Chapter 249: Risks and Liabilities
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Chapter 249: Risks and Liabilities
Tala took a deep breath, centering herself.
The City Lord was leaning towards her, clearly interested in her explanation.
She had just asked him to remove her collar, allowing her to violate the ruling of the House of Blood, and he didnt reject her outright.
We might be able to do this.He just wants to know why. I can give him a good why. Hes the Pillar; Im the Eskau; what more can I say? I cannot allow him to go into danger without me.
He scrunched his nose. That is why your Houses council should have approved your participation. They said no. Why should I allow you to go around their decision?
She hesitated, then reworded this first reason. Pillar Be-thric will die if I dont go with him. I cannot let him go alone.
Why would that sway me in the slightest? He looked genuinely confused. As Ive said, the safety of a Houses Pillars is their business. I trust that isnt the only reason you have?
Well that was negated more quickly than ideal.
-Next idea?-
Obviously. Because this shouldnt involve you at all.
His head titled slightly to one side. Interesting. Go on.
If I werent human, I would follow him on this venture, and it wouldnt involve you or a collar or anything. I might be reprimanded, but that would be my choice, the consequences solely mine to bear.
Ahh, but it you werent human, this venture would be unnecessary.
That is hardly the point.
I disagree, but go on.
She took another breath, finding her balance before continuing, The only reason you are involved at all is this stupid collar.
The collar that you want me to remove.
Precisely.
The collar that is meant to prevent you from acting in ways counter to your sponsoring House.
Yes? She was not aware that that was the supposed purpose. I thought it was a mandate by the City Lord.
-Yeah, thats what we were told.-
The collar which is currently preventing your from acting against the express ruling of your House.
yes. She grimaced. Well, when you say it like that
So, you see the problem? Your argument is that I should remove your restriction, because you want to do the very thing the restriction is meant to guard against.
II thought the collar was a requirement required by you, at your will, and by your discretion.
He shrugged. That is both true and false.
She cocked her head to the side, a slight frown creasing her features. Explain.
The room suddenly warped, and Tala was on her knees with no memory of falling, breath driven from her lungs, heart stuttering in her chest.
Her aura control, and authority over anything, her own body included, was utterly gone.
Her gate was held in a vice-grip, her flow of power cut off as completely as if she were born without one.
The City Lord hadnt moved, but his face was stony, utterly without mercy.The debut release of this chapter happened at Ñøv€l-B1n.
Anger or fury would have been less terrifying.
You do not command me, human child. Id thought you understood that. The pressure vanished, the crumbling walls and half caved in roof pulling back together under the City Lords power.
When did that break? The sound of dripping drew her perspective back to herself, and she was able to see streams of blood running down her face from the corners of her eyes and out of her ears. The dark, crimson liquid was dripping onto the floor from where it gathered on her chin.
I will not tell you again. His voice was perfectly level, perfectly controlled.
Tala nodded, barely keeping a rein on her panic. Pull it together, Tala.
-Are you alright?-
Not in the slightest, butbut I need to try this avenue. She slowly stood, giving a deeper bow than usual. My apologies, City Lord. If you would be willing, can you explain what you mean?
He smiled, all traces of displeasure gone. Well, every City Lord forbids human advancement, unequivocally, as it sets a bad precedent, and it never ends well. If a House is willing to take on liability and risk, a prerequisite is that collar. He pointed to her unnecessarily. That eliminates the problem once their gamble fails.
If I may, what sort of risk? She was still fighting to keep her emotions under control. She was not used to being faced with such overwhelming power, and it was rattling to say the least.
It depends. Ten times the worth of any damages owed due to unlawful actions of the elevated human. That part is the most commonly invoked. If the human does something so heinous that they execute her, the House owes the City ten founts for every rank the human was allowed to advance before their fall to inevitable failing. If the human is banished into the wilds, its twenty founts, because someone has to be sent after her to kill her properly.
Tala frowned. Forgive me, City Lord, but wouldnt the collar kill me, were I to be banished?
