I strode through the winding grounds around the Ponpti Manor, attempting to exude self-confidence to everyone I passed. To be honest, I wasn't doing that great a job at it. I attribute that mainly to the fact that I didn't feel the emotion I was attempting to project, and I wasn't a trained actor who knows how to fake their emotions.

Confidence was the last thing I was feeling at the moment, not that I could make another choice and live with myself. I know, with absolute certainty, that I am not the type of person who would go scurry off into a corner and hide. Of course, that is ignoring the times I did exactly that as a scout to avoid pursuers…

You know, if you are getting technical, if I were seriously injured or died here, then it would make life as a scout difficult, if not impossible. Going off to hide with that kind of logic, it could be construed as necessary… No! I will not hide.

With that decided again, I continued walking, wine cup in hand. Not hiding was one thing. Not being killed or having my limbs chopped off by a noble with oceans of comparative mental power was another matter entirely. It might be considered weird, but that wasn't something I wanted to happen.

The best manner I saw to prevent that was to find Kanieta and Senator Ponpti, and then stick as close as possible to them, so they could intervene on my behalf. And they would, if not out of friendship, then because anything done to me would make them look bad.

Maybe there was a better plan out there, but it was all that I could think of in the moment. So I eyed everyone I passed, searching for my lifeline while looking for someone who wasn't blatantly ignoring me and Franklin. I wasn't an investigator or anything, but I would bet that someone who fell into that category was going to be the one who caused me problems.

After walking more than two-thirds of the way around the manor grounds, we stumbled into a brightly lit clearing surrounded by tall hedges. From the back of the crowd, I saw two men leaping high into the air before landing on small vertical poles barely larger than their feet. They quickly shifted from simple exaggerated leaps to performing intricate flips and spins as they danced around the few dozen poles composing their stage.

One of the performers was wielding a flaming spear, and orbs of fire floated and spun around his body, casting his face into dark shadows. The other performer was unarmed and always on the back foot as he attempted to escape his pursuer. The man almost looked to be drunk as he stumbled over himself half the time, only to escape being skewered at the last moment by the barest margins.

Unable to pull my eyes away, I watched as the performer wielding the fire spear finally became fed up with the pursuit and released a shout as he thrust his ethereal weapon forward. As one, the orbs of fire flowing around the spearman's body transformed into streams that collected around the spearshaft and shot down its length, expelling from the tip as a stream of liquid flames.

Eyes widening and releasing a shout of fear, the target looked around frantically, only to realize he was trapped in the corner of the stage. Squaring his back, the man looked across the stage, and the flames suddenly froze, allowing him to speak, "If this is our fate, so be it, brother! I did not wish for our tale to end in blood, but I will not willingly die for your avarice!"

In the next moment, the slowed fire sped back up, and in desperation, the unarmed man slapped his hands together and thrust them forward. Instead of the fire washing over him and that being the end, the defender managed to deflect the fire beam, splitting it into five streams that flowed around his body.

Except that wasn't the end of it, as the defending man shouted and grunted in effort. Slowly but surely, the streams of fire slipping around his form began to turn back toward the caster, until they were focused back onto the central attack. A moment after the fire was redirected back onto itself, an explosion occurred, sending out jets of flame that ignited different parts of the stage.

As the smoke was still clearing, I saw flashes of moments as the two rushed at each other. The one with the spear thrust out with repeated bars of fiery power, only for them to be deflected and redirected in increasingly intricate patterns as the ambient flames around them grew. As time passed, every attack and block sent up increasingly large billows of sparks.

The dance of death intensified as the attacks accelerated, and fire began collecting around the combatants' bodies as they sent out waves of fire with each impact. Again and again, the unarmed man slipped by the fiery thrusts of his opponent, but with every clash, the attacks drew closer, as his deflections came a moment later, and everyone could see the end coming. Finally, he failed to deflect an attack, and the fire spear of flame was shoved through his chest, bursting out his back as he was lifted into the air.

The duo froze in place, the unarmed man hanging in the air, his body lodged on the weapon. In the moment of silence, the skewered brother gasped, "Was it worth it? Are you finally happy? I can feel it, I am already dead, but you will succumb to the flames soon after my death."

"Yes." Came the simple, but chilling reply. "You should never have been the heir. Father made a mistake, and I allowed it to continue. I have watched you slowly lead our family to ruin for too long. But no more. If this is the end of our line, let it be a blaze rather than a sputter." The next moment, the flames on the stage burst into a blinding intensity, releasing a flare of heat and light that made the onlookers blink and flinch back in surprise.

When my eyes re-adjusted, the pair was standing on an actual stage, though it did have a bit of scorching. With their close arms around each other's shoulders, and their far arms lifted up into the air, accepting the cheers of the crowd.

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The pair bowed to their audience, then they stepped to the side, holding out their arms as one said, "I am glad that you have enjoyed the performance of the Burning Brothers. But while entertainment is, of course, a purpose of this night, it is not the sole reason why we have gathered here. Now, without further ado, it is our pleasure to present Senator Ponpti and Ambassador Kanieta."

"What an outstanding performance." Senator Ponpti declared as he walked forward over the now level and elevated platform. "It was worth every copper of the none-too-small purse of coins it took to book you."

The crowd chuckled, some even nodding, knowing the senator's sentiments all too well. "What can I say?" The performer responded with a cheeky smile as he bowed off the stage, "To entertain those who claim to have seen everything under the sun, you need quality. And quality demands a corresponding price."

