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Ch205-Eye Of The Storm

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Sylver had once visited a nation that was led by a corpse.

Not an undead, that would make too much sense. A ruler that doesn’t care about personal wealth, doesn’t need to waste time with food and sleep, looks at situations without emotions or pride getting in the way, is forced to think about the future because he’s immortal, can’t be seduced or threatened, why would anyone want an undead as a ruler?

No, those people worshiped a literal corpse.

There was nothing magical or special about it, it was just a dead body that had been treated so as not to rot away into nothing. The only good thing about it was that it didn’t smell like rot and shit.

As far as corpses go, it was pretty great. Two arms, two legs, never decapitated, damage to the heart was minimal, they even kept it clean. If Sylver found such a corpse by the side of the road, he would have been delighted.

The “speakers” spoke for the corpse, the ministers carried the corpse’s orders out, the soldiers marched in the corpse's name, and the nobles bid for the “corpse’s” favor. As Sylver watched the emperor’s empty eyes slowly gaze over the elves presented to him, he was reminded of this corpse. 

He didn’t say anything, his people spoke for him as if he was just a dead body that was incapable of speech.

If Sylver had thought that the emperor’s death had been faked, the sheer amount of grief he could both see and feel emanating out of the current emperor convinced him.

He was well dressed, well-groomed, presentable, had a powerful aura around him, and if Sylver wasn’t aided by his soul-sensing ability, he wouldn’t have known the emperor was moments away from bursting into tears.

Obviously, he would wait for his guests to leave before he allowed himself another day of weeping and mourning, but it was an upsetting reminder that regardless of what the previous emperor was, he was still somebody’s father.

Possibly two somebodies for that matter…

Because he looked just like Aurick.

Like an older, depressed, and significantly more powerful and muscular Aurick.

Do I ask if he knows a boy, man by now I guess, named Aurick and see what happens?

Best case scenario he knows him, and they are enemies, and he provides me with useful information to kill him?

Do I want to kill Aurick? He and his group just sort of fucked off and didn’t do anything important enough for Lola to hear about it.

And apparently, he either didn’t tell anyone I helped them summon a demon, or the people he told can’t do anything about it.

Worst case scenario…

They’re brothers who love each other very much, and “Oh! So, you’re that black-eyed albino that fucked him over!”

Given Sylver’s past experience, the latter was significantly more likely than the former.

More importantly, Dobrynya Nikitich was a man whose name had been one of the 3 the book had screamed at Sylver.

Which meant he was going to do his very best to keep his involvement with this man to the absolute possible minimum.

For starters, Sylver wouldn’t win in a fight against him. Army of stone golems, and high-level guards aside, Dobrynya had that signature relaxed posture, of being so powerful that he bored out of his mind.

Reason number 2 was the book. 

Reason number 3 was that there was very clearly some sort of prophecy/fate nonsense happening here that involved the dragon, and Sylver didn’t want any part of it.

Aside from the amount of involvement necessary to find and sterilize the shield ancestor girl.

After a small amount of talking, Tarragon presented the uninterested emperor with a literal ton of gold. The gold was in the form of large bars, each one was about 33 kilograms, and there were 30 of them, stacked neatly on top of one another. 

The chest was enchanted to weigh next to nothing, given the fact that the small man wearing a skull cap made of gold picked the chest up with one hand, and promptly carried it away.

The extent of the emperor’s interaction with the group could be summarized as brushing his hair out of his face 3 times and then limply waving the elves away.

Sylver now understood that the purpose of this meeting wasn’t to greet the elves, and wish them luck on finding a cure, it was a simple “the previous emperor may be dead, but I am just as powerful as he was.”

***

“I believe I am going to miss Nikita,” Tarragon said, as the carriage silently rolled forward. 

There were 6 guards around them, 2 walked ahead of the line of carriages, 2 walked behind, and there was 1 on either side.

It was the middle of the night right now, or at least dark enough that the elves had to summon balls of light to see the road. The sky was almost cloudless, just the barest wisps of black, outlined by the flickering stars above, and two moons.

“He’s just grieving,” Sylver countered.

Although he doubted Dobrynya was going to stop grieving anytime soon. When Nyx left Sylver didn’t get a chance to sit down and cry his eyes out, he had shit to do, and ultimately handled her abandonment relatively well. A person who has nothing but time to sit, sulk, cry, bitch, moan, wasn’t going to stop until something happened that forced him to stop.

“I’m aware of that, but he was never a cheerful person to begin with. I wouldn’t dare to describe Nikita as jolly either, but he at the very least made an effort to smile. Even to those he considered beneath him. His wife was a lovely woman though, Kalina, she used to brighten a room with her presence alone,” Tarragon explained, as Sylver nodded along.

“When did she die?” Sylver asked.

The guards weren’t jumping in to break their faces for discussing their rulers, so either Tarragon was important enough that they let it slide, or they understood that he held no ill will towards their royalty.

