The corpse’s limbs whipped about for a good few violent seconds, the joints bending further than they should have, before it stopped. Then, a voice not like anything Talin had ever heard came from its mouth. Part raspy, part hollow, the words even came at a delay relative to its lips.
“Ah. The Primus, yes?” it said, its face stiff and uncanny. It stepped back and gave an excessive bow, its hand in a showy twirl. “It is my pleasure to be in the presence of one… such as you.”
It tried to close its eyes, perhaps in a show of respect, but neither eyelid wanted to go with the other. The eyes opening and closing at opposite intervals.
“I wish I could say the same,” Talin whispered. “To whom do I have the fortune to meet on this beautiful day? The rumored elf, perhaps?” he raised his brow. “Are you, though? Are you even an elf?”
“It’s not an elf?” Elias asked, his eyes unfocused in thought.
“As expected. I never did hope to deceive you,” it scoffed, or tried to. “Unfortunately for you, your contemporaries are not as perceptive.”
It tried to laugh in that horrid voice. What came out was nothing but a sound only a beast would make. “Indeed, they were such a disappointment,” it turned its head slightly to stare directly at him. “But you, dear Primus, are truly deserving of such a title. Although I’d hoped your eyes would remain blind for a while longer.”
It laughed again, but this time, the laugh was normal. The voice had settled into something that sounded more normal, more… refined.
“No matter,” it said, straightening the corpse into a proper, military-like posture. “Plans are already in motion, dear Primus, I hope you can… keep up,” it winked. “I’ve left you an extravagant gift in a place you wouldn’t think to look—not even after my mention of it.”
It bowed one last time, the proper bow of Cratisian military.
“Do your best. I do love a good appetizer.”
Then, as if its strings were suddenly cut, the corpse collapsed onto the ground.
For ten seconds on the dot, Talin didn’t move. He sensed. He watched. And calculated.
Then, he reached out and snapped his fingers.
[Quantifying…]
And as he expected, the array finished almost immediately.
— — —
Name: Corpse
Tier: @#&%
Strength: 0
Vitality: 0
Constitution: 0
Agility: 0
Dexterity: 0
Intelligence: $%*@&↓↓↓
Mana: %&&@*@↓↓↓
Arcane Will: %%%%↓↓↓
— — —
[Quantification Incomplete. Please set baselines for new energy types]
“Interesting,” Talin said. He would have loved to analyze the energy, but it was sadly rapidly fading.
Moving on, he snapped his fingers again and sent a message to his former student, then got a reply back the next second. “Good,” he nodded, then turned to Elias. “Bobdrin has my son. Let’s evacuate the citizens and debrief with the emperor. He’ll need to know what’s happened, and what might happen.”
“Yes. I doubt that thing’s gift is any good,” Elias nodded. “I also need to tell you what I felt. It wasn’t like anything I’d ever felt before. Not even at the Staircase.”
“Mmm. I figured as much.”
Then, with a wave of his hand, Talin opened a portal directly leading into the floating palace. Looking through, he saw the room it led to. It was so simple and under decorated, that anyone would think it was a torture chamber of some sort. Especially with all the dents in the walls and floor.
The sight of the emperor sitting in the middle, naked, his tattoos visible, and with his eyes closed would immediately confuse anyone.
Tiberius let out a visible breath filled with mana. Though he wasn’t a mage, he was the strongest physical specialist in the world. By bringing in and soaking every cell in their bodies with incremental amounts of mana in unique ways, physical specialists achieved constitutions stronger than any known material.
Though, something else made the emperor who he was.
Talin shook his head of all unnecessary distractions and looked at the man who’d just pushed himself off the ground. “Tiberius, we have a problem,” he said, then explained everything from every piece of information he’d gathered about the nobles and the mysterious ‘elf’.
After, Talin gave him a moment to process everything.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Talin could sense a palpable tension as the emperor thought. Despite the Emperor being as powerful as he was, contrary to how people saw him—with the added mystique of being a mage—Tiberius was well loved.
A fair ruler.
A strong ruler.
A herald of peace.
And a master strategist.
Perhaps if Talin himself didn’t exist, the man would also be Primus, even if just by popular demand.
Yet, all of that notwithstanding, they had fairly similar, brutal histories. Though his was, admittedly, a bit more showy.
“You must have a theory about this… elf, yes, Talin? You were never the type to go in blind, even if the world itself tried to blind you,” Tiberius said flatly.
Talin considered for a moment. He did have a theory. Several actually. Ranging from the simplest to the most ridiculous possibilities he could think of. However, he didn’t exactly have proof for any of them. If anything, they were all based on a feeling he got.
The energy.
It pointed to his most ridiculous theory—the elf being from another world. He already knew they were real (and somewhat within reach) from his ‘mana speaker’, and he did know that there were records of other life arriving in his world. But none of the ones that he’d heard had ever mentioned elves. At least not the ones he’d translated.
Which only left the series of random drones and clicks.
Which made him significantly more cautious.
Before, he assumed that they were merely lifeforms that didn’t speak in the normal sense, now he couldn’t help but think that they were somehow masking their speech.
This isn’t like you. He thought to himself, and said. “I do. Though I would have to ask how open your mind is to, perhaps, blasphemous,” he glanced at the emperor’s tattoos. “ideas.”
Tiberius’ eyebrow raised. “Something that would be blasphemous…” his eyes went wide. “Surely you don’t mean… others?”
“I do,” Talin took out his mana speaker and set it to play three distinct signals. The first played speeches from the former king of Xadum.
