Germination 8

August 3rd, 2032.

The town was bustling as an emergency Koza was called out across the taifa using the golm-speaker network. The animated tools were designed to follow the ties that bind, the connections between everything.

More specifically they could follow the ties that bind between each other, as the same kind of beings. Their range limit was a matter of… power, they were imbued with only a speck of spirit to exist.

“Golem, where did that specific term for magical constructs come from?” I asked Ultima the question as we dove between angry and fearful crowds.

Ultima glanced over, eyes filled with concern. “It’s a term that started to grow in popularity about three cycles ago, over three centuries in Common. Neither witch, beast or machine. Shaped out of inanimate material and brought to life by magic.”

I nodded. “They usually use dust, mud, and clay don’t they? Imbued with the energies of life.”

“The term didn’t become fully coined until 1890, in honor of an Elder who helped rebuild Cruorpool. It’s why Caudalann has the highest literacy rate in Calafia, and why our housing and food rights are as good as they are.”

Why did that specific date ring a bell?

“Hmm, that brings up the question of why golems seem to be rare outside little magic voicemail.”

“They’re very finicky constructs of magic, imbued with life, intelligence and purpose. Guardian, companion, tool. To a fault they are literal and mechanical, so they can go haywire.”

So like a golem?

“Huh, neat.” I did my best to ignore Ultima’s growing concern. I was fine.

Cruorpool’s forum was filled to the brim with hundreds of people, and I imagined tens of thousands were tuned in to the emergency broadcast. Which was apparently a modified golm-speaker which could have more range to project a signal.

They just weren’t really portable, expensive and didn’t have repeaters. They could cover an entire taifa fairly easily. But otherwise their communication network was broken into a hundred or so units.

We were heading to the Paumiento Ersetito, the thinking rock. Which was a throwback to when it was a literal rock to hold assemblies of freefolk. Nowadays that giant rock was flattened and enclosed within a rectangular building.

Something like a longhouse.

By the time we arrived at the building, the numbers had swelled to a thousand. Even so it was only at a fifth of its nominal capacity at best. It had a floor of flat stone, clearly shaped by magic.

There were dozens of tables, massive double extendable pedestal tables able to seat up to twenty people each. It was a strange mix between being a Roman basilica, a Germanic mead hall and an Iroquois longhouse.

It was made of brick and granite, which was how I had learned Calafia built their foundations out of lava. It was a simple process, bend holes down to bedrock, filling it with gravel. Place a hopper over the hole, fill with gravel and water then melt the solution into lava. The lava cools into high quality granite through some weird accelerated process. Ten times stronger than concrete.

There were clans who had built their wealth on baking batches of granite. Weaving gravel made of quartz and feldspar and trace minerals, using their sense of stone and heat to crystallize it into granite instead of crap. It was a matter of precision and lore.

Anyways, the building was an eclectic design. The carved stone and brick of the Romans. But the internal structure was where its resemblance to a mead hall and a longhouse shined. The doors were covered in animal hide to preserve warmth, which extended out to the entire building for five hundred feet. Support columns were covered in wood with decorative bands of metals, splitting the interior into aisles.

There were a ton of tables and benches, enough for the entire tribe. Kitchens, and ancestral banners and statues built along the longitudinal aisles. Atriums bring in light along with witch lights along the walls. Wooden roof beams were used to hang artifacts, like boats and airship hulls. At the center of the building was a gigantic round table on a raised platform.

There were two doors at both ends, along with more doors at the sidewalls due to it being so large. A five hundred by one hundred foot building tended to offer a lot of room.

The high table was where the most important members sit to gather and discuss plans more effectively. The king of the kingdom and their spouse and heir, and their council.

It was also where the kingdom Koza met, a bicameral chamber of fifty people elected from the sixty thousand members of the taifa. The legislature in other words, with the king and his court as the executive, and the lawsingers as the judicial. It was among the most democratic kingdoms, a flawed one but better than most.

Today, likely only five of them were here as residents of Cruorpool.

The clans were spaced throughout the great hall, though some lingered close to the grand table. I could see Dinah sitting down with her parents, two wapuk of course.

Her mother was of the same stock, a wapuk descended from the lightning-class dragon known as Alpenglow Furies. Fast, powerful dragons who are often various shades of oranges, pinks and reds, purples, grays, and blues.

