BT IV - Chapter 18

Age 21 [ERROR] / 35

Class/Level Divine Candidate 58

XP 120,000/2,000,000

HP 10,492/10,492

Class Specialty

Chronomancer, Enchanter

Attributes

Body 62, Agility 62, Mind 125, Spirit 124

Attunement

Moon 110  Sun 70  Night 130

Mana

Moon 10,200/11008 Sun 10,928/10,928 Night  9,220/11,048

Affinities

Time 10

Tier V - Foresight 19, Time Echos 3, Temporal Transfer 3, Haste 16
Tier VI - Temporal Vortex 14, Temporal Stutter 7, Stasis 6
Tier VII - Time Leash 7, Weave of Fate 5,

Tier VIII - Deja Vu 5

Wood 8

Tier I - Refresh 14, Mending 13, Plant Weave 21

Tier II - Augmented Mending 20, Root Spears 14

Tier III - Heal 13, Paralytic Sting 6, Explosive Thicket 13

Tier IV - Regeneration 12, Healing Wave 6, Poison Fog 15

Tier V - Panacea 7, Coma 6, False Life 3

Tier VI - Binding Vines 12, Infest 4

Air 7

Tier I - Gale 11, Air Knife 24, Air Supply 6
Tier II - Wind Shield 11, Sonic Bolt 18

Tier III - Updraft 5, Pressure Spear 15, Sonic Orb 14

Tier IV - Flight 14, Wind Blade 13

Tier V - Vacuum 6

Blessings

Mythic Blessing of Mursa - Blessed Return, Ageless Folio

Skills

Anatomy  10

Arcana   26

Major Arcana 10

Enchanting  36

Fishing   2
Herbalism  5

Librarian  5

Ritual Magic  39

Spear   41

-Wind Spear 13
-TITS  22

Spellcasting  52

Another level.  He was powering up faster than he had in years, but it never seemed like enough.  More mana and body was useful, but he would need a lot more than that to take on the Third Prince, especially given what he’d seen of the greater daemon.

At some point, strength and magic didn’t matter as much if his opponent could simply slag reality around it.  Any spells below level three would be useless, and those above it would be weakened to the point that it was almost a waste of his time to use them.  It was hard to explain, but when his Major Arcana skill had reached 10, Micah found that he suddenly just knew things.  It was like he woke up one day with memories from a lifetime of experimentation and study.

Just as he knew that conventional attacks wouldn’t really work on the greater daemons, Micah knew that he could fashion anything worked with their magic into tools that would function against him.  All he needed to do was close his eyes and he could remember long nights laboring over the glass discs that the greater daemons used to walk on air, transforming them into enchanted stakes that she could drill into the creatures with the power of her scepter.

A nearby guard shifted, drawing Micah’s gaze for a second.  Nothing was happening yet.  It only looked like the man was adjusting his posture to avoid a cramp.

Micah settled back into the velvet couch.  Leeka sat next to him, her back ramrod straight and her breath coming in short, sharp panic gasps.  Across the corridor, Trevor was insistently whispering something into Drekt’s ear, likely off-color, and the big man was trying not to laugh.

He leaned over to Leeka, nudging her in the ribs to grab the tall orange woman’s attention.

“How are you holding up?”  He asked.  “You look a little bit on edge right now.”

“I am not on edge,” she gasped.  “I am over the edge and falling into the abyss.  We’re meeting an Empress, Micah.  Someone that runs an entire country, and the last time you encountered her she was concerned that we were enemy spies.  You’d be crazy not to be nervous.”

“You do realize that the Pontiff was literally going to rip our souls out and torment them until his master destroyed the entire planet, right?”  Micah questioned.  “You’ve faced worse than this and not all that long ago.”

“But she’s a QUEEN, Micah.”  Leeka fidgeted, her orange fingers gripping the edge of her shirt, twisting and worrying at the fabric.  “I know how to shoot people with a bow, but I don’t know anything about talking to royalty.”

Micah shrugged, looking back to where the two guards stood with halberds flush to their shoulders in front of the door to the audience chamber.