Thats the interesting quirk of the relationships between the Houses and the City Lords. If their act of banishment killed you, that wouldnt be banishment, now would it? As such, to honor their ruling on their own members, we remove the collar. But. He held up a finger. But we dont want an uncollared, advanced human out and about, so she has to be hunted down.
Could that work?
-Do you really want this guy, or one of his enforcers hunting you down?-
No, but it is a possibilityLets call this the worst case scenario, but it could work.
Now, it basically never happens, because the cost is so prohibitive to the House.
Tala blinked. Excuse me It seems that you are speaking about this like there are quite a few humans that are, or have been, in my position.
Am I? I suppose after millennia it seems that way. You are the only such in this city.
OhAlright.
But as I was saying, banishment to the wilds basically doesnt happen. Banishment to another House or city doesnt happen, because there would have to be another House or City Lord willing to take responsibility for you, and youd have just proven yourself to be a horrid burden.
She grimaced, remaining silent.
Now, for you, as an Eskau of all things, theyd never banish or kill you while your Pillar lives, not with the particularities of your specific arrangement, but that is precisely your concern.
Tala nodded but didnt interject.
If he were to die, I could see that as grounds for your death or banishment. As a former Eskau at that point, they might opt for banishment, if youve been a good little Eskau up until then. That would also make them look much better to the other major Houses. Its never a good look when you have to execute your own Eskau. He clapped his hands, smiling magnanimously. Thats your solution! If your Pillar dies, you can be banished to go save him, so long as you can avoid my hunters long enough to succeed.
Tala took a deep breath, opened her eyes, and grinned.
This is it.
She pulled out a pair of siege orbs. She had been amplifying them to the point that the spheres almost distorted towards one another. I didnt actually consider that Id be using them for something this close to their intended purpose so soon.
-Breaching, sieging, same difference.-
She grinned. One only lays siege to that which one cannot breach.
Alat chuckled in response.
Before her were the heavily fortified and magically reinforced front gates of the House of the Rising Sun.
Soldiers of the House of Blood were already subduing messengers, minor members of the House, and common folk who had been near at hand when they arrived, moving them away from the doors in question.
Be-thric stood beside her in nearly complete armor, radiating power and deadly focus. Besides the squads of soldiers, they were on their own.
Well that wasnt precisely true, or really true at all.
Meallain stepped up beside Tala, her thick armor not hampering her in the slightest. Lets get this show on the road. Ive been wanting an excuse to kick these idiots' beaks in for decades.
The elf had arranged for her own arrival, by some means, after insisting that she wouldnt miss this raid for the world.
It was to be a precision strike.
There were at least two candidate Eskau for the House of the Rising Sun who were in residence at the moment. One of their protian weapons would soon be in hand.
Just this one and one more, and were done.
Ironically, the House of Blood in Platoiri was unusual for only having had one potential Pillar and candidate Eskau. Tala had come to learn that there were quite a few who could have participated in the contest for the position that Be-thric now held, but they chose not to for one reason or other.
But all of this was beside the point.
The plan was simple: Tala would breach the front gates and the soldiers would sweep into the hold. They would kill if necessary but avoid it where possible.
Tala, Meallain, and Be-thric would follow close behind, dealing with any major threats.
They would all be searching for one of the candidate Eskau, and when they were found, the strike force would converge, acquire the weapon, and retreat as a group.
They werent going to obliterate the hold, nor kill enough to start a true inter-House war.
What they were doing was technically within the bounds of the regular conflicts between major House, but it hadnt been done in recent memory.
Thats what makes it unexpected. Talas smile grew.
One of their soldiers called out. Clear!
She had insisted that they clear the area around the entrance before she did this.
Brace, one! Tala called out, and they all hunkered down just slightly. White metal expanded over Tala, completely covering her, though flowing and resolving below her scalemail hauberk.
With an increasingly easy flex of her will, the two orbs changed the target of their gravitational amplification and moved.
The air tore, and the area around the gate heated up a few degrees.
