Rain came down heavily. Thankfully they made it inside the mostly still intact structure before they became soaked completely. They had to step around the particular room they were in carefully due to all of the puddles quickly forming inside. That was entirely due to the roof not being in good condition. Lots of holes allowed for the rainwater to flow in unabatedly.
A place like this had seen better days. That was for sure. The old stones that made up its walls had been lain many ages ago. He imagined someone putting each stone down with purpose and intent. But with the passage of time, their good work had withered down to its current condition. Now all this place was good for, was for them to gather inside and try to bring about peace in whatever way possible. Its original intent was no more.
A golden orb began to float above them as they entered a more spacious part of the ruined structure. A mighty chamber appeared with many rows of broken-down seating. An altar with a statue at the very back remained intact. Rainwater landed on the altar and a puddle formed atop and around it. So this place used to be a place of worship. I couldn’t even tell from the outside.
The orb went further up. Long shadows were cast from every object inside as it kept rising high above them. Yorais contorted her fingers in a certain manner causing the orb to stay in place. With her other hand, she began to wrap the arcane root she was carrying.
A sigh of relief exited her mouth. “It has been far too long since I have cast any magic.”
“How does it compare to using the mana our bodies naturally absorb?” Kiran asked.
“It is similar enough that I struggle to tell the difference. An arcane root after all is just mana. It’s just a much more concentrated form of it. And when I say much, I truly mean it.” The way her eyes darted around him think she was beginning to realize why he was so apprehensive towards them. “Do not worry,” she stated firmly. “I will be responsible for it.”
If anyone would be, he figured it would be her. She was an incredibly powerful sorceress after all. But even she had never wielded an arcane root before. Such power would be easy to abuse and lose control of, or so he imagined at least.
“Don’t be afraid to use them,” Lucias said with his voice echoing a little. Thunder roared outside as sheets of rain battered down harshly. “If they dare attack us, which I don’t think they will, we must be willing to use them for our own protection and to secure our future.”
Rinas walked over to the altar running a finger across its surface. He wore his white gloves for this particular occasion. According to him, it helped him cast magic with the sort of methods he utilized. But it also would help him dull the arcane root he had giving him better control over it.
When Yorais created the glowing orb, she had used the arcane root barehanded. According to her, however, it was unwise for most to do so. At least with a glove, there was less of a chance of their bodies absorbing the mana to a dangerous level.
The way he had it explained to him one time, was that every soul had a set quantity of mana that could be held at any time. Under normal circumstances, a mortal soul will absorb the invisible mana that surrounds them. Due to magic not working properly in the fourth domain, there was no mana for their souls to absorb. So their reserves, so to speak, were entirely empty as a result of this. That was where an arcane root came in.
When someone grasps onto an arcane root, their soul will absorb the mana from the arcane root. So in a way, all an arcane root did was fill a soul with mana. But ultimately, every soul has a limit to how much can be held.
That was where the danger of such an object came in. Because of how rapidly it can fill a person’s soul with mana, it was easy to absorb too much. The effects of such weren’t catastrophic immediately, but it caused unusual effects that affected everyone differently. If someone were to forcefully absorb all the mana they could at once, they would in effect die.
To think there was a time when these objects were not even known to exist. Then one day, they appeared from beneath the ground exposing themselves to the surface. It came as no surprise, that this power became exploited immediately by both humanity and familiar alike.
As for the one he was carrying, he hadn’t bothered to unwrap it. He kept it carefully placed in one of his pockets. He didn’t even want to use it, but if he had to, he accepted that he’d go on and use it. He just had to be careful and not overdo it.
A soldier wearing a breastplate with a red serpent symbolized on it strolled inside. The rain quickly slid off their armor gathering at their feet. They opened the visor to their helmet and bowed towards Lucias. “They are almost here.”
“How many.”
“There’s at least four of them with a half dozen soldiers.”
“We can work with four. Let us hope they are the most reasonable out of all the lords and ladies in this territory.”
The rain hadn’t let up whatsoever. During the few minutes they waited for their arrival, he sat in one of the still-intact seats and tapped his foot on the ground.
He heard the rustling of footsteps behind him. He looked over his shoulder spotting four people and a slew of armored men and women alike behind them.
An older man with short black hair stopped a comfortable distance away from them. He looked around examining the poor state of this place. He hadn’t immediately recognized him, but Kiran began to remember who they were.
This was the person whom he had encountered briefly when he had been in Cairn. He never did catch his name. He wondered whether he recognized him.
“You brought the troublemaker himself here.” Well, that answers that question. “It wasn’t enough that you crossed over into our territory. You just had to bring him with you as well.”
“Yes, he’s very important in all of this,” Lucias said defending Kiran.
He looked at Kiran contemptuously. The other three did so as well. Two of them were of similar ages to the Lord of Cairn while one of them was a pretty lady wearing a dark dress.
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“You could’ve at least chosen a better location than this.”
Lucias spread out his arms. “Oh but I like it here. It reminds me of what used to be. It also acts as a reminder of what can happen to everything we hold dear if we do not resolve everything here and now.” Lucias approached the four of them while the nearby soldiers appeared ready to pull out their swords. “Shall we begin?”
He quickly became aware of each one of them. Cassus—who he had met briefly before—was the Lord who oversaw Cairn and its immediate surrounding areas. There was Jonathan a Lord overseeing the lands that were far southwest of Cairn. Then there was Fredereck—not to be confused with Frederek who he had been working alongside with in the coalition for some time now—and lastly, there was Bridella a Lady overseeing the far northwest of these western lands. He had a feeling she might dislike him the most. Every time they met eyes, hers were filled with absolute disdain for him.
