I might have been just a touch too cheeky back there.
I said I would lead the way, but it's been a while since I've been in this ballroom, and only once at that, so tried as I might, I couldn't recall where the door to the tucked-away parlour room was. Luckily for , my lovely draconic girlfriend quickly recognized my dilemma, and she stealthily pointed in the right direction.
After making a ntal note about giving her so extra kisses later, I gestured for Lord Grandpa to follow after , and I was glad to see that I wouldn't need to make another detour on the way, as I found Roland idling right about halfway between our starting point and our destination. Since we were in public, he gave a curt salute when I approached him and stood attentively.
"Welco back, Leonard. It feels like it's been ages since we last t," he told in a perfectly natural, level voice, but I couldn't help but feel that he was still overdoing the act a little.
"I feel the sa. We'll catch up later, but for now, can I ask you sothing?"
"Do you have any orders?"
"No, not an order, more of a request," I told him and glanced over my shoulder. Lord Grandpa frowned, as if unsure whether or not it was fine for him to hear what we were talking about, so I purposefully avoided his eyes and scanned the whole ballroom for potential troublemakers. Alas, there were too many of them to count, so I exhaled a shallow groan as I faced Roland again. "Keep an eye out for trouble, and if there's a conflict, do your best to break it up, or at least hold it in bay until I'm back."
He raised a critical brow at and responded in a low, uneasy voice.
"Are you expecting a fight to break out?"
"Not necessarily a 'fight' per se, but sothing," I told him with a shrug. "Call it a hunch."
While he still looked skeptical on the surface, Roland gave another salute all the sa.
"Understood. I'll go and inform the rest of the Ordo Draconis mbers."
"Please do."
That was the end of our discussion, and once I moved on, the old arch-mage followed behind like my very own shadow. We turned a few heads as we made our way through idling guests. Most of them were Draconians of various families and ethnicities, but I could see the odd Kage elder and Ordo Draconis Squire here and there. In comparison, both the Assembly delegation and the Celestials kept to themselves, forming isolated islands in the sea of attendants, with only my inner circle and friends serving as sothing of a bridge between them.
I couldn't say I was surprised by that; the Draconians and the Knights mingling like they had been close allies for ages was an unnatural developnt entirely based on my identity and the insistent support of Naoren and Dad-in-law. It would've been downright uncanny if the sa thing happened with the rest of the factions, considering they had been at each other's throats just as much as the Draconians and the Brotherhood used to be, but without a linchpin to tie them together now.
It was sothing we still had to work on, but just the fact that mbers of all three of the biggest supernatural power players were here and associating in the open was a step in the right direction.
In any case, we soon reached our destination, and after I signalled to the maid on duty that I'd have liked to use the so-called 'private eting room' directly adjacent to the big hall. The inside of it was exactly how I rembered it, thought in retrospect, I didn't know what I was expecting. It's only been a few months since the last ti I'd been here, after all.
The windowless room was lit by a series of wall-mounted light fixtures styled after old-tiy mantled gas lamps, and with the leather-bound armchairs and the fairly no-nonsense décor, the place gave off a high-class yet at the sa ti surprisingly cosy atmosphere. It was also surprisingly well-insulated, and the mont the placeholder maid closed the door behind us, all the buzz and the music of the ballroom disappeared like soone cut a record, and the silence imdiately gave the chamber a more clandestine feel.
My 'guest' might not have shared my sentint though, as after a mont of hesitation, Lord Grandpa spoke about five sentences in one breath, so fast it put the micro machines man to sha, and the walls were imdiately enveloped with a faintly shining sheen of light.
"Soundproofing?" I ventured a guess, and the old man nodded with a solemn expression.
"It is a necessity," he stated and sat down on one of the armchairs without waiting for to do so first.
I didn't mind it though (I was never big on etiquette anyway), so I just followed his example, and waited for him to get started.
"Leonard," he said, still sounding unnecessarily sombre. "Or should I refer to you as Polemos from now on?"
"Nah, Leonard will do," I told him and leaned back in my seat. It made recall the last ti I was here, and the green tea Naoren brewed at the ti. It didn't even happen that long ago, yet I was still feeling nostalgic about it. The human mind was so weird.
