金瓶梅第2部

⟬ The meeting room, approximately one bell later. ⟭

Natalya Crucis had yet to forgive the snake.

He was a villain-- a heartless and untrustworthy criminal that played with women's hearts without an uncia of guilt or remorse.

She had a mind to have him crucified-- actually crucified!

--if only the mushroom-brained criminal wasn't so integral to the coming operations...

Tycondrius of Charm.

The influence he had amassed throughout his career as a gladiator and guildsman put him on the same level as leaders of entire nations.

Powerful people just... gravitated toward that person.

They'd do anything for him. Some even owed him favors.

She had no idea why.

Natalya shook her head as she headed toward the manor's hallways and corridors. Fatigue slowed her steps, or perhaps she was weighed down by hatred and discontent.

Those things, she'd never be rid of.

They were quintessential qualities of a proper Tyrion.

She slowed to a stop, having had a bothersome realization.

Her head was strangely clear... as were her memories.

--yet she clearly remembered drinking an obscene amount of alcohol, only a few bells prior.

Since leaving Tycon's room, she had been completely sober.

No...

Before that, she activated a Spell scroll... one that the snake claimed to have scribed, himself.

It was practically impossible for him to have prepared it beforehand. The Spell was designed specifically for her physique.

Could... Tycon have known that she would drink herself into a stupor?

(Or did he think she was so stupid, it was inevitable that she poison herself? The thought of it made Natalya so mad...)

But if he was telling the truth... it was a problem.

He called it a Spell.

--but it didn't look like a Spell.

It looked like a transcription of a Battle Litany-- prayers popular among the martial-minded members of the Church. Proper Battle Litanies, though, were both song and prayer devoted to the Eternal Flame, the divine texts activated by a pure, unyielding spirit speaking them aloud.

A Spell... was haphazard and erratic, something cast by the Witches of the northern forests or performed by the savages in the western marshes with rotten blood and burnt bones!

But what Tycon made... most certainly channeled divine magic... granted by the Eternal Flame.

Holy magic.

Tycon had taken HOLY magic! And he turned it into a page of koboldscratch you could find on a street corner for 20 slugs!!

It just wasn't possible... and if it was, it took an obscenely powerful Spellcaster to break those kinds of Laws.

...Natalya had never even thought of Tycon as a Spellcaster.

Of course, in the Magic Kingdom, even children were mutated with the heretical ability to cast Elementary-level witchcraft.

Tycon was a Baron there... but he was born in the Holy Country, so that didn't even matter!

--and that STILL didn't explain how he could create his own Battle Litanies! The sacred prayers were based on strictured texts unchanged for hundreds of years...

Natalya grit her teeth and continued on, stomping toward the meeting hall's entrance.

That man was an anomaly.

Of course, she still didn't like him...

Well, maybe she did-- a little.

She felt a flush in her cheeks, thinking about the past few bells.

It wouldn't be a waste of time if she got a little closer to him.

Whenever he came up in conversation, Troia always praised him.

--so much that it was suspicious. But anyroad, it wouldn't be a problem if Tycon could be convinced to stay with them at the Basilica.

More time with him would be ideal. That would allow her to find a weakness of his, something she could exploit...

After all, there was certainly something shady about how he knew so many important people hailing from all across the continent.

There were five people in the meeting room-- or more accurately, two attendants at the entrance, and three persons of import.

The woman adjacent to the doors was a comfortably-dressed brunette with tired eyes. She rendered a polite bow as Natalya approached.

"Ahem. Now entering: Archbishop Natalya Crucis of the Holy Country."

Natalya nodded in satisfaction. The herald did a fine job-- short, simple, and to the point.

Standing beside the herald was a tall knight in unmarked black armor.

It looked like a statue, immobile and intimidating. Natalya wasn't sure if it was human, but they radiated a... an oddly comfortable sense of warmth.

She was going to assume it was human.

From what she understood, statues animated with even rudimentary intelligence were not common in the Eastern States.

"Archbishop Crucis," Said the herald. "Seated at the table from the left to right are--"

"No need," Natalya waved as she stepped forward.

