Chapter 554: Anrosh |
Sect Politics
The wind surged through the open window, threatening to scatter all the stacks of paper on Anrosh’s desk. But she had learned her lesson well, the paperweights held her work on the table, even if the edges flapped in the wind.
She smiled, closing her eyes and enjoying the feel of the wind. Her assistant had tried to convince her to put a formation on the window to keep the wind out even if she opened the window. Anrosh refused, of course. She barely had the time to see the sun, she couldn’t take not feeling the wind on her face. She would rather suffer the occasional mishap than admit defeat.
After a few seconds of enjoyment and rest, she turned her attention back to the matters at hand. Lists, reports, purchase orders, those were her life now. It would’ve been annoying if she didn’t enjoy it, deep, deep down, so deep that she would never admit it to anyone. Complaining to others was one of her few pleasures. Being able to tease Ryun for putting her in this position was her right! She had to get back at him somehow.
She skimmed over another report detailing yet another request for a sanctioned duel. The ways of the Sects might seem strange to outsiders, but they were necessary for their way of life. It was how they avoided great wars that plagued other factions.
She turned the piece of paper, taking a look at the documented tiers of the two participants. They were on the same tier, which was good, one thing less to worry about. Next she found the reason for the request; she sighed, it was the most common reason she encountered—honor.
She almost refused it, even though she had no cause for it, not really. One of them was a Twilight Melody Sect warrior, her own, the other was a visitor to the Sect, a caravan guard from sect to the north, Reges Ahn, a Great Sect. It was why she couldn’t try and smooth things over through other means. Honor was important, and it seemed that the two had irreconcilable differences. The actual reason was that her warriors “stole” the Reges Ahn’s group’s contract. They made a better offer to the caravan and they decided to pay the penalty to the Reges Ahn’s warriors to end the contract and made a new one with the Twilight Melody group. It was why she couldn’t try and smooth things over through other means.
The warrior from the Great Sect felt insulted, not only that, he felt like the honor of his sect was insulted, and he wanted to seek reparations. The Twilight Melody warrior was from a smaller family, one in service to the Woll House, her House. They specialized in raising primarily guards, people with powers geared toward keeping a place safe. Recently they had been expanding into forming groups capable of protecting caravans. This was a grab for power, as the Reges Ahn warriors believed. There wasn’t much that she could do. A duel was agreed by both parties. Ordinarily, with smaller sects, they would need no permission, but... Politics. Twilight Melody was a Great Sect too now, there were things to consider. They couldn’t allow it to seem like they were actually stealing their contracts and then bullying the other warriors out of their territories.
She gave her agreement for an official duel to be held, knowing full well that it could end with a death. But this way at least there wouldn’t be any retaliations happening beyond the duel. The Sect Laws were clear on that account.
Or at least it didn’t use to be. These days, a lot could happen in just a handful of years. Her Sect was a prime example of that.
Her next report was the newest update on their exports. The sect had finally managed to get on their feet enough to start selling produce made by the Dagda family. And unsurprisingly, high tiered, quality, foodstuff was in demand.
In just a few months, their treasury went from struggling to having enough that she didn’t really know what to do with all of it. It wasn’t just because of that, of course. Things had just started rolling forward, finally.
The war had brought a lot of talent forward, they had people that had advanced and who now started their own businesses, the Sect has an allowance of five years before a new business needs to pay tax to the Sect. In a world where people live for a long time, it was nothing. The Sect helped them grow during the early years, and now they were reaping the benefits.
They also had a lot of wealth in what they had recovered from the territories of the former Great Empire. They had been expanding aggressively south, and had pushed even farther to recover as much as they could. The lands were now infested with monsters, but they’ve been making good progress. There were other groups and factions that they clashed with on occasions but nothing serious so far.
The remnants of the Empire tended to avoid them, which was understandable, most of the forces the Twilight Melody sent south were former Empire after all. The House of Ornn had a reputation.
Though they had been forced to deal with scavengers from Settled Territories factions attempting to steal their recoveries.
But overall, the Sect was doing well for once. More than just well really. They started to expand their influence beyond their borders, more and more sects were acknowledging their standing, their name had spread across the Infinite Realm.
Anrosh played with the fabric of her robe as she let her mind wander. She wore an elaborate robe suitable for someone of her office, but also doubling as a combat attire, as almost all such attire in House Woll did. Ryun was not one for fancy garments.
Hers were black and violet of House Woll, with a golden trim at the edges denoting her rank in the Sect.
