Off the protocols.

The Roundtable. A room with a grand purpose not yet fulfilled: Governing the bended City. Empty but luxurious it almost seems like a metaphor for the whole city. All of the chairs around the table have been removed and placed at the walls. All but one. The most ornate one still stands there at the north end of the table, the furthest away from the main entrance, and holds the creator and ruler of this space.

Ulal yawns out of boredom, his teeth glistening in the artificial light of the place. Finally, the big door swings open and Tarzana walks in. The cult leader raises her eyebrow when she sees the rooms get up. “Why did you take away the chairs?” “Symbolism.” Ulal responds. “You may take one and sit down.” He points at the eastern bit of the table where the map shows the district he has given Tarzana.

“And here I thought you disliked symbolism.” Tarzana says as she sits down at her appointed space. “Symbolism as a very important thing.” Ulal disagrees and looks up to the second level where Alratha is sitting down. “Interested?” He shouts up to the assassin. “Very much so, thanks for the spine by the way I feel so…awake.” At Tarzana’s questioning look Ulal simply smiles and looks behind the witch. “We gave her a new one. The old one broke.”

Tarzana jumps as she hears Aclysia’s melancholic voice behind her. “How do you keep sneaking around in high heels?” she asks her as Aclysia walks towards the chairs and grabs one. “I change my feet to fit the situation.” Is all she responds to that and puts the chair she is holding at the north-western part of the table, in front of the district named after her. For Ulal she sits directly to his right.

Aclysia says nothing and simply studies the map in front of her. “Can she just do that?” Tarzana asks, “I am afraid she just did.” Ulal snickers, “Not that there is much to be done wrong giving the lead of the alchemical district to a person literally made of an alchemical metal.” Catherine comes in next, “What do I get then?” Ulal points to his left. “District Arcana, you might not be quite there yet but you are already stronger than most mages.” Tarzana crosses her arms, “Not stronger than me.” The cult leader earns an annoyed glance from Catherine for that remark, “We never got to test that.” The apprentice says as she slams her chair between Tarzana and Ulal.

“Ladies. It doesn’t matter.” Ulal tries to calm them down, “You can’t have regency over two districts anyway so why provoke this?” “I just want to punch your apprentice in the face is all.” Tarzana answers while the two glare daggers at each other. “Fucking do it later then when I am not watching.” Ulal says in a displeased tone, “This is a council meeting not a kid’s name day.”

The two exchange a last challenging glare and then drop the issue. For now. Meltzer, who had entered during that conversation, clears his throat to get Ulal’s attention. Only his, all he gives the female participants of the council are degrading glances. “Meltzer, is that Glenn behind you?” Indeed the nervous man has cowered behind Meltzer. A bad cover as they are both not particularly impressive of stature.

“Don’t be so nervous.” Ulal gives him a wide smile, “I am putting you in charge of the western district, that being Droy of course. Meltzer you are in charge of the Zerja district that is the south-western one. Take your seats.” They follow the literal command and now only one district is without attendee. “For the time being I will take administration over the south-eastern district, District Erschja, as well.” Ulal says, “Future councils will also include a scribe for the sake documentation but for now this will suffice. Now for the reason I wanted all of you here.”

He slackingly leans back in his chair, “As you can guess the sudden appearance of a city won’t go unnoticed and Estara will surely take counter-measures in the near future. To defend ourselves this city needs people. Luckily for us another city is just around the corner. Brikstrat has about 9.000 people living in and around it, we need to sway them to our side. To do so I, that being Uklag, gave Meltzer instructions. Would you report the council how that worked out?”

Meltzer stands up; while he speaks, he only looks at Ulal. “Of course, Lord. I followed your instructions and managed to rile up all the men in the city. They are ready to revolt at a moment’s notice.” Ulal stares back at him. “All the men you say.” He says in an emotionless voice.

Meltzer mistakes that for a good sign. “Yes. I told them of your glorious vision!” He slams his left hand on the table. “We will finally turn around this unnatural order. Once you give the word we can assure the men’s rightful place at the top, we can prove our superiority as a gender!” Ge gestures wildly. “Enslave all of those women to be nothing more than objects of our pleasure. Truly yours is a great way, Lord Ula-“ He tries to raise his left hand but is unable to. He looks down to find it frozen to the table. The whole room seems to have become several grades cooler. The temperature keeps dropping.

Meltzer looks back up at Ulal. The Demonmagus slowly bends forwards, the skeletal wings behind his back exuding cold mist as he stares at Meltzer. “Spare me your worship.” Ulal says his voice completely neutral. “And answer my questions. You riled up the men with the promise to enslave the women, yes?” Meltzer gulps, “Y-yes. As per your orders.” “What exactly where my orders, Meltzer?” “To sow disconte-“ “TO SOW DISCONTENT!” Ulal shouts at him, his gauntleted fist hitting the table. Cracks spread through the thick marble at the violent impact.

“EXACTLY! Where in the ever-loving fuck did I say I wanted you to bring about open rebellion in the men?” “But what did you want me to do then?” Meltzer tries to defend himself. “Raise taxes, festivities gone wrong, weak road security. I wanted the population of Brikstrat to be angry at Estara so that I could pull them over to my side with promises of glory and wealth.” Ulal hits the table again, the stone crunches as more cracks show themselves. “What did you do instead? Radicalized half of the population! Very good Meltzer you complete failure and here I thought Uklag had seen vision in you. How am I to build a society of progress and magic if I enslave half of the potential thinkers?”

