Corvis Eralith
Leaving Dawn's Ballad resting on the earth-dedicated floor of my Awareroom for future study, it was time to step back into the persona of Finn Warend and return to Pitrah.
The weapon lay silent on the whitestone floor, its mysteries waiting to be unraveled and lulling me like a siren's call, but my responsibilities needed me elsewhere.
I let a Portal Frog swallow me whole, the familiar sensation of being compressed and stretched through space washing over me, and moments later, I was spat out amidst the subterranean air of the Pits of Vildorial.
There, in the shadows of the under-underground city, the first democratic vote in Dicathian history was about to unfold.
—
"Lord Throneholder! We didn't see you—again!"
Standing guard at the portal that I had asked the Powders to transport to a better location in the Pits was the same young dwarf I had met last time I was spat out by Pitrah's Portal Frog.
He was wearing a makeshift armour, forged from whatever the Powders had scavenged across the Pits and the materials brought by the Unravelers of the Company.
Strong, tempered hide, old but reliable iron, and masterful knitting kept the less-than-ideal materials together into a decent suit of protection.
I also noticed that he kept himself better appearance-wise than the last time I saw him.
Despite the modest armour he wore, he kept his bistre-brown hair in a very geometric buzz cut, while his beard was trimmed into a three-striped goatee.
"Hi," I said, looking around me, hearing the sound of many voices coming from the many bonfires of Pitrah. "The Pits are loud today."
"Everyone was eager for your arrival, Lord Throneholder," the dwarf said, his voice carrying a note of earnestness. "However, there have been some questions, which remained unanswered seeing your many duties."
"What questions?" I asked, my brow furrowing.
"Lord Felsen..." the dwarf started, his voice taking on a hint of embarrassment as he remembered my opinion of Marko Felsen. I had done nothing to conceal my blatant hostility for the Water Baron, and everyone knew it. "He has made some... good critiques."
Marko Felsen, mafia lord turned paladin of justice now? I thought, the venom in my mind seeping onto my face.
"What are these good points?" I asked, keeping my voice carefully neutral.
"I shouldn't have said it this way, Lord Throneholder!" The dwarf corrected himself quickly, his face flushing. "But maybe you should listen to Lord Felsen."
"If his objections are about the referendum, then he can speak with Pitrah's people," I said, my tone firm. "The vote is about them. Not me."
"Referendum?" The young dwarf echoed, confusion in his voice.
"Oh, right..." I said, realizing the term might be unfamiliar. "It's a public vote where people directly decide on something."
"Referendum, referendum," the dwarf, scratching his chin, repeated, tasting the term on his lips. "I like the sound of it."
"What about the explorations of the Pits's old tunnels you were conducting?" I asked, remembering what he had told me last time. "Oh, and I haven't asked your name."
"Filbrass Torserian, Lord Throneholder," Filbrass exclaimed, proud to be saying his name. His chest puffed out slightly, and I could see the importance he placed on this simple act of introduction. "We had to unfortunately stop our explorations of the old tunnels. The referendum is taking all the time of Pitrah's inhabitants."
"Makes sense," I replied. "We will talk about exploring the old tunnels after the vote, then."
"Obviously." Filbrass replied, his eyes bright with determination. "I will lead the exploration personally."
"If you want my suggestion," I continued, my mind already racing ahead. "If you can focus on searching for deposits of iron, copper, gold, and silver. Also gems like malachite, emerald, and jade would be useful."
They were the main materials I knew were used for the Titan mana arts—Brahman. The Green Gems used by Evascir's Clan, while the four metals were used by Berna for her magic. If Pitrah could become a source of these materials, it would transform the Pits from a forgotten slum into a vital hub of Dicathian industry.
"Iron, copper, gold, silver, malachite, emerald, and jade. Got it," Filbrass nodded, committing the list to memory.
—
I was visiting each abode where the Powders lived, visiting each smaller village in the vast cavern that was Pitrah. The dwellings were humble—makeshift shelters cobbled together from debris and salvaged materials—but they were homes, and the people who lived in them had made them their own.
On my shoulder, taking note of every individual and acting as my scribe (Alwyn's suggestion, which had turned out to be immensely helpful), was Char, Aurora Asclepius in her Sambhogakaya.