An explosive boom followed instantly on the heels of the colossal crack that was really innumerable cracks and rumbles all overlaying one another so close together as to be impossible to parse.
Dust and shards of various materials ballooned outward, only to be cleared a moment later by a working of one of their soldiers.
Meallain whistled appreciatively, and Be-thric cursed.
The defenses had held, but that was to be expected from the purely kinetic strike.
What caught everyone off guard was three-fold.
First, the wall on which the hold rested, the very structure of the District of Doors that had stood for millennia, was cracked, shattered, and utterly dislocated.
The entrance to the hold had been moved backwards by a full foot. The doors were somewhat bent and buckled around the two orbs, one imbedded in each side, but they still held, entirely sealing the hold against them.
That shouldnt be possible. Be-thric was aghast.
Honestly, Tala was too. The anchors for holds werent generally moveable without specialized magics. Yet, Talas attack had done just that. Moreover, the District of Doors was built with magically reinforced materials, which were designed to stand up to the secondary affects of the City Lords wrath, so that hed have less to rebuild.
Good to know; my direct assault is a bit more powerful than the reverberations put off by the City Lords Magics. As interesting as that was, she needed to focus.
Tala looked to Meallain. Is it safe to do the secondary attack?
The elf frowned, clearly examining the magic and fabric of reality around the door for a moment. Yes, do it.
You are now orbs Bill and Ted.
Their labels, which tied them to the workings that had created them, were altered and the effects undone.
If the sound of their flight had been the slapping of a sovereign, the explosion that followed was her scream of utter and absolute rage.
Even braced Tala, Meallain, and Be-thric were thrown back. Blessedly, they all maintained their feet, sliding more than flying back dozens of yards.
The entire area was cold extremely quickly, the radical temperature change alone cracking stone in the thoroughfare. Everything was coated in thin layer of ice as the moisture was ripped from the air by the sudden cold.
The less magically, and physically, dense people around them were less lucky, and a good number were thrown, screaming, in all directions.
Blessedly, none had been very close, and they were all of sufficient rank that no one seemed to have been too badly injured, at least not on the outside of the hold.
The inside was a different story, entirely.
Through the clearing air, their soldier working his magics once again, around the now breached entrance, Tala saw at least half a dozen House of the Rising Sun soldiers scattershot through with debris from the now-decimated, previously-heavily-reinforced door.
At least a few were obviously already dead.
Few can survive decapitation by doorknob
The soldiers of the House of Blood had been rather well prepared and off to the sides, away from the direct pressure wave, unlike Tala, Meallain, and Be-thric.
Thus, they were able to change direction and charge forward just a bit earlier, crying out encouragement to one another.
There was only the sound of groaning in response, from the House of the Rising Sun as fifty men and women of various races poured into the enemy hold.
Lets get this done.
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Chapter 249: Risks and Liabilities
Tala took a deep breath, centering herself.
The City Lord was leaning towards her, clearly interested in her explanation.
She had just asked him to remove her collar, allowing her to violate the ruling of the House of Blood, and he didnt reject her outright.
We might be able to do this.He just wants to know why. I can give him a good why. Hes the Pillar; Im the Eskau; what more can I say? I cannot allow him to go into danger without me.
He scrunched his nose. That is why your Houses council should have approved your participation. They said no. Why should I allow you to go around their decision?
She hesitated, then reworded this first reason. Pillar Be-thric will die if I dont go with him. I cannot let him go alone.
Why would that sway me in the slightest? He looked genuinely confused. As Ive said, the safety of a Houses Pillars is their business. I trust that isnt the only reason you have?
Well that was negated more quickly than ideal.
-Next idea?-
Obviously. Because this shouldnt involve you at all.
His head titled slightly to one side. Interesting. Go on.
If I werent human, I would follow him on this venture, and it wouldnt involve you or a collar or anything. I might be reprimanded, but that would be my choice, the consequences solely mine to bear.
Ahh, but it you werent human, this venture would be unnecessary.
That is hardly the point.
