Adrenaline Junkie [Book 2 Complete]

"…as I was saying," Duke Tiff Sirpez intoned, voice calm but coiled with irritation. "The situation across border sectors has degraded far faster than projected."

The Duke of Dreadmire, Tiff Sirpez, reclined with practiced elegance behind a walnut-colored desk – nearly identical to the one in his southeastern manor a month prior, save for one key difference: this one had a full Aetherglass panel embedded across its surface.

Robed in deep indigo silk, the fabric appeared to shimmer like oil on water, reflecting the glint of the holo-enchantments that vibrated suspended just above the surface of the top of his walnut-colored desk. His raven-colored hair fell below his shoulders in controlled waves, and thin silver plates on either side of each temple softly glowed.

"The South, Southwest, and Southeastern Border Walls are almost in ruin; we need to have them repaired quickly before Upibbaidia, Yndros, and Reophora all decide that they wish to invade."

The holographic figures of the other dukes flickered faintly in their seated positions, murmurings pulsing through the relay feed like ghost-echoes. "Dalmid and George would need to be called to our aid, but…" Myrith Falthon, the Duke of Dothzarin, whose domain resided within the western coast, spoke up, her voice cutting across the murmuring of the two other dukes.

"If they sense weakness, they will not hesitate," the Duke of Dreadmire said with a measured nod. "Our Sovereignty has acted only in self-defense against the hostile monarchs and governments of neighboring nations throughout the years."

"The Twin Dinomyrmex Mothers," he said, letting the name hang in the air like smoke, "have made contact with the other insectoid queens that reside within the Netharim Sovereignty."

He pulled up a projection with a flick of his fingers – three swarming emblems hovered in the air, each rotating slowly above the table.

"They have allied with Serrathex the Sapphire Lattice Swarm Queen, Virexia the Broodmother, and Kr'zaal of the Fetid Nest. It seems our reports on their numbers seemed to have been off by quite a bit." He stated, glowering at the Duke of Pathas, whose domain resided within the center of the Sovereignty.

The Duke of Pathas shifted backwards. Another leaned forward, their own voice beginning to rise – the Duke of Kuther, Alithorn Surrex'th.

"I will not waste this council's time with conjecture. Our entropic decoders are still pulling threads from the intercepted transmission chains. But containment is no longer a viable strategy."

She leaned forward slightly, and the glow of his projection intensified, casting sharp lines across her scaled face.

"If we delay – if we hesitate behind protocol and pretense – it will not be a border wall we lose next."

"That's trea-" the Duke of Pathas raised.

"It is not," interjected Duke Tiff Serpez. "It is the truth, and it would be best for you to hold your own tongue after the intel you've collected about the insectoid queens has been proved less reliable than a Xezbeth."

"If we do not move now with all of our resources, and I mean all, then the capital would be lost and the Sovereignty will be destroyed and all of our heads would be on a pike in less than four months," he declared.

Tiff Sirpez's voice rang out across the council chamber, his eyes locked with the weight of the decisions that hung in the balance. The other dukes, holographic projections waving in their respective niches, were lost within their own thoughts of their de facto leader's words.

"The Southern, Southwestern, and Southeastern Border Walls are beyond simple repair," he said, his tone even, but his gaze hard as steel. "Concerns of potential defensive holes on the wall have already reached my ears. This isn't a matter of just fixing the stonework of the walls. There are other factors at play that we must consider before acting."

The chamber remained silent, save for the faint hum of mana conduits that came with their Aetherglass installations. The figures of the other dukes shifted uncomfortably, each processing the gravity of the situation. Finally, Duke Alithron, a sharp-eyed woman, spoke up, her voice betraying a measure of disbelief.

"You're suggesting we rebuild from the ground up?" She shook her head. "That would take years. We'd be vulnerable for too long. The damage is extensive, and-"

"We don't have years," Tiff interrupted, his expression unmoving. "We need to act now. The walls must be restored immediately, but with additional safeguards in place. And it must be done swiftly. I don't need to remind anyone here that the Twin Dinomyrmex Mothers have already made contact with the burrowing insectoid queens."

The other dukes exchanged uneasy glances with one another, each aware of the serious implications. One of the younger dukes, Rhivorn Veer, the Duke of Fral, spoke up with a nervous edge to his voice.
"But the resources, Duke Dreadmire – rebuilding the walls to full strength, plus the reinforcements you suggest – we can't spread ourselves too thin! It'll take all our resources just to stabilize the southern borders alone. We'll need to pull from the northern fortresses and beyond, draining forces everywhere else. This could..."

Tiff's eyes narrowed, his lips barely twitching. "Do you propose we leave those borders undefended and risk further breaches? No. The fortifications must be reinforced and restored immediately. No more hesitation. We fortify the borders first, then we decide where the remaining forces will be best allocated."

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Duke Alithorn leaned forward. "Duke Tiff, are you suggesting that we just reinforce the border walls and rebuild the fallen ones? Even if we rebuild them, we still face the threat of the neighboring nations attacking us."

Tiff nodded; his gaze collected. "I'm aware of that. However, we cannot do anything about them for now, considering the situation at hand. Our hands are tied. But for now, we rebuild. We reinforce the walls with additional mana barriers, traps, and anti-siege formations."

"As to keep them away at the present," Duke Tiff Sirpez said, trailing off slightly as he noticed his door handle slightly lower. "I have been able to come in contact with potential allies within our space sector, but no actionable commitments have emerged as of yet."

The holographic figures of the other dukes seemed to settle into a shared unease, but Tiff's resolve was like a wall in itself. The weight of his words hung in the air like a heavy fog.

