Once Queen Vuthe and the others left, Chell sighed and immediately picked up her phone. She didn’t want to wait on this, preferring to get it done sooner rather than later.

Dialling up the office of Magister Schürfer she waited for the secretary to pick up. He wasn’t her first choice of contact, she didn’t like the man very much, but he was her superior for this so she would have to contact him first.

After about a minute the secretary finally picked up and redirected her to the office.

“Good Day. What can I do for you?”, his voice came over the phone.

“Good Day, Magister Schürfer. Chell Bertner here, calling from my office in New Thelvadore. Queen Vuthe de Thal asked me to contact you because of a concern she and her aides had, regarding laws and regulations, as well as potential issues that might arise.” She kept her voice professional and friendly, expertly hiding her displeasure about talking to him about it.

“Oh? Do tell. What is bothering our dear foreign guest?”, he asked, with far too much care in his voice to be truthful.

“Her people's culture is quite different from our own. I have seen first hand how they… handle their free time. A lot of free skin, a lot of fights, not brutal one's mind you, just some sparring. They are very open about their intimate moments and their weaponry, so much so that any attempt to regulate those things with our own laws might upset them, and I personally don’t want to be nearby when a bunch of hundred metre long dragons decide to register their displeasure.”

She of course tried to be professional about it, but she couldn’t help a small blush creeping onto her face when she had to think about the more… interesting moments she had witnessed during her time here.

“In addition to that, her people are deeply loyal to her. We talked about the options we had available, however, we couldn’t really find a good solution. Even the one she eventually asked about she recognised as a bad one. It simply is the least problematic, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t problematic whatsoever.”

She let her statement hang for a moment, waiting for Magister Schürfers inevitable question.

“Then what is that solution you are talking about?”, he asked in a too calm tone. He wouldn’t like the answer, whatever it was, and they both knew it.

“She proposed a trade, of sorts. We sell her the rights to the land she lives on, entirely, recognise them as an independent city state, and in turn she would pay in both resources and knowledge, but also a favour”, she kept her voice neutral, trying to sound unbothered, but in truth she just waited for him to explode.

To her surprise there was silence for a moment, before he spoke, “I understand. I will speak to the rest of the Council and see what we can come up with. Thank you for your hard work, Miss Bertner.”

With that he hang up.

She sat there for a long moment, trying to unravel the situation. He had been entirely too quiet for her liking. Almost as if he had planned something. There was no doubt in her mind that he had some plan cooking in the background, the only concern was what kind of plan that was. If he started to rally people against New Thelvadore that would end very badly, she was sure. But she didn’t think him foolish enough to openly attack Queen Vuthe and her people.

Yes, he was a power hungry ass, but he wasn’t an idiot. At least she didn’t see him as one. There was a reason he stayed in power so long, and that reason was that he didn’t shoot everything on sight. She just hoped that she wouldn’t be caught between the fronts, but considering her job, it was inevitable it would end that way.

Perspective: Vuthe

After the talk with Chell Bertner things continued as they had before. It would take quite some time for the town to finish, even with the help of magic and the inhabitants, but it wasn’t like they were in a hurry.

Especially since the apprentices had finally gotten the very basics down. So from now on their training would intensify. Vuthe watched over them as they started sparring against some of her weaker soldiers, people who could fight but only did so out of necessity. They were, of course still many times more dangerous than even the best earth special forces, by simple virtue of experience and straight up magical strength, but they would not be as effective as any special forces, since they only knew raw, brute strength.

Satisfied with the current status quo, she turned away and made her way through town, inspecting the work being done. She was feeling restless, or maybe uneasy would be a better descriptor. Something was bothering her and she had no idea what exactly it was. They had a lot of things in the works right now, so a little bit of unease was to be expected.

To take her mind off of that she decided to visit her sister, maybe they could take a stroll through the city or something. She was yearning for some normalcy, even if she recognised that to be nigh impossible these days.

But once in a while she had the time to indulge herself a little.

Scarlet was, of course, not in New Thelvadore at the moment. While she usually liked to stay around Vuthe, she still had a job and she couldn’t delegate her work to others indefinitely. Not only because it was important work, but also because she was, same as her sister, kind of a workaholic.

