Sacrifice Mage-Chapter 137 (B2: 53): Drastic Threat

I had a hard time believing the letter. Aqrea wasn’t kidding. It very plainly stated that the temple was now for sale and that the price had been matched by Lord Brasvay, and that Councillor Hristo had approved of the purchase via the title that the Rakshasa lord had shown. The Councillor, it turned out, was a witness to the existence of the deed and had verified its accuracy.
“This can’t be real,” I said. “Title to the land? Where would they even find something like that? Why don’t
we
know about it?”
Aqrea slowly shook her head. “The titles are maintained on Ring One, but usually, the title holders are aware of it. They’re essentially statements of land ownership. Didn’t Elder Escinca ever mention anything about it?”
“No,” I said. “Never. Well, it wasn’t like he foresaw his death, and we never exactly found a will or anything like that.”
“A will?”
It wasn’t surprising Aqrea didn’t know about wills considering they had a different term for deeds as well. “It’s like a statement from a deceased person about who will inherit their belongings and such.”
“Oh! So, an inheritance statement.”
“Yes, basically.”
Conversations like these always made me wonder about Universal Language Approximator. In this case, I wondered how much intention mattered when it was translating things. Certain words could mean several different things in different contexts. For instance, “ball” was a spherical toy or sports implement depending on the perspective, but it also meant a formal dance.
In the same way, “will” could mean different things. So was the Weave not taking my intention into account when originally translating it to New Zair? Because if it had, Aqrea would have suggested the inheritance statement as her own—and this world’s—understanding of wills
without
me needing to explain what they were.
But such musings were very distant when all I felt at the moment was growing dread.
A crazy part of me considered Sacrificing the temple. At least that way, it would be useful to me. And I could rope in some of others who had the Aspect of Sacrifice, though theirs would obviously not be anywhere near as effective as mine without Windfall.
But that was crazy talk. That was
defeatist
talk. If I was forced to Sacrifice my home, I was losing to these bastards.
They’d still own the land. We’d still have to move. Screw that.
I had been forced to Sacrifice Elder Escinca. Letting the same thing happen to the temple would drive me insane.
“Do you have any ideas on how to tackle this?” I asked. “I’ve already thought of a couple of avenues of enquiry, but I’m open to suggestions.”
“I…” Aqrea bit her lip. “I’m not sure. Sorry, Cultist Ross. The only thing I can think of is offering resistance from here, but otherwise…”
Offering resistance
. Even Aqrea was so desperate that she could only think of tackling the problem with brute force at first.
“Don’t worry,” I said, putting on my leader hat. “I don’t know how they did it, but I intend to find out.”
To that end, I intended to contact the Councillors. I had the Ogre Councillor on my hotline. Unfortunately, the time wasn’t ideal. It was late and I doubted I’d be able to reach him now. I’d have to wait till tomorrow.
Try as I might, sleep didn’t come to me despite my apparent drowsiness. So, I just used Sacrifice and decided to try to be productive and train instead. I simply practiced with Gravity and Illumination. Later on, with Flare too. One of the things I intended to discover was whether Threaded Reinforcement could hold Aspects, especially Flare, within me.
Having seen Kotis turn his hand to smoke, I wanted to work towards turning my hand into either heat or light.
I succeeded. Back then, when I had tried to insert heat energy into the internal cracks of mana, the energy had just seeped back out. Now, however, the cracks had transformed into fine but firm lines of mana, Flare-Aspected mana suffusing them and turning them orange-hot.
It only made me feel faintly warm, nowhere near overheated. Which was good. It meant I had a pretty decent capacity to store heat.
Thinking of capacities made me think of my Affix. No, I hadn’t just lost all use for Capacity. I could still store heat energy outside of my body, and I was starting to see a few interesting applications for it, especially with the potential new Affix for my Gold-ranked Gravity I was slowly thinking up. Just needed to acquire said Affix now.
Thankfully, that was easy to practice. I could just create heat pockets all around me and direct my Gravity to try and affect them. It was slow going. Even with Sacrifice boosting its effects, I didn’t get the new Affix by the end of the day.
Holy Pits, was working while Gold
that
difficult? Then I blinked. It had taken me almost three months to start cursing the same way native Ephemeroth people—Ephemerothians?—did. Well, the way native people of Zairgon did. For all I knew, the people of Claderov and Sinthesar and wherever else all had their own blasphemous curses to use at opportune moments.
At least it got me a rank in Thauma and Sacrifice.
[ Rank Up!
Your Thauma Attribute has risen by one Rank.
Your Sacrifice Aspect has risen by one Rank.
Thauma
: Iron II
Sacrifice
: Silver IX
]
The morning brought different priorities, though. I quickly sent off the letter to Wargrog, the Ogre Councillor, that I had prepared overnight. Waiting for his reply was going to leave me anxious the entire day.
I tried distracting myself with more training and Augmentation considerations. Performing a Ritual of Growth first ought to help with everything I was trying to accomplish.