Her mother had far lighter blue scales, with her wings being colored with pinks and reds. She showed even more skin than her daughter somehow. Her father… was a tidal-class wapuk, built like the actor my mom liked.

Momoa I think?

His scales were semi-reflective, grays and whites with tints of ocean blue. His wings were short and muscular like diving birds, and the winglets on his arms were shaped like webbing. His horns were twisted spires, like the horn of an narwhal, and he had a wide snout full of sharp teeth. He wore loose layers of fur, fabric and plates of chitinous armor. An eclectic mix of stereotypical viking and greek, and his horns didn’t help.

Despite being a tidal-class dragonkin he was one of Aclima’s many children, she had taken three spouses and had a lot of kids. Even so their numbers had peaked at around two hundred about sixty years ago. Their numbers had shrunk by twenty once a decade since then. An endless war with monsters tended to have attrition.

King Ladon was even taller than his nephew, a solid ten feet from my look at him.

I suppose I know where Dinah got her looks. Her parents are very pretty.

I could see Althea at one table with much of her family, and I shyly waved at my friend. She smiled right back, pointed ears wiggling.

“Wouldn’t think a lawless witch and her apprentice would be invited…” I whispered to Ultima as she tugged me onward.

“We’re witnesses, and this kind of threat overrides the usual divides.” Ultima answered with a shrug. “We’re sitting with Fayla and her new charge, they’ve got their own evidence.”

We did exactly that, sitting with Fayla and Ajani, the goblin glaring at me. Though it was a softer expression than the last time we met.

A loud resounding bang hushed the crowd of two thousand people… and was transmitted by a golden beetle of clay and dust and magic the size of a large child.

King Ladon cleared his throat, and the entire crowd listened. “This Koza has been called for one reason and one reason only. An enemy we thought gone has made their return after a decade, the dreaded Threaded Ones.”

The crowd almost broke into shouting, and I winced. Ultima squeezed my shoulder, and gently weaved threads of violet to quiet the cacophony.

Ladon continued. “It is true, we have witnesses.” He gestured towards our table and I did my best not to flinch at the judging gazes of literal thousands. “The Threaded Ones ravaged the village of Aadhar, that we have any survivors at all is due to the efforts of the Wandering Abyss and her apprentice.”

“How many survivors?” Someone among the crowd shouted.

He released a deep grumbling sigh. “Fifteen, out of one hundred.” I could see how some clan representatives from the Amlak clan flinched, like that answer had hurt them.

Hadn’t it? Didn’t it still hurt when they died too… even if you never knew them?

Most of the clans outside of Cruorpool were concentrated on thirty two islands, one clan an island. But Aadhar was an outpost set up by the Amlak clan, built in the last ten years after the Threaded Ones had been ousted. Their relative distance and isolation had been their deaths.

That would sting wouldn’t it?

A clan of two hundred tended to administrate a population of around fifteen hundred clanless. They had lost over a twentieth of the people they had a responsibility to.

“We are already preparing the funeral sea pyres for our people,” there was a sad tinge to his voice. “They are dead… but we are not, justice must be served, must be pursued. Eighty five people have drifted off to the Sea of Souls, so our vendetta has been written. The Threaded Ones have returned to devour our people! Will we let them do that!”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The crowd roared.

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

I rubbed my temple as people shouted over one another. I really should have realized a political assembly was going to be loud and annoying. But it was better to be here than not know what the hell was going on.

That I was allowed to have any input at all, was a result of being Ultima’s apprentice. Since legally speaking I was a Resident Alien, a foreign-born individual in residence in the lands of the taifa of Caudalann.

Rights included protection before the law, presumption of innocence, right to trial, right of marriage, right of asylum, right to seek citizenship, right of travel. Right to own a business, right to conduct trade, right to own personal property, right to personal faith… along with plenty of others that were foundational to the kingdom.

“Your government is weird,” I replied honestly to Ultima, who shrugged. “Then again the foundation isn’t dissimilar to the House of Commons and House of Lords.” And it wasn’t like part of the reason the Senate exists was because of the fear of mob rule.

And we all know how that went.

Clans were tricky business as well, as they were considered something akin to a noble corporation. A legal organization with a clanhead and heir elected from among their members, with a municipal charter due to being a local governing body.

