“Your position is not quite so secure as you seem to think, Elonia Silver!” Sneered the stick-thin bureaucrat dressed in tweed gazing up at the cool demeanor of the queen before him. He paid no mind to the pair of paladins stationed to either side of Elonia’s throne, mithril halberds resting upon the marble tiles that could so easily be used to decapitate any threat in the blink of an eye, serving as Elonia’s honor guard.

  The Terran Council emissary crossed his arms with a snort. “You’re just a single judgment away from being accused of War Crimes yourself! After what happened to the tragically displaced Blackfang Clan, there are multiple calls for restitution within the council. As a show of good faith and honorable intentions, the Terran Council demands that you renounce this menace to the New World Order immediately!”

  The emissary’s words rang through the grand hall filled with Sylvan courtiers dressed in elegant finery of silk, cashmere, and lace, resplendent with the wealth of a kingdom, their exquisite features perfect for showing off their glittering jewels and exquisite finery. Even their highly functional swords and shimmering mail armor, discretely worn as little more than fashion accessories, were everything one would expect from the hangers-on of a powerful royal court.

  Yet as Caliban himself had noted upon his arrival just hours ago, Elonia’s court suffered from an absence that no leader would ever miss. An absence so profound that the neighboring prince had actually bowed his head before the now coolly glaring Elonia.

  For Caliban had sensed absolutely none of the fractious currents all courts normally held.

  Even now, the glares of the court were uniform in their absolute contempt of the man before them, their glare a perfect match of Elonia’s own.

  Her words were brief and to the point. And though Caliban, still attending, had furrowed his brow in concern, even his thinly pressed lips eased into the shallowest of smiles.

  “The Sylvan Alliance has given its word. Whatever the unsubstantiated claims of the Terran Council of temporarily unclaimed territories, Ernest ‘Edgelord’ Slaughter has been nothing but a benevolent force to the once oppressed Sylvan faction, showing nothing but munificence within these halls. Our Sanctuary Status shall not be revoked for another alliance’s convenience.”

  The scarecrow of a man who looked utterly out of place in Elonia’s resplendent court immediately puffed up, angrily tapping the gold-veined marble tile with his cane, eyes wide with outrage.

  “The Terran Council is not some crack-pot alliance, girl! We ARE the reigning authority here on Earth! When all is said and done, it is WE who shall decide who ultimately governs the former nations of our once great and free world. And those who show themselves to be nothing more than savage bloodthirsty bandits will be paying a most steep price indeed, when true governance reigns supreme once more.”

  Caliban flashed a cool smile. “I fear you’ve been misinformed, Sir Fesspot. The Terran Council is an interim body whose authority lasts only for so long as a significant percentage of your world’s territories lacks more formal rulership. The moment a super-majority of 60% or more of Earth’s land has been successfully claimed by one or more factions, it is those factions that will determine Terra’s fate, whether by truce, treaty, or outright war.”

  “And I fear that it is YOU who have been misinformed, Prince Caerulus!” Sir Fesspot snapped. “Our authority lasts for so long as we are recognized by those very factions. And I assure you, Prince of the Blue, that the worthy Contenders of note that shall shape our planet’s glorious future hold us in very high regard indeed.”

  He flashed a mirthless smile. “For they are fellow instruments of the New World Order, and welcome the glorious changes that we shall bring about, as our world is tamed and the unworthy purged! Austerity shall be gifted to all those who must be shown their place, and enlightenment shall by embraced by all those who have proven their worth and shown their allegiance to the future government of our ascending world!”

  Fesspot’s pale grey eyes lit up with fanatic devotion, lips flecked with foam.

  Elonia’s jaw clenched with disdain.

  C – Beware, Your Grace. He is either a fanatic and will refuse to see reason, no matter your rebuttals, or his arrogant disdain is deliberate, and he seeks to goad you into rash action, thereby forcing you into a position unbecoming of your station.