“Follow my lead and don’t speak up unless addressed directly.  Oh, and if you have to speak, just say your majesty a lot.  The Empress isn’t exactly a fan of casual behavior, but Gwen should have informed her that our group doesn’t have much formal etiquette training.  As long as you don’t spit on her carpet or challenge someone to a duel, we’ll be fine.”

He shifted on the couch, looking over the mosaics and priceless works of art lining the corridor’s walls.

“Probably.”

“Probably?” Leeka asked, her knuckles white as she gripped the edges of her shirt.  “What do you mean by probably?  Is the Empress going to look down on me for a faux pax or put all of us to death.”

“Try not to worry about it,” he replied, patting her helpfully on the shoulder.  “Also don’t screw up.  I’d prefer to not have to break us out of a royal prison and live my life on the run.  Again.  Exile isn’t nearly as sexy as it sounds.  There’s a lot more living in tents and not bathing than there is righteously fighting to restore your good name and wooing maidens.”

A thump from the doorway cut their conversation short.  There hadn’t been any sort of outward signal, but both of the guards had snapped to attention, slamming the butts of their halberds into the floor as they straightened their backs.

Once all four sets of eyes were trained on the door, it opened revealing a massive dinner table set with fine porcelain. Directly in the doorway stood an elderly man in a tuxedo, bushy gray whiskers framing his face.  Just visible past his shoulders were various members of the royal family, clad in fabulously expensive outfits and already seated at the dining table.

“Guildmaster Silver and companions?”  The butler questioned, making eye contact with Micah.  “The Empress has decided that your audience will take place over dinner.  Please follow me.”

Leeka stiffened beside Micah, and he couldn’t help but agree with her.  Half-remembered training had carried him through his first audience, but it was fairly easy to read social cues when being addressed in front of a throne, the Empress said things, and you said “yes your Majesty.”  Dinner was a different story.  Micah barely remembered which of the four forks he was supposed to start eating with, let alone the minor and country specific social cues.  Was the Empress supposed to eat first?  Would passing gas get him imprisoned?

Reluctantly, he stood.  Trevor, Drekt and Leeka joined him as he walked into the dining room behind the butler.  The Empress was already seated at the head of the table alongside her three husbands.  The right edge of the table had her four children, and the left was open with four servants waiting to pull out chairs for Micah’s group the second they arrived.

Gwendolyn nodded at him as he approached, but everyone else seemed fully engaged in conversation.  Apparently Countess Sabina’s latest soiree had a scandal where two of the Countess’ common-born lovers had shown up to profess their love at the same time in front of her husband.  Other than Gwen and the Empress, who was eyeing him with the same intensity of a snake watching an oblivious mouse, everyone seemed enraptured by the salacious piece of gossip.

Micah kept an irreverent smile on his face.  In all likelihood this was a test.  The Empress and her handlers obviously knew that he didn’t have the etiquette training to handle a formal meal.  Even if he did, Trevor had a tendency to treat every space he was in like it was a gambling table at a brothel.

There was a zero percent chance that they were going to walk away from this dinner without breaching some unspoken rule or the other.  The key was how he was how everyone reacted to the inevitable slip up.  In all likelihood, the Empress was maneuvering the situation to put Micah on his back foot.  She would force an uncomfortable situation and use it as leverage to ensure his compliance.

He took one last look over the table.  Other than the Empress, they were all still chatting, hands folded carefully on top of the napkins spread across their laps.  Gwen gave him the occasional worried glance, clearly concerned about the situation but unable to speak up.

If it were all about momentum and initiative, Micah mused to himself.  There was only one answer, strike first.  He couldn’t break a truly bottom line rule so blowing his nose on the tablecloth was right out, but at the same time, making it clear that he saw the Empress’ challenge for what it was and refusing to be burdened by it would save both of them a lot of time in the long run.

He sat down, smiling at everyone else and unfurled his napkin before tucking it into his collar.  Everyone else at the table had theirs in their laps.  The half elven twins stared across the table at him in horror.  Gwen barely suppressed a giggle, and the half-durgh princess was actively smiling.

The Empress and her three husbands didn’t outwardly react, polite but utterly blank smiles still on their faces.  Still, there wasn’t any more conversation about balls or soirees.  Micah had their full attention.

