Leia awoke with a dreamy smile. She was still on cloud nine due to the knowledge that the last round would be a tournament, the exact environment where her son could shine the brightest.
Her assistant rushed in all of a sudden to notify her that the boss was arranging an urgent meeting. She grumbled a bit but got ready swiftly. There was a path leading to Shadowhold in her mansion, so getting to the Consortium giant underground facility was but a comfortable, leisurely walk for her, as opposed to lower ranks who had to venture miles outside of Braedon and enter through one of the heavily guarded entrances in the wilds.
Braedon was the biggest Consortium location in Winterwood County, so lots of different people and factions could be found here, just like her Divine Nectar faction, whose boss called her for a meeting for some supposedly urgent reason.
She entered their private building which was guarded by multiple high-level people and quickly found herself in the conference room where the boss was already waiting. She was sitting on the position of the head.
Ambrosia was her name, at least the criminal one, and she was once a Phenom, though that was long before Leia was even born. Whenever Leia looked at this woman she had a strong urge to grimace. Ambrosia was around 200 years old yet she looked as if she were Cedric’s age, and here Leia was at 45, looking like a woman that’s clearly in store for a rude downhill ride with every passing day, as far as appearances went. Continue your journey on empire
Ambrosia was rumored to have been once considered to be good enough to become Black Fang’s disciple, but that was when Vex and then soon after Raika emerged. Black Fang was stated to be too lazy to accept a fourth disciple, so Ambrosia was shown the middle finger, a metaphorical one of course.
This may or may not have caused her to have feelings of inferiority and a never-ending spite war with the two women. After all, they were slightly younger than her but were already Veil Walkers while she was stuck as a Shadow Vanguard, which just went to show how effective the eccentric ancient woman’s teaching methods were.
Leia seated herself close to Ambrosia since she was one of the most prominent members of the faction. The members rapidly started filtering in as the seats filled up around the table. They each eyed the youthful woman with wondering gazes regarding what she might have to say.
At long last her lips parted. “The Wraithclaws vanished.”
Leia looked at the women with questioning eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said. They’re nowhere to be found.”
“I find this very hard to believe.” A man spoke up, after which he immediately earned himself a fierce glare from the boss woman.
“… The delegation I sent to collect our dues reported that the stronghold was empty, save for four displayed corpses. I went to check myself and found Specter’s head impaled on a pike, and the three barons were crucified next to him.”
Leia’s heart skipped a beat. “This means…”
“A declaration of war.” Ambrosia finished for her.
“Isn’t that going too far? The Wraithclaws were just a side hustle for us.”
“Not necessarily. We were running a tight margin already. Black Fang – but we all know that it’s Orianna making the calls in reality – keeps demanding insane amounts from us every month. A competitor faction like the Gilded Exchange or another one might’ve seen the easy pickings that the Wraithclaws were, and their annihilation in turn made our lives even harder than it was before. Their goal is to make us fail to deliver the monthly quota.”
Leia felt that Ambrosia was getting a bit ahead of herself with her conclusions. “Do we have any clues on who it might’ve been?”
“No… Blackjack’s corpse was nowhere to be seen, though. Finding him could lead us to a conclusive answer.”
“I’ll set a task force on the job then.”
…
– PoV: Quinlan –
“I, Quinlan Noir, using my right as sovereign ruler of these lands, declare the founding of Miri Town. May it grow into a beautiful city.”
“Miri Town Banzai!”
“Miri Town Banzai!”
“Miri Town Banzai!”
The crowds chanted with great fervor. Once people actually stepped through the portal, they also fell in love with the location.
And, yes, that’s right, I named the first town after my mother, is there an issue? I even doubled, no, tripled down when I named the surrounding lands as Lumi Forest after my elven mommy, and the river Katalin River after my birth mother. While it might seem that my original mother drew the short end of the stick, Katalin River was a long one. I planned to build the next settlements along its path, so her name would come up multiple times.
As for the name of the nation, it was still not decided… Considering that we only had a single settlement, I had some more time to deliberate.
And yes, before you ask, I did get some stinky eyes from my lovers when I elected to name these monumental landmarks after my mothers and not them. Interestingly, it was Aurora who took it the worst, I think she developed some one-sided rivalry with the two primordials because they both said she would be a somewhat lackluster mother despite her perfect child-bearing hips.
Anyhow. It was time to dip before I got some new responsibility on my hands. The construction had already begun, so all I could do was wish them the best of luck. With Iselda here to oversee the city planning, and Ayame to oversee the people settling down, I wasn’t worried and could leave it behind in capable hands.
I opened the warp gate and stepped into my stronghold territory at long last. I missed this place. Cedric, Abudha, and Selene were sent back to Consortium territories to continue sniffing around whether I should be worried about their reaction to my sudden disappearance during the second round while I’d already sent the others here ahead of me. Only Ayame and the six new acquisitions stayed behind in Miri Town.
As soon as I stepped through, Ronan rushed up to me as if he was expecting my arrival.
“What’s up?”