The Demonmagus gestures towards the rest of the council. “Look around you. More than half of this council is made of women. Catherine was above you in the order from the beginning. What made you think I wanted a male dominated society?” Meltzer doesn’t get to answer, his very teeth seemingly frozen together. Ulal doesn’t even notice that his wings are leaking magical energy, fuelled by his wrath. He stands up and walks around the table until he arrives at the Meltzer, who has is already halfway frozen to death and can barely turn his head.

“Let me get his into your skull.” Ulal hisses and grabs Meltzer’s throat with his left arm. The orichalcum based alloy is even colder than the freezing air. Something pulls at Meltzer’s soul, his eyes widen in terror, his teeth still glued together he can only whimper. “Men are not superior.” The pull gets stronger, the segments of Ulal’s gauntlet part slightly, black mist seeping out of the little divides. “Women are not superior.” The black mist creeps up the gauntlet and up Meltzer’s face, into his mouth, his eyes, his ears. The ice breaks and finally Meltzer can scream. “I AM SUPERIOR!” Ulal shouts and slams Meltzer into the table. His body breaks under the impact and what little of his life is left gets sucked out of him by the black mist as his soul is absorbed. After a few seconds his body becomes a pile of dust.

Ulal makes a few angry breaths through clenched teeth. He looks around, Catherine and Tarazana have surrounded themselves with an aura of fire against the cold, Aclysia watches with great interest. Glenn however is completely white, all colour vanished from his face. That is not from the cold however.

Ulal calms down and realizes what his wings are doing. “I have to be really careful with these.” He mumbles and heats the room back up before making them disappear. “Well, as the treasurer is suddenly deceased I will lead both southern districts as well as this one.” The Demonmagus walks back to his chair and sits down.

“Alratha, go check the situation in Brikstrat.” “As you wish, Ulal.” Alratha cheerfully obeys and leaves the second level. “What will you do now?” Tarzana asks, “I don’t know yet. I can’t easily affiliate myself with either side without angering the other and is stands I need both, because procreation is a thing.” Ulal pinches the bridge of his nose, “What a headache.”

“What does a soul taste like?” Aclysia asks from his right. “Power. Weird. Can’t really describe it. I will write a report later.” Ulal answers as and lowers his hand. “Let’s talk about other things. Tarzana did you get anything back from the Cult of Five?”

Tarzana smiles widely, she indeed has good news. “The supreme Bishop himself is on the way here. You have the backing of the whole Cult.” Ulal claps his hand together, “Wonderful. If everyone had news like that no one would have to die.”

“Re-regarding that.” Glenn chimes in. “Can you guarantee me to not kill me like that?” “Do you plan on radicalizing half a city against scientific values so you can harbour a grudge?” Ulal asks a question in response. “N-No?” “Then of course I can. Don’t do anything stupid and I won’t have to cleanse you from my city.” Ulal jabs at the Spokesperson of Normality.

“Okay, so the Cult is on its way, which is great. Brikstrat sadly has to wait but we can still spread the word. Tarzana can you have the Cult members spread rumours about this place while they come here?” The cult leader nods, “You owe me a favour for this, though.” “Of course. Well then, does anybody else have something to bring up?”

Shacking heads, “Then this meeting is over. We will meet again tomorrow to talk about our strategy regarding Brikstrat.” Once outside Aclysia and Ulal walk up the stairs to the laboratory together. “Aclysia, you can still use alchemical procedures right?” Ulal asks as they enter. “As long as you provide me with charged instruments, yes.” Aclysia affirms. Ulal walks towards a drawing board. “Good. See I have this little project I have been thinking about while I sat up in the mountain. I might be able to repeal Estara with enough people but to win I need them to be afraid. I need to have a weapon.”

He writes down calculations of magical consumption, lists of material, runic formations, in the centre the picture of a staff. Aclysia watches with interest, a thin smile on her pale lips. “What do you think?” Ulal asks and puts down the pen. “There are some hiccups in the formula. Metal and Dragonbone doesn’t bind very well. Also the form of a staff is not exactly practical for a multistage spell.” Aclysia takes the pen and another piece of paper. “The theory is sound. How about this.” She draws the picture of a book. While her calculations of magical consumption and runic placements are less precise than Ulal’s the way alchemical bindings she formulates are hard for even him to understand.

“You think that is going to work?” Ulal asks and looks at the picture of the book. Next to the staff he drew, it looks tame. Then he looks at the alchemical and magical formulas again. Whatever they are creating here is all but tame. “To process the materials into a usable stage I will need time.” Aclysia answers, “Also this still has many other problems like source and matrix configuration. To hold an enchantment this layered I will need to create the base version of Eclys and many other things.” She takes third paper and they start calculating more thoroughly. “The theory holds after three calculations.” Aclysia says, “This will work. What do we call this project?” She says that like she wants Ulal to name their child. To be fair this pretty much how it feels to the duo as well. Ulal takes the paper and writes down:

“Project 2580, Category: All schools, Source: Triple, Name: Grimoire of the black Sun, Version 1” Aclysia reads as he does. “I always used the Helenic system for order, which one is this?” “Mine.” Ulal says and takes another piece of paper. “Let’s go over the production steps.”