-39-
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Negotiating with adventurers is like being scammed as a festival.
Who’d have thought dealing with these archnobles was gonna be exhausting!
Even if Hailey and I had traveled to Brookshaven with chests of gold—which we obviously did not—it wouldn’t have really been worth anything.
Shiny metals would do the Scarlet Ravens any good in the town if we failed to take Axio. Renault would eventually raise an army capable of taking down Annaeus’ magickal defenses and they’d overpower the defenders.
Negotiations where neither party had a usable currency to bargain with were doomed to fail, if you asked me. In our case, though, we could offer quite a lot. It was wholly dependent on our success in capturing the city and deposing Renault.
Good news, that was our goal to begin with and I’d be willing to offer just about whatever I could to secure even one more edge against Renault.
Bad news, Tamirayth and her daughter, Strea, were vicious bargainers.
Even their companion, Zophiel, winced at some of the things they wanted.
Their first request was the title of Duchess and sizable territory in the old empire’s southern expanse when we eventually reclaimed it.
I countered with a title of Margrave and an expansive border territory, but their family would be expected to fulfill the duties of the rank and maintain a standing Division to defend said border.
While this would technically cost me nothing and secure a strong alliance with the family, such a jump in rank viewed from the outside would cause a stir eventually—the House Schwarzenrabe was relatively new, being founded in the last ten years after Tamirayth purchased the title of Countess from a failing house.
I can already feel the headache from the shit the nobles will be griefing me with.
Tamirayth accepted this offer instantly while Strea wore a sweet smile that I felt hid terrifying ulterior motives.
It was at that point I knew I was going to end up being scammed.
The second request was for future contract exclusivity for any requests made to a guild from both the imperial royal family and the army for a period of twenty years. Emergency events were excluded and it was explicit that the contracts didn’t necessarily have to be fulfilled by the Scarlet Ravens, just offered to them first.
Hailey was hesitant to accept this one and I agreed with her reasoning. It would add a possibly harmful degradation to the process of salvaging Axio, rebuilding Tolin, and reclaiming the southern expanse.
She countered, offering that we’d establish a new bureau and minister position that would only be filled by a member approved by the Scarlet Raven guild. That minister would be empowered to make a call of whether a lackluster contract needed to be presented to the guild, or if they were already operating at maximum capacity it could be routed to another available contractor.
The three guild nobles discussed for a brief moment but accepted our amendment.
“So far we’ve only made advancements for the guild or House Schwarzenrabe. Are there any particulars to be made for the adventuring parties involved?” I asked after a lull in the conversation.
Tamirayth waved my concern away. “I’ll square them away with trinkets and gold once the dust settles in Axio. Half of those kids would just gamble the money away in the garrison if we paid them now.”
I glanced at the golden-haired woman who had seemed like she was the leader of that party. She shrugged her shoulders in a rather inelegant way and didn’t contest.
“Are those the only two requests then?” I asked, “I think we’d be happy to formalize a contract if so.”
“I have one more,” Strea gently raised a hand to call attention to herself, “I will journey on to Axio, either with your group directly or any other you feel more comfortable assigning me to. There are magi-tools and artifacts I must reclaim from our home or, if they’ve been looted by the Renaultians, reclaimed from the enemy.”
“I don’t know if we—” I began to decline, but she interjected.
“My apologies, Your Majesty. But I am a former divisional officer and a more than qualified healer. I can fit in with any division and won’t be a hindrance. This last request is non-negotiable.”
“Haah,” I sighed, “Non-negotiable, huh.”
I turned to Hailey, who was way more knowledgeable about our current raiding configurations.
“How many healers does Ikuye’s division have?”
Hailey looked surprised, “Ikuye? She has only two people assigned with her. Nobody else was strong enough to withstand her aura when she goes all out.”
I glanced back to Strea and silently cast OMNISIGHT with the chaotic strands of magicka running through my soul-link to Capricorn.
Her stat values were displayed in the corner of my vision and I gave them a cursory look.
TARGET
STATISTICS
VALUES
STREA
HEALTH
STAMINA
MAGICKA
240 / 240
500 / 500
653 / 680
“Strea will probably be fine. Her MAGICKA value is high, so I can guess her SANITY attribute is developed higher than our average soldiers. I can call Tomin to send Ikuye over and we can test things out.”
The three women across from us all wore confused looks.
Zophiel spoke up, “You were able to use identification magick on Strea? Just now?”
Identification magick again.
“I used a sort of magick that I was given by the Celestial Goddess Capricorn. I don’t believe it’s the same as what you’re alluding to. Ah, you know what? How’s this for a deal,” I waved my pointed finger between Strea and Zophiel, “Strea can come with us, preferably assigned to Ikuye and if she can’t withstand the power of her combat aura we’ll find somewhere, in exchange I want you to show me what you tried casting on me earlier.”
Zophiel’s face went pale white.
Tamirayth slowly turned in her seat and stared the poor elven woman down.
“What. Did. You. Do?”
“I-I—cast a simple identification spell when s-she—I mean, Her Majesty, came into the room!”
“In the Creator’s name, girl… Why?”
“I never thought it would work! I figured they would’ve have an anti-magick barrier like us.”
