<~> Chapter 206Once again, all of us sat around the table in the on room of the guest building. Lately I've felt like I've gone from oing about life-gis to ahe only soce is this meeting will be about something more crete than usual.

  Silva cracked her neck. "I say we help. After what happened in Goldeh, I'm not keen on helping the cult of Amphores either but it'll be a good opportunity to free a lot of people from svery and cripple the heart of the sve trade in this kingdom."

  Torien crossed her arms. "Is the best way to free people from svery? By starting a sve rebellion? A lot of people are going to get hurt in the crossfire and I don't trust the cult of Amphores to avoid i casualties."

  "Those are the guys who killed the Baron of Goldeh though right?" Raya asked. "If their actual goal was to free people from svery then why would they kill the Baron? Everyone khat he was against svery. How do we know they aren't trying to use a sve rebellion to hide what they're actually doing?"

  "We don't," I said. "Or rather, it's safe to assume that we would be running cover for whatever their actual goals are. We could be helping them distract people from something else or even just pushing recruits into their arms. The real question here is if the risk of emp them is worth it."

  There was a tense moment of sileween us before Lorriene spoke up . "I'm ined to agree with Silva. Even if we do help this cult of demon worshippers, this is an opportunity to almost pletely dismantle svery in this kingdom. That elf implied we would be only be there to remove a few colrs and escape, but we could also take the opportunity to torch their records and make off with their treasury."

  "I don't know about that," Sibyl said jumping in. "Everyone here is pretty strong sure, but you think they're going to leave their treasury and records exposed without arong proteg them? I wouldn't be surprised if they have several guards over level one hundred proteg their stuff, they certainly have the gold to pay for it."

  "Silva and Lilith are both above level fifty nht? The two of them just killed a King. Wouldn't they be enough to deal with strong guards?" Bel asked.

  Silva shook her head. "No, Sibyl is right. I got lucky catg the king's main protector unaware. We could try to scope out their records and treasury to see what we do but if we run into a level one hundred her, we should avoid them. No offeo Lilith but while she is high-level from a raw power perspective, she could use a lot of training. I wouldn't want to take a bet on who would win in an actual fight."

  "I didn't help much when Silva killed the King. Her magic blinded me and I got pushed over when it happehe guard captain and the King were already dead by the time I got bay feet. I was left so ft-footed the most I was able to tribute was helping with one of the guards," I admitted.

  "Doesn't matter," Silva said. "The point is, it's not worth the trouble. If we run into someohat strong, we run."

  "You're talking like we've already decided to do this," Torien quipped back. Silva frow her rea but didn't argue.

  "I don't think we should do it," Man followed her sister up. "The things we saw ihe castle at Goldeh were awful. If we went along with helping the cult of Amphores, things could turn out just as bad or worse. I don't want to help people that would do that to so many i people."

  "With respect," Silva replied. "most haven't adapted to the life of being a sve as well as you have. There are lots of i people in colrs in that building too and I don't think we should weigh the lives of people who have turned a blio cruelty over the ones wearing the colrs. I think the retionship you have with your former mistress has left you blind to what we're talking about."

  Torien squinted her eyes at Silva. "How dare you. My sister's opinio matter because you think she got lucky? How much do you really know about the kind of training we went through?"

  "Enough," Lorriene raised her void interrupted. "That was out of line Silva. Ultimately, I agree that we should do it anyway, but telling my hat her opinion isn't valuable is uncalled for."

  I could feel some of Silva's indignation through the bond. It seems like that wasn't how she had meaatement, but I don't know what she expected. I don't know how to feel about that exge. I don't think the way Torieed was extreme based on how Silva sounded but part of me wondered if Torien had reacted so ively because of her own current issues with the woman. Then again I don't think her protectiveness of her sister has ever e into flict with Silva before so it might just be that.

  I sighed and spoke , "We're getting a little off track. I think that even if we do decide to help, keeping what Man said in mind is important. We would be assistiher directly or ily, a group that has murdered a lot of i people. They released demons into the castle of a baron that didn't even done svery and the demons killed most of the staff there and lots of people throughout the city that had never even owned sves. Bel and I personally helped some of the victims of that event at the Brothel. Raya is right, that group has some kind of oal to all of this so even if we do this, we o avoid helping them if we ."

  "It sounds like you're leaning toward doing this," Silva said.

  I shook my head. "I don't know... Seeing all of the people at the bazaar oals being sold like pets was disgusting. But so was clearing out the castle of undead maids and cooks. Until now I didn't think I would ever be in a position where I would seriously sider helping them but I also don't want to do nothing about all of those people being sold off like meat."

  Raya leaned ba her chair and stared at the ceiling. "Why don't you just tell everyone you free that the Order of Lilith is the one freeing them? You said the Tamin church already knows about the group Silva and Lorriene are a part of, they 't be the only ones. If this is just a method of recruiting people to the cult of Amphores then they would be seen as trying to poach from the people who actually helped them. I know I'm the one whht it up, but if this is just a smokes to hide what they're doing, that's unfortunate, but that doesn't really take away from freeing people right? Helping them might even give us some clues to what their pns are and then maybe we mitigate some of the damage from there. If we don't help, something terrible might still happen anyway and we wouldn't be able to do anything about it."

