Chapter: 231 Bonus - City Lord, Cuan, & Be-thric (Patreon)

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<Contains   content which may be considered grimdark>
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The City Lord of Platoiri sat in his tall tower, ignoring the idiot Eskau who attended him that day.

It was some type of beast-man or other, considered ancient, wise, and powerful by his House.

Laughable.

A child in the grand scheme of the world.

The Eskau and Pillars of this generation were stagnating.

They clashed and jockied.

They strove for status, but for what did it matter who could make the tallest pile in an outhouse.

Even the unaffiliated ‘masters’ who were supposedly obsessed with their own progression were insultingly weak, even if they achieved laudable rank.

The City Lord grimaced, and he felt the ambient magic react, crushing his own leg.

He stifled any expression of pain, filling his life-paths with power and repairing the damage nearly instantly.

His attendants never noticed these unhappy accidents, not even that human girl.

Now, she was interesting.

Even in the single week between her two times attending him, he had felt growth within her.

Her gate was open just a little wider, and as much of a cheat as even having a gate was, it still showed that she was straining against her boundaries.

Her mundane barrier, some sort of iron paint he would guess, was fascinating in its simplicity. He could think of a dozen ways that that should have killed her, but she must have very carefully selected her magics, as she was clearly still breathing.

Her density had been a little greater as well, making it actually slightly difficult to rip her arm free. It still hadn’t been a challenge, but it hadn’t been trivial as it would be with virtually anyone else in the city.

He’d examined the arm after she left and found quite a few fascinating things.

First, there were no precious metals, save a few rings of gold on the back of the hand, implying that most of her inscriptions were always active.

Well, the brief moment when she’d been armless, he’d seen the magical forms in the air, so he’d known she had some active, but he hadn’t expected it to be nearly all.

Always ready for a fight, as is simply wise.

Second, her flesh and bones were unusually resilient, even after they were disconnected from her soul and her power. This implied fundamental, mundane changes imposed via magical means.

That level of bio-magical engineering was astonishing, and the ability to empower it more so. At least in anyone under a few centuries in age.

If his memory wasn’t failing him, and it certainly was not, he wouldn’t expect the discovered level of bodily endurance in a human until it was fully Refined.

After all, he’d de-limbed enough Refined to know the feel instinctively.

Ahh, those were the days. He considered a brief foray into the wild human lands, but their upper echelon were getting better at defense, and he’d not find fodder unless he was willing to take his time and sneak in.

Not worth the hassle.

Which led to the third thing. Every aspect of her arm had remnants of damage and inhibition from impurity, as the human’s called it.

The foolish child had somehow corrupted her own flesh with compounding misalignments of magic to the extent that her very natural magics propagated the issues each time it enhanced her or repaired an injury.

It would shorten her life considerably, maybe even as much as cutting it in half if she stagnated, and would make the next steps much harder, however they were accomplished.

He had never been able to discover that secret, regrettably.

More fascinating, however, was the fact that those impurities should make her flesh weaker, which meant that she would be a true titan if she ever reached Refined.

It might be worth helping her advance just for a good fight. Not that it would be a challenge. It wouldn’t just be instant victory, and he did so bore of easy supremacy.

There were those in the city whom he could spar with, but it was unseemly for a City Lord to fight to a draw, and any victory against those would take too long for a simple sparring match.

There is no middle ground. Once again, he lamented the lacking juniors. Below himself and the other Old Guard, there stood a wide gulf in power in which no one resided.

At least not nearby.

As to the human cities, the City Lord knew of the House of Blood’s plans, he had even authorized the girl’s departure from his city, in order to attend the counsel of Pillars of that House.

If he were to be honest with himself, he was of two minds: He wanted to know the secret, but he also suspected the plan would fail catastrophically.

“City Lord? Can I bring you anything?”

The City Lord held his disdain in check, waving away the young fool.

A real war would certainly remove the chafe. In that, his two minds were united. Regardless of the outcome, he would revel in the result.

* * *

Cuan was in paradise even as he worked on an array of interlocking magical creation at the bottom of a lake within the main hold of the House of Blood.

He was no longer expected to fight, and his passion had become his true profession.

Cuan had been decisive in his decision to surrender his protian weapon to Pillar Be-thric, and he had been proven right every day since.

The House of Blood truly functioned with honor.

No one looked down on him for his lineage, half-hue-folk and half-beast-folk were rarely welcomed into the upper echelons, and even after he had been selected as a candidate Eskau, he hadn’t truly been treated as an equal in the House of the Turbulent Ocean.

But the House of Blood? They genuinely didn’t seem to care about his lineage, or how he looked. They didn’t even balk at his dietary requirements.

There were servants and guards, Pillars and Eskau of every type, and they were judged based on their actions and those alone.