I disagree, but go on.
She took another breath, finding her balance before continuing, The only reason you are involved at all is this stupid collar.
The collar that you want me to remove.
Precisely.
The collar that is meant to prevent you from acting in ways counter to your sponsoring House.
Yes? She was not aware that that was the supposed purpose. I thought it was a mandate by the City Lord.
-Yeah, thats what we were told.-
The collar which is currently preventing your from acting against the express ruling of your House.
yes. She grimaced. Well, when you say it like that
So, you see the problem? Your argument is that I should remove your restriction, because you want to do the very thing the restriction is meant to guard against.
II thought the collar was a requirement required by you, at your will, and by your discretion.
He shrugged. That is both true and false.
She cocked her head to the side, a slight frown creasing her features. Explain.
The room suddenly warped, and Tala was on her knees with no memory of falling, breath driven from her lungs, heart stuttering in her chest.
Her aura control, and authority over anything, her own body included, was utterly gone.
Her gate was held in a vice-grip, her flow of power cut off as completely as if she were born without one.
The City Lord hadnt moved, but his face was stony, utterly without mercy.The debut release of this chapter happened at Ñøv€l-B1n.
Anger or fury would have been less terrifying.
You do not command me, human child. Id thought you understood that. The pressure vanished, the crumbling walls and half caved in roof pulling back together under the City Lords power.
When did that break? The sound of dripping drew her perspective back to herself, and she was able to see streams of blood running down her face from the corners of her eyes and out of her ears. The dark, crimson liquid was dripping onto the floor from where it gathered on her chin.
I will not tell you again. His voice was perfectly level, perfectly controlled.
Tala nodded, barely keeping a rein on her panic. Pull it together, Tala.
-Are you alright?-
Not in the slightest, butbut I need to try this avenue. She slowly stood, giving a deeper bow than usual. My apologies, City Lord. If you would be willing, can you explain what you mean?
He smiled, all traces of displeasure gone. Well, every City Lord forbids human advancement, unequivocally, as it sets a bad precedent, and it never ends well. If a House is willing to take on liability and risk, a prerequisite is that collar. He pointed to her unnecessarily. That eliminates the problem once their gamble fails.
If I may, what sort of risk? She was still fighting to keep her emotions under control. She was not used to being faced with such overwhelming power, and it was rattling to say the least.
It depends. Ten times the worth of any damages owed due to unlawful actions of the elevated human. That part is the most commonly invoked. If the human does something so heinous that they execute her, the House owes the City ten founts for every rank the human was allowed to advance before their fall to inevitable failing. If the human is banished into the wilds, its twenty founts, because someone has to be sent after her to kill her properly.
Tala frowned. Forgive me, City Lord, but wouldnt the collar kill me, were I to be banished?
Thats the interesting quirk of the relationships between the Houses and the City Lords. If their act of banishment killed you, that wouldnt be banishment, now would it? As such, to honor their ruling on their own members, we remove the collar. But. He held up a finger. But we dont want an uncollared, advanced human out and about, so she has to be hunted down.
Could that work?
-Do you really want this guy, or one of his enforcers hunting you down?-
No, but it is a possibilityLets call this the worst case scenario, but it could work.
Now, it basically never happens, because the cost is so prohibitive to the House.
Tala blinked. Excuse me It seems that you are speaking about this like there are quite a few humans that are, or have been, in my position.
Am I? I suppose after millennia it seems that way. You are the only such in this city.
OhAlright.
But as I was saying, banishment to the wilds basically doesnt happen. Banishment to another House or city doesnt happen, because there would have to be another House or City Lord willing to take responsibility for you, and youd have just proven yourself to be a horrid burden.
She grimaced, remaining silent.
Now, for you, as an Eskau of all things, theyd never banish or kill you while your Pillar lives, not with the particularities of your specific arrangement, but that is precisely your concern.
Tala nodded but didnt interject.
