Christopher weighs the situation in his mind, dissecting it from many different angles at a time as his colleagues rush to perform the customary groveling and scraping to the newly arrived Prince. Mason Kuridin is especially obnoxious about it, undoubtedly seeking to curry favor, and even Mercuria abides custom and bows.
“Oh, enough of all that,” says Prince Frank. “I am, after all, only the 14th in line to my brother’s throne.”
Everyone laughs politely, but Christopher a little harder than the rest - he believes that was a rib at Mason, which is a point in the King’s brother’s favor. Even as Christopher continues his contemplations, a portion of himself focuses on decorum. He quickly introduces himself and then his underlings. Prince Frank is the perfect face of social grace, nodding politely, clasping hands, and making more little jokes that are well received.
I don’t buy for a second that anyone but an imbecile could come to the Depleted Lands for “glory and death”, and he’s clearly smarter than that. What’s in it for him? Our Vimitech? Support for a coup? Too much speculation, too little data. I have to know more…
“Well, it’s always a pleasure to meet such competent professionals in service of the realm, but I’d hate to impose on your meeting any further. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll just be borrowing your Liaison for a little longer, to conclude the tour,” says the Prince.
Perfect, Christopher thinks, and prepares to interject, but Mason beats him to the punch. “Actually, we were just concluding here,” says the fat Stave, looking to Christopher to confirm. Christopher makes himself impassive, and Mason continues anyway: “I’d be happy to accompany you on this tour, and lend my humble wisdom towards its betterment.”
“I’d be grateful to have a man with your volume of expertise along,” the Prince responds, and Mason beams.
Even better.
Oliver Rednav is next to offer to tag along, though Christopher figures it to be out of a sense of patriotism as opposed to Mason’s base desire to orbit powerful people, and then Alexander Geist figures he can take some time out of the lab to better brag about everything he’s made in the lab. After that, Christopher’s tagging along is totally natural - at worst, it might appear he is insecure over losing the attention of his subordinates.
That couldn’t be further from the truth, of course. For the time being, he needs as little attention he can get, to focus fully on deciphering Prince Frank and soon, after the group exits the Situation Room and meets them, Prince Frank’s own entourage.
Christopher fades into the background with Mercuria by his side, eyes peeled beneath his glowing metal visor. A Prince of Reillynd never travels alone, and Christopher is even told that a score of more mundane guards and servants are being seen to their guest housing as they greet Prince Frank’s closest attendants.
Sessyn Rekelliae, or for some reason, 98, is Prince Frank's “flame-wielder” and “druidess” according to the man himself. 98 is some sort of mutant hybrid that Christopher’s monster-fighting years give him the instinctual urge to kill, though he easily does not because that would be insane. Half of her body and face are a normal blue-eyed Reillyndian woman’s, though athletic and adorned in strange equipment, but the other half is that of a treant or nature spirit, a distorted barky visage with moss and lichen criss-crossing its surface. She wears a strange brown sleeveless robe with various mushroom protuberances and she wields a loop of blue crystal jewelry and a gnarled staff.
Lethrin II Pereman is a “swordsman” and “death-seeker”. He is an elegant looking southern Reillyndian man with passionate green eyes and chin-length hair, and he wears baggy, colorful clothes that are subtly woven with primitive runes that formed the historical basis of Vimitech and are still used in some communities/professions. He wears an ornate rapier at his waist and his sword hand is never far from its hilt, resting on the waist of his purple pants. He looks assured of himself with a hint of boastfulness.
Ko Adrilius is a “redemptionist” and “truth-knower”. He is a tall, athletic man with glowing white irises and a short haircut. He is encased in a crystalline armor, crystal plates woven with a metal web and adhered to metal lining. He is unarmed, but the room’s light shining through the crystal dances across the room like a hail of blades, and Christopher knows that the man can make that simile become real if he wishes.
98 as a member of Prince Frank’s entourage hints at several possible eccentricities for the man - he’s clearly very tolerant for a royal, as Christopher can’t imagine any of the others he’s interacted with ever being seen with such an aberrant mutant. Lethrin II reminds Christopher of Mercuria and Alexander Geist, two individuals who can be painful to manage in their own ways, and his estimation of Frank as a social adept continues to rise. That’s threatening, and so is the possibility that Frank is some sort of anti-Vimitech arcanist, based on his companions’ relative lack of truly sophisticated Vimitech - surely he can afford it - but the most threatening revelation of all that comes from Frank’s entourage isn’t one that is based on speculation, but instead cold truth.
