86. Dealing with the Press (Patreon)

A sharp ruby gemstone glittered in my hand as I scratched deep, sparkling groves into the wooden table beneath me, focusing on keeping my lines on course and sticking my tongue out.

Voltara, who sat beside me, glanced over at me.

"What are you doing?" She asked.

"I'm planting Barries," I replied.

"Berries?" the maid blinked.

"No, Barries," I shook my head, scratching more lines into the table.

"I... see," Voltara stared at me, looking very confused.

"I made a promise to Barrie that I would make ten thousand of these and I keep my promises to my friends," I commented. "How's your new armacus, by the way?"

"I love it," Voltara grinned at me, caressing her silver bracelet. "I never thought that I'd get to own an actual armacus. I don't know if I can ever repay you for what you've done for me."

"Don't fret it," I reached into my pocket and slid another ruby gemstone towards Voltara. "Here. Help out. Your job is to copy what I am doing. Let's plant Barries together!"

She tried her best to copy the hexagrammic pattern onto her side of the table from a page in my notebook.

We worked together for a while, with me correcting and advising my friend's progress.

"Miss Misem, yes?" A deep voice resounded from above us, interrupting our scribbling.

I lifted my eyes away from my work, observing a serious-looking, large, balding man in an black and white suit with luscious sideburns, well-trimmed beard and fancy mustache.

"I am Fumbol Geremmiah Snikh," the man said, blue eyes staring down at me. "The Editor-in-chief of Illatius Daily."

"Pleasure to meetcha," I said. "Have a seat. We shall begin when everyone's here."

Fumbol sat down on the empty chair opposite of me. His eyes quickly examined the large, mostly empty, dark space. A single, small crystal lantern was hanging from the ceiling, lighting up the wooden table that we sat at.

"Was this shop here before?" He asked.

"No, your excellency, it was not," Humbell Pinch, the tall mustached reporter from Illatius daily said as he sat down next to his Editor.

"Hrrm," Fumbol's rubbed his chin.

Another, short man in a green suit with green eyes pushed the door open, curiously looking at the inexplicable shop that had a single wooden table inside it surrounded by eight simple chairs.

"Hey Iggitus," I waved a blue-veined hand at the newest arrival. "Join us!"

"Good day, Grogtilda," the reporter nodded at me.

Iggitus made his way towards the table and sat down.

"Where's your Editor?" I asked.

"Lord Ingrove is busy with other matters, but he authorized me to discuss and sign or reject the contract on behalf of the Highstreet Journal," Iggitus said.

The Editor and his tall reporter from Illatius Daily squinted at Iggitus.

The door swung open once again, revealing Appa Bolariss. 

The woman briskly marched directly over to us.

"Ah the Imperial Tribune is here too," Iggitus commented with a nasal tone.

"Is your Editor coming?" I asked Appa.

"I can get in touch with her via the armacus," the female reporter said, readjusting her glasses. "But I am authorized to make decisions on her behalf about this matter."

"Well that's everyone then," I said. "Volty, close the door please."

Voltara stood up and walked to the magisteel-reinforced door sliding the lock shut. She returned to my side.

I returned to my sketching.

The Editor and the three reporters stared at me, waiting. I kept on sketching.

"Khrm?" Appa cleared her throat, having grown tired of staring at me.

"Almost done," I said.

"What are you doing?" The female reporter asked.

"We're planting Barries," Voltara commented, scratching her own hexagram.

"What's a...?" The female scrivener asked.

"Shhh, don't distract us," I waved her off.

The four men and one woman waited as I finished my scratching and moved onto directing Voltara to finish hers. With every passing minute they looked more and more impatient.

In about five more minutes Voltara was done. I placed my palm over both of the hexagrams, pushing mana into them. As I filled them with my magic, I felt a distant touch of something incredibly vast briefly caressing my soul from the depths of the Astral. Barrie remembered me.

I opened my eyes to the faces of four extremely annoyed people. I grinned at the press representatives.

"Well, lady and gentlemen," I said. "You've all gone over the contract that my maid delivered to you a week ago, yes?"

"We have," Fumbol nodded. "It is the damn strangest contract I've seen."

The others nodded as well.

"The final clause is rather... irregular," Appa commented. "You want my newspaper to pay a fine of one million obliss per violation? That seems rather... Mmmmmm... Excessive."

"Correct," I said. "The classified information I will be sharing with you tonight and in the future is worth a lot more than that. There won't just be one story of my life shared with you - I will be revealing numerous sensational and shocking things to you during our meetings."

Fumbol rubbed his chin.

"Before I sign anything, I'd like to know who's standing behind you, girl," he said.

