Fomoria received a somewhat strange call, and Rosewell gave no real details.

He arrived in the palace with some worry about why she needed to meet him so urgently, and nothing that D’if’s Other told him gave any real clues.

It was strange to not have Safira meet him there, for better or worse, he knew her.

“Welcome, Emperor Fomoria. My name is Charlin, Acting Captain of the Royal Guard.

Queen Yggdra is ready to see you immediately.”

“May we talk along the way?”

“I would rather not, but I could if you would like.”

“I see why Safira chose you to be acting captain.”

He raised an eyebrow, and found himself pleasantly surprised that Fomoria did not attempt small talk.

Charlin led him down into the secure meeting room, where only she sat.

“Emperor Fomoria.”

“Queen Yggdra. I assume then that this is a formal meeting?”

“Yes.”

“May we move to something informal afterwards?”

“That depends on how this goes. I will be blunt, I need a man for an important meeting.”

“Yet both Safira and Harlan are out of commission.”

“Yes. In the case that I come under fire, Charlin will be charged with bringing me to safety, but I need-”

“A meat shield and a butcher.”

It was in times like this that Fomoria almost wished that he smoked, but he never felt the desire to do so, even if at times it added a dramatic flare to negotiations.

“That-”

“Alright, I’ll do it.”

She tried not to smile, but this was the Harlan she knew, and his honesty always brightened her spirit.

Well, not quite always, sometimes his honesty was the cause of great stress.

“Who will I be protecting you from?”

“I am meeting with the council of noblists to discuss an end to the war.”

“Hmm, it has gone on long enough. When will this take place?”

“Three weeks from today.”

“Then I shall prepare.”

“Hold on a moment, there is an important detail you need to know. Unlike my father when there was a rebellion, I intend to disallow such ideas of forgiving and forgetting.

The noblists did not simply rebel, they wiped out entire villages, towns, battalions of men, just to manufacture the blood gems. They attacked the academy, they made attempts on my life, on the life of Relly, they have forced my siblings to remain as prisoners in Harlan’s castle.

Even if they could accept a full surrender, I can’t bring them back into the fold, they’ve shown what they are.”

“Hmm, so this isn’t a bodyguard situation, this is a… mass assassination.”

“It will be the start of a full assault on their lands. And I need your void gates to move troops into this decisive battle. I want you to disguise yourself as Safira, and for any forces you bring to be flying the banner of Ragne. My position is already weakened, if I brought you to fight my battles for me it would only seem like I can’t handle anything on my own.

“A more vain man would be offended, but I understand. Harlan is barely even considered part of Ragne despite his titles, he spends every day out in the NLZ, he openly disrespects the systems of nobility and military hierarchy, he treats you as a friend rather than ruler.

I am not exactly the most popular among your people, thought of as a hostile foreign leader.”

“There is going to be a large vacancy when I am done, and I want to know what you recommend to fill this.

Expansion of the territories for the nobles I have left would be a terrible idea, letting them consolidate their power more effectively, and a temporary power is so rarely given back.

Putting forth new nobles would mean that they would lack the support of those who have experience unless I move counts from the other lands into noblist controlled lands or I expand their existing lands.

And we could very well lose the lands again in an instant if they get into noblist rhetoric.”

“Well, you already know the answer, so why bother asking me?”

“If I knew, I would not have asked.”

“Charlin, would you be a dear and bring me a sandwich?”

“What are you playing at?”

“I’m feeling peckish. I’ll give you the answer once I’ve had a sandwich. I prefer poultry rather than beef or ham by the way. And a spicy cheese.”

Charlin wasn’t someone who was bothered by this, it was the duty of a royal guard to follow the orders of the royals. So, when Rosewell said to just go along with it, he went to have the kitchen make a sandwich.

Rosewell had expected Fomoria to have really just wanted Charlin to leave so he could talk freely, but no, he did not say a word until after he was finished eating.

“Give titles to beastkin and False Undead.”

“We have reasons for not allowing them to do so.”

“Yes, for the Undead, you have to consider their much longer lifespans, or shorter for most Werewolves due to cultural issues, and that outside of Werewolves, they only rarely have children, meaning they must either adopt or groom an heir. And this next issue goes for both the beastkin and the Undead, that you worry they hold more allegiance to their race than their nation. The first can be handled in part by forcing term limits.

Most human nobles gain the title in their 30s regardless of if they won it or it was inherited. Assuming a fairly normal lifespan, a 40 year soft limit with room for expansion would be fair.

