Blood Shaper

Book 3: Chapter 27

The figure was misshapen in an almost undetectable way, but after staring at it and shifting pieces here and there, Kay finally agreed with what his instincts had been telling him for most of the day, there was something he was doing wrong, and it was making the figure he’d formed out of blood wrong too.

He sighed, flicked one hand at the humanoid shape made of blood, and let it drop back down into a pool of red while making sure it didn’t splash everywhere. Ripples spread across the pool, bouncing back and forth as they hit the edge and rebounded until they all eventually died out.

It took a moment for his face to relax from scowling, but after he calmed down a bit, he turned and walked into the other room. Avalon hadn’t managed to attract any Enchanters yet, so he’d have to come back and gather up the blood in the pool, so it didn’t go bad, but he could leave it for a few minutes.

Over the past couple of weeks, they’d had time to grab a couple of builders and expand and refine the training area that had been created for him and his students. It was still just Lauren and Tyuah so far, but he had hope that eventually, someone else worth teaching would show up. They also had a much nicer space now. What had originally just been a small room dug into the cliff was now a series of rooms set out for different purposes. The room he’d just left with a pool for using large amounts of blood at once was one, the larger sparring room that he was heading into was another, and there was even a small lecture hall.

Originally Kay had wondered why they didn’t keep “his” training area near or part of the slowly expanding school that Eleniah eventually wanted to turn into an academy, and Eleniah had explained that the academy that she wanted to build would need to be non-political. That way, they could teach people from any allies they would eventually make or even allow people to pay for schooling. If it looked like Kay’s teaching of his Blood Manipulator line was part of the academy, it would make it harder to attract people from outside Avalon. Those same people from outside their own citizens would be good targets to recruit to become citizens, Eleniah had told him, and so they didn’t want to drive people away before they even started.

The detached training area would eventually expand even more as his number of students grew, and Kay was already planning out how he would attach it to his eventual palace, mansion, or whatever it ended up being. He wasn’t going to be the kind of ruler with some gaudy monstrosity of a building devoted to his “glory”. No, it was going to be as much a working and government building as it would be a residence. He was also planning for it to be mostly inside the cliff face, similar to how the tunnels they’d discovered were, although with more light and comfortable furniture.

“You two doing alright?” He asked after sticking his head inside the sparring room. Tyuah and Lauren were at each end of the room facing each other, and they were taking turns sending minor attacks at each other and trying to deflect the oncoming missiles with blood.

Right as he asked, Tyuah waved her hand and made a thin plate of blood splash through the space in front of her, knocking the small blunt knives Lauren had just thrown to the side. They both look over at him, Tyuah grinning widely as she did.

“Yeah!” She started moving her hand back and forth through the air, sending the blood dancing through the air as it formed different patterns. “I’m really starting to get the hang of this! And I got to level fourteen recently, so not much longer till I can get Shape Blood!”

“That’s great!” He looked over at Lauren, “Lauren?”

“Personally, I’m fine. Professionally, as the defacto leader of your personal guard, I really need to start recruiting people.”

“Why haven’t you been?”

She gave him an arch look, “Let me rephrase that. I need to start convincing you to let the people I’ve recruited actually join.” She held up three fingers and dramatically counted each one-off, “The first person I found you said you ‘didn’t like the look of’…”

“He was sketchy!”

“The second,” She continued, ignoring his protest, “You rejected for looking down on Tyuah. I actually agree that that wasn’t the best attitude for them to take, but we could have worked past that.”

Kay didn’t say anything in reply. He’d actually rejected the man for asking him if getting to sleep with the women Kay was “collecting” was a perk to joining up. He didn’t think that any of the deadly women who he was spending his time with actually needed protection from that kind of idiotic statement, but he still wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up. The condescending way he’d spoken to Tyuah was just the icing on the cake and a good excuse, to not mention the other thing.

“And you didn’t even give me a reason for the last person I tried to recruit! She was perfect!”

Kay frowned, “Wait, did I really not tell you?”

“No!” Lauren snapped, “You just gave her a weird look and told her to leave!”

“She was a spy.”

Lauren jerked back, “What?”

“The Spymaster came by and told me they found evidence of her taking payments from someone in exchange for information from a bunch of different sources. We couldn’t really afford for someone like that as part of my personal guard.” With Isla’s agreement, he’d told a small number of people that they’d recruited a spymaster, but they’d also kept the number of people that actually knew Isla’s name and what she looked like even smaller. Most people just called her the Spymaster.