The black raven was dutifully scribbling down every person I gave the two voting pebbles to so that I wouldn't miss anyone.
Regretfully, I had to suffer the company of Marko Felsen too.
"What's that bird doing?" The Water Baron, in that stern, almost apathetic voice of his, asked. "I never took a Warend for an animal lover."
"She helps me keep track of the voters," I said, my voice clipped. "I am sure to not have missed anything."
"I am already doing that," Marko Felsen arrogantly replied. "I have made sure that... Pitrah, as you named the Pits, was ready for this vote."
"Trust me, you wouldn't match Char even if you had a thousand years of time," I said.
What was intended as a half-joke came out more as mockery, but I had no intention of apologizing to a Water Baron.
All inhabitants waited for me to pass and gratefully accepted the two pebbles: S for using the portal, and R to refuse.
Inside a one-room shack of old wood and older bricks, covered in soot and dust, lived a small family of Pitrans. The patriarch, an old dwarf with half his teeth missing, but who still smiled at me when I offered him his two pebbles, said:
"It's been my dream since I was a little brat to see a portal of the Ancient Mages in action," his voice was like the grinding of rusty gears—worn, but still resilient. "And to think I have bow the opportunity to see it here in the Pits. Thanks, young Warend."
"I live for Dicathen and its people, elder," I said, the words coming more easily than I expected. "Anyway. Your name?"
"Anshelm Dast," the elder replied, looking amusedly at Aurora, who promptly wrote down the name on paper with a piece of charcoal.
The old dwarf lived in the single room of the shack with his grandchildren, as they didn't seem old enough to be parents of each other—I didn't want to think about what happened to the parents.
The youngest stared at Aurora with wide, stupefied eyes; they probably never saw a bird in their whole lives. The raven's presence was a wonder to them, a living creature from a world they had only heard about in stories.
I gave the pebbles to the oldest two, but I hesitated in front of the younger ones, one of which was even younger than me.
"Is something wrong, Warend?" Marko Felsen chimed in, shrewd as an old fox catching the scent of blood.
Perched on my shoulder, Aurora turned her head toward the Water Baron. I caught my breath, half-expecting her to tear him apart on the spot, but she merely studied him with amused intrigue and wrote something down.
"Have you already found a loophole in your own system?" Marko asked, a sly glint in his usually lifeless eyes.
It's not a fallacy, damned criminal! I hissed in my mind. I... fuck! Corvis, you forgot one of the basics of all referendums and democratic votes!
I had insisted so much that all had the right to vote that I had forgotten the most obvious limitation: age.
What was I supposed to do? What was the correct age for a Dicathian to vote? On Earth, most nations considered eighteen years old the correct age, while others even had it at sixteen. But what about a world where children could use deadly spells by the age of twelve for humans, and even younger for elves and dwarves?
Was the awakening as a mage for humans the correct choice? But that would work only if everyone awakened at the same age; some awakened as early as twelve, others had to wait until fourteen or older. And I was only speaking of humans.
"How old are you?" I asked the youngest members of the Dast family, feeling the intense presence of Marko Felsen as he waited for my decision.
"Thirteen," one said.
"Eleven," said the other.
"Young Warend, is there a problem?" Anshelm asked, his old face turning more serious. The warmth in his eyes dimmed, replaced by a wariness that cut me to the core.
I rushed this too fast! I screamed inwardly. Ten years old? My age? That will have to do.
"Nothing, I just wanted to be sure they were old enough to vote," I said with a chuckle, suppressing my inward cringe.
Ten years of age was too young! But I had to save my image. Finn Warend couldn't afford to look like a hypocrite; he had to be a beacon of hope, of fresh ideas.
Yet, the Pits' population was mainly above thirty years of age—few were the ones brave enough to have children in such conditions. For now... it had to be enough.
I gave the pebbles to the rest of the Dast family and went on, the weight of my compromise pressing against my mind.
I had built this system, had championed it as the birth of a new era, and already I was bending its rules to suit my convenience.
In my quest to create something better, I had become exactly what I despised: a leader who made decisions for others with his interests in mind. The thought burned, a slow, simmering anger directed at myself.
