Slightly worried about what he would find, he examined his soul spark again, and saw a rather depressing sight. The powerful energy from the throne had purified his soul spark, and the energy that it produced had benefited, growing denser and purer, the sense of weight it carried increasing, to more closely match that of the throne itself. Yet much of the definition that he had been so happy about had been erased, as if someone had applied a flame to the figure on the throne, causing his features to grow blurry.
Knowing that he would have to redo all of that work, Garrett could only sigh. Still, this was better than the alternative of transforming into his dead enemy. Closing his eyes, he reached into his connection to Delrisa, who had only just made it back down to the first tomb. When she felt the connection through the dream flower she carried, the vampire stopped in place.
"Yes, master, I am here.”
“I need you to bring the artifacts up from the first tomb," Garrett said. "Not the Cauldron of Souls, because that won't move, but the other artifacts. Bring them all to the inn, and don't let anybody see you."
Hesitating for a long moment, as she had just run all the way up to the inn, and then back, Delrisa let out a long-suffering hiss.
"Yes, master."
Ignoring the frustration in her voice, Garrett closed the connection and opened his eyes. He hadn't realized it, but for the last week, it was as if he had been seeing the world through a faint haze. The fact that it had taken him so long to notice was a terrifying thought, and Garrett realized that every plan he had made since defeating Agma-Yoth had probably been influenced by the corruption his soul suffered.
This is probably why great rulers go mad, because they're absorbing not just the power, but also some of the personality of the people they defeat. I'm going to have to be very careful about this going forward.
Rising from the throne, Garrett walked out into the Dream, appearing in his office. Beautiful blooms surrounded him on all of the walls, gently waving their friendly greeting as he passed by. Sitting at his desk, Garrett snapped his fingers, and stacks of paper began to appear in front of him. These were all of the plans that he had been constructing.
After sorting through them, he had a smaller stack, consisting of those plans he had either made or adjusted in the last week. As he began to read through them, his lips twisted into a deep frown. There was practically nothing usable among the plans, and now that he was thinking clearly, it was obvious that he had been on a road to disaster.
While it was true that the Klein family was facing all sorts of problems, what was even more true is that they had just been handed a series of incredible opportunities, each one with the potential to allow the family to grow far beyond what it was now, expanding its reach and influence, and bringing more and more people into the fold.
Conjuring a pen from the air, Garrett began to quickly write, taking care not to drag his hand across the still wet ink. As he filled up sheet after sheet with dense words, even as he wrote, his mind spun, examining each of the problems that faced them from different angles.
The first and most pressing was the matter of the princess. He realized now that he had already fallen into Baron Gelavin's trap. The Baron knew precisely where the princess was. After all, he had arranged for her to come into the city, and could have just as easily arranged to meet with her. The fact that they were waiting for Garrett to set up the meeting meant that they were determined to pull him into their plot.
But it wasn't just him, as the real target was undoubtedly his father, who was currently serving as chief advisor to the regent. It was one thing for him to house the princess, as he could claim that he had no interest in putting her back on the throne. It was different, however, if he began to arrange meetings with the nobles in the city. At that point, his hands would be firmly tied to their cause, which the crafty Baron would no doubt leverage into forcing his father to join as well.
Garrett wasn't sure if Princess Eloise had knowingly played a part in this plot or not. To him, it almost didn't matter. It was clear that she wasn't actually in control of the situation, as much as she pretended to be. The one actually pulling the strings from behind the scenes was the Baron. Still, the princess's arrival brought with it an opportunity too good to pass up. The second major opportunity that had been presented to him was a conflict with the Ebony Association. He had already taken down the Brass Tigers, and the Ebony Association was next on the chopping block. However, rather than eliminate them, as he had with the Brass Tigers, Garrett had decided he was going to do his best to add their numbers to his ranks. It was clear to him that the influence he had absorbed from Agma-Yoth had made him more timid and prone to emotional fluctuation than normal. Now that that influence had been erased, Garrett found his mind spinning up new plans for how he could absorb the Ebony Association into his forces.
Of particular importance was their expertise in the swamp that lay outside of the city, while the Klein family was starting to develop businesses and sources of income. The greatest source of income in the city was from the monster materials brought in from outside. The swamp was a practical treasure trove of such materials. Even though Garrett controlled many of the routes, that only afforded him a small piece of the pie. Instead, Garrett's ambition was to begin expanding into procuring material directly.
As his hand moved across the paper, ink forming into letters as if it had a mind of its own, a clear plan began to materialize. When his hand stopped hovering over the final period, a cold smile flashed across his face. Gero had set herself against the Klein family from the very get-go, and Garrett felt that he had given her more than enough chances to make amends. Instead, she had chosen to try to eliminate him, ruthlessly sacrificing one of her own in order to make sure it got done. What she didn't know, however, was that she had played directly into Garrett's strengths, while at the same time providing more than enough justification for what was to come.
When morning dawned, Garrett found the princess waiting for him outside of his office. Her eyes lit up when she saw him, and she quickly came over to push his wheelchair.
"Good morning, your highness. It's rare to see you up so early.”
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“We have a big day today," the princess said, "and I'm hoping you can help me."
"Help you with what?"
"I think it's time that I meet with Baron Gelavin and began gathering the support of the nobles. I've had the opportunity to look around the city and see the state of it, and now it's time to begin gathering information about the palace."
Garrett didn't respond, pretending to be in thought, while in reality he was condensing a dream flower seed. As they sat down to breakfast, Garrett finally nodded.
