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Leo
Leo was staring wide-eyed at Sciesch, as well as his three other companions who were also within his hastily cast sound barrier.
The stunned man tried to process a response to the equally stunned tiefling, but all he could manage was a single confused filled word. “How?!” He yelled with his hands up in frustration.
Sciesch took a step back, while her eyes momentarily darted to the exit, causing him to take a placating posture.
“Okay, just allow me t-” His words were cut short as the frightened woman bolted for the exit.
‘Maybe Fel had a point about my pension for outing myself…’ He refused to openly acknowledge it though, at least for a while.
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Sciesch
Sciesch was born into a fairly wealthy merchant's family, so she had an easy and straightforward initial start in life. Graduating near the top of her class from Zaruik college for financial pursuits, she was a pretty successful architect, but other than that she was a nobody, just an unimportant tiefling who took odd jobs involving design or construction.
It wasn't until her kingdom started to split into factions, that her life turned for the worst. The split happened due to the academy restricting access to the Archive, an indestructible magical construct that was created by the second summon, a human. The Archive's knowledge guided the tieflings ever since the second summon passed away, which enabled them to spread their control and influence to every corner of the continent during their era of domination, as the other races called it. In actuality it was their golden age, leading the world in almost all aspects of civilization.
It was only after the war in heaven that the Archive chose to only share specific information, the reason for it having to relate to the war itself. So the empire fell into drastic decline, and now only made up a chunk of the north eastern continent. Even though after every era the tieflings were the fastest to rebuild, they were the first to stagnate. This was because the Archive would stop providing guidance the second the tieflings grew too much, and as one could imagine this had plenty of controversy surrounding it.
So by the start of the last era, in which the tieflings were one of the few to hold off the lightborn, there was a big push to study the Archive itself. This caused the first major rifts as the hardcore zealots, who deified the summon, argued that doing so was blasphemous, and the kingdom divided even further when the first academy and merchants guild established itself.
This division was only ideological, as the kingdom was more or less unified up until about nine years ago, when the Archive was moved to the academy. This caused the zealots and the moderates to split from the kingdom, rejecting the action of the expansionist queen. Then another split happened five years ago when the academy cut off all access to the Archive, this is when the backers of the merchants guild broke off.
Sciesch didn't really care about maintaining the kingdom's unity for the sake of it, but the divisions hurt her ability to find work within the kingdom, so she had to start looking for work in others, which is how she found herself in her current situation.
The shaken tiefling was running towards the inn's exit. ‘Why of all the people in the world, did I have to take a job from a summon. And not just any summon, but a human!’ She thought with a mixture of panic and anger.
Sciesch only managed to make it halfway before she was suddenly lifted slightly off the ground, feeling nearly weightless as she began to realize that it was magic.
‘Oh, and he’s a mage…’
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Leo
Leo wanted to deal with the situation in the most peaceful and civil way possible, the calm man striding over to the tiefling who was struggling to touch the floor, her body held up only inches off the ground.
“Damn it! Release me!” She demanded, her previously friendly attitude utterly absent.
‘Why must things be difficult…?’
He gazed up at her with a slightly exhausted expression. “Not until you hear me out, and answer a few of my questions.”
She scowled. “Bite me!”
‘Bite me? That's a little too specific, and a little out of place for this age… Maybe?’ He raised an eyebrow at the thought before taking off his translation necklace, having a nagging feeling due to her being aware of humans.
“Do you understand me?” He asked hesitantly with narrowed eyes.
The instant pause and expression of shock was more than enough of an answer, especially after she started struggling even more to try and escape, her legs flailing around to find purchase.
He frowned, but some surprise was still evident on his face. “I'll take that as a yes… Mind telling me how you can speak my language?”
The woman slumped and went silent, staring down at him with a resigned air to her capture, but putting up the only resistance that she could by refusing to answer.