“I’m a little disappointed Lady Meredith herself isn’t here for this,” Lucias said.
“She wants nothing at all to do with any of you,” Cassus said.
“I can’t imagine why.”
“Enough with the frivolous dialogue. If you have come here for war, then war is what you shall have. You have consorted with these fiends who do not originate from here. We also know you sent them to strike at Lady Meredith. And now, you have broken your pact to remain on the other side of our border. Explain to me why I shouldn’t immediately draw away and prepare for battle right this second.”
“Does it look like I came here for war? I couldn’t imagine a worse thing for any of us to get involved in. The cost of such a thing is far too exorbitant for either of our sides. Besides, what good will come of it? Neither of us have the numbers. We can both be honest about that, now can’t we?”
Cassus remained silent as Bridella chose to speak her own mind. “From what our scouts have seen, yours are far worse than our own as it stands right now.”
“That may be true, but you’d have to face against me. You wouldn’t want to do that and I wouldn’t want to fight you either. I promise I came here to avoid war, not to precipitate it.”
“You came here to avoid it?” She began to laugh a little as she crossed her arms beneath her bosom. “You should’ve not come into our territory then and broken your pact with us. We could’ve easily arranged for something like this and been far more amenable to hearing you out had you remained on the other side.”
“I could’ve, but that would’ve delayed things. Time, I’m afraid, is not on any of our sides, nor is it on the sides of those people you’re using as hostages. I wanted to make my intent clear, that I am taking things very seriously, so seriously in fact, that I’d be willing to blatantly break my pact so that we could speak immediately upon my arrival.”
“You have a strange way of showing that,” Jonathan stated.
“I’ll agree with that. I am often tempted by my willingness to pursue strange and unusual methods to achieve my ends. So far it has worked out well for me. I believe it will end up working out for all of you as well.”
Cassus tilted his head slightly. “Fine. If you’re not here to arouse us into taking action, what are you here for?”
“I’m glad you asked my dear Cassus. Now we’re finally getting into what I’ve been eagerly awaiting.” For a moment, he paused before he continued. The rain kept battering down the walls and pouring through every hole in the ceiling. “What if I told you that there is a way to remove this darkness plaguing this domain. Does that perhaps interest you?”
“There is no such—“
Lucias interrupted Bridella by raising a hand. “Ah, but that’s not what I asked you, is it? I asked whether it would be of interest.”
The Red Serpent had an interesting way of talking to people. He could tell he had a lot of fun with it and worked in ways to push things in the direction that he preferred. He was the one in charge of this encounter. That was without a doubt.
Kiran honestly preferred this. He just had to keep his mouth shut and let someone else do all the talking. This is a nice change of pace.
“It would be,” Bridella admitted.
“Of course it would. Because this wretched curse that we’ve all been suffering through is truly something that unites us all. We have all been bound to it and forced to survive in ways neither of our kinds were ever meant to be put through. But what if, we could finally remove it and even restore magic itself to our domain.” He began to pace around this chamber moving his arms in an illustrative way. “Imagine the sun returning to our lands. We can begin to grow food again without resorting to our finite quantity of arcane roots leaving us with the fear that if we run out of them, we will surely perish. Without the darkness, we can replenish the forests and grow our populations beyond what is currently possible. Doesn’t that sound truly remarkable?”
Cassus appeared less than thrilled with Lucias. “You already know our answer. Of course we would want nothing more than these problems to go away.”
“If you knew how to solve it then, would you not do everything in your power to make it happen? You would wouldn’t you? Tell me truthfully Bridella. If could do what was necessary to end this darkness, there isn’t a thing in this world that would keep you from doing it, especially for the sake of your beloved children. Or am I wrong?”
“For the most part, I don’t think you’re wrong,” she said.
“What about you Cassus? Jonathan. And even you Fredereck.”
The two men standing beside Cassus nodded their heads. As for Cassus he appeared tired of Lucias. “I never knew you to be so into rhetoric. I suppose we all undergo lots of change. It doesn’t surprise me that you’ve changed your entire way of being. After slaughtering an entire town full of innocent people, I suppose you had no choice but to turn into this person you’re now trying to portray.”
“Cassus,” Bridella said.
“What? He’s blathering on and on and on with this pointless rhetoric. If he’s so incapable of getting to the point, then I’m going to begin speaking my mind.” He began to eye the three of them. “He hasn’t told you about that, has he? It wouldn’t surprise me at all. That’s not a particular moment you’re fond of, is it Lucias? Do you even still think of that time when you killed all of those people? When every man, woman, child, and baby died by your insatiable greed?”
Since Cassus was taking things in an entirely different direction than Kiran expected, Bridella appeared to be the most reasonable one now. The fire in her eyes from earlier had wavered a bit. “What does that have to do with this discussion?”
“Are you taking his side now? It has everything to do with this. He shouldn’t even be here because of it and since he seems to be intent on playing these rhetorical games, I will gladly interrupt this little scheme he’s trying to use on us.” He stepped up to Lucias who remained still. “Enough with all of this. Speak truthfully. Did you come here to finally finish what you started back then? Is that what we can expect from the Red Serpent himself!”
His voice had grown so loud and agitated that Kiran’s ears began to hurt a little. It appeared evident, that Cassus had been holding back this entire time only to finally break before Lucias could even explain things completely.
What he was saying did cast a dark shadow over Lucias. When he spoke with Lucias in his bedchamber a while ago, he had not told him this exact detail. Given the context of that conversation, this detail Cassus was exposing certainly painted a more vivid picture of his understanding of why Lucias was so hated and despised by the people here if what he was saying was true.