Spellheart 9: Chapter 20 (Patreon)

I left the cultivation chamber and stopped only for a quick shower in my personal quarters before heading out to meet Sam and Dean. Mac could keep them company for a few minutes. I found the two of them in one of the upper rooms of the castle, playing a modified version of chess. Each piece was an intricately carved elf warrior woman. The main difference between this game and the one I knew was a second level overhead. This board was larger, and every piece on it was a stage more powerful than those on the lower level.

"Invent a new game while I was away?" I asked as the door swung open.

Sam shook his head as he moved a piece on the upper board. "Not really. This was an elven game long before we arrived here. We suspect the original humans who helped build this world came up with it. The idea is the same as chess, except like with most large-scale battles between armies here, there's always another more powerful battle going on overhead. While the mage acolytes and the true mages fight it out on the ground, wizards and sorcerers clash in the sky above."

Sam waved his hand and put the board away now that I had arrived. Dean didn't protest since, by the looks of things, he was losing badly. The two of them turned to me with serious expressions.

"Let me guess," I sighed. "You brought bad news."

"Really bad," Dean shook his head sadly. "Horrible, in fact. You have to get all dressed up and go to some stupid party."

"Come again?"

Sam cleared his throat to clarify. "The Cult of the Unblinking Eye has offered to mediate the dispute between you and the Satyr King. Realistically, he can't afford to lose face by allowing you to get away with killing his son, no matter what trouble he caused in the Hearthwood. You're going to have to show up, say you're sorry, and then offer him some token gift that he can show off at home and claim he avenged his son's death and that nobody dares to disrespect the Satyr King. Basically, it's international politics."

"Horrible indeed..."

Sam chuckled. "You're a patriarch of a great clan, Theo. You're going to have to get used to doing this kind of stuff."

"That's right!" Dean laughed. "You should have stayed as my daughter's vassal, quietly tucked away in Deania. She actually declared you free and independent so that Deania wouldn't get caught up in the trouble you'd brought upon yourself."

I sighed. "I do wish I could have stayed low-key a while longer."

Dean grinned. "After the dust clears from the end of this golden age and wipes out Deania, I'm going to build a tiny little clan of powerhouses like Sam here. There's no sense in trying to build a continent-spanning kingdom. Too much of a pain in the ass. In fact, maybe you can manage and rule the continent-spanning empire, and I'll just have a little sect inside it like Sam."

I chuckled. "We'll see how this meeting goes before I agree to anything. I take it from the way you two are prepping me that it's both very important and very unlikely to go smoothly."

Sam nodded. "That's about right. But we'd be lousy friends if we didn't prepare you as best we can."

The two of them spent the next few hours walking me through how these meetings usually went. They explained how someone of my station should dress and comport themselves. They told me what we'd eat and drink, helped recreate the location the meeting would take place in using the Simulation Chamber, and generally ran me through everything that could reasonably be expected to happen.

"I demand you crawl on all fours and kiss my hoof!" Dean said in his haughtiest tone as he wore a fake pair of horns and pretended to be the satyr king.

"I must respectfully decline, but I will once again offer my sincere apologies for the death of your son and provide compensation accordingly," I replied, almost robotically by this point. Sam and Dean had walked me through this process so many times that I didn't even need to think about the answers.

"You have passed my final test!" Dean threw the horns aside, reached behind his back, and pulled out three mugs filled to the brim with beer. "Now, a few drinks to celebrate, and then we'll hit the road!"

Sam took the beers away. "No drinking and flying. That's never ended well for you."

"Aww..." Dean sighed, but he perked up again when we were in the air.

Although all three of us could fly, with or without vehicles, Sam suggested it was more reasonable for us to arrive by airship. Though far slower than a Teleportation Array, it was better to have a small space to call your own during one of these meetings. The Satyr King would certainly have his own fully crewed airship with its own servants. Most importantly, there wouldn't be any listening devices hidden within the room.

I was supposed to bring along a token staff and escort. Originally, I would have opted for Illiel and Tivana. Both had level heads and were experienced in matters of statecraft. Unfortunately, both of them were also Dean's descendants, which would have made the whole flight a bit awkward. In the end, I brought Yorik and Amisra. While neither knew statecraft, both were tough women experienced in keeping straight faces during important meetings and dealing with people when things went south. At the very least, they'd be less likely to get me into additional trouble than any of my other companions. Eltiana had volunteered to come along, and I shuddered at what might have happened if she'd shown up.

