Once Mordecai had escorted Fuyuko and Amrydor to the wagon, got insincerely scolded by both Kazue and Akahana for sending swarms of wide-eyed orphans at them while Moriko failed to hide her laughter, listened to Ricardo grumble just as insincerely about how much his daughter and wife had made him spend on the little ones, and then made sure that Ricardo had completed the arrangements for everyone else's carriage ride tomorrow, Mordecai made his way toward the encampment that lay north of the city.

Kazue had been very particular in her complaints about having to have given up most of her lokum, the gel-like sweet she had fallen in love with when they were in Artgoi the first time, and had picked up even more when they stopped again on their way north. Of course, said orphans would have had no way of knowing about the lokum if she hadn't given it to them, yet she claimed it was somehow all Mordecai's fault, though her words were delivered with a smile and a warm kiss, making it hard to give them much credence.

His form flickered rapidly through the many long shadows of the city, covering that distance faster than he could by running or flying, finally stepping out into the light about a block away from the walls. Just as he'd needed to circumnavigate around the more well-warded homes inside the city, shadow-stepping through the walls of a large, well-established city was not readily done, even for someone as well practiced as himself.

Even so, Mordecai felt that he had a good chance of doing so, and probably not even setting off any alarms on the way, but it was not worth the time, effort, or risk.

Of course, the deep shadows were always available if he really had to, but distance was strange in the shadowlands, and it was hard to be sure you were actually leaving the shadows where you thought you were leaving.

Traveling through the gate normally was very little trouble, and as soon as he was clear of other travelers, he stepped into the air to begin a deceptively casual lope. Flying would have been even faster than air-walking, but Mordecai felt that arriving with his wings out would make for a more ostentatious display than he wanted. He was, after all, already dressed up in Kazue's ideal of an Azerian military dress uniform for him, though Mordecai had made a few tweaks out of practicality.

For some reason, Kazue's ideal included pants that were far too tight.

His primary reason for heading out ahead of the rest of the expedition was that he did not want his friends and family to spend an entire day waiting inside the encampment. While he trusted the baron to be good to his word, for the sake of his son if nothing else, the military forces did not exclusively belong to him.

Sympathizers with the Puritasi were one concern, of course; people who, for whatever reason, had chosen to keep their affiliation secret, but they were not the only concern. Other possible dangers ranged from people paranoid that this was a plot by Kuiccihan to people simply angry that an outsider had dared to do anything that influenced the actions of a local noble.

Politics and nationalism could get incredibly nasty, and for an empire to have been stable for as long as Trionea had been, required a strong group identity. Though he did wonder how much longer that could last.

While he had been air-walking, Fuyuko had accepted Amrydor as her shield. This was not unexpected; it had been, in fact, one of the higher probability outcomes.

However, what he had not been expecting was to know it at the very moment that she made that connection. Knowledge resonated from the cores to both himself and Kazue's avatar, prompting him to activate his earring to find out what had just happened. It took a few minutes of puzzling out the nature of the new connection before they were fairly certain that they had figured it out.

Normally, a contractor for the nexus has no authority to create new contracts for said nexus. But their nexus was also a faerie kingdom, and a princess did have the authority to attach someone to her service, making them a part of the kingdom.

But between her having done so as a Princess of Kuiccihan, not Azeria, and because for the nexus side, she was still technically only a contractor, the connection wasn't direct. It echoed through Fuyuko, or maybe relayed would be the better word. No matter how you looked at it, Amrydor was connected only through her.

This created an unusual relationship with Amrydor that was not quite that of a contractor, and thus he would still be able to delve, but he was also close enough to being one that the inhabitants would default to treating him as one of their own, and the normal energy exchange was going to be inefficient. It would take Amrydor two to three times as much effort to gather the same rewards.

They would have to wait until Amrydor next stepped into their territory to find out if he was going to either benefit from Kazue's boon or be attached to the same cycle as a proper contractor. Either way, they were suspicious that Fuyuko, being the relay, would be the one having to deal with the outcome if anything happened to him, rather than the core.

New training was added to Fuyuko's list, along with a challenge for the rest of them. No one had any idea how to train Fuyuko's mental reflexes to deal with the sudden presence of a new soul and the demands of nexus magic insisting on a safe destination for reforming a body. That was assuming it was Kazue's boon that was active — if it was a contractor's normal attachment to the nexus's reset schedule instead, then she'd be hosting Amrydor's soul until the next reset.

