Chapter 51: The Oligarch of Periatus

The loathsome brat, the foolish one. The miserly ruler that let everyone drown. The seducer of the people he was taught to protect. The one that forfeited all just for his own pleasure.

When rulers fail to consider who they rule over, they fail as rulers all together.

“Is she going to be okay?” The Oligarch crouched down beside Vega, as she attempted to wake her up. Skaldi and the Krasue looked on with mild amusement. One of the Krasue seemed a bit sad at the event.

“Florato! Oh, I’m sorry. I did-didn’t mean for this to happen.” Her voice was regretful, pained that she forgot Florato was sensitive to gore.

To play the Devil’s advocate, you couldn’t have planned for that. Just like you can’t plan for the future.

Vega kept quiet, shaking the actress periodically in hopes that she could somehow make up this mistake.

“Mind if I strip her?” The boy whispered to Skaldi.

“Fuck no!” Skaldi raised his hand to strike him, but he swiftly put it back down knowing the consequences.

“Just asking a friend.”

“Who the hell are you? Why the hell did you do that?”

“Oh? Me?”

“Yes…you…”

Every Oligarch was the same when they read out their title. Clear commanding voice and straightened posture, they became true rulers as they read out what they ruled.

“Oligarch Huius Noikos Tibato. But please, call me Oligarch Tibato.” He bowed forward in Matigas Na Tao fashion, tilting his head to the left and leaving their left eye open. Skaldi couldn’t tell if this was unintentional or that Tibato was insulting him.

“Well met.” Skaldi said through gritted teeth. “Could you please send those things away?”

“No need to be rude elf! They have feelings too. Delicious and sensational feelings.”

“Oh you are so gross!” Skaldi turned away, shivering at Tibato’s voice.

“...huh… what… happened…”

“Florato, you’re awake-wake! I’m sorry, and ya might want to keep your eyes closed.” Vega slapped her hand over Florato’s eyes in order for her not to faint again.

“I do like them blindfolded.” Tibato sinisterly snickered.

“Dude! …Shut up!” Skaldi yelled at the ground, trying to contain his contempt for Tibato at a minimum.

“What are you guys shouting about, I remember a distinct faintness in my head.” Florato tried to rise but Vega shoved her head back down.

“Can ya please, like, call them off or something?”

“Well I guess. But where’s the fun in that?” Tibato whistled at the two Krasue, which turned to him with drooling mouths. Some of their spit splashed on Vega, but she took it as mark of respect… for some reason.

They faded into the columns beside them, and so Vega let her hand off of Florato. The three backed away as Tibato approached one of the statues of the previous Oligarchs of Periatus. He held a hand to his hairless chin and looked at the statue in a particular feeling, as if he were imaging he could do better.

“You all came here for a reason, did you not?”

“Uh, yes sir-”

“I am not a sir. Oligarch Tibato, you will get that right.” He chastised Skaldi, who still had a degree of disgust in him.

“Oligarch Tibato, we come bringing two things… uh-an object from Core Civitus.”

“It’s a box!” Vega announced, quickly digging in out of her jacket.

“It is indeed a box, yes.” The boy Oligarch observed.

“Meant for a clever person, so, I think-think that might be ya.”

“Oh, you are too kind!” He pressed his hands to his cheeks and began to reach down for the box.

However, the scarecrow backed away.

“What are you doing?”

“Yeah Vega, what the hell are you doing?” Skaldi, being the one wanting to get out of here alive, spoke passive aggressively.

“I want to ask ya a couple questions…”

“Can this not wait, maybe, five minutes?” Tibato swayed his hips.

“We could do that, but I don’t want to-to.” Vega spun the box on her finger, while giving brief looks at Skaldi and Florato. Florato more easily held her tongue, but Skaldi took a few moments to compose himself. He knew the reason, he just wished it could have been under different circumstances.

“...Do you know Kaliber?”

The question shocked the Oligarch, as his eyes rose sky high. He tilted on his leg and scratched his chest, as if recounting the name.

“No, but I know of her. My father had her over for a visit about… five years back?”