The frustrated human sighed and put the necklace back on, turning to regard his companions as he did so. “Do any of you know exactly how she knew who I was? I mean I can guess that it was the second summon, but that was five eras ago, hundreds of thousands of years ago if your history is accurate…”
Glia and Elaria shrugged, but Allis had a moment of visible comprehension before she winced, which made Leo direct his full attention to her.
The serpentine shrunk in a bit at his expectant stare, her eyes darting away a little guiltily. “Well… I've read about something called an Archive that they have that lasts through the eras, and it's said that it was made by the second summon. Also, some of them deify summons, so…”
“What? And it didn't cross your mind to tell me when a tiefling was coming?!” He scolded her in disbelief, the woman only managing to give him a sheepish smile and a simple sorry. “I- It's fine…” There was nothing to do about it now, but this was the kind of thing he needed to know about.
He had thought that accidentally revealing his identity through conversation was a closed issue when he made an official mental checklist in regards to his magic. But how could he have known that there was a human on this world before him? Not only that, but out of the infinite worlds that Fel seemed to describe as pulling from, how was it that the one in three other summons just happened to be a human?
‘And on top of that, the second summon made an indestructible magic black box with god knows what kind of knowledge in it…’
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Leo turned back to Sciesch and chose to lay her situation out in full. “So, I don't know what I did to make you so tightlipped, but you're gonna have to accept the fact that you are in a no win situation. You run, and the guild will be pissed that you differed on the contract. You tell them, or anyone what I am, and I'm in the wind, so they lose a very profitable partner because of you.”
Sciesch's brow arched as she seemed to recall something, her eyes darting around in thought before she relented. “Fine, I’ll oversee the construction.” She acquiesced a little dejectedly, and Leo released the magic holding her.
Catastrophe averted, he breathed out a long exhausted sigh. “Also, I don't know what kind of views you or your people have of me or my people, but please treat me like any other person, because I was only summoned two weeks ago, so I don't know you or anything about your race.”
“But you know magic, and are already a lord?” She appeared skeptical but wary.
“I'm guessing that the other summon also came from a magicless world. And just to point out a few of my other achievements, I'm an arch mage, in charge of a rebellion, have kicked a dragon's ass, and am plotting a worldwide revolution.” He was more having a laugh at the absurdity of it all, some of that amusement falling short as she turned to the others with a silently judgmental question.
Furthermore when all of them nodded in a silent affirmation.
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Sciesch
Sciesch reflected on her meeting with Leo as she made her way back to the guild branch. She wanted nothing more than to leave town and never look back, because of the massive amount of baggage that being associated with a summon came with, but the human was right.
‘An honest to god human…’
The guild would probably put her in a slave collar for running out on the contract, and if she explained why, then they would put her in one anyway for making them lose such a valuable trade partner. One would just have to look at the Archive to understand what a summon was capable of creating, and if the guild lost out on an opportunity to acquire items that were even a fraction as complex, then they would be furious.
The contemplative woman groaned as she turned on a street corner while on her way to the guild. ‘God, that's probably what he did to become a lord, and whatever he knows as a summon made him an arch mage. He's just screaming danger…’ She let out a sigh.
‘Well I'm stuck working for him now, so I should just get over it and hope I don't get killed or something. It might not be all bad though, because I might be able to prod a secret or two out of him to sell or improve my design's. And at least he seems like a normal guy, more or less what I thought, and not the all powerful god that those fanatics made him out to be.’
Upon arriving at the branch, she told the accountant to start requisitioning the materials, labor, and gave in the estate designs for them to make more copies. She then went to the guest room for the night, she was exhausted from both the trip here, and from finding out who the lord actually was.
The hot shower served to destress her from earlier events. It was going so well too, if only she didn't ask, then maybe she would have continued to be blissfully ignorant and parted ways after the work was done. ‘Unlikely… There was something off about him that made me drop my guard.’ Her people were notoriously professional when it came to strangers, which made it concerning when she almost slipped out of her outward persona multiple times.
‘My tail was wagging like I was a dog being given a treat…’ It was slightly embarrassing now that she looked back on it.
