“Do you want me to take her body? Or do you have someone that cleans them up?” I ask while gesturing to the body.
“Leave it there. This is technically a crime scene.”
“I’m keeping this.” I hold up the enchanted necklace I took off her body.
I follow Morah out of the room and back into the party, where the sounds of music and conversation are much quieter than before. About half of the crowd is looking at us, especially me, and only thanks to the power of [Concentration] am I able to keep calm. Morah grabs Doctor Hari as we walk through the party and tells her to follow. Just as we exit the building to head back to Morah’s house to file my blood feud, we find Merrick and Stella outside, clearly just having arrived, chatting to Daniel, who is holding a severed leg.
Merrick turns to me first. “Damn, I really did miss all the fun.”
I focus on Daniel, mainly the leg he's holding. It’s a left leg based on the shape of the shoe, blown apart right above the knee. He has a very big smile on his face, and the leg is propped against his shoulder like it’s something to be proud of. The shoe is vaguely familiar, and the faint mana signature coming off of it…
“Is that Loranor’s leg?” I ask, my surprise slightly leaking through my [Concentration].
“It is. I saw him fleeing from the room you three went into, looking panicked and rattled. I chased him out here, to an alley just over there.” He uses the leg to point out the alley. “He saw me, recognized me, and when we made eye contact, I saw the fear in his eyes. I figured he did something to you, so I went for a kill shot, but the fucker did some space shenanigans, and the shot went low. Only managed this consolation prize before he teleported off.”
“Good intuition, as always. He and the woman he showed up with tried to enslave me, and when that didn’t work, they tried to wipe my mind. She’s the older sister of the guy who was beating Silth and is dead now. Loranor is next.”
Merrick steps up to me, interrupting our conversation. “So are you going to kill him right now?” He sounds almost excited as he says it.
“How fast do you think he can get out of the city?” I ask.
“With a missing leg and the siege barrier up? Could be minutes, could be hours. It depends on if he has a plan for escape via means other than space magic. My guess is that right now he’s panicking, trying to stop his leg from bleeding while thinking of escaping. He’ll realize the siege barrier is up before too long, if not already, and will either bunker up in the Spacers Guild until the barrier runs out of mana or try to smuggle himself out of the city.”
“How fortified is the Spacers Guildhall here?”
Morah interrupts us this time. “Now is not the time for this! You need healing,” she says to me. “And you need to stop trying to escalate this.” She says to Merrick. “We’ll file a blood feud with the council, and then you can legally rip him apart in the streets for all I care.”
Surprisingly, Merrick backs down after just a second. I figured he would push this. He’s told me his opinions on Helot’s average space mage and how disappointing they are. I think part of the reason he had Daniel and me go train in the Undead City away from civilization was so that I wouldn’t find the Spacers Guild first and become like them.
“I agreed to do this legally, Morah. And I’m a man of my word.” I say as I open a portal in the direction of Morah’s house.
All six of us arrive a few minutes later, and during that time I’ve been gradually lessening [Concentration], letting all the held-back emotions and feelings slowly come back. I fight off an encroaching vomit after realizing that I basically tortured that woman for answers. Even if she was a slaver piece of shit, I hadn’t realized I had that in me. Maybe it’s something that I was always capable of, or maybe it’s something about this planet. Either way, it’s done now, and there are more pressing matters than introspection. For now, at least.
Merrick immediately leaves in a rush to go do something, rushing into the house before the rest of us.
Stella and Doctor Hari work together to heal me and my brain. Apparently I got some slight brain damage from the mental battle, nothing too concerning, at least not with healing magic. According to Stella, I would have lifetime injuries if not for that.
Doctor Hari works on fixing my eyes, as apparently that is more difficult than a TBI. She confirms traces of mental mana in both my eyes and skull, and I make sure Morah hears that. You can never be too careful. The more evidence I have, the better chance I have to legally kill Loranor tonight.
After about forty minutes, my left eye is completely healed, and Morah and Merrick walk into the room, the older sister holding a crystal ball-looking device with a large blue mana stone in the center of it. It has dense inscriptions on it and hums with mana. She sets it down on the table and takes a seat next to her brother on a couch opposite of me and the healers.
Morah looks at Stella and Doctor Hari. “I need both of you to leave the room, please. Only the involved parties and Merrick can stay for the meeting with the council.”
“His brain’s all good, back to normal. I mean, it’s healed back to how it was, not that there’s nothing wrong with it.” Stella says. “Because there’s definitely nothing normal about you.” She pats me on the shoulder before getting up to leave.
“Give me your other eye.” Doctor Hari says. “I’ll heal it while you do this and transplant it later.”
Instead of reaching in and plucking it out, I just teleport it into my hand and give it to her. It looks pretty damaged and gross, and seeing my own eye outside of my body makes me want to vomit again, but thankfully [Concentration] is there to save the day. She already stopped the bleeding in the eye socket, so I should be fine for now. Both healers soon leave the room, leaving only me, Daniel, and the Baradia siblings. And Loranor’s left leg.
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“I’ve already sent all the details to the council, and now they’re ready to give their vote after hearing you two speak.” Morah says.
“Who’s the council?” Daniel asks.
“The Ruling Council of Helot. There are twelve seats available, and you have to challenge and kill someone to take their seat. Four seats are held by various Guildheads, four by the heads of Great Houses, and four by the Emperor. The ratio changes every so often, but very rarely does someone unaffiliated gain a seat. These are the men and women who will vote on if your blood feud is valid or not.” Morah explains.
“Do they vote on every blood feud? Seems like they should be too busy for that.” I ponder out loud.
