Nate had frozen for a moment seeing who was arrayed against them. Three Platinums was a problem on its own and one he wasn’t sure they could challenge. Especially not with the Guildies they had just rescued unarmed and unarmoured. But those concerns paled against being in Bordain’s presence when he wasn’t bothering to veil his power. The mountain of a man who claimed to be the King of Etrua had a presence similar to Aisling that seemed to affect his surroundings. Instead of static, it pressed down on Nate's shoulders as though he should kneel, a servant before a greater power, and he could tell he wasn’t the only one feeling it. Britt, Null, Ameera and Karim had already dropped to their knees and Deverell seemed to be teetering on the edge. Even Aisling and Luc were showing signs of resisting the oppressive aura. The only one of their group that seemed mostly unaffected was Kiri.

  The difference in reactions between Kiri and everyone else made Nate’s eyes narrow and he responded by sending more of his mana towards Conceptual Insight. The hum that had been drowned out by the feeling of subservience was suddenly at the fore of his mind and though he couldn’t recognise the Concept at play, he could tell the air was thick with it. Whatever it was it was clearly Soul-adjacent, as Nate could now tell that his veil was offering him some protection. It explained why Kiri was able to resist the best and why Deverell could hold his feet. Their Soul protections, courtesy of Kiri’s Soul Engravings, were a notch above anything the others could scrounge up. Nate opened his mouth to respond but was beaten to it by his spatial mentor.

  “Brother, I had hoped you were dead,” grunted Luc through gritted teeth.

  “Don’t call me that, bastard. The feeling is mutual,” replied the tall and thin spatial mage next to Bordain, before starting to step forward aggressively. “Let's remedy that, shall we? I want to fix the last of my father’s many mistakes.”

  “Now, now, Obsidian. Play nice. We’re not here for that. We’re here to make sure those who deserve power are given the opportunity to seize it,” expounded Bordain calmly, eyes flicking from his subordinate to Luc. “If you interrupt me again or interfere, I will let them off their leashes. Perhaps you’re slippery enough to escape, but the children are not.”

  Bordain’s eyes flicked to the kneeling Guildies meaningfully before glancing at Aisling who pressed her lips together, flashes of anger lighting her eyes as she held her words back.

  “Much better,” cooed Bordain in a pleasant baritone, his green eyes flicking back to Nate and Kiri. “I am glad we are finally getting to talk before our grievances escalate any further. You two have managed to cause me a reasonable amount of grief, which is impressive given your supposed rank within the Adventurer’s Guild. But that is not all that makes you impressive, is it?”

  Nate raised an eyebrow in response, unwilling to give anything away while Kiri maintained her glare, sharing it equally between the three Platinums. Frick was hiding beneath the ground and working frantically in case the conversation devolved into battle.

  “No comment? That’s alright. I’ll tell you what I know about you already and what I think,” continued Bordain, seeming utterly relaxed despite the tension in the air. “I know a kill squad was sent by House Desmarais to try and end you. The Duchess herself believed you to be a threat to the future of their House.”

  Nate noted the Flame Mage’s reaction as the woman’s eyes widened and flicked back and forth between Bordain and himself.

  “That kill squad never returned and the Duchess confirmed their deaths. Now, of course, some might suspect that their deaths were caused by The Eternal Grove. He is certainly powerful enough to have pulled something like that off. However, if that was all I knew, I wouldn’t be bothering with this meeting. No, my spies within my sister’s forces reported multiple private meetings between you and Morgane. Again, interesting, but not in and of itself enough to confirm my suspicions. But then, Topaz told me about why she failed to accomplish the task I set before her. About how two low-Golds of the Guild were able to almost keep up with her. How they turned a weakness against her and almost got her killed, not to mention forcing her to flee. She was very unhappy about her failure, though not as much as I was. Her report, however, was the final piece of proof I needed. Not one, but two Legendary Class holders before their second evolution.”

  Bordain smiled then, his eyes alight with a sense of victory while Ameera and Karim were able to lift their heads enough to stare at Nate and Kiri wide-eyed. Those looks were matched by a look of surprise on the face of the Flame Mage and one of naked envy on Luc’s half-brother Thierry’s. Null and Britt’s lack of reaction to the news didn’t go unnoticed by Bordain.

