Áz - The Battlefield

The Agents of Truth

Having spent about half a day, ordered by the lord of Azzaria, a messenger on horseback traveled as fast as he could towards the capital, just as a letter had also gone by way of a bird, better to use all possible alternatives.

This messenger was heading to the capital and had now arrived at the nearest city of Azzaria looking to continue his mission after changing horses and letting the night pass, having entered the city and talked to the guards saying that there was something important to be delivered in the capital. the messenger arrived at the post where he would rest. On the way in a four-story building on the ground floor, a man watched the local commotion among the guards and listened to the conversations of the messenger leaning against the wall in secret.

— It seems that something happened in Azzaria… — The man reflected as he left the place after understanding enough.

He knew the princess had been missing for about four days and that was probably the work of the place he belonged to, if something had gone wrong they should have known about it.

The man went to any wall and in front of it in a soft way he opened a secret compartment hidden in the wall and taking a dark stone inside there, there were several inserted in that compartment and when he took one of them it began to glow dark red and broke. What that meant was just a warning, the outcome it would lead to not even he knew because he just had to do his job, no good would come to him if the man intruded too much.

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It had been several hours after both Noella and Illye had been treated, when their bodies had reached a state where they could no longer be forced to naturally regenerate, the priests called the town's doctors to continue the service and jointly tend to their wounds for some time. . Now the two were resting in different rooms on the second floor of the Temple and Kamaell was sitting in a chair in Noella's room with his eyes closed, insecure guards guarding the door due to suspicions against him and even knowing that he didn't really care. He had finally put on a real outfit handed to him by one of the guards, his hair was wrapped around his neck from the moment he came out of the abyss because it was too big.

— What did you come here for? — Kamaell said to the man and woman in yellow in front of him. — Interrogation session? If it's not even much use, they won't hear a word from me other than... "When I noticed I was already in that place with a weak princess asking for help and her faithful guardian wounded in her place almost to death". — He finished ironing the events while facing them.

The woman seemed uninterested in anything, just sitting on a chair playing with her hands as she listened to him, the man on the other hand stared back at him as if testing him while giving him a sarcastic smile after hearing her words.

— We know you're not lying, and yet the River Lord doesn't seem too worried about her presence. Well... Even we don't really understand that slippery old man, when we ask him something he always manages to withhold information, there are lords who can cooperate so easily with us and others who get angry easily, that old man is not in any of these cases which is a problem for us... — Said the man as he appeared to be venting recent facts to an old friend.

Kamaell wasn't easily fooled, he could see that the two Agents of Truth were Lords, and unlike the carefree old man they didn't exude any mana or magic which made it difficult to distinguish between two authorities until they did, Kamaell on the other hand didn't. understood what his ruling authority was at this point and so didn't care much, the aura he gave off was cold and dark and at the same time not so easy to distinguish.

— Get to the point, Rulld, he doesn't seem interested in talking. — Said the woman without looking at any of them. "And neither am I.

— All right... All right… — He replied, Rulld, to her.— Then lord of something we don't understand, could your authority characterize us? — We need to define whether we are facing a new authority or not and as an Agent of Truth we guarantee that your authority will not be disclosed outside the Agents until you want it.

— Why should I give you information about me? It won't do me any good… — Kamaell replied with a disinterested expression.

— Information. — The woman replied, taking the lead. — From what we asked the Princess of Aggron, we can guess that it must have been several hundred years since you were down there. Malzahr isn't it? This was the name of this town until about three hundred years ago, so we can assure you, you haven't been since that time. — She completed with a smile plastered on her face, as if from the beginning she wanted to get to this point.

Kamaell simply remained silent, denying something in front of them just wouldn't be a good thing and despite everything, giving silence as an answer only stated what they wanted to know.

— Information. Fine. — He replied when he noticed that he had blurted out a lot to that idiot princess.

