Augmented Aspects: Chapter 151 The Marriage Contract (Patreon)

Chapter 151

The Marriage Contract

“Marriage contract?” Mallory asked, the words hitting her like a brick to the mind, temporarily causing her to pause.

“Yes, a Marriage contract to ensure lasting peace and civility.” I responded.

Silence.

Mallory stared at me for a long moment, then finally let out a laugh.

“HAHAHA! Oh, that was good, you nearly got me there.” Mallory stated.

I just stare at her, maybe I wince slightly at her response as she quickly realizes that I am being truthful.

“Wait, what? You are serious, a marriage contract? Who, you can’t marry anyone. You are just fourteen. Even this world has laws.” Mallory noted.

“You are correct. As my lowly position of Doctor, within the Guild was sadly not high enough to pull this off. To get the type of long lasting peace accords where we never had to worry about being attacked or otherwise targeted by members of the elven city of Deolar, there needed to be a merger of heads of family.” I state.

“A what now?” Gwen asked, confused as she had heard everything and was already approaching this entire time to hear what was currently being discussed.

With that I shrug and pull-out glowing document. Well, a document that glowed to me, this was the same glow that most major questlines would have. I didn’t know if it glowed to everyone, even those that didn’t have the related quest activated or not.

Gasp.

Gwen gasped upon seeing the glowing document. Apparently, she could see the coloring and it glowed to her senses even though she herself had not yet partaken in the questline leading up to this point. This was interesting as it meant our Angel’s Sight could also let us know when people were progressing their own personal quest lines. Or maybe just quest lines that involved the witnesses to the various transactions somehow, as this questline invariably would involve Gwen and every other member of the Midnight Hunters Guild.

Seeing me holding up the sealed parchment, complete with the frozen wax seal of the Deolar King’s signet ring, Mallory too became a little more cautious as she was no longer able to shrug off everything that was happening.

“This is?” Mallory asked, tentatively holding up a finger to point towards the document.

“The Marriage Contract.” I stated, then with a quick movement I caused the document to touch her outstretched finger.

Trumpets chiming.

The second the scroll touched Mallory’s fingers loud trumpets one would associate with the heralding of angels descending to earth chimed out and echoed. Not just in the territories that hosted Midnight Hunters Guild members, but I could also feel a sympathetic echo resonating from the entrance to the city of Deolar behind us.

“Holy sh…” Mallory cut herself off, that or maybe her mind couldn’t keep up with everything to produce the last word, but the end result was the same. She blinked rapidly, then stared at the document before her.

“What is this?” Mallory finally asked, regaining her composure and taking the document from my outstretched hand.

“A Marriage Contract for a Treaty.” I stated. “Though it might be best just to think of it as a minor step needed to make a permanent treaty with the armed forces that simultaneously occupies the same ground as we do.”

“Yes, you mean the Territory Wars Campaigns.” Mallory stated, referencing something that all Guilds had to face at one time. If a Guild wanted to claim land, they invariably had to not only survive the first thirty-day trial, which we already had. But then they would often have to fight off a different territory or empire that had some long dormant claim to the territory that would only be called upon once the land was built up and deemed to be worthy of fighting for. This was a way to both create tension, while also forcing a newly established Guild or empire to make treaties and work with neighboring kingdoms to subjugate the forces that would inevitably rise against them.

“Honestly, I thought we would have somehow avoided this part of our build up, given how far removed we are from everyone and anyone of note.” Mallory said, as she tried to open the document, only to find it locked.

Seeing Mallory struggle, I having had the same issue earlier spoke up. “Yeah, that is a cool piece of archaic magic. You need to use your blood to open it. As only the blood of the person offering the Treaty can be used to first create the treaty. Then the person who represents the second party of the Treaty must use their blood to unlock the seal.”

With that Mallory paused and looked at me with questioning eyes.

“You tried to open this?” Mallory asked.

“Of course, it was new magic. How could I call myself a magician if I didn’t at least try to open it.” I stated.

“Even you couldn’t open this?” Mallory asked.

“What, I tried, honestly, I did. But just matching your blood was not enough. Getting the blood to the right temperature wasn’t enough. I am going to try to get more of these documents to test out on in the future, but for now, you are the only one who can unlock that.” I stated.

“No, no, I believe you. It’s just that I didn’t think there would be magic that even you couldn’t figure out.” Mallory said.

“That said, can I watch as you open it to try to figure out what it is looking for?” I asked.

“Sure?” Mallory states.

With that a large smile breaks out on my face as I open my third eye and get very close to Mallory. I am clearly within her personal bubble space, as I can feel the normal distance that her aura would cover and blast right through that until I am within a foot of her.

“Um. Are you good?” Mallory asks, clearly flustered by my appearance.

