New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Astaroth glanced rapidly toward Rodney, wondering if there was something wrong with him.

He felt like it was highly unlikely for a man born to a powerful mage and a magically inclined knight to end up with no mana capacity at all. Especially not in an environment like this one.

'Is there maybe a way for me to help him?' he mused.

Going back to Phoenix's question, Astaroth acted like he had been thinking about something.

"To answer your question, for what it changes. It's quite simple. For a city to be so close to so many Ley lines, more Natives will discover their talents in magic than elsewhere. And for the ones that would have been already magically inclined, their power will be greater. In the long term, I expect this to form a positive loop, and it would be my assumed reason Themiscus is still the font of magic users that it is."

Phoenix pondered for a moment.

As a human race, and a mage since the beginning of New Eden, she had appeared in this city. She knew there was a higher amount of mage, sorcerers, and warlocks than anywhere else.

But she had not expected this to be the reason.

When she started New Eden, since she thought it was just a normal game back then, she had thought this was by design. She would have never thought it was something so much deeper in significance.

She lost herself in thought while they kept heading to the castle, and only snapped back to attention when she heard the grinding of the gate on stone.

Astaroth had been busy as well, scanning the deep underground of the city with his magic senses, trying to see just how much of an advantage this city had for casters.

And it didn't take him too long to find out the city's magic barriers and defences all tapped into the Ley lines by some unknown means. He wondered if he could do something similar in Bastion City, to rely less on the mage's guild.

It would be a major boon, if he could power the barriers with natural mana, instead of crystals. He was certain it would not only be stronger, given the junction they had under the palace, but also last much longer.

When his eyes landed on the inner city, where the castle was located, he frowned a bit.

Looking past the wall and gates, Astaroth set his eyes upon the massive castle of Themiscus, which was made almost entirely of the same blue stone that the wall was built from.

What caught his attention was something else, though. Surrounding the enormous castle in the center were twelve enormous palaces, almost identical in size and style, in two semi-circles.

Rodney could see his king's confusion, and walked next to him.

"These are the twelve houses that rule Themiscus. Their palaces are all apart from the castle, to signify their equal statuses. Of course, the main matriarch, who is elected by vote internally, lives in the main castle, with her immediate family."

This helped Astaroth understand a little, but he was still confused as to why even make their palaces separate. He would have expected the twelve matriarchs to live inside the main castle together.

Not separate like this.

Rodney could see there was still some confusion in Astaroth's eyes, but he could hardly explain the entire geopolitical situation of a kingdom in a few minutes. It was a large subject, especially since the kingdom was many millennia old.

But Astaroth wouldn't have to wait too long to understand either, as the matriarchs had sent representatives to greet him at the gate.

Rodney had expected this, and was already standing near the monarch to greet them properly.

Bending down in a bow, with his two hands extended outward and palms facing up, Rodney saluted the twelve representatives.

"Rodney Levine, Commander of Stellar Woodland's Royal Guard, speaking for the king and queen, greets thee."

The twelve women nodded their heads, glad the visitors had someone versed in their etiquette talking for them.

One woman walked forward, separating from the others.

"Well met, Commander Levine. I am the representative of the head matriarch, Elindra Casovan. The matriarchs have balloted who meets with you first and our family was lucky enough to get first turn. If you would so kindly come with me, and the other representatives will come fetch you later."

Rodney nodded his head in agreement, but Astaroth took a step forward.

"Wait. We have to meet all of you? Can't we just tell our side of the story to everyone all at once?"

Rodney's face went pale.

And before he could even tell Astaroth that the law worked differently for political crimes, here in Themiscus, the representative of the head matriarch spoke up.

"King Astaroth. Although I am aware of your lack of knowledge of our laws, I would ask you to refrain from making uneducated guesses. The reason for this way of functioning is simple. Making you repeat the events from your point of view is to assure that you are not lying. If you do not like our way of handling this, then we can simply report it to the matriarchs and see how they treat your request."

The way she phrased her words, many people would have taken it as a work-around. But Astaroth was not a fool.

He could hear the hidden intent in her words, and chose not to push the situation in a difficult direction. At least for as long as he could.

If the matriarchs were reasonable, then it would be a simply resolved matter.

However, no one could tell if they were going to be reasonable or not. It was a gamble.

With a deep sigh, Astaroth replied to the cunning woman.

"No, we'll do it your way. This is your country, after all. I was most concerned about wasting time. The more time this takes, the longer your diplomat spends in a cell in our country, with less-than-happy jailers. I would have thought you would want to resolve this fast, given his less than favourable conditions."

He saw the woman's face twitch slightly, but her smile remained.

"We are aware of his conditions. Nonetheless, we want to proceed by the book. Now, if you would follow me."

This answered one of Astaroth's doubts. They didn't care much about what happened to him.