Zaraya
I meet the people at the Conclave compound to jubilation and a bit of surprise. Most of them are human but many of them aren't. Though I can remembered all their names they don't bother with them, simply saying 'hello' and welcoming me back to the planet as though I am a long lost friend.
It is heart warming, not being treated like the stranger I am and as we all began speaking while the table is being prepared I do start catching a few names.
After the table is set, a beautiful ornate table made of a dark polished wood that sits 20 people with matching tall-backed chairs.
"Dig in," Quintin says with a deep rumbling voice that vibrates chalices and cutlery. Quintin is a bear of a man, a literal bear that stands at 3m tall and wide enough to be two people standing side by side.
His rich brown fur coat has streaks of white here and there and a scar is visible on his strangely handsome human-shaped face. Everything about him is slightly human in shape just enough to be functional while his bear form takes president.
His bear claws retractable but still peaking out as nails, his thumbs opposable and very human in their functionality. Looking at him handle things I find myself not remembering what the hands of a bear in the wild are supposed to look like anymore, even with my phenomenal psionic memory.
His snout short enough and his tongue flexible enough for him to be able to articulate words in Common without any issues. Besides a voice deeper than usual and a grin that could scare children he seems like any other demi-human beastman.
But he isn't demi-human, for he doesn't have a humanoid parent in his immediate lineage. Quintin is a fully Awakened Ancient Beast, for someone like me who's been in the almost constant struggle of Omega the past five years with senses honed for survival, the distinction is easy to spot.
Ancient Beasts don't generally socialise with humans to this extent so this friendship I'm seeing amongst all these people is a tad bit strange. An Ancient Beast is something I've only conversed with once before Ascending, something I didn't realise at the time could Ascend itself. But I saw a few of them once I was there, and the fact that I was also from Gaia saved my life on one occasion, who knew they could be sentimental?
Quentin is beautiful like bears, tigers, lions and griffins are beautiful without losing the sense of being dangerous. He has a deadly attractiveness that fascinates me even as he passes vegetables across the table and eats cooked swine as any human would. His aura is relaxed and playful as I keep glancing at him between bites and mouthfuls of wine.
"The food is really good," I say to my hosts between swallows, I haven't eaten this well since I left the Order some five years ago, or fifty depending on whose perspective you take.
"It was a team effort," Malachi says gesturing around. A beautiful tall woman with broad shoulders and a narrow waist huffs loudly while somehow maintaining her elegant poise.
"Though Sarah did most of the work," Malachi adds with a grin to a few snickers along the table.
"I'm glad you are enjoying the food dear, we enjoy cooking here and we don't have servants yet," Sarah says looking straight at me.
It's impossible not to watch her full red lips when she speaks. The woman stands at something like 2m tall and is clearly not exactly human, not with her slightly peaking canines and that mane of hair on her head. The slight curve and sharpness of her ears and the light almost imperceptible golden hairs on her arms, definitely not fully human but very humanoid. As big as she is she moves like a dancer and the elegant way she handles her cutlery speaks of breeding not practice. Her beauty is breathtaking and with her height and size, she should be clumsy and awkward amongst regular-sized people.
But she is very proportional and so elegant in all her movements that I feel short instead of thinking of her as being tall. I wonder if this is how dwarves feel when dealing with humans and elves.
Sarah is wearing black flexible leggings and a short-sleeved white shirt that goes over her head and down to her thighs opening at the sides of her thighs for flexibility of movement. Her feet are bare and beautiful on the wooden floor, even that seems to prove her superior elegance somehow instead of exposing her for an uncut village girl. The red nail paint may have something to do with how pretty her feet look.
There are three elves within our dining party, two females and a single male. All three are very quiet but their aura is welcoming and open. The biggest surprise though was the orc and a member of the famously reclusive little people, the gnome.
Orcs are famously hated by most humanoid races for their looks and their culture. An orc is the closest thing to a human genetically. Humans and elves can have children but those children are sterile with both elves or humans, only being able to have children amongst each other. Any creature that can interbreed but produce sterile offspring is considered of different species by most scholars of the subject thus elves and humans are different species.
Those offspring they bare can only breed amongst each other and not with their pure human or pure elven parent species, so half elves are considered their own species of humanoid since they can only breed amongst themselves.
Elves and dwarves have the same problem, so do elves and fae, and elves and mermen. Humanity is one of the most prolific humanoid races on Gaia, able to produce half-bred children with almost any other humanoid race. Usually children that have many of the advantages of both races and only a few of their weaknesses.
