Julius and Mei both shot up, exclaiming their surprise and dissatisfaction in unison.
"What do you mean you can't!?"
The magistrates looked to each other in mild confusion while Consular Gracci raised his arms to plead us with, "Ah—I believe you're misunderstanding. We couldn't possibly enter into a new alliance, because our previous pact should still remain in place."
I leaned back in my chair and let out a drawn out sigh.
Tugging on the hems of both Mei's and Julius' cloaks, I dragged them back.
"My apologies for the outburst. We find ourselves lacking in the deeper knowledge related to these kinds of things. If you say an existing alliance is in place, then I trust that it is… But is there some sort of formal document we may have a facsimile made of to take back with us to Tolin?"
The Consular frowned and adjusted himself to face Lord Fulvius, "Brother, you've brought the orb with you, yes?"
A short pause followed and Lord Fulvius stared forward with a blank look.
"Hmhmm," He cleared his throat, "Of course, I'd never be so careless as to leave such an important device unattended on my desk. On an unrelated note, please excuse me for a brief recess as I must go grab something from my office upstairs."
Consular Gracci rubbed his forehead aggressively as Lord Fulvius disappeared from the room in a flash.
I'd thought they looked similar before, but watching them here it became more obvious they also shared the same kind of awkward personalities, though Lord Fulvius didn't allow it to show as blatantly at first.
After just a few minutes the forgetful magistrate returned and made his way back to his place next to Lady Sara. He shifted in place and produced a white orb with silver etching.
Rias gasped behind me, "An aetherline device?"
I strained my eyes to get a peek at the object as it was passed to Consular Gracci. Aside from the etching color, it looked almost identical to the Orb of Infrastructure we'd uncovered in Tolin. We'd passed ours on to Dori and Rias to look into, but they both came to the same conclusion—without an active aetherflux network running in the city, it was just a priceless paperweight.
The Consular held the orb in his lap, turning it so that its crescent moon crest faced upwards.
"Ingo initiae."
He spoke the words in elvish but they didn't auto-translate. Before I could take even a moment to ponder why, the device came to life. The silver lines that ran across the surface began to glow brightly and the orb lifted up into the air. Beams of light from the crest illuminated a display on a field of mist that began to form around the orb.
Consular Gracci swiped his hand ahead of him, causing many different windows to appear. He looked through them, dismissing them with another wave of his hand until he found the one he was looking for. The display expanded in size until the details were readable for us even across the room.
Projected onto the mist was a double-columned list of faction names and their statuses. Notably, the other elven factions were the first listed and then the noblebourne, dwarves, and finally human ones.
- - - - - -FACTIONS- - - - - -
[SYLVAE IXI]:
Antagonistic 💀
- - -
[SYLVAE V'ALEN]:
Co-belligerent ☆
- - -
[SYLVAE NOX]:
Co-belligerent ☆
- - -
[UNION OF HIGH NOBILITY]:
Hostile 💀
- - -
[DWER'IN]:
Neutral
- - -
[EMPIRE OF THE LIGHT]:
Alliance ★
- - -
[KINGDOM OF RENA]:
Hostile 💀
- - -
[MAARIN COMMONWEALTH]:
Neutral
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"As you can see, the interfactional statuses of our government are recorded automatically. You should be able to see the same… though with everything you've been through, do your people have access to a faction orb?"
"I believe we've recovered one from Tolin, but we don't have the means to get an… uh, aethernet, running."
I heard my companions snicker to themselves as I almost fumbled the technical jargon. I shot Julius a critical glare, his posture straightened and the dirty smirk disappeared from his face.
Consular Gracci calmly continued without acknowledging my close fumble nor dramatics with Julius, "We have technicians that can assist you with getting one established quickly."
"Our people would greatly appreciate that," I responded, putting my professional attitude back in play, "I'm certain we have some soldiers who would be reassured to have their ability to communicate sped back up to the modern age."
With the confusion cleared the meeting with the Aestori representatives moved forwards at breakneck speed.
