Millennial Mage

Tala sat in a summoned throne beside her husband, cheesy caravan in hand and coffee at the ready.

As she listened, Tala was happy to say that, all things considered, the elk was being fairly reasonable. He requested minor tribute from any passing through—or wishing to operate within—what would be his lands, as well as the ability to expand his forest over time, with proper compensation given to the humans if he was expanding toward them. What it translated to was that the more who passed through the forest, the larger he could grow it, with a medium of exchange built in so that if either side found other things they desired to trade for in the future, they could do so.

Walden also conceded that he had no desire to deal with the cells within the woods—or those that might be within the areas he expanded into—so humanity would handle that task for him, the Defenders to have free passage for those tasks and to receive reasonable compensation in turn.

All told, it would be a fairly self-regulating balance, with expansion quite limited but possible. That was essentially all that Walden needed, and Tala could feel the core of why that was so important echoing up through his authority and into hers.

Nature grew.

It was as simple as that.

Well, no… it could be simplified to that simple concept. There was a lot more to it behind the scenes, but that was enough to convey the idea.

On the interesting side, Walden did agree to both create and maintain efficient thoroughfares for human caravans to use, though he would not promise to keep arcanous or magical creatures away from those routes.

Still, the presence of clear paths would be a boon, especially given each caravan was required to take slightly different paths to minimize abrasion on reality.

Walden had a bit of a glint in his eyes when he agreed to handle that as a part of the deal, using that concession to increase the fare he would receive as he would be doing more than simply allowing their passage.

It was a win for both sides as it would make caravan travel safer and faster, and he would know exactly where those humans would be passing through his domain.

There were a few more parts to the agreement, and Lisa was meticulous in ensuring that every term was understood and agreed to with no misunderstanding. In the end, both sides seemed to part ways happy as only made sense.

This would be an agreement that could last centuries. If either side was dissatisfied, they’d be seeking loopholes, workarounds, and otherwise making the deal useless even if they couldn’t outright shatter it.

As the final terms were hammered out, Tala got to truly witness Lisa’s magic in this arena for the first time.

From a mundane perspective, the fox-kin stretched a hand toward the stone slab and another toward Walden before seeming to strain to bring the hands together. Finally, his hands came together, and he clasped them tightly before falling into meditation for a long moment. His hands then unclasped, and he straightened, smiling.

To her magesight, the little fox-kin positively blazed with power, drawing on the ambient power in the air to maintain his advancement—per his agreement with her—even as he burned the power to… do nothing that magesight could see.

To her threefold perspective, the reality threads and nodes of what seemed to be language itself—which apparently Lisa had been collecting throughout the negotiations—were gathered together, compressed and bound into a cohesive whole, the compact itself becoming a real thing.

Lisa then linked it to Walden and the Archon Council—and through them to everything that lay beneath their authority in this action—until the entirety of Walden’s domain—past, present, and future—was tied to the totality of the cycling cities and all of humanity within, their unity based upon that which was forged here.

Tala’s gate responded to the draw upon her stored power, opening wide and flooding power through the de-aspecting magics within her expanded space.

At the same time, her very will worked to keep Walden’s forest equal to her in density, to prevent any instabilities in the act.

After Lisa had used as much power as Tala could hold in her entire being ten times over, the compact solidified to her threefold perspective, and sank into the fabric of reality itself, becoming lost within the maze of existence, matter, and the connections within.

The Archon Council had enough understanding of such things to solemnly express their gratitude before wishing them all a farewell.

Once they were no longer shown on the slate, Walden turned to Lisa and bowed deeply. “I thank you for all that you have done to make this possible.”

Lisa’s eyes flicked toward Tala, and he gave a wide grin. “The power was hers, and the task was done at her behest. She, alone, deserves your thanks.”

Nonetheless, Walden gave a slight bow toward Lisa before facing Tala. “My debt to you grows.”

Tala shrugged. “We will settle that in time.”

The elk gave her a long, long look before he simply bobbed his head once more. “As you say.”