“A little over 20 years ago. Died during childbirth, tragic that. I’m told she accidentally activated a skill, or perk, of some kind that killed all the healers present. Happens more often than you think, I lost my right arm to a magic caster with a fever. Poor boy attacked anything that moved, ruined my favorite robe in the process,” Tarragon explained, and Sylver couldn’t say how he knew, but he knew not to ask for details regarding the mother’s death.

“What do you use to sedate cultivators? Is there a local herb that works, or do you just use dwarven anesthetic?” Sylver asked, and Tarragon turned his head to look at him.

“Dwarven anesthetic? I do not believe such a thing could be used on anything other than a dwarf. Anything powerful enough to sedate them would be fatal for any other race, regardless of level,” Tarragon wondered out loud, as Sylver smiled to himself underneath his bandages.

“It’s a joke. Dwarven anesthetic is just punching someone until they pass out. The way a dwarven lockpick is an explosive or a large hammer,” Sylver explained, and after a moment passed, Tarragon raised his hand to his mouth and softly laughed.

“I’ll have to remember that one, that’s very good,” Tarragon said, as he pulled out a notebook and made a literal note of it.

“And a dwarven scalpel is an ax. Do you know the one about the dwarf who didn’t want to get seasick?” Sylver asked, as Tarragon giggled and added the dwarven ax to his notes.

“I haven’t,” Tarragon said a little too loudly, and Sylver felt the attention of the two guards walking ahead of them shift towards them.

“The dwarves discovered that the best way to not get seasick, is to lean over the rail of the ship with a gold coin between your teeth,” Sylver said, as Tarragon giggled again and wrote the joke down into his notebook.

“Oh, this isn’t a joke exactly, but it made me laugh at the time. We were being attacked, bandits and one of them was a dwarf, I think a couple of them were, anyway. So this dwarf is about to fight Burnet, he’s in the 4th carriage, very tall man, literally two and a half times as tall as the dwarf he’s about to fight. 

“I’m hiding inside the carriage, and this dwarf puffs up his chest and shouts “When I’m done with you, I’ll be the tall one!” Burnet laughed so hard the dwarf had time to run up to him and stabbed him in the face! He’s still got a scar from it!” Tarragon explained as Sylver started to laugh, and so did the two guards walking ahead of them.

Sylver even heard the sounds of giggling coming from inside the carriage they were sitting on.

***

Turns out Sylver’s trick with the cliché song, wasn’t limited to songs.

He knew so many jokes and anecdotes that nobody had ever heard of it was ridiculous. Sylver had even more jokes about elves than he did about dwarves. The only people dwarves loved laughing at more than their own were elves, and humans.

Although Sylver did have to be careful not to say any of the really bad ones. Half of his “jokes” were from military people who had very strong opinions regarding whoever they were fighting, and just so happened to have a way with words when describing their opposition.

Sylver may have also accidentally introduced a somewhat ancient slur that he wasn’t aware hadn’t been used for centuries. He would only learn this fact when he sat down to drink with Faust and told him one of the jokes he told Tarragon, his group, and the guards accompanying them.

Faust laughed harder than all the elves put together when he heard the punchline. And once he explained the meaning behind the slur, his sect laughed along with him.

As they began to approach the Blue Rat sect, Sylver decided to leave. Tarragon looked around somewhat nervously before he instructed a woman elf to come to the front to take his seat and left with Sylver to escort him home.

When they were out of earshot of the guards escorting the group, Tarragon stopped in a convenient alleyway between two shops and very casually covered himself and Sylver in a very powerful soundproof barrier.

His eyes had lost their warmth and looked wrong on his otherwise soft face.

“Kalina’s death wasn’t an accident,” Tarragon said in a whisper.

The barrier was good enough that Sylver trusted it, and yet Tarragon didn’t.

“I knew one of the healers that was looking after her. He was too careful to get killed by a stray skill going off, the man had more self-preservation perks than healing perks. Kalina was in perfect health before her death, I’ve seen the reports, perfect, not just great, perfect,” Tarragon repeated in a hushed tone.

“Why would someone kill her?” Sylver asked as Tarragon looked over his shoulder.

“I don’t know. I just thought you should know,” Tarragon explained, as Sylver raised what little remained of his eyebrow.

“Thank you… I think,” Sylver said, as Tarragon reached upward and placed a hand on Sylver’s shoulder. The relatively short elf gently pulled him until Sylver leaned his ear down to Tarragon’s mouth.

“The emperor’s advisor was wearing a silver amulet with a white stone in the middle, underneath his shirt. I do not believe he knows who you are, but it’s only a matter of time, so don’t let your guard down,” Tarragon said, as Sylver tensely nodded.

“There are only 3 families that possess the card you presented. I want you to know that you will always find help with us. If there’s anything you need, anything at all, don’t hesitate to ask. But be careful who you talk to, there are spies everywhere here,” Tarragon said, as he moved his head away and made as close to eye contact as possible with Sylver’s current bandaged up face.

“I’ll keep that in mind, thank you…” Sylver said quietly, as Tarragon nodded at him.

They stared at each other for a few seconds, before Tarragon released the soundproof barrier and continued escorting Sylver to Faust’s sect.