Besides the two of them, I also brought Mayatania. She knew the Satyrs better than anyone else in the Hearthwood, having lived in their world for so long. She'd be the best source of information I had on them. She had been a little nervous to go, but I promised to keep her safe.

"Don't worry, you'll be there with me the whole time. And two demigods," I nodded to Sam and Dean as I escorted Mayatania onto the airship.

"They might be mad at me," Mayatania ran her fingers through a strand of her own hair. "I was a trusted servant once. I used my position to flee to this world. What if they... what if they try to take me back?" She worried at her lip with her teeth.

I snorted. "They won't be taking you back, trust me. If you're really worried, you can stay in the airship the whole time. I just want you there in case I need your advice."

Eventually, Mayatania boarded the ship, anxious or not.

***

Sam called his airship over from the Fateweaver Society, complete with a few of the Fateweaver Society Oracles and some underlings to pilot it. "Your room is in the usual place, Dean. All the rooms are extra padded and fully soundproofed, as usual," Sam said.

Sam directed Yorik, Amisra, Mayatania, and me to another set of guest rooms on the opposite side of the airship. It was considerably larger than the one Baroness Jynna had inherited from Dean, and the amenities were accordingly more luxurious. It was as if whoever had built this ship had tripled everything in size. Space was actually twisted within the airship, so it occupied little space but had a sprawling interior fit for a palace, complete with saunas, swimming pools, massage parlors, and bars.

Sam and Dean had something of a bring-your-own-staff policy, and I saw a few people from the palace mixed in among the members of the Fateweaver Society. The three of us parted ways to set our things down and relax a little before reconvening for another discussion of what was going to happen in the upcoming meeting, and perhaps a quick board game as well.

In the meantime, I reconvened with Yorik and Amisra for some private time. The two were warm and great to hold. Fit and well-muscled, Yorik was the only woman who could fill my arms on her own. Amisra was pretty toned for an elf, though; all that training with the royal guard had put some muscle on her bones and made her a bit sturdier than most elves. But I flipped both of them over on the bed easily enough. Mayatania played her part as my little assistant. She didn't know the dual cultivation technique, so she was confined to just being an extra set of hands for me. But that was still plenty of fun, and she was used to serving such a role when visiting Sava in the alchemist's laboratory. She was very accustomed to holding beakers while Sava harvested vitality from me.

A bit of relaxing dual cultivation later, the alarm I'd set started buzzing, and I left to reconvene with Sam and Dean, who were both already waiting for me in the airship's game room.

"Ha, there's our slowpoke!" Dean grinned.

I grinned back at him. "Dean, this is one of those times when it's good to be the slowpoke. You weren't here first, were you?"

That wiped the smile off Dean's face and replaced it with furrowed brows. Sam laughed.

"Now... we're playing a new game..." Sam began, gesturing to the table. It was covered with figurines that looked a lot like satyrs. There was an empty chair before the table, and before it stood a single figurine of myself. "It's called Interplanetary Diplomacy! I invented it a century ago to help Dean with something. Anyway, now I get to break out the rulebook again. Let's go!"

***

The trip took several days. We passed over seas and scorching deserts, and soon left the Groveguard Continent behind completely. It wasn't long ago that my knowledge of this world was confined entirely to the area around Deania. And now, I'd seen not just one, but two other continents.

Unlike the last one we visited, which never truly recovered from the end of the last golden age and now had the damage of a dragon attack to contend with, this continent was completely in the opposite direction. We'd flown far enough west that most elves here considered themselves to be on the eastern edge of civilization. The architecture here had a truly ancient look to it, as if it hadn't just been around since the beginning of this golden age, but had been passed down from the last one. They favored sandstone and marble in their construction and built thick, wide, domed buildings accordingly. The elves I saw milling about on the ground were of varied appearance, but on the whole, they skewed toward a sun-kissed Mediterranean complexion with lightly curled hair.

They wore even fewer clothes than those in Deania, as the climate was even warmer here. Being almost all female, the elves had no need for modesty, and their bodies grew all the more enticing the higher their cultivation levels. So, in a way, showing off their bare skin was a greater display of wealth than any amount of finery.