Ko Adrilius is Christopher’s greatest worry, not because of his demeanor or equipment or his abilities, but because of his identity. He is an Edrilian, ancient blood enemy of the Deonid culture from which Mercuria hails. With his presence, a spontaneous duel to the death becomes a theoretical possibility within the Warden’s little oasis of control.
Predating the Kingdom of Reillynd, the Deonid and Edrilian peoples have been brutalizing and killing each-other for hundreds of years. Christopher has no stake in this fight besides his friendship with Mercuria, but he acknowledges that it is a cultural fact that the ethnic hatred between a Deonid and Edrilian individual who happen to meet rarely does not result in bloodshed.
Each ethnicity is renowned for producing legendary warriors with abilities distinct to their clans, and a fight between Mercuria and Ko could cause obscene damage to the Magentu Tree Facility, as well as offend Prince Frank when Mercuria wins and kills his minion.
Christopher turns to his First Assistant as the tour group continues along, descending a wide stairway. The two have worked and fought together for years, and both are endowed with levels of perceptiveness that allow them to communicate totally silently, using their familiarity with the minute details of the other’s body language.
Mercuria knows that Christopher is thinking of sending her away to avoid a death battle incident, but she informs him that neither the Edrilian nor his immediate family have killed anyone in her immediate family. Culturally, she has no obligation to avenge anyone by killing him, and she promises in no uncertain body language to control herself, no matter how insufferable he inevitably is.
The Warden has been thinking of sending her away, but decides to trust her self-assessment of her own restraint. Mercuria is a monster in human skin, but she’s also one of the most disciplined people Christopher has ever known.
The tour proceeds into the lounge preceding one of the Facility’s many Vimitech labs. Elric Watanabe addresses the group as they move along towards the sealed security checkpoint.
“The unique environment of the Depleted Lands had to be counteracted by something before the Staves could set down permanent roots here, and that solution was found with the planting and insulation of the Magentu Tree. Now our Facility is an oasis of infinite Vim within a vacuum of it.”
The room proceeds into the lab, waved through the security checkpoint, saluted by two rank-and-file Staves wearing their typical uniform, a padded black leather vest with white accents and trousers of a similar function and composition.
“This bountiful Vimscape offers a perfect environment for inventing, testing, and producing advanced Vimitech.”
The lab is filled with various half-finished or partially disassembled projects scattered across tables and in containment cabinets. There are stone pylons in the process of being wrapped with sections of curved crystal, chunks of crystal banded with metal and bristling with coiling wire, and even wooden slabs carved to accommodate crystal or stone dials and pipes, among other general design themes.
“The lab we stand in now is dedicated to producing ever more advanced and efficient Vimitech batteries and conduits, apparatuses to absorb and store Vim long term. I can tell you’re all warriors, well versed in Vim - imagine you could carry many multiples worth of your innate volume of Vim along with you into battle, to employ before you dipped into your own pool. With the work we’re doing here, that isn’t so far away.”
Prince Frank looks interested, which is a good sign that he’s not a Vim arcanist. “What’s standing in the way?”
Elric Watanabe inclines his head towards Alexander Geist, who is happy to explain even the limitations of his work, so long as he gets to talk about Vimitech.
“Portability and capacity are inversely correlated. You can make a high capacity battery and you can make a battery that’s easy to carry around, but the materials involved are heavy and rigid enough to make higher-grade batteries very encumbering, while batteries that are easy for a person to carry can hold very little Vim,” the young Stave technician enthusiastically explains.
“I see. But you think this problem is solvable?” asks Frank.
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“Any problem is solvable with Vimitech,” Alexander replies with confidence. “Some of these batteries have inscriptions that magically reduce their weight, for example. The size factor is still an issue, but so long as you’re willing to sacrifice a bit of staying power - since the inscriptions use the battery’s Vim to function - you could carry one on your back and carry multiple standard magnitudes of Vim with you.”
“Then it runs out of Vim, and you have the full weight of stone and crystal crushing down on you mid-battle. Ever think of that?” challenges Ko Adrilius.
“Sure. I said it’s a solvable problem, not that it is solved. All engineering involves the balancing of various factors.”
“Peh,” dismisses Ko, and Elric smooths it over by continuing his speech. Christopher looks to Mercuria - her ability to remain stoic in response to the Edrilian’s abrasiveness is crucial for determining if he must send her away. She looks impassive, unimpressed. Good!
