The Grand Temple of Kotor absolutely had to be bigger on the inside. Had to be.

Rachel strode with purpose and impatience, and while I kept pace with her thanks to both [Physical Enhancement, Level 12] and my very long legs, I couldn't help but keep my head on a swivel, taking in the sights.

The clergy and the nobility, despite their cultural differences, did share certain traits: a measure of resources above the common man, and a preoccupation with displaying one's affinities. Of course, while the nobility preferred two-piece outfits that bore their primary color on their torso and their secondary color on their legs and hips, the clergy seemed to prefer robes, or possibly dresses given how figure-hugging these garments were, in what I would presume were their primary affinities, with small, five-cornered caps displaying their secondary affinities.

Most of the priests or nuns or clerics or whatever individual members of the clergy were called wore robes in the lower colors, with black caps. Maybe one in twenty of them- five, out of the eighty nine people I saw on our way to the destination- wore a black robe with a cap in a lower color. Primary void affinity. Nice to have, because you don't need someone else to teach you void magic, but significant and valuable mainly because it was holier, possibly due to the stronger heredity of primary affinities.

One oddity I noticed was that, while Rachel had flat out told me that most nobles were alphas or omegas, with very few betas and none presenting as such, the clergy was the exact opposite. My count may be wrong because I'm new here and dumb, but of the eighty nine people I'd seen so far, around eighty three of them were probably betas.

I'd have to ask more questions about the gender politics of this society later. Right now, Rachel and I waited in the office of the High Priestess' assistant, who'd left to inform Duke- who was still with the High Priestess, presumably- that she had visitors, in the form of us.

Thankfully, we weren't kept waiting long, and the assistant returned from the archway in the back of her office to usher us in. The archway opened into a hallway running along the back of the room, with another corner to turn the other way, bringing us to a door with a twist-knob of polished black metal. Through that door was...

Well, the room itself was pretty big. About fifteen paces across. And despite my magical senses assuring me that, yes, this was in fact a room, fully enclosed, it certainly looked like a spacious, open-air atrium with perfect sunny weather, a few ornamental shade trees where a few birds were singing and chirping loud enough to be heard without disrupting conversation, and a wooden picnic table laden with dinner and, presumably, the Duke's council.

Duke and Abby Nukem were the ones I noticed first, because I knew them, but the first new person I noticed was the ninetieth nun I'd met at this temple. She seemed to be of the same ethnic stock as Duke Nukem, with pale, almost creamy skin, and golden blonde hair. Unlike Duke, however, this nun was fucking stacked. Not to the same extent as me, hers seemed a touch more like they could've naturally grown there on her chest, but between those tits, her being about five foot six or seven, and the bulge in her groin that only grew as she laid eyes on me- fucking nice- I would wager she's a beta exemplar, the unusually stacked and hung betas that were sometimes born. However, more important than how fuckable this woman was- and that was very, because that face had no traces of baby fat and even a few wrinkles around the eyes, and god damn did I want to call her 'Mommy' and suck on those titties- was a fairly simple fact:

She was an Archmage like me, according to her black robe and her black five-cornered cap. The rarest and holiest set of affinities, embodied in someone born to this world and grew up in it, and who hasn't been ineptly muddling along for the past month and leaning really hard on the cheat skill that is a plus 20 to Learning.

This was, very probably, that High Priestess Amelia lady I've heard about, and whose chambers we beelined for once we were in the Temple, and whose assistant we talked to.

Amelia turned to face us as we walked in, raising her wineglass to her lips and quirking an eyebrow at me, almost imperceptibly. The faintest whisper formed at my ear: 'You're genuine? Double void?'

I nodded ever so slightly- unnoticeable to anyone not already looking for it.

"I left yesterday," Duke Nukem said, drawing my attention back to the person who was, at least nominally, in charge here. And... well, obviously, drinking beer, with her shortstack wife cuddled up beside her. Beer and tits, Duke Nukem's favorite things that aren't murder and its various methods. "Fuck how you got here so quickly- what happened that made you come here so quickly?"

"I'm not gonna jerk you around," I said, meeting Duke's... well, not eyes, because she never took off her fucking sunglasses, but gaze. There were other nobles here- most of them alphas in white tunics or with black pants, all of them with short sleeves that showed off how strong and muscly they were- but honestly, aside from Duke and Abby, who I know and actually need to talk to right now, and Amy, because she's an Archmage who is also a busty blonde I wanna have sex with, I really did not give two shits about literally anyone present. Not even the severe-looking woman who was probably the freshly-elected prime executive of Kotor, if that anachronistically modern-looking three-piece suit is anything to judge by. "The day after you left, this morning, your daughter decided to use the power you gave her to basically exile me and Rachel. Said that, because Nukem was so peaceful these days and Rachel wasn't gonna prove herself in war anytime soon, she needed to find a new way to do it, and told us we both had to go out hunting for the Teapot of Eternity, and only come back once we had it in hand."

"The Teapot of Eternity?" one of the miscellaneous counts- a Black Wind, like Rachel- asked. "She really did not want you coming back, did you?"

