Xion CH43: Scouting In Strange Lands

I yawned and stumbled towards the door to the familiar sensations of Mekael’s qi. The second I opened the door, she barged in and slammed the door behind her. The woman paced back and forth before growling and shaking her hands. She plucked mango-looking fruit from my kitchen table and took a bite. Mekael still hadn’t said anything, only ravenously eating more of the fruit. When she grabbed another, I started to feel a little worried.

My schedule today was rather full. It was still early though Samael hadn’t come to bed which meant her message came before anything else today. She wouldn’t let me off the hook just because she was tired. I wasn’t about to skimp on rewarding her after beating my sword together. I just hoped the calcified forest god wood made a good handle.

“Can you hear me; I said the ministers have fucked us.” I nodded my head. Everything was going according to plan. They would try to hold on to power, panic, and **** the civilians to usurp them in a bloody revolution just before a battle for survival against the pantheon. But of course, I still had to ensure the skull god died first.

“Who did those idiots give dementia to now?” I asked.

“That’s been neutralized. Zosimael finished identifying the moth whose scales cause dementia-like hallucination. Teams of warriors are moving throughout the forest to kill them all as we speak. The colony within the tribe has been neutralized as of last night and burned. Unfortunately, the poisoning of our elderly by a joint plot between the priesthood and the ministers is the least of our concerns.” Mekael said.

“The ministers either killed the ambassador party or the skull tribe are invading because we listened to the party. Which is it?” I asked.

“I’m afraid it’s the former. We could survive a skull tribe attack, but a whole group of gods ruled by the whims of a single elf is beyond us. The ministers denied it even under ****. We managed to track down the ambassador, and with her dying breath, she claimed a mighty warrior from the skull tribe attacked them.” Mekael said.

I couldn’t help but think Mekael was lying to me. My arrow hadn’t hit anything vital, especially not on a cultivator. She shouldn’t have died; that much was certain. Mekael would only give me misinformation if she suspected me. Or someone could be feeding her misinformation. There was also a slim chance I made a mistake.

“I want to see the body,” I said.

That would settle things easily enough. If the ambassador had been decapitated, then the body wasn’t that of the ambassador, which would mean Mekael was going against me. On the other hand, none of the guards still had their heads, so everything should fall into place once I saw the body.

My eyes widened at a sudden realization. What if I hadn’t counted the bodies correctly, and one managed to sneak away while I was distracted? She could have snuck away and heard everything. The body Mekael was about to show me would have to be a fake no matter what. If it wasn’t decapitated, then it had to be the ambassador. There was also a chance she died from an animal attack.

…

The body had been found by a young warrior’s patrol; in other words, girls no older than 15 found the body and quickly reported it. If the young warrior's patrol found the body, the ambassador hadn’t made it very far, bowlegged and shot. My arrow was nowhere to be seen or omitted from the report I was given. All they needed was my arrow, and they could prove I killed the ambassador. There were claw marks all over her body and several bite wounds. The ambassador had stumbled upon a nest of raptors who fled when the warrior guiding the young warrior patrol stepped into their territory.

My arrow might have been dislodged early on, leaving it on the ground for anyone to find. But, we killed the ambassador of the Plains Tribe, and our path has already been decided. Mekael didn’t want to say it, so I would.

“We should aide the skull tribe. It doesn’t matter that we didn’t kill them at this point. No amount of wishful thinking or tribute will matter now. If we don’t stand firm with the skull tribe now, we will fight the Plains Tribe alone.” I said.

Beating back the Plains Tribe wasn’t my objective; so long as I saw what the pantheon could do and the skull god died, I would be satisfied. Then, all I had to do was keep my eye on the prize and stay out of most of the fighting.

“That won’t work; the skull tribe is already done for. Before we can gather our greatest warriors and march them out of the forest, the skull tribe perish.” Mekael said.

“Then let's send scouts to observe the battle; I’ll join them to ensure the information gets back,” I said.

Mekael wasn’t having it. The elf’s face blushed pink before she turned away.

“With the ministers under house arrest and the chief still recovering, Elder Zosimael is running things. I use her authority when I make decisions. She wouldn’t want you to throw your life away just to get some information.” Mekael said.

I reached out and took her hand. She let me hold her while I ran through the possibilities on the inside. At the end of the day, I didn’t think they suspected me, or if they did, they were willing to overlook it. Honestly, if there were no survivors, it was likely the ambassador's **** could be blamed on the skull tribe. That would ruin my plans. I needed to not only do some damage but humiliate the Great Khan.

Of course, if Mekael wouldn’t let me follow the scouts, I would go myself anyway. I couldn’t afford to let this opportunity pass me by. Mekael was a mighty warrior and a great training partner. I gained more training in a few months than in years by fighting her with my weights on. She knew the meta and what tactics worked and which were useless. That meta changed when the Plains Tribe was involved. Long-range God Light techniques became very viable, along with a rune buff to boost my damage. I could, under the right circumstances, even hurt a god.

If the Khan’s information team was any good, using a God Light technique would expose our side in this battle. That would make showing my hand worth it.

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