  Elonia froze from the hasty declaration on the tip of her tongue. She frowned, peering intently at this interloper within her court whose presence was like a burr she was eager to relieve herself of, no matter the astute and much appreciated advice of her surprisingly staunch ally, the head of the Blue Federation mercantile faction. And to find that he was such a close ally with Eric spoke well of him indeed.

  She swallowed the sudden anxious lump in her throat, taking a deep breath to calm her racing heart as she was struck by vertigo and an unwanted flash of memory, momentarily consumed by the sudden horrifying jolt and shriek of steel as her world toppled end over end. How brave Caliban had looked, keeping her and Brittany safe. For a brief time she had entertained the silliest of fantasies… but no.

  All she had to do was look at Caliban’s beautiful wife, resplendent in silk and pearls and holding the hand of the youngest of her four doll-like daughters, for Elonia’s to put such unworthy flights of fantasy aside. Caliban’s children were now attending her court, ostensibly to enlist at Mistridge. For Headmaster Wyrmwood had made it clear that multiple programs would be in effect at their academy. Both those that would allow Contenders like her brother to tap directly into the arcane confluence of overlapping dimensional bridges in the heart of her academy and embrace a glorious path of knowledge and peril that might or might not cost them their second lives. Yet there were far safer programs being organized as well. Programs of education and enlightenment that would be embraced by the children of countless diplomats and rulers the world over. Not to mention the wiser classers.

  Children like Caliban’s own would be enrolled within a curriculum of study that would allow countless aspiring mages to enjoy the gentlest and safest budding of their powers imaginable in a halcyon school that would cherish and protect all of its charges. And somehow, Elonia had just known that things were far more perilous in Freetown than she had fathomed if her brother’s closest ally was effectively sheltering his family in the bosom of her power, a Legendary Academy guarded by a powerful Silver which not even rogue Inquisitors would dare to enter.

  Of course she hadn’t hesitate for a second to request that her paladins hold their lives as sacred as they did her own while forging a dozen treaties with Caliban that would flesh out the financial district of her own city and see both their factions becoming shockingly rich, if her brother’s plans for Ashland played out as Caliban thought they might, no matter how they played at being tangential allies and no more than that.

  Insights and observations that Elonia managed to process in the blink of an eye, rose-colored lips already easing in a curious smile as she politely addressed the emissary before her as if she didn’t despise him utterly.

  “We appreciate the clarification, Sir Fesspot. So, I take it that establishing a degree of trust and candor is crucial to our future relations?”

  Fesspot’s pugnacious countenance eased into a smirk as he crossed his arms and dipped his head. “Precisely! It pleases me to find that you can actually see reason!” He then flourished a handful off documents, and it was all Elonia could do not to strike the man dead where he stood.

  She held his gaze with her own, most deliberately giving no sign that she could sense the dark taint roiling from at least three of the vellum sheets he held. Subtle, buried between codicil and legalees, but both Caliban’s lessons and most especially her status as the queen of New Arcadia meant that she could spot all signs of filth and corruption within her Faerie Kingdom.

  It was all she could do to flash pearlescent teeth in a caricature of a smile, even if her voice was honeyed with false regret. “Then I’m sure you can see my dilemma, Sir Fesspot.”

  He blinked at this. “Dilemma? There is no dilemma. You need but revoke your Safe Harbor status!” He glared Caliban’s way. “You BOTH must revoke your Safe Harbor status so that this criminal, this unrepentant terrorist, has no place to hide! Only then can we take him down and end the threat that he poses to the New World Order once and for all!”

  Elonia steepled her jeweled fingers and tutted in false regret. “Ah, but sadly there IS a dilemma, dear Fesspot. For as you yourself have noted, trust and candor are absolutely paramount to strengthening diplomatic relations, and nothing is more crucial to a foundation of trust than keeping one’s word.”

  Elonia’s smile was all teeth. “Surely we can agree on that, can we not, Sir Fesspot? One’s word should be inviolate. Else what guarantee would we have that any accords struck with the Terran Council would be held in good faith? Just as I’m sure you will give me your word this very moment that each and every document you would have me sign was written in good faith without a single trace of any Barrister’s soul-binding taint… is that not so, Sir Fesspot?”

