Rising Kite - A story from the world of HWFWM

Kite had never been into the temple of Fertility. It wasn’t surprising since he had little business with her purview so far in life. Kite did hope to have children of his own one day, but that day felt very distant. He knew little about parenting, but had already determined that he would want to provide the same stability and safety for his children that he had been given by his aunties.

“This place does make one think of home, doesn’t it?” director Jarvan asked as they passed through the main gates, apparently having guessed Kite’s thoughts.

“Yes. Among… other things.” Kite answered, trying not to look too blatantly at the murals and paintings which decorated the foyer they were currently passing through. “But you live here, director? With your family? he asked in an attempt to steer the conversation away from too many flustering subjects. While he felt a lot more comfortable with the subject of sex nowadays, it was still far off from talking too much about it with people he barely knew, especially if said person was also his boss.

Director Jarvan just chuckled at his reaction before answering the question. “That we do, Kite. As you might have surmised, my wife is a priestess of Fertility which allows us to have quarters here in the local temples, as she spends her days here.” While he was talking, he was leading Kite away from the main rooms of worship and toward the back of the main building.

“But she is an adventurer as well? Or was?” Kite asked, trying to piece family life together with the often semi-nomadic life many adventurers led. From all the curios in the director’s office, Kite had surmised that he had traveled rather extensively.

“Yes, she was, along with me, Rupert and a woman named Jesoix. We still are, in a way. My posting here is only temporary, at least in the long term. But we draw close, so I must ask you to brace yourself, young Kite.” he finished as they passed out into the complex of buildings behind Fertility’s temple.

They exited out into an inner yard which was absolutely bustling with activity, surrounded by well-kept buildings and filled with the smells of cooking food and laundry hung out to dry. And children. Lots of children of all ages. Kite saw toddlers waddling around as a gaggle of older ones were playing some game involving a lot of running around. Some teenagers sat here and there under the awnings, performing different small tasks or minding the younger ones along with the adults. Kite was idly wondering if the myriad essence might manifest more often here when one of the smaller children spotted director Jarvan.

“Daddy!” the little boy shouted, initiating a charge toward them. The call was picked up by a surprising number of the other children, joining the first as the charge turned into something more along the lines of a stampede.

Jarvan took a few steps forward, kneeling to catch the young boy still in the lead in an embrace before promptly being swarmed by the rest, providing hugs and ruffling hairs left and right.

“As- yes, Chantelle, that is a very pretty rock- you can see, Kite- What? You ran that fast?- having a priestess of Fertility- Jeaqie, have you been practicing as I showed you?- as a wife does bring with it a certain- Awww, you can walk now Madeleine! Good girl!- quantitative quality to life.” the director said, constantly interrupted by the stream of progeny vying for his attention. His gaze managed to convey the word “distracting maneuver!” with a startling clarity.

Enjoying the increasingly flustered branch director for a short while, Kite got an idea for an impromptu rescue operation. After a short mental question, he took action.

Trying to be as gentle as possible, he employed a small burst of his aura. To his surprise, it worked better than expected as the gathered children all stopped to look at him. Seizing the initiative, he spoke.

“I- ehm.. I happen to have business here along with your father. But I have two friends who need company while we do the boring stuff.”

On command, Glint swam out from her bottle to the delight of the children, although some were slightly frightened when she took her larger form. Sage also made an appearance, and after he had arranged a semblance of order for the children to take turns riding the now huge carp, Kite knelt in front of a few of the more cautious ones. “This is Sage, and it loves to see new things. Could you show it around? And show it… well… anything?”

The alien astral gatherer made some of the children a bit hesitant at first, but after Kite demonstrated his familiar’s easily-triggered fascination by showing Sage a shiny pebble, the children quickly warmed up to the creature and ran off with the living symbol in tow.

Director Jarvan, now only having a single toddler left to contend with, diverted the young girl with some tactical tickling before handing her off to a nearby adult. “Good thinking there, Kite. Resources deployed most efficiently. Let us make the most of the distraction!” he said, walking swiftly toward a nearby building with Kite in tow.