If he were to die, I could see that as grounds for your death or banishment. As a former Eskau at that point, they might opt for banishment, if youve been a good little Eskau up until then. That would also make them look much better to the other major Houses. Its never a good look when you have to execute your own Eskau. He clapped his hands, smiling magnanimously. Thats your solution! If your Pillar dies, you can be banished to go save him, so long as you can avoid my hunters long enough to succeed.
Tala took a deep breath, opened her eyes, and grinned.
This is it.
She pulled out a pair of siege orbs. She had been amplifying them to the point that the spheres almost distorted towards one another. I didnt actually consider that Id be using them for something this close to their intended purpose so soon.
-Breaching, sieging, same difference.-
She grinned. One only lays siege to that which one cannot breach.
Alat chuckled in response.
Before her were the heavily fortified and magically reinforced front gates of the House of the Rising Sun.
Soldiers of the House of Blood were already subduing messengers, minor members of the House, and common folk who had been near at hand when they arrived, moving them away from the doors in question.
Be-thric stood beside her in nearly complete armor, radiating power and deadly focus. Besides the squads of soldiers, they were on their own.
Well that wasnt precisely true, or really true at all.
Meallain stepped up beside Tala, her thick armor not hampering her in the slightest. Lets get this show on the road. Ive been wanting an excuse to kick these idiots' beaks in for decades.
The elf had arranged for her own arrival, by some means, after insisting that she wouldnt miss this raid for the world.
It was to be a precision strike.
There were at least two candidate Eskau for the House of the Rising Sun who were in residence at the moment. One of their protian weapons would soon be in hand.
Just this one and one more, and were done.
Ironically, the House of Blood in Platoiri was unusual for only having had one potential Pillar and candidate Eskau. Tala had come to learn that there were quite a few who could have participated in the contest for the position that Be-thric now held, but they chose not to for one reason or other.
But all of this was beside the point.
The plan was simple: Tala would breach the front gates and the soldiers would sweep into the hold. They would kill if necessary but avoid it where possible.
Tala, Meallain, and Be-thric would follow close behind, dealing with any major threats.
They would all be searching for one of the candidate Eskau, and when they were found, the strike force would converge, acquire the weapon, and retreat as a group.
They werent going to obliterate the hold, nor kill enough to start a true inter-House war.
What they were doing was technically within the bounds of the regular conflicts between major House, but it hadnt been done in recent memory.
Thats what makes it unexpected. Talas smile grew.
One of their soldiers called out. Clear!
She had insisted that they clear the area around the entrance before she did this.
Brace, one! Tala called out, and they all hunkered down just slightly. White metal expanded over Tala, completely covering her, though flowing and resolving below her scalemail hauberk.
With an increasingly easy flex of her will, the two orbs changed the target of their gravitational amplification and moved.
The air tore, and the area around the gate heated up a few degrees.
An explosive boom followed instantly on the heels of the colossal crack that was really innumerable cracks and rumbles all overlaying one another so close together as to be impossible to parse.
Dust and shards of various materials ballooned outward, only to be cleared a moment later by a working of one of their soldiers.
Meallain whistled appreciatively, and Be-thric cursed.
The defenses had held, but that was to be expected from the purely kinetic strike.
What caught everyone off guard was three-fold.
First, the wall on which the hold rested, the very structure of the District of Doors that had stood for millennia, was cracked, shattered, and utterly dislocated.
The entrance to the hold had been moved backwards by a full foot. The doors were somewhat bent and buckled around the two orbs, one imbedded in each side, but they still held, entirely sealing the hold against them.
That shouldnt be possible. Be-thric was aghast.
Honestly, Tala was too. The anchors for holds werent generally moveable without specialized magics. Yet, Talas attack had done just that. Moreover, the District of Doors was built with magically reinforced materials, which were designed to stand up to the secondary affects of the City Lords wrath, so that hed have less to rebuild.
Good to know; my direct assault is a bit more powerful than the reverberations put off by the City Lords Magics. As interesting as that was, she needed to focus.
Tala looked to Meallain. Is it safe to do the secondary attack?
