Wish upon the Stars chapter 531

After getting dressed, we made our way up to the manor, mostly  mentally exhausted from the ordeal of being dress up dolls for Bethy.  When we reached the house (which looked much more imposing at night) the  door opened without any prompting, revealing Alister Morgan, in all his  seneschal-y glory. "Ah, Master Solomon and Lady Nightstrike, welcome  back. Might I take your coats?"

He  stepped back, ushering us in, and said nothing to anyone else. It took a  minute for me to realize that he didn't KNOW anyone else, and I needed  to introduce them. I gave introductions across the party, not mentioning  my relation to Chelsea just in case. When I finished (we didn't hand  over our coats and he didn't press) , he bowed formally with an  aristocratic flourish of his arm. "It is lovely to meet you all. I am  Alister Morgan, Baron Tolbert's seneschal. Welcome to the Baron's home."

We  were escorted to the dining room, where a massive white clothed table  was bedecked with all sorts of china plates full of food and crystal  glasses next to bottles of wine, whiskey, juice, soda, and a few drinks I  didn't actually recognize. Camden sat at the head of the table, eating a  truly massive steak next to a heaping pile of mashed potatoes. When he  spotted us, he swallowed and grinned. "Sorry I started early. I'm not  particularly patient. Come on in and take a seat."

We  did, and as we sat down, a flurry of servants came out to put napkins  on our laps and pour the drinks for us. The bottles were all sealed and  were opened fresh in front of us, presumably to demonstrate that they  weren't poisoned. I wondered how cutthroat politics got here if they  needed to make a big show of that, but shut the thought down as I picked  out a nice grape soda for my meal.

Jessie,  who had been the invitee (though Callie and I were namechecked) beamed  at Camden. "Thank you so much for the invite. The food looks lovely. I  was surprised to get this invitation on the first day here."

"Lot  of surprises today." He said with a smirk. "But I wanted to reach out  and talk about a few things. Contracts are done, of course, but I needed  to speak with you all about some of the information I'd managed to dig  up. I'm sure you know what I mean. Still, no need to be rude, lets get  everyone's plates sorted before we start the shop talk. My chefs outdid  themselves. I even had them set a place for your ursine companion."

He  gestured to a pillow next to the table with a large metal platter set  on top. Jessie grinned and placed Randall, who she was still carrying,  on the ground. "Do you mind it he makes himself a bit more comfortable?"  She asked innocently. "He's normally bigger than this, and he likes to  spread out when he eats."

"By  all means." He said with a wave. "Plenty of room." And there was, this  dining room was absolutely huge. Jessie pulled out her necklace focused  it on the bear, and spun the star. Randall shifted in size, expanding to  become a larger, though still not full sized, version of himself.  Camden whistled. "I see what you mean. I assume he'd prefer meat?" He  gestured to the table. "Feel free to select whatever you'd like, the  servants will plate it for him."

She  did, and I reached out, starting to load my own plate up. Camden didn't  seem to mind, so clearly we were fine to make our own food. I grabbed  some of everything I could reach. Potatoes, beef, vegetables, a kind of  savory bread pudding dish I'd never seen before, and I even ladled some  soup into a small bowl to eat with my meal.

"So."  I said after a few bites. "What exactly have you heard about us? Given  your resources, I'm not shocked you dug up a bit. Solomon isn't a unique  name, but Nightstrike isn't too common, and in conjunction we gave you  quite a bit to go on. I don't want to give anything away you didn't find  on your own."

He  grinned, tipping his head in acknowledgment. "The basics. Lady  Nightstrike is a godslayer, which is not a title many people have,  obviously." Callie started to clarify, but he held up a hand. "There  were extenuating circumstances, I know. If not the tale would be in the  mouth of every information broker and storyteller in the five factions.  But still, it made enough waves for me to get wind of it with some  digging."

"You  planning to advertise?" I said dryly. "Telling people you have a  godslayer in your army would be good press. Even moreso when we rank up,  which as I'm sure you guessed, won't take long."

Shrugging,  he made an uncertain noise. "Well...I considered it. If it were just  Nightstrike I probably would have. But Solomon was part of that story  too. Solomon, who is a descendant of the Wishmaster, and a candidate to  inherit his office. A godslayer's reputation is a powerful thing, but I  think access to wishes would be more useful for me at the moment. After  all, not all the notoriety from releasing your feats would be good."

"Enemies  would be bound to be as common as friends." I said stoically. "So  you're interested in access to wishes, I can understand that. You do  know, of course, that payment has to be rendered for things like that? I  seem to remember you being a bit light on cash."

He  grimaced, looking around. "You're not wrong. But there are other  potential avenues of compensation. I have this army here, and I'm  planning to use it to make a place for myself here. You'll be ranking up  soon, and there are multiple territories on offer. Perhaps we might  come to an...arrangement. Would becoming landed Barons be of interest to  you?"

