Chapter 229: Chapter 227 ~ Trade

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Above all else in this cavern lies a massive frozen piece of art that must have been built over countless centuries. Crystal is formed into the shapes of coral, fish, and crashing waves, none of it moves, but the light shining from it does offer the illusion of life. All colours that I can see, and many more that I can’t, fill the sky above, depicting a frozen moment of chaos.

The crystal city below it is a poor reflection, made for modern civilised people, split into separate homes and districts with roads between to define them. Yet, the crystal from above is still present below, colouring everything.

The city is clearly split in two, but it does not seem as though it’s a difference between commoners and nobility. No, the beautiful crystal spires, and grand mansions of marbled stone, are nothing that would be wasted on commoners, this place is for the those who sit at the top of civilisation.

“Nobles and royalty.” I say, “You mentioned the split between them before, but is the difference really so stark?”

“It is.” Malea replies. “The nobles are raised in status from the commoners, back when there were too few of us to rule. It was meant as a temporary measure, only to maintain lands until we were ready to take over, but the nobles didn’t want to lose their power.”

“Entirely predictable.” I reply, watching as the glittering lights on the ceiling above shift from deep blue to a gentle amber light. An imitation of night turning to day, reflected from a thousand glimmering statues, that hang from the buildings like angelic gargoyles watching over the streets.

“Not so.” Malea says. “The king at the time had tried to ensure that the nobles would be powerless for the transition, but they starved their own peoples to ensure that they would be powerful enough to stand against the royalty. It was cruel, but effective. After years of conflict, there was a treaty signed, but even now there’s internal conflict.”

“Do the nobles run their caverns much differently from the royalty?” I ask.

“Some, most prefer to follow in our designs.” Malea says with a bright smile.

It’s clear that there’s undercurrents of deeper politics here, years have passed since that initial division, and there will be internal factions, some seeking a peaceful unity, others a means of seizing total control of the throne and the kingdom.

This conclusion is partly supposition, but from my experience with people, especially those clawing for power, I know that they never just agree to work together on anything. I’ve had it easy myself, but there will be more factions growing in my own empire that I should pay attention to. Groups that seek to change their communities, or to subsume their neighbours.

I’ll be wanting to look into all these factions within the monarchy and the republic so that I can find a few groups that I can ally with. I cannot stand on my own in the Grand Council until I’m much stronger, and blackmail only gets a person so far. It also has a bad tendency of turning friendships sour.

“You can relax, you know.” I say to Malea as we pass by a group of commoners. They keep their heads down, and bow quite formally, showing a grace that only comes from practice. There are no homes here for them, so I have to suppose that they’re live-in servants for one noble or another.

“What are you talking about?” Malea replies, tilting her head to look at me.

“You’ve been rather polite since you found out about all the blackmail we have on you.” I reply. “You can freely speak your mind, just don’t cross any lines in threatening my home or my people and I won’t have to consider anything untasteful.”

“Yes, well excuse me for being polite.” Malea replies firmly, looking down towards me before letting out a long sigh. “If you truly must know, I see myself in you. I know that you’re going to fail. You will hurt your own family and your own people in your ignorance, attempting to build a better world. You will likely give up in that failure, and I want to step in to take over.”

“How do you know that I’ll fail. You’ve gambled so much on it.” I ask.

“The dungeons want you for your power. You will grow fast, and so will your empire. You will not have the time to struggle and fail, and struggle again, learning leadership as we all do. Worse than that, you actually care about your people. Your failures will crush you, and eventually you will not want to be held responsible for ruling them. You will willingly give up the responsibility, so that you can focus on refining your power.”

“Then I’ll simply have power over you anyway.” I say, shrugging, “What’s the difference if you just give in now and work for me?”

“You will have the power to take the seat of leadership back, but you will not have the will to do so.” She replies with a difficult smile on her lips. “When you cede power to me, you will be haunted by the ghosts of your failure. That is my plan for our future relationship, and I’m confident that I’m right in this.”

“Well, I guess we’ll see.” I say, as she nods slowly and steps ahead to address the guards about something.

“Flirting going well?” Eshya asks, nudging my side.

“Hey, I’m not flirting damn it. I can just make normal friends, you know.” I shout.

“Yeah, but history proves otherwise.” She laughs at me, hanging over my shoulders.

Vii is more than happy enough doing her own thing recording what she sees around her, and I can even catch her doodling a little picture of the city in her book, but her drawing Skills aren’t quite up to scratch just yet. She quickly hides her book when she notices that I’m looking, blushing and turning away.

The path leads onwards and before long the marble and crystal homes of the nobles give way to the homes of the royals, and the differences are made too obvious. Where the nobles look for soft coloured gemstone statues to accent the white marble, the royals find deep crystals of all colours to give life to the darkness of their homes.

Black marble, with shifting veins of silver, are made into towering homes, each one topped with a crystalline spire that rises not quite to the frozen coral reef that colours the ceiling above.