  “So it wasn’t a complete secret?” Bordain snorted. “You should never have bothered keeping it a secret at all. You should have come before me and I would have showered you with the power and access to Dungeons that you rightly deserve.”

  At Bordain’s words, it was Aisling and Luc’s turn to look surprised.

  “What?” continued Bordain. “You thought I would see them as a threat? They are my potential peers. The only ones I know of. They could rise to match me, unlike the members of my family who have failed to do so. They are the kinds of individuals for whom I am changing the face of Etrua, and then Galle. Only the strong deserve to rise, and they are strong, are they not?”

  “They are,” ground out Aisling in acknowledgement.

  “Exactly!” Bordain said, stabbing a finger forward at her. “They are a God and Goddess in the making, standing above the common dirt.”

  Nate was grinding his teeth but held his words close as Bordain continued his rant, “I am sure my sister offered you things to assist her. Titles perhaps? Or access to mana? Dungeons? Kiri, I know your family hails from Helmfirth. I could grant you the entire region. A Duchy, to rule as you saw fit. No rules, no regulations, no laws but those you choose to devise. All you would need to do is continue to prove worthy, continue to advance, and when the time comes to spread our borders, to answer my call. That is what it means to be strong: to have the power to rule as you see fit. You could be as kind and generous as you wished, or as brutal and restrictive. I care not, because that is the right of the strong.”

  “As for you, Nate, I am told you are a powerful crafter. Some of your teachers at this very institute,” Bordain exclaimed, waving his arm about the University, “called you a genius. Maybe you are, and maybe you aren’t. Maybe you just have access to Skills that they couldn’t dream of. Few are those who rise high as crafters within Etrua. You could change that. I would give you leave to create whatever you wished. A University specifically for Crafters? It would be within your power. The wealth you generated would mostly be your own. I say mostly, because I would require your Skills, of course. Methods for improving our elites. Better tools for empowering our Dungeons.”

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  “Like the Legendary one within the castle?” Nate asked, interjecting a suspicion he had held for some time.

  Bordain’s smile was radiant, perfect white teeth shining in the dark night, “Precisely. It takes almost six months to recharge right now, but a Legendary Dungeon is beneath me now. You could help me fix that. Perhaps faster than I could fix it myself. Do you know how a Dungeon advances? By absorbing the Class Cores of those who fall within its depths. With your help in fixing and improving our mana gathering across the country, we could halve the recharge time. Then I would open it up to those with Epic Classes or better and below level sixty.”

  Jaws dropped at the statement but Nate was able to quickly surmise the results that Bordain desired.

  “You would create a small cohort of elites and the rest who fell would fuel the Dungeon’s own evolution to Mythic.”

  “I knew you would understand,” Bordain replied, his tone one of supreme satisfaction. “I would do the same with other Dungeons. I would cut down on the total number of Dungeons we had. Why maintain weak Dungeons, wasting mana so that the average combatant can advance. Only the strong deserve to advance and for that they must prove their strength. With less Dungeons to support, the elites of Etrua could truly advance! The rest would serve their purpose: fueling the growth of our Dungeons. Our Elites would be able to decimate the armies of our neighbours, who are already so weak that they must rely on others to even match Etrua’s current strength. Can you see it? Can you see the future I would usher in?”

  “I can,” whispered Nate, his words non-committal.

  “You could keep those you wished to, Nathaniel. That is the prerogative of the strong,” replied Bordain, his eyes flicking to the kneeling Britt meaningfully.

  “There is, however, something you both must do before I would accept that you are truly my peers,” continued Bordain as he looked between Kiri and Nate. “If you cannot bridge the gap between Legendary and Mythic when you reach your second evolution, then you are not destined to be my equals. You are no better than my siblings and father, lacking the strength to advance. You are close to your second evolution, I assume?”

  Nate didn’t see a point in lying about that. It revealed nothing that Bordain wasn’t already confident about and so he gave a small nod to the man. Kiri had done the same, though where Nate looked uncertain his sister looked tense, ready for a fight.

  “Good. You have until I am finished dealing with Asmuisil to make your decision. Serve me, and rise. Or serve my foolish sister, and fall. I’ll expect your answer when next I return to the Capital. Garnet, return to the palace. Obsidian, we’re done here.”