Hopefully, that would never happen, but delving was dangerous, and there would always be a risk.

Also, a new rule. Amrydor would only be allowed to delve while Fuyuko was in the nexus's territory. Figuring out what would happen in that scenario if Fuyuko was not in range of the magic was not something anyone wanted to deal with, and would be highly speculative anyway.

What a mess.

Though, something similar might have happened with Satsuki first, if she weren't far too powerful for them to make even a pseudo-contract with. There was more leeway with a contractor than with an inhabitant, but not that much leeway.

Mordecai maintained his steady run while all of this was being worked out, then slowed and descended as he came close to the encampment. There were tall towers along the outer edges, and those towers had perching spots for rotating through a handful of smaller fliers for aerial patrols, ranging from trained birds to flying familiars. He had noted that he had been spotted a reasonable way out, and therefore made sure to be on the ground and in plain sight well before he was within bowshot range.

Well, for most bows anyway, but no one was going to shoot at a single person approaching openly at that distance.

From there, he walked calmly up to the front gate until he was hailed, then introduced himself. "I am Lord Mordecai of Azeria, here as consultant and expedition leader. My companions will be arriving on the morrow."

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The guard who had hailed him looked uncertain, but gave a slight nod. "As you say, sir, but a moment please while I get my captain."

Mordecai waited patiently as the captain was fetched, and while he waited, he let his gaze and other senses sweep over the camp. Everything seemed in order, well, almost. The mana blocking barrier was clearly up and working at the center of the camp, but something about it felt a little off.

The captain brought a sheet of parchment with him for Mordecai to mark with his seal and activate. Once the aura signature was matched and verified, the enchantment on the paper was consumed, leaving a signed proof of identity, which the captain handed to him before saluting. "A pleasure to meet you, sir."

He returned the salute as he mused on how little that greeting actually conveyed. There were many potential reasons to be pleased to meet someone after all. "Thank you. I presume it will be a while before all the officers and such are ready for a meeting? Then I would like to examine your camp, beginning with the mana ward."

"Ah, if you like, sir, but it would be best if you had an escort. Let me arrange one for you," the captain said.

Mordecai made himself wait despite his growing certainty that the ward was doing something more than preventing mana from flowing into the nexus. A trio of young but reasonably competent-looking soldiers was assigned to him, which allowed one or two to act as messengers if needed.

As soon as that arrangement was finished, Mordecai swiftly made his way to the mana ward, though he was very careful to not get too near the lines etched into the ground. The entire encampment had a clear circle of twenty feet away from the ward, plus a low fence at the half way point, to enforce that this was being maintained for safety. Still, it was close enough for Mordecai to examine the ward properly, and before long, anger started building.

A pulse of his aura verified the flow of energy through those runes and lines, and gave him a mana signature to trace. "It seems," he told his escort, "that I need to have a conversation with your mages. You may need to hustle to keep up." He turned sharply and began walking at a sharp clip directly toward the strongest aura of those influencing the ward.

While he did not use any shadow jumps or similar techniques, his walking speed was difficult for the soldiers to match. He was not in the mood to give much allowance at the moment.

The area he wanted was adjacent to the cleared ring, and was itself a mostly cleared circle, with lines connecting it to the main ward, and with its own ward designed to exclude most people, though it was not meant to prevent an assault. Just keep random people from intruding.

Mordecai punched his way through it without breaking stride, though he did take care to not step on the secondary inscribed circle. That was the control point for the mana-blocking ward, and its secondary array.

Even before reaching the barrier that he had punched through, one of the thirteen people inside that large circle had stood and turned to faced him. She looked rather affronted when Mordecai rudely broke the barrier, but Mordecai just walked straight up to her and asked, "What in all the hells do you think you are doing with that ward?"

"Lord Mordecai, I presume?" she answered with a humorless smile. "It is merely an expedient contingency, should your delve not succeed."

How could people be so clever yet so stupid at the same time? Mordecai kept his temper in check, then said, "While your contingency would, technically, work, there are two issues with it." During his examination, he had been able to ascertain that the ward was also a siphon, drawing off ambient mana to a secondary array with a very different purpose. With the power it had been building up for months now, it was capable of channeling enough energy to almost certainly dig out Deidre's nexus, if in a rather destructive manner. "First, the core and most of the inhabitants are innocents who have been forced to act by others. I would consider such an action to be the deliberate murder of said innocents."