Lord Fulvius and Lady Elin broke off with Hailey, Mei, and Rias to discuss the current status of our agricultural, labor, and general civilian undertakings. Lord Fulvius had been a minister in both the imperial court and Aestori central government in Aestor years ago, and was responsible for leading a series of reformation policies with the elven people. Lady Elin held a very high noble title and served as a sort of mayoral figure to the people of Umbraedomis, and had been keeping the city's peace for the last four decades. With both of their assistance, a number of qualified individuals were to be allocated to travel along with us back to Tolin.
Julius and Lady Sara had their own melding of the minds around our military's state and current deployable forces. From what knowledge I could gleam from the Consular, she used to hold a position of Archmagus in the imperial court—something akin to a chancellor who oversaw the many divisions of the imperial army.
While both of those conversations were going on, I was holding my own conference of sorts with Consular Gracci and Lord Adellin to hammer out the specifics of our reaffirmed alliance.
Aside from a mish-mash of politics, I was intrigued by the Lord-Magistrate's intimate knowledge in the formation of the Empire. Because I wanted to know exactly what our commitments were to the Aestori, and vice-versa, he had provided a number of old record books and documents which seemed to predate the use of the aetherline devices.
A large leather bound volume caught my eye, as its title bore a name I'd heard recently, THE STRIFELANDS-EDENDRY DEFENSE TREATY. I recalled the long-winded speech by Lady Aisling back in Tolin where she'd brought up this treaty name to assure us that if we were really the inheritors of the Empire, that the Aestori people would aid us.
I lifted the book up and held it out towards the two elves, "I'd like to know about this treaty, and what it means for our people."
Lord Adellin looked up and smiled, "That document is the legislative birth of the Empire. Before our people signed that treaty we were our own sovereign people living peacefully in a forest far away from the machinations of the rest of the world. At that time we had little communication with the humans and dwarves living nearby."
"What changed? Something drastic must have occurred for our two peoples to come together."
"It certainly did. Fueled by some sort of prejudicial hatred towards elves, the Kingdom of Rena—though at the time they were newly formed and were calling themselves 'Reven Natori'—launched an attack on our people. In the far past they were a tribe of nomads who had unfavorable run-ins with the elves of the Vale."
I cocked my head in confusion, "Aren't the forests of V'alen on the other side of the Strifelands? Why would they attack the Aestori who lived in an opposite direction?"
"It's possible they heard rumors of treasure from human merchants who traveled the area, and figured we would be an easy target. In that time our people weren't warriors and we had no standing military. We were a feudal society that was led by a small number of noble families who lorded over a number of fiefdoms. Large concentrations of wealth were gathered in relatively few places. A perfect target for a fledgling nation looking to expand to rival their neighboring nation, the Alliance of Van'Ixia."
Lord Adellin took the book from my hands and flipped through it. Once he'd found the page he was looking for he turned it back round and held it out for me.
The page detailed a list of names, which continued on for several pages. There were thousands of entries, and when I looked back at a word scrawled along the top of each page before the names, I realized what the meaning of this record was.
Casualties.
With a somber look he pulled the book back and flipped through more pages, searching for something else. Finding the right page, Lord Adellin turned the book around once more for me to see. Rows of signatures alongside wax stamped crests filled the sheet.
"These are the seals of the great archnoble houses of the Aestori who came together to sign the treaty and formally assimilate with the people who defended us against an enemy they had no reason to. The names of those who fell in battle to protect us are preserved in these pages. Without their sacrifice, none of us would be here today. So when you ask what sort of commitments you have to our people, you've got it backwards."
Consular Gracci nodded in agreement with Lord Adellin's statement and reaffirmed in his owns the same sentiment.
About three hours had passed and my companions had wrapped up their own discussions. I was in the middle of reviewing a detailed journal from an Aestori Magistrix from the start of the war with the demonic invaders, so I sent them all back to the Inn so they could grab something to eat and not wait for me.
Hailey tried to guilt trip me into letting her stick around with me, but I reversed it back on her by saying I would be worried about Rias if she didn't go back with the group.
I knew my sister would be fine with just Julius and Mei, but I wanted to meet with the tribunal members alone to get their unreserved thoughts about reuniting with the Empire.