirt pressing up from between the stones. She glanced back up at the plinth that stood tall at the center of the teleportation pad and lamented, wishing she could at least get a look at the controls. Gotta be there, right? The teleport operator always uses that plinth… but… it really does look like just a stone pillar. How are they doing all this? WHY are they doing all this? Do they WANT a simplistic lifestyle? Maybe a bit healthier… requires everyone to move around… but the merchant? She glanced back at the merchant and stifled her frown, keeping her face absolutely neutral. She’d learned fast to keep her emotions well-guarded.
The teleport activated, the typical plane of intersecting space appeared, even slightly more smoothly than her own people’s capabilities, and expanded to reveal the new space on the other side. She felt her eyebrows rise as she finally saw examples of advanced technology. Fantastical floating buildings, castles, and towers scattered through a massive city that despite its obvious advanced technology, still kept almost all its buildings smaller than four or five stories. There were exceptions scattered throughout the massive city; slender towers that stabbed into the sky, much too small to be held up by any architecture and physical materials. She gazed around but the sharp yank and much delayed shout pulled her back to the moment and she quickly staggered off after the merchant.
She was the last woman the merchant had, and her fears were realized as they traveled deeper into the city, heading towards an obvious pleasure district. She grimaced, grinding her teeth. This… is not… Plans began to whirl through her mind. She would find some way to free herself!