“If we call upon all of the clans, we will be lost, my King!” The clanhead of the El-Baz, a dark skinned and haired umano witch, protested. “Not without details on the numbers of our enemy! We have fought the Threaded Ones for over two hundred years, entire clans have gone extinct in our wars with them!”

One of the Amlak members gave a murderous glare at the clanhead, Elvas was her name I think?

“So you would let the people we were meant to protect be left without justice?” The Amlak member growled.

Elvas shook her head. “Not at all, the issue is one of planning. A decade is a long time for our enemy to adapt and grow in numbers. Our witnesses alone encountered over a hundred threaded ones. War is death, and this is a war we must have. But we must do it right, to protect the living as well as the dead.”

The crowd murmured, and the Amlak noble sagged, nodding tersely. Representatives were keeping the peace, three representing the clanless and two representing the four clans. It was about… each seat represents about three hundred and sixty clan members. Which was about the total size of the four clans…

The seat-holders of the Koza were the ones who made decisions on a kingdom-scale, representing their peers. Any person could add their input to a Koza like this, though nobles and richer families did have more say.

So not that different from home in terms of class disparity.

“How much do we know?” One clan woman asked, brushing back her red bangs. “Besides what… the Wandering Abyss and her apprentice has told us.”

“We do have another witness.” Dinah spoke up with a sardonic tone, wing flicking to point at Ajani.

The goblin crossed his arms. “I had my own encounter with the threaded ones, a group of them had devoured a trading caravan and Fayla managed to defeat them.” He shuddered. “They were… odd, it felt like they were screaming, a song of death and madness.”

More murmurs.

The golden beetle rang loudly as a representative called in. “We’ve done our own investigative work into the matter my King.”

“Mirala, what have the Asaru and Kvin clans found?” Ladon rumbled as his claws tapped against his high table.

“Anagen has proven to be suitable investigation partners,” Mirala continued. “We pinpointed the strange deaths in the last few weeks to Threaded One activity. Unfortunately it was too late… because our oracles couldn’t follow the clues they left.

A hush followed. “Something is shielding them.”

Why was everything looking at me?

Fortuna, Dinah’s mother, smiled. “Oh, do elaborate. My daughter does seem to enjoy your insights.” I flushed but managed to gather my thoughts.

Don’t panic.

“I… read up on the threaded ones, this doesn’t follow their usual pattern. There’s a cruelty and barbarity to their attacks that’s unusual isn’t it? Before they seemed to attack by rote, following patterns and regular cycles. But now they’re tearing people apart… and no one noticed the pattern of deaths until recently? Oracles, they can divine the future, to see the unknowable, follow the lines of what is, of what could be. And they missed this? There’s something bigger here, pieces of the puzzle we’re missing.”

I stopped talking as the pressure got to me again, but I had done enough. Got my say. One person sneered, looking ready to open his mouth and got an elbow from… a sister, cousin?

I could see the gears in Farrow’s brain rotating. And then he thumped the high table.

“I have a proposal, my King!” He looked proud, his voice shaking the room.

“Yes?” Ladon looked amused, tilting his head in interest.

“We don’t gather an army, not yet. We gather a scouting party, people who can move around quickly and gather information on what’s become of the Threaded Ones. We’ll find what we need while hunting our enemy, and once we know enough…”

“We strike.” Ladon sounded impressed, and the representatives seemed to be considering that idea as well. “Who would lead such a party?”

“I will.” Dinah stood up from her table, her tail whipping from side to side. Fire flared from her angry breath. “Alongside Farrow, we can gather a mobile hunting party to travel across the taifa. The other tribula can do the same on a local level, and we can work with Anagen with the attacks on their territory. To protect our people, our kingdom from harm.”

Dinah’s inner fire seemed to flare like a star, with the misty smoke of water entangled within. Her father’s lips curled into a grin.

“Well then, what do you all say to the proposal of my daughter and nephew?”

All five representatives glanced at one another… at their people and nodded.

“Then… with some more more elaboration it is decided.”

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

The Koza had lasted another hour, which was effectively just the organization and setup for their hunting party.

“Celia.” I jumped when I was called out by Dinah. The dragon girl gently nudged me with her tail.

