Chapter 16-409: The Competition of Kings (1/2)

-Urp!-

I slid an /eye Shvaughn’s way. That was her general alert that she’d just Consumed someone for some reason. -Something I should know?- I /asked her fatalistically.

-You’ll be happy to know that a certain someone was contracted for a substantial amount of money to kill Sir Pellier,- she /informed me, giving me a view of a hard-eyed, dark-eyed fellow who was now contributing to Shvuaghn’s assassination skills.

-Not sectarian?- I /asked calmly.

-This was a specific posted contract by third parties I am not aware of, with no religious bias,- she /answered blandly. Clearly, this wasn’t the first time an assassin had crossed the wrong Hungry Warlock. -However, the fixer either will be aware of them, or will know how to get the proper clues. They have to get paid, after all.-

That career was also one of the prime venues for Shoul’s followers, who held themselves as the assassin elites, regardless of the truth otherwise. Skulos might rule over death, but Shoul had influence over actual deliberate murder.

-The shot heard ‘round the Throne,- I /sighed. -Okay, let’s consider this as the Competition of Kings for America formally beginning. There’s going to be the Evil trying to remove anyone that can’t be a pawn to them, and Neutrals trying to remove the competition, both having types trying to stop everyone, while the Good will start trying to vie for attention.-

-Sir Pellier has a virtually unassailable position,- Shvaughn /assured me snarkily. -Really, who is going to grab hearts better than a Paladin?- Her opinion was like getting an automatic straw poll. She could even break it down by percentages if you liked.

-Yes, entirely by design. Do you want to leave off Windwising your Warlocks and start playing politics? If not, there are a lot of Inquisitors ready to go.-

-You know I rather specialize in exactly that kind of information gathering.- Her tone was quite whimsical about it.

-Are you willing to not destroy any souls while working with the Inquisition on this matter?-

-I reserve the absolute right to stick a Vivic knife in my Pactspace and burn away any truly annoying bastards,- she /sniffed back. -The Inquisition would love to off me too, you know.-

-You have presciently formed a situation where it is much better to tolerate you than get rid of you. As long as you don’t go about feasting on souls and preying on the innocent, you’re even quite tolerable.-

-Why thank you, my darling liege, for your expeditiously flexible morals,- she /laughed at me. -Still, I shouldn’t be announcing my discoveries to the Paladin, I trust?-

-No, he’ll insist on using mundane methods which will slow down the process. Make sure you design a coincidentally and wonderfully compelling series of clues that are going to make wonderful reports for the Inquisitors.-

-Ohhhhh, a writing challenge on top of merciless hunting of elite paid assassins. You set up the most unique objectives, my liege!- There was a unique /sound of flexing authorial muscles. -My, I haven’t written a good novel in a few decades. The Hunt for the Killers of Kings has quite a catch to it!-

-How much help are you going to need getting around?- I /inquired reasonably.

-Far less than before. It might not surprise you that I have an extensive set of Lived-Lines that I’ve been linking up since I learned of their usefulness. Waterjumping can get me to any of the continents fairly quickly, and from there any of my many Lived-Lines are going to be immediately accessible. They are QUITE extensive, as you might imagine.-

I looked at The Map, and the huge swathes of it filled in by her, dated over a span exceeding two centuries if you knew how to look at them. Attune yourself properly, and you could look at the world from many, many decades ago in The Map.

From what I deduced, Shvaughn’s original Pact had been sworn around 1800, but naturally she had Consumed people born well before that... and she had access to all their histories and Lived-Lines. Of course, Jumping magically to locations that were no longer there was unwise, but The Map was always there to verify current status and all.

‘Extensive’ didn’t quite cover it. She had literally tens of thousands of years of travel she could hook into to get to a whole lot of places. People’s lives crossing meant she could shift between Lived-Lines as readily as most people could follow their own. They all ended up in her, so they were all linked.

The Consuming Pacts really were that dangerous and powerful. I guess it was a good thing they didn’t work for Powered. Massive fast and easy power-ups by Consuming those stronger than you were in every discipline could get sick fast. If you were lucky, you could take on one Powered Class, but you’d never be able to advance further in it, so you had to be very picky about such things...

Of great usefulness to her was the Lived-Line of her Pact Patron. It admittedly jumped all over the place with Teleports disrupting them... but it went a LOT of places. Those were the primary links she was talking about.

Among other things, it also meant that she had been in and out of places before almost anyone else alive was even born. If she wanted to get into someplace that was well-guarded and not Interdicted, well, she already had the way in...

There was also the fact that she could Firejump, and wasn’t restricted by the horizon like Teleport was when doing so. It was the mechanic on how she could zero in on Legion and hop right to them out of a burst of hellfire... although their Pact connections was what gave it unlimited range.

It meant she was arranging for fires to be built at certain spots on her Lived-Lines she wanted to be able to hop to from across the world. Eternal Fires worked just as fine as natural ones, after all... and such also counted as basically permanently Energized.

A Firejump was naturally twice the range of a basic Teleport, as such didn’t require an Elemental anchor.

-Have you considered your aspirations on Queendom further?- I /inquired of her.