“Yep.” I reply, purposefully trying to avoid any distractions as I need to be this close to see everything that happens when this seal is opened.

“Okay.” Mallory says, the taking off her glove that is holding the scroll, she pulls out a dagger and plunges it into her outstretched thumb.

Slink.

A tiny drop of blood appears at the end of her thumb, which she then presses against the seal.

Fwoosh!

There is an explosion of force as the seal that had been impossible for me to open moments ago was now removed. Seeing the seal shatter I am both awed and flustered by what happened.

I am awed by how simple the act was.

The seal had apparently looked for not just the blood, but mana concentration and qi and seen how all three moved and acted together within the blood to deactivate the locking mechanism on the seal. Now, just because I know what happened, doesn’t even begin to state that I know how it happened. Right now, I understood that my current status for comprehension was at the part where you take a key and put it into a lock and the door magically opens. There are clearly more steps to this, like grooves for the keys, tumblers, and all other mechanisms that were in place, but they all ultimately led to the lock being deactivated. That is where I was with this puzzle, and it was so amazing that I still didn’t catch it all.

Blink.

I blink my third eye a few times trying to get out the burst of light that happened, I also realize that the burst was an inadvertent safety measure of the locking seal, as it temporarily blinded anyone who would be doing exactly what I was doing, in trying to figure out a way to break the lock.

I now knew what I was missing from my earlier attempts. I was missing both Mallory’s Qi and Mallory’s unique Mana signatures. To follow my key analogy earlier, these two components would be the little notches of the key, while the blood would serve as the long spine of the key. Now I just need to know how I can fake these notches on blood. Unfortunately, I don’t think this will be something that can be done easily, as I would need extensive knowledge of the person that I wanted to create such a key from. In fact, the only reason why I knew Mallory’s blood was from our months spent together. I think I also know her well enough that I might be able to mimic her mana signature; however, the idea of mimicking her Qi, that is beyond me at this point.

The more I think about it, the more I realize this seal was amazing. Likely the most impossible seal to break. Just that thought alone causes my teeth to chatter with excitement as I realize there is a new challenge for me to accomplish. With this I receive a series of system messages, messages that I take as the system challenging me and my resolve to figure out this new puzzle.

New Skill Gained: Life Seals has increased to level 1.

Life Seals is a Dexterity, Endurance, Perception X 2, Intelligence X 2, and Willpower X 3 based skill.

New Skill Gained: Life Seal Breaker has increased to level 1.

Life Seal Breaker is a Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Perception X 2, Intelligence X 2, and Willpower X 3 based skill.

Smiling.

I could all but feel my greedy little gears turning as both a new puzzle type challenge had been placed before me, and a new career field for my Thieves Guild membership could be made. If I could both introduce Life Seals to the world as a safe and reliable way of keeping communications safe, then offer the service of breaking such encoded transmissions I would be rich.

I know I already have money, guild fun dollars and everything, but this new challenge it really excited me for some reason. Almost as much as creating new Mana and Qi resilient pieces of technology, this right here was a puzzle that I could not solve just yet. Though I knew from the system’s guidance that I was apparently close, if it was already saying I got the skill required to break these seals.

Shiver.

I let a shiver of excitement run down my spine as I can’t wait to get this skill up to its maximum.

“You good?” Mallory asked.

“What?” I asked suddenly realizing where I was and what I was in the middle of doing. “Oh yes, I am.”

Mallory stared at me for a second.

“Can you wipe the drool off your face from whatever it was you were thinking about?” Mallory asks.

“I wasn’t…” I trail off as I wipe my face only to feel that there might have been a bit of moisture on my lips. Seeing that I stopped mid-sentence Mallory just smiled knowingly to herself.

“Are you going to open the Treaty?” I ask, suddenly not feeling bad about what I would subject Mallory to.

Mallory just stared at me, then with a reluctant sigh, she mostly wiped off the smile from her face and began unfolding the document before her.

Trumpets and fanfare.

Once again, the trumpets boomed throughout the open countryside. Then a system message popped up that everyone could see.

World Announcement: The Way of Peace! The Midnight Hunters guild has found the way of Peace, will they take it? Or will they declare War with the original owners of their territory.

“Oh my gods.” Guards cried out, as many people behind us began talking and conversing to themselves.

“The Way of Peace, I just thought that was a myth.” One guard said, I think it was Holly, but to be honest I didn’t pay much attention to the people I was saving.

“So did I, but here it is.”

“How?”

“Obviously it was the Doctor, the whole thing started after she turned to document over to Master Valhalla.” Another guard said.

Mallory for her own part was mostly quiet, as she unrolled the document.

Out of habit I read it, just as quickly as it unraveled though I already knew its contents.