“It’s impressive.” I say, looking all around. “What do you two think?”

“It’s pretty, but I wouldn’t want to live here.” Eshya says. “It feels pretentious, and worse than that protected. This place is far from the chaos that I love, far from what I want to be a part of.”

“I’m hoping to make something that separates us from that chaos too, you know?”

“Yeah, but you’ll still find fights and battlefields for me to get some exercise in.” She says, with a fond smile at the thought. It’s not as if she’s a simple person, there’s more to her than her love for battle and fighting, but it’s just something that she always leans on in conversation. It’s how she defines herself and expresses herself to the wider world, partly because this is a part of herself that she had to keep hidden for so long before I met her. Sometimes I do wish that she’d try to express herself in more ways than just violence and sex, but I won’t push her on it.

“It’s like a museum.” Vii says, excitedly fluttering up to a large spider figure that hangs off of the wall, eight ruby eyes shining bright. “I’m not sure I should be touching anything.”

“You shouldn’t.” Malea says, glaring up at her, “It would be quite rude. Now stand straight and walk with me. You need not bow or show any respect to the nobles and royals until the queen receives us. The queen must receive your first respects.”

“How are we doing this?” Eshya asks, raising a sly smirk. She no doubt expects me to go through this as I have before, with a confident smile while resisting authority. Sometimes I wish I could be a little more unpredictable, but not if that means bowing to foreign authority.

“Respect without lowering ourselves. Everyone here must know that I’m an equal, not someone less than them. Otherwise, they’ll never come to acknowledge that I am more than them.” I say, “Just follow my lead.”

The grand doors are only eight or ten metres wide but dozens of metres tall, they open slowly before us on mechanisms of magic. Dark silver patterns shimmer within the petrified wood, and burn with dense mana.

A long amber carpet covers the floor beyond, reaching up to the empty throne on a dais above us. The room here is flooded with familiar faces, people that I met before in the Grand Council, yet without the republic here to take some of their attention, they focus entirely on me. The queens empty throne is a rather strangely shaped seat, it takes the vague shape of a hand with fingers reaching upwards, and a cushioned seat as a palm.

Malea looks past the chattering nobles and royals as she leads us through, but I pay close attention. There are a great many here that are half spider, even if they don’t quite make up half of the group, they still make up a significant portion. It seems to me that they might be the royals, while the rest of the diverse species are the nobles.

A first group of nobles approach, but Malea waves them off easily. I trust that she’s not just interfering for her own gain, but even if she is, I’m not interested in playing petty politics until I know where I stand with the Queen. I’ll speak with her, settle matters and only then, see if I can’t find a few outcasts that might fit in with my own empire.

I can’t reasonably gain any powerful alliances from this, but I can get my feet wet and gather a few more outcasts to my side.

The chatter that fills the room quiets the moment the queen strides in, a weight hanging over us all. It’s not quite the same as the Grand Council, this is her home, her throne, and we will give her every respect while here. The nobles and royals all bow their heads towards her, but I refrain for now.

Her spider feet tread carefully in a rhythm tapping against the stone floor as she strides up to her throne and settles into it, resting her abdomen, as a few of the cushioned ‘fingers’ shift to give her humanoid body a backrest.

“Greetings Kyra of the Ashen Empire.” The queen says, looking down towards me and showing no hint of her true feelings. She gives the slightest bow of her head in greeting.

“Greetings, queen of the Arch monarchy.” I reply, bowing my head back towards her. “You have requested a meeting, but I admit, I thought perhaps you wished to discuss something in private instead of before your entire court.”

“The discussion of your obscene actions, and powers, is something that can be discussed without the need for bringing up unpleasant details.” The queen says, her expression cold as ice.

“You mean my ability to copy Skills?” I ask. “Yes, it is quite useful, I’ve been learning new magics rather quickly and easily with the help of the borrowed Skills. I was even in discussion with the president of the republic to share these new devices, but I’ve yet to agree to anything specific.”

“You wish to make a similar deal with us?” The queen asks. “I suppose that this carries implicit threats?”

“You’re talking about the Skills, contacts, messages, and all the other information I copied from you?” I ask. “Unless you continue with these silly power games like in the last Grand Council meeting, I’d rather not try to leverage that information against you.”

The queen doesn’t move, but I can feel the quiet whispers taking hold, the messages flooding through the devices all around me. Not everyone would know about the Skills, and even fewer would anticipate the rest of the information that I’ve stolen from their head of state.

“Then, what nature of deal are you hoping to make with us?” The queen says, retaining her calm. “You wished to make an agreement?”

“It’s in regards to the academy that the Grand Council is responsible for developing. I want to ensure that various aspects of it stay true to my vision of it. There will be teachers and classes that I need taught, and beyond that I need for commoner’s children to have full access to the academy’s classes and resources.”

A hush falls over the gathered court.

“In exchange you will provide us all with these new devices?” The queen asks. “They can protect against your abilities?”

