Beneath the Dragoneye Moons

Kawaji stood up at the front of the room, a little later than usual.

It was fine. Nobody had left breakfast, although I sensed a few people higher up sleeping off a huge night of partying and drinking.

Oh, they were so fucked. This was not the time to sleep in and miss things. A part of me said I should let them sleep in and miss things, a benefit to me. Another part told me to go in and personally wake them up, possibly making them indebted to me and swinging a few votes my way.

Damnit Arachne. I have regrets.

Instead, I chose the middle path, and [Teleported] a glass of water over all of them.

Upside down.

The spluttering and cursing was deeply satisfying, and the rest was up to them now. A small, petty part of me delighted that I’d end up far better dressed than them. I’d gotten up extra early just to do myself up to the eights. I looked fantastic, white tunic with gold trim, hair beautifully curled and makeup expertly applied, and I knew it.

I didn’t know if I wanted to curse the bond-given vanity or not.

“Welcome honored delegates!” Kawaji said, some skill or another muffling whispers and letting his voice carry. “Today is the day the great summit of Kazehara begins! We are a little later in the order of things, as none of you are particularly large. The organizers have decided that a few minutes spared on the sphinxes, treants, and other large creatures will dramatically help with logistics further down. As you are all on the small and nimble side, we will be waiting outside until called in. Patience from everyone as we wait will be appreciated. Nullifiers, or Cancelers if you use that term, will be in effect, preventing skills from being used. If you would please follow me at the end of the announcements?”

“Thought I had another minute, sorry for the late request. Skye and I are part of a small former-Exterreri voting block. Sentinel Queen’s in it as well. Are you interested?”

I’d been expecting something like this. And Queen was around! I hadn’t seen her yet, I had to go say hi.

“Possibly, in broad strokes.” I agreed. “There’s no expectation to vote in lockstep is there?”

Katarina shook her head.

“No, we know it would never work.”

I shrugged. I’d already mulled over what I’d say when asked.

“Sure, sounds good to me. Unrestricted medicine’s my big concern.”

I hadn’t gotten a chance to see the large central arena that all the apartments had surrounded. Part of me had been curious, but there were so many other things to see and do that I hadn’t peeked in yet. Given that I might be here for several weeks, I figured I’d get my fill now.

I must’ve passed through some sort of barrier - and damn, it was a good one, I hadn’t even noticed it existed - and the arena snapped into view.

It was the same arena, but I was inside the cloak that had hidden all the people around it. I looked up and my eyes went wide.

Around the top of the arena were a series of large platforms, and I immediately zeroed in on the three dragons lazily perched up there. One black-scaled, one silver-scaled, and I vaguely recognized the flood dragon.

Oh! It was the [Cerulean Scholar] from the School! I guess that made sense. I did a bit of wild speculating. Most dragons didn’t bother to lower themselves to us measly lifeforms, but this arena was one of the few times they could throw their weight around? Remind us about their power? Or maybe they had their own terms they wanted to dictate to us. Or just be in a position to roast us all if we started to make dragon hunting teams. This was exciting!

Huh, there had to be some serious Spatial warping going on for the dragons to fit on the platforms. They shouldn’t be that small, not compared to some of the age markers I was seeing. At the same time, the [Cerulean Scholar] had his home in a spatially warped space in the first place, perhaps it was his work?

The great riddler sphinxes were next to the dragons, lion’s paws crossed as they peered down. Each one had a pair of attendants, which felt massively unfair for a moment before remembering they were probably for the rest of us. They had to speak in riddles, and a [Translator] was a blessed addition for the rest of us. I didn’t spot any phoenix representatives - it would’ve been nice to say hi to Sasha - but there were a few noble kirins.

Part of me wondered why they weren’t transforming into elvenoids to better join the groups, but maybe there were a number of kirins who’d joined up.

A pair of cyclops had another platform, and giants ringed the arena, peering in. They were in distinct factions, the snow giants of Modu - they had ice crystals forming around them, a little thermal skill to keep them comfortable - the high priests from the Tabernacle, and quite a few from Bhutai. I spotted Kunchenjab! The [Runesmith] from the Monastery who’d helped me out with Spatial Wizardry. He was standing next to one of the [Head Monks], which suggested he was here because he was one of the best [Runesmiths] in the world, not as the leader of a group.

