Blood Shaper

Book 4: Chapter 10

Kay felt there were too many rooms in the palace. It felt like every time he turned around; there was a new set of expansions being tacked on as what originally had been planned as a building was becoming a complex that dug deep into the cliff. Thankfully for his peace of mind, huge sections were being devoted to actual work, and the resources weren’t being wasted on opulence. One section was becoming a library, part of which would hold the books and other texts that were restricted for one reason or another. While currently, Ahthia worked out of Avalon’s main library that was connected to their academy, which was also growing, she and her researchers took up a lot of space, so they’d be moving them to the palace to give the public more time at the library. Another section was going to become a vault, which would hold both currency and important items. With the many offices, training grounds, rooms for people to stay in, and more, the majority of the complex was devoted to getting things done as it was to the glory and splendor that was Kay, lord of Avalon.

Reminding himself that on a regular basis helped keep him stable when it came to the topic. He especially needed reminders like that when he had meetings in rooms where his fancy chair was six inches above anyone else’s, with masterfully made furniture that served as art pieces and statements of his wealth as they were functional, and red gems used in place of gilding across the floors and walls. Thankfully they weren’t actually rubies but glass gems filled with blood made to look like rubies. Kay had no real reason to think that Gemglass would try and kill him, but it didn’t hurt to be careful, which is why he was having the meeting with her and Honor Hernandez inside one of the meeting rooms that was equally a place to have meetings and a kill box that he could activate at any time.

“So, what does the Adventurer’s Guild want, guildmaster Gemglass?” Kay asked, staring down at her. He knew the point of the raised platform was to show him off and add a sense of gravitas that was considered an important part of negotiating and such, especially as a lord. Combined with the already significant natural height difference, though, he just felt like a dick. “And why should I care? As useful as the guild is, that doesn’t give any of you the right to come into my court and demand answers from me.”

Gemglass held up one hand, “I am specifically not demanding anything. Although some people would like me to.” She added quietly before continuing, “My orders from my superiors are to ask you questions and relay the answers as you give them.” She looked over at her companion, “And officially, the…” She frowned as she searched for an appropriate word before laughing quietly. “Whatever the hell the founders are up to is not officially part of any policy or actions of the Adventurer’s Guild.”

“And unofficially?” Amanda asked, having joined Kay in between the last petition he had answered and this meeting.

“Unofficially, my dad or my moms say jump, and half of the guildmasters ask ‘how high?’ a quarter just jump, thinking they know what my parents want, and the rest pretend they aren’t jumping for them while doing their damnedest to make sure they’re jumping exactly the right amount where my parents can see but the public can’t,” Honor said with derision laced into her tone.

Kay considered her. He’d been expecting the whole dog and pony show of political nonsense but with that kind of response… “What do your parents want? The Adventurer Class sounds interesting and is probably useful, but my main goal for getting it was to try and increase how much blood I can store, which isn’t as much of an issue anymore.” He saw Gemglass’ fake surprised expression and rolled his eyes, “Please, officially, you don’t have spies in my city, but I know you hear things. Half the real players out there know I got a special storage Skill for blood with my tier five Class, and the rest will know in a month or two.”

Keeping all the Skills of his Lord of Spilled Blood Class secret would make him look weak like he’d been forced to take a Class with bad Skills, but letting all of the Skills leak was just as dumb and would let people build better counters to use against him. So there had been a few “leaks” about his Skills, most of which were fake rumors purposefully spread in order to muddy the waters. The spatial expansion of his veins to hold more blood was powerful in a synergistic way with the rest of his build and was almost impossible to do anything about since it was inside of him and protected by his personal mana. It was a perfect propaganda Skill to let leak out into the world and keep a screen over the rest of his Skills, like his Sublime Skill Lord’s Bloody Domain, which could turn him from a powerful mid-range fighter into a one-man army killer for a time. And once he started getting his other potential tier-five Classes…

Well, it was safe to say that the first army that tried some shit in Avalon was fucked.

“My parents want me to be strong.” Honor answered, dragging Kay back to the present conversation, “That’s really their only motivation for this. My dad is an Outworlder, and his time after landing on Torotia was, well, it was fucked.”

“Oh?”

“No offense, but you were lucky. You landed within a reasonable distance of a civilized city. My dad popped up in a high-level monster’s hunting grounds and had to do some pretty crazy shit to live. Then he met one of my moms, and she was already in some dark shit that they helped each other get out of, and then they met my other mom, who was leading an evacuation. They didn’t really get to be calm or plan out anything for their lives until a little before I was born. They’re pretty obsessive about making sure I’m strong enough to live through whatever experiences I end up in and have the ability to make choices for myself instead of being forced into anything by my circumstances.” She shrugged, looking a bit defeated, “I don’t always agree with their methods, but their base reasons for messing with my life always involve what they believe are my best interests.”

“So, all this,” He waved his hand between the two of them, “is to get you to fight me?

Gemglass shook her head, “While I won’t dispute Honor’s comments about the guild’s leadership, the orders I’ve been given are separate from that, except for the part where I’m supposed to support her.” She gave him a searching look, then sighed in resignation, “Look, breaking it down all the way, the guild doesn’t want to get involved in any conflicts that are going to come Avalon’s way. We pride ourselves on our neutrality in political events. The problem is a vampyr taking control of a nation, no matter the size, is less of a political problem and more of a disaster. The kind of disaster that the guild’s emergency protocols call for conscripting people to prevent massive loss of life.”