"I think I can do that. I'll send a message to the Baron, asking if he's willing to meet with us this afternoon. In the meantime, I think I might be able to offer you some help."
This was the first time Garrett had ever said anything of the sort, causing the princess to smile and lean forward.
"Oh? What do you mean?"
"As I mentioned yesterday," Garrett said, referencing their time in Kabod's Maze, "my powers revolve around communication. While I can't necessarily help you with actively fighting on the front lines, I'm more than able to relay messages on your behalf. However, in order to do that, you have to accept a bit of my power."
Morris, who was standing behind the princess, immediately frowned, but the princess didn't seem bothered by it at all.
"How do I do that?" She asked.
After thanking Francis for the food that he had just brought over, Garrett picked up his fork and used it to gesture to the amulet the princess wore around her neck.
"My energy is not nearly powerful enough to get through your shield," he said. "You'll either have to remove it or allow my power through."
He spoke matter-of-factly, his voice completely devoid of any sort of emotion, and after he had finished his explanation, he began to eat his eggs, as if he didn't care one bit whether the princess accepted his offer or not.
As soon as she heard that she would have to take off her amulet, the princess hesitated. It had saved her life on more than one occasion, and she was savvy enough to know that by removing the amulet, she would be giving her enemies an opportunity, no matter how small, to affect her. Still, the thought of being able to communicate with someone, no matter where she was, appealed greatly. She had seen firsthand how helpful the ability had been when they were trapped in the strange, mysterious artifact.
The truth was, she had ways to communicate with others as well, but the mysterious space inside Kabod's maze had completely severed her connection with the outside world. Garrett, on the other hand, had been able to bypass those restrictions with ease, communicating back and forth and staging their rescue. Seeing that Garrett was continuing to eat, she took a deep breath and nodded.
"Fine, I'll trust you."
Garrett paused, his fork halfway to his mouth, as he slowly raised his eyes to look at the princess.
"Your Highness, I'm not interested in your half-hearted trust. If you don't trust me, that's perfectly fine. You have been asking me how I can help. I'm simply informing you. It is my ardent desire to see you reclaim your rightful position, but if you wish to do so, you're going to have to trust the people around you. After all, you don't have the power to retake the throne by yourself. If you're going to trust me, then trust me, and I will see to it that the throne is yours once more."
Oddly, the calm and direct way Garrett spoke did more to assuage the princess's fears than if he had passionately declared his loyalty. She could feel the certainty radiating from him, and when she thought about all that she knew about the Klein family’s rise over the last few months, she realized that if anybody in this city could help her achieve her goal, it was probably Garrett.
Nodding firmly, she reached up and unclasped the amulet from her neck, ignoring Morris' whispered protests. Still holding his fork, with a bit of egg speared on the end, Garrett stretched across the table, extending his finger to touch the princess's hand. A faint spark of power jumped from Garrett's finger to her hand, even as the dream seed entered her body.
"You can put the amulet back on," Garrett said, re-spearing the egg which had fallen from the prongs of his fork onto the table.
As he put it in his mouth and began to chew, the princess looked at her hand in wonder. The spark that she had felt when Garrett touched her seemed to swell into billowing waves that filled her body with energy, and as she buckled the clasp of the amulet around her neck, she felt as if her soul spark was blooming. It was the oddest feeling, and though it faded quickly, she couldn't shake the sense that something about her had fundamentally changed.
Still, she had chosen to trust Garrett, in part because of the results he had demonstrated, and in part because he had once been her older brother's closest companion. She still remembered watching the two boys from afar, and in her mind, Garrett was almost as much family as her royal siblings had been.
As he finished his meal, Garrett carefully watched the seed that he had planted. He had fed it a bit of energy, allowing it to bloom rapidly. As the flower sank its roots into the princess's mind, Garrett saw it produce a second, and then a third, bloom. At that point, the energy he had inserted into it began to taper off, and the dream flower began to absorb trace amounts of the princess's energy.
Seeing there were no problems with it, Garrett turned his attention away, not wanting to alarm the princess by staring too much. From here, the dream flower would continue to grow, mirroring the princess's level of trust. This was an observation Garrett had made over the last week, proven by a number of dream flowers that had grown to five blooms of their own volition.
The blooms that Garrett forcefully grew transformed the individuals into another person entirely, making them completely loyal to Garrett. Those who grew to five blooms on their own lacked that blind obedience, and instead it was as if they had utmost trust in Garrett. When he began to think about the blooms that way, it made complete sense to him, as those who carried more blooms were more likely to listen to his words and follow his directions, trusting that he had their best interest in mind.
The weight of that trust was heavy, and was a large part of the reason that Garrett had committed himself so fiercely to both growing and protecting the Klein family. Sending out a bit of energy, Garrett hesitantly connected with the flower that had bloomed in the princess, wary that the artifact she wore would see the connection as an attack and trigger, potentially even eliminating the dream flower. When nothing happened, he acted with more confidence, sending a message through her dream flower directly into her mind.
"Yes, I'm done," the princess said, pushing her plate aside and then freezing as she realized Garrett hadn't actually spoken to her out loud.
Her eyes widened and she looked up at him.
"That is what it will sound like," Garrett said, "and passing a message back is just as easy. Simply concentrate your thoughts, imagine yourself speaking to me, and say what you would like to say."
Still staring at him, Princess Eloise did as he instructed, and a moment later, he heard her voice in his mind, asking him what time he would set the meeting for. Pushing himself back from the table, Garrett smiled lightly.
"Unfortunately, when requesting a meeting with a noble, we don't get to set the time, but if there's a time that suits you better, I'm happy to convey that."