But sadly most half-bred humans can only ever breed with other half breed humans of the same species and there are variations. A half-human half-dwarf can be impregnated or impregnate a human but never a dwarf. A half-human half-elven offspring can only ever have children with other half-human half-elves. So dwarves are considered more closely related to humans than do the beautiful elegant elves.
Orcs and humans on the other hand can breed together ceaselessly. A half-human half-orc can have children with either a full human or full orc and produce young. And orcs are ugly due to their tribal self-mutilation and piercings, at least ugly by most human standards.
This closeness of blood has always caused a strong hatred for orcs from humans who want to see themselves closer genetically to elves, the beautiful elegant race than to the humanoid brutes known as orcs.
"So tell me, how do you all know each other?" I say to the room of 17 people seated at the table with me.
Causing a moment of silence and a few smirks and grins.
"The stories I could tell you," Arnold says with his big shoulders leaning forward, elbows on the table. Anorld is a large human, clearly a warrior with his aura, hands, movement and scars speaking volumes about his chosen vocation.
"You wouldn't believe how I met Quentin over here. Deep in the Amazulu Rain Forest, in the thick bush where there's no path between flora to walk through.
"He was a wee lad at the time, stalking me as his prey. Thinking a man of my experience and cunning wouldn't outwit bear cub," Arnold grins as he pulls the jug of ale towards himself.
"I led him on a merry little chase through some of the most dangerous parts of the Amazulu. Skirting just past other predictors but annoying them just enough to be an impediment to my little friend following behind.
"Though even then he wasn't so little. The little fucker could fight even then too, having Awakened early through eating ether rich human prey and magical beasts for years he was a big bastard.
"He outsmarted or outmatched everything I put in his path. Causing me to be most weary for some of those snakes had been giant anaconda and pythons that could swallow a man whole. Even as I prep-"
"Enough of that, she wants to hear about how I met Malachi here not your hunting stories," Eronica says sweetly leaning into the quiet-mannered Malachi intimately.
"Of course at the time I offered to feed the poor ragged soul that walked past my home. The rain was pouring and the wind cold enough cut through mundane skin.
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"I saw him coming in the twilight still leagues away against the fading light of dusk, his silhouette disappeared as dusk turned to night. By the time he walked into my village, it was already pouring in hard cold sleet that could freeze even some Tier 1s I know.
"I called out to him as he walked past my house, I was but a poor widow past her childbearing years, lonely in the cold winter." She sighs as though telling the most lovely of stories.
Malachi clears his throat to get her out of her musing. "I don't think she wants to hear that story dear."
"Pdrrffhh... Not the way you tell it." Sisi says in her sweet child-like voice to nodding from Sarah.
"Let's just say we met in many various ways and eventually met each other through mutual accountancies to each other," Malachi says seriously.
"I'm asking because your auras are all so familiar with each other. Invading each other's spaces as though you are all lovers or relatives."
"Or longtime friends," Erikson says quickly. "We have known each other for centuries, and as most of your friends and family die through the ages the few friends you have left you learn to treasure more and hold that much closer."
The serious young man with captivating red eyes is one of two vampires present at the table. Almost identical to Erica in appearance making the family connection obvious. But Erica is very much alive in complete contrast to the undead state of her brother. Twin brother if I don't miss my guess.
"What my dear brother meant to say is that we are old, and with age we develop close ties to anyone that can potentially stay alive as long as we can," Erica says to the nods of all around me.
I can't really feel any of their ages but having felt the overwhelming thousand-year-old age of Hirohito only a few hours ago, and remembering Malachi calling him a 'nephew'. I can imagine how old all these people must be.
"So Master Pretiosus gathered all you here?" I ask taking a mouthful of the gathered mix of meats and fruits wrapped in crushed and processed wheat, heated in an oven.
"We are here to help the old man, yes, but we aren't really gathered by him. We know and respect him of course, you don't really grow old in this world without ever having have heard or met the man." Erickson says solomnly.
"It's not really easy to explain but we have dreams and plans beyond the coming of the calamity. Father sees nothing after that for himself here on Gaia even as he assists us in our dream projects.
"He helps us build and directs the path the Conclave takes because he knows we may one day be a powerful force and need to have deeper guiding codes embedded into the foundation of our cadre.
"Our members are not taken just from the most powerful or old, but the least wantonly destructive and thirsty for power." Questica pauses and tilts her head slightly before continuing to speak.
"He is involved in the curriculum our prospects and trainees go through and what our mission statement becomes," Questica says then sips at her tea gingerly.
I sigh internally once she stops talking, my raised hackles relaxing again. What the fuck was that?
"The Ancient is looking to his own future now for the first time in millennia, but even now he is using his future to help make the last gift to us.