  The man had blanched and paled as Elonia spoke, actually stepping back before stiffening his spine. “That anyone would even dare suggest that!” he snapped, stiffened arms conveniently putting said contracts back in the cream vanilla folder from which they had sprung, the entirety smoothly placed in his tweed suit once more. “And let us not conflate honoring ones contractual obligations with the Terran Council with enacting foolish Safe Harbor measures for a wanted terrorist! Have we not already eased all such concerns with the declaration that all oaths and treaties to all guilty parties have already been declared Nul and Void? No Terran court under our jurisdiction will find you guilty of any breach or violation, I can whole-heartedly assure you of that!”

  Elonia managed to keep her smile in place, no matter her furiously clenched jaw. “Sadly, that assurance will do little for the class and professional penalties one risks suffering from failing to keep one’s word.”

  “System irregularities that must be endured for the betterment of all!” Fesspot pompously declared. Yet before he could wax any further about the virtues of oath-breaking for the sake of his own faction, or try to coax Elonia into signing any more tainted documents, the room flashed with crimson that immediately froze the bejeweled court.

  Immediately, the grand crystal ball in the center of the vaulted and frescoed ceiling, that had heretofore been gracing the hall with the sparkle of jeweled moonlight, transformed into the worried countenance of Headmaster Wyrmwood himself.

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  “Your Grace, we have grave news.”

  “Report!” Elonia said, wise enough to know that in more fractious political climates, she would be best off receiving such news in private. But here, in the heart of a realm based on rules of patronage, honor, and devotion, in a Sylvan kingdom that held far closer to the rules of stories and the regard of legends than it did the jaded sociopathic backstabbing nature of historic Terran politics… she could do her court no higher honor than to allow them all to witness the story that their entire kingdom now found itself thrust within. The massive moral bonus her entire population received, in addition to the boons they received fighting in defense of their home, tied as it was to the magic that so many of them needed to embrace for their very survival… meant that Elonia couldn’t hope for more devoted survivors, and that New Arcadia’s welfare was their utmost concern.

  In the blink of an eye, Headmaster Wyrmwood’s countenance had been replaced by a projection of the continental US taking up one half of the wall and ceiling, as grand as any T-MAX 360 theater.

  Elonia wasted only moments being awed before her rapt gaze at the colorful checkerboard nation became a look of genuine dismay, taking in the significance of her southern neighbor adjoining her for over 35% of her border.

  “It’s all ascended to Black-Tier.”

  “It is indeed, Your Grace. The entire region has blazed to instability in a shockingly short period of time. Worse, we’re seeing scores of hot spots indicative of imminent monster surges.”

  Elonia paled. “Monster surges in the plural.”

  “Correct.”

  Elonia’s heart lurched in her chest. “How many?”

  Wyrmwood sighed. And the look in her elder counselor’s eyes left her guts roiling with dread.

  He paused for a long moment and Elonia .wished he’d just spit it out.

  Nothing was worse than not knowing!

  Then he spoke, and to Elonia’s dismay, she found that some things were indeed worse than the bliss of ignorance.

  “Over one hundred,” he said at last, crimson lines now blinking as they proceeded from the topmost hot spots up into New Arcadia itself. “If our forecasts are correct, that’s the route that the monster surges will take.”

  The entire court gasped with dismay.

  Sir Fesspot had the gall to cackle. “That’s what you get for daring to go against the will of the Terran Council! Terra herself will put you in your rightful place!”

  “We suspect that the moment the swarms are able to overcome the natural barrier, the lower infestations will be heading straight for the Confederate Territory’s grain farms,” Headmaster Wyrmwood said with absolutely no inflection at all.

  Yet his words were still it was enough to freeze the emissary where he stood, his own eyes widening with dismay when blinking red lines formed from lower handfuls of enemy monster swarms, spreading out in all directions through the former United States… more than a few clusters heading to where Elonia had learned the CSA claimed their own territories in what had once been Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia.

