Chương 190: BECMI Chapter 189 – Masters Manipulated

All of the hyn Masters stopped breathing as a single line of whiteness faded into existence under the pressure of my finger, vanishing a hand's-breath away in both directions, and yet it seemed to be connected right to the core of their minds and magic, thrumming there with painful, very attention-getting clarity.

"This is your connection to the Shires," I went on placidly, but all their eyes were on my upraised hand.

"It is forged by your Immortal Patrons, giving you power you do not naturally have, and to those who know how to look for it, it is very obvious.

"It can be severed, although your Patrons can fix it with relative ease. If you attempt to use it against me, however, I think you will find things going very, very wrong very suddenly.

"Please cease this display of attempted intimidation, Mistress Sheyla. It is very much not working on me." I let up the pressure, and her legs collapsed as they were all released, and she would have missed her chair if the hyn next to her hadn't kindly caught her.

"Why reveal your true power to us, then?" the white-haired matron asked, seemingly completely unfazed by the whole escapade just now.

"Such a thing is more wisely kept a secret until brought forth at a properly devastating time, Lady Edge."

"Oh?" I returned evenly.

"You would have preferred I said nothing, so that you would have the confidence to launch a concerted attack against me?" I inquired back to her. She smiled a moment, then it faded.

"Ah. Dissuasion and a warning not to underestimate you… which we were plainly doing." She glanced over at the other Masters, who looked away nervously.

"It is a game we are used to playing on others. Having it turned back on us is… ironic."

"Ignoring the truth in front of you displayed so blatantly it must be a trick is a failing many fall into, Mistress Bessana," I deigned to agree with her aloofly, only making her smile more at me knowing her name.

"If you have such power, then clearly there is more to this trip than… drawing a Lived-Line," Master Ondello, the older of the two male hyn, pointed out. I just turned to look at him, my whole posture radiating 'you are a fool.' He flushed deeply.

"I did tell you why I was doing this. Perhaps you are becoming hard of hearing, Master Ondello."

"She's on her way to meet someone, Master Ondello," the hyn behind him stage-whispered, and he could only sigh at the gaff.

"Surely that is not all," Mistress Bessana asked in disbelief.

"Well, it was when I arrived here. Yet somehow I find myself seated before what amounts to an informal congress of those who actually rule this land, and I wonder about other things," I admitted dryly.

"But you can blame that on yourselves for gathering here, not me," I assured them.

"I could easily have just passed through your land and kept on the way with none of us ever meeting at all." I dropped my eyes to hers.

"Naturally I am seeking your absolute capitulation and installment of me as the absolute ruler of all the Shires, change of name to be forthcoming." The absolutely deadpan delivery rocked them all, as utter seriousness warred with the sensation that it was absolute bullshit at the same time. They just couldn't believe it was true.

"Well, I feel so threatened by your presence, I may as well offer my unwavering adulation and eternal servitude now," she deadpanned right back to me.

"There! You see! My conquests grow by the minute!" I stated blandly back at her, completely unfazed.

"Indeed, eternal sonnets I will compose in your name, Lady Edge," she answered in the same flat delivery, this time restirring the pot for all the other hyn who were just coming to realize something.

"But I am almost afraid to ask, what other ideas occurred to you after realizing who you were meeting here?" I steepled my fingers before me.

"The Shires are not well-defended from wizards and magical creatures, your own efforts notwithstanding. There are… defenses that could be raised against such beings, which you might find useful in protecting your lands. But they are things I erect for friends and allies, significant investments of my time. They would require levels of trust neither of us have for one another."

"You are rescuing the kidnapped hyn to generate trust?" Mistress Bessana asked archly.

"My servants are rescuing the prisoners of depraved wizards because it is the right thing to do and putting those who misuse magic to a miserable end is a fine and worthy thing to do with one's time and effort. I directed them to be healed of their mental, physical, and spiritual trauma to show my goodwill. That I could have left to you, but I doubt it would have been quite as effective."

Druidic powers were not optimized to that sort of Healing, although I didn't know what exactly they were capable of to that extent. This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"So, we are under no debt or obligation to you for this?" she pressed carefully.

"You must be used to dealing with Siricilans, Mistress Bessana. I did not ask for compensation for this. Have I asked you for any? Made demands? Insinuated threats to those rescued or their well-being? No. I said they would be treated and those who survived brought home, while those we could not bring home will at least rest in peace with their murderers brought low. That is all.

"I do not need your approval, permission, or coin to do the right thing.

"Now, if you want me to do something else, after you know this… well, I believe that is where we start establishing a proper relationship of one sort or another. After all, my time is extremely valuable by any measure you care to name, and who I choose to spend it with or for is a remarkably precious commodity, when all is said and done." The hynfolk weighed my words, realizing that everything I was saying was utterly true.

