Blood Shaper

Book 4: Chapter 25

The closest healer in the palace was quite close, and he was not happy with Kay when the full explanation of what had happened to Kay’s arm came out. Kay was quite happy when the healer shifted his lecture to Eleniah for allowing him to perform a dangerous experiment without a healer being on standby, but that happiness dies a quick and inglorious death when the lecture came back around on him for not immediately heading to the healer when his arm exploded. Explaining that his new species had a regenerative factor and he wanted to see how quickly his arm would grow back only pissed the man off more because that was something you should also test with a healer available.

The arm grew back pretty fast; it only took a couple of hours and a few more mouthfuls of blood to have it back into perfect shape, but he’d had to sit there with three healers; the first one had called more, staring at his arm the entire time taking notes. Lauren had shown up, pissed as hell that he’d gotten injured enough to discover a new healing ability from their shared race, but had calmed down when she learned how it happened and that his bodyguard detachment had helped Eleniah carry him to the healer.

Alice also appeared at some point, also wanting to know what had happened, and Zeia had been with her. The healers had not been pleased with her suggestions about hurting him more and in different ways to see how the regeneration was affected, although Kay did mentally note down her suggestions for later testing.

When the senior healer on rotation at the palace had gotten fed up with the number of people in the ward, she’d tried to throw most of them out, although Kay had to give pointed looks at certain vampyr hunters to get certain vampyr researchers away from him and out of the room. Eleniah had left him in the capable hands of Lauren to go back to her own work, and Alice had dragged Zeia off after the excitable researcher had extracted a promise from Kay to show up and help her with some experiments later.

Using her System-free psychic powers that detected whenever Kay was free, Amanda showed up with some work for him to finish, completely ignoring the disapproving looks of the head healer while she pulled up a chair next to Kay. She continued reading him summaries of issues that he had to make the final decision on as his hand was jerked back and forth and examined closely for even the most minute issues.

“Three more temples or religious groups demanded that the decision of whether or not we make them our state religion be brought directly to you.”

“Rejected.” Kay growled, “Does no one read? Or pay attention to people that know the answer already?”

“Not if the answer they get isn’t the one they want,” Amanda replied promptly, tossing the paper back in her spatially expanded binder. “Next is a schedule update; we’ve gotten word from Cindy that she found something to show you.”

“Oh?” The cover story they’d created to explain why Cindy was off somewhere and not in Avalon was that she was using her precognitive abilities to scout out resources Avalon could use or would want to expand in order to take advantage of. It was an easy sell since she had been doing that right up until they’d started her secret project. “Any word on what kind of ‘thing’?”

Amanda shot him an unamused look, knowing that he knew that she couldn’t go into detail in front of the healers. “She found one of the things you asked her to keep an eye out for.”

Kay jerked forward in his chair, then stopped to glare at one of the healers who was glaring back at him after having to jerk at his arm to keep it in place. There was only one thing Kay had actually asked Cindy to be on the lookout for, and that was a person. Specifically, someone with expertise in siege engines who could be their first cannoneer. No one was sure whether cannons would be a different enough weapon to be a different Class Line from guns, but Cindy wasn’t that interested in artillery either way, so they’d been on the hunt for someone who would be interested. Someone who’d worked with siege engines was their best bet with the assumptions they had to work under, and Kay was excited to finally get started on that, not only for cannons used as siege weapons but also so they could start testing them on ships.

“Fantastic!” Kay felt his arm get jerked again and turned his torso to stare at the healers. “Are you done with my arm now?”

The most impatient healer and the one who kept jerking his hand all over the place frowned at him, “There’s still-“

The senior healer slapped her hand over the younger woman’s mouth. “There’s a few things that we’d love to look at later, but for now, you seem to be in fine health. It appears your new species-based regeneration is a true magical rebuilding of the injured area, not the kind of regeneration that works by magically speeding up the body's healing and may result in tumors or other issues. That was our main goal to determine, and we’ve finished with that.” The last portion was pointedly said to the younger healer, who’d been trying to say something around her superior’s palm.

“Well, I’ll keep your request in mind, and we’ll find a spot to work a few more tests into my schedule.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

He quickly left, ignoring the pouting healer and the other two blocking her from getting in his way as he departed. “I still have some testing to do today since we already cleared my schedule.” He told Amanda as they walked. “It isn’t anything inside my body or likely to harm me if it explodes, so don’t worry about that. Deal with everything that doesn’t actually need my input.”

She raised one eyebrow at him.

He smiled faintly, “Yes, I know you do already. I mean, you have my permission to deal with anything that nominally needs my input but doesn’t really, like idiots wanting to get around answers they don’t like by trying to ask someone higher up. If anyone bitches, tell them I did give my input, which was, ‘I trust the person I appointed as my Prime Minister to make good decisions’.”

“Thank you for that trust. By the way, you said your experiments weren’t likely to hurt you if they exploded. Does that mean that you’re still working on something that is going to blow up?”

“Well, after finding out earlier than trying to recreate something that a tier-five Class says it can do without the tier-five Class can result in explosions, it’s possible that-“

“My lord!” One of the palace staff, which was a growing organization with everything from maids to message runners, sprinted down the hall toward him. “My Lord, there’s an issue!”