  “We will hold firm,” the man said with a hiss. “We have over ten thousand class-holding levies. We will hold strong!”

  Elonia’s eyes flashed, knowing damn well that most of those poor men and women were collard slaves in all but name, with nothing but a shit class, minimal equipment, and a lifetime of misery and degradation to look forward to. And at the cost of the CSA sacrificing literally hundreds of thousands of lives to force the evolution of so many bottom-tier classers that were effectively free government labor that would fully recover after a good night’s rest, no matter how violently they had been used and abused the day before. In other words, they were slaves. Because in the CSA, you were either part of the elite government cabal or a member of their family, like the asshole before her, or you were a collard classer, a female of breeding age, or you were already dead.

  For the Confederate States of America had literally forced every male they could find within Virginia into Tier-0 pods they used to have access to. Many had fled with their families, of course. Yet far too many had perished. Less than 10% survived the transformation, only for slave collars to be snapped around their necks. Certainly, very few had had access to anything like delving or leveling opportunities. The White tier areas of Virginia had been fully claimed, and the adjoining Orange-Tier regions would wipe any band of spear-wielding unarmored serfs out in seconds. Guns were most definitely not a part of their arsenal, let alone anything like seized orc cannons or any other sort of artillery. Somehow, Elonia didn’t think they’d fare well at all against any sort of high level monster surge.

  Yet it was only when Headmaster Wyrmwood clarified the nature of their threat that Tweed finally cracked… and Elonia took absolutely no joy in his comeuppance when she was forced to grapple with the implications of the threat they would face.

  “I’m afraid this is no random beast surge. These are creatures migrating with a definite purpose and the results… should they succeed… will be catastrophic.”

  “What are you talking about?” Tweed huffed. “A handful of wild beasts won’t be enough to…”

  His words died in his throat as the back wall blew up with the image of obsidian-hued locusts. The bane of any ruler or farmer, more than capable of turning bumper crops into a field of absolute devastation, and toppling a kingdom as starvation brought misery, change, and upheaval to all.

  And these weren’t just 3 inch long locusts. The monstrous abominations that only a Silver Archmagister’s gifts could reveal a full territory away were revealed to be seven foot long locusts that were presently washing over an entire fern forest like a tidal wave of destruction.

  Devouring trees within seconds.

  And multiplying. Multiplying right before Elonia’s horrified eyes.

  She saw the destruction of her entire kingdom in those ravenous mandibles when the entire screen was washed in brilliant white flame.

  “Fire Fist, Motherfuckers!” Roared a voice that Elonia had never thought to hear projected an entire territory away.

  But there her twin was, wearing the guise of a red-haired madman, his mithril armor splattered with blood and what looked like a cuirass radiating powerful magic as her brother slammed his fist against a particularly massive specimen that promptly exploded in a massive fireball, along with everything in a twenty yard radius that sent scores of smoking locusts flying in all directions, the awful things screetching their massive legs together like fingernails against a chalkboard.

  The court was speechless.

  Tweedledum was outraged. “That’s the outlaw!” He screamed. “Did you see what he did? He obliterated over a score of those things with a forbidden attack! There is a thirty million credit bounty on his head! Do you hear? Thirty million credits for whoever brings the Terran Council his head!”

  Elonia blinked, unable to keep even a veneer of civility after that last outburst. “Are you just saying that blathering idiocy to goad, or are you truly that much of a fool?”

  Fesspot hissed, eyes widening with outrage. “What did you say, girl?”

  Elonia glared at the pinch-faced conniver before him, paying absolutely no heed to Caliban’s rapidly accumulating messages.

  “You will address me as Queen Elonia Silver, you jackanapes or my men will toss you right out of my court and out of my kingdom on your sorry ass. Now let me repeat, since idiocy and ear wax are clearly your banes. Are you just a stuck-up idiot with a stick up your ass being puppeted by your masters, or are you truly that stupid?”

  “How dare you!”