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"I keep telling you," another count- this one a Black Stone, with a green tunic and green embroidery on her leggings- said, this time to Duke. "That daughter of yours would never go along with your plan. Just let her marriage to Rachel go unconsummated, and have that knight secretly knock up Amy here, if you need a blonde void kid running around that badly."

"Shut up," Duke ordered, before turning back to me. "Right, well, this is a headache I didn't need. You really pissed her off, didn't you?"

"Yeah, especially when I tell you the rest of the story like I was going to before I got interrupted." I shot a glare at the two counts- well, okay, one of them might've been the marquis, but I really, really did not care. "Okay, so. Your daughter fucked up. But, after that... I fucked up, too." Someone inhaled sharply through their teeth. "See, I tend to get pretty mad when people act like I'm beneath them, and that's, well... exactly what happened. So I started ripping her a new asshole in front of the court, explaining quite loudly for everyone to hear exactly what her scheme was, and how she was an idiot for thinking it would stand."

"You've got some fucking balls," Duke noted.

"And then she tried to interrupt me, claiming I was being insolent and disrespectful of the court-"

"Sounds like you were," a third count noted.

"-and since I hate being interrupted by assholes, I choked her from across the room, putting her life in my hands in front of the assembled court," I said, glaring at the count who'd just interrupted me.

Duke Nukem stared at me for a long, silent moment, before turning and scowling at the High Priestess.

"I will not allow violence in my chambers, Leyla," she said. "Kindly cease trying to burn this young lady to death."

"You," Duke snarled, rounding on me.

"Me," I said, blandly and unimpressed. Sure, Duke Nukem was a fifty year old military aristocrat who was trained from the cradle to kill people with fire and water, but with High Priestess Amelia here, she couldn't do shitting fuck to me.

"You could have killed my daughter!" Duke roared. "My only child! The last scion of House Nukem's bloodline! Nearly dead, by your careless hand! And you!" Duke rounded on Rachel. "You couldn't do a goddamn thing to stop her? Fuck you! I was going to have you married to my daughter, make you the next Duke, but fucking clearly, if you can't keep even just one servant in line, you'd make the worst Duke that Nukem has ever seen!"

Rachel recoiled as if struck, her face going read and tears prickling the corners of her eyes.

"Excuse the fuck out of you, bitch," I said, taking a deliberate stride forward and shielding Rachel behind me. "But you do not take that fucking tone with my knight. Yeah, that's right, my knight. I'm the one in charge here, not her. And if you are going to be this shitty of a lord, throwing a way a good knight over something someone else did, you don't deserve her fealty."

"Kid," Duke growled. "Shut the fuck up. You do not know what you're doing here."

"Looks to me like I'm challenging your authority in front of your council," I remarked. "What're you gonna do about it, demand satisfaction and challenge me to a duel? I can spring for that. I kicked around one Nukem already, I'm happy to make it two."

"...You know what? Fine," Duke said, standing up from the bench. "You want a duel, you'll get a duel. Watching Abby skewer you like a roast sounds fucking amazing."

The counts whispered and murmured among themselves, quietly but excitedly, as Abby Van Helsing-Nukem stood up, growing taller before my eyes and glaring very angrily at me.

"What, you're not alpha enough to fight me yourself?" I taunted.

"The rules are the usual," Duke said, ignoring my barb. "Duel to first blood, and you can have a proxy. No armor. No magic clothes. No magic items or potions. No magic casting at all. Except for one magic weapon. Considering how much you've pissed me off at this point, you and your knight-" She sneered the word as though it were a slur. "-are getting executed if you lose. If you win, then you're still banished, with my daughter's terms going into effect: you get within ten miles of my house without the fucking Teapot of Eternity in your hands, and I'll kill you dead."

Huh, those were... okay, I'd have to put on my old clothes, since I wasn't disenchanting these clothes and risking them in a duel, but otherwise, those terms actually seemed pretty favorable to me. Of course, to everyone else, telling an archmage 'no spellcasting' was the least fair thing you could do.

"That's hardly sporting," the Black Stone count protested.

"I accept those terms quite happily, and name no proxy; I will fight for myself," I said, which nobody expected. "With, one simple amendment."

"Name it," Duke said. Duke had told me: she may be in charge, but she didn't get to ignore how her vassals felt about her decisions. Hence the council and all. And since that council was here, and fucking obviously not all on board with Duke's current agenda... well, that meant I could get some concessions out of this.

"I know you said no spellcasting," I said, "but I still think Abby-"

"That's Duchess Nukem to you, bitch," Abby growled.

"-is fast enough to chop me in half at the drop of a hat," I said. "So, my amendment: before the duel begins, we stand back to back, then take ten paces and turn around."

"Twenty paces between you at the start?" Duke asked. "Sure, you can drag out your loss as long as you want, I don't give a fuck. We duel tomorrow at high noon in the Temple's dueling chamber." The Grand Temple has a fucking dueling chamber? "You've got until then to scrounge up a dueling sword. Or just fucking run, if you know what's good for you. Now get the fuck out of my sight."