As the door closed behind them, the director visibly relaxed. “I would say we managed to get through without any casualties barring two familiars. That is better than most days. I love them each and every one to bits, but giving them all the attention they deserve is a task more daunting than facing any silver-ranked monster.” he chuckled.

They had entered what looked like a typical kitchen of a townhouse, pleasant smells rising from the pot simmering on the stove as the sounds of more habitation could be heard from an adjacent room.

“Darling! I’m back!” director Jarvan called as he led Kite deeper into the house. The adjacent room was a rather large sitting room, although from the number of chairs, couches and pillows present Kite imagined it could become very cramped, very quickly.

At the moment, the room only had three occupants. One of them was currently on the way towards them, and Kite assumed her to be Fantina, the director's wife.

As most silver-rankers, she was almost unnaturally beautiful. Like her husband, she was human, with strawberry-blonde hair held up in tightly woven ringlets. While her aura was politely restrained, Kite was still almost sent staggering by the sheer level of motherliness it exuded, which he surmised to be a courtesy of her goddess. She gave her husband a quick kiss of welcome as he gently patted her pregnant belly.

“Welcome home, dear.” she said before turning to Kite. “And welcome to you as well, Kite. Jarvan told us about you joining him today. Nastille hasn’t been able to focus on her studies at all today.” she finished with a smile as Kite bowed politely.

“Greetings, priestess. And thank you for having me-” he began, but was interrupted as all of their gazes were drawn to the window where a bunch of laughing children could be seen clinging onto Glint’s back as she playfully swerved back and forth between the houses. “And that would be Glint, my familiar.”

“You should have seen it, Fantina. The boy has two familiars, and they did wonders in distracting the horde as they beset us. Kite, if you ever consider giving up adventuring, know that there will always be work for you here.” director Jarvan said, as he walked over to a nearby cabinet and poured them each a glass of some kind of juice.

“What my husband means to say-” Fantina began while giving the husband in question a pointed look, a playful glint in her eyes, “-is that it was very nice of your familiars to play with the children. They will talk about it for days to come.”

Kite was guided to a comfortable couch while exchanging pleasantries with his host when Fantina suddenly stopped and looked meaningfully toward a nearby closed door.

“Nastille, dear, you might as well join us.” she called. Focusing more on his aura senses, Kite realized that one of the normal-ranked auras moving in the building and its vicinity was lurking just behind one of the doors leading into the room. He was surprised that he hadn’t thought more about it earlier, as the attention on them should have alerted him due to the normal-ranked aura being uncontrolled.

The door in question opened and a young woman maybe a year or two younger than Kite slunk in. She had the same blonde hair of her father, and shared many facial features with her mother, but where Fantina currently wore an amused smile, Nastille had a frown of consternation.

Director Jarvan laughed. “Your aura-masking is coming along, dear, but there is only so far you can go without higher grade material.

At his words, Kite realized that her aura was indeed harder to detect than the other unbound auras around him. There were plenty of ways to use items, rituals and formations to mask or change how one's aura was perceived, although it required both skill and the right materials to make an aura-mask which would hold up to any proper scrutiny. He was impressed that Nastille was apparently already practicing her skills.

“I thought I would remain undetected at least for a little while longer…” she muttered as she joined them, but brightened considerably at the sight of Kite. “Greetings! I’m Nastille! Are you the one who has brought my essences?” she asked, almost on the way up from her seat again after being seated for just a handful of seconds. Apparently, she had taken after some of her father’s mannerisms.

“Manners, young lady.” her mother admonished, but Kite heard that there was little edge to the reprimand. If anything, it was more of upholding a principle in the struggle against a hopeless cause.

“Greetings, Nastille. I’m Kite. And yes, I do in fact have a few essences I have promised to sell to your father.” Her excitement was rather infectious, and Kite had to admit that there was a special kind of novelty at the thought of seeing someone else find the path they would walk for the rest of their life.