“In Sandrovok it is customary to put your napkin in your lap,” Lledaven, the Empress’ elvish husband and spymaster supplied helpfully.  “Tucking it into your collar is considered a sign that you plan on eating without any restraint or tact.  After all, why would you need to cover your shirt unless you intend on covering yourself with crumbs and sauce.  It’s the mark of a barbarian.”

“Thank you,” Micah replied, smiling slightly and inkling his head toward the man.  He made no movie to adjust the napkin, instead picking up the solid silver steak knife from his place setting and twirling it once over his fingers to determine its balance.

“So you choose to play the part of the boor?”  The Empress asked, leaning forward slightly in her chair.  “Even risking our displeasure, this is the path you choose to walk?”

Her blessing stirred, uncoiling itself and stretching across the room.  It didn’t bother with Micah.  The Empress knew better from theri last meeting.  Instead it tried to sink its fangs into his friends.

“Why would you be displeased?” Micah countered, channeling his will through the crown to grasp and strangle the Empress’ blessing.  “By now I’m sure you’ve verified the information that I brought you along with the updated reports from Pereston.  I’ve provided Sandrovok with a great service several times over, all while suffering your doubt and scrutiny.”

“How did you do that?  She hissed back, eyes narrowing as her blessing was hauled back away from Trevor and Drekt.  “This is the second time you have thwarted our power when most weren’t even aware that it was being used.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Micah replied innocently.  “I consider the matter at hand to be too essential for minor power struggles.  Because of that, when someone lies a provocation at my feet, I simply overcome it and ignore it.  Really, it’s only worth bringing up if it looks like the situation will repeat itself and become a distraction if I don’t.”

The Empress’ durghish husband began laughing, slamming a large black hand onto the dining table while his wife glared at him.

“Kraegar,” she said reproachfully.  “I am trying to admonish and intimidate our guests.”

“Well it isn’t working,” the Durgh replied, leaning back in his chair with a giant smile on his face.  “Look at him.  He knows that we don’t have any leverage on him, but he’s here anyway.  You tried and failed but he still wants to help.  I think we should leave it at that and move on to strategic talks.”

“So boy,” he turned and winked at Micah.  “Just say you’re appropriately mollified and put in your place so that we can get on with our meal.  I’m hungry and the food will get cold if we keep playing games for the next hour.”

“Fine,” the Empress cut in.  “We are paranoid and would prefer some sort of hold over our allies, but we can skip ahead if you insist.  Lledaven, your summary report if you please.”

The elven husband leaned back in his chair and his eyes unfocused.  Micah felt a burst of magic and ritual energy as the man activated a blessing before he began speaking.

“Guildmaster Silver’s reports were correct.  Of the fifteen names on his initial accounting, only Manor Lady Hanna Jasmene was not a member of a daemon cult.  She was however included in some of the correspondence that he captured.  Evidently she was allowing the growth, refining, and smuggling of Hachiss vine extract out of her territory.  The Count was trying to lure her to join his cabal by aiding in her criminal enterprises while whispering against the crown.

“In fact,” Lledaven continued, “It seems that most of the traitors were engaged in more mundane illegal activities as well.  The common practice seemed to be that an established member of the group would approach a prospect and engage them in an illicit trade only to use that as an avenue to bind them closer and closer until the prospect of summoning daemons seemed reasonable.”

“In short,” the elf said grudgingly, “Guildmaster Silver was right, he was just early.  If we had investigated Jasmene in a half year, I believe she would have been part of the cult.”

“What about the rest of the correspondence?”  The human husband asked.  Micah remembered him from the previous timeline.  Christopher Darven was Gwen’s father and the Sandrovok Empire’s minster of coin and finance in the same way that Lledaven managed the spy network and Kraegar controlled the army.

“I know that my investigations have the potential to undermine trade,” the elf replied without a hint of remorse or softness, “but unfortunately, everyone mentioned in the correspondence is actively involved in one of the cults or is so enmeshed in other illegal activity that they would be lucky to escape with only a seizure of their land and titles.”

