Polymath Redux – Into the belly of the beast
Chapter XVI
A large empty hall covered in shadows, with the only source of light being from a single candle. Seven figures sat down around a round table with most of their features hidden away by the carefully constructed shadow. To any casual observer this would obviously be taken as a signal to assume that this was a meeting solely for undesirable elements.
Of course, this was no exception. This was the largest underground organization that had deep rooted history in the governance of Xagontetia.
The ‘Wayfarer Council’.
For over 200 years had they been slowly affecting and influencing how the country would progress, their goal? At the start it was simply for money but over time it had shifted to more political oriented objectives. They wanted to shape Xagontetia to their liking and expand outwards to the neighboring empire of the Baliazoural. With most of its core members being at a position of extremely high influence and wealth.
Their plans were almost at an eclipse and their hour to strike had been so dastardly close yet an unforseen circumstance had arisen, causing a halt to their operation and requiring the presence of all core members of the council. Seven figures out of eight sat down at their round table to figure out what went wrong and how they should proceed out from now on.
The key matter to discuss in this meeting was the subject of the missing red dragon. A vital component to their plan had suddenly turned up missing without rhyme or reason.
“So? Can anyone tell me what’s going on?! Why did the Red Dragon suddenly go missing?! Alexander it was supposed to be under your watchful eye. ”
Out of all the people covered in the shadow the one most deeply covered was this person. The Grand Cardinal of the Church of Xagon, Lazzaro Zeder. The shadows boiling around him grew violent but not physically, as though to match his rhythm and pace the shadows expanded each time he raised his voice in an intimidating manner.
He raised the voice of another member of the Wayfarer council, Alexander Granate, the Vice Director of the Adventurer’s Guild.
“I had placed a careful watch on the red dragon with only the most skilled trackers and scouts, but it had just suddenly disappeared, almost like it had been spirited away by some force. I don’t even know what caused it.”
Alexander replied but it was obvious that no one was satisfied with that answer. A silent shadow with gleaming golden eyes pierced through to Alexander’s soul. A wave of nausea and fear had gripped tightly onto his heart, but soon that death glare had vanished.
“It seems he’s telling the truth. Well, he had no reason to lie.”
A deep, masked voice came out from the shadow with the golden eyes. This was the ‘Luminary’, the leader of the Wayfarer Council. His entire identity was a mystery; his name, his birthplace, his wealth, his race and even his gender was unknown. It was assumed he was a male due to the deep voice but that could have easily been falsified using voice altering magic.
Always draped in shadows even the other core members wanted to know who this person is but did not out of two reasons. The first was fear, even though they had never seen him directly fight so they could not gauge his strength, but his single signature glare was enough to put people into paralysis. At such a display they could not even begin to try.
The second reason was because of his incredible leadership skills. It was because of him that the Wayfarer Council had successfully shifted from a profit-centric organization to a more political-centric one. The greatest proof of his success was the promotion of the Granate family who was previously a no name small nobility, but now was one of the quintessential duke houses in the country.
Three of the core members of the Wayfarer Council were from the Granate dukedom. The first was Alexander Granate, as stated before, was the Vice Director of the Adventurer guild, coming with it vast amounts of knowledge, power and wealth from the adventurer network.
The second was Pierre Granate, the most outstanding member of the Wayfarer Council, he was one of only three duke houses to the Xagontetian state. He was the one who provided at least 50% of the funds for the council and held considerable power over the Xagontetia Military, even having an ear of the king whenever he requested it. A true miracle considering the previous generation of the Granate nobility were simple country counts and farmers.
The third and last member of the Granate line in the Wayfarer Council was Del Granate, she was head of the Royal Alchemist Commission, a group of highly trained and specialized alchemist group that served the king’s guards and special commissions unit. It was the equivalent of the secret service. Of course they were not the only ones protecting the crown, there was also the Royal Knight Commission which competed directly against them. For this reason the Royal Alchemists weren’t too powerful but their position was still prized after by all aspiring magicians and alchemists.
