Ryku rattled off a few more facts about the war: death counts, political aftermath, policy adjustments. It would have served as context for further understanding Whitesails if most of the information didn't go in one ear and out the other. Dalric wouldn’t be involved with Whitesails for a long time, if ever. His mind was concentrated on the colonies.
“Who is the strongest of the thirteen you know?”
“The beasts? It's hard to say, but I personally believe it would either be the Dynamai or the Iphios. Both would be hazardous for even a true-gold party.”
“Refresh my memory on what that means.”
Ryku obliged. It was a conversation they had touched on below, but it hadn’t truly stuck with Dalric. He had been focused on the more pertinent facts about the Paragons. After the re-briefing, he was caught between a frown and a sigh. Whichever of his assumptions about the Menos that proved true, he had clear confirmation of the other colonies' strength. A regular gold ranked party had to have eight silvers or two golds. A true-gold party had to have eight golds.
Ryku claimed it would take anywhere from two to five of him to equal a gold ranked. Dalric estimated it would take something like twelve Ryku’s to equal him. By that incredibly imprecise estimation, a true-gold party would be equal to one to three of him. Including the force multiplier of having multiple people with complimentary abilities and it was more like two to six.
Whether it was two of him or six, both could flatten the Menos comfortably. Yet, a contest with the other two would be ‘hazardous’.
Dalric did frown, “Do you have population estimates for those two? And how do they compare to the rest?”
“We don’t have anything I'd call an ‘estimate’. I'd barely call them guesses. Both groups are quite guarded and insular so we have very little direct data.”
“Share your guesses anyway.”
“Okay. From what I recall, the Dynamani appeared to be in the region of two thousand and Iphios somewhere around five hundred.”
Five hundred? That’s similar to the Menos… how much stronger are the ‘Iphios’ individually?
Ryku continued, “Relative to the rest, there is a top four of sorts. The Dynamai, Aithos, Iphios, and Khromios are all extreme threats. Actually the CSMA set—that’s the governing body for guilders, adventures, pretty much all hired swords in the empire—they set all four of them at the same danger rating... should I explain danger ratings?”
Dalric shook his head, “Just give me a comparison between those four and Menos.”
“Well, by rating those four are E rated while Menos is F rated. E and F are in the ‘city tier’ which just means both would be capable of destroying an average, moderately defended city. E means they more than likely would destroy the city, F means they more than likely wouldn’t. I would personally say that Dynamai and Iphios in particular would be close to a hundred percent likely, while Menos would be maybe ten?”
… That’s Cyan’s system?
Dalric recognized it immediately and it confused him. Cyan Tower wasn’t necessarily a closed institution, but their ‘threat tiers’ was a purely internal system. They didn’t share it with anyone outside of their most trusted scholars. Dalric only knew of it because he was something of an honorary scholar himself. Had been.
“Hold on. Did the… CSMA invent that system? Does it have another name?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve never come across any mentions of a particular inventor, but I never looked either. It’s possible that it's a borrowed system?”
Hm.
He would just have to accept that as another peculiarity of skipping forward a thousand years. Whether it had been stolen, leaked or shared, the actually valuable information laid in what Cyan had researched and tiered. The system itself was only a secret because it implied said valuable information.
Dalric refocused, “Alright. Anyway. So you estimate Menos is one-tenth the strength of Dynamai or Iphios?”
“Well, not quite. I personally dislike danger ratings because they give a fairly skewed view of combat ability. The tigers are poorly specialized to overcome a city’s defences. In terms of openfield warfare, I would say they are closer to one-fifth.”
Dalric had the same complaint once upon a time.
A part of him wanted to smirk, but he struggled to find too much humor in the situation. The net result of their conversation was the fact that Dalric was already far behind the colonies’ collective strength. Which meant he was even further behind Aegeus’ strength. Recontextualizing their growth since founding, it took them three to four hundred years to become kingdom threats. How long from now until they became empire threats? How long until they truly replicated the Wyld?
“Dalric?”
What was Dalric supposed to do?
Even if his ahjer grew like that of a newborn’s, explosively, it would only mean that in roughly ten years he’d have a hundred times as much as he does now. That would equate to a massive boost in power generally speaking, but Dalric’s wealth of experience came as a giant in a giant's body. It would take considerably more than a decade to truly build a new foundation of strength. In the time it took him to do—
His eyes bulged.
The answer was right in front of him. ‘What was he supposed to do?’ He had sought an answer in violence, but that was just his former life haunting him. There was another path.
He turned to Ryku, "Grab everything you've seen that mentions Devil Glass and bring it here. Every document, notebook, manual, guide, whatever. It doesn't matter if I've already read it or if or thought it didn't hold valuable information, bring it all."
"Ah–yes. Okay. Are we done talking about—"
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Yes! Hurry.”
As Ryku dashed out of the room, Dalric rushed over to the side table and collected the Devil Glass piece. These were the answer. Or rather whatever he made based on them. He didn’t need to kill the colonies. The Wyld were pests, but not apocalyptically so. They wanted what everyone else wanted, more. A new Wyld was just a headache, not a calamity. If he could disconnect their God from them…
Crisis averted?
He couldn’t be certain of that so he didn’t fix his mind on it just yet. For now he’d simply do what he could. Conveniently, that meant continuing to do what he was already doing.
First, he sat at his appropriated desk in the mini library and went through everything he learned about Devil Glass. Even if he still didn't know the intricacies, he'd gotten a better idea of the basics yesterday. It seemed that while the range and depth of their abilities had expanded compared to Jester’s Shards, the underlying mechanics hadn’t. They appeared to still be boosters or negators. He had to confirm that, and if proven true, figure out what caused the progression from simply negating anxiety to negating metabolic function to negating soul attachments.
