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Marius had to admit he was feeling a little out of place. He had always considered himself powerful and even influential. Oh, he had always known there were many beings more powerful and influential than him, but he was rarely the weakest person in a room. Except now that was the case, and he wasn’t the weakest by a small margin either. The fact that the most powerful Divines of the House Titannica were sat around an enormous titan-sized table could make anyone feel small, but that alone wasn’t what was making him feel so weak. Comparing yourself to gods would always be a losing proposition. No, what made him feel inferior was the fact that all of the Divines had been allowed to bring a companion, and even amongst the companions he was the weakest.
He had been brought along as Shiva's companion. He had been asking his master what was going on within the House, and the god had brought him along to this meeting as a response. He wasn’t the only non-titan in the room, but only because one of the gods sitting at the table was Khaine. All the other Divines had brought along titan companions even if their most powerful allies were from another race. Only Shiva had been bold enough to bring along what could be considered an ‘outsider’. That was another reason Marius felt small. Even if the others around the table were too polite to directly question his presence to Shiva’s face, they were certainly bold enough to give him looks that spoke volumes.
“My apologies for being late.” The Grand Marshall said as he entered the room along with another high-ranking officer of the Host. As he took his place, the titan gave a perfunctory explanation. “The House of Dragons was making a fuss again and it took a while to get rid of them.” It was telling that the man usually respected everywhere was not among the most important people at the table. He would also likely abstain from too many comments as many here thought him biased concerning the topic.
“Don’t worry about it.” An older female titan waved magnanimously. She was one of the oldest and strongest Divines at the table. “We can all understand the frustrations of dealing with the Dragons. The serpents don’t like their pride trampled upon after all.” The female titan was surrounded by living flowers as they grew from her dress and climbed up her body.
“Can we get to it? While I wouldn’t be bold enough to lay any blame on the Grand Marshall, we’re all busy. Let’s skip the pleasantries and chit-chat this time.” One of the younger gods, Vulcan asked with a frustrated tone. The titan seemed to be formed of molten stone and lava, as he was clearly a more elemental-type titan.
“Well, I believe we’re here to discuss an important topic, so rushing should be avoided.” The female titan said, drawing out her words. “Still, we might as well.”
“We are here today to…” The youngest god at the table started to speak in a ceremonial voice, something that seemed to be the standard in these meetings.
“We all know why we’re here. No need to rehash it.” Another old god that seemed to have swirling vortexes of power within his metallic-shining blue body. “How much effort are we going to expend supporting Khaine and her daughter to the throne?” Marius thought that for a God of Time, Kronus sure seemed impatient.
“Does the question even need to be asked?” Khaine raised her voice. “I bore a daughter for House Titannica and went into confinement, which I only recently escaped, due to the promise of full support. You have all eagerly awaited this opportunity for generations of immortals and gods. Finally, a titan with royal blood and a legitimate claim! Any of the other houses would jump at the opportunity, and by the sounds of it, the dragons are doing exactly that. Why do you hesitate?" Khaine's voice had become angry by the time she finished.
“Because now we have to question whether the girl truly is one of us.” Kronus’ companion responded with a tone colored with disgust. “She certainly flaunts other bloodlines just as willingly as she does ours.”
“While my companion is a little impolite in her words, she does make a point. The girl shows something that shouldn’t be possible. No being should have access to so many bloodlines, not if the bloodlines were pure.” Kronus mitigated the words of his companions a little. His words got some nods and murmurs of approval from the younger section of the table.
“Kronus. You do realize that you are rather directly accusing me of not only lying and betrayal of the worst kind, but you’re also questioning my honor as a woman. Rather bold of you. Especially since you’re only doing it because my daughter is capable of something you do not understand.” Khaine’s words dripped with venom. “I’d pick your next words very carefully.”
“I do realize that, yet the question must be asked, no matter how insensitive it might be.” Kronus didn’t back down.
“There’s also the fact that the girl seems rather wishy-washy about committing to us. Even if we recognize her as one of us, will she reciprocate?” Vulcan asked, although his tone was signaling that he was more concerned than accusing. Unlike Kronus, he wasn’t against the girl. He simply had concerns.
“We have to take her circumstances into account.” The flower-clad female titan stated with a warm tone. “She was sent to the Higher Planes as a baby and raised by the people there. Aside from her bloodline, she has never gotten anything from us, and you could even say that we abandoned her in her time of need. She wasn’t raised to be loyal to the house like our children usually are. And we haven’t exactly rushed to embrace her after her Ascension either. It would more suspicious if she was willing to suddenly throw her future in with us just because she is also a titan. If we have never given anything to her, how can we ask her everything in exchange?”