In the last few hours Kamaell didn't just sit there, determined to go back to being a Phase 5 Lord as soon as possible he began to search within himself for the understanding of a second Authority hoping it wouldn't be so difficult.

The path would always be easier for those who have traveled it before and are aware of all its difficulties.

To his call within her there were two answers.

The first was an Authority with an aspect of darkness, it was the one he had unconsciously used at various times since the abyss, that is, such an Authority had already accepted him as a user even without him knowing.

With a little more time he noticed that he was the Authority of the Night, that was why that Authority had accepted him so easily, before he was already a Lord of strong relations with the Night and according to the Tree of Authorities, a theory old and proven that each Authority had an Authority "superior" to its own in dominance resulting even in dependence.

The second that had accepted him he had discovered after insisting and such an Authority sought to intertwine with him through considerable caution, testing him and verifying that he would be worthy. That last one was the one he spent the most time figuring out after all these hours in reality, he finally understood what it was like when faced with an unexpected result.

— Autumn, I am Lord of Autumn and Vultures. — He defined waiting well for the reactions of the two.

For the time being Kamaell resolved to hide that he was not only the Lord of Autumn, but also the Lord of the Night and of the Vultures. There were other inert Authorities in his body, but nothing good would come of trying to awaken more of them without first having the capacity to do so. He should at least become a Phase 5 before trying one more, there was also a limit of seven authorities a living being could withstand and maybe not all of that. It would be unreasonable for him to play with danger just for more power and he knew it.

After finishing talking, Kamaell began to exhale a scent of leaves on the wind through his calm aura, it was as if a wind was taking the vivacity away from that place and leaving only the lament of what was once full of life. The two agents of truth could distinguish this and understood that what he said was true, indeed he was the Lord of Autumn.

Since the Old Empire, there was no Lord of Autumn, only that was not a problem and it might seem like little, but more due to several reasons Dead Authorities, which is what authorities were called that hadn't appeared for several centuries, were cause for alarm. .

Since the end of the last era, where people only passed on such knowledge about others' authorities most of the time orally, information about various authorities was lost in the middle of the Battlefield with the death of the main sources of information about Lords, .Dead authorities most of the time were prevented from finding a new host due to the previous one not dying completely or other factors unknown to most people. Among the Lords of the Seasons, Autumn and Winter have been in short supply for a long time, now with the appearance of one of them it could cause unwanted attention during the cold war taking place in the central part of the continent.

— Allaste… — Called his name Rudivir. — That…

— It's more worrisome than I realized, an Authority with such high control over nature. We'll need to get back to Quaresma. — She replied worriedly.

Rudivir and the woman, Allaster, looked at each other for a moment and without saying anything seemed to have confirmed something with each other, after a few moments they divulged information which the man in front of them asked them about. They would not divulge such information learned about him, however this was only valid for them and not for those around them.

One of the guards waiting outside who simply kept silent as everyone else was attentively listening to every piece of information, the Temples' internal information controls were strict but not infallible. The tighter the enforced controls somehow made it easier to get important information if the guard was trusted, so there were informants like this in places like this.

— Quaresma? Does this place still exist? — Kamaell asked interestedly after noticing that name.

— The Blue Kingdom is currently the strongest kingdom on the continent. — Replied Rudivir anxiously. — This Silver Kingdom, Aggron, and the Green Kingdom, Alano, are your known allies. Currently Quaresma and the Red Kingdom, Itavad, are in a war that at the moment is leaning towards Lent. The Lord of Destruction Red King of Itavad is focused on attacking Quaresma, but it is not having success and this stalemate has been going on for several years.

He decided not to comment on it, but found this information interesting. Kamaell thought of the day he stopped in the abyss, it was a time when the Golden Emperor's Empire was ceasing to exist after the Emperor himself, the Blood Lord, mysteriously disappeared along with his Empress and no one else could ascend as Emperor in the years consequent.