Duke Alithron sighed, her posture stiff. "Very well, Sirpez. We'll begin fortifying the borders immediately. But we need more than just stone and wards. We need to know who we're up against. If Dinomyrmex Mothers, Serrathex the Sapphire Lattice Swarm Queen, Virexia the Broodmother, and Kr'zaal of the Fetid Nest are in league with the neighboring nations, then... We'll need all the help we can get."

"We will," Tiff confirmed, voice steady. "My own scouts and spies have been dispatched."

The tension in the hologram chamber lingered after Duke Tiff Sirpez's warning. But it didn't hold long.

A flicker of projection shifted left, casting a muted shimmer as Duke Retith Variis of Pathas leaned forward, his face half-illuminated in the arcane relay light. His robes hung in layers of muted ash-grey and lichen-green, with no house sigil worn proudly – just a small clasp shaped like a spiral horn beetle near his collarbone.

A cowardly worm in Tiff Sirpez's eyes.

"I… I'd like to say something," he said, his voice soft and meek, still reeling from Duke of Dreadmire's words from earlier. "There have been further tremors within Dreadmire. The last records from the Deep Cartographers marked abnormal seismic pulses around the Copperbright Desert. There's growing concern you're sitting on something worse than insectoid tunnels."

"The only thing of concern for you within my dukedom," Tiff said, his voice cutting through the ambient hum like a drawn blade, "is how I plan on raising the taxes for all items entering your dukedom by 300% for giving me falsified information."

Retith flinched. Slightly. He lowered his gaze.

The Duke of Dothzarin scoffed. "So, we're just ignoring the seismic reports now?"

"We are contextualizing them," Tiff replied coldly, eyes never leaving Retith. "Unless of course, you'd prefer we base national defense policy on echo-rumors and weak-stomached interpretations from Pathan soil-minders."

Retith's shoulders tightened under the weight of a dozen flickering stares. His mouth opened as if to respond – then closed again. His fingers fidgeted with the clasp at his collar, the spiral horned beetle spinning once beneath his touch.

"Speak," snapped Myrith, impatience curling in her tone. "Or let the actual dukes here handle this."

But before Tiff Sirpez could ease the tensions, as it would not have been good for him to abandon his stupid pawn to the dogs now, Retith's head lifted.

"There have been tremors," he admitted, voice trembling at the edge but refusing to break. "But the magnitude is decreasing. The latest readings showed fading activity near the Copperbright perimeter. Nothing breaching containment." He glanced at Tiff Sirpez – then quickly away again. "My geomancers say the pulses aren't deep-burrow vibrations. More... expansion. Upward pressure."

The silence that followed hung heavier than the rain against the Aetherglass screen.

But the moment was broken, not by another duke, but by the faintest creak behind the Duke of Dreadmire's screen – only heard by himself.

A whisper.

Then another.

His head tilted, just slightly, to the double doors in front of him. Matthew and Vennith, trying to listen in again, he noted as he saw his office doors slightly ajar and tufts of their hair poke out from where they hid on the other side of the doors.

Tiff Sirpez's hand moved reflexively – cupping the air with a subtle motion. The visual feed blurred around him in response, shrouding the background behind a veil of distortion. The other dukes wouldn't notice it. But the children would.

The whispers stopped.

His jaw shifted faintly, somewhere between joy and fatigue.

Then he returned to the chamber, listening, "No new breaches. Nothing active. Pathas remains stable. If the council wishes, I'll submit my region's raw seismic data after this meeting."

Tiff stared at him a moment longer, then nodded once.

"Do so. Quietly."

Retith nodded.

The meeting resumed. The holograms flickered and cycled - topics moved on to fortification strategies, troop deployments, and a provisional replacement for the broken wardlines of the Southeastern wall.

But Tiff Sirpez's eyes lingered toward the door.

And he listened – not to the council.

But to the muffled voices beyond it.

Hours passed with him only half-present in the biweekly gathering of Dukes. And then, one by one, the final council holograms winked out, leaving the Duke of Dreadmire alone in the silence of his study.

He exhaled – long, slow – and deactivated the Aetherglass relay.

Just as he deactivated it, the doors of his office burst open with a creak and a delighted squeal.

"Father!"

His daughter flung herself up into his arms. Her older brother followed just behind, composed but smiling, before joining the hug with slightly more restraint.

Tiff Sirpez laughed, the weariness peeling from his features like old bark from a tree. His arms wrapped around them both, pressing their small forms to his chest.

"You two have terrible timing," he said softly, kissing the tops of their heads, "and perfect timing."

"We weren't listening!" the boy blurted.

"We were definitely listening," the girl corrected.

Tiff Sirpez's laugh deepened, a real sound this time, one that warmed the quiet study.

Footsteps approached, light and familiar. His wife stood in the doorway now, brow arched with mock severity, hands on her hips.

"Plotting another coup against bedtime, are we?" she asked.

The children groaned in unison and tried to slip away, but not before Tiff Sirpez's wife stepped closer, pulling something from a linen wrap: a small, golden-brown strudel, dusted with crushed sugar root and spice.

She placed it gently in his hands.

"I made it fresh," she said, voice soft. "You forget to eat during those dreadful meetings."

He blinked down at it, then up at her – expression fond, grateful. Their eyes met for a brief, wordless moment.

Then the children tugged at her sleeves, begging for another story, another game, something not requiring them to stay in bed.

She laughed and waved them off.

Tiff Sirpez watched them go - his wife ushering them down the hall, the strudel still warm in his hand.

He stood alone now, quiet again.

His fingers rose to his chest, brushing aside the folds of his robe to reveal a single red ruby amulet not connected to one of his Cybernetic Sockets, typically used for accessories. Its surface was polished smooth, worn down from years of anxious rubbing.

He traced a thumb over it.

Softly, almost to himself, he whispered:

"…The things you do for family."