"Right, I remember Valea saying something about a gathering, something about some important matter. I guess we’d better get going... How do I get there?" scratching the back of my head as I pondered, I waited for Solch to respond.
"Just follow me"
Following his instruction, I fell into stride beside him. Leading up to the end of our trek, the scene that came into view was absolutely breathtaking; mythical flowers of indescribably beautiful and unimaginable colours bloomed in bushels all around, and in the middle of it all stood a circular gazebo, with pillars of white and gold crowned by the flowering vines that twisted around it.
Upon closer inspection, I was able to make out two figures sitting in the gazebo, one of which was Valea, the second being a woman I assumed to be the shadow goddess of the Veylith Territory, Nocturna; her hair was as dark as ebony, her eyes deep like a gaping abyss, her skin as pale as moonlight. She was a sight to behold.
Following this assumption, I decided to head into the gazebo. "G’day, ladies."
Valea laughed into her palm. "What an odd greeting, Astrael; did you learn it from your followers?"
"Uhm, something like that. I don’t know why I said that; please ignore it." My face flushed with embarrassment as I hurriedly sat down.
"Oh, please, we don’t mind. As a God, you will hear quite a few oddities in speech; but personally, yours was rather charming. And, besides, we have more pressing matters to talk about." Refocusing the spotlight on the issues at hand, a cup of tea appeared before me as Valea poised herself to begin.
"You really love tea, don’t you?" I questioned, already raising the cup to my mouth
Hearing the question, she couldn’t help but let out a soft chuckle. "Love? Not quite, but when you grow the best tea leaves on the continent, it becomes a thing of pride"
"It actually isn’t bad...I’m just not a tea person." The cup hit the coaster with a soft *clink* as I set it down. "Anywho, there is one person not present at the moment, no? They are the one keeping us"
"Yes, although I believe they just arrived", she pointed to the distance at what looked like
"A sandstorm?" I asked
"No, just Dune refusing to make an entrance normally, for once" As the sandstorm drew closer, she involuntarily sighed at the sand flying everywhere; even the formerly indifferent Nocturna couldn’t help the look of irritation forming on her face
"Well, can’t he turn it down?" Trying to wipe sand out of my eyes, I conjured a barrier around the gazebo to prevent any more from getting in. "Much better, although there’s a shit ton of sand on the floor", I murmured to myself, but I couldn’t shake off the feeling that the two goddesses overheard it
*BOOM-!*
"And that would be him", Valea said, rubbing her temples as if trying to soothe an oncoming headache. "Astrael, the barrier, please"
In the next moment, the barrier dissipated, revealing a man sprawled across the floor; his face was angled but not too sharp, his skin tanned to a light caramel, and his hair golden brown like the desert sand.
"Way to ruin a guy’s entrance", he groaned as he got up, but he turned to the goddesses "Valea. Nocturna", he said in acknowledgement. "And you must be Astrael, the uh... Shelter God. Pleasure to meet you; I saw your spar. You should feel lucky that you beat Solch." Solch’s expression froze where he was seated; the realisation that he had an audience to his defeat was a chilling thought
"Dune, focus on the topic at hand. Valea, please proceed," Solch advised
"Right, Astrael, the bone of contention today is you" Valea pivoted, understanding the underlying tone behind Solch’s words. "Upon your promotion from a minor god into a fully fledged God, there are a few things that need to be discussed regarding your territory and how to insert it into the already existing interconnection between territories."
"Valea has a point", Nocturne cut in "Your people will need the exposure, the trade, the knowledge; there’s only so much they know, and so much they can learn and do by themselves. No human, even though they live in groups and they socialise and reproduce, is an island; they need foreign experiences to develop."
"My followers say that Vasyti is still surrounded by the ’plague’ though. Hope you 2 knew that before this meeting?" The gazebo fell quiet; Dune’s question and revelation left them stunned.
"Uhm," my voice hesitant ", if that’s the issue, my authority actually extends over the entire territory; I just haven’t extended it beyond the 4km baseline yet, since I’ll be gone for a little while. I didn’t see the need to give them space that they didn’t quite need yet"
"You might have great battle IQ, but now I’m thinking you don’t have a great IQ generally?" Solch’s insult a unmasked slap to my intelligence.
"Rude?! What do you mean by that? I had very good reason to do what I did?"
"Really? Fine. What was this reason?"
"I’ll be gone for barely two to three days; they couldn’t possibly do anything that would need more than the readily available space"
"Your domain doesn’t experience temporal dilations?" The rhetoric was so painfully clear, I couldn’t bring myself to give a response
"Way to flip yourself over, Astrael." Dune leaned back, a wolfish smile already blooming on his face as he continued, "But! No use dwelling on miscalculations and silly mistakes, because if what you’re saying is true, then you’re sitting on a gold mine, my friend. Vasyti could become a central trade hub. There’s always the possibility of crime, I think, right?" I offered a nod to his question
"But I assume within your shelter thing, technically, no one can kill another person; the divine law of your authority would prohibit it, meaning the level of banditry or armed thievery will decrease. Imagine this: my nomads cross into your lands; they sell essential items to your people and barter for information, and my people also gain two things: safety and the by-products of Vasytri. It’s a win-win." The offer was tempting, the kind of offer you’d expect from a God whose followers are experienced in Merchantry.
"While we are on this, what are the pioneer skills of Vasyti?" Nocturne chimed in
"Well", I paused to think for a moment. "Wait, before I answer, what do you mean?"
"I mean, what are the skills and trades Vasyti has, or rather, had before you left. Those are pioneer skills; those skills are what your territory will most likely thrive in when it develops," she answered, clarifying any confusion I had about the term.
"Oh, before I left, Vasyti had a smithy; the smith was gifted in blacksmithing and woodsmithing"
Solch’s expression changed as I continued.
"And also organic textiles from the local plants that grew, like Caelith cotton, Orivane, and Silvarra, for clothes."
Dune’s previously wolfish smile had grown into something that made me question if all Gods’ faces could move to such a degree.
"That reminds me!" My voice was almost a chirp as I suddenly remembered, "Does agriculture count? There’s no fauna in Vasyti, so the vegetation is the lifeblood of the land.