Ah. Scattered monasteries. That’s why there were so many giants here! Some of the ice giants were arguing down, their words muffled by skills. From their body language and the stormy looks on their faces, they weren’t too happy about something. They were talking down into the arena, but more skills were in play. Couldn’t hear a word they were saying. It did make me wonder how they were managing light with both vampires and trolls.

Hadn’t seen any trolls so far. I probably would once I got inside.

Our group halted a little outside one of the entrances, and I could see dozens of other groups of elvenoids scattered around their own entrance.

Part of me wanted to wonder just how many people were here. Like, this was only a few select groups! Everyone was representing hundreds to thousands of people, and there were so many.

Put in a different lens though… this was it? Take the people here, multiply by a hundred, and that was the entire world population? A hundred was on the low end for a [Governor] or [Mayor], but the number of Wardens, specialists, and others brought that average down significantly. People who couldn’t make it brought the numbers back up, but it was sobering.

Did giants even have a viable population? The titans seemed to be gone… although there hadn’t been a notification that they’d gone extinct. At the same time, viable population calculations got utterly torched by the giant’s practical Immortality.

I let that thought process spin off into its own musings. Kawaji signaled to us, and we stayed in a milling group for several minutes before the kappa got some unidentified signal.

“If you would all please follow me. There are small amulets as we enter, please pick one. It will tell the translation spell which language you’d like to hear.” He said. With only a bit of pushing and shoving - seriously, some of the people here needed to chill, there was no need for any of that - we streamed into the arena entrance, along with all the other groups waiting by the side.

Along the way I spotted rows and rows of small amulets, each one with a tiny language inscribed in it. Ooooh, they had Creation! Yes please!

The tunnels weren’t quite as direct as I would’ve wanted, but we shortly spilled out onto the floor of the arena. The place was definitely larger on the inside than the outside. The dragons and other large creatures were high up, looking down on us, and the giant’s faces ringed the arena. There were several dark, shimmering layers, that looked like the whole place was under dark glass. It very well might be under dark glass, along with a thousand and one more protections.

I didn’t know all of the security details, but I’d gotten pulled aside two days ago and asked extensively about my healing. A dozen tests later, and I was told that my healing had been whitelisted, and was going to be involved in part of the security of the place.

I wasn’t being told all of the methods - only a few people had been, and security was being handled by three different Classers who didn’t quite trust each other. The paranoia was basically mandatory, given how many lives were in their hands.

The long and the short of it was - I was to keep my healing up, and not try to use any other external skills.

A dozen or so seats up in the stands were taken already by various elvenoids. Oh hey, there was Susan! She already had a seat. Another section was marked off, and the treants were standing in the back of the arena. Made sense, they couldn’t exactly sit down, or go up to the large platforms. Most treants were too short to look over the arena like giants could.

There was a massive aquarium taking up about a quarter of the seats, and it was filled with people. A… my best guess for it was a kelp-treant that was slowly walking along the bottom. Beautiful mermaids swam around, and I counted myself lucky to see one in my lifetime. A mosasaurus and plesiosaurus type saurian were in there. Narwhal and shark beastkin were well represented, along with a single octopus beastkin. I looked around for a frog type, but didn’t see one.

The enchantments were as plain as day. Runic script covered everything, from the floors, on and over the chairs, up the walls and across the ceiling. They were slowly lighting up with the faint discharge of wasted mana. Part of me split off and started to study them all.

It was impressive, and the sheer number of redundancies had me taking notes. The protection was obvious, but a minor layer… was the bulk of the material translation spells? Redundant translation spells? Oh, this was neat, I needed to take more notes, I could level just studying all this…

Stolen story; please report.

There was a platform at the front of the arena, and a raised table with thirteen people sitting at it. A lower table had three people and an epic stack of paper in front of each one. All three of the lower people had some weirdness around them, clearly allowed to use their skills just like I was. Light was faintly flickering from one to the rest of the seats, the second one had an ear trumpet in, and the Wind was gently swirling around the third. One central devil on the higher portion was seated higher than the rest in the middle, armed with a gavel and a ridiculously powdered wig. I quickly skimmed the rest of them.