“Is that really him?” Elias asked, then mumbled something about ‘time’ under his breath.
Talin just nodded, “You both know very well this isn’t a recording. We hadn’t made any, at the time, that would have lasted until now.”
Then, he set it to the next signal, which played a language that neither of the two knew. At least they shouldn’t have.
“That’s—” Tiberius’ mood shifted as he circulated his mana. His muscles grew taut. Steam started coming off his skin. “Where did you get this?” The tone of his voice, deeper, commanding.
“Huh,” Talin flatly said. “I wasn’t expecting you to know about it. Though that works in my favor. No need to try hard to convince you,” he shrugged. “But we can discuss that later. Listen to this last one.”
And as expected, droning sounds that changed pitch every few seconds. Accompanied by clicking and sounds that he couldn’t quite make out.
“That is my leading theory,” Talin said. “Whatever that is, at least.”
The other two looked unsettled to him, though judging by their reactions, for two very different reasons. He decided to address his confused brother-in-law first, and left the simmering, yet slowly relaxing emperor to himself.
“No, Eli, I don’t know time magic. At least not yet,” Talin winked.
“What was that then?” Elias pointed at his speaker. “As you said, there shouldn’t be a recording of the former Xadum King.”
Talin shrugged again, a carefree look on his face. “This thing’s only capable of reading signals soaked in mana for a long time.”
“So it is time magic?”
“I wish!” Talin chuckled. “But you’ll be the last to know if ever I do accomplish time magic.”
“What? Why?”
“To see that expression on your face again, of course,” Talin nodded to himself like it was the most logical thing in the world.
Before Elias could reply, the emperor interjected.
“That’s enough,” the man relaxed fully. “I believe you, Primus.”
“Being formal now, are we? Not going to say what got you so riled up, I’m guessing?” Talin scoffed.
“No.”
Talin rolled his eyes. Of course.
“However,” the emperor continued. “I will tell you. Just not now. I need to confirm a few things first,” he shook his head, nodding toward the speaker. “Any solutions for our guest?”
“I have guesses for the ‘gift’, though I can’t be sure yet,” Talin answered, then took out a metallic rod. “Since the elf mentioned I wouldn’t know where to look even if he mentioned it, the most obvious is some type of disease. By that same logic, it also wouldn’t be in Marisabel or here, since those are the two most likely places.”
He paced back and forth in the room, keeping his feet busy by tapping in discordant patterns. “Though we can’t rule out the possibility of the thing being entirely unknown to us,”
“But let’s simplify things first,” bringing out his pipe, he continued. “Let’s assume the elf is an actual elf. Since accounts of him vary on the small details, we can assume that there is either just one androgynous elf, or many of them—which would be a problem in and of itself.”
“That’s right!” Elias interrupted. “I’ve been trying to wrap my head around what I felt, but it makes sense now! It felt like a weird elf.”
“Weird how?” The emperor asked.
“Like… death? Not like the death mana in the Staircase to the Depths, but more… warped? Is what I would say. Though I originally thought that came from the corpse intermingling with the elf…”
Talin stopped mid step and considered. Perhaps there was something to it. Maybe a different species? A different world would lend to a different path of development, no? Elves suited for the opposite of their contemporaries here would make some sense. Though that would bring the fact that they look like elves to begin with into question.
He hummed in thought.
“Right,” he said, stopping his pacing. “For now, we’ll base everything on what we know of elves. They excel in nature magic and all its forms. That narrows potential targets down to elementals, normal animals, beasts, natural phenomena, and… Aristosa.”
Perhaps sensing his hesitation, Elias added. “It is the largest target.”
“Would they even be able to harm the tree in any way?” the emperor said in doubt. “That thing is older than most of the ‘ancestors’ still alive. If they were somehow able to damage it—”
“Him,” Talin corrected.
“—him,” Tiberius cleared his throat. “Then why wouldn’t they just outright kill us all in one fell swoop?”
“Indeed,” Talin said. “There is more that we don’t know. Either they aren’t as powerful as we think, or something else limits them.”
The three looked at each other.
Things were getting complicated, and they all knew it. Talin especially had much work to do with the nobles in his academy who were surely part—possibly unknowingly, since they were children—of the whole conspiracy.
One thing that he did know, and as he looked at his three companions, they seemed to be thinking of the same thing.
They needed allies.
“The Dreamwalkers can be trusted,” he said. “And I’ve already promised to visit the dwarves. Perhaps you two can handle the others? Especially you, Tiberius, you have the better image between us.”
The emperor nodded. “I’ll handle the more… difficult ones. The beasts might listen to reason, and the—” he sighed with a grimace. “I’ll visit the Darklings’ ancestor.”
Talin put his hand on Tiberius’ shoulder. He knew it would be a pain. Those bloodsuckers never liked socializing with everyone else—holed away on their own continent as they were—but this time, it would be necessary to break the ice. No matter how much of a pain it would be.
Tiberius then looked at his royal mage, about to command, when Elias cut him off. “I know. I will handle the giants and Marisabel.”
“Good,” then the emperor looked over to Talin. “I’ll have the Spectre help you with the nobles.”
Talin raised an eyebrow.
“With express commands to leave final decisions and actions to you,” Tiberius shook his head. “I know how you are with them.”
To that, Talin gave a toothy grin. “Don’t you wish they were all like you? Things would be so much easier.”
The two just looked at him and sighed.
He didn’t know what they were sighing about, though. He was genuinely thrilled.
For the first time in centuries, he didn’t know the true scale of the board.
will be explained over the next chapters.