The elf frowned, clearly examining the magic and fabric of reality around the door for a moment. Yes, do it.
You are now orbs Bill and Ted.
Their labels, which tied them to the workings that had created them, were altered and the effects undone.
If the sound of their flight had been the slapping of a sovereign, the explosion that followed was her scream of utter and absolute rage.
Even braced Tala, Meallain, and Be-thric were thrown back. Blessedly, they all maintained their feet, sliding more than flying back dozens of yards.
The entire area was cold extremely quickly, the radical temperature change alone cracking stone in the thoroughfare. Everything was coated in thin layer of ice as the moisture was ripped from the air by the sudden cold.
The less magically, and physically, dense people around them were less lucky, and a good number were thrown, screaming, in all directions.
Blessedly, none had been very close, and they were all of sufficient rank that no one seemed to have been too badly injured, at least not on the outside of the hold.
The inside was a different story, entirely.
Through the clearing air, their soldier working his magics once again, around the now breached entrance, Tala saw at least half a dozen House of the Rising Sun soldiers scattershot through with debris from the now-decimated, previously-heavily-reinforced door.
At least a few were obviously already dead.
Few can survive decapitation by doorknob
The soldiers of the House of Blood had been rather well prepared and off to the sides, away from the direct pressure wave, unlike Tala, Meallain, and Be-thric.
Thus, they were able to change direction and charge forward just a bit earlier, crying out encouragement to one another.
There was only the sound of groaning in response, from the House of the Rising Sun as fifty men and women of various races poured into the enemy hold.
Lets get this done.
Chapter 249: Risks and LiabilitiesTala took a deep breath, centering herself.The City Lord was leaning towards her, clearly interested in her explanation.She had just asked him to remove her collar, allowing her to violate the ruling of the House of Blood, and he didnt reject her outright.We might be able to do this.He just wants to know why. I can give him a good why. Hes the Pillar; Im the Eskau; what more can I say? I cannot allow him to go into danger without me.He scrunched his nose. That is why your Houses council should have approved your participation. They said no. Why should I allow you to go around their decision?She hesitated, then reworded this first reason. Pillar Be-thric will die if I dont go with him. I cannot let him go alone.Why would that sway me in the slightest? He looked genuinely confused. As Ive said, the safety of a Houses Pillars is their business. I trust that isnt the only reason you have?Well that was negated more quickly than ideal.-Next idea?-Obviously. Because this shouldnt involve you at all.His head titled slightly to one side. Interesting. Go on.If I werent human, I would follow him on this venture, and it wouldnt involve you or a collar or anything. I might be reprimanded, but that would be my choice, the consequences solely mine to bear.Ahh, but it you werent human, this venture would be unnecessary.That is hardly the point.I disagree, but go on.She took another breath, finding her balance before continuing, The only reason you are involved at all is this stupid collar.The collar that you want me to remove.Precisely.The collar that is meant to prevent you from acting in ways counter to your sponsoring House.Yes? She was not aware that that was the supposed purpose. I thought it was a mandate by the City Lord.-Yeah, thats what we were told.-The collar which is currently preventing your from acting against the express ruling of your House.yes. She grimaced. Well, when you say it like thatSo, you see the problem? Your argument is that I should remove your restriction, because you want to do the very thing the restriction is meant to guard against.II thought the collar was a requirement required by you, at your will, and by your discretion.He shrugged. That is both true and false.She cocked her head to the side, a slight frown creasing her features. Explain.The room suddenly warped, and Tala was on her knees with no memory of falling, breath driven from her lungs, heart stuttering in her chest.Her aura control, and authority over anything, her own body included, was utterly gone.Her gate was held in a vice-grip, her flow of power cut off as completely as if she were born without one.The City Lord hadnt moved, but his face was stony, utterly without mercy.The debut release of this chapter happened at Nvl-B1n.Anger or fury would have been less terrifying.You do not command me, human child. Id thought you understood that. The pressure vanished, the crumbling walls and half caved in roof pulling back together under the City Lords power.When did that break? The sound of dripping drew her perspective back to herself, and she was able to see streams of blood running down her face from the corners of her eyes and out of her ears. The dark, crimson liquid was dripping onto the floor from where it gathered on her chin.I will not tell you again. His voice was perfectly level, perfectly controlled.Tala nodded, barely keeping a rein on her panic. Pull it together, Tala.