He produced a dimensional pouch and started bringing out the essences one by one. All in all, he had gathered a fire essence, a heat essence, a solid essence, a plant essence, a water essence, a wind essence, a vapor essence, a metal essence and a sharp essence. There was also one more, the oddest one in the otherwise elementally themed series of treasures. It had been with a mix of joy and horror he had picked up the squid essence he had found in a hidden part of the water domain inside the trial.

“Most are rather common, but I still hope you can find something you like from them. Rarity definitely isn’t everything.” Kite said, still pleased at the barely contained giddiness of Nastille, as she started going through them together with her mother who was perusing the living document of the magic society which listed different combinations.

While they took their time, he turned to director Jarvan. “If I may ask, director, why go through me? Wouldn’t you be able to go through the trade pavilion with your position?”

The branch director gave an awkward laugh at that. “Well, I did do that in the beginning. And for a man with a reasonable amount of children, there probably wouldn’t have been any problem.” he started, pretending not to notice the raised eyebrow from his wife. “But I soon got a strongly worded letter from the continental council on the matter, which basically told me to ‘leave some for the locals’ along with a quota of how quickly I was allowed to procure them.

And as my salary is spread rather thin-” he continued, gesturing outward to the sound of young voices. “-just ordering from out of town was simply too expensive. But trustworthy locals have come through so far, but I haven’t so far seen a haul such as yours. Those gates sure are something.”

Kite didn’t know what a branch director here earned, but he could understand that the swarm of progeny must indeed cost quite a lot, especially if most wanted essences.

“And who wouldn’t?” he thought to himself before asking; “Then, will all of your children become adventurers?”

This time it was Fantina who answered, Nastille still engrossed in the list. “Of course not. While we will provide essences for all of them, some have chosen the path of a crafter or clergy. But…” she sighed. “Most do want to follow in our footsteps. It is a most frustrating duality. On the one hand, you just want your children safe and out of danger. On the other, it is hard to begrudge them the very path we have chosen ourselves, in a world where safety is not always something one might simply choose.”

“That sounds a lot like what my aunties told me when I came of age.” Kite said. It had been just a bit over a year ago, but life sure had changed during these last months.

“There, I’ve settled!” Nastille suddenly exclaimed. She reached over and picked out the heat, water and vapor essences. “They should result in the steam confluence. From what notes the document had, the powers should be rather flexible with a decent amount of survivability or options for escape.”

“The last part is one of the points we advise more… strongly…” director Jarvan said, sipping his juice. “Whilst Fantina is right, I hope our children won’t begrudge us a little investment into them coming back to us.”

“Then can we go do it? Right now? The ritual?” Nastille asked, looking pleadingly at her parents.

“Of course, dear!” director Jarvan exclaimed, both he and his daughter almost leaping out of their seats in another bout of familial resemblance.

“But remember, your siblings are allowed to watch. We promised them.” Fantina added.

Nastille seemed slightly chagrined at the reminder, but it wasn’t enough to put a damper on her spirit.

“Wait… All of them?” Kite’s inner voice realized with a slight whimper.

After a lot of shepherding, coaxing and distractions later, Nastille sat on the floor of a ritual chamber as Kite was once again checking the diagrams he had drawn out on the smooth floor. From the surprisingly cozy interior, blatantly erotic murals and the divan pushed off to one side, he suspected that there was usually an entirely different kind of rituals usually performed here in the temple of Fertility.

He also suspected that the chamber was intended to hold at most a handful of people, meaning that the twenty-something members of the LanCaire family and some family friends currently occupying it left little room to spare. Still, there was plenty of stabilizing incense for the ambient mana, and as long as no toddler waltzed into the circle they should be fine. Kite did reflect that none of the children or even teenagers seemed to even notice the suggestive murals. Growing up surrounded by them would sure give one another perspective, he supposed.