I let out a squeak, but managed to keep the rest of my cool. “Yes?”

Dinah simply smiled softly. “I believe you know what I want to ask.”

I rolled my eyes. “So you want the tiny chubby human to help with big bad monsters?”

“Didn’t you destroy multiple of those monsters on your own?” Dinah shot right back with a grin. “Or are you saying you aren’t a capable, powerful, brilliant witch?”

I floundered. “That… what? Nooo…” Oh that was not fair at all, she was way too pretty to play that card. “I’ve still got a lot to learn, I haven’t even discovered every kind of glyph yet.”

Dinah patted my shoulder with her tail, tail fluff batting me in the face. I didn’t mind.

“Celia. I trust you understand that I am not a fool, yes?” I nodded hesitantly. “Then please accept that I have done my research on the fact that glyphs are a form of textual magic that has been gone for centuries.”

Lungs filled with air as dark gold eyes stared into my soul. “I… do.”

She placed a hand on my shoulder, leading me away from the crowds. I felt how her energies spread out across the landscape, hiding it amongst the warmth of the world. Like scattered sunlight.

People didn’t seem to see us at all, and I was impressed at the display of her control.

“I want your help for this, you are honorable and offer a fresh perspective.” Dinah clicked her tongue. “My people are in harm's way, and so are yours.”

“I’m not part of a clan, I have no obligations like that. But… I understand what you’re saying. And… I worry about my mom, she’s an accountant. Even if she’s tough as nails, these things can cut through steel and flesh like a hot knife through butter. She’s all I have left.”

“Family is important, and you have been kind to me despite our… initial hostilities. Firm perhaps, but boundaries, rules of conduct are sensible.”

She’s so weird. But it was honestly kinda cute how she tried to be all understanding in a formal sort of way.

I sighed. “Alright, I suppose it’s an extension of our alliance anyways. I’d just call it friendship personally but… you seem to disagree.”

Dinah pouted. “That is not what I said at all. Simply that alliance is a preferable term while we’re still getting to know each other. Though it’s also to prevent any meddling, I don’t believe you want to be my wife or concubine.”

I choked on my own spit, punching my own chest as I stopped breathing air.

“Come again?!”

She poked my cheek with a claw two inches long. “Dragons are thieves, Celia. Of lives. Of gold. Of hearts. Even now I I want to bring you into my clan, to steal you away and teach you of Fire, of the promethean spark in your soul. So that your determination and will would strengthen my clan.” It was a bittersweet half-smile that she offered. “My parents are no different. But while you would make a cute wife, I don’t believe that would be wise.”

“And concubine?” I whispered with a blush.

“Old term, legally it’s become something closer to… domestic partnerships? We have warred against the threaded ones for over two centuries now. We needed ways to bring in people from the clan aside from adoption, as well as ways to pay for dowries often lost to attacks. So we created the domestic partnership system, a way to create bonds between the clans and the clanless. Instead of paying a dowry, one could become a domestic partner, a concubine to gain that dowry. And as it needs to be renewed once a year, and comes with contracts and rules it protects them.”

Like a temporary marriage?

“Huh… do people use it to test out their compatibility or as a way to express less romantic love?”

Dinah blinked. “You caught that didn’t you? Yes, especially as dowries have fallen out of fashion outside modest symbolic payments. I have an aunt who has a partner she cares for very much.”

That’s kinda sweet.

Wait…

“You think I’d make a cute wife?” I felt my face grow hot again.

Dinah snorted. “You are adorable, so yes.”

I couldn’t win against this nonsense.

“So who else is going to be in this little party of yours?”

“My cousin, Althea and anyone you suggest that I find acceptable.”

I leaned back at her response. “You want me to pick?”

“Yes, I believe there is merit in building my own council. I have been voted in as heir by every member of my taifa. I need to show them that they made the right choice.”

That sounds like way too much pressure to put on a teenager.

I gestured with my hand, and she reached out to clench it. “Alright, why not? We can be partners in this little gambit. Plus… I don’t want any more people getting hurt.”

How many people would die back home if those things could traverse worlds now?

Dinah hummed. “And that is exactly why I chose you.”

Were dragons always this intense or was Dinah just a weirdo?

Welp, doesn’t matter to me. I had no right to judge.

So let’s see where we go from here.