  Nate watched as Garnet glared at him and Kiri, sparing some of her ire for the both of them before launching herself into the sky on wings of flame. He sensed the Concept of Space and the opening in the air as Obsidian created a portal. With one last meaningful glance at them, Bordain stepped through the portal followed by his pet Spatial Mage. Then the oppressive aura vanished and the night was quiet, except for the heavy breathing of the Guildies and a muttered curse from Kiri.

  “What the fuck was that?” Kiri growled.

  It was Deverell who answered, “Conviction. He truly believes he is right. To him, the two of you are everything he believes is true. You’re proof.”

  Kiri cursed again and Nate took the chance to interject, “This isn’t really the place for this conversation. We should flee. He may have forbid Garnet from interfering with us but she didn’t seem inclined to tell anyone else. More guards could come soon.”

  “Let them!” Kiri stated hotly before looking around at the Guildies and seeing their sorry state. “Fine. Back to the hideout.”

  Nate dropped his runecrafted portal plate and activated it with mana from the gems within his Runic Gallery. The split in the air resolved into a window into their underground hideout and Deverell ushered the four Guildies through, followed shortly by Luc and Aisling until only he and Kiri remained. His sister shook her head at the portal and he closed it, knowing she intended to shadow him back to their hideout. A moment later the runecrafted portal plate was back in his Runic Gallery and they were teleporting across the city as he attempted to obfuscate his teleport locations, trying not to leave any signs for someone to follow. Kiri kept up with him the entire time until they were finally back in the hideout.

  As Nate stepped out of the teleportation room, he sensed a small blonde rocket flying at him. Letting it happen by dropping his barrier, he felt Britt crash into him. She failed to bowl him over, his girlfriend holding onto him as her shoulders shook, letting her emotions flow freely down her face.

  Aisling glanced at him from across the room and gave a small nod, “We’ll talk in an hour.”

  With a smile of thanks, Nate carefully guided Britt towards the room he and Kiri had shared.

  “Need another two rooms, Frick,” he sent to his Familiar.

  “On it, Boss,” Frick replied, vanishing from his Runic Gallery as he went to work using Multi Conceptual Material Shaping to carve new rooms out of the stone.

  In his room, Nate lay down on his bed with Britt and relaxed for the first time in weeks. Now all they needed was to figure out what to do next. One thing he was certain of was that he would not be accepting Bordain’s offer. The question was, how long did he have before the man who proclaimed himself King of Etrua returned to the Capital? However long it was, it would not be long enough. With that thought, he focused on Britt as she talked about everything that had happened now that she was safe. A small voice in the back of his mind whispered that no matter what happened, she would never be truly safe.

  *************

  Kiri danced across the training room, her daggers flashing in complex patterns on arms that stretched longer than her body length. Deverell danced in time with her. Her mentor had less arms to work with and they were shorter than Kiri’s own. Even with his higher-level and extensive experience, she could tell he was struggling to keep up with her. His Embodiment, something he had never revealed to her, did not appear to be assisting him or was too weak to bridge the gap that had been growing between them.

  The time when he could offer her guidance or training was coming to an end and she hated it. Hated it because it meant there was some truth to that arrogant prick’s words. The only thing bigger than his body was apparently his ego.

  “He threatened my parents,” she growled as Deverell barely evaded two blades before being forced to retreat by a third that flicked up from a low angle at his leg. “He was threatening them, right?”

  “He was,” Deverell agreed, resetting his stance before stepping forward quickly and trying to get inside of Kiri’s guard. In response, she committed half her arms to defense in front of her, flicking them out like a blooming flower that forced Deverell back again as she followed him. “We have time to relocate them, though. Luc will likely assist.”

  “Doesn’t that restrict us from selling to Asmuisil?” demanded Kiri hotly. She was trying to get control of herself but the fury in her was bubbling up at the thought of anyone going after her family. She had Nate here where she could protect him, but her parents were not and they definitely could not deal with a Platinum or two.

  “Let it out,” stated Deverell as the high-Gold continued to force her to push herself. “We’ll talk shortly and you need a clear head if we are to adjust accordingly.”

  Kiri committed herself to her rage, letting it flow out of her. The hurt in her chest at being betrayed by Coralie. Her anger and fear at the threat to her parents. The feeling of helplessness and constantly being on the backfoot. She let it all out in her dancing as shiny blades flashed in the room they were forced to hide in. Because when she was done, when she had let it all out, she intended to find those responsible and put an end to every single last one of them.

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