She did not know who the others were, but she didn't care. She knew who they represented and she knew she had to tolerate them. Just as with Tycon, though, she didn't have to like them in order to use them.

...And, if any problems were to arise, she'd make Tycon fix them. He owed her at least that much.

The first at the table was a purple-haired whore wearing a set of overly large spectacles and a dark, conical hat.

If Natalya had to hazard a guess, the woman was the Witch-Queen of the City of Archangel... or if not a 'Queen,' then whatever the Eastern States-equivalent title was.

Her immortal soul was damned for practicing whatever heretical flavor of witchcraft she practiced. However... she was powerful-- enough that even other witch-heretic sects feared her and her organization's twisted brand of justice.

If the intel was true, no other singular person in the Realm could summon literal dozens of Third-Circle Casters. Criticizing the woman aloud would be political suicide.

...The task was a difficult one.

She probably thought her glasses made her look cute.

They did not.

If Tycon was attracted to women who wore glasses, then *she* would look far better in a set of reading glasses than any random cone-hatted heretic.

Natalya labeled the harlot as 'Witch Whore' in her head.

The second was a woman leaning back in her chair. Her military jacket was unbuttoned and her filthy boots were kicked up on the table.

That was decidedly *not* professional military behavior.

And what was with the unnecessary amount of fat on her chest?

Tycon probably liked women like that. That disgusting idiot was just so predictable...

Who was she supposed to be?

The uniform was Alizeaun...

Was she one of King Adal's daughters? The youngest, perhaps? No... she couldn't have been the *youngest.*

A gaudy ship captain's hat rested on the table near her feet... and on her head of ugly-pink hair was a multi-colored bandana.

So... a Naval Officer? Or did the Magic Kingdom count corsairs in their ranks?

Natalya could almost smell the stench of sea salt and fermented fish.

That woman would be 'Pirate Whore' in Natalya's head.

Then, the third...

A giant clad in metal sat over a foot away from the table. Thick, spiked pauldrons topped his ringmail, everything overlaid with furs.

Conspicuously absent in his attire were the skulls and dark effigies common to a heretic knight of Nemaya Strana, the so-called Sleeping Country.

Was it really supposed to be the Sleeping Country? Or was it the Spiky Pauldron Country?

The disgusting man nodded to her-- which sent a wave of revulsion through Natalya's entire body.

Natalya was seated at a table with a Witch Whore, a Pirate Whore, and... a Fat Necromancer.

She hated herself for thinking it... but she hoped Tycon would arrive soon.

The thought of her talking to any of the representatives of the other nations was more loathsome than even that snake.

"Now entering: Clayton Smith of the Red Cape Mercenary Company."

With the herald's announcement, Natalya felt a dull pain spear through her temples.

...Maybe Tycon's magic wasn't as good as she'd given him credit for. She found herself glad she didn't thank him.

"Now, now, ladies," Came the voice of Clayton Smith. "Don't stand up on my account."

No one stood up. No one even made the slightest hint of standing up. The notion of standing for that man was demeaning-- and offensive! It was a thought that everyone at the table intrinsically understood.

Natalya sighed aloud.

She did not welcome the thought of having to withstand that loathsome fellow's presence.

Her gazed lazily passed over the Pirate, the Witch, and the Wardrobe-sized knight.

If she antagonized them all at once, they might be able to kill her before Smith spoke to her... but she was having difficulty thinking of a single phrase to accomplish that.

"Natalya! Natalya, my dear. How have you found your lodgings?"

The red-caped mercenary took the seat next to her, filling her peripheral vision with his oily mustache and greasier smile.

Natalya tried to wait it out... but Smith continued to stare at her, intent on receiving an answer.

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes... and tried to speak with a reasonable measure of decorum.

"Everything was fine, Mister Smith."

"Ah, wonderful-- most wonderful!" The mercenary exclaimed.

Natalya held back the urge to bang her head against the table until she died.

A Pirate.

A Witch.

A Necromancer.

...And an idiot that reeked of desperation.