The lands you would be needing new nobility for are in the northern and eastern lands primarily. Those that already live in the areas are disconnected from their homelands physically, and may thus consider themselves less for what they are and more for who they are. Though, for the Undead, I believe you just need faith. Well, faith and a thorough interview backed by character witnesses and whatever else you can find about them.

Chances are that your new nobles are working for the noblists right now.”

“You would have me put traitors in power?”

“The noblists are unlikely to be treating them well, and they are likely to resent that the noblists deny them seats of real power. You’d be their savior, finally seeing their worth and granting them pardon for what they’ve done already.

For the Undead, you don’t need to tell anyone that they are what they are until after they’ve proven themselves. The North hates outsiders, but if they are good enough as rulers, then they can accept it by virtue of having a meritocratic culture.

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Failing this, if the people are still unhappy with being ruled by non-humans, well, they will just have to get over it.”

She disliked both ideas, but they had merit, and Fomoria had clearly thought about it more than making it up on the spot.

“How do you handle this? Do you have experience?”

“There is not a single leader outside the veil who shares my race, and my rhetoric has always been one of unity, nationalism rather than racialism.”

“I’m surprised to hear you say anything like that. Clearly your time as a ruler has made you politically minded.”

“I have been a child longer than an adult, it was only a matter of time before I had to grow up to inflict any real change on the world.”

“Inflict? You almost make it sound like a bad thing.”

“I have cut a bloody swath through my enemies to change things, and not everyone has agreed that I sever the gangrenous sin.”

She smiled.

“I do enjoy your flair for the dramatic. I will bring these ideas to people who I trust, and perhaps they will be followed. I think that the idea of Undead nobles would be sensible, so long as they do well and I hide what they are until they are proven.”

She loosened his posture, and he followed.

“You asked for an informal discussion. How have you been?”

“Yara wants a late summer or early autumn wedding, so six months is an approximate date.

I would like you, Relly, and Safira there.”

“Are you fond of Safira?”

“I consider her an ally, and the fact that she always goes to the same restaurant on what little time she takes away from work is a little sad.”

“How do you know what she does when she isn’t working?”

“I cannot trust your safety to only your people. Any time your people leave the palace I have my people watching them.”

“A more rational leader might be offended.”

“They might.”

Fomoria went quiet just long enough for Rosewell to wonder why.

“Well, I believe I should go, get ready for the fight.”

“It was good to see you again.”

Yet she didn’t question him. If it was important, he would tell her.

Fomoria did wonder, were the Cast trying to kill him by overreach? Were they actually losing so badly elsewhere that they couldn’t devote more resources to defending themselves from them?

Or were they the ones who stretched themselves too thin?

He had nearly killed two of the three Fingers who assaulted him at once.

Fomoria couldn’t confirm if he had killed them or not, but in his mind, if he had, it would explain why they hadn’t gone after him in so long and why they continued to simply pull their forces back towards the capital, leaving these less valuable lands.

So, until he had an answer, he had decided to wait and watch.

Except he did want to make one play.

That was until Rosen showed up at his door.

“They took my wife and daughter. I will do whatever you need from me, please, help me get them back.”

”Do you know where they are?”

“Seven stripes north, eight west. The Cast say they are protecting them and that it isn’t safe for me to take them out of the fortress. They didn’t make a direct threat, but we know that they aren’t going to let them go.”

“Take my hand, show me the fortress.”

Fomoria didn’t like what he was seeing.

The area was stable, packed to the brim with not only anti-magic, but technological weapons beyond what Fomoria had seen before.

The total area was close to that of Kor, with three sets of walls that reached 200 feet high and a giant metal dome that could be closed to further protect it.

“This is a problem.”

“Can’t your void gate bypass their defenses?”

“If it was just spatial, or magical at all, I could. Do you know if the anti-magic originates from a single point? Or is it an array?”

“Array.”

“Shit.”

“Can you do this?”

“I have an idea, but it would require that I know exactly which room they are in, and it would require that we know how stable the building is. Are they always kept in the same room?”

“No, they are moved around.”

He leaned back in his seat.

“What exactly is the fortress?”

“A top secret research base.”

“What kind of timeframe are we looking at?”

“If they believe for a moment that I have betrayed them, my family is dead. I don’t know if they suspect me, or if they are simply being cautious. This needs to happen as fast as you can get it done.”