First and most obviously was Night, sitting near the central devil. A lich was in fine regalia. I assumed the gold-masked Warden was the head honcho. The Witch in White from the School had a seat. A very nervous and low-level kitsune - for the event in question, only 312 - had a chair, along with a trio of elves. A harpy, a demon, a yeti, and an elvenoid that smelled of fur rounded out the members.

The arena was built large, but we were all packed in together. Every race was represented in one place. Trolls and ogres, dullahans and gnomes, liches and minotaurs, werewolves and kobolds. Mermaids swam with selkies in the aquarium. Even the extremely rare races were here, some of which I’d only ever read about, like nymphs.

All types of saurians were here, from the triceratops to the dilophosaurus, from stegosaurus to spinosaurus.

The devil stood up and banged his gavel once. Instant silence fell over the crowd, enforced by powerful skills. He only needed to speak once, and the translation whispered in all our ears.

“My name is Verris Lexael. I am the chief of the High Council for the Summit at Kazehara. We will be the ones managing who speaks, who talks, the agenda, and who is allowed to vote. The three [Scribes] in front of me will be managing the voting and tallying. The rules state that the members of the High Council may only make a single proposal, and are barred from voting. However, we are the ones who select who may vote. The division is an attempt to prevent blatant favoritism, an attempt at checks and balances. If we don’t have buy in for the treaty forged over the following weeks, there will be no adherence to it. If nobody is paying attention to the agreement, there is no purpose to us being here, and all this time and expense will be worthless. All of you are potential candidates, but there is a selection process, and a chance to challenge, for most of you. For the first group, I will hand you off to Rindaer.”

The devil sat down, his oversized wig swaying, and the gold-masked Warden stood up and barked out orders.

“Wardens! To your seats!” He shouted. The masked men and women of the Order mixed into the crowd snapped off a salute, then filtered through to their seats. Already I had a little more elbow room. Rindaer sat back down. The lich stood up next.

I wonder how many times they had to practice and rehearse this?

Wait.

Given the levels involved, and given how old I knew some of them to be, I wonder how many times they’d done this. Goddess, that was a depressing thought.

“All of you who believe you are here to represent a people, territory, or race, please shuffle forward. Those of you who believe you’re here for other reasons, if you’ll move back a bit to help make space, yes, thank you.” The lich declared.

I shuffled back, other people shuffled forwards. Skye gracefully surged to the front of the crowd.

“Good luck.” I muttered to Katarina in passing. Her shadow legionnaire had abandoned her. The [Cancelers] were good, but that unfortunately meant I had my shadow again and couldn’t troll people with it. She stiffly nodded to me.

“Welcome, welcome, excellent!” The lich grinned wildly, and let his skull ‘unhinge’ off his neck. Shudders went through the audience. “Now, this is going to take some time. Shorter than the poor folks in the back there. You. Who are you, and where are you from? The typical area I see you lot from is called the Tuvan Tribes, none of this yeti-yuki fighting nonsense now.” He asked, pointing to Skye.

The yeti on the council snorted and rolled his eyes.

Skye cleared her throat.

“Skye, [Princess] of Orthus, of the territory formerly known as Exterreri.”

“Exterreri!” The lich’s crown jumped off his head like he was surprised, neatly landing back on top. Was… he entirely sane? “You’re a long way from home! Alright! Skye, of Orthus, in Exterreri! Does anyone contest her claim?”

There was a moment of silence.

“No! Good, grab a seat. Next!”

It all went smoothly, people being picked, declaring their location, and the lich waving them through, until a strapping young gnoll was selected.

“Rongrr of the Icewind Tribe of Dairalt.”

“Rongrr of the Icewind Tribe of Dairalt!” The lich shouted. “Anyone to contest his claim?”

“Yes!” Another, older gnoll stomped through the crowd. “Rongrr! What are you doing here!? You were told to stay at home.”

The lich cleared his throat.