“Are you ready?” he asked Nastille, who nodded eagerly.

They began the series of rituals, each progressing smoothly accompanied by the ‘ooohs’ and ‘aaaahs’ of the younger part of the crowd. And after she had absorbed the confluence essence, there was quite a lot of giggling as Nastille was led from the room by her mother. Apparently, they all knew what awaited her.

The director had bought most of his awakening stones as well, but would have Kite come by at a later date to help Nastille with them as it was better for her to get a grip of them a few at a time. A sentiment Kite could get behind.

He was just about to start toward the exit, intending to leave the celebrating family to their revelry, when Fantina appeared beside him. “There will be a celebratory dinner now, Kite. Please stay and enjoy it with us. You have already done us a great service, as I imagine that my husband was less than patient at this proposition.”

Kite didn’t know if he was expected to decline out of some polite obscure social rules, but Fantina rather firmly leading him back toward the house seemed to indicate otherwise.

“In that case, I’ll be glad to stay for a while.” he replied with a genuine smile. Although a lot more populated, the family’s part of the temple complex did have a hint of that feeling of home he often found himself missing.

What followed was a few hours of intense family life. In addition to the fine dinner, Kite got the chance to witness Nastille glide around the room as a cloud of steam, a line forming to feed Glint with a great variety of treats and a silver-ranker losing a battle of will against a cranky toddler. In one way it was a bit overwhelming to Kite, who had been the only child in the household, but also simply more. A lot more.

He also got to know that there were nineteen of the twenty-two children currently residing here with their parents, Nastille being the oldest. The other three older than her had apparently already struck out as adventurers, and were eagerly awaiting Nastille to join them as a teammate once she had gotten her bearings with her abilities.

As Kite said his goodbyes, Fantina had assured him that he was welcome back at any time. Being true to her calling, she had also assured him that he could always seek the temple out in the matter of its purview, as long as he was fine with a few tests and relinquishing any parental rights.

Director Jarvan walked him out, being in a cheerful mood, and Kite took the opportunity to ask him a question which had been remaining since their conversation when entering the building.

“Director Jarvan?”

“Yes, Kite?”

“You mentioned earlier that you wouldn’t stay here forever. When will you leave?”

“That depends a bit. Mostly if the goddess would bless us with twins the next time around.” Seeing Kite’s confused look, he chuckled before continuing. “As a priestess of Fertility, my wife takes procreation rather seriously, as you might imagine. While I was an adventurer first and foremost, there was never anyone else to me after I met her. But adventuring life, without a stable point to build your life around, is hardly the best time to raise children unless you already come from an established and prosperous family or clan. As we both came from more humble means, and didn’t just want to leave our children at the different temples, we came up with a deal to both our satisfactions.

That’s why we lived the adventuring life until we reached silver rank and ‘the wall’.”

“The stage where progression usually slows to a crawl? Here we often call it the ‘heaven-denying mountain’, but ‘the wall’ is common enough as well.”

“Ahh, Hua-Xi poetics. Love it or despise it, it does paint a vibrant picture.” the director mused with a smile. “But yes, that is indeed the phenomenon. Once we hit that, we would take a break from adventuring and find more stable positions as we ‘worked on our backlog’ as Fantina liked to call it. Once we’ve had twenty-five children and raised them to an age where they venture out on their own, we will strike out again if all goes to plan, with at least one other such break if we manage to progress a bit through gold rank.

So I should be working directly for the society for at least another twenty years. Will all of them be here in Gilded? That remains to be seen. But you should be well into bronze-rank, maybe even touching on silver, before I would consider requesting a transfer on my own. The additional stipend I get for taking a position among you troublesome locals is much needed to secure my children’s future after all. And as most postings are trouble in one way or another, I'm leaning towards the 'sand devil' I know."

And I do enjoy the poetics quite a lot, actually.” he finished with a wink.

