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Looking back, the act of separating the Collector’s Guild from the sects was an accidental stroke of genius.
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It’s been five weeks, and he should have been back a week ago. At least. What can be holding them up? Apparently, the late summer has been wet, and with muddy roads… but even then, on foot, they should be making good time.
Matt looked down into his mug of tea, his thoughts racing down the roads to his farm, where Vic should have collected his sister by now. Were they safe? What had she said when Vic brought her his letter? What if the letter didn’t convince her?
Everything in that letter was just too far out there. I should have written more. She was never one for flights of fancy, and she was always so committed to the farm. She wouldn’t leave just because a stranger brought her a letter, allegedly from a brother she had not seen for months, who had left with no intention of ever returning. What could I have written to convince her that–
“Good morning.” Matt looked up to see Pete smiling at him from across the table. “I hear you and Charlotte had a duel?”
“Erh. Yes… We did.” Matt took a moment to return his thoughts to the present. “News travels fast around here, but I wouldn’t really call it a fight. She even gave me time to finish my Rune… I thought it would stop that light beam of hers, but she just blew straight through my defences. I didn’t have a chance. She’s an absolute monster.”
“Yeah,” Pete grinned back. “I’ve come to realise the same thing. If only we had ten more like her, we could push back the western tunnels even further. She spent a few hours there yesterday, and… Well, we finally got through to set up a stronghold I’ve wanted for weeks.” Pete paused, looking pensive for a moment as more people filled up the room. As the city reached Level 6, they had a full complement of twelve council members crowding the table. “Why didn’t you charge her? In close combat, you should still be able to defeat her?”
“Maybe I could have, but I need to learn to use the Runes in combat. Right now I’m way too slow… If I learn to react more quickly, and learn how to draw them quickly, I might not be so useless. Right now, I’m more a liability than anything else. And… and I need a surface to draw the Runes on. At least the Arena has sand, which works well enough.”
Matt shut down Pete’s impending protestations about his lack of usefulness with a pointed look. He had moved past that jealousy, and didn’t need or want anyone's pity. He just needed practice.
Looking down the length of the table, Matt absentmindedly watched the room fill up and returned nods from people that were more or less strangers. It was several days since he last attended one of these meetings, and he barely knew the names of everyone here.
As people settled into their seats, he let his mind wander, wondering how he could modify the Rune of Warp to absorb more energy. Charlotte’s beam of light had ripped through it, and he wished he’d had a chance to look over the rune pattern in the sand before he was knocked out of the battle. He had a strong hunch about where it might have failed, but was jostled out of his reveries when they moved into the room. There was something about Terrence’s swagger that grated, irritating him before he’d even opened his mouth. Since that first day, when they’d almost started a fight in the Council Chambers, they had been a consistent thorn in Mia’s side. Matt wished Mia hadn’t invited Shawn onto the council, but at the same time, he understood the logic behind it. Now his planning was happening right under their noses.
Shawn followed a step behind Terrence. Where Terrence strode into the room and imposed his presence on everyone, standing wide with his head held high; Shawn stepped silently into a corner of the room to observe everyone. As his eyes scanned the crowd, his lips drew together in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes as he met Matt’s eyes.
Terrence walked up to the end of the table and slammed a fist down. “So, where’s our mighty Mayor? Keeping you waiting again? Why am I not surprised?” And with a sneer, he continued. “Anyway, this should be quick, and there’s no reason to hold up these fine proceedings. Shawn, if you will do the honours?”
Walking around the table, Shawn put down a sheet of paper in front of each council member. Matt threw a look down, reading the title, “On the 1st Sanctuary Tournament”, before looking back up.
When Shawn finished handing out the proposals, he found his own chair at the table and nodded to Terrence, who continued. “As we have described on–”
A soft voice cut through the room. Mia. “Ahh, I see you have joined us. Welcome, Terrence.” She walked calmly over to the larger seat at the end of the table, and slowly she sat down. “And thank you for preparing a written proposal. I have reviewed it, and I think it’s a fine idea myself, but I want to hear what my council has to say.” There was an ever so slight emphasis on the word my.
“Erh. Yes. As I was saying–”
“But before we review your proposal, we have some other items on the agenda. If you can, please step outside for a little while longer. We will call you when we are ready.” The look she sent across the room gave no room for disagreement, and Matt noted how Shawn rose from his chair to guide Terrence to the door, while whispering something to him.
A few moments later, after Shawn had sat back down, Mia continued. “Welcome. Let’s get this meeting started. Let’s start with census numbers. Haskell?”
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Haskell looked up, and Matt smiled as he met the man’s eyes. A severe and careful man, Matt had learned to appreciate Haskell’s carefully considered advice. He was a proper counsellor, knowing his role was to help Mia understand the issues at hand, testing ideas out from different angles before offering his opinion. When putting together her council, Mia had worked hard to find a balance of people with different experiences. Some were farmers, others had lived in the cities. Men and women that had lived and experienced.
“Just over five hundred, and it’s slowed down. We have three recruitment teams out now, but the distance is making people more hesitant to trust them. To travel here.” Nodding at Pete, Haskell added, “And they are picking up some rumours in the nearby settlements. Settlements we haven’t reached yet. We’re not a secret any longer.”
