Michael ended up stopping after the twenty priests had lost consciousness, the woman and Chantelle coming out into the guard room distracting him. The woman and Michael both had tears streaming down their face in a three-way hug with Chantelle.

"Veya." Michael said.

"Michael." Veya said. "I saw you die?"

"I didn't die, I was cursed." Michael said. "C.C. broke the curse and healed me."

Veya turned to me, letting go of the hug and standing in front to represent the people behind her, looking me up and down.

"So you are C.C.." Veya said. "My daughter has told me much about you. Interesting outfit. My people are tired, starving, and some are sick. I'm afraid we won't be able to help you fight."

I looked into the room behind her. There were two hundred people, mostly laying down on the ground. The room was small enough that they had to lay over each other somewhat, though there were clear aisles that led to the door and to the center of the room that had a narrow pit. The smell was also quite strong, the people filthy.

I switched my active focus to my presence in the druid storyteller room back in my fortress.

"... And he fell from the tree!" The storyteller on the raised stage said. She looked like she might be a possum lady.

There was laughter from the other people in the room, and it looked as though the storyteller had come to a break in her story.

"Excuse me." I said into the silence in the beast people's language after the laughter had died down.

The whole room turned to look at me where I was in the corner. The nearest person was a badger man, who was frowning at me.

"Did you just speak?" He asked. "What are you?"

Right, my presence would just look like a pillar of stone.

"I am Lord C.C.." I said. "This is a way for me to communicate while I'm not in the fortress. I need someone to do something for me. You are welcome to test my identity, if you wish, or get someone to verify me. Dael, Greta, or Maaarta would do so."

One of the recent stories was what had happened when Gaal had challenged me, told by the bear man himself.

"That shouldn't be needed." The badger man said. "Though it will depend on what you need."

"Nothing complicated." I said. "I need someone to bring a box of food supplies to the doorway of my room on the floor above this one."

"I will do it now, my lord." The badger man said, and left the room.

I switched my focus back to my body and played back what had happened there while I was distracted. There had been thumping coming down the stairs outside and Michael had gone to deal with it. Veya had tried to get my attention for a bit and then had gotten her people to stack the unconscious priests in the corner of the room. Some of the villagers had made their way out and were stretching their legs.

"I'm sorry, that was rude." I said. "It's a new application of my abilities, and I went without thinking."

Veya frowned at me but nodded and went back to directing her people. I went out the door to the stairs to find Michael facing off against three ice golems with another set behind them. After a moment I saw that neither side was moving.

"What is happening?" I asked.

"I have a barrier of air over the stairs." Michael said. "They tried breaking through at first, but they've stopped now."

"How exactly were you captured if you are so effective against the winter priests with your spells?" I asked.

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"The head priest of winter did something that allowed his people to resist my air prison, as well as slowing us down greatly." Michael said.

The middle column of the ice golems were walking back up the steps and a minute later a winter priest came down the stairs. He stood on the other side of the barrier and opened his mouth.

"Hello." I said. "If you start chanting something I am going to take it poorly and probably kill you. It usually takes a dozen of you to cast the spells that annoy me, but a chanting priest in front of me will be a dead priest."

His mouth closed and I gave him a moment for that to sink in. He started to shake. He was only a low ranked priest, the poor guy.

"If you, the winter priests, need to speak with me then it would be best done through Ryan." I said. "Actually, tell him that C.C. would like to see him."

The winter priest nodded in relief and ran back up the stairs. Michael looked at me and raised his brows in question.

"This is Ryan's robe." I said. "I borrowed it when I first got here. He has been the only decent priest I've met, so I'd like to give it back. Are you alright holding the stairs?"

Michael nodded. I stepped back into the guard room and stood by the wall.

The badger man had arrived at the top of the stairs in my fortress with a wooden box of food.

"Thank you." I said from my presence there. "You can just set it there. You would have a use for a mana crystal, yes?"

He set the box down and I soaked my power into the wood and moved in into my Pocket Dimension.

"I would, my lord." He said. "You don't need to pay me though."

I could make them trivially, and had made a small one in the time it had taken him to get here. I rolled it out to stop at his feet.

"Thank you for your help." I said. "A token of my appreciation."

"Thank you, my lord." He said, picking it up gently with a look of wonder.

He bowed and turned to leave, and I switched my focus back to my body.

The guard room had a poor quality wooden table and some chairs, with stone benches around the walls. A very poor setup for twenty people. I soaked my power into the table and chairs and converted them to air from the bottom up. It looked as though the entire set was disappearing into the floor below them.

There was a three meter by two meter space left in the middle of the room where the table had been. Some of the villagers started to move into it but stopped when I shook my head.

"What are you..." Veya said, stopping in shock.

I was pulling stone out of my pocket in a constant stream quickly forming it into a solid stone table to fill the space and then formed five comfortable stone chairs on either side. With that done I started duplicating the food from the box that the badger man had brought. Nuts and hard breads for the most part, though there was a small handful of a juicy purple berry that I made a lot of.

I formed a thin platter of stone, fifty centimeters wide, on the table and started filling it with food. When it was full I pushed it to the side and made another that I started filling. The room was entirely quiet aside from the click of nuts as I set them down.

I felt a growing amusement from Chantelle and looked up to find fifteen people staring at me in shocked silence. Chantelle was grinning.

I had been working for a few minutes to get two platters full of food, the conversion of stone to food was slow.

"A new priest is here." Michael said loudly from outside the room.

"I'll be right there." I said back, then turned to Veya. "This is for you and your people. I am making more now and will be back in a minute to place it out. Make sure you eat first, we will negotiate a treaty with you as my vassal when I get back. After everyone is fed and we have a treaty we will go to my fortress."

Veya could only nod, but she moved to the table and started handing out food. I continued duplicating food in my Pocket Dimension. Chantelle came over to me as I was leaving the room.

"I've never seen mother speechless before." Chantelle said in a whisper, then kissed me. "Thank you, for everything."

She went back to help Veya in handing out the food, Veya was frowning at me. I walked out of the room and saw Ryan standing at the air barrier on the stairs.

"Hello again." I said with a smile.

I pulled my black robe out of my Pocket Dimension and changed into it.

"Hello." Ryan said. "Is that my robe?"

"It is." I said. "My borrowing it saved the lives of several of your low ranking priests. I'm glad I got the opportunity to give it back. It got a bit dirty and I had to have the enchantment broken on it to clean it. Sorry about that."

I had the robe off and cleaned it with my power. I folded it neatly and went to hand it to Ryan only to run into the air barrier.

"Michael?" I asked.

A moment later I passed the robe to Ryan, the barrier down. The two ice golems moved to attack me and I raised an eyebrow at Ryan.

"Stand down!" Ryan commanded.

The golems stopped with their blades almost at my neck. They moved quickly, I was almost out of leeway to keep this peaceful. If I had been forced to move I would have gone through them all and then taken out the priests to stop them repairing them. Though Michael likely would have locked them down before that.

"Is there anything else you need?" I asked.

"The official word is that you can't take the prisoners." Ryan said. "The unofficial word is not to throw any more high tier priests at you. Francis is only now establishing his connection to our God as high priest. Did you really kill Jeremiah when he had our God's aspect?"

"I did." I said. "Nothing will stop me from protecting my people, interfere with them at your mortal peril."

I saw Ryan shiver. He nodded to me and went back up the stairs.