[Dragon peaks]
Following the victory over Arkuns, Darganth spent almost two months dealing with the aftermath of the battle. During that ti, he and various leaders among his allies were kept busy by the few humans and beastn loyal to Arkuns and Rezal who escaped capture, either by retreating early enough or because they hadn’t been present during the battle.
This mainly ant sweeping across the vast territories both rules once held and installing supervision over the various kings and provincial lords or dethroning them if necessary. This effort was split in two, with lidra taking care of the beastn lands in the north on her own request, while Darganth and his lovers moved southward through the human-controlled lands.
As part of this, they took over castles in the various parts of the empire and let elves of Venrie’s choosing move into them. Together with the dragons and beasts that were bound to be growing only more nurous in the mountains and remote forests they already inhabited before, they would help project the power of Darganth’s forming empire across the nearby lands.
Simultaneously he had an extensive spy network in place in the form of the vampires that had been infiltrating the noble houses of Arkuns’ empire for centuries at that point. And though Darganth wasn’t as assured of their loyalty to him as he would like to be, the fact that they still respected Cehlya despite not worshiping her like most intelligent undead did made them loyal enough to lidra that he could rely on them for this.
With the help of this multilayered system, Darganth hoped they would be inford of any resistance against the conquest in the empire’s lands before it spiraled out of control. Or at least that the forces they had spread throughout its territory could keep it contained until they finished their plans for the reorganization of the central continent.
But though this would still take years, Darganth with the help of Neandra and Venrie had already established groups to manage this for them. In general, he was delegating many of the administrative tasks that ca up, with himself and those close to him only having to deal with larger decisions and thus causing no problems when they returned to the dragon peaks this shortly after the decisive battle.
Landing on the balcony of the house that protruded out of the side of his peak, Darganth stepped into the building as Neandra and Yldra landed behind him and also transford into a humanoid form. A mont later a portal shimred into existence as Jennia also arrived along with Serania and Allaire, with Venrie, Enilla, and Vorthos both floating down another instant later.
“Seems like we have guests.” Darganth suddenly said as they followed him inside.
Surprised by his words, the group almost uniformly let their mana sense expand throughout the entire for humanoid occupation designed section of his lair. Though as the walls blocked their senses, the ripples in the ambient mana that spread out from each of them had to wind through the corridors, blurring the results and resulting in a short delay before Venire recognized the presence.
“What is liel doing here?” She exclaid in astonishnt.
“The queen of forests?” Neandra asked in surprise.
“Yeah.” Venrie confird.
Raising an eyebrow when she confird this, Darganth beca intrigued. The queen of forests was one of the two positions that ruled over the elves on their native continent of Avelyn, serving as equal to the sky king as well as being his wife.
This arrangent is a tradition dating back all the way to the initial unification of high and wood elves into one nation, with both species’ nobles alternating in electing a new king or queen whenever either of the previous rules dies. The newly crowned king or queen then has to marry soone of the other species and thus elevate them to beco their new king or queen.
Through this system one of the two rulers could always stay within the capital or at least the country's borders, allowing them to act outside their territory without causing instability. But this was almost always limited to diplomatic missions to the dwarves with whom they share their continent or dealing with monsters in the neutral territories between the two countries.
Visiting the central continent was anwhile sothing that hadn’t been done by the last three royal pairs according to Venrie, with even her own etings with them always happening on Avelyn. As such, when Darganth started heading toward where liel and Alicia were, she was the first to follow him.
Walking through the corridors at a brisk pace, they soon after reached the smaller of the two training halls. Entering, they were imdiately greeted with an oppressive and fluctuating gravitational pull that was centered around Alicia. Next to her, three more figures were standing calmly amid the chaotic energy she was emitting, with the elf among them being the first to notice Darganth’s arrival.
“Greetings, I’m-” She started, turning around toward them only to suddenly pause in surprise when she saw Venrie enter the room after Darganth.
“Venrie?” liel asked in a mix of confusion and happiness.
“I’m as surprised to et you here as you are.” Venrie responded with a light smile.
“It’s been ages. How’s my favorite grandnice?”
Blushing slightly at liel’s doting tone of voice, Venrie nodded as she answered, “I’m doing great.”