“Five years ago? Are ya sure?” Vega stopped spinning the box and fumbled it, managing to catch before it hit the ground.

“Must have been when the famines started and when those Tripolians started burning our farmlands. Maybe she had something to do with it, ha!”

“I doubt that. But still… anything else-else?”

“Yes-yes my little-”

“Don’t be an ass.” Skaldi stepped in, not allowing anymore mistreatment of his friends. “Be efficient, don’t waste our time.”

Tibato glared hot fire at the elf but put on a false smile, one that presented a faint annoyance.

“She bought three towers here, worked with my father once. He didn’t speak much of her, but Soul Gems came up in the conversation.” The boy Oligarch spoke quickly, and recounted the main details he knew. Skaldi was mildly intrigued but focused, while Florato's eyes casted down.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“Soul Gems?” The actress asked.

“Yes, we Oligarchs have quite a lot of them. Most have about a dozen on standby, but for some odd reason, Kaliber seemed to be his sort of… dealer. That is the reason we celebrate Neo Rem Day every month here!”

“Okay!” Florato, said excitedly, while the elf considered a different thought.

Skaldi ruminated on that idea, and how the Tripolians back in Fort Jao were using the process of Gem Harvest. Was it that… Kaliber knew how to? Or that Kaliber stole it from the Galtian tribe? His gaze rested on Vega, who was delighted to be hearing so much about Kaliber, and yet he felt dread. That who Kaliber is or was, would not be the person Vega would quite look up to.

“Aside from that, she seemed to have disappeared not too long after. Last time I heard of her was four years ago.” Tibato finished, turning his head back to the statues of his ancestors. Vega however, held a fist out in front of her, and her face became frustrated. So close to Kaliber, and yet just another end to the trail.

“Darn. She must have left here.”

“No no no. I said she disappeared. Not left.”

“Why do ya say that-that?” Vega questioned, while Tibato smiled genuinely, as if enjoying this subject he would bring up.

“...Plenty of people disappear because there’s no one to look for them. Some disappear because they want no one to look for them. Some disappear… because they want someone to look for them.”

The idea brewed in her mind. Kaliber… hiding? Why would she hide? And why would she want someone to find her, why not just immediately show herself? Why would she want Vega to search for her? Secrecy, was the word Vega thought up. She prepared her next question.

“So… ya know nothing about the tower here?”

“Oh! That thing? It just up and left.” Tibato blurted out without any sense of class or mystery.

“…really?”

“Not kidding! Just, wooosh, up and gone. Just like her, haha!”

“Right…” Florato bent toward Vega side, hiding her mouth from him. “I think he might be a little mad…”

“I-I don’t think he’s angry.”

“No-I mean he’s… lost it?”

“Lost what-what?”

“Ah, nevermind.”

“Now, are you all done or do we have another matter to discuss?”

“Just a few more… am I magical?”

“Oh boy, here we go.” Skaldi couldn’t wait to hear this. That curiosity to how she functioned always bugged him, made him oddly fascinated. Of course this fascination was of a friendly sort and not of the type that alienates others, be he couldn’t deny, he firmly listened to the Oligarch’s words.

“Hmmmm… in what way?”

“What do ya mean?”

“Yeah, what do you mean?” Florato prepared for him to be cruel to her again, but he took on the voice of a historian instead of mockery.

“There’s the magics from the spirits, ones from our beloved god, spirits, and other sources..and there are the suspected, speculative magics. The magics that are thought to be stolen and used by mortal creatures… which one?”

“Vega hasn’t exactly done anything unlike a spirit. I mean, you hear a voice in your head.” Skaldi rested his elbow on her head, causing her to giggle before regaining focus.

“Yeah-yeah, I do-do that.”

“But she only hears one. Don’t you remember that Tai Pai fairy demon thing a couple months back?” Florato took his elbow off of her before crouching beside Vega, recounting the event of the temple back in Vein Xinyuai.

“You’re right! Most celestials can hear prayers and voices from all over, so I wouldn’t exactly fit-fit.”