"I agree. Shops do not appear on their own in Diamondias," Iggitus nodded. "This situation is a lot more peculiar than what I had expected it to be. When you told me to find a shop without the sign in Diamondias between Goodleworth Jewelry and Marzipan Crux I thought that you were kidding."

"Lowborn girls do not walk around Illatius bearing a palladium magisteel armacus or get into Nemendias," Appa commented. "All of this is quite frankly mind-boggling. My editor would also like to know who is funding you. Who are we dealing with? Who is the contract really from? A lowborn girl could not have written it, even a lot of highborns would struggle to write something with so much legalese terminology."

"That's a Nemendias maid," Fumbol said eyeing Voltara. "She's wearing a palladium amarmacus too. Who in their right mind would buy a palladium armacus for a maid? She's really your maid and not a disguised constable, right?"

"She is my maid," I nodded.

"How can a lowborn afford a maid?" The big man mulled. "Who got her for you?"

I let the questions hang in silence, building up tension. When the reporters started to fidget I opened my mouth once again.

"Do you know of the Prism Archmagi?" I asked.

"Of course," Appa said. "Who does not know of the most noble Heroes that protect humanity!"

"Can any of you tell me their names?" I asked.

"Baroness Georgia, Baroness Amadea, bb... uhhh," the female reporter started bending her fingers. Upon reaching her third finger she froze. "Fiddlesticks! It seems have I have forgotten the other five."

"Other six," I said. "There are Eight Archmagi of the Prism Order. You have forgotten some… facts because the Prism Archmagi like their privacy. A magical edict has been enacted by them."

"Eight?" Appa blinked at me.

"Eight," I nodded. "You are all entirely correct in your assessment. Shops do not appear in Diamondias. Thirteen year old Debitors do not leave Undertown. The truth is that four years ago, the Eighth Archmage of the Prism Order woke up in Illatius after her rather long nap."

The Editor and the reporters stared at me with curios expressions.

"Millenea ago archmage Yulia Vladislava Ishenko suspended herself in a magical crystal so that one day she could return to the world of her children when they needed her most. Four years ago, she woke up and went exploring her… future. What she saw disappointed her greatly. She saw what some of her descendants have done and she was extremely displeased by it. She went down beneath Illatius and she found… Undertown," I narrated. "There in the slums made from trash she met a dying girl named Grogtilda and felt very sorry for her. The archmage adopted Grogtilda as her apprentice, uplifted and taught her everything she knew."

"Of course," Appa uttered. "It all makes sense now! Your odd accent, your unusual mannerisms, this shop, the armaci on you and your maid's wrists!"

Fumbol gulped.

"The Eighth Archmage wishes to fix Undertown," I said. "She wants to clear the streets of garbage, to turn the green river blue, to halt the gang violence and to end the unnecessary human suffering taking place beneath this city."

"A noble pursuit," the Editor of Illatis Daily nodded. "If rather impossible."

"There are far too many parties interested in keeping Undertown as the den of vice," Appa added. "It would take an truly insurmountable effort to make the nobles give up the gambling and prostitution parlors."

"Undertown in its current form cannot be allowed to continue," I said. "It enfeebles Illatius, it breeds hatred and darkness and it is the hole in our barrier shield, the weak point in the city's defenses."

"Many attempted to fix Undertown over the centuries and none have succeeded," Appa sighed.

"My Patron is willing to spend her resources on it," I said.

"If anyone could do it… it would have to be the Eighth Hero," the Illatius Daily reporter mulled.

"War with Novazem is coming," I said darkly. "We cannot allow weakness and rot to take place so close to Illatius. We will all perish when the hordes of undead overrun Illatius from the below. If we do not fix Undertown the enemies of our Empire will turn it against us when they strike!"

"A prophecy?" Appa covered her mouth.

"A doomed timeline," I nodded. "In which everyone dies."

"C-can it be prevented?" Fumbol asked. "Surely, the Emperor knows. Surely the aristocracy and the military have plans..."

"The aristocracy of Illatius have done nothing to fix Undertown," I barked, slamming my fist into the table. "They do not operate on a timeline of a millennia-old archmage, cannot see the future far enough ahead."

"Fair enough," the Editor of Illatius Daily wiggled his moustache. "Still... the terms of the contract you offered me are rather... like those of a hostile takeover. Your Patron wants you to guide what we publish, yes?"

"Yes," I nodded. "My words are those of my Patron."

"I understand your Patron's wishes, but we cannot just act as your puppets," the man shook his head, looking very bothered.

"As if you're not the puppet of your Barony," Appa laughed.

The Editor of Illatius Daily glared at Appa.

"You think you're better than me?" He hissed.

