I apologised to Shawn and followed Brutus back through the entrance hall.

"I head guard." Brutus said. "Gaal sorry. He want fight again, properly. Sparring ring. You choice, official challenge."

Brutus was speaking in a gruff voice, and in broken language.

"I'd be happy to spar with any of your people." I said. "There is an army surrounding us at the moment, though, so perhaps this isn't the best time. Is this your second language?"

"Yes." He said. "People talk better. Not speak this talk much."

I knew how to write an accelerated language learning program thanks to the knowledge I got with my AI knowledge power, and it would be useful to be able to talk in the People's language. I was also adjusting how I was thinking of groups based upon how they referred to themselves, if they called themselves the People then it seemed most polite to refer to them the same way. It worked just as well as Druids or Beast People.

"Could you introduce yourself and speak in the People's language?" I asked as we got to the stairs. "And offer a translation afterwards?"

He spoke in a melodious rumble. "Mean, I Brutus, Head Guard People Fortress." He said.

I nodded my thanks. We had arrived at the top of the stairs to find the doors still barred. Barr and Gaal were standing guard, Gaal bowed his head to me as we approached.

I removed the bar locking the doors and pushed them open with my power. It was a little bit awkward with the four of us on the stairs. I would have to put a guard room in here if the People were going to guard the front doors. Mal'Thorn and his two guards were waiting outside.

"They wish to negotiate with you." Mal'Thorn said.

"We will talk in the warding room." I said. "I want to fix something here first. I will see you there."

Mal'Thorn nodded and took the stairs down.

There was plenty of space in the pyramid, so I changed the direction the stairs came down and made a guard station room at the bottom of them. Two vertical solid stone doors with a solid locking bar on the inside secured it. And a hallway led to the main fortress stairway. The remains of the stone I'd cut out I stored on the first floor. I would need to get some way of monitoring the platform doors for the guards, but that would be some enchantment or ward from Chantelle or the goat-lady.

Brutus rumbled at me. "Thank." He said in translation. "Is good."

Gaal and Barr rumbled in the same language, copying the first half of the sounds Brutus made, and gave me a short bow. I nodded and headed down to the warding room.

"Greetings Lord C.C." Mal'Thorn said.

He and his guards were perched on the Keeper chairs at the table.

"Greetings Keeper Mal'Thorn." I said, making my way to the seat next to Chantelle.

"The head priest of winter is in the tent outside." Mal'Thorn said. "He wishes to negotiate with you directly. He asks that the negotiations take place in his tent as the closest thing to neutral ground."

"Did they make any demands?" I asked.

"They did not." He said. "They are either acknowledging you as the stronger party, which is unlikely, or they want to make their demands to you personally."

"I will go see him, then." I said. "Before we go, I spoke with the summer priest that came with Dael's People, he wasn't sure precisely where the Fortress of the Gods was. Do you know?"

"Only that it is in the mountains to the north." Mal'Thorn said. "The Forest is our area of responsibility. We do not have much interaction with the Mountain Keepers to our north. With respect to visiting the Winter representative, I suggest you take some guards with you."

"I agree." Chantelle said. "You can't trust them. Two of the beast people should guard your back. Or the summer priest, to counter whatever the winter priests try."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"No." I said. "If it comes down to a fight I don't want to worry about protecting our people. Which also means, if you are going to be there for the negotiation Mal'Thorn, that I expect you to keep yourself safe."

"I do not think it will come to a fight." Mal'Thorn said. "They have called for a negotiation, with the Forest Keepers as an impartial third party. They would offend us if they broke the peace of the negotiation. You should be taking guards because that is what is expected of a person at your station. Not having guards will make you look weaker."

"I am not weak." I said. "And I will not take my people into a dangerous situation simply to make myself appear stronger. If they want to test me they will discover my strength for themselves."

"You will appear diplomatically weaker, not weaker in personal strength." Mal'Thorn said.

"But diplomacy here is dependant on the military strength one has, is it not?" I asked. "You can only hold land if you can keep it against those who would take it from you?"

"Yes, that is correct." Mal'Thorn said. "The terms of any treaty are usually what the stronger party could take."