As they said their farewells at the temple gates, Kite stopped again, giving the branch director a look which was half awkward, half expectant.

Still stuck in his contentment, it took Jarvan a moment before he realized that Kite had halted.

"Kite? Is there anything-" Jarvan begun, then scratched the back of his head with obvious chagrin as he caught Kite's meaning. "Ah, I am sorry, young man. A long and exciting day can make even us silver-rankers think of only the pleasantries in life." He produced a pouch clinking with the glassy sound of spirit coins, handing it to Kite. "The agreed upon sum, as well as the gratitude and favor of your favorite branch director. I hope you know that I would never try to short-change you, and especially not in matters of family."

"Thank you, director. It has been a pleasure, both in visiting and doing business," Kite said in way of reply, putting the hefty sum away in his own dimensional pouch. "This young aspiring bronze-ranker will be ever grateful to benefactor." His voice was filled with mock formality as he bowed, Jarvan laughing in return as he waved goodbye to Kite as he left.

As the temple doors closed behind him in the distance, Kite felt that he understood the director a lot better after today. Behind the excitable facade was a person deeply dedicated to those he held dear, with a patience that wasn’t obvious at first glance. Or even second.

He felt good as he floated towards home one the back of Glint, well above the evening’s foot traffic, and resolved that it was time to send his aunties another letter.

Dancer on the Broken River wove between the two adventurers, who wore the robes of the Descending Star sect, yet another time as a hammer and a staff once more struck only air. Her chains trailed after her, weaving a pattern around herself and the duo.

“Name yourself, trash!” one of the young women called out for the third time, still receiving only an eager smile in answer. “How dare you assault initiates of the Descending Star sect?!”

River felt so alive as her mana thrummed through her. She had come across the pair of young adventurers squabbling over a pile of quintessence, and had commanded her accompanying battle-thralls to stand back before simply charging the surprised initiates. While they had seen her coming for several seconds, they were still overtaken by hesitation at the surprise of her blatant aggression.

A flurry of staff strikes which left some afterimages had River darting out of reach in a whirl, her opponents leery of simply charging through the chains trailing through the air. Their hesitation and slow pursuit easily allowed her to circle around the two, before darting in once more toward the hammer wielder. A strike with two outstretched fingers impacted with one of the pain-meridians at the side of her target’s neck while her chain, as if alive, snaked around before striking a similar meridian at the initiate’s lower back.

As River’s special attack impacted, the young woman was bent over backwards as her muscles spasmed and contracted, mouth open in a wheezing scream of agony. River had no divine essence from lord Pain, but she had been blessed with more than one awakening stone carrying his ministrations.

The agonized woman’s ally swore as she attempted a thrust with her staff, the attack made awkward as River kept her screaming victim between herself and the staff-wielder. The attack was easily dodged, two loops of chain winding around the staff in an attempt to snare it. To her credit, the initiate dismissed her summoned weapon instead of letting it be snared by River. She would have to give them some credit as her targets weren’t entirely unskilled. But what skill they had was already swept away by River’s dominance.

Her father had been one of the elders in the Unbreakable Chains sect even before its alleged fall, as the cowards in the other sects and adventure society had banded together in fear of their power. While grand elder White worshiped lord Pain, he still held true to the core tenets of the sect. Power through control and the complete domination of one’s enemies. River had been raised to live up to those tenets as well, and she felt no small amount of satisfaction as her opponents were forced to dance to her whims.

She passed the initiates for some more skirmishing strikes as she kept applying the pain-inducing special attack to the hammer-wielder in an attempt to keep her out of commission for just a while longer. River could feel the moment as the staff-wielder’s resolve broke, her aura fracturing in fear as she instead looked to escape.

That was when River felt the fun end, and she went in to finish this little dance. She did not know if the woman had some ability for escaping, and didn’t fancy chasing down her prey. Leaping into the air, she suddenly jerked to the side as she activated another of her abilities.

