Dialysis Book: Intermission: A King’s Lament

King Rogen walked through the illustrious halls of the great citadel taking a long moment to examine the spire of magic that hovered majestically over his city.  For any other kingdom, the spire of magic would have been the centerpiece of their magical defenses, or perhaps a center of learning.

Rogen ordered it abandoned ever since his ex left him.  That was her home, and he hated that place.  He visited it once decades ago, and despite the passage of years it still smelled like her.

Continuing onward, he went past the terrible memories until he reached the less illustrious part of the palace.  This is where the day to day bureaucracy of his kingdom was performed, and as the king he almost never had reason to come here.

Today was different.

He strode past several goggled eyed elves and an annoyed looking orc servant before pushing open an unremarkable door.  The elf sitting inside fully turned as Rogen entered, his eyes keely watching his liege for several long seconds.  Only someone with elven eyes as keen as Rogen’s could have noticed the readied weapons, and Quay fought down his urge to use them.

The two stood unmoving for a long second before Quay relaxed.

“You realize, the odds of an assassin pretending to be you trying to enter this room are vastly greater than you visiting me in my office,” said Quay with a twinkle in his eye.

Rogen chucked, looking around as the small, well lived-in office.  “But I have need of my spymaster in these dark times.”

Quay pushed aside his breakfast and gathered up a double handful of papers before walking to a table in the middle of the room and setting them down, “So you’ve read my reports.”

“I have, our agents have liberated three relics of hers, while she has stolen three relics of mine,” said Rogen unhappily.  “That means we are roughly where we were before this whole affair began and it is but two days to the conjunction.”

“We are not,” said Quay, lifting up the first sheet of paper.  “Zarandus, the long shot, is dead.  He was one of your mythics.  Two more mythics are gravely wounded, and will be out for at least a month.  A dozen of your heroes are likewise injured, and some of them lack the recovery abilities of mythics.  Your pool of agents is dangerously depleted.”

“And what of hers,” sneered Rogen.

“About the same, maybe a little worse.  I can’t confirm any deaths but a number of her best agents were injured and Tamriel is out of the picture for some time.”

“That was from the guild,” said Rogen.

“And they have absolutely pulled back to allow us to kill each other without interference,” said Quay.  “I suspect they want to keep to their usual duties of killing monsters no matter who comes out on top.”

“Bah to them, then,” said Rogen, considering that.  “Their neutrality is annoying, but expected.  Do you have any leads on the Stygian relic?”

“The one Tamriel was sniffing around,” said Quay unconvinced.  “The odds of a stygian appearing in the city at this time are exceedingly low.  If I didn’t know any better I’d think that whole thing was a ploy by me to expose Tamriel and bring in the adventurer’s guild on our side.”

“I would have had to give you a raise,” said Rogen.

“The appearance of a brass relic is a bit too convenient.  It is possible that there is a third party involved,” said Quay.

“A third party strong enough to challenge the elves in elf lands?” questioned Rogen.

“Possibly, there were a number of complaints of goblins in the forest,” said Quay.  “As well as some unknown sightings.”

“Undead?” said Rogen.  “Are the servants of the vampire lords still out there?”

“We aren’t looking at the moment,” said Quay seriously.  “However I doubt they suddenly exploded back onto the scene in a week.  The only threat out there is a small force of goblin raiders, who are moving through the forest.  Most likely as part of their eternal struggles with the kobolds, however…”

“You can’t confirm that either because I pulled back too many of our agents,” said Rogen as he examined the map.  Dominus was in the center of the Elven Dominion as was proper, with the Moon’s Tear river running beside it.  That river came from the great basin in the mountains and ended up in the Moonsong sea giving the city access to one of the great oceans.

In this case it also provided a significant natural barrier from attacks to the north.  Dominus lay south of the Tear with only one large bridge crossing it.  A small force might swim the river, but even if that was made up of agents it would be insufficient to overwhelm the city and the bridge itself was extremely well fortified.  Even in his conflict with her, the bridge’s defenses were left fully intact.

Could Gol’Nik be planning something?  It was so outlandish that Rogen initially discounted it entirely, but the mad goblin system lord had a difficult mind to comprehend.  Certainly Quay was worried, but he was always worried.  Casualties were to the point where he would normally call his forces back, but if there was a potent stygian relic in town and she got it…

“I know you are concerned, but we must not lose our path,” said King Rogen.  “We must keep attempting to acquire one or more of her relics.  We can’t risk it.”

“As you wish, my King, it would be helpful if I could recruit more agents,” said Quay experimentally.

“Like the orc,” said Rogen flatly remembering the orc from the hallway.  Tolls the orc was Quay’s personal bodyguard, even though his official duties were simply as a body servant.  He was a mythical, though his essence smelled more like a hero’s.  That was an interesting trick, and not one Rogen fully approved of.

“Yes, Like Tolls, my partner, he is loyal to the nation, if not it's rather hidebound ruler,” said Quay, grabbing a bite of his breakfast and tossing it into his mouth.  Rogen's stomach turned at that, the ‘food’ was obviously sliced tubers, which was barely peasant food.

Then the smell hit him.

“What the hell are those,” asked the King, mouth watering.

“They are called Heywoods, they were invented by a human,” said Quay, eating a second.  It had a slight crunch to it, and smelled amazing.  The King had not yet had breakfast, but he had a fine meal of elven delicacies being prepared.  The finest egg drop soup and a vegetable wrap with none of the peasant tubers anywhere near his plate.

“Human food, have you gone daft,” said the King, startled to find that he’d taken a half step towards the steaming bowl.

“No, I just recognize that when something is good, one should take advantage of it and not leave an arrow in his quiver just because he doesn’t like the fletcher,” said Quay, leaving the bowl exposed.

Rogen’s will was that of steel, but still steel was not perfect.  His hand shot out in a blur, snatching a small slice of tuber and tossing it into his mouth.  The crunch was satisfying and the butter divine.  The tuber sat perfectly in the middle, the texture was enough to cause his toes to curl.  The fact that tubers tasted so good when properly prepared was almost as eye opening as the fact that it took lo-tai to find out how to manage it.

For a brief instant Rogen considered, there were a large number of lowborn who would assist the city if not the king.  He knew she would never consider it, but then again neither had he.  If he allowed Quay to bring in a few select personages as his agents, they might even prove very useful in the next two days.

But, Rogen was conservative.  His methods had worked for centuries.  Changing them like this was hasty, and he hated hasty.  After the current Conjunction, he would talk to Quay.  A few non-elves might find their way into his service if they were properly differential.

And maybe you could safely travel on city streets.

“Continue as before, focus on her.  We need those relics.  Look for the Stygian relic, but I doubt its existence as much as you do, and it's not like it is going to fall into our laps,” said the King of the Elves.