Vitmori POV

With the current business settled, I go ahead and dismiss Dread and the sinners back to their training room and make my way down my mountain after encouraging Basti to go enjoy the festivities as well. She was a little reluctant but didn't argue the point as she made her way out. Before long, I find myself in front of the hidden door with the snake wolf den, crossing through the nearly natural-looking stone barrier before looking about.

Inside appeared to be some kind of map room... More specifically, what came to mind was that this was a war room of some sort. There were all sorts of maps that looked old, even in this room where things had previously been preserved like the other rooms. There looked to be a globe of some sort, maps of cities, counties, countries, continents, and all kinds of things. I'm not too sure how accurate all these things are nowadays, but they're all pretty interesting to look at. For the maps in particular, there is a considerable amount of writing and notes on a lot of them, but they're all still written in German, which means I still can't read any of these things.

The real focus of this room was the massive table in the center of it all. It looked like an ornate metal table that was filled with a deep layer of grayish-brown sand, though looking closer, there seemed to be a large number of other colors mixed in the grains. There was some sort of simple-looking console at one end of the table, and there also appeared to be a slot for one of those special crystals that seemed to have been the standard for most of the special equipment around here. Coming around to look at the console, there seem to be a few different buttons with German writing underneath each one. While I still can't read any of these, I do recognize the symbol for the power button, which was on a distinctly red button. There was also a rewind and fast forward button, for some reason, as well as a stop or possibly pause button as well. There were a few other buttons and a couple of dials as well as a joystick of some kind, but I couldn't intuit their functions; aside from all that, there also appeared to be a place to put your hand on, almost like a hand reader or identification scanner, but nowhere near that high tech looking.

Since I have all the time in the world for the night, I decide to go ahead and mess around with the table. Based on my best estimation from looking at the guts of the table of sand, the hand reader is more like a receiver of some kind, where a user would place their hand and pour mana into the table to power it up. Looking closer, there even seems to be a meter above the hand reader that resembles an old-fashioned LED display. While I don't exactly have hands, I decide to pour some of my mana through the receiver and watch as the meter begins to fill up. The display fills, starting with a red light that turns yellow and then becomes green as the bar fills up all the way. The cost to power this thing wasn't much at all, and I could tell I already naturally replenished what I used to power it. While the meter was filling up, the rest of the console lit up, the red power button slowly and dimly flashing, enticing me to push it. Now there's always a sense of caution with glowing red buttons, they can either be really good or really bad, though I've looked around enough before powering this thing, and there's nothing overtly malicious, so I don't think I'm about to blow up my mountain... I think.

Eventually, after weighing the pros and cons of turning this thing on, I decided to just go for it. Though the real problem came with actually pushing the button, for some reason, there was just a bit of an issue when I tried imagining pushing down on the button, which seemed odd to me. I can carve a mountain and conjure spears out of the stone, but I can't push a button... However, I do come up with a solution quickly enough; borrowing one of the staffs from the training room, I do my best to line it up before dropping it onto the button. I'm not ashamed to admit that it took more than once to try and get it perfectly lined up, but eventually, I managed to drop it just right and pushed the button. Though when the button was pressed, a very faint pinging sound echoed seemingly from the table itself, the sound vaguely reminding me of a sonar's pulse. Movement catches my eyes as the sand has ripples and waves forming throughout the table, nearly everything shifting around before rising as apparent objects and colors take a distinct shape.

It's my mountain! My entire mountain just rose from the sand, though more shapes kept forming as the rest of the table filled up with details. It mainly was nothing but trees, but I did see the longhouse from the view of this table map, along with a bunch of tents that probably belonged to the Empress and her people, as well as the drakewardens. It's rather strange to see the entire forest from above; so far, I've only glimpsed sections of it through Jack and the others. Well, it isn't the whole forest. I can see trees getting cut down the middle along the edges of the table, not to mention the mountain line of my mountain being cut off in the middle of the air as the length of it heading north and south exceeds the current view of this map.

I can't help but wonder that if the map can be used without any gems or crystals fitted in the slots, then what is the point of using them? I'll see if I can't find any lying around later. For now, something else caught my attention; with my new perspective of my territory, I can't help but notice many irregularities in the treelines on both ends of my mountain. Some trees were distinctly shorter than the rest like it took much longer for them to grow than the surrounding trees, as well as quite a few oddly square fields of grasses and flowers. I'm almost positive that some of these clearings look like farmland that's been entirely overgrown. Most of this stuff is on the side of the mountain facing the theocracy, but there are a few on the side facing the hegemony, but not nearly as much. So... Based on what I heard from Tobias and from what I can see of the land itself, there most likely was a city that surrounded this mountain, but it's all long gone, not even any ruins or rubble or anything like that. I know there was some kind of battle, as far as I can tell after looking over that other core chamber, but how far did the extent of the battle damage go? Why is there nothing left but the outline of a city?