“Well, excuse me, but who are you, and what’s your claim?”

“I am Burlorr, [Chieftain] of the Icewind Tribe of Dairalt. This is my wayward son, who was told to stay at home, and who somehow managed to make it here.”

“Oh my!” The lich’s skeletal hands theatrically flew to his mouth. The rest of the High Council was rapidly becoming more alert. “A dispute! Rongrr, are you the [Chieftain] of the Icewind Tribe?”

The gnoll shook his head, and the lich’s face grew enraged. Somehow. There had to be skill bullshit to get emotions like that on a skull, nevermind the appearance of breathing and clearing his throat. One of the elves put a warning hand on the skeleton’s arm, and Verris stood up.

“Burlorr, are you the [Chieftain] of the Icewind Tribe?”

“I am.” He said.

“Do we believe anything more needs to be said, and are there any other objections?” The devil asked.

After a moment of silence, he continued on. I made a mental note to myself - if I had any objections or wanted to get a word in, do it fast. Step one of noticing something was going on was to speed up my thought process to the max. It should give me enough time to react.

“All those in favor of Rongrr to represent the Icewind Tribe, raise your hand.” He waited a moment, and not a single hand went up. “All those in favor of Burlorr to represent the Icewind Tribe raise your hand.”

Twelve hands belonging to the High Council went up, and the three [Scribes] dutifully wrote down the numbers. A moment later they each flashed up a card. Twelve was written in blue, one was written in green, and a big fat zero was written in red. Side one, abstain, and side two, if I didn’t miss my guess.

“Burlorr will represent the gnolls of the Icewind Tribe. Rongrr will be removed from the event.” Verris announced. A different elf snapped his fingers and pointed to Rongrr, who popped out of existence.

“He has been teleported away, and will not be allowed back in.” Verris announced. “He is otherwise unharmed. I will not repeat this the next time we need to remove a delegate.”

The process continued at a good clip, and there was only one more interesting part before it all wrapped up.

“I would like to make a minor objection, if I could.” A finely dressed [Noble] from Rolland looked nervous. Verris narrowed his eyes.

“I trust this is a well-considered objection, and not a frivolous waste of everyone’s time.” He said.

The [Noble] cleared his throat.

“I’m ruling over a city of about 6,000 people, and responsible for lands of about twice that number. Yet, it sounds like I’ll have the same weight as the leader of a tribe of around 80 people. It feels like there is a disparity in weight of responsibility and scope to votes. If I took the same land and split it 200 different ways, I’d get significantly more voting weight for the same number of people.”

Huh. Wow. He was almost single-handedly bringing the average up. That was a lot of people.

The devil nodded.

“Everyone will have a different number of votes assigned to them, depending on a number of factors that we will determine. You will be told once everyone is seated, as the number of people and their distribution is a factor. It is not fair. I will not pretend it is fair. But it is the best system we’ve found so far.”

Verris sat back down, the lich went back up, glaring at the [Noble] for daring to interrupt.

The penny dropped.

The penny fucking dropped.

That was Anurak, the mad lich behind the Pekari. No wonder he was managing all the rulers, he probably already knew them already!

And I could easily imagine that if he was ticked off enough, he might pay them a little ‘visit’ sometime down the line.

… That was possibly my imagination running away with me. Everyone else on the High Council wouldn’t tolerate that, would they?

He summoned the next person.

It left me with one thought. If votes could be apportioned… why were practically all the Wardens here? Wouldn’t one Warden holding all their votes work?

There was probably a damn good reason lurking around somewhere.

The rest of the rulers finished up with only a few more spats and disputes. I was a little surprised, I thought most of them would be handled before we got here. The most interesting one was a city with a ruling triumvirate, where two of the members had shown up, each one insisting they were the proper ruler. The High Council had a really close 7-6 vote, with Verris casting the tiebreaker. It took way too long, and the lich - who STILL hadn’t said his name - was in a Mood afterwards.

Also, Rindaer had to step in when a visiting lich requested his seat on behalf of all Penujuman Necrocracy.