Now that the negotiations with the gated human powers were complete, Tala had to facilitate one more collaboration. Then, she could see what was possible on her own behalf.

She was building out quite the idea of how she could turn this to her advantage in a way that should also benefit humanity in the long run, not to mention helping to bring this war to a satisfying conclusion.

Only time would tell if Walden would agree to her terms, but before that, however, it was time to contact the War Council.

As she reached out through the Archive to the various contact points that had been set up for the arcanes and officials of the Wandering Wild settlements, she found herself considering the humor of this.

There were gated humans on the War Council of course, but most of them were from the wandering settlements. There were only two from the Cycling Cities, and neither were on the Archon Council that Walden had just spoken with.

Regardless, this agreement would bind gated humanity as well as the rest of the sapients on this continent, with the sole exception of the dwarves who lived under the Mountain King.

The only reason this could be negotiated so broadly was because of how closely it mattered to the war against the Black Legion.

As such, the Pillars, City Lords, and settlement powers were able to speak for Houses, cities, and settlements that weren’t present, so long as the result wasn’t egregious.

Funnily enough, this council could—technically speaking—make a deal on Tala’s behalf, but they wouldn’t, not with her standing right there.

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Delegated authority is a funny thing.

-And with Lisa here to bind it into the fabric of existence? Agreements have more weight, and promises require less faith.-

Indeed.

It took a bit longer to get established, but once all the members were linked to the slab, the bones of the mini-summit went forward very similarly to that with the Archon Council.

Walden was equally stalwart with this group, and Tala had to bite her tongue when she connected some pieces that only made sense when the two agreements were considered together.

Effectively, the ‘throw-away’ asks from one side could be used to pay the other for the allowance of expansion in their direction. This second agreement mostly related to growth outward into the wandering plains.

Walden was surprisingly conciliatory when the contingent from the settlement pointed out that it was difficult for many mobile settlements to traverse forests. To him, grassland was as natural as forests, part of the ecosystem of the world and required in their own right.

It seemed that Walden had been paying quite a bit of attention to those who came to inquire of him through the years, and he was putting that acumen to use.

He was happy to agree to leaving a minimum number of thoroughfares for the passage of mobile cities in a close mirror to his agreement for caravans between cycling cities.

In this case, however, he got agreement for lesser payment over time, essentially extracting a small fee for however long the cities stayed in his domain, rather than charging a toll for passage.

This of course led to guarantees that he would provide quick and direct paths through his lands as needed, so as to not inflate the costs upon the those so passing through.

As a gesture of good-will, Walden brought up the option for sanctuary. He insisted that such be added to the agreement, and after Lisa sussed out the details, it came down to this: If a settlement was imminently fleeing danger, it could pass through Walden’s lands for free, so long as they took the shortest available route to exit.

If they opted to take another path, the fee would be reduced rather than removed.

The gesture worked as the representatives from the settlements acted far more favorably disposed toward the elk after that.

The arcanes asked for terms of passage to trade with other sapients and to hunt magical and arcanous creatures, which were settled to everyone’s satisfaction with Lisa’s verbal elucidations.

Throughout, Terry stayed splayed out on the ground in one of the few beams of sunlight, but Rane gave her occasionally questioning looks. Finally, Tala shrugged, whispering and using her authority and will to keep the sound from traveling. “Nothing he’s getting will harm us or humanity, and it could benefit us quite a bit.”

“What if he turns on us later?”

She shook her head. “That’s why Lisa is here, but even if he’s managing to leave loopholes in the arrangements, listen to how he is speaking. It lines up with his authority, with his domain. He is of nature. He seeks to grow, to fill the voids left, to expand. He is requesting means for various groups to be able to use portions of his domain, or even claim it back from him. He is nature, not some political power seeking dominance. Moreover, even if we forget or believe otherwise, all of us, humans and arcane, are also part of the natural world. It is natural for us to exist within nature, even if our dens are a little more... complex.”

Rane looked skeptical, and when Tala tried to ignore what she could see with her threefold sight and feel with her own growing authority, she understood his hesitation.

Still, she was certain. “We will not regret this, and it is likely that he will make this whole continent safer by the end of things.”