That being said Vuthe vanished into the shadows, appearing a few moments later in a sideroom in the office building her sister worked out of. While the people inside were mostly informed about the magical state of the world, she didn’t want to surprise people by simply appearing in front of her sister’s office door.

Making her way through the unfamiliar hallways she navigated by aura alone. While it didn’t give her three dimensional vision, it did tell her the presence and location of the souls around her, which combined with her other senses was as close as it got to perfect spatial sense.

It did take her a little while, she managed to get lost at some point and had to ask for directions, but she arrived in front of the secretary, who sat on a table in front of Scarlet’s office door. The secretary was a young man with obviously non-human features, in his case Vuthe guessed him to be some form of Beastkin, a Goatkin if she had to pick one. It did make sense, if the local Beastkin were anything like their Satien counterparts, they were incredibly social.

“Good Day”, Vuthe began with a friendly smile when the man looked up at her, “My name is Vuthe de Thal, I’m a friend of Scarlets. Would you be so kind and check if she is willing to see me?”

The man replied with a formal smile, “Of course, one moment please Miss.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

They had opted out of the “long lost sister” explanation after some discussion. While nobody in the building had met Vuthe before her disappearance, they did know that Scarlet only had one sister and that her vanishing was the reason Scarlet even started the company.

At first it had been an incredible surprise for Vuthe, she remembered her first days in the camp after their return when Major Blake had something to the effect, but eventually, after giving it a good long thought, it did make sense. Her sister had always been a no-nonesense woman who would do anything in her power to get what she wanted, while still caring about the people close to her, although admittedly in her own way while she was younger.

In any case, they decided to opt out of revealing Vuthe’s true identity just yet, it would come out eventually, no way around it since they had been rather open about it, but Scarlet wanted her people to continue as they were, a sudden miraculous return of the long lost sister of her boss as a nigh invincible being would just add chaos to the system.

Even if Vuthe had disagreed with the notion of her being nigh invincible, she had to begrudgingly admit that to the average being on this planet, she and her friends certainly felt that way. In a way it was a blessing and a curse, anyone with even a smidgeon of brain wouldn’t openly attack them, but that only invited more underhanded actions.

She shook her head, she was here to get away from politics! And already she started drifting back into them. She cursed her own inability to focus.

A few minutes later he waved her through and she stepped into her sister’s office.

It was of course very simply furnished, an example of minimalistic and functional. There were touches of personality to be found, but they were small and subdued.

“Vuthe!”, Scarlet looked at her with a big smile, getting up from her office chair.

“Hello”, Vuthe replied, a similarly wide smile on her face, “I had some time and thought I’d visit. How is the day treating you so far? I hope it’s going pleasantly enough?”

Despite their familiarity and all the time they had spent together after Vuthe’s return she still felt weird just talking with her sister.

Just knowing that she would outlive, and in fact had already outlived her sister several hundred times over, made the small pain of sorrow in her chest spike once more. Despite their common history, their path’s had diverged so much that there wasn’t a universe in which they would ever be able to fully understand the others' position.

And it hurt. It hurt so badly.

Yet, for all it hurt the familiarity that they had achieved after only a few weeks of being back together again was also soothing in ways she couldn’t quite explain. It told her that there was still a place for her in this world, even if she wasn’t quite ready to meet her parents. And maybe she would never truly be.

“It could be better, but that’s work for you. Any specific reason you are here?”, Scarlet asked as she came over to sit down in the lounge area of her office.

“No, not really. Like I said, I had some time to kill and thought that maybe we could sit together, eat a bite, chat about the good ol’ times. Maybe get Scythe to join us? She could use some normalcy”, Vuthe suggested with a smile.

Scarlet looked at her for a moment, eyes locking onto Vuthe’s. “No, Vuthe, you both need some normalcy. It might not feel like that to you, but you still live in fantasy land. And maybe that will never change, considering your past, but that doesn’t mean I can’t see you pulling yourself every which way to get a handle on your situation. So yes, we get Scythe and then we go eat, and I forbid any kind of political talk, understood?”

In a way Vuthe was quite shocked by that, albeit not really surprised. She had thought that by now things would normalise, it's been weeks since they had first met again, yet for some reason Scarlet still treated her like some child. Yet again, that was part of what she loved about just chatting with her sister, it felt so normal again. Despite all the time that had past it just felt right.