-Are you alright?-Not in the slightest, butbut I need to try this avenue. She slowly stood, giving a deeper bow than usual. My apologies, City Lord. If you would be willing, can you explain what you mean?He smiled, all traces of displeasure gone. Well, every City Lord forbids human advancement, unequivocally, as it sets a bad precedent, and it never ends well. If a House is willing to take on liability and risk, a prerequisite is that collar. He pointed to her unnecessarily. That eliminates the problem once their gamble fails.If I may, what sort of risk? She was still fighting to keep her emotions under control. She was not used to being faced with such overwhelming power, and it was rattling to say the least.It depends. Ten times the worth of any damages owed due to unlawful actions of the elevated human. That part is the most commonly invoked. If the human does something so heinous that they execute her, the House owes the City ten founts for every rank the human was allowed to advance before their fall to inevitable failing. If the human is banished into the wilds, its twenty founts, because someone has to be sent after her to kill her properly.Tala frowned. Forgive me, City Lord, but wouldnt the collar kill me, were I to be banished?Thats the interesting quirk of the relationships between the Houses and the City Lords. If their act of banishment killed you, that wouldnt be banishment, now would it? As such, to honor their ruling on their own members, we remove the collar. But. He held up a finger. But we dont want an uncollared, advanced human out and about, so she has to be hunted down.Could that work?-Do you really want this guy, or one of his enforcers hunting you down?-No, but it is a possibilityLets call this the worst case scenario, but it could work.Now, it basically never happens, because the cost is so prohibitive to the House.Tala blinked. Excuse me It seems that you are speaking about this like there are quite a few humans that are, or have been, in my position.Am I? I suppose after millennia it seems that way. You are the only such in this city.OhAlright.But as I was saying, banishment to the wilds basically doesnt happen. Banishment to another House or city doesnt happen, because there would have to be another House or City Lord willing to take responsibility for you, and youd have just proven yourself to be a horrid burden.She grimaced, remaining silent.Now, for you, as an Eskau of all things, theyd never banish or kill you while your Pillar lives, not with the particularities of your specific arrangement, but that is precisely your concern.Tala nodded but didnt interject.If he were to die, I could see that as grounds for your death or banishment. As a former Eskau at that point, they might opt for banishment, if youve been a good little Eskau up until then. That would also make them look much better to the other major Houses. Its never a good look when you have to execute your own Eskau. He clapped his hands, smiling magnanimously. Thats your solution! If your Pillar dies, you can be banished to go save him, so long as you can avoid my hunters long enough to succeed.Tala took a deep breath, opened her eyes, and grinned.This is it.She pulled out a pair of siege orbs. She had been amplifying them to the point that the spheres almost distorted towards one another. I didnt actually consider that Id be using them for something this close to their intended purpose so soon.-Breaching, sieging, same difference.-She grinned. One only lays siege to that which one cannot breach.Alat chuckled in response.Before her were the heavily fortified and magically reinforced front gates of the House of the Rising Sun.Soldiers of the House of Blood were already subduing messengers, minor members of the House, and common folk who had been near at hand when they arrived, moving them away from the doors in question.Be-thric stood beside her in nearly complete armor, radiating power and deadly focus. Besides the squads of soldiers, they were on their own.Well that wasnt precisely true, or really true at all.Meallain stepped up beside Tala, her thick armor not hampering her in the slightest. Lets get this show on the road. Ive been wanting an excuse to kick these idiots' beaks in for decades.The elf had arranged for her own arrival, by some means, after insisting that she wouldnt miss this raid for the world.It was to be a precision strike.There were at least two candidate Eskau for the House of the Rising Sun who were in residence at the moment. One of their protian weapons