Tamirayth brought her hand down and smacked the Zophiel in the forehead with her palm. “Tch!” She clicked her tongue and turned to me, bowing apologetically, “She’d be glad to show you a magick trick or two in exchange for allowing Strea to accompany your forces.”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Zophiel apologized for the intrusive spell but her attention was drawn more to asking how my spell had circumnavigated her anti-magick barrier.
I fielded a barrage of questions from the curious elf but could give no definite answers.
“Is the barrier magick based on blocking out specific schools of magick?” I asked, thinking I might know the reason.
“I suppose so, yes. It reacts strongest against arcane magick. Aether and elemental types are about the same in defensive strength, but it is weak to holy- or void-type magicks.”
Hailey’s voice rang out in understanding from behind me, “Ahhhh.”
“Yeah, that would explain it.” I followed up.
“It would?”
“The spell I cast isn’t from any of the known magick schools. It’s the Goddess’ magick.”
“Does that mean… You have—no, no, never mind.” Zophiel rambled and then trailed off.
I called Tomin over the communirune and asked him to track down Ikuye. He would give her very specific instructions to gain entry to the estate in a normal way—walk up to the front gates and speak with the guard there, and not jump the fence or fly over it.
We’d meet up with her in a moment with Strea and see how she faired against a celestial attendant’s intimidation effect.
While we waited, Zophiel was tracing out the runic sigils that made up her IDENTIFICATION spell. I could see two I’d used when modifying OVERSIGHT into OMNISIGHT.
Knowledge and Status.
There were a dozen stabilizing runes to make the casting neater and faster. And a massive intricate circle that bound them all together to allow for silent casting at the expense of increased magicka usage.
Zophiel finished the spell formulae and handed it over.
“It’s quite a bit different than what the academies in Aestor taught, but the base of the spell remains the same.”
Mental note: Ask Sara if she has any textbooks about magick that was taught in Aestor, or if they have any new editions from Umbraedomis.
My eyes spilled over the paper in my hands and I found what I wanted—probably.
The only rune in the spell that I didn’t know, and looked quite different than the Feyndirian runes human and elven magick normally was built around.
φ
“What’s this curvy rune for? It’s like a half-crescent loop with a line down the center.”
Zophiel leaned over the paper as I placed it on the table. “Oh, it was called Portio. A cutting-edge runic sigil that separates a spell’s functions, it was relatively new a few decades ago. I guess it didn’t make the journey to Axio’s academies? In this particular spell, it allows the Status rune to make a call out to a target and return the details to the caster.”
Yep! That’s the one I wanted.
I opened the floodgates of magicka and let Capricorn’s font of power rush through me as I focused on entering the low conscious state needed to wield chaos magick in its raw form.
My exposed skin glowed as the Feyndirian runes lit up a soft orange.
The three guild members stepped back in alarm.
Hailey pursed her lips, not reacting otherwise.
I inserted the Portio sigil into the makeup for OMNISIGHT, and when it settled in I cast the spell on Hailey.
A set of clear interface panels appeared between us, one that highlighted the stats I was familiar with in my inspection windows and a new one that listed out her attributes.
TARGET
STATISTICS
VALUES
HAILEY
HEALTH
STAMINA
MAGICKA
120 / 120
200 / 200
620 / 620
ATTRIBUTES
STRENGTH
28
VITALITY
19
TOUGHNESS
22+1
ENDURANCE
7
FORTITUDE
14+1
STAMINA
15
COURAGE
50
RESOLVE
35
AGILITY
30
DEXTERITY
30
SWIFTNESS
18+2
CLEVERNESS.
32
PERCEPTION
45
FINESSE
18+5
REFLEX
28+4
INGENUITY
40
AETHER
63
INTELLIGENCE
57
WISDOM
80+7
SANITY
52+2
“Yes! Look at that! This is exactly what I’ve been wanting.”
I swiped both displays away so Hailey’s personal details weren’t being shown off and reviewed the notification blinking light
» OMNISIGHT HAS BEEN MODIFIED AND HAS ADVANCED TO {OPERATION} CLASS.
Zophiel looked like she was panicking, frantically pouring over her spell formulae.
“How does it—!? None of these sigils could force a non-mist projection interface.”
She glanced up at me and pleaded, “How does it work?”
“It’s no use,” Hailey placed her hand over Zophiel’s shoulder, “She uses weird celestial magick to make it work.”
Zophiel’s expression twisted and she muttered under her breath, “But so do… Haah, I’ll drop it for now.”
I felt a little bad for the sorceress, but she was an adventurer unaffiliated with my core group of supporters. I couldn’t justify sharing any more details about our connections with Capricorn and Virgo and risk it getting back to the Renaultians.
We already weren’t sure what they knew with the slew of spies they had operating under our noses.
Ikuye was hopefully waiting patiently for us outside the estate. Zophiel elected to stay behind, intending to fret more over her spell-work.
Who knows, maybe she’ll figure something out and be able to emulate my new variant of OMNISIGHT in some way.
The remaining five of us, Hailey, Beno, Tamirayth, Strea, and I, headed out to find my battle-junkie sister-in-law.