—
"Aurora," I said, eyeing the raven on my shoulder after I finished visiting the last Powder. The final dwelling had been a cramped shelter of salvaged wood and rusted metal, home to a family of five who had looked at me with eyes full of desperate hope. "Care to share your notes?"
Marko Felsen had gone to Pitrah's Water Generator, where everyone would place their desired pebble into one of two urns—two beautiful pieces of pottery crafted in record time in the Cogs, the industrial sector between Lower and Middle Vildorial, by Frederock Koal.
Those two urns were probably the best-looking objects in all of the Pits already, their craftsmanship a stark contrast to the ramshackle dwellings that surrounded them.
Despite everything, I had to put in a good word for Felsen: he had good managerial skills. The Water Baron had organized the voting process with an efficiency that bordered on the military, his stern presence keeping order in the chaos of anticipation.
"What do you wish to know?" Aurora asked, her voice a soft rasp against my ear.
"How many people live in the Pits?" I asked. "I think what you have done is the closest thing to an official census this place has ever had in decades."
"Three thousand and twenty-five," Aurora said. "Quite a lot of people."
"For Asuras like you, maybe..." I replied, the words carrying a weight I hadn't intended. Three thousand people were not that many to sustain the workforce Pitrah needed to return to a semblance of glory.
"And what about the age range?"
"Pitrah has an... old population by their standards," Aurora said, holding with one of her raven legs a large scroll in front of her which went all the way down from my shoulder to my waist and touched the ground.
The parchment was covered in her precise, elegant script, a record of lives that had been forgotten by the world above.
"Just how many things have you written down there?" I asked, genuinely impressed. "And how did you do it?"
"Eralith, I spent centuries in the Hearth having nothing better to do than writing and smoking with the Clan," Aurora sighed, a hint of ancient weariness in her voice. "I have mastered many, and I mean many, writing methods and styles."
"Smoking?" I echoed, taken aback by her answer.
The surprise lasted only a heartbeat before Retrocurrent pulled a memory from "my" previous life as Eralith Asclepius to the surface of my mind.
For Phoenixes—though whether this applied to all of them or strictly the Asclepius Clan, I wasn't certain—smoking was a common social ritual, deeply rooted in their community, a staple of social gatherings.
The image of Eralith Asclepius sharing a smoke with his flock flashed through my mind, a ghost of a life that had been mine and not mine at the same time.
"Nevermind, I remembered," I said, shaking off the vision. "Sorry to have interrupted you."
"As I was saying," Aurora returned, her tone carrying a hint of reproach, "more than half the population exceeds the fifty years of age, while only a hundred dwarves are younger than twenty."
That wasn't very comforting to hear. The Pits were aging, their population a testament to the generations of struggle that had defined this place. The young were few, the old many, and the future uncertain.
"Mages? Are there any?" I asked, already knowing the answer.
"None," was my scribe's answer.
Obviously. If they were mages, they wouldn't be here in the first place. The Pits were a place of last resort, a destination for those who had nowhere else to go.
Dwarves aged slower than humans, but without mana by their side, they remained unable to work the hard jobs Pitrah would soon need: removing the debris of the Goldminers Guild, exploring the old tunnels, building new houses, workshops, and infrastructure.
It meant I would need to either import new workers or start seriously working on the promise I had made to Dawsid Greysunders.
For either of them, however, I had a plan.
"It's about time for the referendum," I said, the weight of the moment pressing against my chest. "Let's go."
In a flourish of light, the long scroll held by Aurora returned into a storage ring she kept around her neck, which looked more like a strange collar, and we departed for Pitrah's centre.
—
"Thanks for everything, Lord Throneholder," one of the Powders said, putting his chosen pebble inside the respective urn.
I nodded back, the voting procession having been going for a while, and we weren't even half through it.
I probably wouldn't make it in time for dinner with my family today.
Every Powder with the right to vote—which meant almost everyone, as there were only a dozen children younger than me in all of Pitrah—was organized in a line, eagerly waiting their turn to cast their votes. The line stretched across the cavern like a river of people, flowing slowly but steadily toward the urns that held the future of this place.
Another Powder came in front of the urns, looked at them deep in thought, and placed their pebble inside one, leaving space for the next. It was a monotonous, boring process for me, but one filled with nervousness and anticipation for the Powders.