  “Look closely, you fucking moron! Those are seven foot locusts in a territory roaring to black! Do you honestly think your low level Conscript slaves will have a chance in fuck of taking even one of them out with spears made of plywood and scrap metal? Get a fucking clue! Ernest right there has a better shot of taking them out than your whole fucking army!”

  Fesspot stiffened to his full five foot nine inches height, glaring his contempt. “I’ve shown more than enough forbearance for a wayward child like yourself, Elonia Silver. But if that’s how you wish to play it, very well!” His lips curled in a triumphant sneer as he pulled out a vellum document bound with blackened wax that screamed in ethereal currents loud enough for Elonia to blanch and pale, frozen upon her gilded throne as the ancient-looking vellum seemed eager to LEAP right out of the emissary’s hand to fly right at her face.

  “I hereby serve you a Warrant of SUMMONS in CHAINS! You will remand yourself IMMEDIATELY into my custody and WEAR the CHAINS of your SUBMISSION as you present yourself before the TERRAN COUNCIL where SENTENCE WILL BE PA—”

  Golden light flashed.

  The corroded document thrown at Elonia that she was for some awful reason helpless to dodge, bursting her shockingly potent arcane ward like a soap bubble, coming so close to touching her and utterly damning her… before that vile fluttering contract abruptly burst to golden light as it was batted aside by the her Paladin guardians who had launched himself in front of her.

  “Begone cursed artifacts of infernalists and corruption! Be free, lost soul tormented by a demon’s vice!” Roared the pair of paladins in sonorous chants as Tweed crumpled to his knees with a cry as a hot-eyed Paladin wrestled him to the ground before putting golden cuffs on his wrists that caused Fesspot’s skin to sizzle and smoke.

  “It burns!”

  “As it should, infernalist!” Roared the paladin roughly tying and securing him.

  “You’re violating international treaty! I’m an emissary!”

  “You attacked and attempted to enslave a Sovereign Ruler! The penalty for that is DEATH, Worm, and our Queen is well within her rights to declare your Terran Council NUL AND VOID for violating its charter MOST egregiously!”

  Elonia’s heart pounded as the entire chamber was suddenly filled with the light of fifty paladins blazing with righteous wrath, golden swords unsheathed and flaring with holy fire, and Elonia, to her horror, spotted no less than four shadowy figures stumbling out from behind marble pillars and frescoed alcoves. Figures that comprised an actual squad of goblins. Yet no matter how much her eyes teared at the sight of them, no matter how she sought to look away, the massive guns that looked so much like M107 Sniper Rifles took up her vision entirely.

  Elonia didn’t know why her heart was pounding so loud she could hear it as a roar in her ears… why she was gasping for breath she couldn’t quite catch. Why she was squeezing her own neck, blinking back sudden tears, feeling dizzy and confused as the air filled with discordant voices as the lords and ladies crying their outrage, demanding challenge. And there Caliban was, so graceful so steady, gently gripping her shoulder, his gentle, assuring eyes all but promising her that everything would work out to their benefit in the end.

  “It’s alright, Your Grace. The villains have been apprehended. You have nothing to fear.”

  Elonia’s eyes locked with Caliban’s own. “There are FOUR goblin assassins in here with this bastard.”

  Caliban grin his teeth and dipped his head, so much conveyed with his piercing blue eyes.

  They thought they had gamed it so well.

  For just as Tweed or Sir Fesspot, had sought to goad them into overcommitting, so they had planned in turn. With multiple high-tier force fields in place with Wyrmwood’s direct aid, and his assurance that not even Bronze-Tier attacks would be permitted to pierce the wards of her inner sanctum. Not even T-II Deathblazes should be unable to pierce them, even with multiple goblin perks in play… even if they could kill lesser Bronze, when targets were taken unawares.

  But when all was said and done…

  They hadn’t expected a monstrous beast surge of locusts form a Black Zone to flood over the continent, and they had only expected and accounted for 3 goblin assassins.

  Not 4.

  3.

  Which either meant that they were extremely lucky, extremely foolish, or two assassin were still hidden and could strike at any time.

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