Blood Shaper

Book 5: Chapter 2

Stonegnawer Eahn, the dwarven Crusader General of the Itarian Crusade, was still looking a bit weak from the poisoned weapon that hed been stabbed with during the assassination attempt thatd started the recent battle, but he was much recovered compared to how hed been on the day. He was still a bit pale and was moving gingerly, like his joints ached with each movement, but he was far from death. He sat back in the chair thatd been provided, leaning against the backrest to keep as much weight off of his own body as he could while still keeping a proper posture.

To be fair, Kay wasnt looking much better. His already pale skin was waxy looking and he was slightly too thinner than was healthy. During the coma hed been in, itd been hard to get any nutrients into him, especially with the seizures. He hadnt been conscious for any of them, but according to his healers hed had a concernedly regular number of seizures that thankfully hadnt caused any permanent damage. The healers theorized that they had been a result of his brain trying to process his memories of being in that other universe and failing. The seizures had faded over time, as had his memories of that place that wasnt a place. It was all a blur of confusing sensations that meant nothing to him now. Trying to actively think about that brief stint of time had him instinctively flinching away, so he continued with his original plan right after being recovered, he wasnt going to think about it at all.

The two leaders looked at each other quietly while the Crusader Generals entourage took their seats and some refreshments were set in front of everyone. Kay wasnt entirely sure if Commander Ravenhome should count as part of someone elses entourage, since he was the ultimate leader of his own organization, but everyones body language marked Stonegnawer as the definite leader of this group. The elven woman who was a Crusade officer was also there, Kay recognized her from when hed marched into their command tent and shed physically put herself between him and the Crusader General. The orcish man hed sent Eleniah to beat on wasnt there, in fact Kay hadnt seen him since hed shouted for everyone to kill Kay and then gotten blasted off out of sight.

Does one person with two escorts even count as an entourage? Kay wondered as he thanked the servant who set down a drink in front of him. Is Alice with them or with me right now? The way shes sitting doesnt really tell me anything.

Kay was on one side of the medium sized conference table, the three representatives of the surrendered army were sitting across from him, and Alice Ravenhome of the Shatterplate Order, who was both Commander Ravenhomes daughter and Kays vampiric child was sat in her own chair pulled up to the side of the table, right between Kay and her father. With Ahthia sitting to Kays left and the Blood Guard standing in the corner the room was moderately crowded, and that wasnt even considering that Isla was hiding somewhere while invisible.

Stonegnawer took a sip of his drink and set it down before looking up at Kay. Good day to you, your majesty.

Kay raised one eyebrow. Good day to you as well, although that isnt the correct address. Im still a mere lord.

Oh? I assumed you received a quest to upgrade your title when an invading army appeared on your doorstep, that tends to be an event that jumps most cities and towns into suddenly gaining nation status, even if theyre still small. I believe its something to do with being recognized as an entity worth invading.

Kay decided it wasnt worth hiding at this point. I did get a quest like that, but it hasnt completed yet. The success condition was to defeat or drive off the invading army, and I guess that since I havent officially accepted your surrender that its still counting you as an enemy army camped outside my gates.

Hmm, interesting. I would assume the System would count de facto surrender or defeat as well, but Im not a System scholar. He took another sip of his drink. Well if your quest wants official surrender, lets discuss terms and allow you to become a king. That is what were here for after all.

Indeed. Kay nodded at Ahthia and she passed out copies of the starting terms theyd decided on to the three of them.

The elven woman skimmed over it but didnt seem to be paying much attention to the document, she kept glancing over at the Crusader General and checking his condition. The two men dug deep into each of the terms, and it took them several minutes to read through the multi-page document.

Do I get a copy? Alice asked.

Kay squinted at her. Do you need one?

Not really, but Im interested if what youve put in there intersects with why Im here.

Why are you here?

She waved him off, Well get to that.

Stonegnawer set the papers down with a thoughtful expression on his face. These terms are more generous than I expected. Although some of them are interesting and Im not sure if theyll work.

Ill be honest with you, Kay told him, Were being generous because I think without Nelams intervention in events things would have gone quite differently. If wed been able to successfully parley and youd accepted the truth, wed have bled your coffers a little to pay for the evacuations we had to do, but that would have been it. On the other hand, if youd just attacked immediately wed be smashing you into the ground with reparations and punishments for it. Since things didnt go as badly as they could have, and since you seemed to be operating on something relatively similar to good faith, I decided to lean on the kinder side of things. And while were open to negotiation on some terms, others are not open to negotiation.

Commander Ravenhome flipped back through several pages and began rereading a section with a baffled look.

Would you please explain which terms are non-negotiable? Stonegnawer looked at the document uneasily. I dont know if some of these are possible to accomplish as you have them. Im not certain if I have th authority to agree to a number of these, let alone actually assuring that theyll be carried out.

Kay shared a look with Ahthia. Personally, I very much want to insist on those irregular conditions, but Ive been convinced to be more flexible for those for the reasons you just mentioned. Lets say Im personally invested in those happening but we arent going to pitch a fit if we have to tweak them to fit reality. The terms were firm on are the payments to offset the evacuations we undertook, reparations to replace lost income and production, funds to enact repairs, and the weregild for the death of my people.

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Stonegnawer let out a short relieved breath. Oh good. Those are actually the easy ones to address. Im not skilled in anything economic or related to trade, but these look like standard figures pulled from historical treaties Ive read, which adds the weight of precedent to this. Unless theres anything egregious mixed in there that I missed I can guarantee those will be paid.

They have been. Ahthia told him, We pulled them from the relatively standardized set of treaties that stemmed from the last time the Bannerthrust Empire expanded its borders. As far as we could find many of the recent treaties since then pulled most of the generalities from there.