Stolen novel; please report.

I go ahead and leave the table on for now since I'm not about to sit here for another twenty minutes trying to drop a stick on the button to turn it off; instead, I decide to look around the room some more until I find some more of those shaped crystals, and eventually, I do find them, a lot of them in fact. There were several somewhat organized chests filled to the brim with these crystals. While there did appear to be some German writing within them, there were also numbers listed in what I can only guess is a day, month, and year format that many Europeans use, not that I know how they actually list dates in this world... Well, I do know now since the memory just surfaced, but that's because I didn't have to think about it until now. From what I can see of the crystals that I looked at, each of these has the estimated duration of an entire month based on the list of numbers etched within. Maybe they hold records of what was monitored on the map? I know one thing for sure, I need someone with hands to do this for me since I'm not about to try aiming a crystal into a fitted port like that. I'll just leave these things alone for now, I'm sure the sun is going to come up soon enough anyways, and I've got official business to attend to soon, no doubt.

Reyvyre POV

The party was going relatively smoothly; honestly, she was more surprised by the variety of foodstuffs and abundance they seemed to have. Between the loaves of bread, cheese, meats and all sorts of herbs and seasoning, she couldn't help but wonder where it came from. She, of course, tried a little bit of everything that she could, but she didn't feel the need to really eat.

She already ate very little due to her mana sustaining her body and her long-lived nature; that's not to say she can't eat a lot, but she doesn't feel the need to, especially after Vitmori brought her back from death and gave her enough mana to etch a fourth circle around her mana heart. She couldn't help but smile at the memory, Vitmori probably doesn't even know what he's done. After all, mana rings affect the amount of magic one can call upon at any time, as well as improve the vitality and extend the lifespan of those who are able to etch them into their mana hearts. Of course, not everyone needs rings to do this since magicless warriors can still have powerful manahearts that give them strength and abilities beyond the average person and extend their lives to an extent, but not as much as being able to form rings out of all that mana. Having one ring is good enough for most spellcasters, and developing a third ring is the pinnacle for most short-lived races. Beyond that, dwarves, elves, fiends and fey are the few that can reach the level of having a fourth ring and maybe a fifth ring if they're exceptionally talented, have the connections to acquire and consume enough magical materials, or are just old and knowledgeable enough; often a combination of all three. Finally, there's the sixth and highest ring that has been recorded being achieved, those belonging to the dragonlords in the far northeast. Perhaps there are others at such a level or are beyond that, though they haven't stepped forward.

Then there she is, a young elf barely getting through her second century and already onto her fourth ring. She's probably the youngest to achieve that acclaim, even if it wasn't done naturally. She was pulled from her thoughts as she suddenly hiccuped, having not even realized she was on her third cup of rum, following her previous three cups of rather sweet wine. It was a good thing she was sitting right now. She could almost certainly feel the earth shifting beneath her feet. She was gonna definitely gonna regret this in the morning if she couldn't remember that hangover curing spell when she woke up tomorrow.

Though she didn't really remember much after that, as the next thing she knew, it was morning already, and the sun peeking in through the folds of the tent had her reeling like a vampire as she grunted and groaned while rolling over in her cot. She lay there, feeling dead to the world, until suddenly, a wider beam of light slips in as the usually pleasant but now grating voice of the Empress calls in. "Good morning! Up and at 'em, I need you ready to be one of the witnesses towards the alliance agreement." She exclaimed excitedly.

"How... Are you not hungover? I saw you keeping pace with Lanzak at some point last night." Reyvyre asked miserably as she pulled her pillow over her face and sighed deeply.

Historietta just chuckled with amusement as she stood in the tent doorway. "Poison/Venom resistance, alcohol is a form of poison, and my body is good at neutralizing it faster than most." She explained rather openly, not feeling the need to hide it since she mentioned it during their last talk with Vitmori.

Reyvyre just lay there momentarily and shook her head, soon regretting doing that as she huffed. "You're just as bad as the dwarves..."

Historietta grinned a little bit. "It's actually what helped our trade deals with the local dwarven merchant groups." She mused before finally leaving her alone as she stepped away. "Come on; we're heading up in twenty minutes!" She called out, probably speaking to the others who were also going up at this point.

Reyvyre couldn't help but lay still for another few minutes as she contemplated playing dead, though eventually, she sat up and began massaging her temples while murmuring softly to herself. "Alright, alright... Now what was that damn spell again?"