“Now, now Cardinal Lazzaro, there’s no use crying over spilt milk. We should discuss on what we should do now that the situation has come to this… hmm? Wait where is Casec? Shouldn’t he be here by now?”
Sven asked. Out of all the extraordinary people gathered in this place, the only person out of place was Sven Serus, a seemingly normal S rank adventurer. Under normal circumstances one would have to at least be OMEGA rank to join the Wayfarer Council’s core membership, but Sven had a small secret.
He was the illegitimate son of the Xagontetian Crown, King Lionel Crom. Even without any claim to the throne, if done correctly, the Wayfarer council would be able to assassinate all members of royalty and place Sven at the throne. Of course that was their final goal and too far into the future to even speak about.
“That’s Grand Cardinal to you! But in any case you’re right, where is that buffoon?”
“Of course ‘Grand’ Cardinal, my apologies.”
The two bantered around and someone else had answered their question.
“Casec isn’t coming, he reported a strange presence at the Magician’s Chasm and went to check it out in more detail. Due to the timing we had thought that maybe this was somehow linked to the disappearance of the red dragon.”
Del Granate spoke out. She was one of only two female members of the Wayfarer council. The other one being…
“Is he going to be fine? I’ve not seen it myself but I’ve heard the mana fluctuation there could cause someone to lose consciousness.”
Belita Lambert, actually sub viceroy of a small Baliazoural state on the fringe spaces between Xagontetia and Baliazoural. In all likelihood she would’ve been an enemy to the entire country of Xagontetia, but ironically has become one of its shadowy governing bodies. Of course the trade off was that she didn’t have much power within her own country.
“Don’t worry, the mana fluctuations only affect magicians and weak adventurers. Casec is an OMEGA rank adventurer that isn’t a magician so he should be fine. Anyway we’re getting off topic, what should be our next move?”
Del answered and returned the conversation to its original topic.
“Tsk, we can’t do anything about the red dragon for now and we’ll have a lot of time until we come up with a new plan. For now I suggest we purge out the remaining demons in Solaris, their mere presence alone offends me.”
Lazzaro answered. The fact that he was a huge racist wasn’t exactly kept a secret and all of the other members either didn’t care or tolerated it. The Wayfarer Council was a sort of special interest group after all, and Lazzaro was one of its next biggest contributors so his wishes had to be considered as well.
The timing was decent too, with their red dragon gone they would need to consider an alternative plan, but that took time and in that time if a small side objective for one of their members was achieved then it could only be a good thing for the council. Not to mention that the neutral demons in the city, while not too numerous also presented itself to be a hidden threat in the Luminary’s eyes.
“…”
Everyone turned to look at the Luminary for his decision.
“… I’ll allow it. Lazzaro may use a small bit of our undercover agents to instigate a small movement. I’ll leave the details up to you.”
“Understood sir. Thank you.”
Lazzaro answered with a smile.
…
“I think we’re near the Chasm, be careful everyone.”
Leona said as she peered out the window of the carriages they were riding on. As she had said over in the distance a large gaping hole could be seen and the mana felt by the two magicians in the carriage.
“How is it? Are those mana… something units working?”
Wolf asked, oblivious to its name or how it even functioned. He wasn’t too keen on anything outside of fighting, and especially topics related to magic bore him to no end.
“Mana dispersion unit, you doofus, and it’s working fine, but since the mana fluctuation here is so bad I can still feel some of it. However it’s fine we can still work through this without any problems.”
Stella answered him as well as the rest of the team.
The carriage had come to a halt, despite not being close to the Chasm they had to go the rest of the distance on foot since the horses were unlikely to be able to continue on. The rest of the members, including Morialia who had tagged along, exited the cart. Since the mana dispersion unit turned out to be relatively easy to manufacture, Rio had time to create a third one for Morialia.
It was around high noon and the sun was beating down on them, but each one of them soldiered on, with Wolf having a big smile on his face. He was expecting something. His wolf senses were tingling with excitement that something big was going to happen in this place.
“What’s with that dumb smile on your face for? We’re here on a rescue mission.”