The Affix I was trying to get with Gravity gave me an idea to get something similar with Power. How cool would it be if I could simply bash something like a fireball out of the air before it hit me? I was sure if I tried doing that now, I’d only cause my arm to explode in burning agony.
But with the right Augmentation, that shouldn’t be an impossibility.
I even tested it with the help of Vandre. He created a big orb of swirling blood, the whole mess crackling with sparking red-black lightning. I tried punching it out of the air and only received nasty burns for my efforts.
Vandre was worried only slightly. He had seen my wounds heal up with Mana Heal, which took effect thanks to Mana Injection pouring out extra mana strands at my Power-driven punch.
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“I’ll get there,” I said.
Vandre nodded like he believed me more than I myself did.
But interactions like that with the others made me consider how exactly I was going to bring up the news to them. I was making enquiries to find out more and see if I could get to the bottom of what was going on. That didn’t mean I was bound to succeed in stopping Brasvay. It was horrible to consider, but we really might just need to move out of the temple.
The thought made a riot of anger and frustration try to break free. Was this supposed to be my legacy after taking over from Elder Escinca? Was I going to lose to that stupid asshole Brasvay?
Had I really just created homes for the Scarthralls and the Anymphea only to ironically end up homeless myself?
My distracted, somewhat despondent self finally got an answer a few hours later. I felt like that was a rather prompt reply from someone as important as a Councillor, someone who was busy running a whole city. I appreciated it and told myself to remember it when I wrote down my reply to him.
“The title is an ancestral title,” I read from the letter Hamsik and Aqrea both standing nearby as I went through it. I looked up at them. “What’s an ancestral title?”
They both looked troubled at that revelation.
“That explains a lot of things,” Hamsik said.
I raised my eyebrows. “It does?”
“An ancestral title is one passed down through generations of title-holders,” Aqrea said. “And are usually locked to a certain qualification. These qualifications are usually familial, as in, you would need to be the son or niece or something like that to make use of it.”
“You’re saying Brasvay can somehow claim the temple land through his family?
How?
”
“That I can’t say…”
“I can.” Hamsik’s troubled look only grew more intense. “You see the Councillor who approved it? Councillor Hristo is the oldest Councillor, and by a
big
margin. He’s a Scarseeker, the oldest one in Zairgon, nearing his sixth century last I heard. Needless to say, he’s so much older than even the second-oldest Councillor, he’ll have seen things none of them can dispute. Not without making the entire body of Councillors look fractured.”
And of course, the Councillors would never allow that to happen. The projection of their unified strength was a big factor in keeping the peace within
and
without Zairgon. Let any cracks show, and enemies would start circling like sharks sensing blood.
“So this Scarseeker Councillor is using his age as an excuse to say that this ancestral title is real?” I said.
“It could
be
real, Ross. None of us were alive over half a millennia ago.”
I grumbled under my breath. Reading more of the Councillor’s letter revealed much the same information. Wargrog mentioned how his hands were tied because of the ancestral title, which only Councillor Hristo was able to verify as actually existing because he had apparently seen it long ago as well.
The good thing was that he still suggested certain actions that might help. Ancestral titles could still be legally challenged, especially in cases such as ours when other people had been living in the disputed location for a while. But the challenge would only ever benefit the challenger if they
significantly
proved that they deserved the land over the title-holder.
“
Significantly
being the key word there,” Hamsik said.
I sighed.
“How in the world are we going to prove that?” Aqrea asked.
I had no clue because the letter didn’t specify any reasons or anything of the sort. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”
We would need to think about it. The greatest proof we had on our side was the fact that we had been living on this stretch of land for time immemorial now. Since long before Escinca. Ring Four was our home. I didn’t even know what it was about the temple that attracted a Ring Two Great House so much.
As I spent much of the rest of the day considering how best to present proper evidence, I started wondering if Aqrea had it right to begin with.
Offering resistance
.
Maybe the best way to stop Brasvay was to offer resistance. Just in a way they weren’t expecting.
I was hoping I could ask around and get some more suggestions. Later on, I met Revayne and asked about the likelihood of the guards ousting us from the temple at Brasvay’s behest.
“I will caution against it, of course,” Revayne assured me. “And however poor of a reputation the Commander has about you—”
“The feeling is mutual.”
Revayne glowered behind her book but continued like I hadn’t interrupted her. “—she isn’t unfair and doesn’t bear any goodwill towards the nobles. She won’t do anything of her own volition to inconvenience you. The problem, however, isn’t us.”
I sighed. “It’s the Councillors compelling you to do your
legal duty
.”
“Correct.”
And if that came to be, then the guards’ hands would be tied. They’d be forced to cooperate regardless of their actual feelings on the matter.
At least I received a letter from Master Kostis asking him to meet me again the next day. That was somewhat relieving. For that day, though, I thought about spending the remainder at Gutran’s and getting some actual training in.