They even have a human Eskau! It was scandalous, but her effectiveness was indisputable.

He remembered when his House had found out about her existence. The information had been viewed skeptically in the extreme, but it was, indeed, true.

He almost laughed. The other Houses in the city didn’t treat Pillar Be-thric's acquisitions of protian weapons as seriously as they normally would, because he was attached so closely to rumors of a human Eskau.

They all knew that to be impossible, so they didn’t take the new ‘Pillar’ seriously.

They were all, Cuan included, fools.

She was terrifying.

Cuan now knew that if he hadn’t agreed to hand over his weapon, she would have taken it with little effort.

His guards—his minders—had failed to stop her when they had often put him in his place when the House didn’t agree with his decisions, actions, or opinions.

If I’d refused, I’d have died for nothing.

Now? Now he was living like an Eskau without the duties, without the danger, and without the constant sound of seagulls.

The House of the Turbulent Ocean definitely loved their seagulls, always ensuring every one of their holds had innumerable birds to ‘remind them of their true home.’

All it had reminded Cuan of was that his parents had thrown him onto the beach after his birth, and he’d never seen or heard from them since.

He was going to be able to head to another city soon. A city where his previous allegiance was unknown. Hopefully one without the House of the Turbulent Ocean present at all.

There, he would truly start his new life, wholly devoted to his new House.

He used his magics to slightly alter the intricate interconnections between the magics within the stones he was realigning, and felt a satisfying click with his magical sense.

There, fixed. This wasn’t even a task he had been assigned. He’d requested permission to alter the water filtration and circulation magics after he’d detected inefficiencies, and he’d been given permission instantly.

In his previous House, he would have either been barred because such tasks were unseemly for an Eskau, or barred because one of ‘his kind’ weren’t to be trusted with sensitive magics.

Yes, the House of Blood was truly the superior House, it was an agent of change.

If what I hear is right, Eskau Tali is forcing a lot of people to test their prejudices, shifting a lot of minds regarding humans. This might be a chance for things to get better for everyone. Proof that some of the base assumptions of society are wrong.

He dearly hoped so.

Humans were often held up as the prime example, as proof of the existence and relevance of the hierarchy of power. But if there existed humans like Tali within the major Houses?

We might all be able to live in a world like that within the House of Blood.

* * *

Be-thric leaned back, exceedingly pleased with himself.

With casual contentment, he popped a grape into his mouth, pulled from his own dimensional storage.

The power imbued within made the usually sweet fruit taste rather spicy. It was a glorious treat, and he thoroughly enjoyed each of the dozens he ate each day.

A petitioner was droning on about how an association with the House of Blood would help make his business more profitable. Obviously.

He also was adamant that he could bring benefit to the House through the association. Possible.

As boring as the man was, Be-thric listened with rapt attention for one single reason: He was the sole decider of this man’s petition.

The wolf-man had come with his son to meet with Be-thric, and while the father was…loquacious to the extreme, the boy was concise and clear the few times he spoke.

There was no doubt that the current venture was on its last legs and would fail without involvement of a backer like the House of Blood. Even with the House’s sponsorship it wasn’t a sure thing, but Be-thric felt there were merits in the endeavor.

If he would just get to the end of this plea. Trying to discern the core of the concepts from the man’s speech was like digging for gold in a river of pyrite.

He knew from experience with others that cutting the man off, however reasonably or politely, would not end productively.

This is likely why he was turned away by everyone else. So, Be-thric listened…patiently.

Nearly an hour later, the petitioner finished his pleas by prostrating himself before Be-thric.

“If the great Pillar wishes, I am at his disposal, and if you allow us, we will serve the House of Blood to our utmost.”

Be-thric nodded, leaning forward. “Remind me of your name.”

The wolf-man lifted his head and blinked a few times. “I am Madadh, my lord Pillar.”

Be-thric waved him off. “No, no, your name was clear. I meant you.” He pointed to the son.

The son was a reddish-brown wolf where his father was closer to gray. The son was also clearly at least three decades old. “I am Allaidh, my lord Pillar.”

“Good, good. I am favorably inclined to your proposal.”

The two wolf-men looked at each other with hope clearly building across their features.

Bleed me, if they start wagging their tails, I’ll refuse on the instant. “However, I feel the reason for your difficulties is clear.”

They leaned forward attention on him once more, ready to listen closely, clearly hopeful for a bit of advice.

“The House of Blood will partner with you in this venture on one condition. Madadh will step down as leader, and take on an advisory role, and Allaidh will be in charge of the venture.”

The wolf-men looked back in stunned silence for a long moment before the young one bowed. “My apologies, my lord Pillar, but I will not usurp my father’s place. It would not be right. Besides, he knows the ins-and-outs of our business and this venture in particular.”