I  blinked at that. "Can we...even do that? We're not citizens, can we  claim territory?" We weren't going to be staying, but we had more than  enough people that we might be able to leave someone to run things.  Having our own territory wasn't exactly something I wanted to turn down  out of hand.

"You  can, though without a noble Job you couldn't be added to the Empire's  roles." He said contemplatively. "There are substitutions that can be  made to handle renown distribution to people within your territory, but  without access to the roles you would be stuck taking physical taxes. It  would be a substantial loss of functionality compared to what a normal  noble might have."

I  glanced at Celine curiously. We DID have a noble in the group. We could  theoretically have her act as an intermediary. It would help speed up  her growth too. "Would the noble in question need to be present? Or  could we leave someone to watch the territory in their place?"

He  paused, mulling it over. "Possibly. I know Alister can act in my stead  when I'm gone, and provided the noble had a means of distributing the  renown as necessary, I don't see why it wouldn't work. I take it that  means you're interested in my proposition?"

Callie  was incredibly interested in having roots somewhere after hearing about  my discussion with Anna. Wishes provided a method of upgrading  territory (albeit slowly at my level) that other people wouldn't have  access to. I had plenty of spare wishes to use, and Callie had enough  points coming in to use them as payment without worrying too much about  slowing down her growth.

The  point was, we were building a faction. A small one, but a faction  nonetheless, and we needed a base. Callus wasn't going to work given it  was only psuedo D-rank, but a real C-ranked planet like Stratholme would  be able to hold our people and even allow them to rank up for quite a  while. Not to mention having Camden as an ally would give us access to  his training methods and might help us build an ACTUAL army. There was a  lot of pro's to this. I'd have to discuss with Celine to see if she was  willing, but given her wish to improve alongside Benny it didn't sound  like a stretch.

"So,  you promise me future territory in exchange for wishes to what...help  you win the war?" I wasn't sure exactly how he would be structuring this  deal, but I wanted to know what was on the table in the best case  scenario.

Taking  a bite, he nodded as he chewed, swallowing before responding. "I have  some ideas about possible applications, if you agree, we'll hash out the  size of the territory in question, my duties as your ally, and any  other guarantees you need. You can contract future wishes for a lump  sum, yes?"

"I  can..." I hedged. "But it'll be a geas, not a contract. You'll be bound  to uphold your end of things. If you don't...well, I haven't exactly  seen what happens to defaulters, but I gather it's unpleasant. I'd  advise against making promises you can't keep."

Camden  just waved the point away. "I wouldn't have come here without  assurances, and with your resources I'm not worried. I'll get the job  done. I don't exactly have another choice. I leveraged every asset I had  to get here without accruing a debt to any of my relatives, and if this  doesn't work I'm probably dead. In for a gold piece, in for a chit, as  they say. The question at hand is, exactly what is our end goal. I  assume you know the political situation around here?"

"I  know you're here for Clairdon." I admitted. "I assume you're offering  my Highgrave's territory? I'm not sure what his assets are aside from a  robust horse trade. Are you considering trying to bait Prentiss or  Carrey into getting involved? I'm not sure of the logistics but do you  have enough people for that? Even wishes have limits."

"Carrey  is a hotheaded moron." He said frankly. "I suspect with the proper  motivation we could enlist Prentiss to put pressure on him at the right  moment and fracture his hold on his territory. We could split it in  thirds and it would increase our own territorial gains by at least forty  percent. Carrey's lands aren't bountiful or resource rich, but his  ability to dispatch his Dragoons at speed lets him control a large  swathe of territory. If we let Prentiss know we have access to wishes it  should be more than enough to motivate him."

Glancing  at Gabe, I cocked my head. None of us were soldiers, but he and Callen  were the closest. They were the closest to tactical advisors that I  could find at the moment. He gave me a considering frown and then tilted  his head uncertainly. "We're interested." I finally said. "But we'd  need to hash out exactly how much territory is on offer, under what  conditions you'd hand it over, and some redundancy payments in case we  don't hit the targets we want."

I  didn't care about penalties for geasa, or I did, but more in that I  didn't want to see anyone suffer them. That didn't benefit me and it  would be actively harmful to potential allies. Putting in redundancies  and severance fees was something I'd been playing with just in case, and  this seemed like a good time to institute that policy, because I'd be  taking quite a bit on faith here.

He  agreed without any hesitation, and we got down to the business of  haggling. As we settled in, I couldn't help but feel a thrill of  excitement run through me. Having my own territory, even if I had Celine  put her name on it, would be fantastic. I was excited to find out how  Callie was planning to develop things. She'd been close with Stella, and  would have a good idea how to run a territory like this, or better than  me at least. With my wishes, the sky was the limit, and I couldn't wait  to see how high we could go.