Her chains suddenly sprouted wicked barbs as they all contracted, layers of winding links suddenly closing in like a rose closing its petals around the two. The poor-hammer wielder had just begun to shrug off the debilitating affliction as her ally slammed into her, the chains taut around both of them. This time, the pained screeches were a duet, as River had already begun chanting a spell as she landed next to the tangled initiates.

“Present your offering to the lord of agony.”

Her chains started glowing a reddish-purple, as the spell channeled waves of agony into all they touched, rapidly draining stamina and inflicting even more of the debilitating affliction for each moment River could channel the spell. In the case of her two current victims, they were both already lost in the throes of agony, neither having the training or resilience to push through.

“Collar them. We shall bring them to the gathering point before we set out again.” she commanded her combat-thralls, who quickly scrambled to obey her. As she looked at the two whimpering forms, barely conscious, she felt pleased. Her father had indeed made her path strong. And besides, in a way she had done these two a kindness.

Her father would transform these two into something useful and give them purpose. Better that, than just becoming raw materials for someone else’s path, be it through their allies in the church of undeath or with those who followed the path of pleasure.

As they started to make their way back, River felt pleased at the thought of how her success would please her father in turn. While her prey was sparse in these rural lands, she had to practice patience. In the end, the whole region would know the might of their path.

The following two weeks after Kite’s visit to the branch director’s family went by in a blur, at least to Kite and his friends. They spent their days in training under instructor Concente’s knowing supervision, and were making steady progress in the more cooperative aspects of combat.

As usual, Serene was the one who took to it the fastest, as her path was already one of collaboration and unity, but Kite was not too far behind her after their time of training.

His spirit attribute having slowly but steadily climbed upward during the trial and his training meant that he was able to make greater use of his active perception ability, conjuring barriers and walls to assist his allies even when in the midst of fighting his own foes.

During the two weeks, they had also struck out on two more missions. None of them had been to destroy more of the effigies, but rather to combat unusually numerous gatherings of iron-ranked monsters. One of them had been the ever-present gyrmlings, as was common to the summer season. The other was a veritable swarm of plant-based monsters, which had turned out to have been formed by an undiscovered autumn pawn. Due to the adventure society scouts being caught up in the search for the effigies, it had passed unnoticed enough to grow a lot bigger than the one Kite and his friends had faced outside Starberry peak, and had the time to spawn a swarm of underlings, all different varieties of plants and vines..

As with all the times they had faced a bronze-rank enemy so far, the battles had been both exhausting and challenging, but no one in the group would deny the progress they had made. In spite of their growth, the last contract with the autumn pawn still had them all collapsing in their bedrolls that evening, Kite thinking that he never wanted to see a salad again.

At the beginning of their final week of training Kite was stopping by the adventure society campus to check on the progress on a few of his commissions as well as selling off two items produced by his looting ability, a bark-clad lighter armor and a charm which would boost the attributes of plant-based familiars. Neither was useful to anyone in his group as they either had better already or it wasn’t a good fit for their abilities.

Since he was up on the seventh peak already, he took the time to go by the administrations building to chat a bit with Adelaide. As their conversation drew to a close, the green-haired elf halted as if remembering something.

“By the way, I think I saw a letter with your name on it. Let me check with the clerk responsible.”

A short while later, she returned with a rolled up scroll fastened with a seal Kite vaguely thought he recognized but couldn’t place at the moment. He sat down on a nearby bench and unfurled the scroll to read it.

Kite Flown in on Winds of Fortune

Ever since we first met, I have done little but accrue karmic debt to you.

After my shameful acts under the former disciple, my heart could no longer be at peace with where I was and who I was following. My path was no longer my own, and I realized that it might never have been.

Yet your acts set an example; that in freedom, the heaven’s still remain within reach, and that you may still soar toward them. Alone, yet unbound.

As such, I will be leaving Gilded, my family and the sect. The adventure society has agreed to transfer me to the branch in Bastion, as well as to keep my destination a secret.