“A reminder that constructs are not considered citizens. In this august meeting, we only count those living beings that are proven to have a soul and a connection to the System, those deemed as elvenoid or superior.” Night said, with a glance up high to the dragons. “Regrettably, those created, or brought back to life, depending on how you view the world and events, by the venerated [Lifebringers] are not qualified to count as members. As devastating as it is, we have had historical issues with people attempting to play games with artificial life and summits of this nature in the past. Do not construe my words-”

Verris pointedly coughed and looked at Night. Night stared him down, and the devil turned away. He continued. “-as saying they are in any way lesser, simply that we will not be considering their numbers. Please, continue to treat them as your neighbors and your friends, and do not allow internal policy here to dictate your actions at home.”

Having said his part, and spoken for the first time, Night sat back down.

Verris got back up at the end.

“Next, we have the specialists. The experts in their field. The best of the best. Please step forward.”

I stepped up along with most of the crowd, and I spotted an old, familiar face. Mormerilhawn! The [Referee] from the School. Huh. I wondered if I was going to see any deities here?

The Witch in White stood up, and unrolled a flowery scroll. Literally, it had flowers growing off of it. She cleared her throat and started to speak.

“The following professions are up for consideration. [Tailor]. [Alchemist]. [Farmer]. [Fisher]. [Weaver]. [Mason]. [Carpenter]. [Driver]. [Drover]. [Dyer]. [Leatherworker]. [Ropemaker]. [Jeweller]. [Lawyer]. [Sailor]. [Scribe]. [Plumber]. [Merchant]. [Cook]. [Miller]. [Smith]...”

The list went on and on, and I relaxed when I heard [Healer]. Excellent. It was comprehensive, and there were more jobs listed than people here.

She finished reading and rolled the scroll up.

“If there is any profession I didn’t name, please step up now.”

A man with a mask and a flowing cape dramatically stepped up. I wanted to roll my eyes at him. This was a meeting, not a theater stage!

“I believe my invitation was misplaced, -”

Ohhh, he was so getting teleported out of here. I wish I had someone close to me to bet how long it’d take.

“But as I am the greatest [Thief] in the world, I was able to steal my way in. We are woefully under-”

The Witch in White cut him off.

“All in favor of allowing [Thieves] a seat at the table.” She called out. The yeti raised his hand, and got dirty looks from half the High Council, and most of the audience. He was serene under the collective glare.

“All those opposed.”

Eleven hands went up, and a pair of fingers snapped to a faint pop.

“Excellent. Moving on. Who would like to begin?”

One of the elves stood up.

“I would like to begin by presenting an unusual guest, and a potentially contentious candidate. Royal, the apista, representing [Beekeepers]. Are there any other candidates for the position? This includes the representative from Kyowa, if she is here.” She asked.

There was a moment of silence, then the elf continued.

“Royal’s qualities for the position are numerous. Basic competency in the field is a given. She has traveled the world, collecting bees of every species. She has fields of hives, testing every given combination. She has written treatises on bee-flower-honey combinations. She has, with the help of millions of buzzing friends, revived multiple species of plants. Royal has made literal rivers of honey, and…”

The elf went on in quite some time in this vein, extolling Royal’s virtues and accomplishments. They were as impressive as I suspected.

Verris stood up at the end.

“Are there any questions?”

I’d worked out the human with the furry smell was a selkie, rare as they were. She raised her hand, and was acknowledged.

“What knowledge do you have on the impact of laws and policies impacting beekeeping?”

Royal blinked.

“Basically none. It’s not my area of interest.”

“Thank you.”

She sat back down, and the questions continued. The interrogation was much more extensive than for ruling a tribe or town. In the end, Verris stood up.

“All those in favor of allowing Royal a seat as a delegate?” He asked.

Nine hands went up for yes, three hands went up for no, and Royal was seated. Yikes - I thought she was more than qualified, but getting that many dissenting votes?

“Who is next?” Verris asked.

Night stood up.

“I would like to present a second contentious candidate, and I am aware of two people vying for the same position. Would Elaine Elaine and Elaine Silon please approach?”

It was go time! Heart in my throat, I approached the bench, aware of the eyes of the world upon me.