"Would you prefer to see my Patron's sword instead?" I asked, interrupting their spat by pulling Endy from my belt. "The contract I gave you offers fair collaboration. You will print positive and negative stories about my achievements, embellish them as you desire. The choice is yours, you can make mountains of gold by being the ones to promote me and guide Illatius to a bright tomorrow or..."

I snapped my fingers. Hundreds of chimera hunters silently filled the empty space in seconds.

"Biomancy modified knights!" Appa stared at the chimera, her eyes wide in terror. "They really exist!"

"Anyone leading the future towards the fall of our Empire will be executed or vanish beneath the city," I said coldly, staring at the horrified reporters. "Their newspapers will be declared an enemy of humanity and their offices will burn."

"I... I can't just print anything," Fumbol whispered. "I own Illatius Daily but my investors..."

"Collaboration," I tapped the table with Endy. "You will collaborate with us. There is still time to turn the future away from the coming catastrophe. We will start with a soft touch. If your... investors have problems with the true stories you print, let me know their names and they will be handled one way or... another."

I traced Endy across the table.

Appa paled further.

"You will also cease tracking and bothering Princess Agatha Amadea," I said sternly. "Your actions in harassing her are little steps driving us towards extinction. You will tell me which investors of yours are interested in making our future Empress distracted and miserable. Perhaps they are in cahoots with the necromage agents of Novazem."

"Agatha will be our Empress?" The female reporter asked, her hands trembling.

"It is in my Patron's interest that she becomes Empress," I nodded.

"Will you require Vows from us?" Fumbol asked.

"No," I shook my head. "Vows are another step that leads Illatius to its inevitable destruction. My Patron desires to end ALL Vows. Tell me if any others in your employ are bound by Vows. They will be freed."

"What?" Fumbol stared at me, his face twitching unnaturally. "Vows are not something that can just be broken, girl!"

"The Eighth archmage taught me how to kill Vows," I said staring at the Editor of Illatius Daily in the Astral. "I reckon, I'll start with you, Mr. Snikh."

My fingers sent a silent order. A paralyzing dart fired by a chimera hunter struck Fumbol in the neck. The fat man slumped down onto the table. Controlled by me, Voltara's Vow wound loops of gold thread around the ghostly fungus floating above the paralyzed Editor of Illatius Daily.

The Vow above the man struggled, tried to get loose, but it was smaller, weaker than Voltara's one. I climbed onto the table and swung Endy through the air.

I struck the Editor's Vow with Endy again and again, damaging its form. The Phantom's blood spilled through the Astral Ocean like clouds of fading silver dust.

I had no idea where its mind ended or began, but it didn't matter. The damned people-binding monstrosity wasn't getting away from me.

In a desperate attempt to win, it rushed towards me, tried to attack me.

It was a fatal mistake. The Vow's attack was its undoing.

"Astral Phantom!" I growled as the Vow struck me, its jellyfish-like threads clawing at my armor. "Get him, Barrie!"

Barrie's hexagrams etched into the table with my chimera hair and powered by my magic ignited beneath me. A hundred hexagrams that I had scratched into my armor throughout the week ignited too, wherever the Vow touched them. Enormous Barrier hexagrams lit all around the room, activated by my action, bringing a little piece of the Phantom-murdering, semi-sentient concept into the room from the catacombs beneath Diamondias.

A thousand ghostly fingers reached out from the Barrier hexagrams tearing at the Vow. The Astral jellyfish flailed, flapped its tentacles around wildly as Barrie started to squeeze the life out of it.

Barrie's fingers finished what I started, tearing through the weakened hostile Vow like it was made from paper. I severed the final gold threads that connected the phantom to the man on the table.

"Wake him up," I ordered.

A chimera hunter poked the passed out Editor's neck with a bone-tipped needle and slapped the man across the face.

"W-wha….?" Fumbol blinked groggily as the paralytic agent cleared from his spine.

"Is your Vow gone?" I asked.

"It… it is!" The Editor looked up at the remnants of the torn gold shreds, his mouth open. “He’s… gone!”

I nodded sagely and climbed down off the table.

"It was binding you to obedience to your Baron, yes?" I asked.

The Editor nodded.

The reporters stared at me, their eyes wide in shock. I snapped my finger.

Chimera hunters stepped forward and slid the contracts towards the Editor of Illatius Daily and the others.

“Sign it,” I ordered.

The chimera hunters handed the scriveners and the Editor magitek pens made by Antoine.

With a shaking hand Fumbol signed the contract that legally bound him into printing exactly what I wanted him to print. My takeover of the bothersome press was complete.

"Now, who wants to donate their snapper to me?" I asked the sullen-looking group. "I'll be in Nemendias soon and I can't wait to take photos of the place!"