Her attention on her clothes made her mind turn to another issue that the Sect had. She had been… pressured, by other families to make new laws and clarify how exactly the three ruling Houses worked when their members made family units of their own.
It was annoying, and not that important, but it was an issue that had been present for years now.
In her defense, they hadn’t really been thinking about that when they established the system. The Twilight Melody Sect operated on the system of families. Every individual that was a citizen of the Sect belonged to a family. Then that family in turn owed its loyalty and service to another larger family. Some had old loyalties that were brought over from their previous Sects, some had loyalties directly to the one of the three Houses.
But all lines of loyalty led to the three regardless. The main Houses weren’t that big actually. The House Dagda consisted of the Ornn family, the direct family only. All of their servants and subordinates that had followed them from the Empire had their own families that were in their service.
House Woll, her and Ryun’s House, consisted out of the people that had been with them from the beginning. Though the only full members were Ryun, Anrosh, and Kri, the rest was their servants.
House Ekoa was Erdania and Selia, with a few of their direct servants. The rest of the former Zenshuen had their own families in their service, just like Ornns. Though for simplicity’s sake, at the start they had all considered themselves part of one of the three Houses.
That had started to change now, more family identities were emerging, branches of the main Houses were becoming more prominent. Which was why the question of how exactly everything worked was being brought up.
The issue they had was that the leaders of the said three Houses were all in family relationships with each other. Anrosh was part of House Woll, and in most cases served as the acting Head in Ryun’s stead. Nayra was the Head of House Dagda. They were together, a family, yet they were part of both Houses. Ryun and his partners had the same issue.
And so the search for solutions fell on her shoulders.
“Sect Leader,” one of her old assistants interrupted her thoughts as he greeted her and entered the office.
He was one of her oldest underlings, and had outgrown being just her underling years ago. These days he served as the Seneschal of Consequence as well as a high governing official in the Sect, so they still worked closely together.
“Eneri,” Anrosh greeted him in return. “What can I do for you?”
He tapped the end of a long tube tucked beneath his arm. “I have some documents for you to review.”
Anrosh suppressed a groan. “Important?” She asked.
“I would think so,” he said with a serious expression while his tail swayed behind him anxiously.
She sighed and gestured for him to approach, then she pushed a big stack of papers on the table, to the side, making room for him across from her.
He pulled the document out of the case and unrolled the scroll on her desk. She pulled it close and read. It was a list of five names, with their tiers and occupations listed.
Anrosh frowned. “You know that I don’t deal with immigration anymore, why bring this to me?”
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Eneri grimaced. “I wouldn’t usually, but it’s been pushed up to my desk and I don’t know if I can make this decision on my own.”
That made Anrosh raise an eyebrow. She looked down at the names, not seeing anything really out of the ordinary. “What am I not seeing here, and why haven’t you asked Lesamitrius?”
“Uh,” Eneri looked away. “He’s busy, and I felt like this issue was important.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Busy how?”
“Uh, the Sect Head and Sect Leader Erdania were having a… outing, on top of a mountain. They caused a massive landslide—”
“—Stop, I don’t want to know, I shouldn’t have asked,” Anrosh closed her eyes and palmed her face. She talked with them about this. “He promised me that they would be careful, but I guess that was too much to ask.”
She shook her head then looked back at Eneri and tapped the scroll. “So, what is this really about?”
“The five are Rankers of the Eight and Ninth Iterations.”
Anrosh glanced down, they were high tiered for being Rankers, but then again Ryun was a Ranker too. One of them had warrior listed as their occupation, while the others were listed as Essence Scientists, which was a peculiar occupation, especially in Sects. Though, they did have some of those—Valthua being the prime example.
But that wasn’t really that out of ordinary, nor would it require her input. “And?”
“And they are… seeking asylum,” Eneri answered.
That made Anrosh blink. “Asylum?”
“They came from the Core, from the interviews, they’ve been part of a faction that had been taken over by the Exalted Empire years ago, and well…”
That made Anrosh grimace, and also illuminated the issue. The Exalted Empire had strict laws regarding their people. They did not allow them to leave easily.
“I see,” Anrosh said. She looked down to the list. For a moment, she considered calling Ryun, but she knew what he would say. He wouldn’t particularly care one way or another, but he would accept them just to spite the Herald.
No, Anrosh would have to make the decision.
“There is one more thing that is somewhat… concerning.”
Anrosh pushed herself up and sighed. “Let’s go and talk with them."