Her husband grunted but finally sighed and smiled. “I’ll trust you.”

“Thank you.”

In truth, it really didn’t take very long. There was far less on the line for the wandering settlements and arcane cities. The representatives had the war as their primary concern, but they still acted with enough long-term thinking and wisdom that Tala didn’t feel the need to intervene.

They made sure that Walden wouldn’t become the next threat to bipedal sapients, and otherwise, they worked to gain what was needed to secure victory in the current conflict.

It helped that Walden was a magical beast who could actually be reasoned with, and those were vanishingly rare. That fact alone bought him immense amounts of wiggle room, simply because it meant that he could be incentivized to help them in the future. The agreement they hammered out had provision for just that. It might be expensive, it might be hard, but there was a path for that future collaboration.

As it turned out, Lisa’s back and forth, solidifying understanding and unifying meaning took longer than the initial negotiation. It exposed a few places of differing definitions, and mis-assumed expectations, but for the most part? The compact was easily ironed out.

Lisa then confirmed agreement across the board—or in this case across the slate and glade—before once more, bending existence to his purpose, using Tala’s granted power and authority along with that of Walden and the war council to bind all involved parties.

Just like before, Tala felt the barest portion of the accords anchor in her as well. She could have prevented it—rust, she could throw them off even now—but she felt that doing so would weaken the whole.

Exceptions were complications, and if those of power exempted themselves from that which governed everyone else? It would not be long before the entire thing fell apart, whether literally or metaphorically.

Tala watched closely, as Lisa wielded his particular brand of magic, the working very clearly in line with arcane magics in that it was centered around a concept, and she could practically hear the edges of it: ‘Words have power.’

But that was more an echo of what his entire race believed and built themselves upon.

Lisa’s was deeper.

As she perceived, she picked out more pieces of it, the next portion coming to the fore as: ‘Words are real.’

Even that felt more like an offhand, tangential truth beside the true meat of his concept, but before she could fully lock in on the core, the task was done, and the compact woven into existence, the agreement itself a real thing, linked to and influencing all whom it covered.

Tala knew that one of the features of such a living accord was that it would grow both encompassing more people, places, and things as they were born or came under the authority of those already bound, and it would grow into the very nature of those it was connected to.

She was almost reminded of a prisoner she’d helped deal with long ago, but even as Lisa began to give her a sharp look, both she and Alat immediately shunted that very concept aside, negating it through sheer force of will and authority.

Pernicious.

-Eh, forgettable.-

Tala chuckled, then stepped forward and bowed toward the council. “Thank you for your time. Stars send, we are nearing the end of this war. It is my wish that—after preparations are made for the next assault—you begin to plan for after. You will no longer be a council of war. Decide whom you will hand relations between our factions to.”

There were the beginnings of upswelling in her authority, but she responded immediately.

“I will not accept unilateral responsibility for those relations. Find another solution.”

There was obvious disappointment on some faces, chagrin on others, and stubbornness on more than a few.

Great… Regardless, their task was done, and Tala broke the connection to the forest slab, knowing that they were still linked to one another, and they’d likely spend the next time in conference.

She let out a great sigh before flicking forth her will and causing the slab to lower back down into the ground once more.

When she turned, she met the great elk’s gaze with a smile. “So, it seems that you will have not only a new domain, but security within that domain, time to consolidate, and means to grow and strengthen that which you hold.”

He bobbed his head just slightly. “All because of your magnanimity.”

Tala waved that off. “I facilitated the agreements—I’m even bound by them to an extent—but they were your doing, not mine.”

“Even so.”

She grinned then. “Even so.”

Lisa’s smile was growing wider and wider. “A third contract then?”

He was practically rubbing his hands together in glee, clearly showing how much he enjoyed this whole process.

Tala raised an eyebrow toward Walden, and he dipped his head once more. Rane gave her a smile, and Terry shifted slightly, getting more comfortable on the lush forest floor. She chuckled and nodded. “Yes. It is time that you and I solidified our arrangement.”

“So it shall be.”