“I’m not a vampyr, though.” Kay pointed out.

“Correct. The problem is that none of the people or organizations that are going to come around causing problems believe that. I know that you aren’t because you got up in front of a crowd and swore it to the System, and my superiors believe me when I tell them you aren’t a monster. The people who already want to start trouble with you or are inclined to believe that anything involving vampyr at all is a trick, a trap, or some convoluted scheme involving sacrifices or something else horrendous are not going to believe me. They’ll just think I’m a victim of your machinations. So my real goal here is to be very public with how I’m going about ‘verifying’ that you aren’t a vampyr.”

Kay leaned back against his seat, resting his cheek against his fist, “And what do I get out of this? Why should I help you?”

“It will keep the guild from getting involved in whatever’s going to happen.”

“The guild is already planning on insisting on remaining neutral; that’s why you need to make this as public as possible. You aren’t looking for an excuse; you’re looking to avoid backlash. Or at least your leadership is. We’ve worked well together up to this point, but the relationship between Avalon and the guild has been a transactional one. You personally might like us and want to help, but your organization has its own goals and intentions. What is the Adventurer’s Guild willing to offer to Avalon to make it worth our time to help you?”

Gemglass’ smile confirmed Kay’s words that she did want to help, within the bounds of her duties and obligations, “Information. Mainly news about what’s going to come as people approach the guild and ask before we refuse them and information about movements in this direction. Your spy network is being led by someone experienced and knowledgeable, and as far as we can tell, you’re recruiting good people, but you’re limited by time. You haven’t had the time necessary to expand your information network wide enough to catch anything coming in real time to prepare. Let me ‘question’ you in a way that can be spread publicly, and we’ll forward you information about anyone moving against you.”

“For how long?”

“Any actions that stem from anyone trying to come after you or Avalon due to you supposedly being a vampyr or using that as an excuse to do so. No time limit, but limited to information that we have access to. No getting angry if something happens that we never heard about.”

“And the Adventurer’s Guild will remain neutral in any conflicts that occur under the same conditions.”

“The Adventurer’s Guild won’t join in on any side of conflicts that occur under the same conditions. We can’t stop random adventurers from joining in, but it won’t be sanctioned by the guild, and we’ll do our best to discourage our members from joining.”

Kay glanced at Amanda, who nodded. “Very well, we accept.” He waved at his Prime Minister, “Coordinate with Amanda to figure out how we’ll get your end done, and someone will be in contact with you on how to share your information.” Isla wasn’t on his shoulder, but he knew she was somewhere in the room. He turned his gaze to Honor and was about to start back on her topic before a thought distracted him. “What does the Adventurer’s Guild want? That’s something that’s been bothering me. What is the real goal of the guild? The base driving factor? Why go to this trouble to both appear neutral and make other nations deal with it?”

Gemglass’ expression went blank, then thoughtful, “Well…”

“They want peace.” Honor jumped in, “The idealists who follow my parents’ stated ideas of making a better world for others want peace for peace’s sake. The rest want peace because it’s profitable for the guild.”

Kay raised a brow at her, “Peace is profitable?”

“For a guild that gets money dealing with monsters, it is. During a war, people are more afraid of enemy soldiers than any random monster, and who wants to pay to protect your livestock or crops when you might have to abandon the whole village? Plus, armies either kill monsters that get in their way or the monsters run from large gatherings of people. Then there are the adventurers that either join up with their home nation as irregulars or get conscripted or forced out to prevent them from acting as spies or saboteurs. Without adventurers doing jobs, the guild doesn’t get its cut.” She snorted and waved her hand in a circle, “On top of that, the guild needs to enforce its neutrality so that countries let the guild exist within their borders. The fact that the guild is connected as deeply as it is to The Three Stars is already a problem to some; being anything other than neutral would make it easy to kick the guild out. Then the guild is making less money.”

“How does that factor into the Adventurer’s Guild mucking about with Nelam’s interests in places like Tumbling Rapids?” Amanda asked, her blank expression hiding the intense interest Kay could see.

“The king of Nelam had the Adventurer’s Guild removed from his nation because we refused to allow him to post missions for adventurers to recapture escaped slaves or assist in capturing new slaves.” Gemglass replied with a sneer, “We wouldn’t help in his bullshit, so he started to try and start a crusade against us. Remaining neutral in other people’s conflicts is one thing; fighting back against someone who declares themselves our enemy is another.”

“Interesting.” Kay let the last vowel of his reply stretch out as he marshaled his thoughts. Keeping the guild neutral in the potential fights against vampyr hunters in the future was beneficial to Avalon, but manipulating them into helping against whatever bullshit Nelam’s king would eventually pull was an idea to keep in mind.

“Now that it’s done, what do you say about giving me that match?” Honor asked.

Kay pushed up from his seat and stepped off the platform his chair sat on. “I’m going to have to include someone else in that discussion, but I’m pretty sure you’ll get what you want out of it. We might as well move to somewhere we can fight while we wait for her to show up.”

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