“Oh.” She stared at him for a moment before clicking her tongue at him. “Well, I guess that’s a good enough reason.”

“You used to be a lot more deferential. You weren’t super deferential, but you’re definitely a lot less in awe of me than you were earlier. Do I need to keep you away from Eleniah?”

Lauren snorted, “No, I just spent real time with you and realized you aren’t worth being in awe of.”

“Hey!”

Tyuah dissolved into giggles, and Lauren started chuckling.

“Alright, now that we’re done with poking fun at your glorious leader, I’m heading over to the office to do some work.” He spun in place with a dramatic sniff and started walking off.

“Wait up!” Lauren jogged over to Tyuah’s chair and started following along. “You know we have to come too.”

After they navigated their way outside, Lauren pushed the wheelchair forward so that they were next to Kay as they walked, “We really do need to recruit more people, though, especially if you want everyone in your guard to train in Blood Manipulation. There’s not enough time for us to actually guard you and get decent amounts of training in with just the two of us.”

“And I’m not really useful as a guard like I am right now,” Tyuah added. “Once I can make myself some new limbs, that will change, but until then, I really need to spend most of my time training.”

Kay sighed as he rubbed the back of his head. “The problem is that I want my personal guards to be my strong right hand. I need to be able to trust them with actual tasks outside of just watching my ass, both in terms of capability and actually trustworthiness. I can’t have someone that will literally be representing me betraying me or fucking things up.”

“I get that.” Lauren replied, “And I can envision the kind of organization you want to build, but we need more people so that we can start doing that. Waiting for the perfect people to show up will cripple us in the long run. I can find people that aren’t exactly what we want, and we can mold them into the kind of person that we want for your guard.”

“That’s fine. But the three candidates you brought me were capable and not one hundred percent trustworthy.” Kay pointed out to her, “We can make people capable; we can’t make them trustworthy.”

She grimaced as she acknowledged his point. “That’s true. It’s not like I meant for them to be risks, but they were.” She looked off to the side, her expression thoughtful, “Maybe I should recruit Cressa.”

Kay started laughing as they stopped to let a man pulling a cart pass from the other direction. Cressa was the girl that had demanded Kay teach her Blood Manipulation so she could go somehow take over from a noble she was distantly related to. The first time she’d tracked down Kay and started insisting he train her, her parents had apologized and promised to get her to leave Kay alone. After the third time she’d escaped from her parents’ increasing levels of security and watchfulness, he’d asked Isla to keep an eye on her. When she’d managed to slip past the adventurers pulling guard duty and make it into his office to wait for him with no one but Isla noticing, she’d ended up on Isla’s radar too.

“Once she’s of age, I’d say go for it. You’ll have to fight the Spymaster for her, though.”

“Really? Well, she’s obviously interested in your skill, so that’s a point for us…”

Kay elbowed her in the side to snap her out of her plotting, “Wait until we’re a bit closer to her sixteenth birthday, please. There are still a few years till then.” He chuckled.

They traded a few more ideas as they walked up the stairs to Kay’s office but didn’t solidly identify any potential recruits before Kay sat down and started on the stack of paperwork he had left from earlier that morning.

An hour or so later, Amanda poked her head inside. “Sir? There’s a pair of men here to meet you; they say they’re interested in working for Avalon.”

“Are they people the Adventurer’s Guild recommended?”

“One is. The other one says he just wants to be useful and thought he’d volunteer.”

“That’s… nice, I guess? Any reason to be suspicious of them or anything?”

“Not that we can tell. They’re both tier three, the recommended one is a Soldier, and the volunteer is a Swordsman (Longsword). Neither of them is acting suspicious, and The Spymaster hasn’t said anything.”

A moment later, two men stepped into Kay’s office with Amanda behind them. She closed the door as they stepped up to Kay’s desk.

“Hello,” Kay greeted them, “I’m-”

The one in the front, an elven man with bright blonde hair, stepped forward dramatically and flipped his coat open as he posed. “I challenge you for your Noble Title!” He proclaimed loudly.

><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

You have been challenged to a duel for your Noble Title!

As a Noble with the Rank of Mayor, rejecting this duel will result in the loss of your Title!

Losing the duel will result in the loss of your Title!

As the Challenged, you may set the terms of the duel!

Do you accept?

><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Kay slowly read the new notice before looking up at the still posing elf.

The other man took several steps back as he stared at the elf in shock. “I’m not with him.” He said, shaking his head vehemently at Kay.

Kay sighed as he rested his head in his hand. “I really don’t have time for this.”

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