Stella growled at him. Even thought the mana dispersion unit was working perfectly, she still felt some of the effects of the mana fluctuation, thus she wanted to end this job as quickly as possible.
“Nothing… nothing at all…”
Wolf told her, but Stella simply rolled her eyes.
“Hey, you guys keep your eyes straight you never know what’s going to happen.”
Leona told them.
Out of everyone however, there was one person that wasn’t happy about this situation. With a frown on her face, it was Morialia. Even though this entire situation had been planned for, she didn’t like how this situation was progressing at all. It simply irked her.
“Don’t worry Morialia, we’ll find your brother.”
Leona, noticing the young girl’s frown tried to reassure her. However that wasn’t what she was bothered about. The thing that really bothered her was the sounds coming out from the Chasm, or to be more specific, the lack thereof. Right, the chasm was completely silent, which was odd considering by now she should’ve been hearing the ghastly wailings of the Spectral Eater.
Why did it not cry? She wanted to know.
Morialia gave a nod to Leona.
As they got close to the edge of the chasm, the skies above it was swirling around in a technicolored fashion as thought it was some sort of day time aurora.
“How is it?”
Leona asked Rio and Stella.
“We’re fine, this thing works really great.”
“That’s good, but there’s no sign of anyone here. We might have to go down into the chasm to look further for Morialia’s brother, think you two can handle that?”
Leona asked.
“We should be fine.”
Stella answered with a thumbs up and Rio nodded with glee, she was having fun just field testing those new mana dispersion units.
Though it was dangerous they tried to pick a place that wasn’t so hazardous to bring Morialia along. They still needed her to confirm whether it was her brother or not if they found someone. The Chasm had a natural stairway formation going down its side to the bottom, but of course since it was a natural formation, safety wasn’t guaranteed.
However they were all able to get down with relative ease.
However what they found at the bottom wasn’t exactly what they were expecting. It wasn’t what Morialia, no, it wasn’t what Mordred was expecting.
A large dark colored monster, laid dead on the ground. With black colored blood oozing out of its wounds and miasma seeping out near its carcass. Sharp claws, sharp teeth, spikes all over its body, it was an extremely dangerous monster. Upon first sight Rio had recognized it instantly, a Spectral Eater, it was an extremely rare and dangerous species that she had only seen once in her entire life and when she did it had the power to decimate everything with powerful magic.
She wondered why such a creature was dwelling down at the bottom of the chasm, but more importantly, if they had come and it was still alive they would’ve likely been wiped out.
“Dragon… King?”
Leona exclaimed as she recognized the figure of the person sitting atop of the dead Spectral Eater. Adorned in ornate black, white and gold armor, white hair, golden eyes, one large horn from the side of his face. A golden sword to his hip and a large white shield slung onto his back.
His entire presence oozing with charisma and the experience of a veteran warrior.
“You guys… why have you come?”
He asked.
“We’re here to search for a missing person…”
Leona said but she didn’t finish that sentence. Though she didn’t know what kind of monster it was, but the dead monster warranted the appearance of the dragon king himself, meaning that whoever was here before wasn’t likely to survive. She turned and glanced at Morialia with an uneasy gaze, this probably meant that her brother was also dead.
“Missing person? Ah, you mean this puppet?”
The Dragon King drew out from behind the Spectral Eater’s carcass, the figure of an adult man with similar features to Morialia. At first the members of Hywel Knights were a bit taken aback at the corpse but was soon told the truth.
“That’s a puppet, not a real corpse. Looks like you guys were tricked into coming here…”
The Dragon King’s gaze fell on the only foreign member here…
Morialia.
Wayfarer Council Members:
The ‘Luminary’ – Leader of the Wayfarer Council
Lazzaro Zeder – The Grand Cardinal of the Church of Xagon
Alexander Granate – Vice Director of the Adventurer Guild
Sven Serus – Illegitimate son of the Crown of Xagontetia
Belita Lambert – Sub viceroy of Baliazoural’s fringe state
Pierre Granate – Duke of Xagontetia and aide to the Crown
Del Granate – Head of the Royal Alchemist Commission
Casec – Adventurer, OMEGA rank
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