Chapter 50: Chapter 48: Bad News

Elenoa hummed happily as she put the sword away in Baern’s workshop. She had just finished the final test, and it was exceeding her expectations. After all the feedback Winston had given her, the thing had been able to make him pass out after just a couple of nicks, so the new girl certainly wouldn’t be able to stand up to it.

The whole multiple bodies thing would be troublesome, but Elenoa was confident there would be a way around that. Winston could probably temporarily sever their connection, and then once the main body was alone, that was it. All she’d have to do was get a couple of grazes in and she’d have free reign to deliver a coup de grâce.

She would have to array enough sufficiently powerful subordinates to make Lilith waste those…command things, but that wasn’t a problem. The girl likely only knew how to brute-force her way past things and given some time Elenoa would be able to procure some people who wouldn’t go down so easily.

The main issue was the unknowns about her abilities. She had asked Tunem to present all knowledge of her abilities to the Council, but he was constantly giving some excuse as to why he couldn’t do that. First it was that she seemed immune to normal methods to check someone’s Skills, and then it was that it would take time to compile records on what she had while she attended his little school.

That was fine. He couldn’t stall forever, and she was sure that with a few promises, likely to about that child of his, he’d come around. If they couldn’t figure out a workaround to her “immunity” then they’d just have to leave room in the plan for unknowns. If she had to, she could probably get Isa to help, though that might require giving the woman concessions she didn’t really want to give.

And Baern had already begun to get started on another tank. He gave an estimation of about two months for each if he worked on them on the side. Surely with two Perfect Chimeras, four or five tanks, and whatever other assorted forces Elenoa could find, Lilith wouldn’t be able to do anything. If she intended to lord herself over everyone using brute force, Elenoa would just have to teach her why that would never work.

The door opened and a servant came in, walking over to Baern and whispering something to him.

Baern’s face hardened. “We’ve got company.” He said. “I might be needing your help if this goes sour.”

Elenoa frowned. While Baern had been focusing his efforts on making things lately, he was still an incredibly competent warrior. “Who’s here?”

“Titania herself.”

Elenoa’s frown deepened. That never meant anything good. The queen of the faeries didn’t just drop by for a visit, and she was particularly difficult to work with. Elenoa and Baern made their way down to the guest room, where they were greeted by the sight of a beautiful woman lounging on one of the couches, drinking what appeared to be tea.

She set down her cup and gave the two a radiant smile. “Thank you ever so much for allowing me into your abode. How has your day been? Made any great strides in technology lately?”

Elenoa crossed her arms. “Enough with the fake friendliness.” She said. “What do you know and, more importantly, what do you want?”

Titania laughed and crossed her legs, leaning forward and adopting a more businesslike posture. “I do have to keep up appearances, but it is nice to let my guard down around…kindred spirits.”

Baern frowned and opened his mouth, but Elenoa silenced him with a wave of her hand. He was never very good with diplomacy, and Titania was clearly trying to get at something. “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand what you mean.” Elenoa replied, putting on her best poker face. “It flatters me to hear that you think we are similar, but I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve the honor.” It hurt to debase herself like that, but that sort of speech was necessary when dealing with Titania. Even if Titania probably knew that it was only lip service, it still never hurt to butter her up.

“Well, it would seem that word of leaps in technology spreads fast. Why, I do believe that most people in power have received a report on the clinical trials of some of the cutting edge tools being developed here.”

Elenoa grit her teeth. She was hoping the airhead and her little minion would have been too busy to pay attention to her over the last while, but it would appear that her hopes were in vain. It didn’t matter too much, though; the fact still remained that the weapon would decimate either of the two in a confrontation, and there was little they could do about it, as protected as they were. She still didn’t fully buy this “administrator” nonsense, and she had yet to be completely proven wrong.

Yes, it was a fact that the nature of the world had changed, but that didn’t mean that the airhead couldn’t have found out about it somehow and made plans for the change. That felt far more likely than her being some sort of a god. What self-respecting deity would allow themselves to be any less than the highest authority in whatever circles they moved in? Why bother with all the subtlety of taking a position on the Council? Why not just enact the changes right away and force everyone to fall in line using divine power?

But she was getting distracted from the topic at hand. “It appears that there are eyes everywhere.” She said, carefully watching Titania’s response.

Titania nodded. “Why, I myself have been feeling like I’m being constantly watched, lately. Might I ask if Baern has been experiencing a similar phenomenon?”

Elenoa silenced him again. “I’m afraid he has. We’ve been unable to rid ourselves of the sensation, but I am reasonably confident that we have several…uncompromised employees.”

“Wonderful.” Titania said, smiling darkly. “Why don’t you have a trusted attendant meet with one of my subordinates? I’m sure there’s a lot we could help each other with. I think that we’ve been dealing with a rather similar pest problem, and my understanding is that you’ve made a rather powerful pesticide. I believe I might be able to help see that it is safely deployed.”

Elenoa gave a smile back. “A wonderful idea. Let’s set something up, shall we?”

---

Lilith felled the latest monster and made sure it was dead before moving on. Sure, the EXP message said it was dead, but she had encountered Skills that let a monster play possum, even going so far as to alter the EXP message.