“So he's in charge of the rebels here? I can almost make the connections to our own history…” She trailed off as she exited the shower, dried off her hair, and yawned while putting on her lacey nightgown.
“Damn, the next few weeks are going to be a headache, but at least I get a front row seat to an arch mage's magic, so that's something. Though I have no idea what he was saying about defeating a dragon. He was probably compensating like most males, or his status of being a summon had gone to his head.”
Tieflings being a female only race gave them the unique perspective on the opposite sex, specifically being wholly disappointed in them in one specific area. “One of the many reasons we rarely leave our borders…” She mused while climbing into bed and snuggling herself into the soft sheets.
“Even I don't believe most of the insane feats that the fanatics rant about the second summon. I mean really, if you're going to lie, then at least don't come up with something so blatant…” She muttered before drifting off to sleep.
…
The morning after, she dragged herself out of bed, readied herself for the day, and left the branch to meet Leo at the town's back gate. He wanted to take off from a secluded area, something that she was actually looking forward to, because flight magic was something she had only dreamed of experiencing.
Sciesch wore a contemplative expression as she approached her destination. ‘I don't see the point in hiding his identity as an arch mage, he's already in charge of a rebellion. You'd think that would help with his claim on the town… And even if it's because of the dragons, he's going to have to confront them at some point regardless, it's not like he could resist them.’ She thought as she finally exited through the back gate, spotting Leo standing in the middle of the field with four other people.
The human had introduced her to the three selarins, Elaria, Glia, and Allis, but she didn't know the cloaked figure. If she was honest, she didn't really care at this point, but was still somewhere between peeved and excited due to her current situation. So as she approached she asked about the stranger with a little attitude, making it apparent that she was still unhappy with him to some extent.
‘Before I inevitably start acting like a child while flying...’
Leo smiled wide as he exaggeratedly gestured to the mystery woman, Sciesch noticing the slight horn like protrusions under the cowl. “This Is Fel. She's the dragon that I beat.” He introduced her with a smug pride.
The crimson skinned woman deadpanned at him, not amused by the obvious lie. “Leo, please don't li-” She stopped mid sentence when Fel revealed herself.
The dragoness sighed and shot the human next to her a glare, before addressing Sciesch directly. “Hello, I believe you are Sciesch? Leo has filled me in on the situation, and I'm sorry that you may have gotten dragged into something unwillingly.”
An expression of utter shock was plastered across the tiefling's face, completely frozen at the sight of a dragon, creatures that could, and have, level cities. “You're… You're a dragon… Wait, did he actually win against you?!” She questioned in total disbelief while trying to comprehend just how deep she had fallen into this rabbit hole.
The silver haired woman grumbled and Leo grinned, practically beaming at the question. “Yes, but it was far from a fair fight, since not even my breath could harm him.” She finished with a frown.
The honeyed skinned human mocked offence at the remark. “Hey, I got serious at the end!”
“I was the whole time! But you were the one who pushed me into doing that.” She glowered at him while irritably pointing across the field, and Sciesch's jaw dropped at the straight line of destruction that stretched beyond her sightline.
He closed his eyes and nodded slowly. “And it was a very enlightening experience for both of us.” He remarked with a shit eating grin.
“You're an ass, you know that…?” She pointed out bitterly with a scowl, the man trying, and failing, to suppress his laughter.
Sciesch just stood in shock, as she tried to process anyone fighting, beating, then taunting a dragon. She also had to concede that if he was more powerful than a dragon, then there might be some grain of truth to what the fanatics say, which shocked her even more.
She felt a pat on her back and looked to her left to see Elaria wearing a comforting smile, but then she said something that made her crimson skin darken a shade.
“He can also go multiple times in bed, within the same day, each and every day.” Elaria stated a little sensually with a smirk, causing the devilish woman to arch her brow in surprise and intrigue.
Sciesch looked back to the human, her low opinion and apprehension of him slowly fading away with the newly received information as a slightly impish smile crossed her face at the prospect.
‘Okay, so not compensating… Also, multiple?’
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