Plus, he would likely be able to help with my new Augmentation training. I wondered if I could start catching up to him now that my Power was at Gold.
But I had only just reached the gate to Ring Three before Sreketh was calling out my name from behind.
“Ross!” she shouted. I turned to find her approaching me at a dash, everyone else staring at the half-Scalekin running full tilt. “
Ross!
”
“What’s wrong?” Her demeanour obviously had me concerned. “What’s going on, Sreketh?”
She only needed a second to catch her breath before she answered. “It’s Brasvay! He’s here, and he’s saying we need to get out of the temple.”
My heart thudded in my chest. That’s when I noticed the tears in Sreketh’s eyes. That piece of shit…
I quickly went off with Sreketh straight to the temple as fast as we could. It was pretty exhilarating to find out how fast I could run, and for how long I could do so without getting tired. But that was muted because of the fear of what awaited me at the end of my run.
Nobody was being forced out of the temple when I finally arrived. A small relief. Though that quickly disappeared when I saw Brasvay standing within the temple like he owned the place already.
“Ah, you’ve arrived!” he said as soon as he saw me. His mouth had twisted into an ugly sneer. “I was sure I’d miss you, what with you being so neglectful of the temple to go touring magic academies and adventuring in dungeons to cause little upheavals.”
“You’re not fooling anybody, Brasvay,” I said. “I was sure I’d have seen your carriage if you had come here normally. You specifically arrived in secret right now so I would miss you. All so you could bully every other cultist like the coward you are.”
“Now, now, no need to fling invectives so easily. We will never get anywhere without a productive conversation.”
He was trying to unmoor me. The whole stunt of appearing at the temple
after
I had left, of his casual admission of keeping tabs on me, had been to throw me off balance.
Brasvay decided to ignore me and looked over the rest of the gathered cultists, all of whom were standing in a line like they were ready to bodily prevent the Rakshasa from entering deeper into the temple. “Look at you all, pathetically trying to attach yourselves to this wreck you call a temple.”
“Watch it,” Vandre growled. “I’m sure your blood is extra sweet, you being a pampered noble brat and all.”
Brasvay only sneered back at the little insult. “Is that how you speak to the new owner of the very ground you muck up with your dirty feet, you cur?”
The others got instantly agitated. All the Scarthralls vociferously protested and several yelled insults at the Rakshasa lord for daring to lie in that manner. He just grinned through it all.
“Ask him!” he said with a laugh, pointing in my direction. “I sent the letter. I’ve given you all notice. This land has belonged to my family for ages, and now, it returns to its rightful ownership. Don’t blame me for taking what was always mine. Blame your stupid leader for letting you think you could ever squat on what was never yours to begin with. Ask him.
Ask!
”
Of course, not all of them were going to be convinced by what a lord who wanted to drive us all out had to say about the matter. But enough of them turned to me, with looks ranging from questioning to near-accusation, that I felt my face flushing.
So that was the other reason he had decided to come here in secret. To sow division among our ranks. To make it all the easier for him to take over the temple grounds.
I took a deep breath and sighed it out. “We’ll comply with the law where necessary.” Brasvay’s eyes lit up with triumph, but I did my best to squash it as fast as I could. “Which
isn’t
you coming to gloat at us about it.”
“I’m merely here to give you an advance warn—”
“You’re here to make us distrust each other so it’s easier for you to take over the temple. I don’t know why you’re so insistent on inflicting cruelties on the people who are already suffering in Ring Four, but we’re not going to take this lying down.”
“What cruelties?” Brasvay chuckled and shook his head, the little jewellery hanging from his horns tinkling. He faced the other cultists. “Are you worried about losing your job and what little purpose you have here? Well, fear not. Those among you who are truly qualified will be re-hired once I take over running the temple. You won’t lose your home. Not all of you, at least.”
Offering salvation with one hand while insulting them with the other. People were of course not going to take kindly to that and generally told him to screw off. Brasvay just shook his head some more and finally began leaving. His job here was done.
“We will be back,” he said as he walked away. A few retainers who had waited outside now fell into step behind him. “But my next visit will likely be a lot more… consequential. Try to settle your matters before then because we won’t be waiting for you to be finished.”
He didn’t even give us a date.
There was a moment of heavy silence following the Rakshasa lord’s departure. Then several of them rushed up at me, for good reason. I tried to not be influenced by the wild avalanche of fear, confusion, and sheer disbelief across the many faces and stood my ground.
“We’re not giving in,” I said, calmly but determinedly. “But we’ll need to take drastic measures if we’re going to stop that bastard.”
“Have you already thought of something?” Aqrea asked.
I took a deep breath. This was going to be a bombshell I’d need to weather. “Yes. We’re going to call their bluff. We’re going to see if they really want this temple.” I looked up at the sky as the shocked faces stared at me. “We’re going to see how they act when the Blight Swarm lands.”