Dalric grabbed one of the guides on how to administer the Devil Glass and began reading. It was one of nine different versions and one of the only two he hadn't yet completed. The chances it held answers for all or even any of his questions was low, but before he began the lengthy process of re-reading the old he had to finish going through the new.
While he analyzed its contents, Ryku periodically entered the room to drop off large crates marked with Rs and Us. Fully focused on every detail he read, Dalric paid little mind to the ongoings. It was only when Ryku finished that Dalric pried his eyes away from the guide.
"That was quicker than I expected," he remarked.
Ryku stretched his right shoulder then fixed the massive bun his long hair sat in, "I had these prepared earlier in the day in case you needed them. The crates marked with the R are filled with material you've already read through, the ones with the U are unread." He pointed towards a crate with a U and a star in the middle, "Those are filled with things I've read personally and think may be of use to you."
Wow. Truly can not besmirch his work ethic.
“That is appreciated, though I believe you have better uses for your time at the moment.”
Ryku waved his hand, “I have weeks to complete my work here. I have a feeling your timeline is not as long?”
Dalric nodded. Delving deeper into Devil Glass was always going to be his number one priority, but now it was even more urgent. For his own battle against the Gods, he could get by in the immediate future by using them as they are. They wouldn't work with the colonies though. He didn’t think they’d have any hopes of unseating Aegeus. For that, he had to make more of their ability to isolate the soul. He had to head to Taiyo.
Problematic.
What would he do about repaying Ryku? Who would assist him if he left the man behind? Would he be willing to condemn himself to solitude again?
Troublesome questions, but he’d answer them in the coming days. For the moment, he informed Ryku of what exactly they were looking for and how to write his notes then sent him on his way. Between the two of them they managed to get through all of the unread material before the day turned. After they convened and went over notes, Dalric ran some experiments.
Contrary to his expectations, he actually learned quite a few key things about Devil Glass on just the first night. He confirmed his assumptions, they couldn't make a person feel an emotion they didn't already feel nor could they make a person’s body act in a way it did not already. They simply touched upon what was already there. The fear for people in red, for example, only worked when there was already some sort of mental reaction to the person in the clothing or the clothing itself.
During one of their experiments, he discovered that while Ryku had only felt minor effects before, when Dalric donned a red robe he immediately suffered a panic attack. Part of that was the electric jolt Dalric had administered to keep the man from falling asleep, but the despair that swept over his eyes was very real. He felt a bit bad about the situation, but they continued fairly quickly after.
From there, he had a third party wear the robe and Ryku felt nothing at all. Inversely, when he used the Devil Glass on the third-party, who was one of Ryku's helpers, and had Ryku wear the robe, the woman rather meekly fell to the floor at the sight of him. Daric double and triple checked with various other experiments, but they always reached the same conclusion.
The slowed metabolism seemed like the one outlier among the effects at first, but after further consideration even that was just an amplification. When the body began the process of falling asleep, it naturally sought to slow its functions. The Devil Glass merely honed in on that and slowed it even further. The question mark there became 'how did it make the body seek sleep in the first place?' and that had a simple answer. The guides specifically stated the recipients should be fatigued before use.
That was also how they bypassed the need to accept the piece’s meddling. According to the guide, with sufficient physical and mental taxing, the piece could then be cloaked and inserted. The ‘recipient’s brain would not be able to differentiate between the effects of the piece and their general pain, thus the Devil Glass would fool it into thinking it's a part of the body.
There were a few interesting questions there, but they were completely irrelevant to his current goals.
In the end, the summary of their efforts was just confirmation that while Devil Glass was far more versatile and powerful than Jester’s Shards, they weren’t any different fundamentally. Just an updated version of the same tool.
He could have skipped the experiments. Before he had even started, Ryku recognized what he sought to confirm and practically explained exactly how each test would go. He had been right each time.
Dalric didn’t know what to do with that. In hindsight, he shouldn’t have expected anything exceptional like soul-altering, but it still felt strange for there to be nothing noticeably different in how the two tools functioned. Where did the soul isolation come from then? He knew Jester’s Shard couldn’t do anything even remotely similar, it would have been continental news if the shards used at aristocratic gatherings quieted the connection between people and their soul weapons.
Right?
Though… they were meant to mimic the mentally debilitating effects of alcohol… and they weren’t in circulation for long… could people have ignored it as part of the process?
Dalric had only used a Jester Shard on himself once. It was years if not decades prior to his contract with the Gods. He hadn’t noticed any soul effects, but what if it was just that? He didn’t notice. What if the key to his freedom had been right in his grasp and he never noticed.
His head instantly spun. Depressive thoughts crawled out of his skull and threatened to drag him down to the darkest recesses of himself. He fought against them, but soon all his eyes could see was black.
It was foolish. He knew it was foolish. Lucyberries were also outlawed years before he signed the contract. Jester’s Shards disappeared practically overnight, he would never have had the chance to use them.
But still.
What if he had taken note? What if he had kept some shards? How different could his life have been? How different would his life have been? No nightmares. No horrors. If he could have gotten out of the contract, who could he have become? How many of them would still live? How much time would he still have had? If he never signed that damn contract!
I deserve to—
“Dalric!”
Color came to his eyes as his body froze from the neck down. He blinked clarity back into his sight as the layer of frost around his arms instantly melted. Lightning coiled around both. He ceased it.
Ryku stared at him from the door, with two of his helpers behind him. They all look frightened.
“Dalric?”
He didn’t respond. His slow breath was all that he truly heard. He didn’t know where that came from, but it was sudden and it was dark and it was overwhelming. The terrors of his past sat in his mind unresolved, he knew that. He hoped he could drown them in hope for his future, but… it appeared that he was wrong.
What do I do?