"True… All too true." The senator said, giving a resigned shrug of his shoulders as if he were admitting defeat. Then he brightened, "However, I can no longer agree that nobles have seen everything under the sun. Not with so many revelations in recent days, one of which I will be proud to present to all of those gathered here," he said, sweeping his arm out and to the side.

At the motion, the crowd's attention shifted from him to Kanieta, who stood a few feet back and to the right, positioned next to a small tripod stand. With a confident smile, she held up a glass ball, slightly larger than a fist, and showed it to everyone before slowly placing it into a cavity, declaring, "This is what my people call a projector."

The moment she released the sphere, a multitude of colored lights burst to life within the orb and built for a couple of seconds. Before it could become blinding, rainbows of colors spilled forth from the sphere, filling the immediate area around the device and quickly forming an image. It was the performers we had just seen, except they were frozen in place.

And then they started to move, going through the same motions that those gathered had just seen minutes before. Gasps of shock and shouts of awe tore through the nobles, and even the performers themselves appeared, watching their own performance play out.

Clear voice cutting through the crowd, Kaneita declared, "The projector replays the images captured with another device called a recorder and stores the images within the crystal sphere. The time that can be stored is limited, only around five minutes, but it can be overwritten and chopped up however you like. While this is a novelty and can serve no end of amusement or even serve as a way to immortalize important moments, it can also serve as a tactical asset to the legion. This is only one example of the items that my people are willing to offer in trade to our allies. If you are interested in them, we have set up a small display in the back of the house—

A body slammed into me, and I stumbled backward, my arms flailing out to my sides to regain my balance. Head jerking up for the one who hit me, I saw a form slipping into the crowd. Stepping forward to go after the man, I was stopped by screams of horror and shouts of rage coming from all around me.

Looking around, I felt my heart drop out of my chest. The flashy display of the castings had distracted me, and I forgot my reasons for searching out Kanieta. Now I was surrounded by nobles whose outfits had been ruined by the wine I had accidentally flung about as I attempted to catch my balance.

Right on cue, a lean young man, his face twisted with disgust and hatred, stepped forward, shouting, "How dare an elf intentionally ruin the clothes of his betters? I saw you flinging your wine at us with my own eyes! For that matter, what is he even doing here? What gives him the right to be in our presence?"

"Yeah, he doesn't belong here!" Shouted someone within the crowd, while the women whose nights were ruined along with their clothes, muttered amongst themselves, shooting dark looks at me.

"We should throw him out!" Calls another voice from my opposite side, getting a murmur of approval.

"Excuse me, gentlemen, what is the problem back there?" Senator Ponpti asked, his eyes already locked onto the situation.

"This elf here threw his wine all over me, and these fine ladies here. My honor demands action for the affront." Declared the pompous young man, nearly shouting to ensure that everyone could hear.

"I understand the vigor and impulses of youth all too well, but this particular elf happens to be a member of the Kin delegation, and thus he is under mine and the Senate's protection. I can not allow him to be thrown out, let alone harmed. However, as a gesture of goodwill, I will personally cover the costs of new gowns for the ladies at Madrons. I hope that will be more than enough to cover any inconvenience you have suffered." As the senator spoke, whispers rippled through the crowd at the mention of Madron's, as apparently that was a rather big deal. If anything, the four women who had wine spilled on them looked happy, and those around them looked jealous.

However, the man did not care about such a bribe, as his intentions were for violence. "No," he said, slashing his arm, "How can I ever enter into the embrace of the Great Elementals with such a stain upon my name. From now until the day I die, this event will plague my mind. As such, if I can not banish him from my presence, I demand a duel to the death."

I felt a shiver of fear run down my spine as I felt a wave of power from the man when he looked at me with a blood thirsty smile. "Your request is, I am afraid, impossible. As I already mentioned, he is part of the Kin delegation, regardless of his social standing within our society. For you to kill him, or for myself to allow him to enter a duel to the death, will be in direct defiance of the Senate. Such an act carries a death sentence, even for a senator, let alone some punk who is barely off his mother's teat and has an overinflated sense of ego."

The response to the senator's words, if I was reading it right, was absolute shock, followed by the eruption of tittering from the young women as they attempted to maintain their composure. Some men let out a bark of a laugh and called out a jibe of one form or another, but if I had to make an easy guess, it was the women's reaction that really put the young noble's back up and caused his face to flush.

"I am Victorak Sathrin, heir to House Sathrin. How dare you speak to me in such a way!" The embarrassed man shrieked more than declared. Then again, wouldn't the more confident you could be in effectively saying, "fear me because of my name and daddy," the more embarrassing it would be? In a way, he said it in the least embarrassing way possible.

"And I do not care. Your family is not above the law, and your father cannot shield you from this. Further proclaiming that he can is doing far more to damage your tattered reputation than any wine ever would." I shuffled away from the noble, mildly concerned that I might get burned by physical association from the tongue-lashing he was getting. It was a sentiment that everyone else shared, as a circle had formed around the man.

His face went purple at the last comment, but a moment later, he drew in a breath and calmed himself down. That more than anything set me on edge, as the anger was still there. It was simply a cold and controlled fire. In a calm and clipped voice, the young man said, "Then I will settle for a duel to first blood. That is acceptable while under the Senate's protection, and I will not be denied my vengeance." Turning, the noble drew the sword at his side and pointed it at me as I attempted to slip into the crowd.

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