“While that might be true and perfectly reasonable Gaia, we are not in a situation where we can afford to question the loyalties of our chosen contender for the throne.” Kronus pointed out. “Even an unpleasant option might be preferable to a completely unknown one. A missed opportunity is just that, while throwing our lot behind this girl might lead us to ruin."
“I stand behind her unquestionably.” Shiva suddenly declared.
“So do I.” Declared Indra. The two of them were the oldest gods present and when the two of them spoke in agreement, few dared to question, as the two rarely bothered taking sides.
“Ehm, might I ask why?” Kronus asked, a little confused at having the wind taken out of his sails so suddenly.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“You are all ignoring something important. We do not blame you for this, for you are too young to realize your own ignorance and the depths of the potential mistake you are prepared to make.” Indra stated authoritatively.
“And what mistake would that be?” Kronus couldn’t help but ask.
Khaine was the one to respond as the two old gods seemed unwilling to elaborate. “You’ve all got something backwards. You’re all thinking of this in terms of whether my daughter is worthy of your support or not. My daughter will claim the throne regardless. The only question is whether you have done enough to stay in her good graces when she reaches there.” She seemed to have picked her words very carefully for some reason. She seemed to want to say more, but for some reason couldn’t.
Shiva added. “Kronus, you have heard about the girl using the power of the Sacred Lady. She has also claimed the Name Wrath. To youngsters like you, that might not mean much, but for us? Well, there’s a reason why the Sacred Lady is so venerated amongst the old gods. Incidentally, her other Name was Wrath as well.”
“You’re afraid.” Kronus realized. “You speak as if this girl is the Sacred Lady reborn.”
“We have respect. There’s a difference.” Indra corrected. "As for rebirth, I don't know if such things are possible, but there are enough hints that I'm willing to gamble on her. Besides, she was the sort of being who could've hatched an elaborate plan of some sort that would result in her return in some fashion. We all know there are ways to cheat death, even if avoiding it forever is nigh impossible."
The thought of something causing a reaction like this in such old and powerful gods sent a shiver down Marius’ back. He’d known the group was going to be trouble. Maybe he’d underestimated the amount of trouble after all. Perhaps he should send some reinforcements to Aquarius while he still had a chance.
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“I’ve got it!” Hope exclaimed. “The killer struck again, and I’ve got a tag on them!” Her shout had woken the others. They had placed several magical observation spells around the city in the hopes of catching the culprit. The spells had to be very discreet and narrowly tailored to not arouse suspicion, but they had known the best chance to catch the culprit was during the act. They had been taking turns with the monitoring spells, and now their plan had borne fruit.
"Where did the murder happen?" Karna asked quickly, and Hope provided a location near the docks. "Good. Everyone else, follow our culprit to their lair, while I'll go to the scene to try and gather further evidence in case it's necessary."
They quickly split up, with Envy ending up coming with Karna citing the security as a reason. The two made their way to the location Hope had provided and found the city officials already present. "Be so kind and stop disturbing the scene," Karna stated in a firm but ostensibly polite tone.
“This is still our city. It’s our job to solve the case.” The guard in charge argued, recognizing their armor.
“And yet you haven’t gotten any results so far despite numerous chances. Now it’s our turn. We both know the Host has authority here, so stop wasting both our time and move aside.” Envy was feeling less polite.
The mermaid guard seemed prepared to argue, but a small flash of Envy showing her power caused any such plans to fall by the wayside. Karna didn't bother to stay and listen to the rest of the discussion between the two and just made her way to the actual scene. Just like the other times, there was no body so the case could only be classified as disappearance and not murder, but Karna knew better. She had designed the searching spells, and the spells were triggered by a sudden influx of negative karma that would come as a result of a murder. Of course there were other conditions as murders in a city of this size weren’t exactly rare.
The blood on the scene was also another hint that whoever had been attacked was not likely to still be alive. The amount of blood wasn’t enough to know for certain someone had died, but it did give serious doubts about anyone surviving very long. Interestingly the blood looked very dry and coagulated for something that had happened only a few minutes before. There were no other obvious signs of a crime at the scene, but that wasn’t what she was after anyway. Obvious hints would’ve been great, but if the criminal was the type to leave such obvious hints, then they would’ve been caught by now.
