For a city with over ten thousand residents, Kestra was a bit surprised to have only fifty-some people running "large" trading, crafting, or other kinds of associations, including those with ties to the upper Horizons.

She had the transmigrators positioned around the room, with stacks of paper and "pencils" -- a close analog to the mark sticks of Moh. She had also asked that the slaves be given clothes appropriate for free peoples, so the women were no longer a breath and a hope away from naked.

Graemire had decided to pretend to be her cloak, and his tendrils had infiltrated the fancier clothes the mansion staff had found and altered to fit her. Out of respect for her need to focus while "being new to paired orgasmic cultivation", he kept from stimulating her more sensitive bits, but the knowledge that he could, right there in front of everyone, and no one would know why she was orgasming her brains out turned out to be huge thrill for Kestra.

It put her in a much happier mood.

After the last of the attendees had had a chance to settle in and sip at the ubiquitous tea that seemed to accompany every deliberative social interaction in this realm, Kestra signaled the gong boy -- another traditional trapping of official muckety-muck business -- to officially start things. The ringing of the gong brought all eyes to Kestra.

"Would all the invited guests who have obligations that would prevent them from taking part in the governance of Sortalheim, please take a seat in the gallery?" she asked, gesturing to cushioned daises prepared to the sides of a low table.

Eleven of the invited attendees moved, among them Manager Mardu.

When no one else moved, Kestra beamed at the remaining people. "Excellent! For those who are not bound by obligation to be observers, please take at seat at the deliberations tables. You are now Sortalheim's Low Council. You will find several scrolls at each seat. They are all identical, and contain the proposed framework for a restructuring of civic authority within Sortalheim. It gave me great joy to discover members among Sortalheim's city clerks capable of making this documents consumables, so please take a moment to familiarize yourselves with their contents."

While the new Low Council sorted themselves, Kestra had copies of the proposed topics passed to the observers. To them, she said, "You represent organizations with an interest in Sortalheim, and with whom good relations have the potential to increase the prosperity of all involved. For this reason, I am furnishing you with the same set of proposals that the Low Council shall soon deliberate upon.

"Something that may become apparent by inference after perusing these proposals is that I do not intend to be the City Lord of Sortalheim for any longer than is needful to peacefully transition control of the city to those better suited for leadership roles.

"Further, it is my understanding that Sortalheim benefits by being a vassal city of the nation of Oste. When I took control of the city, that broke the ties of vassalage. I intend to see those ties re-established, under certain constraints."

Kestra inclined her head to the gallery, then walked over to the back of the room. She opened a servant's door there and brought forward the now eldest son of the late Ramakith Ard.

The lad refused to wear "boy" clothes, or have his hair dressed in "boy's" fashions. To Kestra, clothes that showed off one's sex were an elvish custom, so she didn't care, and when the matter was brought to her attention by a harried servant an hour before, her response was, "He's a child still and this has been a trying enough change for the adults. If it makes him feel better, then so be it."

His mother was Ramakith's surviving official wife, and she trailed behind her child, her expression carefully blank and placid.

"Esteemed Observers, I formally present to you Lady Vasali Nar, regent for Lord-In-Waiting Ramakith Astril, and the young Lord-in-Waiting himself, eldest surviving son of Lord Ramakith Ard of the Oste Nation. Upon their shoulders rests the reintegration of Sortalheim with the Nation of Oste."

Lady Nar blinked, but young Astril sucked in a surprised breath, not quite as good at keeping up a poker face as his mother.

Kestra had had the first copies of her proposals presented to the pair, so they had had more of a chance to get used to the topics about to be discussed. She personally escorted them to an observer dais at the head of the deliberation table and, at Graemire's hushed prompting, served them tea from her own hand.

Most of the new Low Councilors watched the exchange with interest, only a few still looking pained and dazed as they absorbed the documents. All of the observers were serene, their cultivation high enough that the flood of information struck them more like the splash of a stream than a river. Kestra gave the councilors with lower cultivation a few more minutes before she had gong-boy call for attention.

"Our first topic will be citizenship."

Kestra input the last of the preliminary changes to Sortalheim's City Stone. She had had Inspri double check her for any errors to her intended entries, and followed the sprite's directions to find and fix the ones she caught. Now, the sprite ran a final check.

«All good,» Inspri reported.

Kestra accepted the changes and turned on Sortalheim's new Legal Code.

Then she pulled out the slim volumes Inspri had collated, and two jade-sealed crates. They were the product of twenty days of wrangling meetings and twenty nights of dreaming beside her World Seed. If not for Graemire's "paired cultivation", Kestra might have killed someone out of sheer frustration.

Emperor of Wood! Just thinking of his title made a very sexually satisfied side of Kestra snicker. He was certainly the Emperor of making Kestra orgasm. This was one of the rare times he wasn't wrapped around her. He'd even suggested she wear him like a dress on a few occasions, very obviously intending to use the greater access to her body to tease her all day long.

He at least had the sense to wait until she was private, and to give her a gag, when he brought her to screaming orgasms throughout the day. He said that he was taking in her mana during her orgasms. At night, he would take on his more humanoid form and return mana to her through his own.

Just thinking of the way he pounded into her was making her horny, and that was not the frame of mind she wanted to be for this next bit.