Servants entered the room, placing plates set with roast quail on a bed of greens in front of each of them.  For almost twenty seconds the only sound was the clink of silverware on plates as the workers cut their meat.  Then, they sat in silence as the employees filed out.

Finally, once the room was empty of anyone but Micah’s team and the royal family, the Empress spoke up once again.

“How did things get this bad?  Shouldn’t your shadows have caught a plot of this size before it gathered any momentum?”

“Because of what the scout team discovered,” Lledavan said with a sigh.  “Our resources were all spent monitoring the blessed that worked for the nobles.  Forgotten hardly matter in the grand scheme of things, and even if you used one as a spy, it’s hard to find one that will stay loyal, let alone carry enough clout to be used as an agent.  It created a blind spot in our security measures where we didn’t bother to check the comings and goings of manual laborers.  It turns out that Pereston has found a way to empower their forgotten to the point where they are as strong as a level twenty or thirty blessed.  Worse still, they appear to be able to create these special forgotten en masse, and it was those individuals that they slipped through our security network.”

“Wait,” Christopher responded, raising his hand to cut the elf off.  “You’re saying Pereston has spies that we know next to nothing about?  Do we have any idea how many and in what areas they are concentrated?  This has the potential to cripple us.”

“More importantly,” Kraegar chimed in, “do we know their numbers?  If not, it would be foolish for us to deploy an army against Pereston.  That’s likely exactly what they want, us to move our soldiers away from the capital only for their hidden forces to appear from the woodwork and seize the capital.”

“I don’t know,” the elf replied, frustration seeping into his voice.  “You must understand that other than some loose contact with larger gangs and guilds, I don’t have any sort of infrastructure set up in the slums where the forgotten live.  Even then, most of what I have is designed to let me know if goods are being smuggled or clandestine meetings are taking place.  There are over 150,000 forgotten in this city alone.  There’s no way for me to keep track of them, so no one has bothered to truly try.”

“150,000 potential soldiers,” the Empress said severely, her food sitting untouched in front of her.  “It does not matter if they are stuck between level 20 and 30.  Those numbers alone will overwhelm our more elite soldiers before Pereston’s regulars have a chance to arrive.  Tell us husband, you do not have the means to detect these irregulars now, but how will you go about rectifying this situation?  How long do we have before you are able to discover what it is that our neighbors have managed to bury in our country.”

The table fell into silence.  Nobody but Trevor was eating, but his gusto devouring the quail was easily ignored due to the heavy tension in the air.

“I do not have a way to detect them,” Lledaven responded slowly.  “My men have only captured two of them, and as best we can tell there is nothing to differentiate them from normal blessed except their ability to use their strange powers and an almost fanatical loyalty to Pereston.  Unless we are willing to torture each and every forgotten to the brink of death, there’s nothing we can do but assume that any one of them could betray us at any time.”

The Empress’ expression transformed from chilly to wintry in a fraction of a second.  Micah swore that he could almost see her pupils contract into vertical slits as she trembled with barely contained anger.

“You mean to say,” she began, enunciating each word with deadly precision, “that there is a network of disloyal nobles with access to a secret army that could be hidden within a league of this palace, and you have no way to determine who or where they are?  Maybe it would be easier for us to put our collective heads on a chopping block?  Save the barbarians in Pereston the effort of rounding us up.”

The elf wilted under her barrage.  Rather than looking for a response, he cast his eyes downward at his untouched food.

“I can find them,” Micah offered.  “The green fire is their souls bleeding.  Not many people can sense it, but it’s like a siren and a flashing light to me.  To be honest, there’s a non-zero chance that I detect anyone that interacts regularly with them.”

“What!”  Lledaven exclaimed, “How?  None of our Court wizards could make heads or tails of the magic powering them.”

“As I said,” Micah replied.  “It isn’t actually magic.  It’s closer to the powers you tap into when you perform rituals, just like a blessing.   As for how I do it?”

He shrugged, making eye contact with the Empress as he made a circular motion in the air.

“I can see blessings.  They’re gifts from the gods and feel natural.  The green fire is parasitic.  It burns the soul of the person using it and gives off a stench that I can smell a league away.”