I curled around a long beam of darkwood, my scale-flesh rubbing against the roughened plant-flesh that stretched across the upper section of the nest. It poked and prodded back at me, bits of its surface sloughing off from my passage, weakened by rot and neglect. The splinters floated downwards, bouncing against my disciples’ ore-flesh, all but unnoticed.

Or, it would have been, if it weren’t for the gaggle of tiny Coreless trying to climb up and reach me - and the larger [concerned] Coreless that kept them from doing so. I didn’t think they really needed to do that; some of them were so small that I almost felt like I could lift them up with enough effort. And while that wasn't actually true, the beams of darkwood probably would have been able to hold them just fine.

I twined around the beam one more time, anchoring myself fully against its surface, and checked on my still-talking disciples. It was hard to tell what we were waiting on; the Coreless had been talking to each other for longer than usual.

…it was times like these that I really wished they would learn how to hiss properly. That would make everything so much easier. I briefly prayed to the Great Core, hoping that it would make that a reality, but they kept jabbering at each other in their Coreless not-hisses.

I bobbed my head in agreement, a movement that I realized was stolen from my disciples, as understanding struck me. The Great Core wouldn’t intervene here. They needed to work for the ability to hiss, not just be given it.

Only then could they prove themselves more worthy.

Still, that left me without much to do for the moment. The Coreless didn’t seem to be winding down anytime soon, and it had already been a long time since their not-hisses had begun. For all I knew, it would be longer still before they were done. And while I might be able to entertain myself with the other Coreless filling the nest, I had noticed a disturbing lack of [Little Guardian’s Totem]s in the rest of the many-nest.

I decided to go take a look.

Maybe the other nests were just empty?

===

Valera fought off a sigh, shifting in her seat. The chair was uncomfortable, even for someone who was used to traveling; its padding had clearly seen better days, and it occasionally creaked under the weight of her armored body. At more than one point, she had been certain that it was going to collapse underneath her.

Even worse than that, the discussion was going on forever.

This is why we should have had someone else come to negotiate.

They had a list of demands, so it wasn’t that the Seekers were delving blind, even if trade deals and alliances weren’t exactly their usual fare. They knew what the minimum concessions were expected. Unfortunately, those minimums weren’t being met. And they couldn’t be, not by a single faction among the many that composed the City of One Hundred Towers - and especially not by one that was so clearly worse-off than the rest.

Sure, it didn’t really cost much of anything but time and materials for a Guardian Statue to be created, but making them for free would be - while a good, praiseworthy deed - a waste of potential. To say nothing of improving Erandur’s defenses with one of the Little Guardian’s forests.

Not that Valera didn’t want to do it anyway. Some of the things she saw in the tower made her heart break - the clearly-ill and the starving, especially. Both things that could be easily fixed.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Even if they shouldn’t. Not for free.

Valera knew that she wasn’t the only one uncomfortable with the overly mercantile nature of the discussion. It wore at them all, in their own ways. Kala was staring at rotted pieces of the wall, eyes roving over its every detail, likely trying to lose herself in the minuscule grains and whorls of its surface that only her mana-enhanced eyes could catch at such a distance. Elara was slumping in her armor, back cradled against her chair. Doran had already walked away, and was amusing a group of children by throwing them into the air again and again. Even with his strength, it looked concerningly effortless - they were far lighter than they should have been.

Even the Little Guardian had slithered off a while ago, starting to explore the nearby rafters in little twists and turns. Valera glanced up, but didn’t catch sight of the tiny snake. He probably fell asleep up there; she’d have to climb up to grab him when they were done. Given the worriedly poor shape of the tower’s construction, Valera just hoped that wouldn’t lead to the whole thing crashing down on her head.

Only Erik was giving the discussion his full attention anymore. As leader and Council-designated mouthpiece, he had to. Valera eventually let her attention wander back to the conversation at hand. Disappointingly, they still hadn’t moved on from the topic of contention that had caused it to waver in the first place.

The Tower just didn’t have enough money or people behind it - and, technically, building a Guardian Statue for them would also be building it for pretty much all of the other nearby Towers, as long as they could get their hands on a [Little Guardian’s Totem] and attuned it to the Guardian Statue. Which meant that any deal made to create it in the first place needed to be done with all of Erandur in mind. Or at least more of it, anyway. Enough to actually get something worthwhile for Orken out of the deal.

Ugh. If Valera had liked this sort of thing, she would have become a politician. She didn’t. It was torture. The Little Guardian had the right of things, slithering off so quickly.

Finally giving up on her show of paying attention, and sending a silent moue of sympathy towards Erik, Valera stood up and wandered away. There wasn’t much that she could contribute that hadn’t already been done, and maybe there were other things that she could accomplish during the time that the negotiations remained stalled.

She quickly found something to keep herself occupied, though not something that she expected or hoped for - the Little Guardian had disappeared from his place on the beams above.

Valera couldn’t find the Little Guardian, even after checking each and every rafter in the room. Even after roaming through nearby sections of the Tower, hoping that the little guy was just exploring its other rooms. Even after checking with the others to see if they had seen him around either.

Nobody could find him.

And that, finally, bought a reprieve from the toil of negotiations. Just not one that anybody wanted. Soon enough, the Tower was a mess of motion, dilapidated darkwood planks creaking underfoot as nearly everyone - all but the most ill among those living within - joined the search. And with the help of those who lived within it, it wasn’t long before Valera was convinced that every nook and cranny available had been checked for the presence of a tiny snake. And found wanting.

It shouldn’t have even been that hard; with the cute little metal armor he wore, glowing as it was, the Little Guardian couldn’t get trapped in a dark cranny with no one the wiser. Unless he was trying to hide, they should have seen him.

Valera felt her stomach drop as she began to reach what should have been an obvious conclusion That if they couldn’t find him, maybe he just wasn’t around to be found in the first place. In a flurry of motion, she found herself pushing past the entrance to the Tower, standing at the tiny dock that rested near the foot of the building, a little boat bobbing on the surface of the null-water underneath it. One that, she realized, was altogether unnecessary for a tiny snake that could attach itself to surfaces and slither in ways that shouldn’t have been possible. Especially when part of the Tower’s backside poked out of the null-water entirely, leaving a place for him to reach the safety of the stone beside it.

She raised a hand above her brow, narrowing her eyes, looking for any sign of a curving stream of light slithering along the otherwise-dark ground. There wasn’t anything there, at least not anywhere nearby. She kept looking anyway. Valera was more certain than ever that the little snake wasn’t in the Tower anymore, in the same way that she imagined a mother just somehow knew when their child was getting up to no good. A prickling at the back of her neck, and an unexplainable overabundance of worry. They needed to find him.

If she didn’t, someone else might see him first - and, if they were really unlucky, they’d be surprised enough to do something that they’d all regret.