“Oh, what now?”

The gnomish man stopped at a safe distance from Kay’s bodyguards and then moved closer once he was cleared. “My lord, there’s a man in the central square shouting at everyone who passes that you’re a coward with no spine because you won’t show up and face his challenge.”

“…” Kay stared down at the messenger, “Did he go through the proper channels to challenge me?”

“I’m not sure, sir, but likely not. From what I heard, he jumped up on one of the fountains and started shouting that as soon as he made it to the square. The Wardens tried to pry him down, but he’s tier-five and he isn’t making it easy for them. They sent a runner to the palace, and then I came to get you to see what you wanted to do, my lord.”

Kay let out an annoyed grunt. “Recommendations?” He asked Amanda.

“Go out there, accept the challenge publicly but bring up that he’s flaunting the law, then crush him and have him arrested afterward. Solves the problem of him trying to dash your reputation and shows that we’re going to uphold both our procedures and our law seven when the more powerful try to get around it. Maybe make the punishment a little bit worse than normal to show there are extra consequences for trying to skip the system so that no one tries to copy him later.”

There was a cordon of Wardens all facing inward, staring at a man on perched on top of one of the less decorative fountains in the central square when Kay got down there. The square was one of several spots in the city where large streets crossed. People liked to stop and set up temporary stands or just hang out and block traffic. Knowing that was a predilection of people, the plans had already included a decent amount of widening so that traffic could still move around the edges and the center could still be used as a gathering point. This particular location was called the “central” square not because it was near the center of the city but because it was the one where Kay’s former office sat. That building was now a local government building where people handled issues and dealt with lower-level bureaucratic needs.

The fountain closest to the government building was one of three and was also the least decorative of the trio. The other two had carvings and intricately designed water features that drew the eye, while the one that was being used as a soapbox was simpler, with a wide rim that kids could stand on and a flat spot at the top where the man was standing.

“There’s going to be even more push to get a statue of me up there now,” Kay muttered angrily.

“Eventually, there are going to be statues of you all over the city; might as well get used to it,” Eleniah told him, for what had to be the tenth time at least. She hadn’t been all the way out of the palace when the news about the challenger had come since she’d stopped to get lunch, so she’d come along when Kay swept out to deal with the problem.

“When we’re an actual country, it would make sense to put a statue of me up since I’d be the founding king. That, or I do something actually impressive. Just putting one up because I’m in charge feels narcissistic.”

“To refuse a challenge is a cowardly act!” The man on the fountain shouted, obviously repeating from an often-used script based on his tone, “The lord should feel ashamed to not face me in honorable combat!” His enunciation was clear, his volume was good, and there was just something about the stiffness of his speech and the fake passion in it that screamed: “I’ve done this a lot.”

“Sounds like a professional duelist,” Eleniah commented as they approached, the watching crowd moving out of the way of the Blood Guard as they pushed closer to the center, “Dressed like one too.”

Kay took a look at the man but didn’t see what she was talking about. “How is he dressed like one?”

She ticked off a few items on her fingers, “Lightweight but tough armor, probably enchanted for durability, expensive spatial storage item in the shape of a bracelet on his wrist, which is most likely holding his weapons so he doesn’t give anything away ahead of time, that speech sounds completely rehearsed, oh, and,” She turned to look at Kay with a smirk on her face, “He’s a tier-five Professional Duel Seeker.”

“Tier-five? This might actually be the first real fight I’ve had in one of these challenges, then.”

“You’ll be fine,” She told him confidently, “You fight Meten and I to standstills fairly regularly now, and this guy doesn’t have anything on either of us.”

“You sure about that?”

“Completely positive.” She looked over his shoulder at the duelist, who hadn’t noticed the clump of blood-red armor just at the edge of the crowd yet, “I’d be surprised if you have to actually use everything you’ve got to beat him. Speaking of,” She snapped her gaze back, her eye glinting with sudden excitement, “What should we limit you to in order to get the best training out of this we can?”

“Really? My life is going to be on the line here.”

“Only technically! We’ll jump in and stop him if it looks like you’re going to lose, and he won’t take a surrender, then I’ll just kill him and get your title back. Another little duel with me that I’ll surrender, and we’re back where we started.”

“That’s allowed? That seems like a massive loophole.”

“Sure! How do you think a bunch of rulers don’t have massive turnover from random strong people showing up and kicking their asses in a one-on-one duel? I’d bet a lot of money that even if you lose, which isn’t going to happen, mister professional here will just ask for a bunch of money in exchange for another duel, which he’ll throw.”

“That’s pretty down to earth.”

She waved her hand at him impatiently, “Don’t start analyzing social conventions here with the System versus back home; that’s a conversation for later when Ahthia can participate. Now, you definitely can’t use any homunculi; that wouldn’t be in the spirit of a duel. I don’t want you using big splashy attacks either; you have to take the fight directly to him. Do I limit you to only one weapon or make you switch them regularly? You need more work with the punch dagger if we’re going to get you a Class for it, so I think you should focus on that. Also…”