Notice of A Permanent Treaty Between the Inhabitants of the Capital of Deolar and the Members of the Midnight Hunters Guild.

I King De’Arcaneri, acting as the sole ruler of the Capital of Deolar do hereby offer a permanent joining of Military, Financial, and Academic resources with the Midnight Hunters Guild. The means of this permanent union will be performed through the marriage of myself, sole King of the Elven Capital of Deolar and you Mallory Valhalla, sole leader of the Midnight Hunters Guild.

Due to the importance of this decision, any reply must be made to me in person. I eagerly await your response and our inevitable marriage.

Your truly

King Galuminous De’Arcaneri.

Seeing the message, I couldn’t help but laugh again, as the king had the same name as Golum, my childhood friend. With that name I can’t help but smile thinking that this is the world’s way of letting me know things will be better. And yes, I know the name means Light, or something stupid, but to me that name will always be shortened to Golum.

“You think this is funny?” Mallory asked, apparently seeing the smile on my face as I remembered Golum and everything he did for me and interpreting it as something else entirely.

“No, not at all. This is all very serious.” I say and try to gain control over the laugh that is all but dying to escape. But then I continue, “I just feel sorry for anyone who would marry someone whose nickname would be Golum.”

Chuckle.

At that both Gwen and I started laughing.

“You both think this is so funny, don’t you. Well, let’s see how you feel when you have to be there in person when I deliver the bad news.” Mallory stated.

“Bad news?” I asked.

“Yes, I most certainly am not getting married.” Mallory stated looking first to me, then to Gwen.

“You realize this is just a political marriage, right?” I asked.

“I do, but there is also a permanent 25% bonus possible for quote ‘fulfilling my vows and consummating the wedding,’” At that both Mallory and I pause, as I was not aware of this.

“What?” We both ask in unison.

“Yes, I even get an extra 25% bonus if I perform the consummation before midnight on the day of the wedding.” Mallory stated.

Hot flash.

Suddenly I do not like the direction this whole conversation seems to have gone.

“What? That can’t be a thing.” I say, trying to mentally wrap my mind around what Mallory was saying.

“You don’t believe me, here I will show you.” Mallory states, and with that she presents the quest to me and suddenly I feel a pit growing in my stomach as this has gone terribly wrong.

Major Guild Quest: A Permanent Treaty: You as the leader of your Guild have been tasked with the ultimate sacrifice for peace. You have found the native inhabitants of the lands that you wish to claim for yourself, rather than conflict, a possible peaceful resolution has been brokered. You have been offered to marry the ancient elven King Galuminous De’Arcaneri. By doing so, you will form a permanent peace and eventual integration of all assets belonging to both your guild with the inhabitants of the elven capital of Deolar. Rewards: Experience, Rank (Queen), Title, Badge, Variable.

Note: You and the members of your guild will gain a 25% bonus to all rewards received from this treaty if you consummate the marriage. An additional 25% bonus to all rewards received if the consummation happens before midnight on the day of the wedding.

Seeing that I felt a wave of bile rise in my mouth, how could a quest force this. Then again, this only offers bonuses to what would be offered as an initial reward, meaning more experience, better benefits to the Rank received and the Title she receives as well. Still, despite that, this still feels wrong.

“Don’t worry about the consummating. The marriage will be the most important part. Everything after that will just be extra.” I say, trying to state what I was thinking. Of course, I feel sick just thinking about this, as this is not what I intended at all when this whole thing began. I mean, this was just to form a peace treaty, it even came with trying to figure out a cool new magical puzzle, what harm could have truly come from this. But seeing the quest posed and the potential implications of this proposed union, I couldn’t help but feel nauseous at the way things changed.

Mallory is about to state more herself, when I get my own quest notification letting me know that I might not have thought about the potential consequences of this whole marriage for peace thing.

Major Territory Quest: A Permanent Treaty: You as the leader of the elven Capital of Deolar have been tasked with the ultimate sacrifice for Peace. An invading hostile force has arrived, rather than conflict, a possible peaceful resolution has been brokered. You have been offered to marry the leader of the invading Midnight Hunters Guild Mallory Valhalla. By doing so, you will form a permanent peace and eventual integration of all assets belonging to both your empire and with the members of the invading guild. Rewards: Experience, Rank (Improvement Optional), Title, Badge, Variable.

Note: You and the denizens of your territory will gain a 25% bonus to all rewards received from this treaty if you consummate the marriage. An additional 25% bonus to all rewards received if the consummation happens before midnight on the day of the wedding.

And just like that, the world somehow found a way to take this simple joke and F-me over with it both literally and figuratively.

Suddenly I wonder if there is a way we can take it all back and say, just kidding?