  "That's true..." Man ceded.

  I turo Cecilia. "How much we trust Feyria Wihorn?"

  Cecilia shrugged. "I'm not sure. Feyria seems pretty cutthroat from our versation with her but I haven't heard rumors of their whole family being like that. The Wihorns are one of the major houses on the same level as the Silvergroves but other than that I don't know a lot about them really. I usually tried to stay out of politics so you would be better off talking with Tarklin about that." I nodded. I was a bit disappointed by her answer but that robably a bit unfair to her.

  I looked around the table. "Is there arongly against helping them?" There were a few frowns and furrowed brows but no one else was entirely against it. Though I also sensed quite a bit of apprehension from several of them through the bonds.

  When no one replied I tinued, "Feyria said she would be by within the few days before the cult of Amphores activates their colr suppression magic again to see if we io help her. We should have at least a few days before we have to make a final decision and maybe we ask for more crete details about what the pn is and what the cultists will be doing during the colr suppression. Until then we have a few days to rex. Does anyone have anything else they want to talk about before I drop the [Zone of Silence]?"

  I got a lot of shaking heads so I nodded and released the spell.

  Man tugged on my shirt so I turo look at her. "If we have the time, I think you should look at the book that the Head Librarian gave you. I think it's exactly the kind of thing you were talking about being ied in," she said.

  I smiled. "Sure, I've actually been looking forward to it." I turned back to the table. "It sounds like we won't be able to head bato the city for a while, at least till Talis looks into what's happening there for us. Tarklin is headed to the guild to see about the cartography stuff but we're not going to be able tister you two into our party yet," I told Raya and Sibyl. "Actually... for that matter, I never added Silva to it either."

  Silva shrugged. "Normally you don't ister sves. Though if we're going to be traveling and I'm no longer wearing a colr then I probably should get registered eventually so I don't look suspicious."

  "Well, alright then," I said. "I'm going to head upstairs to read for a while. Feel free to e get me if anyone needs anything."

  I stood up and started heading up the stairs and found that both Man and Torien were following me. I didn't say anything but once we ehe room I turo Torien with a raised eyebrow. "Did you want to look through my new book too?"

  Her ears went bad she gnced away looking a little guilty. "No, I just didn't want... to be down there right now. I don't really know how to act around everyone now that I'm not a sve..."

  I didn't totally buy that reason but I bet there was at least a kernel of truth in it. I think this was more about Silva than anything else. While I did eventually want to push her to talk with me about it more, I didn't think now was the moment to broach the subject. That meeting had been a bit tense and I'd rather just rex for a while.

  "I don't think you o worry too much about ag differently in front of everyone, but if you just wanna hang out on the bed while Man and I get nerdy, then be my guest," I told her in a mirthful tone.

  Her cat ears perked back up and she looked relieved. "Sure. I'll just sit in that chair out of the way and rex for a while. Maybe I'll go back down ter if I feel more up to it..."

  "Sure," I replied with a smile.

  Man pulled the book she had been holding onto for me and pced it on the bed. There was a desk but it seemed a bit too small for the two of us to look through the tents at the same time. I flipped the book open and my eyes lit up when I realized what I was looking at.

  It was a reference book for known ritual circles and ritual circle po pieces.

  There were lots of pieces I already reized and some that I had already intuited their fun, but even in those cases, the book went into a lot more detail on how powerful their effects would be and what other pos were known to cel each other out. This book was a treasure trove of information that would wreat with [Light Scribing]. I had beeed to see what kind of book Sorsette had given to me as a gift but I hadn't thought she would give me something so practical.

  Though irospect, I should have known she would have given me something like this. How else would I develop this new angle of magic I had created without a book this detailed? This book would save me so much time in reverse engineering ritual circles like I had expected to have to do. Man and I flipped through the book and talked about different applications for some of the circles and their pos. We quickly started theorizing about whies would be practical for different applicatioually, even Torien had gotten drawn in by the versation and all three of us were discussing what kinds of circles would be practical to keep at hand and which would be useful with a bit more setup.

  Things were going to get fun.

  Saine

  Hello! The team discussion after the st chapter! I was happy to see people eg the thoughts of some of the characters. It was fun to see people e to some of the same clusions as they did! chapter we finally get some exploration of the ritual circle magic Lilith started developing all the way ba the sed book. I'll be ho, I was hoping to have this e into py much sooner but the Goldeh chapters ended up being quite a bit more lengthy and important than I had initially pnned and there hasn't been much opportunity to explore it yet since. ( you believe [Light Scribing] was inally created all the way ba chapter 62?) Still, Lilith finally has the tool she o actually DO something with that magic she developed. I hope you ehis chapter, see you ime!

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