Yes, thats where I thought youd sourced from. Stonegnawer nodded decisively. I can easily accept those terms without any question or negotiations.

Good.

As for the rest He frowned at the papers while he moved to the section they were talking about. These individual sets of terms for each organization and noble that contributed or led troops here. Most of them seem standard, forced trade agreements , reductions of tariffs when traveling their lands, generally accepted punishments for invading someone and losing. Those who continue to acknowledge my authority have already agreed that I will accept the final terms we agree on for all of them, as long as nothing too insane is added. The rest of them

Any of them that are acting reasonably and like they have a brain in their head will also receive terms we believe are still merciful, if not exactly the same as the ones were presenting here. Ahthias eyes went cold. Those acting unreasonably will be receiving much less merciful terms.

Ah. He tilted his head back a bit asked asked, Are the Clans still being-?

Complete fucking assholes? She snarled, Yes. We are not going to shut our borders to immigrants from the Clans and force them to go back. Nor will we, what was the bullshit they were spouting? Right, we wont be limiting the spread of our untraditional ways and ideas so that they dont pollute the sacrosanct lands and peoples of the Clans. Fucking idiots acting like they won and can dictate what we do! Im going to find out which of the Elders gave them their orders and Im going to-

Ahthia.

She cut off mid rant and looked away while coughing to hide her embarrassment. My apologies. As I meant to say, we understand that anyone who has decided they no longer need to listen to you will feel they arent bound by the terms we agree to. We will be dealing with them separately.

Thank you for your understanding. The terms I dont know if I have the authority to agree to are the ones specific to the Crusade and the Shatterplate Order. Those are=

Commander Ravenhome dropped his copy of the terms on the table as he stared at Kay. You want us to move our headquarters here. And agree to oversight from your government. And give you control over some of our training. And hand over all of the individuals we have in our care that have been infected by vampyr over to you.

Alice perked up with a sparkle in her eye. Oh really?

Ravenhome ignored his daughter as he continued speaking. The first three are one thing, but the last is ridiculous! We promised our protection to those people and the hope of some day finding a cure! We cant just release them to-

To someone who has a cure? Kay replied archly. Anyone who isnt too far gone can be saved form becoming a vampyr by becoming a vampire. It will still be a change, but they wont have to become and insane monster with an eldritch corruption puppeting their bodies.

Ravenhomes eyes which had been bright with annoyance and righteous indignation shifted into deep shock as Kay spoke. Oh shit. Oh fuck. He whispered. That means That means

Alice leaned toward him, Thats what Ive been telling you dad. He gestured at her own body, Im not the same as I was, but its so much better than it might have been.

I didnt I couldnt- I was so caught up in you being okay I didnt get the implications. He breathed out, his eyes full of wonder. We can save so many people.

The other three sets of terms, moving your headquarters, being open to supervision or at least some level of monitoring, and letting my people have some amount of say in your training, is to avoid anything like this fiasco that were dealing with the aftermath of. While the intentions that started this nonsense might have been pure, or at least close enough, the fanaticism of many of your people led to the deaths of my people. Innocent people who didnt deserve to die fighting you over something you were wrong about. Vampires are going to continue to be a thing, even if its only infected people that we save. We have no idea if we can procreate in normal ways or if thats the only way to become a vampire. But either way I dont want overzealous vampyr hunter killing innocent vampires.

Youre assuming any vampires will be innocents, The elven woman countered, speaking for the first time.

I mean innocent of bing vampyr not innocent of anything at all. Of course they could still be or become criminals or murderers or what have you.

Uh, Kay. Alice leaned in like she was confiding with him, Anybody with the right parts can have kids with people with the other set of matching parts. Its been like that forever.

Kay rolled his eyes, I know that. Im talking about being vampires. The System is calling us a race, but were technically people of different species that have been changed by a disease or a mutagen or whatever it actually is. Will we spread that to any children we have? Can we even have children that way? In a lot of the legends my original world has about vampires, theyre undead beings and if they arent theyre generally infertile. I know we arent undead, but are we fertile? Has the System made it so were a full fledged species of people and will breed true? We dont know yet.

Oh, I hadnt thought about any of that.

Ive talked to Zeia about it and I guess she didnt bring it up with you. Thats not relevant to the topic right now though, we can talk about it later.

This is a good opportunity for me to jump in with my thing. She turned to look at her dad. Dad, I was going to push for us to move a lot of the Order here anyway. The opportunity to learn from the people here about Blood Manipulation to counter the Blood Magic Skills a lot of vampyr have is a great opportunity, and so is learning about the eldritch stuff we didnt know about! Kay made me an actual new Bane in the middle of a fight against a vampyr that got all mutated on us. She pulled out the red dagger Kay had created for her. If we agree to Kays terms and move everything here, we can probably negotiate for the training he wants to control to include the new thigns we want to learn!

Im sitting right here.

Yes, but youve already agreed to teach me and my team things, this would just be including a few extra lessons in with the training you already want to happen.

He shrugged one shoulder in acknowledgment. True.

While that sounds like a very good opportunity for the Order, and likely the Crusade as well if I think about it, Stonegnawer said as he stared at the dagger Alice held with a bit of wonder mixed with a tinge of avarice, I still dont believe I have the authority to unilaterally agree to those terms on behalf of the entire Crusade.

I might command the Order, Ravenhome added, But that would still be uprooting a lot of lives. Id have to talk to my people about it.

Well then, while were here, lets discuss what could be done to make these terms more palatable for the rest of your organizations to make them more likely to be accepted, and what concessions could be made instead if they never go through.

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