“Can’t really comment there, being an elf and all.” Skaldi brushed his hair but stopped because Tibato leered at him in a gross manner. “But I do remember what that demon said.”

“That would likely mean your construct friend is something new entirely! I would say it is marvelous, but… she’s just a fucking scarecrow.” The boy Oligarch shrugged, being sour to her.

“Hey! She’s not a scarecrow, she’s the scarecrow.” Florato stood proudly, with Skaldi giving a high five. It was really awesome and cool.

“Yeah, she’s done quite a lot of things. Maybe that’s the reason why you get along with all the magic people and religious folk.” Skaldi rubbed her hair, with Vega feeling a tad bit more happy and assured about her place in the world. Maybe things could work out after all.

“Save me the positivity knife ear. Any man with some gold in his pocket can get along with anyone. Besides, has she even performed any miracles?”

“Uhhh… a nymph kissed me once?”

“No maidens that worship her?”

“I have Florato. She’s a maiden, I think?”

“And have you had anyone or anything that has stuck by you your entire life?” Tibato grilled Vega, making her once happy mood fade once again. She knew it couldn’t last, she just wished it wouldn’t have to be this way.

“Just… tell me. I’d… think… ya would know.”

“Ha… well… you’re not any spirit, any nymph, any fairy or any creature that I would know. And I’m well versed on the subject.”

This, despite being the truth, was not what Vega was hoping for. Not being that it was mean, not because it made her feel mundane or unwanted, though it did. It was because this was everything she had come to expect.

Being an unknown, being something that could not be reached. Like earth and moon, they could only be together briefly.

Something untouchable. Something nameless. Something that couldn’t be understood.

“Is there anything else you wish to discuss?”

“No.” Vega handed the box off to Tibato, as he snatched it from her hand. Chuckling and juggling the box in his hands, he turned to them in a flamboyant twist.

“Ah, it is nice to have it in my hands. You know, Oligarch Faitos complained when I kicked him out of Sky, but it was worth the insult. Finally!”

“Who is Faitos?” Skaldi suspected something was very wrong.

“Yes, he should probably be gambling back in Rock-oh what am I saying, you all can leave now!”

“Wait, we still need to-” Florato took out a couple of the scrolls Amir and Valiato translated.

“Need to what? Come on, I have to go see my wife! She gets very grumpy when I don’t go to her at this hour.”

“Your wife can wait, right now-if you don’t listen to us, everyone in Uvi Jantok is going to die!” Skaldi couldn’t take it any longer, shaking his fist just a few inches from Tibato’s face, which caused the boy Oligarch some brief pause.

“Now ho-”

“You hold on!” Skaldi interrupted, opening a scroll depicting a battle map. “Over the last three months, my friends have been taking care of your mess. So now, we come to you with a golden opportunity. All of their plans, tactics, an entire operation before you! So please, for the love of whatever god you worship, do something! Be the ruler people need you to be.”

Skaldi heaved readily, hoping that his emotional ranting would spur some mechanism in Tibato’s head to act. To do good.

Instead, the Oligarch laughed in the elf’s face. And smiled a cruel smile, raising the sides of the lips and showing terrible teeth.

“Haha! You act like I aim to do something about it.”

“…uhhh” Florato backed up.

“What?” Skaldi was shocked. Never did he expect that type of response.

“If you thought I’d care about those, vermin, those ghosts outside Sky, then you must be poorly mistaken. But I will grant you this, you are the most impressive set of tarangs I’ve ever seen.”

“Ya… aren’t going to do anything?”

“Why would I? Everything I ever wanted is already here! Plus, my father was one for the military, those other Oligarchs are, but I’m in it for the fun! Besides… I have a date to catch.”

All three were left in bitter silence. All their hard work and pains, simply tossed away like trash.

Vega felt something in her chest. A new feeling, perhaps a finally one. Not happiness, anger, fear, or sadness, no.

The scarecrow had a sour disgust in her.

Sometimes, things don’t work out. But remember this bit of advice. Change the plan, not its goal. Haha!