Anrosh looked over the railing of the small skiff as it carried them from the palace to the edge of the territory. She looked down on Consequence and saw a city that had changed and grown so fast that she still couldn’t quite believe it.
She remembered the old city, built with gray stone, with square buildings and bland architecture. It looked nothing like that now. It had been transformed into something that could only really be described as a garden.
The touch of Ender of House Dagda was everywhere. A large nature square surrounded the palace walls in the center of the city. An area filled with trees, with ponds, people walking around and relaxing.
Beyond that inner ring started the districts, with eight main roads leading from the center of the city separating the eight districts. The roads were wide, so much so that at least ten carriages could move up and down side by side. And each road was surrounded flanked by trees, a different sort for every main road. One had red trees, another blue, making it easy for people to orient themselves just by the colors of the nature around them. Parks were scattered everywhere, built into the infrastructure of the city itself. Tall trees rose above the buildings in the residential, merchant, and industrial districts, providing a welcome shade to the people below.
Buildings were covered in vines, serving multiple purposes. One of which was that they would change color in case of dangerous substances in the air. The other was that they purified the air and increased its tier.
Gardeners from the House Dagda were ever present everywhere, walking around and maintaining the city.
The first wall separated the inner city from the second ring, here large fields were maintained as training grounds. Large barracks for the city guard were present as were the guild houses for the adventurers, hunters, as well as other Sect operated organizations. A few embassies of other factions had been built or in the process of being built. Large walled estates had risen as homes to the prominent families in the Sect dominated, placed strategically around the entire ring to provide equal cover, surrounding the foreign establishments.
The second wall was recently finished, and from it rose a massive energy dome that surrounded the city. A protective barrier that kept them safe and regulated the weather within it. Mostly, it was invisible, unless something attempted to get through without being allowed through. The city, her home, was massive. It was beautiful, a marvel unlike anything she had ever seen. She knew that it was unique even on the scale of the entire Infinite Realm.
Her flying skiff passed through the barrier without issues, it was marked for passage. Beyond the outer walls of the city, was more construction. A large undertaking was taking place on the bank of one of the rivers where a large airship factory would eventually start producing their own.
Farms stretched across the fields, small villages were scattered across the valley, and regulated forests filled in the rest.
Tall lookout towers were scattered here and there, though their main defenses were of the more natural variety. The trees hidden in the forests that could detect infiltrators, fungus that could spew spores to impact stealth abilities and incapacitate.
The heart of their Sect had turned into an unassailable fortress, and it wasn’t even finished.
She raised her eyes and looked ahead toward her destination. The northern area of the territory, where giant wall of brown wood stood proudly, filling the passes in between the mountains. Ender’s Great Work, continued by his successor. It was a tiny portion of the whole, but one day it would surround the entire territory.
It didn’t take long for them to reach the wooden wall. They landed on a pad of raised stone just inside the massive gates grown into the wood that rose over fifty meters.
Eneri led the way through. Warriors saluted as they passed through the gate. On the other side there was a small plateau filled with border buildings. The Twilight Melody Sect didn’t really have control of their borders, their territory was too vast for it, and they had too many Sects, that were not part of their faction, within their area of influence.
They had patrols that tried to keep an eye out, but it was hard trying to watch everything. But Consequence was another matter entirely. They kept a close watch on comings and goings, they didn’t allow just anyone in—not anymore. The city had become too important for that.
Eneri led her to the small building that dealt with people who wanted to enter Consequence proper. Those that had no permission slips or good enough reason to be let through.
Eneri spoke with a few people and soon enough they entered a room filled with five people. It was a comfortably furnished area, with doors leading to bedrooms and bathrooms beyond. It was a holding area for people that didn’t deserve to be thrown into a cell.
The five people they had come to meet were inside, two of them were humans with slightly pointed ears, one was a blue-skinned demasi, and the last two were cthul.
The sixth person inside, stood up then bowed.
“Sect Leader! Seneschal,” The demasi warrior wearing the Sect colors said. He straightened and stepped aside.
Eneri stepped closer and spoke. “Anur is it? I’ve read your report, good job. The Sect Leader wishes to speak with our guests.”
He inclined his head. “Of course,” he glanced at Anrosh then turned to the five people and spoke.
“This is Marianna Heva, Ranker of the Eight Iteration, formerly of the Kingdom of Iltherith and the Exalted Empire.” He indicated the woman. “And Rankers Rickon Smith, Inna Ul Vur, with Uthal and Htull Calx,” he pointed at the human man, the demasi woman and the two cthul in turn.