“And your loyalty is to be commended. That is why I suggested an advisory role for your father. His knowledge is incredibly vast and indispensable, but he lacks decisiveness and, more importantly, conciseness. We would lose out on the deal simply from the manpower required to interface with him to monitor the progress and provide what was needed.”

The gray wolf seemed to hunch in on himself slightly, clearly chastened, even as his son turned to him, muttering something that Be-thric didn’t bother to hear.

I could just nudge them to accept. It was tempting.

It would be such a small working that no one would ever know, but it would be a violation, a breach of his sworn oath, and Be-thric was nothing if not a man of his word.

I will only influence the minds of lesser beings.

While these two were lesser than him in many ways, Be-thric knew what his teacher had meant.

Beasts and humans, for the defense of the House.

Be-thric’s borderline-taboo power was for the good of the House, not to make his life easier. He’d stretched the bounds both of his oath and his own honor with his Eskau, but Sanguis had been forced to agree that she did, indeed, greatly add to the defense of the House. And she’s human.

It was an indulgence on the edge of breaking his given word that he would not tolerate within himself again. I will be better every day.

The two had begun to discuss animatedly, their words failing to reach Be-thric as they’d somehow altered their surroundings to contain the conversation.

He wasn’t interested enough to investigate how they had accomplished this. Still, I wonder…

Be-thric sighed. “I do not have infinite time, gentlemen. Allaidh, had you presented alone you might have had an hour of my time to come to a decision, but alas, you did not. I have another appointment and will depart this audience chamber in five minutes. At that time, the offer will be retracted.”

The two briefly seemed like they were going to object, but then they turned and fell back into hushed discussion behind their magic working.

It was impressive that it easily let his words in while hiding their own. Maybe, I’ll investigate if they agree. He probably wouldn’t, but he might.

Be-thric turned back fully to his own thoughts, and those thoughts centered around his Eskau.

He’d left her at the guild’s hold, and he had utter confidence in her ability to destroy the automata that the fools had created.

Honestly, he couldn’t fathom their hubris. Everyone knew that anything to do with automata was forbidden, and he’d even discovered evidence that they’d directly researched the Black Legion. For that alone, he could end their guild.

He smiled to himself at the power this knowledge would bring him, and by extension the House of Blood.

His Eskau would erase the issue, and he would capitalize on that result.

Tali truly is a masterpiece. My masterpiece.

She really was, too. If he were being honest, she would have a good chance of killing him, if the current version of her met him from before his raising. He had streamlined her into a lethal monster. Unlike the mess she was before.

He still remembered engaging her briefly in the human lands. She’d been durable, sure, but she’d also been unable to truly fight back. Now, she is better.

He, himself, had grown significantly since his raising, but that was to be expected.

Thorn had been an unexpected surprise delivered with his master, Gallof, again, by Tali.

The former prospective Pillar had become an invaluable asset in Be-thric’s day to day life, and the dwarf was good for his Eskau, too.

Though their association had brought about unexpected results.

That was just the nature of the mind, however. Even with an entirely blank slate, Tali couldn’t be fully customized to his every whim. There were simply too many variables, and he was not a Sovereign.

Even so, he was more than pleased. There was already talk of having her train some of the next batch of candidates, once he and she returned from the human lands.

There shouldn’t be any issue getting that approved. They would leave for the conclave in just a few weeks, though from what Be-thric understood after his politicking, it was more or less a formality.

He felt himself smile once again.

Honestly, his Eskau had surprised him with her initiative. He’d thought he made Tali too subservient, and he had been beginning to question the wisdom of that, but ever since their raising, she’d truly excelled.

Her latest idea was simply inspired.

It was all arranged, now.

Together, they would strike at a minor house as it hosted a candidate Eskau from one of their rivals.

The raid would signal to other minor houses what courting rivals of the House of Blood meant, as well as gain him a fourth protian weapon, and strike a direct blow against the rival.

Three victories at a single stroke. He couldn’t be more proud.

If she weren’t human, I’d be tempted to marry her. Sanguis had even suggested that, but the idea was laughable.

In truth, Sanguis hadn’t been truly serious, as Be-thric and his fellow Pillar shared many sentiments, but it had to be considered. Considered and discarded.

One never married their dog, no matter how loyal or fantastic of a dog it might be.

Speaking of… “Time is up.”

He stood, and Allaidh bowed. “We accept.”

His father was still obviously not pleased, but he looked more resigned than truly angry or belligerent.

Be-thric allowed his smile to spread. “Good. I will have my adjunct draw up the contracts. Gallof?”

Gallof stepped forward from where he’d been waiting just outside of Be-thric’s peripheral vision. Out of sight, yet near enough to be immediately useful. As all servants should be.

“Yes, lord Pillar?”

“See that it is done.”

“Yes, lord Pillar.”

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