No doubt my family will find me in time, but until that time I will seek to strengthen my path, enough so that even the bonds of blood shall not shackle it again.

But I freely divulge my location to you, and therefore, in part, my fate.

Our karma still remains unbalanced, and you are the one I would give the right to find me, once you would demand that our karma be severed.

Until then, I shall strive to be worthy of that severance.

Brilliant Bloom

Kite sighed as he took in the words, not knowing exactly how he felt about the message. The, now former, initiate hadn’t been overly occupying his mind, not even after the incident at the jade-sky gate. But when he did think of him, he mostly felt a twinge of pity. At the end, the young man had seemed almost a prisoner of his life and station, forced to act for a pride no longer his own.

As such, he felt that he was impressed by the steps that the young man had, judging by the letter, taken to reclaim his own fate. But he also felt sad at the lonely feeling he got from the words. While he knew not everyone would see it that way, Kite still felt that his bonds to the people around him was what had truly allowed him to soar. And he felt a bit sad that the former young master didn’t seem to have grasped at that strength yet.

Unsaid words forming in his heart, he turned to Adelaide.

“Would I perhaps be allowed to send a response via the society? Even to a member in an undisclosed location?”

“Yes, that could be arranged. But know that there might be a bit of a delay as the message will be thoroughly checked for tracking magic.” she answered, curiosity plain in her expression.

Procuring some paper from her, Kite took his time to formulate a letter of his own, attaching two things to the message. Seeing these, Adelaide looked even more surprised but didn’t ask anything more about it.

As he fell asleep that day, Kite felt good about his decision, wondering if he would ever meet the young man again. But his mind quickly moved on to other matters. Only one week remained of their training, and then the expedition loomed over them. He had been waiting and training for this for almost a year, facing both friendship and tribulation along the way. As sleep claimed him, he idly sent a thought prayer to Fortune, to carry him, his friends and his mentors through whatever was to come.

“Grand elder, is the sect ready?” asked sect leader Dusk. As many times before, her two grand elders were bowing before her as they made their reports.

Grand elder Sight raised her head as she answered. “Yes, sect leader. Those chosen to deploy have been notified and preparations have been made to leave at the appointed time. While our numbers are diminished, our purpose and conviction is not.”

The sect leader nodded at her report after turning to grand elder Lark. “And how has your task progressed, grand elder?” she asked, a clear note in her voice indicating that the title might not be as permanent as he would have hoped.

“As per your instructions, sect leader, the information was distributed through our official channels to the city leadership, adventure society and to the Descending Star sect in its entirety, as well as weekly updates.” the man responded, voice kept firmly neutral.

“And the response?”

“The city leadership and the adventure society sent their thanks as well as offers of assistance, while the sect…” he began, trailing off as one could almost hear the clenching of teeth.

“Grand elder, how did they respond?”

“With mockery, sect leader. Thinly veiled insults about our integrity, honor and competence. The gall of tho-” he began, but managed to reel in the tirade which had begun escaping his mouth, aided by his smoldering fury.

“Would you say that the sect’s actions, your actions, carried integrity, honor and competence in regards to the incident at the queen’s gate?” the sect leader asked, coldly.

The only response she got was a cowed silence as grand elder Lark stared directly down at the polished wooden floor. “I thought as much. If the Descending Star sect chooses not to heed our warning, they will reap the consequences. But the eyes of the heavens are upon us now, and no matter what else, we must remain focused.

Grand elder Lark, your probation will continue as you join our forces in the field. Fight well, and show that integrity and honor, and we shall see about restoring the fell karma between you and the sect.” sect leader Dusk finished.

“T-thank you, sect leader!” grand elder Lark stated loudly. Not being allowed to go into battle along with the sect would have been a grave loss of face for him, and he swore inwardly to keep his decorum even if those from the Descending Star sect didn’t deserve an ounce of it.

He prayed to the gods that his decorum would hold firm even if he was faced with that damnable boy again as well.