After introducing them, he turned around. “This is the Sect Leader of the Twilight Melody Sect, Anrosh of House Woll, and Seneschal Eneri of the same House. They will make the decision concerning your fate.”
“It is our honor to meet you Sect Leader,” Marianna said. Then turned to look at Anur. “Thank you for your help, master Anur,” she then made an unpracticed bow. She was clearly not familiar with Sect customs. Even the honorific was wrong, but Anrosh didn’t hold it against them.
Anur bowed to Anrosh and Eneri and nodded at the visitors then left the room, leaving them alone.
“Well,” Eneri started as he looked the five over. “You’ve gotten our attention, I was told that you have something of great importance to show us. Something that you could only show to the leaders of the Sect. Here we are,” he waved a hand.
The five rankers looked at each other, then came to a silent agreement. Marianna turned to look at them and swallowed.
“We’ve come seeking asylum, can you offer us that?” She asked, her eyes looking up at them with hope.
Eneri tilted his head. “That depends on you and why you are here in the first place.”
“We did not wish to remain in the Exalted Empire.” She told them.
“If you seek asylum it means that you expect to be hunted. Why?” Eneri asked.
Marianna glanced at Anrosh then looked back and motioned at one of the cthul. The man walked up to the table in between them, he nervously glanced at Anrosh then hovered his hand over it. A moment later, a small metal box appeared on top of it.
Slowly he opened it, revealing what was inside.
Marianna spoke. “It’s—”
Anrosh raised her hand, interrupting her. “I know what that is,” she said, making sure that she kept her voice calm even though she felt anything but.
“You do?” The Cthul asked, obviously surprised.
Anrosh just nodded. She knew, they had three of them same exact items stashed in Wolf’s Grove, being tested by their Valthua, Vyrull, and their best and brightest.
She crossed the room in an instant, closed the box and stashed it away before anyone in the room could even register that she had moved.
They blinked, obviously startled. She could feel their barely restrained fear skyrocket.
“Where did you get that?” She asked directly.
It was Marianna that answered. “We all worked at a research facility as part of the team that developed them.”
Anrosh narrowed her eyes. Things could never be easy, could they. She looked over the five, knowing that it would’ve been easier to just kill them, or turn them away. The Exalted Empire would not just let them go, in fact, she was pretty sure that they would do everything in their power to kill them, to silence them.
There were rules about these things, agreements made. Yet these people and what they had brought weren’t just the proof that those agreements had been broken. They were the witnesses that could point fingers.
“Do they know that you’re here?” Anrosh her Essence slipping through into her voice, the temperature in the room dropped several degrees.
Marianna swallowed, her breath came out in a small cloud. She glanced at the others then back at Anrosh. “We hired a professional to take us out of the Empire. Afterward… We tried our best, but we aren’t proficient in those areas. I don’t think that we made any mistakes.”
They didn’t know, so Anrosh had to assume that the Exalted Empire would figure it out eventually. She narrowed her eyes as she studied them. Rankers, just like Ryun. They had risen high for the short time they had been in the Infinite Realm, all were in between seven and nine tiers. And if what they said about the item they had brought was true, they would be valuable on multiple fronts.
They had brought a headache to her Sect, no, more than that. They had brought a… a Reaction Engine, in more than one sense.
“Your request is accepted,” Anrosh said slowly. Their expressions changed, relief filling their faces.
“Thank you, Sect Leader,” Marianna said, bowing deeply.
Anrosh flared her Qi, and a moment later Anur walked back into the room.
“Anur,” Anrosh spoke. “Take our guests to Consequence, straight to the palace.”
He bowed, and quickly ushered the grateful and bowing Rankers out of the room.
“That’s not going to go over well,” Eneri said once they were alone. “They’ll know.”
Anrosh didn’t comment on that. “Send word to Wolf’s Grove, to Valthua, I want her research team and the… items, moved to Consequence—wait, fuck. I can’t risk the city. Have them relocate to the eastern barracks instead,” Anrosh said, her mind whirling as she tried to think. The barracks were outside of Consequence, but still inside the Territory. It should be sufficiently away from the city, but close enough that they could keep an eye out.
“And triple the patrols on our borders,” Anrosh added.
Eneri nodded his head. “At once, Sect Leader,” he answered then walked out, leaving her alone.
Anrosh grimaced, but she didn’t doubt her decisions. There wasn’t anything else that she could’ve done. They couldn’t allow anyone else to have these people.
Now, she had to go and find Ryun.