"Leaving us something that has been blessed by the shade of his hand. A hand that always edifies whatever it touches, be it children, places or people."
"What do you mean by 'blessed by the shade of his hand?'" I ask pointedly.
"There are kingdoms still flourishing today that should have perished in obscurity centuries ago only because he spent a decade there and befriended the one who was to be their king inadvertently blessing the entire royal line for six or seven generations with his guidance."
"You're wondering how much he's involved with us, truth is he does whatever he wants. Father commands here and we just run the organisation," Malachi says nonchalantly.
"We had none of what you see even 50 years ago but he's hand has blessed us with prosperity," I confirm that Questica's voice is like an attack on my psyche in how it grates but I don't say anything.
"And all his children turn out really cool," Angel says interrupting Questica with a grin and a wink my way, trying his charm on me again I see. I tell myself it isn't working and I'm too old to fall for such silly games, even as a smirk on my face complements his own.
"So you see, the Conclave isn't just about the calamity. It will be the last good thing that this planet has blessed by the Ancient," Questica finishes talking about her father.
"Blessed by the Ancient."
"Blessed by the Ancient," the others say on top of each other with their glasses suddenly raised as though in a ritual to a toast.
A bit cultish but okay...
The meal continues to genuine jubilation and small talk. I am included in a lot of the conversations, not being left to feel like an invader or a spectator amongst old friends having old unfinished discussions.
The evening becomes long and at our age and power we could go on for days in this vein but they sadly insist I rest. Being from such a long journey taught to me it is a matter of taking a step.
I'm shown to a lower floor on the compound with rooms along the twisted corridor. The carpet in the hall is rich and dark yet coarse enough to have good traction. Everything here is beautiful yet functional sacrificing beauty for efficiency in some instances.
I reach the door indicated for me and open it using my mana signature with a click. The door locks onto my signature and is immediately keyed only to my use until I actively pull my mana out of it, leaving it empty, or I die.
Functioning in the same way as spatial rings do, meaning this room could actually be a pocket dimension. I think as I walk into the elegantly furnished set of rooms.
The is a sitting table with elegant red and white couches around it in the middle of the room on the main floor. The floor lower by two steps than the foyer ground I'm currently standing on.
There is a big stone fireplace with a red smokeless smouldering fire, crinkling gently now and then against the far wall. The room immediately to my right is the restroom where I can relieve myself or clean myself in a small water-bath attached to the wall at chest level.
The room immediately across and to the left of the sitting area is a study area with a desk, chairs and some books and paintings on the wall.
The room around the corner is the master bedroom with a huge dressing chest cut to have mana locking drawers and a mirror that stands 2 meters tall. The shade screen stands at a corner next to a standing chest with two wide doors known as a wardrobe. Something I've come across before on my travels. The balcony from the room leads to a window with a view of the dark void of outer space in all its starry glory so close bright and close that I feel like I could jump and pluck them from the sky. I'm definitely in a pocket dimension, nowhere else would such a view exist.
"Where am I exactly?" I turn and ask Sarah who has escorted me to these rooms because even pocket dimensions exist somewhere.
"This is a world we have been building for many centuries. It started off as just something to allay the boredom, each of us adding to it or spending time here throughout the years.
"But we started getting serious about it when one of our friends died and wanted her body used to contribute to the building of the world. It became our own personal escape and we could always leave messages for each other here no matter where we were in the worlds." Sarah says seriously, her voice filled with both melancholy and pride. I know building a world is no joke, and the beings that evolve to become worlds are generally in a league of their own when it comes to power.
"Two others of our friends have since contributed to this world with their deaths."
"It's beautiful, and a worthy project," I say, understanding the power needed to form an independent world, even a little one the size of an isle if a feat only the greats have ever accomplished. Beings like Pangu or even Amanrha just to mention two that are currently the most powerful satellite worlds around Omega.
"Yes well, we had to start over a few times before we got the foundation right. Gravity is a tricky concept to tie down but The Ancient helped with that as well. Remind me to take you for a tour." She says as she opens the last set of doors leading to a small training area.
"This is if you prefer to train alone or have some moves you don't want anyone to see, the walls are warded to take extensive damage but try not to go overboard, we've never tested them against an Ascendant before. There is a communal training hall a few floors up though. We usually train there together.
"The bathing pools are a floor down, those are communal as well. Though we don't really fuck each other with any regularity we do bath together and fight together. We've found it builds trust"
"I'll keep that in mind thanks," I say giving her a look, I can't tell whether or not she's serious.
Sarah leaves me alone in the new lodgings and I immediately head to explore the six polster bed. Time to sleep.