2297 Fated Meeting (Part 1)

"Then Bytra starts nit-picking in hindsight everything she could have done better and whines about the materials and the time she wasted for such a 'mediocre' result. Waah! Waah!" The giant Dragon rubbed her eyes in mock weeping.

"I should be called the Failure of the Flames or the Big Baby Magus." Zoreth said while doing her best Bytra impression. "I'm so useless. No one will ever recognize my talent."

"By my Mom!" Solus laughed so hard that she fell off the Raiju's back who was forced to dive down despite her embarrassment and rescue Solus. "You must have Dragon and Phoenix blood, Bytra, because at this point I'm convinced that you and Lith are lost twins."

"That's not funny!" The Tiamat and the Raiju said in unison.

"Twins! You got that right!" Zoreth started crying for real, but from laughter.

"I know!" Solus clenched her stomach, gasping for air.

"Stop laughing!" No matter how outraged Lith and Bytra sounded, the Dolby surround effect they produced only amplified their respective companion's hilarity.

Theseus and Nandi following the conversation on their amulets and laughing as well only made matters worse.

It took them a few minutes to regain their cool and start the reclamation of Bima. They had just delivered the opening salvo when Lith's army amulet opened a communication on its own.

"Magus Verhen, we have spotted the Golden Griffon." Sylpha's face was pale and her voice dry. "I'm sending you the coordinates. You have the Royal Authorization to abandon your current mission and relocate."

Lith didn't like it one bit. It was excellent news and with all the preparations the Kingdom had made, it was a golden opportunity to take Thrud down yet the Queen seemed scared to death.

"Acknowledged." He nodded.

"Excellent. Don't drop your guard and prepare for the worse. If the situation is beyond your control, I order you to retreat. I want a Magus alive who can fight another day, not to attend the funeral of a Magus who died a hero. Did I make myself clear?"

"Crystal." Lith replied, more worried by the second.

"Good. Aside from the position of the Golden Griffon, we have nothing. Thrud's path is way off the one we predicted and she's moving nowhere near the Fire Griffon. Also, she has somehow triggered an information blackout.

"I have no idea about what her goal is or the number of enemy troops you should expect. I'm sending you into a nightmare scenario so I want you to prioritize your safety. 

"Know that as far as we know there's no strategic asset or magical resource in that direction. I'm sending you there only in the hope that can you rescue Phloria or infiltrate the Golden Griffon and destroy it.

"If neither is possible, just report the situation to me. Queen Sylpha out."

After hanging up the call, she turned around, addressing the members of the army, the Mage Association, and the Council who were assembled in the Throne Room.

"Whatever detail we've put on Verhen's family, triple it. I don't care about how much it costs or how tight we are on troops, just do it."

"With all due respect, Your Majesty, are you sure?" General Vorgh asked. "It's a significant commitment in our current situation."

"You are wrong. Doing otherwise would be a risk we can't afford." Sylpha noticed from their dumb looks that aside from the Council representatives, no one else seemed to follow her reasoning.

"All this time, we got it backward." The Queen sat down, feeling tired from having to deal with a bunch of adults acting like children. "We thought that his family was his leash whereas it's our safety cage.

"Look at what Verhen has done once he took the gloves off." She projected the images of the cities Lith had conquered and of the Divine Beasts he had felled. "Look at who fights by his side."

Another touch of Sylpha's hand conjured the images of Bytra, Xenagrosh, Nandi, and Theseus. Each picture was followed by a long file listing their past crimes and known achievements.

"Well, that's actually good news." Berion shrugged. "If we release this information to the public, we can destroy his reputation and force Verhen to rely on our help for his survival."

"Are you insane?" King Meron put as much scorn in his voice as his health allowed him to. "Then what? What if someone attacks or kidnaps a member of Verhen's family again and this time they succeed?

"Watch at those pictures again and answer me this: how do you stop him if once he breaches a city's defenses he keeps slaughtering everyone inside? How do you stop a Blade Spell aimed at the city level instead of the protective dome?

"How do you stop millennia-old monsters that make the legends we have about them look like fairy tales when comparing them to what we see them do now?" Now the images shifted to the Eldritches laying waste to everything on their path.

Walking natural disasters against which there was no defense. One could only run away or wait for them to pass.

"I have no clue, but-"

"No buts!" Sylpha swept the air with her hand. "I don't want to make an enemy out of Verhen while Thrud is out there. Even once this war is over, I have no desire to lose countless resources and lives to fight another.

"This is the reason we are going to triple Verhen's detail and we have found legendary heroic figures who resemble the Eldritches. We'll spin the truth so that no one outside this room will ever know who they really are.

"To the rest of the Kingdom, those aren't four mass murderers but merciful creatures who answered Verhen's call. They are wise Elder Beasts who are fighting for our cause out of the goodness of their hearts. Are we clear?"

"Crystal." The rest of the room replied in unison, finding themselves covered in a cold sweat.

'The most incredible thing about this development is that Inxialot predicted it.' Raagu thought. 'Otherwise he would have never volunteered to protect Verhen's family even at the cost of neglecting his research.

'In hindsight, it's pretty obvious. Verhen made no mystery of knowing Blade Magic and the Organization favored him ever since Xenagrosh met Verhen during his trial. Maybe I should accept Inxialot's invitation to dinner and listen to what he has to say.

'There's method in his madness.'

There was a method indeed, but not the way she believed. Inxialot had predicted nothing and couldn't care less about politics. Every one of his moves was meant to look chivalrous and keep Lith's mind focused on Inxialot's problems.

Were he to learn that his plan had just succeeded, the Lich King would have had a heart attack out of joy and then be resurrected by his phylactery a minute later.

Meanwhile, in the skies of the Nestrar Region, Lith was searching for the quickest way back to Deirus without revealing the tower's existence.

"I'm proud of you, little brother." Zoreth had regained her cool and there was no trace of the previous mockery in her tone. "You've taught both your enemies and allies to respect you. The Queen genuinely cares about your well-being."