"In that case, Leonard," the arch-mage opened the discussion with a deep, resounding voice. For once, he wasn't trying to project authority, but it rather felt like he was trying to get the gravity of the situation across. "At the conclusion of your last, unannounced visit to my ho, you left abruptly, without giving us the opportunity to discuss the grand implications of the information you revealed to us. I would like to continue this discussion right now."
"Is that all?" The old man frowned at , so I clarified, "Considering how agitated you looked, I expected sothing more pressing."
"I am most certainly not agitated," the old coot objected under a deepening frown. "However, the subject is definitely of the utmost importance, and calling it pressing would be entirely appropriate."
"Fine, fine. I'm listening."
Lord Grandpa let out a gruff noise and placed his hands on his thighs.
"Before anything else, I would like to make sure there is no misunderstanding persisting between us. The Dionne girl is, contrary to all common sense, the corporeal embodint of Deus, the legendary sovereign of the Celestial race. Am I correct so far?"
"Calling her a 'sovereign' is not entirely accurate. She's more of a cross between a ssianic archetype, with a bit of an Arthurian 'return of the king' kind of thing going on as well, but otherwise, it's mostly correct."
"And you are Polemos, the consort of this 'ssianic archetype', as you called her."
"Oh, no no no," I cut in before the misunderstanding could gain a foothold. "You've got so weird intel it seems, so let put this straight: I'm currently holding the mantle of an Archon. Both Polemos and Deus were Archons, and I inherited the title because of so shenanigans that would take too long to explain in detail, while Angie houses the soul of the original Deus inside of her. In short, we're both considered to be ceremonial leaders with lots of vaguely defined authority, but neither the Polemos and Deus of old, nor Angie and have an intimate relationship with each other. Did that clear it up?"
"Yes, but it is not the crux of the discussion we need to have," he insisted. "However, you have touched upon a very important detail, and I would request that you clarify it beyond the shadow of a doubt: are you entirely certain that the Celestials are correct in assuming she is their old ceremonial leader reborn?"
"Indeed. I checked her soul myself, and I can guarantee that it's the case."
"You have inspected her…" the old man muttered after , and following a long beat, his shoulders slouched in defeat. "Of course. I should have expected at least this much from soone of your extensive track record of performing impossible deeds."
"I don't think it's that impossible. My research division can also check souls, and we both know that Saahira's entire research was about reading soul information and translating it to another body… but I digress. Staying on topic, from what I could gather so far, you want to talk about Angie being Deus."
"Yes. Or to be more precise, the global implications of the fact and how it would inevitably affect not only the whole World of Mystics but also the mundane human civilization."
"Is it that big of a—" 'deal?' is what I wanted to ask, but then, I had another one of those monts, where my brain made a connection, and I suddenly had about ten minutes' worth of thoughts in the span of about half a second, and it left montarily disoriented. To buy myself so ti to let the realization set in, I lowered my voice and whispered, "No, never mind. Please continue."
Noticing the sudden shift in my behaviour, Lord Grandpa sat straighter in his armchair and softly cleared his throat.
"To put it into straightforward terms, the World of Mystics exists solely due to the Celestials. For as long as the written history of the Assembly existed, the Celestial agenda had never changed or veered off its single-minded course. Every ploy, every incident, everything they had ever done, was in service of one, singular goal: to maintain the separation between the World of Mystics and the rest of humanity while awaiting the return of their Deus."
I nodded along. Indeed, one of the main premises of the Simulacrum had been the masquerade from the very beginning, and it was maintained by the Celestial Directorate following the prophecy Polemos left behind. Of course, as it turned out, that whole thing was hogwash, like most prophecies were. To be fair though, it went through quite a bit of the telephone ga across the ages, and I could vaguely recall that Angie thought Deus sacrificed himself to seal the Abyssals away, and that he would explicitly return as a 'human'. The thing was, neither of those were in the original prophecy.