Quaresma, where he remembered was the largest city on the continent ruled by the Blue King, the Beauty Lord, whether now Quaresma still owned the same Blue King or not was still something he had to find out. Despite this, after so much time he found it difficult, it had been more than five hundred years and few Lords had resisted all that time.

— Centuries pass and as much as the Áz changes, humanity's problems always seem to remain the same… — Kamaell commented.

He wasn't thinking too much about what he was saying, he was basically dropping random questions and comments that lacked real depth and still weren't a lie to avoid being judged by their Truth. There was something he had to hide from them for now and it had to do with his own identity, if they hadn't already noticed it was better for him. In fact, Kamaell thought he'd already blurted out too much when he said his own name.

— Can you tell me why Illye and Noella were attacked? — He asked the two of them.

He didn't necessarily need to ask them, Cardinal Jord could answer that too, but he seemed to be busy for some reason and had left two Lords in Illye's guard in the other room, so Kamaell sought to find out as soon as possible.

— You'll know this in more detail later now that you've taken sides and supported Aggron, but this realm came into being after a civil war a few hundred years ago. Some Lords joined under the command of a General and more than dissatisfied with the Silver King's achievements at the time, they staged a coup d'état. In the end the kingdom was divided in two, the new Aggron who took the Silver Throne and Malzer where the remaining royal family of the time managed to escape. — Rudivir explained, he seemed to enjoy telling stories like that. — Now the two realms are separated by a mountain range and as you can imagine the current King of Malzer wants the Silver Throne back.

[They must have invested a lot in this assassination attempt, so they should come back to finish the job when they realize they failed.]

As he thought about the trouble he had gotten himself into by meeting the two of them, perhaps part of Cardinal Jord's concerns had to do with this. If it was the Shadowslayers then...

— Looks like I'm in trouble. — He said, smiling cynically.

— 'Looks like' is an affectionate way of saying you're pissed at being with them. Well, good luck to you, New Autumn. — Said Allaste looking to leave the room and laughing at his situation and finding it interesting. — Come on, Rudivir, we have to resolve this as soon as possible.

In her view, in a few weeks and probably in some random town Allaste would come across the news of him dead, she hoped not and the actual outcome would be more interesting.

— Oh, I just remembered something. I don't know who, but someone once told the Lord of Truth something he relayed to us and asked us to pay attention if we found it. — She uttered as she remembered before leaving and turning to Kamaell.

— And what would that be? — Kamaell asked, thinking of the shadow assassins.

— If Autumn or Winter reappears, the Lords of the Seasons scales will tip over, there is no Lord of Nature to keep you in place without conflict. — She explained leaving it alone and leaving.

Kamaell paused to think about that for a moment and smiled coldly, what she said could indicate that Summer and Spring could come after him. He suddenly had an idea and if necessary would try to see if his idea would really bear fruit in the future.

[So there is no known Winter Lord at the moment, interesting. So maybe no one knows and if anyone knows, don't spread the word about it.]

— Autumn or winter then... If you come after trouble with one, you'll have trouble with two. — He said to himself after the two Agents of truth had left.

Looking at it that way, maybe it wasn't a coincidence that Autumn had accepted him, the Authority's 'Ego' might have foreseen conflict when it awoke within him. Even so, he still wasn't putting much hope into it, who knows if something had changed after all this time, but he hoped not.

The rest of this day passed as he thought of a place far away, an isolated island in the middle of the ocean beyond the Salt Desert.

This was where he wanted to go before he unfortunately fell into the abyss. It was then that he finally remembered that the Aven'Nath Abyss hadn't actually existed before, it had only come into existence the day he fell into it by splitting open on his feet.

He remembered that he had been eaten by something as he fell and after that...

As he thought about that scene his head started to hurt a lot like it was going to explode and he stopped thinking about it, his nose started to bleed and he wiped it with his fingers at the same moment stopping to look at his own blood.

Something told him it was best not to dig deep into what happened, at least for now.