Still, she couldn’t quite bring herself to admit it vocally, so she just waved it away before she conjured up a shadow portal for Scarlet. It was not necessary, she could just teleport her the same way she did herself, but etiquette demanded it and it didn’t matter much in terms of mana consumption. Yes, it was the more expansive way, but with her mana supply the difference was immeasurable. A lake didn’t care if you took one or two mugs of water out of it.

Scarlet looked at her in bemusement for a moment, before she walked over to the office door to inform her secretary about her absence. That done they both made their way through the portal, appearing not far from Scythe abode in New Thelvadore. Cluster had, under Tizanta’s strict guidance, put together a fortress for herself and her friends, slightly outside of New Thelvadore proper, although still within their territory and within walking distance of the city gates.

Vuthe watched her people mingle with the construction crews, all of which looked baffled at the speed with which the city was built up. As usual it amused Vuthe to see the locals be so surprised and stunned.

The Fortress that Cluster had put together looked innocent enough to normal sight, and would probably not raise suspicions in the eyes of normal earth magicians, however to anyone more knowledgeable about the topic, it would be a sight to behold.

While not at the same level as Tizanta’s constructs, it was impressive enough on its own, magical barriers and shields enough to withstand sieges, yet obscure enough to evade most basic forms of detection. If one would really look for it they would find the massive magic constructs making up the fortress, but at that point there wasn’t really a point in hiding it much more, considering its obvious purpose.

Yet despite all its glory and power on display, Vuthe could see the imperfections quite clearly. Used to Tizanta’s talented hands it was quite obvious that Cluster still had a long way to go in perfecting her craft.

The complex itself looked like a mansion straight out of some science fiction pieces, with lots of metal decorations and corners, kept in mostly black and dark greys with more colourful accents artfully woven in. It would most likely not win any beauty contests, but it looked noble and imposing enough to impress most people.

By the time she and Scarlet arrived at the front door, Silk was already waiting.

“Hey. What brings you around?”, she asked with a casual wave, obviously already expecting them.

Silk had been one of the weirder experiences to train. She could see the obvious parallels to Calagrophy, but Silk was quite a lot different. Much more quiet than Calagrophy was, even more quiet than Bullseye, who it turned out, was a lot more talkative than his twin/clone Corellanium.

“Hello”, Vuthe greeted her in turn, Scarlet simply replying to Silk with a nod, “We were looking for Scythe. Any chance you know where she is?”

A sudden muffled moan from inside told Vuthe all she needed to know and had Scarlet blushing.

“A few minutes, probably. She’s rewarding Grunt at the moment, as you can hear”, Silk said with an amused look towards Scarlet.

Vuthe just nodded, “Fair enough. Mind if we wait then? It’s not time sensitive, but she doesn’t have the finesse for portals yet and it might be a good lesson.”

Silk just shrugged then waved them inside, the massive double doors sliding to the side at her approach.

The inside was just as imposing as the outside, clearly kept in the same style most likely widespread on Amnellium, although she could only guess that Cluster kept it a little more lit, considering what she had heard from Archangel.

True to Silk’s estimate it took only a few more minutes before Scythe walked into the big living room where Silk had Vuthe and Scarlet waiting, obviously curious but not surprised by her sisters’ presence.

“Oi”, she greeted with a sloppy salute, before falling into one of the, to Vuthe’s surprise and delight, quite comfortable armchairs.

“Hey. I hope you got some free time?”, Vuthe asked her, trying to keep her amusement at Scarlets ongoing discomfort hidden.

“I have now. Whatcha want?”, Scythe asked, sharing a smirk with Vuthe.

“Nothing much. I got some free time and thought maybe the three of us can go have a meal somewhere and chat a little. I haven’t really had a chance to explore the city yet, and its been a few days since we just sat down to chat a little”, Vuthe said with a small smile.

Scythe thought for a moment, then nodded. “Aight. Although I’m not really good at the whole hiding game, so maybe a magic place would be good. Don’t wanna accidentally piss off the wrong people by saying something I shouldn’t have.”

Scarlet snorted, to say that Scythe was bad at the hiding game was an understatement. As Scythe so delicately put it: “I’m about as subtle as a bomb on your doorstep.”