Instead, Karna cast a spell that was at the intersecting point of time magic, scrying, and a little bit of soul magic. Unless the victim’s soul had been purposefully dispersed by someone with skills similar to her or the Nakshatra Dee, then it was still lingering in the area. The spell latched on to the memories of that soul, and added more details from scrying and time magic, as there was a good chance that the victim had not even seen the killer.
An illusionary image played out in all its simplicity and brutality. A sharkman had marched up to the victim, a human by the looks of it, and smashed his head in. The interesting part came when the killer pulled out an orb of some kind that absorbed all the moisture in the victim’s body. Then the killer dispersed the remains with a quick blast of Qi. “Huh.” Karna made a surprised sound. She hadn’t expected the process to be anything complicated, but it was somehow very pedestrian at the same time. Aside from the crystal, the whole thing was very simple. It looked planned and targeted, and there was no passion or even a fight.
Envy and the official both approached, clearly seeing the scene as it played again, this time in slow motion. “Do you recognize either of the individuals involved?” Envy questioned.
“Both actually. Well, sort of. The human is a traveling merchant. At least he claimed to be. There was some suspicion about the veracity of that claim. His deals were a bit too generous, which meant he couldn’t have been making much profit. I’ve bought some things from him. Occasional knick-knacks and jewelry. Quite cheap like I said. The killer I don’t know personally, but I recognize the markings. He’s part of a group of mercenaries known rather imaginatively as Dreadfins. They’re a bit gang-ish in their behavior, but usually they get their jobs done.” The mermaid explained.
“Any ideas about the orb?” Karna asked.
The mermaid scratched her scales in thought. "Hmm, I'm not sure, but I think I've seen something like it before. I just can't pinpoint where. I'm sorry." Despite the earlier dispute, the official had taken a professional attitude, partially because the spell Karna had used helped her investigation as well.
“Why do I feel like this is a setup?” Envy asked. “Smells fishy. No pun intended.” Envy looked at the mermaid’s tail.
“It does seem a little odd. We need to get our hands on the killer. I think there’s more to this.” Karna agreed before they took their leave. They had gotten what they were going to from the scene.
The two quickly made their way to where they could sense their companions. By the time they arrived, they came to what was left of a short but brutal battle. It seemed the Dreadfins had taken umbrage to having one of their number captured and had reacted violently. Now most of them lay dead or dying in what remained of their hideout. “You’ve been busy.” Envy commented.
“A bit of evening exercise.” Valor retorted cheerily while yanking his sword out of a sharkman’s skull.
"Is the one we want still alive?" Envy asked. Valor just pointed deeper inside the remains of the building where Wisdom was already in the middle of questioning a familiar-looking sharkman, without much success by the looks of it.
“Get anything out of him?” Envy asked as they got close.
“Her. And yes. She’s avoiding answering, but even her avoidance and the way she refuses to answer things provides some answers. For example, I’m pretty sure she’s not responsible for the bulk of the ‘disappearances,’” Wisdom actually used air quotes with his fingers. “To be more precise. Her group was hired to commit the last four acts, but someone else did the work before that. They also don’t know who hired them. Just the instructions and payment, along with a list of targets that magically updates itself.”
“Oh? I’ll be able to track the spell to its origin.” Karna realized.
“Yes, well, unfortunately the list didn’t make it.” Wisdom grimaced a bit.
“I see. Let me handle the questioning from here. I’ll get whatever information she doesn’t even realize she has out of her.” Karna promised.
“Ooh, are you going to do that again?” Envy suddenly cheered up and started to push the others outside without waiting for an answer. “Oh dear, we better give you some space. We wouldn’t want to be here when you start.”
“What’s going on?” Wisdom asked a little confused.
“Song of Khali.” Envy replied just before an unearthly scream of terror and pain sounded from inside the ruin they just exited. “Gives me the shivers every time. The fun kind.”
A few moments later Karna came out as well, and they all realized the killer would not be doing the same. “Wisdom’s deductions so far were right. There was one thing of interest though. The crystals. They’re the point of this whole endeavor. They were going to send them to the one hiring them. They still have all four of the crystals as they were supposed to turn them in once they had five. I got the location. Here’s the interesting part. They were supposed to hand them over to a middleman. A rather prominent one at that. The Golden Scale.”
The Golden Scale was a very prosperous merchant house in the city. One of the most influential ones in fact. “Is this the point at which we report our findings? Things could get pretty political pretty fast.” Valor pointed out.
“Where’s the fun in that?” Envy asked in return.
“Valor does have a point, but it would be better for us if we could get further with the mission before handing in our findings. Solving it entirely would be even better. Let’s see if we can at least find the next destination of the crystals.” Karna ended up suggesting.