"What do you mean you are going to vote against?!"
Breaking the low murmur of anticipation was the loud, angry, voice of another dwarf. Thanks to my heightened sight, used to the darkness of the Pits thanks to REmould making me dwarven in practically everything, and the integration with Berna's Beast Will, I clearly saw the reason for such chaos.
"You want to continue to live like wretched rabble?! With nothing to their names but their own misery?!" The angered dwarf growled and—threw a punch straight to the face of his interlocutor. "Fine! Good for you! But we don't! We want something better for us! For our families!"
This seemed to upstart turmoil in the crowd of Powders—no, Pitrans.
Many voices rose to support the first one, while others rose against them: both from those that didn't want to use the portal and those scandalised for the use of force by the first dwarf. The cavern erupted into a cacophony of shouting, a storm of voices that threatened to drown out reason itself.
"Get back in line! We will resolve this peacefully!" I shouted, empowering my voice with mana. "Together!"
But even that wasn't enough against the voices of hundreds of angry dwarves—dwarves angry about everything they had suffered for generations, treated as the trash of Vildorial.
I saw Water Baron Felsen giving me a look that told more than a hundred words: he was commending my attempt, but he never truly believed in my project.
That was why he became a Water Baron in the first place and not a leader for the Powders—a dwarf with his talents and stoicism could have easily achieved that. The same was true for Elder Rahdeas... he too had left the Pits.
"Stop fighting!" I shouted, using more mana to strengthen my vocal cords, but that was it. Just noise.
The chaos continued, a wave of fury and desperation that threatened to sweep away everything I had tried to build.
"Eralith, you need to bring them back in place," Char, Aurora, said on my shoulder, her voice a sharp counterpoint to the din.
"No! I know what you mean. I am not an Asura! I am not Kezess Indrath!" I hissed at her, the words tasting like ash.
"Even Lord Mordain knew when force was needed," Aurora said, her voice carrying the weight of centuries.
"I... I... you are right," I sighed, and let the hidden power of my mana signature free.
I called upon the King's Force of Eralith Asclepius, son of the Lost Prince, letting it flood the cavern just as I had against Kai Crestless in many loops forgotten.
I meant the Pitrans no harm, but the aura's weight left them no choice: it struck them silent, dragging every gaze toward me. The pressure was a dense gravity that warped the air itself, smoothing away their resistance until only my voice remained.
"Look at yourselves!" I exclaimed, reigning in my anger and disappointment. "Fighting like barbarians! That's why the people from Vildorial consider you like mana beasts! You are just proving their prejudice!"
I paused for a second, letting the words sink in. The silence was absolute, a held breath that stretched across the cavern.
"Now, get back in line and cast your votes," I ordered, my voice carrying the weight of my conviction.
"Because by doing this, you will prove to Vildorial, to Darv, to Dicathen, and the whole world that they are wrong! Vote and prove everyone that the Powders no longer exist! Prove everyone that today the Freecity of Pitrah is united as one—whatever the outcome may be."
I finally let my King's Force die out, the ambient mana of the Pits returning to its normal state. The release of pressure was palpable, a collective exhale that rippled through the crowd.
"Let the referendum begin anew," I said.
Hours ticked by as every vote was carefully verified and counted.
Beneath the cavernous vaults, the inhabitants of the former Pits of Vildorial packed the grounds around the portal, waiting in taut stillness for the result. Not a voice broke the gloom; the silence was dense and electric, carrying the full weight of a decision that would dictate their future.
I cleared my throat, took the paper on which Aurora had written down the results, and declared loudly:
"Two thousand votes, five hundred and ten go to using the portal for the betterment of Freecity Pitrah!" I declared, my voice echoing in the cave.
More than 75% of these dwarves had agreed—a landslide through and through.
Cries of happiness and victory fractured the silence that followed my announcement. The sound was overwhelming, a wave of joy that washed over the cavern and seemed to light up the darkness itself.
From today onwards, there would officially be four nations in Dicathen: Sapin, the kingdom of humans; Elenoir, the kingdom of elves; Darv, the kingdom of dwarves and the city-state of Pitrah.