When Christopher and Mercuria were younger, there was another Edrilian deployed alongside them in the Staves, before they came to rule the Depleted Lands. Mercuria was distinctly unsubtle in her hatred of the other Stave, and the feeling was mutual. When one spoke, waves of hatred would roll off of the other, hatred that preceded bloodlust. Eventually, Mercuria lost control, killing the other woman and a handful of bystanders, and Christopher was forced to cover for her. The whole ordeal was unpleasant the whole way through, but by the end their partnership had been strengthened.
In comparison to how she was then, Mercuria’s impassive unimpressedness is the behavior of someone who doesn’t even hate Edrilians all that much. Christopher is grateful for his friend’s self control, and makes a mental note to send her on holiday to some extremely dangerous location after the Expedition as thanks.
Elric Watanabe has transitioned from talking about the Vimitech batteries and conduits themselves, to boasting about what they allow the Depleted Lands Staves to do. Christopher thinks that’s a good move, as not everyone can be so titillated by the minutiae of Vimitech as he.
“Teleportation, as I’m sure you know, is a high level Vimic casting that takes a great deal of talent and effort to master. Thanks to our constant acquisition of Vim from the Magentu Tree, stored in our Vimitech batteries and moved from purpose to purpose with our conduits, though, we can do this.”
He withdraws a stone and crystal tablet from within his officer’s coat, makes some inputs, and places it onto the ground before stepping over it towards the tour group. The air crackles with spiritual energy as blue and yellow light descends from the aether, surrounding the tour group in its entirety, a cage defined by the Vimitech tablet on the floor.
The group stays stationary from their perspective, though with an inexplicable vertigo and sense of existential alienation - but moments later as the Vim cage dissipates, their surroundings have changed. Rather than a cluttered lab, they stand clustered atop a circular white stone dais crisscrossed with runic crystal inlays.
Christopher notices that no one is disoriented by the process. Either everyone is very stoic, or they’ve all teleported before, possibly many times.
“I see all of you must have experience with teleportation. That’s good, or we might have had a mess on our hands. But I hope you can see what I’m trying to illustrate here, about the value of these Vimitech batteries and conduits? Teleportation from anywhere within the Facility to one of these platforms in only moments, possible thanks to the amount of Vim we have stored ready to use and the ease with which we can move it to where we need it. Other Stave facilities have access to teleportation, but nothing so convenient or flexible.”
Mason Kuridin, impatient to contribute, interjects with an anecdote about his first experience with teleportation. Christopher quickly tunes him out, but Frank indulges him until Elric tactfully moves things along, escorting the group out of the teleportation chamber, past more guards and a security checkpoint.
“We’ve teleported to our next location - this is the weapons’ lab, and I’m sure you’ll find something that grabs your attention here.”
The weapons lab is a paradise of engineering, a testament to man’s endless pursuit of excellence in the fields of violence and destruction. Alexander Geist devotes a significant amount of his time and attention here, as much as he can without neglecting his other duties. Even now, his Vimitechnician underlings flock to and fro, running tests and applying components. Christopher himself has spent many hours here as well - it is, after all, a principal value of the Staves of Man to possess the means necessary to violently dismantle the opposition to humanity.
Elric keeps himself current on the most promising projects of every lab, to better represent the Depleted Lands in his duty as Liaison. He guides the tour around the lab, demonstrating Vimitech spears, swords, and projectile weapons.
“This is the next iteration of our Force Blaster. It can be carried with a battery or without, for those confident enough in their Vim reserves to forgo an external supply. This dial here adjusts the breadth of the force projected - a thinner projectile has greater range and more piercing power, while thicker blasts project a broader concussive force with a shorter maximum range.”
Elric displays a handheld Vimitech device in a rough L shape, with a fairly bulky circular barrel protruding from the handle and the aforementioned dial at the junction between them. He twists the dial one way, taking aim at a target at the other end of the room, and fires, punching a hole through the bullseye at the center of the wooden panel. He takes several strides forwards and twists the dial the other way, and his next shot blows the target into chunks.
Prince Frank claps. “May I see it?”
Elric obliges the Prince, who fiddles with the dial himself before firing a few experimental blasts. He misses the first few times, but quickly gets the hang of things and scores his own bullseye within 5 shots.
“I see that you are well versed in the use of Vimitech,” Elric comments. It takes some time and training before a person is able to manipulate their own Vim outside of themselves and into an item, but Christopher assumes such training is mandatory for any royal.