In fact, I had Jaakobah look it up for , and there were only three things about Deus's rebirth in the Celestials' big bundle of holy books: Deus would be reborn in the future, he would show up in a different body on Earth, and the stars would announce his return. While the last one explained the role the Departnt of Divination played in this whole farce, it didn't take a PhD in literary analysis to notice that Deus being a human wasn't ntioned anywhere.
As it turns out, all of this was so kind of Divine Cody style situation, where later works insisted that, since the Celestials would remain in Elysium, the Abyssals in the Abyss, and Deus would obviously not reincarnate as a stinky dragon-blooded person, by process of elimination, Deus could only return as a pure human. Then their theology just ran with it, even after the rise of the Magi and after they started sending their unwanted two-winged brethren down in recent tis.
Hell, in retrospect, not even the 'cos back on Earth' part was true, since Angie awakened in the Elysium after her kidnapping! Just shows how much these stupid prophecies were worth, I supposed.
"For the longest ti," Lord Grandpa continued in the sa grave tone as before, "For the longest ti, fear of Celestial intervention kept the World of Mystics separated from the wider civilization," he reiterated one of his previous points, and after a lodramatic beat, he added, "But we fear that this may change, and soon."
"Because Deus is back," I noted, and he nodded along.
"Precisely. As the legendary ruler of the Celestials walks among us once again, however improbable the shape he took may be, there are many who question what the Celestials will do now. Would they still uphold the constant pressure upon all the practitioners of mystic phenona and bearers of non-human bloodlines? Would they unite behind their ssiah and pose a new threat to all of us? Or would they do… nothing?"
Out of those three options, it was the last one that seed to disturb the old man the most, and it wasn't hard to see why. Since Deus was found, there was no reason for the Celestial high command to maintain their costly efforts to maintain the masquerade. Without this threat, it was only a question of ti before so bad actors would try to push their luck, and if the masquerade broke, it would inevitably and permanently change the whole world.
It would not only remove the inhibitions placed on the Draconians and the Magi, but we also had to consider how the wider humanity would respond once they realized that they were secretly manipulated by a high society of dragons, wizards, mad scientists, and definitely-not-angels. It would lead to abject chaos, widespread mistrust of all authority figures, witch-hunts (both in the taphorical and possibly the literal sense), and the impact of the existence of these people on the world religions would be imasurable, to say the least. All of that sounded really, truly, absolutely…
"Annoying."
"It is a very mild way to put it," Lord Grandpa responded sourly. "Were the World of Mystics abruptly rge is human society, it would lead to untold pandemonium and chaos. It is sothing that has to be avoided at all costs, and I am afraid so may resort to the most forthright thod they could see to avoid the future they dread."
"As in?"
The old man inhaled hard, and braced herself, as if afraid that I would jump at him at any mont.
"If Deus were to be removed from the picture, things would return the way they were, would they not?"
He was still eyeing , doing his best to hide his nervousness, but I already ca to more-or-less the sa deduction on my own.
"That would lead to war," I told him dryly, and he didn't argue.
"Indeed. Yet, for so, the certainty of a war is preferable to an uncertain and unpredictable upheaval."
"Have you heard anything specific?" I levelled the crucial question at him, but he shook his head.
"No, nothing truly concrete. Hushed whispers and open-ended questions? Yes, but no clear, unambiguous word on the matter. Nevertheless, I felt that I had to inform you of this." He paused here, and looked in the eye, looking and sounding as earnest as I'd ever seen him. "No matter the cost, it is sothing we have to avoid. I do not want to fight you."
"At least you're honest," I grumbled and leaned back in my seat.
This was sothing that completely flew under my radar until this point. In my defence, I was busy with a lot of personal matters and dealing with one minor crisis after the other, but the old man's words were a wake-up call.
He was right, in more ways than one. On a Watsonian level, the whole supernatural world had been locked in a cold war for the better part of two and a half millennia. For untold generations, 'Don't dick around with the humans, or the Celestials will get pissed' was deeply ingrained into them on a fundantal level. While outwardly the situation of the supernatural folks was of tense antagonism on the verge of all-out hostility, it was also the only status quo they had ever known. People in general hate anything that upsets that, so it made sense that they would do anything, no matter how abjectly moronic, to maintain it.