“Only for high-profile cases, like the guildmaster of a Spacers branch and an initiate.”
“Is the head of the Spacers Guild on the council?”
“No, the council’s main job is fighting off the near endless hordes of monsters on the third continent, Last Rest. All of them are clients of the Spacers Guild. Of that there is no doubt. No more questions, it’s time.”
Morah puts her hands on the basketball sized orb, and starts feeding small amounts of mana into it in several different places. Eventually, a mist of mana starts seeping out from the top of the orb and coalescing above it, slowly and slowly condensing into a white ball that splits into twelve equal-sized balls, each forming a head and face about the size of a tennis ball and cut off halfway down the neck.
“Let’s hurry on with this, I have a wall to defend and twenty thousand troops to organise for a forward offensive against the Beast Tree.” One of the faces says, an old man with a bald head and large beard.
I [Inspect] the floating head, hoping to find out the class and level of the man.
[Mana Manifestation]-- A long range manifestation for the purposes of communication.
That’s not very helpful, but I should try to [Inspect] more magical phenomena and spells.
“Oh, like we aren’t all busy, old man.” An orc-looking woman says, "At least I think it was a woman."
Several more of the heads then start arguing over who is the busiest and has the most pressing task to get back to. Several more look either annoyed or bored at the presumably commonplace argument. Four of the heads, however, are all looking right at me, and something is very off-putting about them.
When Morah said that the Emperor holds four of the seats on the council, I thought it would just mean he gets four votes. I was very wrong. There are four of the exact same faces staring at me. Quadruplets? No, then they would say the four emperors or something. My guess is it’s something skill-related. Maybe he can split into several people and recombine. There’s a few superheroes with powers like that. Could also just be cloning or something. I really should have researched more into who rules this planet.
The emperor looks like a regular guy you might find working in an office. Not super handsome, but not ugly either. Well-groomed hair with a short beard, appearing to be in his late thirties, maybe. Although I think that leveling up might slow or even reverse aging, so he could be much older.
“Now now, everyone. Let’s not show how dysfunctional we all are in front of guests, yes?” One of the emperors says.
The other eight heads soon quieted and let the Emperor speak.
“We are here to convene on one vote today. The vote was submitted by Morah of House Baradia and is as follows. Initiate Ray Alder is filing a blood feud against Loranor Hargreeve. Proper regulations have been followed, and evidence has been submitted and overviewed by each seat of the council. Now it is time to interview and question the challenger. Everyone but Initiate Ray Alder, please leave the room.”
Soon, everyone else leaves, and I’m left alone with twelve floating heads.
“Please, tell us your side of the events that led you here.” One of the emperors tells me.
I tell them everything that happened, including how I killed the mind mage’s younger brother earlier in the week and Loranor’s many letters to get me to visit him. They ask questions constantly, making me repeat parts over and over again and go into heavy detail. Several of them seem surprised when I tell them that I was able to fend off her mental attacks and kill her as fast as I did. They never ask me anything about my skills or traits or anything, which I find odd, but maybe that’s a faux pas here.
Eventually, I finish the story and they have no more questions for me, and tell me to send Daniel in next. Morah looks nervous after I tell her what they asked me and how I responded, but Merrick looks calm. He should be being an ass right now, or at least slightly annoying, but instead he’s well-behaved. He either knows something she doesn’t or is planning something she doesn't know about.
I give him a curious glance once Morah is looking away, and in return he gives me an almost imperceptible smile, for just a moment before it is gone. He’s definitely planning something.
Soon, Daniel comes back out and tells us all to come back in. We sit back around the crystal ball, and the Emperor starts talking again.
“We have heard all that we can about the events leading here, and now is the time to vote. All in favor of the blood feud between Initiate Ray Alder and Loranor Hargreeve say ‘aye’. All against the blood feud between Initiate Ray Alder and Loranor Hargreeve say ‘nay’.”
The vote starts with all four of the emperors, who each vote in favor of me. Then the vote goes around the circle of heads, with each casting their vote before the person next to them does the same. I hear the same word for the next eight votes. Nay. I lost the vote 4-8.
The emperors all look disappointed but give the results of the vote regardless. “The council has voted, and the blood feud is denied.” He looks sad for a second, then a small glint appears in all of the emperor's eyes. “This next vote was submitted by Vlarick Baradia, patriarch of House Baradia. House Baradia, with the support of House Valethryn, House Trandemere, the Necromancers Guild, the Water Weavers Coalition of Guilds, Initiate Ray Alder, and his allies, has requested a guild war against the Spacers Guild and their allies on the island of First Landing.”
Oh, shit. How did Merrick pull this off?
Everyone’s face, even all of the holograms, except for the four emperors, all turns to look at Merrick.
He just shrugs and looks to his older sister. “All I did was make a convincing case to Dad after gathering a few supporters. He must’ve agreed it’s a worthwhile venture.”
All of the holograms look slightly angry, and I fail to see how this vote will pass. They all clearly either like the Spacers Guild or at least benefit from their services. There’s no way this vote passes.
“We will vote in just a moment, after I move a few pieces into place.” One emperor says with a growing grin.
Several of the holograms wink out at exactly the same time, and more follow suit just a moment later.
One of the faces whips around to face the four emperors. “You wouldn’t!” Her hologram disappears right after. Soon, only the four emperors are left.
“If you could all just wait a few moments, the vote will commence shortly, after the rest of the council joins us.”
Almost five minutes later, all eight floating heads pop back into place, but this time something is very different. All of them are the Emperor. All twelve seats of the council now belong to the same man.
“All in favor of a Guild War, say ‘aye’.”
The vote passes with a unanimous decision.