“Indeed, though I’ll admit the Royal Armory never had something so intuitive yet flexible when I was rooting around in there as a child,” the Prince exclaims. “This is delightful!”
“We’re flattered you think so,” replies Elric as Frank grasps the weapon by the barrel to hand it back to him. “If you’re interested, there are a few more projects I’d like to show you.”
“I feel like we get it, really,” interjects Ko Adrilius. Elric Watanabe turns to face the Edrilian as Prince Frank gives his underling an admonished, almost fearful look.
“Ko, save it! We’re here for a reason,” he scolds.
“Yeah, yeah, you want to buy some of this crap for the crown. I’ve been listening to the same pitch you have, except I don’t get what you see in this place. Are you even looking around? Atrophied Staves who haven’t had a good fight in the last 5 years, if ever. “Warriors” who need to rely on Vimitechnology to fire a blast of force aren’t the type of people I’d be sourcing weapons from,” the crystal-clad warrior continues, undeterred.
“I believe I thoroughly outlined our reasoning for seeking Vimitech weapons before we arrived, and you thought it held weight. Please, control yourself, you’re offending our hosts.”
“It’s fine,” says Christopher, surprising some who had forgotten his presence.
“Not everyone gets it their first time seeing it,” adds Alexander.
“A couple of eggheads, barely fit to be Staves, so hurried to excuse the excesses of the real warrior in the room. Hah! At least you know your place. Tell me, can either of you even cast a spell, or is this inscription hullabaloo the extent of your prowess? Wait, don’t tell me, let me guess - you let her do the fighting for you,” Ko rants, turning his white-irised gaze to Mercuria, where she stands motionless by Christopher’s side. The Warden snaps a look at his First Assistant, but she hasn’t even drawn her sword yet. Prince Frank attempts to interrupt again, but his underling plows onwards undeterred, and the Prince seems to lose his courage.
“A Deonid warrior of the main line, totally subordinate to the weakest iteration of the Staves of Man. I wish I could say I was surprised, but I suppose your people lost their will to power at the Library Massacre. Oh well! I doubt you have the gumption to challenge me now, if you ever had the prowess. Look how she glowers, but does not move - that’s a trained animal. She’s been domesticated.”
Mercuria clenches a fist and then releases it, slowly working her jaw’s muscles. Obviously, she promised Christopher that she wouldn’t start anything with the Edrilian visitor - but now he’s doubting her courage, which is instant-conflict territory in the Deonid-Edrilian blood feud. Her discipline and allegiance to Christopher wrestle with her bloodlust and ethnic hatred, plainly written across her tanned face. Christopher makes a decision.
“Prince Frank, control your dog,” he snaps rather untactfully. Elric, Alexander, Oliver and Mason all give him an alarmed look - Elric is trying to make a sale here, and the rest obviously want the Prince happy for their own ambitions, including ‘everything running smoothly without the interference of an offended royal’.
Christopher feels it is the right move, however. Christopher is in the right here - anyone can see that Ko is trying to start a fight. If Frank is truly unable to reign in his underling, Christopher can use that as justification to perform a variety of actions he normally wouldn’t take unless he thought a Mizser royal was being held hostage somehow.
Apparently, Frank is here to buy weapons. That’s actually the most common reason non-Stave parties ever visit the Depleted Lands, and a source of a good portion of their funds. Yet it could be farcical, or half-true.
The Depleted Lands are quaint, but the Kingdom of Reillynd has seen safer days. It’s not impossible, but neither is it set in stone.
There is indeed a greater game afoot - whether it is Ko’s game or Frank’s game must be ascertained. Frank looks at Christopher with his eyes wide.
“I… You’re right, Warden. Ko, restrain yourself. Not another word. You know the truth of my reach - disobey me again, and your nephew will replace you in my entourage.”
Ko goes silent at that, stoic and brooding.
“As for you, Mercuria, was it?” Prince Frank asks the armored woman at Christopher’s side.
Mercuria nods, tearing her glare away from Ko to make eye contact with the prince. “Mercuria II Deonid. Main branch. First Assistant.”
“Yes, I apologize for my companion’s outburst, but I understand that blood has been called regardless. A Deonid could never ignore a challenge from an Edrillian, of course. But, what if you didn’t ignore it? What if you just postponed it, and as a token of my apology, you’ll duel me instead?”