Seeing this reaction that stood in stark contrast to her normally reserved attitude, Yldra couldn’t suppress the slight smirk that ford on her lips. Catching it in the corner of her eyes, Venrie turned to her with a raised eyebrow, giving Darganth an opportunity to join the conversation.
“So you’re liel. Venrie ntioned you a few tis, it's nice to finally put a face to the na.”
“The pleasure is all mine. Though I have to admit that I haven’t heard of you before eting your sister, or from void dragons in general for that matter, so I hope you can forgive my unannounced presence here.” liel said in response.
While speaking, she studied Darganth’s reaction with furrowed brows. When she saw him questioningly raise an eyebrow, she thus grew weary of an annoyed reaction.
“You want to find out what you signed on to.” Darganth said with a light laugh.
Sighing in relief as his tone placated her worries, liel answered with a nod, “I would formulate it differently, you make it sound like I’m planning to spy on you. But yes, I want to see what kind of person can make even ancient monsters like Batoim bow.”
“The kind that literally created his ancestors from nothing.” Darganth said with a smirk.
Widening her eyes in shock, liel practically instinctively expanded her mana sense in response. Focusing it on Darganth, she was surprised to be able to sense his mana pool at all, sothing that morphed into confusion when she found him to not even reach the level of her royal guards.
Unsure how to react to this, she was briefly stunned into silence. Racing her mind to find a good way to formulate her thoughts without coming off as insulting, she was still busy finding the right words when Darganth interrupted her a few seconds later.
“I know that I currently don’t look the part. But considering that I was deader than dead in the sense that I even doubt Vunreon could’ve brought back a primordial from the state I was in, I think I’m doing quite well. But I have a personal interest in testing that theory so in a few millennia I’ll have a definite answer to that.” Darganth said with an unnerving smile.
Blinking slowly as she stared at him in response, liel felt overwheld by his revelation. More so, the fact that he revived himself was the least surprising part of what he said considering that the possibility of perfect revival was a proven fact, even if there were precious few people who could succeed with it on even weak mythic ranks.
What instead worried her most was his casual ntion of the primordials. Though even the royal household only managed to retain little information about them after millennia since the gods vanished, she knew that these beings were the peak of all known power.
Seeing her rapidly shifting expression, Darganth turned to Alicia.
“So you didn’t tell them much?” He half asked, half stated.
“I wasn’t sure how much you would want to reveal.”
“We’re gonna rely on them so so trust will be needed. And Irsyr personally created the defense system that surrounds this universe and apparently not even many Locus can get as much as a ssage out without his permission, so for now I don’t have to worry about sharing my identity.” Darganth said.
Registering his words while lost in her own thoughts, liel abruptly snapped back to attention.
“Who’s Irsyr?” She asked intrigued.
“Right, you wouldn’t know. Venrie, if you were so nice, I think it would be better if you did the explanation considering his impact on- well everything.” Darganth said.
“Considering that the number of people who died during their ascension on Avelyn isn’t too far behind this continent that might be a good idea.”
As she spoke, Venrie placed a hand on the shoulder of the intrigued yet slightly nervous liel and led her outside and to a room where the latter could sit down.
Darganth anwhile waited for a short mont before turning to Alicie who abruptly started to glare at him once the others had left the room.
“So the whole ‘nothing of interest should happen while you’re away’ was a lie?” She asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes.” Darganth admitted without remorse.
eting his gaze for a few monts, Alicia studied his expression for a mont before shaking her head with a disappointing sigh.
“Then the mission was to keep away from the battle, wasn’t it?” She asked.
“Yes.” Darganth said again, “But the rest of what I said was true, you’re really exceeding my expectations by far. I just didn’t want to have to worry about you too, I hope you can understand that.”
“I can.”
Agreeing with him with a nod, Alicia surprised Darganth with her words. Stepping forward with a glad smile, he was about to ruffle through her hair with his hand when she continued.
“But that doesn’t an I like it. So please don’t do it again, or at least not like this.” She said.
“With the second part, I can agree.” Darganth said, prompting Alicia to nod with a content smile.
“And I’m sorry.” He added a mont later before gently ssing up her hair as he started walking toward the exit.
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