The air was filled with airships, though all were of a different design from what I was familiar with. They were made of graceful wooden curves, bent or grown into sweeping arcs that formed birds of prey. A few even articulated along the wings as though they were giant birds.

We came upon an enormous city split into three sections as two rivers met right in the middle and joined into one. The city was so large it bled directly into its adjacent towns, and eventually into villages. While a portion of the city was walled, it looked to have spilled out of those walls centuries ago, and now most of the city stood in the open.

There were towering marble temples that reminded me of ancient Greece, and the walls of all of them were painted with bright and lively colors. Here and there along building walls were intricate frescoes depicting figures built like gods, most of them male humans.

There were sculptures as well, mostly of bronze, but a few in the wealthier districts seemed to be made of solid gold. There were both human and elven statues here, but the human men always stood proud with their arms outstretched, looking toward the sky or spreading their arms wide as though to embrace the city. Each of them looked like heroes of legend, and I spotted the same couple of figures more than once. One looked like it had been James. Another I suspected depicted the Sunspire King.

The elven statues were universally smaller, either clinging to the side of their human companions or kneeling before those same human statues as they presented tribute in the form of gold, gemstones, or their own bodies.

It was quite evident that the Cult of the Unblinking Eye played a much more direct role in ruling this nation than Sam and Dean had done in Deania. "We want to land near that building there," Sam pointed near one of the largest temples, and the pilot at the front of the airship took us down. We landed as lightly as a feather, and the doors opened.

"I'll go first," Dean said, hefting his axe over his shoulder. The way he glanced to either side of the airship door before stepping out made me a little wary of following behind him, but he turned back and flashed us all a big thumbs up. "Seems legit to me!" Dean smiled at us before tucking his axe away and stepping out the door.

Sam followed him, and when he looked around and gave our surroundings his approval, I felt a lot more confident in following him out. What I found on the other side had me gawking like a tourist. There were rows upon rows of elves standing in neat, even rows before the entrance to our airship. The two at the end had just finished rolling out a long red carpet, and all those standing to the side bowed in unison the moment we showed our faces.

"We greet the masters from distant lands," the elves spoke in a rehearsed voice. "The Unblinking Eye welcomes you."

My eyebrows rose. Every elf stood still and expressionless. It was almost eerie how they moved in unison. Each of them had blank, expressionless faces, and from my mind magic, I got the vague sense that they were awaiting orders and would remain bowed until someone told them to do something else.

"Stand up straight," I said. "Enough bowing."

Immediately, two hundred elves straightened and stood with their arms to their sides and their eyes straight ahead.

"This is a bit creepy," I muttered.

Sam clapped a hand on my shoulder. "Yeah, Dean and I parted ways with these guys when things started getting weird. You're just going to have to bear with their tastes during our stay. This is their little display of power. They want to show they're stronger than any of our respective factions."

I looked over the rows of blank-faced elves, and only after Sam said so did I think to check their power.

Elven Servant of the Cult of the Unblinking Eye (Level 30, Early Wizard Realm)

Elven Servant of the Cult of the Unblinking Eye (Level 30, Early Wizard Realm)

My eyes widened as I scanned the crowd. "That's a lot of wizards."

Dean snorted. "It's not as impressive as it looks. The Cult has a way of promoting True Mages to Wizards by transferring power from one elf to another. It's a bit like dual cultivation, but remove all the fun and replace it with pain. Anyway, it makes True Mages into Wizards, but sacrifices all future progress they might have made."

"I see..."

No matter how the Cult of the Unblinking Eye had done this, they clearly had more wizards than Sam, Dean, and I combined. And we certainly couldn't get all our wizards to line up for some silly greeting ceremony. They were all in important positions leading clans or their respective organizations.

If they could spare this many for something as frivolous as this, how many more wizards did the Cult of the Unblinking Eye have to call upon? Even if these wizards weren't fighters of the highest quality, quantity was a resource all on its own.

But I kept such thoughts to myself and put on the formal and placid expression I'd spent the last few days practicing with Sam and Dean. The game was about to begin.

"Ah, our guests have arrived at last!" spoke a male voice I hadn't heard before.

<Note>

So I introduced James and the Sunspire King. Did I introduce Alexander from the cult? I sketched out his character literally years ago, but I can't remember if I used him or not. I might just make a new character because I don't want to reuse the name if I've already used it.