“Not bad, newbie.” Isa said, clapping Lilith on the shoulder. “But you’ve got to pay more attention after a kill. If I was trying to hurt you, I could have gotten a real nasty shot in right there.”

Sorry, mistress, that’s my fault. Mae said. I was busy scanning it for potential uses as a dungeon monster. Nuwa asked me to do it, and I should have been more conscious of the surroundings while doing so.

It’s fine, don’t worry about it too much. Lilith replied. She turned around to face Isa, nodding. “Consider my lesson learned. What do you need from me?” It wasn’t too surprising to see Isa here; Isa was still keeping up her patrol of Haven’s cities, so they met from time to time.

“Take a wild guess.” Isa replied.

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Lilith frowned. She couldn’t really think of anything so… “You want that fight, right?”

Isa returned her frown. “Well, yes, but that’s not why. You got the broadcast, right?”

Lilith shook her head. “No, what broadcast?”

Isa frowned. “I’m not sure why you didn’t get it. You should have been pretty high on the list of people who should know. So, it’s like this…” Isa said, then gave her a brief rundown of the contents of the broadcast, something about a sword and Winston being tortured and experimented on.

“I’ll have to ask Kali about that, it seems like a bit of an oversight, and I feel like she wouldn’t have made a mistake like that.”

“Later. Right now, we have to figure out what we’re going to do. It’s pretty clear that Elenoa is going to try and bait you into a trap, and I want to help you out.”

Lilith gave her a careful look. “I won’t say no to your help, but may I ask why you’re offering? I won’t be giving favors for this, it’s too much like bribery.”

Isa laughed. “I don’t expect any. Honestly, I just want to square off against that sword of hers and whatever else she’s got cooked up. It sounds like a good fight.”

“And what’s my guarantee that you’re not going to be leaking information to Elenoa right after we finish here?”

She shrugged. “Technically none, but that’s not my style, you can ask Kali, she’ll back me up. Besides, I won’t go out of my way to help Elenoa if I don’t have to. If I do that even once, she’ll never stop trying to exploit me. And even if she would just let it slide, I wouldn’t help. She’s just an awful person and deserves anything that comes her way, if you ask me.”

Lilith thought on that for a moment. “Alright, but let me double check with Kali before we make any plans, I want to be as safe as possible.”

Isa nodded. “I can respect that. I’ll meet you around this city in three days’ time. We can talk then.” And with that she melted back into the surrounding foliage, leaving Lilith to finish her rounds.

---

Lilith knocked on Kali’s door and opened it after she got a “come in” in response. Kali was on her bed, watching TV with Nuwa.

“What’s up?” Kali asked, pausing the TV.

“Why didn’t I get this broadcast Isa was telling me about? It seems kind of important.”

Kali sighed. “Couple of reasons, really. First, I didn’t want you worrying about it or trying to do anything about it right away. We can’t move until she breaks one of our rules, or else people are going to call it a miscarriage of justice and an abuse of power. It’s unfortunate, but that’s politics. Our job will be a lot easier if governments aren’t actively resisting us.”

She shifted to get a better look at Lilith. “Second, it’s a lesson. You had all the tools necessary to get the information yourself and didn’t use them. Yes, you’re busy, but that’s not an excuse for neglecting your safety. I’m not always going to be available; I’ve got a leave from my duties with my faction due to the big changes I’ve been making, but that’s only for a year. You need to learn to be independent, because there’s a real possibility I’ll be gone for long periods of time. I can’t always bail you out, so I’m not going to when I’m here, not unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

She stood up and walked over to Lilith, giving her a hug. “It’s not that I’m not concerned or anything, I really am, I just believe that you can handle this, and it’ll be good for your growth. Please don’t take it the wrong way.”

Lilith paused. “I guess that’s understandable. Mind if I ask if Isa’s working with Elenoa, or can I trust her?”

“Yeah, she’s fine. She and Elenoa have butted heads quite a bit in the past, and I’m pretty sure the only way she’d willingly assist Elenoa with something like this is if she was being blackmailed, and there’s nothing Elenoa could use to blackmail her. She was a street urchin with no connections, and she hasn’t been looking to make friends, so there’s no hostages Elenoa could take, and she doesn’t have any secrets that need keeping. It’s not like Elenoa could intimidate her either, so feel free to include her in your plans.”

Nuwa frowned. “What’s all this?”

A short explanation later, and a very alarmed Nuwa was back off to managing the dungeon and making contingency plans, muttering about how she should have been more careful and how there really wasn’t time for a break right now.

Lilith shot Kali a glance.

“She was just waiting on DP and making vague plans. There was plenty of time for a break.” Kali said defensively. “Plus, I haven’t really had much time with her, so it was a good opportunity.”

“That’s fine, then. I’m going to go talk with everyone about this. Do you want to come?”

“Yeah, I can help you make plans.”

After a moment of hesitation, she grabbed Lilith’s hand, and the two went to gather everyone. She was going to have to walk into this trap if she wanted to perform her duty as the High Arbiter, but that didn’t mean she had to go in blind. It was time to prepare.