would soon be in hand.Just this one and one more, and were done.Ironically, the House of Blood in Platoiri was unusual for only having had one potential Pillar and candidate Eskau. Tala had come to learn that there were quite a few who could have participated in the contest for the position that Be-thric now held, but they chose not to for one reason or other.But all of this was beside the point.The plan was simple: Tala would breach the front gates and the soldiers would sweep into the hold. They would kill if necessary but avoid it where possible.Tala, Meallain, and Be-thric would follow close behind, dealing with any major threats.They would all be searching for one of the candidate Eskau, and when they were found, the strike force would converge, acquire the weapon, and retreat as a group.They werent going to obliterate the hold, nor kill enough to start a true inter-House war.What they were doing was technically within the bounds of the regular conflicts between major House, but it hadnt been done in recent memory.Thats what makes it unexpected. Talas smile grew.One of their soldiers called out. Clear!She had insisted that they clear the area around the entrance before she did this.Brace, one! Tala called out, and they all hunkered down just slightly. White metal expanded over Tala, completely covering her, though flowing and resolving below her scalemail hauberk.With an increasingly easy flex of her will, the two orbs changed the target of their gravitational amplification and moved.The air tore, and the area around the gate heated up a few degrees.An explosive boom followed instantly on the heels of the colossal crack that was really innumerable cracks and rumbles all overlaying one another so close together as to be impossible to parse.Dust and shards of various materials ballooned outward, only to be cleared a moment later by a working of one of their soldiers.Meallain whistled appreciatively, and Be-thric cursed.The defenses had held, but that was to be expected from the purely kinetic strike.What caught everyone off guard was three-fold.First, the wall on which the hold rested, the very structure of the District of Doors that had stood for millennia, was cracked, shattered, and utterly dislocated.The entrance to the hold had been moved backwards by a full foot. The doors were somewhat bent and buckled around the two orbs, one imbedded in each side, but they still held, entirely sealing the hold against them.That shouldnt be possible. Be-thric was aghast.Honestly, Tala was too. The anchors for holds werent generally moveable without specialized magics. Yet, Talas attack had done just that. Moreover, the District of Doors was built with magically reinforced materials, which were designed to stand up to the secondary affects of the City Lords wrath, so that hed have less to rebuild.Good to know; my direct assault is a bit more powerful than the reverberations put off by the City Lords Magics. As interesting as that was, she needed to focus.Tala looked to Meallain. Is it safe to do the secondary attack?The elf frowned, clearly examining the magic and fabric of reality around the door for a moment. Yes, do it.You are now orbs Bill and Ted.Their labels, which tied them to the workings that had created them, were altered and the effects undone.If the sound of their flight had been the slapping of a sovereign, the explosion that followed was her scream of utter and absolute rage.Even braced Tala, Meallain, and Be-thric were thrown back. Blessedly, they all maintained their feet, sliding more than flying back dozens of yards.The entire area was cold extremely quickly, the radical temperature change alone cracking stone in the thoroughfare. Everything was coated in thin layer of ice as the moisture was ripped from the air by the sudden cold.The less magically, and physically, dense people around them were less lucky, and a good number were thrown, screaming, in all directions.Blessedly, none had been very close, and they were all of sufficient rank that no one seemed to have been too badly injured, at least not on the outside of the hold.The inside was a different story, entirely.Through the clearing air, their soldier working his magics once again, around the now breached entrance, Tala saw at least half a dozen House of the Rising Sun soldiers scattershot through with debris from the now-decimated, previously-heavily-reinforced door.At least a few were obviously already dead.Few can survive decapitation by doorknobThe soldiers of the House of Blood had been rather well prepared and off to the sides, away from the direct pressure wave, unlike Tala, Meallain, and Be-thric.Thus, they were able to change direction and charge forward just a bit earlier, crying out encouragement to one another.There was only the sound of groaning in response, from the House of the Rising Sun as fifty men and women of various races poured into the enemy hold.Lets get this done.