The lead wizard frowned at him. "Is that a threat?" she asked.

"No," Mordecai said flatly. "That is the judgment I would give as a High Priest and a Faerie King, should someone petition me on the matter." Which would give him more ability to act directly.

They locked hostile gazes for a long moment. She was, technically, strong enough to overwhelm and kill him if it came to it. But that would also require unleashing spells that would destroy a lot of the area around them at the same time. If she tried smaller, more controlled spells, his stamina and ability to heal would let him work toward victory and overcome her more immediate power. None of the six men and six women behind her could challenge him to the same level.

And that was ignoring any political issues. They both knew that neither of them was going to attack the other.

She eventually inclined her head slightly. "And the second issue?" she hissed out.

Mordecai's smile showed teeth. "I can't imagine that you have missed that pulse of mana deep beneath the ground, but you seem to have made a miscalculation. First, the nexus has almost certainly been forced to grow one or two more zones, putting the source of the mana even deeper than may have been gleaned through documentation. Second, a nexus is very, very good at containing any mana in its territory. Being able to feel a core's mana directly should be a difficult task even when in the same zone with it. From outside of the territory? That should be impossible. But not only is that happening, it's filtering out through your ward as well. So tell me, how much mana do you think is being stored in an unstable manner inside of the nexus's to create that sort of mana signature?" He waited a moment until he saw her eyes begin to widen, then finished with, "If you use that secondary array, you can remove the Barony of Cantraberg from the map, along with most of its people."

The direct energy release from the array wouldn't do much damage to the area outside of its focus. But the array would have to destroy the physical integrity of all the thousands of tons of earth in the way. Which would turn it into thousands of tons of incredibly hot dust for a moment before it turned to lava.

That lava would then be acting as a cap for all that poorly stored mana. It would not make for a very good cap, and the result would be rather similar to a sudden and extremely energetic volcano. It would also probably trigger a localized earthquake at the same time.

"I see," she said slowly as she reevaluated the dangers involved. "I– I can't commit to any action. I need to make more precise calculations and do a bit of research to verify some of what you have said. And then I will need to make a report. I am only able to take action regarding the array if I receive orders to do so."

That sounded unfortunately accurate. No matter the time or place, military protocols remained very similar, and the larger and older the nation, the more the basic protocols resembled each other. While this is a weakness that can occasionally be exploited by smaller, more flexible forces, the simple reality has always been that the alternatives are worse, on average.

Mordecai made a mental note to keep an independent, smaller organization separate from any larger military organizations, much in the same way that the Azeria clan functioned for the Kuiccihan kingdom. Their status as more than a nexus had set them on the path of becoming a proper nation, even if the faerie kingdom side of things was not properly organized yet. They might as well start preparing to run things that way. When they got back, maybe he should ask for Norumi and Kuiccihan's advice and experiences. No reason to reinvent the wheel if he didn't have to, after all.

But for the present, he had to deal with this situation with the limitations at play. "I understand the restrictions of military protocol, but I strongly suggest you expedite that process. Also, as I will already be meeting with several officers, I will be bringing the matter up with some of them directly, after the larger meeting."

She winced at that, but nodded reluctantly. "Do you need anything else?"

The woman clearly hoped there was not, and her attitude was still hostile, but his barging in like this was not exactly a friend-making action. Expediency and diplomacy were often in opposition. Time to be diplomatic.

"No, and thank you. I apologize for the nature of my intrusion, but I considered the matter rather urgent in general, in addition to my personal considerations of the ethics of the situation." He took his leave then.

Mordecai was pleased to note that his escort was wise enough to not try to navigate clearing the inscribed lines that Mordecai had simply stepped past. He had the expertise to know the clearance available, but if any of these three had tried to follow him, they'd have likely received a painful discharge of energy. The discharge would not have been too dangerous, and would have had minimal effect on the array, but it would have put them out of commission for a bit while a healer checked on them. This was part of the reason for the ward that Mordecai had punched his way through.

"My business here is concluded," he said to them, "and until the meeting, I have no particular agenda or schedule. So please, show me around, and hopefully the rest of this tour can be much more pleasant for all of us."

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