“We always knew that would happen,” Mia smiled at Haskell, before turning to Pete. “What’s your assessment?”
“There’s three key questions,” Pete began. “When will they come? How many, and how they will approach the situation. The answer to each one is mostly guesswork at this time… I really wish Vic was back. He had just started building that information network when he left, and as far as I can see, they are still mostly just wandering around in the dark. Most of them seem to agree there won’t be an attack this side of winter, but there is one report that is concerning me…” Matt caught the look Pete sent to Mia as he drew out that last sentence.
“I will want to review that later. In private,” Mia said, before turning to Birga. “How about production and stocks?”
“It’s good,” she said with a smile. “The farming cave is turning over crops at an incredible pace, and combined with food from the outside, we have enough for winter.”
“It better be,” Shawn said in a low drawl. “Or we are fucked. Proper fucked. Holed up in here like badgers in a cave. I’ve told you this before. We need to reach further out; build up some farmland. Establish a presence outside the cave, maybe even build a wall. If we send out a few teams of high-level fighters, we might even scare them away so they leave us alone. Turtling up in here just doesn’t sit right with me.”
“We’ve had this conversation before,” Haskell said in an even voice. “Not yet. The City influence doesn’t extend far enough yet. The risk is too big. If we misjudge the situation, they—”
“Fuck that,” Shawn said, in a voice that was almost a growl. “Risk this, risk that. Who out there can stand against us? Put that Charlotte girl against an army, and she’ll cut them down like a scythe. They’ll run so fast and so far we can grab the lands from here to Brook. At least. And if–”
“Enough, Shawn. Let us revisit that topic later,” Mia said. “I believe you and Terrence had a proposal for us to review?”
“Hmm. Ok, we’ll table that for now.” Shawn said and rose from his chair, but the flash in his eyes told Matt more than his words. “I will get Terrence and Glydia.”
A moment later, Shawn led Terrence and the Arena Mistress into the room.
“Right,” Terrence’s voice boomed. “This is what we propose.”
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“What do you mean, you will not enter the tournament?”
Charlotte was leaning back on the wooden bench, her back against the smooth stone wall of the Oxtail tavern. Matt hadn’t caught the name of whoever was abusing the strangely shaped string instrument up on the stage, but felt strangely grateful at the excuse to lean in to hear her more clearly.
When the council meeting broke up, Matt had been heading across the garden, intending to spend the evening in his laboratory, when something brought him up short. His thoughts and emotions were frayed after the meeting, and they kept bouncing between frustration at his failure in the duel and a growing list of things he could have said to Shawn to make him shut up. Something about the entire situation churned in his gut, and he had forced himself to take a calming breath as he came to the weird, tiny and wizened tree in the middle of the sand garden. There was no way he could concentrate on his work, and there was something else… Somewhere in the turmoil of his emotions, there was a trace of a happy, bubbly thought. Where does that come from? It took him another few seconds to trace down the feeling, and he was surprised to find it linked to Charlotte’s earlier invitation to join them for dinner. Despite the promise of crowds and noise he usually detested, he’d decided to accept her invitation.
“I don’t have time, and regardless, like you demonstrated this morning, I won’t get past the first fight. I just think… I think my time is better served trying to learn more Runes. Maybe if the tournament was in a few weeks, but… In three days? No way I can be ready.” Matt replied.
“Nonsense. Sure, I wiped the floor with you, but… But I’ll do that with everyone. If you are matched against another close combat fighter, there’s no reason…. I’ve seen what you can do with that weird polearm. Get close and you can dominate them. I think you are overestimating their abilities. You can hold your own at least against a level 3!”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Matt said. “Level 2, maybe. Probably. But once they have some experience with their skills… Not everyone will give me time to prepare my Runes like you did,” Matt smiled and reached for his glass of mead. “One good hit and I’m out.”
“Regardless,” Charlotte insisted. “You’ve hidden away in your room for weeks. Most people here don’t even know who you are. You are a Founder, Matt. You should be able to walk proud, even without the magic. Show those idiots what you can do.”
“I hate that name, you know that? We were lucky, that’s all. It might just as well have been you, or anyone else. There’s nothing special about being the first, and… And I’m getting worried. It’s been too quiet.” Matt looked around to see nobody else was nearby. “After the council meeting today, Pete shared some news… He’d heard from one of his spies in Brook. There’s something weird going on. You know those cultist guys?” Matt leaned even closer, speaking right next to Charlotte’s nodding head. “Usually there may be one or two of them around, to tend the churches, you know. You never see over three or four of them at the same time. Apparently… There were two dozen of them gathering for some kind of meeting in Brook.”
“And?” Charlotte leaned back to meet Matt’s eyes. “Why should that mean anything?”
“Pete thought… We–we don’t know. But something is off. I think those cultists have something like the pattern, and…”
“And maybe they are all half gods, planning how to break the Dagger’s with a stern look. Blow a hole in the mountains to expose us all. Or maybe they are just bored men and women playing at being important. I know how they strut around. But you don’t really know, and in the meantime, life is happening… Matt, the tournament is just three days long. You can take three days away from your books and your Runes.”
After a long pause, Matt answered, “I’ll be there. To cheer for you.”