"They have sent armies against me." I said. "They could not take what they wanted by force. I will not weaken my position by taking people that I would need to protect."

Chantelle was unhappy with my decision, but she let me go without any protest, giving me the alarm pendant she had enchanted. I grabbed my sword from my Pocket Dimension, making a chain for the pendant as I went. With that done, Mal'Thorn, with his two guards, and I headed out of the fortress and down the outside stairs. I could see the tent beyond my pavilion as we were descending. The priests had cleared out a twenty meter by twenty meter square and put a blue silk tent that filled the entire space on it. I'd only made the pavilion's roof three meters high, which would put the tent at five meters high at its peak and four meters at the edges.

"Am I responsible for the trees a hostile force cuts down without my permission?" I asked Mal'Thorn as we made our way down.

"You are." He said. "But you are expected to call for us if you aren't able to stop them. If they aren't breaking our rules, we aren't able to remove them from the Forest. They don't have any open fires, and they aren't cutting down enough trees."

So I would be on my own if I wanted to throw them off my land. Or kill them all. But maybe they would be reasonable.

We arrived at the entrance to the tent, which was right up against the edge of my pavilion and up some ice stairs. There was a winter priest there who announced us as we entered.

"Forest Keeper Mal'Thorn." He said loudly as he pushed back the tent flap. "And C.C., the obstructor."

So that was how it was going to be, insults from the start. The inside of the tent was lavish, covered in pillows, a single room set up as an audience chamber. There was silk everywhere, and a lush pale blue carpet that led directly from the entrance to a table carved from ice. Sitting at the head of the table in a raised chair was a pompous man, his silk robes in a deep blue trimmed with gold, and an ice crown on his head, also threaded with gold. He was hatchet-faced, his long angular nose raised in a sneer, and his lip curled in contempt. I instinctively wanted to stab him before he had even opened his mouth.

We made it to the table. Mal'Thorn sat, uncomfortably, to the side of the table on a human chair carved from ice with his guards at his back. I removed my sword from my back, still in its scabbard, and placed it on the table in front of me before sitting opposite the man who must be the head priest of winter.

"So, you brought him." The head priest said. His tone was a grating nasally whine, spoken through crooked teeth.

"This is Lord C.C., Lord of these lands." Mal'Thorn said, frowning. "You asked for a negotiation."

"I summoned him from his stone egg to demand he turn over Chantelle Warder." The head priest said. "There will be no negotiation, he will hand her over or we shall take her."

"You can gods be damned try." I said. I placed my hand on the hilt of my sword, calculating exactly how I'd kill him.

"Calm yourself, Lord C.C." Mal'Thorn said, turning to face the head priest. "You asked for a negotiation. It was witnessed by the Forest Keepers. If you continue to provoke Lord C.C. you will be in breach, not he."

"Your time is coming too." The head priest said to him.

The loud sound of breaking glass erupted from the pendant around my neck, which flashed red. The wards on my fortress were down. I felt concern from Chantelle, but it was only mild. She had things under control.

The head priest sat back with a smile. "Will you be handing her over?" He asked over the continuing sound of breaking glass.

"I will not." I said. The sound of breaking glass had stopped, and my pendant flashed green. "My wards are holding."

"Are they." He said.

A spike of shock came to me from Chantelle, followed by fear. I drew my sword and stepped backwards, clear of the table.

"What are you doing?" Mal'Thorn asked me.

"This was a trap." I said. "They needed me out of the fortress."

Guilt, sadness from Chantelle.

"Very good, Champion." The head priest said, saying Champion with as much scorn as he could manage. "We know exactly how your wards work, and what your 'powers' are."

Hope came to me over my connection to Chantelle, muting the guilt and sadness. That really couldn't be a good sign.

"You would betray the sanctity of the peace of negotiation?" Mal'Thorn asked. "Then I name you Oathbreaker. Your treaties are void. You are an enemy to all Keepers."

Acceptance from Chantelle.

"Fool." The head priest of winter said. "The Mountain Keepers are already with our God. We will come for you now."

The wards on the fortress broke again, and Chantelle was suddenly two hundred kilometers to the north. I leapt towards the head priest of winter, heating my blade and swinging up from a low guard.