“I can package them with Skills for defending against Skill stealing, yes.” I reply easily. “For the sake of openness, I’ll inform you that there are issues. The process I use to replace these things will give me full access to all of your information, so if you want an alternative you will need to find a means of removing your own devices so that you can use the new ones that I will provide.

“If you want to keep your Skills and contacts, then you’ll need someone equipped with a new device to copy them to the new system and give them back to you.” I explain the details. “If you stay with your old devices then not just me, but everyone equipped with the new device will have the ability to steal your Skills, so take that into consideration.”

It’s clear that even if I’m not trying to threaten them, the situation itself is threatening and placing me as an existential threat. Either they can hand over all their Skills to me and have me replace their device, or they can wait until someone else takes their Skills and shares them regardless. Worse yet, the only defence against the new chips, is getting a new chip.

From the hostile atmosphere in the air, I can already tell that I’m not going to get an agreement today. The president was considerably easier to deal with when it came to this.

“We will consider your… generous offer.” The queen says.

Our conversation moves on slowly afterwards, until eventually we’re freed from the interrogation. The nobles and royals finally start talking among themselves, considering the deal, and while I’m sure this is my chance to appeal to them individually, there are few that seem willing to let me get close.

Trying to steal all their Skills feels like a good way to ruin any chance of positive political relationships, so I keep my hands to myself as I look for someone who might be interesting. Eshya and Vii hang beside me whispering to each other about one thing or another, looking about.

“Try him, over there.” Vii whispers to me, pointing towards a man who stands at the edge of the room. He’s deep in thought and doesn’t seem to care about all that’s happening in the room around him. His spider body suggests that he might be of the royal faction.

“That’s Oliver,” Malea says, looking up at him. “He’s an oddball, so maybe you’ll get along.”

“Well, let’s try talking then.” I say, approaching the man.

“Hi.”

“Hmm?” He raises his head, nodding towards me. “Yes, greetings. Is there something you wished to discuss?”

“What has you so deep in thought?” I ask. “Considering my offer?”

“There’s not much to consider, it will be decided by the court and likely accepted after some adjustments in the deal with you.” He replies. “No, right now I’m observing a newly formed civilised cavern.”

“A newly civilised cavern?” I ask.

“Yes, much like your own situation.” He says. “There’s a rather strange man who is forcing a wild cavern into obedience. He is rather interesting to observe, there may be some things to learn from his progress.”

“Maybe we can go talk to him, then?” I ask, “It sounds like he might make for a good ally.”

“It is doubtful that he’d agree to ally with anyone, but perhaps it would be worthwhile to witness things more closely.” Oliver says, nodding slowly. “I may reach out to the man and see if I can’t arrange such a thing. Oh, and I’d be interested in visiting your own home as well, if you are accepting of it?”

“Of course, I’d be happy to have you.” I reply easily. “So about this person, what’s he like?”

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“He calls himself a welfare officer, and the collars he uses are quite effective at keeping his people in order.”

“Oh, oh god. Not another one.” I grumble, staring up at the sky. “Isn’t this supposed to be rare? Why are there so many of them?”

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

Stats and Skills

 

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 30,064 / 60,892 units

Current mana volume: 14,943 / 30,266 shards

 

Mana volume at crystallisation density (Max. mana volume):

Kyra: 30,266 shards

Kyra’s armour: 20,777 shards

Kyra’s throne: 1,109,298 shards

 

~Forms

Mana Canon

-Annihilation Heart (Adapted)

-Blood Fuel (20,000 mana shards)

-Bone Magic Storage (40,000 mana shards)

-Nail Shifters (50,000 mana shards)

 

Dancer

-Flash Nerves (8,000 mana shards)

-Quick Perception Mind (Adapted)

-Burst Reflex Muscles (35,000 mana shards)

-Layered space Muscles (80,000 mana shards)

 

Turtle

-Rebinding Tissue (Adapted)

-Catalyst Sweat Glands (140,000 mana shards)

-Repulsive Skin (80,000 mana shards)

-Prehensile hair (10,000 mana shards)

-Fatty Tissue Blood Storage (100,000 mana shards)

 

Investigator

-Wide eyes (5,000 mana shards)

-Wide ears (5,000 mana shards)

-Sharp nose (5,000 mana shards)

 

Misc.

-Clean bowels (Adapted)

 

 

~Favourited Skills:

 

Magic:

-Annihilation Magic (Customised)

-Fire Magic (Functional)

-Space magic (Broken)

-Force magic (Functional)

-Ice magic (Broken)

-Wind magic (Broken)

 

Movement:

-Hand-to-hand casting (Functional)

-Mana surge movement (Functional)

-Stealth (Functional)

 

Senses:

-Eyes of an Empire (Customised)

-Combat Awareness (Functional)

-Watchmen (Functional)

-Hidden bug (Functional)

-De-tagging (Functional)

-Anti-stealth sight (Mastered)

 

Special:

-Spirit Transformation (Broken)

-Conformity (Broken)

-Training mana form (Functional)

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

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