However, on a Doylist level, things didn't look any better either. Because the Simulacrum we lived in was entirely based on the premise of the masquerade, and the supernatural being sequestered away from the everyday school life of our resident protagonist, we only had two potential ways this could go down: either the masquerade would be artificially upheld, to maintain the integrity of the setting… or we were nearing the end of whatever 'plot' was allotted to Josh, and so the finale could completely flip the table, since said integrity no longer mattered.
No matter how I looked at it, I didn't like any of those options.
"We still have ti," I told the arch-mage, and he raised an uncomprehending brow in return. "Angie hasn't assud her place as Deus yet. Things are a little chaotic in the Elysium, but for the ti being, the leadership generally tries to maintain the existing state of affairs. So long as I send in a word or two, we can buy so ti."
"How much?"
"I have no idea," I admitted. "In the best-case scenario, until Angie gets a degree in economics, or political theory, or whatever strikes her fancy. Until then, the Directorate will keep running the show, and I can exert so pressure to have them keep at what they've been doing for ages a little longer."
"If that is her aim, then we would have six years at most."
"She probably won't go for a master's degree, so more like four."
"Too short," Lorg Grandpa whispered. "Yet, it is better than the alternative."
"aning, an imdiate outbreak of chaos, with rogue Magi and Draconians enslaving countries?"
"The Assembly would not let such an event pass unopposed, but as for the part about chaos, it is sothing we can hardly avoid, only lessen with ticulous preparations." After a deep breath, he also added, "As for the safety of Angeline Dionne, aka Deus, I would like to offer the full and unconditional support of myself and my colleagues currently on the island."
"And I'm not nearly pigheaded enough not to accept it without any reservations," I told him with a smile, and for the first ti, the old man seed to relax. We couldn't have that, so I quickly added, "Just for the record though, I know you just love your sches, but I would appreciate it if you could refrain from ssing around too much. I think neither of us wants a repeat of the liquor cabinet incident."
The old coot's face twitched, but he maintained an amicable smile.
"I will keep your words close to my heart."
"Make sure you do."
With that, the main conversation was over, and for a few seconds, I had no idea how to move things along. In the end, I decided to try so small talk, sink or swim, but I barely got as far as, "So, the weather is—" before soone knocked on the door.
"Co in," I called out by reflex, and before I got to the second syllable, Sebastian was already inside.
"Please excuse the interruption," he stated in a dry voice as he glanced between the two of us. "I would like to inquire about how long your discussion would take."
"We're finished with the important part, I think," I responded on autopilot, and the elderly steward exhaled a pleased hum.
"In that case, we might still make it," he whispered under his breath and gestured for soone outside.
"Make what? Was there an incident?" Lord Grandpa asked, visibly confused by this developnt, and Sebastian lightly shrugged.
"There was a minor altercation between the Bernstein boy and the younger Feilong brother." I circled a finger to signal him to go on. "The latter was late to join the festivities, and after a series of unfortunate misunderstandings, he challenged Joshua Bernstein to a duel. By sheer chance, the mbers of the Ordo Draconis were already at the scene, and they managed to escort him out of the premises before he could cause a scene. Even now, the Feilong patriarch is in the process of apologizing to the guests."
"Hah! Called it!" I exclaid with a satisfied grin, but then my brows automatically descended into a frown. "But if that was resolved, then why are you here."
As if to answer in his stead, linda entered the room, pushing a four-wheeled clothes rack with a whole lot of fancy outfits hanging from it.
"The first dance of today's breakfast party is comncing soon, and we can't have you accompany your fiancées looking like that."
Before I could protest, or even just comnt, the braided maid was already pulling out of the arm-chair and, under the ministrations of the incognito dragon, she began to rummage through the clothes she brought, completely disregarding the arch-mage in the room and the increasingly confounded look on his face.
Truth be told though; I didn't really mind this that much. Dancing with the girls sounded like just the kind of light exercise I needed to clear my head of stray thoughts and digest all of the new developnts and revelations I just heard about. Such as that there apparently is such a thing as a 'breakfast party'. Who would have thought, am I right?
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