Even the aggressive one with the defiant mouth understood that and stayed quiet, as I'd shut her down as a side effect of using their own connection to their land against them. Messing with Ur-Priest Archmages was not advised for a non-magical people like them. They might get inventive with uses of spells, but they were not flexible in the spells themselves, they just didn't have the natural connection. Even dwarves, tied to earthpower, had more natural magical affinity than hyn.

I wondered if they were natural candidates for Forsaken. Ohhhhh, wouldn't that be something special. As Forsaken, they could ignore a lot of the rules these Immortals had set down among one another…

"What are you seeking in return?" the younger elder hyn asked carefully.

"I would like to be allowed to examine your shadowfire thoroughly, Master Krisnedge." There was an immediate hubbub of kneejerk denials and impassioned shouts against such a thing, to which I didn't bat an eye at all, answering the question as it was presented to me.

"That you even known of such a thing," he began heatedly.

"Records in Zanzyr going back over two hundred years mention the shadowfire involved in the clan relics of the hyn," I interrupted and corrected him mildly, silencing them all.

"It was noted the stuff is clearly not natural, it is not responsive to and is rather hostile to magic, and it only responds directly to hyn in a positive manner," I went on, ticking off the details.

"Clearly, it was of extremely little use to mages using proper artificing techniques, and although the various items of shadowfire recovered after altercations and doubtless outright theft were interesting, there was nothing special about them that would not be imitated by more understandable arcane energies.

"As the stuff was clearly another outgrowth of Immortal favoritism given how tied it was to the hyn, it is largely disregarded as just another inferior energy source to real magic and thus ignored. Reading between the lines, I believe that certain mages who got handsy with it stirred up Immortal interests, paid the price for it, and there's been some horse-trading behind the scenes to basically write off investigation into shadowfire as a waste of a wizard's time and power."

They were all staring at me in some aghast disbelief. After all, the shadowfire was supposed to be a great secret power of the hyn they didn't talk about at all. Instead of discovering the 'truth' of its real power, that had already been done over the last century and more by enterprising wizards, and their opinion had come back that it was nothing special and not worth bothering with.

"I… cannot recall any Zanzyran mages coming after the shadowfire for at least two generations. It's always some Siricilan or random fool from Federyn, Warsherz, or from further away," Master Ondello spoke up, making it a question as he looked around. The other Masters looked thoughtful as they considered that point.

"That bastard Hurgle from over the border in Warsherz has made at least two attempts to acquire some of it," sniffed one of the more intense, leaner Masters there, scarred across the face and with a grim look to him.

"Hurgle, is it?" I repeated before anyone else could.

"Interesting. The Zanzyran who did not die kicking and screaming had someone of that name as a fellow correspondent. They shared a common interest in centipede venoms and their effect on hynfolk, among other things," I noted blandly.

"He is the Court Magus to Marquis di Stegwalli, the Black Wolf Baron," that hyn was quick to mention.

"He is protected by his master, and his deeds dismissed as accusations from rebels and bandits. The baron is a cousin of Duke Warsherz, who likewise refuses to believe any ill-will on the part of his relations," the hyn sniffed.

"I would certainly believe hyn were never unduly influenced by relatives and didn't believe they did morally suspect things while they lied to family, I would," I responded to that easily, and Master Nightswift pointedly turned rather red (which, being stained green, meant brownish) at that little bit of not-fact. Mistress Bessana coughed lightly at that, her eyes twinkling.

"So, you have the thought of looking over the most sacred of our clan relics, a direct sign of the power of our gods, as if it were just another source of energy, and clearly do not hold it in the esteem we do."

"That is a quite apt description. That is a cultivated reflex, by the way. The uniqueness of the energy to hynfolk is likely very artificial and reinforced by your Patrons. Study would likely open it up to other races and peoples to use in one form or another, if not as aptly as you are doing, and wouldn't that be a shame."

"It is a thing of the hyn, and for the hyn!" the spirited Mistress Sheyla piped up, recovering her voice.

"Nooooo, it is an energy source discovered by your Immortal Patrons, bent to attune to the hyn, and can very, very likely be returned to its original form," I corrected her mildly, making her clamp her jaws shut.

"It is a magical flame, and it is not unique in that status in existence. I do not care about your emotional attachments, only the facts attached to it. It is also the one thing you own that might be worth my time. If you don't want to deal, that is fine. I could easily go and do this myself, certainly there would be a Keeper either morally weak enough or not alert enough to defend their flame, and I could study it without inquiring of you for proper recompense." I waved my hand dismissively.

"It's how the information was likely obtained in the first place, after all." Mistress Bessana just sighed.

"You are not making this easy for us, Lady Edge," she pointed out.