“I’m going to give you an amulet, hide it somewhere. Go back in, visit your family, but pay attention to everything that you can. All prison breaks are based on information, brute force is not the way to handle this. In the meantime, I am going to consult my people, try to figure out more external information while you gather internal information. The most important thing is that they do not believe you’ve turned, act normal, look around, but not anything out of the ordinary, don’t ask questions, don’t try to sneak into restricted areas. Look around, that is all I am asking, do you understand?”

“I’m not an idiot.”

“No, but you are desperate, and that can make you do something stupid.

All you can do now is what I’ve asked, and to have faith that there is no resource that I won’t use to get your wife and daughter to safety. This isn’t just about getting you to work for me, this is also about getting an innocent woman and young girl out of a prison.”

Rosen took a deep breath to ready himself before he left.

Fomoria’s first thought was to call Xol, but…

“That place cannot be breached. Sieged? Flattened? Turned to a crater? Of course, but to get in and out with two people? Two non-mages? No, it cannot be done.”

“If I planted a large enough bomb, leveled enough of the building to-”

“Think about the anti-magic device on a tank, it’s about the size of a human head. That place is going to be filled with hundreds of devices larger than that. If they had only a few of them the size of a closet they could have overlapping fields that cover the entire building. Unless you take out the entire building, you can’t get them out. And if you take out the entire building, they will be too dead to survive. On my world, such a place would be impossible to infiltrate and exfiltrate. And with the anti-magic, we are working on purely physical rules.”

“Not exactly. Internal magic is less effective, but it still works. Any form I assume before I enter the compound is what I will be stuck as.”

“From the structure of the building you showed, I believe that it is a carbon reinforced super dense concrete which was invented on my world some time before my first death, and on top of that, if it was me, I would also have it reinforced with some form of rebar, and just like you said about internal magic, they would’ve used stonesteel. To break into that place you’d need to be massive, large enough to break through those walls and protect your targets at the same time, because you know that the moment they realize who you are, and why you are there, they will kill that woman and her child.”

“So what you’re saying is that there is a chance.”

“I’m saying that if you go in there, someone is going to die. Assuming that you can trust this Rosen in the first place.”

“I know that he has a wife and daughter, and I know that he is willing to betray the Castians to protect them. I don’t believe for a moment that they aren’t there.”

“Their being there or not isn’t the point. You could be walking right into a trap.

You… I… I’m sorry, but I cannot teach you more about anti-magic.”

“I understand, and what you’ve already told me will be useful, since I doubt I will need to worry about it all collapsing into itself.”

----------------------------------------

Fomoria was going in no matter what, even with the turrets on the walls, the watch towers, the checkpoints.

The fortress was as large as Kor, a city designed for scientists to live and work. That Rosen was allowed entry at all was amazing, that he was allowed to come and go even moreso.

“You are looking rather glum.”

“Fomoria is walking into a trap, I can’t prove it, but I can feel it. And I think deep down, he does too.

What the hell does he need Rosen for so badly that he is willing to risk this.”

“What’s wrong?”

“That fool is getting Fomoria to walk into a trap with a sob story as bait. It’s the possible life of one woman and a girl. I just wish he could see the bigger picture here.”

“We both know that you enjoy that he can be more human than either of us, that he doesn’t yet have the disconnection of immortality.”

“This is why I don’t like talking with people, I know that they are just dead men walking.”

“Yes, but he’s not.”

“Tell me, do you honestly believe that Fomoria is making it past 30?”

“He is a survivor.”

“No, he’s a fool, he lives and fights like he’s me. When I die, I come back, but he is bound by the rules of this galaxy, he lacks true immortality.”

“How long have we been together?”

“519 years, 6 months, 18 days.”

“And how often have you worried about me dying?”

“You? Two dozen times.”

“Ex- Really? That many times?”

“Yes.”

“But you never talked about that, I-”

“You had a point, return to the subject.”

“Fine, we will get back to that. You only worried when you did because you didn’t know what it was like back when I was young. Do you remember when you were a budding mage? How often you almost died?

I had to fight wizards dozens of years my senior, and despite what I got out of Aarde, I wasn’t always the stronger one, I had to use my wit to win. If there is one thing that Fomoria has, it’s wit and instinct.

He is going to be fine.”

“I hate that I made a friend for the first time in decades, and he’s going to die before his age is in three digits.”

“Why don’t we go out, do something to clear your mind?”

“If Aarde didn’t force us to remain neutral, to bide our time, what would you do?”

“I don’t answer questions like that, they just lead to regret and bitterness.”