"I invoke the City Lord's access to submit proposed changes to the Ten Horizons," she intoned, kneeling to one side of the City Stone with a hand braced upon it.

Invocation Successful

State your proposal.

So far so good.

"I have three separate proposals," Kestra stated. "Two relate to the operations of the City Stone interfacings, and one to the cleansing of befouled lands."

The air around her became so thick with weighted attention she had to pause to make sure she was breathing.

"The first city interfacing change I propose is the creation of a citizen resident status. All the details I and my servitor have compiled for how that residency would work within the existing city interfacing are contained in this document, given freely to the Ten Horizons. A prototype of the soul-bound citizen token is contained in this box, also given freely to the Ten Horizons. The purpose of this proposed addition is to create accountability among City Lords to those whom they invite to build up their cities with them."

Kestra had wanted to include something like the Noble's Covenant from Moh, the requirement for a city lord to not steal the prosperity of the city's populace, but the Divines had warned that it would doom her proposal. Few, if any, existing city lords would subject themselves to that oath.

Citizenship, on the other hand, could become a nice political bargaining chip. That made it far more likely to be adopted by the existing city lords, and therefore more likely the Ten Horizons would add it to the City Stone interfacing. The fact that the proposal outlined ways in which the city lords would be responsible for providing the mana and resources needed to enact citizenship should also aid in its adoption, at least in Graemire and Ralouf's opinions.

The indicated document and box blipped off to wherever the Ten Horizons decided they needed to go.

Proposal of New Resident Status Received

Review of detailed plan and accompanying token prototype is underway and a determination will be provided once the review has completed.

Please continue.

That last line was both reassuring and kind of frightening, but Kestra pressed on.

"The second city interfacing change I propose is an amendment to the sections for designating a successor to allow for invoking a requirement to undergo a non-lethal spiritual tribulation to prove that the successor meets certain standards of competence. The details of this proposal, along with specifications of an example tribulation are contained in this text, given freely to the Ten Horizons. I use the word tribulation in the sense that I understand from my own origins, that it is a challenge whose rewards one must harvest from the adversity one overcomes."

That had required less compromise and more research, with no little bit of the wrangling in those meetings to nail down what the example tribulation should include.

Proposed Changes to Successor System Received

Review of detailed plan is underway and a determination will be provided once the review has completed.

Please continue.

"For the last proposal, I haven't enough information to form a solid plan. It is more of a proposed collaboration, I suppose. In one of my personal realms, I have bound into my soul a World Seed. It was given to me during the tribulation where I formed my realms, while I yet lived in the world of my birth. It is small, but it experienced significant growth since I put an anchor in the blighting, ah, befoulment caused by the Divine Elemental Nicada.

"The anchor in the befoulment is holding open a conduit through which my World Seed is eating the corrupting aspects of the warped mana. Receiving the Harmonious title gives me reason to believe that this is a state of affairs that pleases the Ten Horizons, and so I crafted a new iteration of such a conduit, which is contained in this remaining box.

"I, and the World Seed I contain, cannot handle befoulment of that degree on my own, but this anchor could be dropped into a place of befoulment as a quick response while the Ten Horizons moves to place a dungeon to take over the work of cleansing.

"If this is an agreeable offer, what I would ask in return is a monitor, to ensure that I and my World Seed are not Warped from too much exposure to befoulment. With that caution in place, I feel that the growth my World Seed experiences from cleaning up befoulment would be sufficient compensation for the act.

"I would appreciate if, at the time the current blight-eating anchor has served sufficient purpose for the Ten Horizons, that it be returned to me for me to study, at which point I would turn over the second of the new iteration of blight-eating anchors I have already made.

"On the other hand, if I have misunderstood, and it would better please the Ten Horizons for my existing blight-eating anchor to be removed, I humbly request that I be so informed that I may recall it right now."

Amended Proposal of Collaboration

Kestra Boom-Smiter the Harmonious provides one or more portable "blight-eating" conduit anchor(s) for rapid deployment into newly formed or expanded befoulments of the land.

This conduit anchor(s) will be used by the nascent World Seed bound in the soul of Kestra Boom-Smiter to remove befouled mana with the aim of containing befoulment while the Ten Horizons places appropriate long-term measures to cleanse the befoulment.

The Ten Horizons provides an entity to monitor and prevent Kestra Boom-Smiter and/or the World Seed absorbed into the soul of Kestra Boom-Smiter from sustaining befoulment deprivations.

The Ten Horizons is responsible for all aspects regarding the emplacement of the "blight-eating" conduit anchor, including mana expenditure.

The Ten Horizons is responsible for the maintenance and conduct of the monitor tasked with preventing Kestra Boom-Smiter and/or the World Seed absorbed into the soul of Kestra Boom-Smiter from sustaining befoulment deprivations.

Mana and matter reclaimed by the World Seed bound in the soul of Kestra Boom-Smiter shall become the property of said World Seed.

Amendments:

- Existing anchor must remain as-is to ensure proper monitoring of potential befoulment deprivations.

Do you accept these amendments?

YES / NO

"Yes," Kestra said. "I, ah, also don't know enough about World Seeds, so if the monitor you provide also helps me to not cause harm to the Ten Horizons, I would really appreciate that."

Proposal Accepted with Amendments

Appropriate monitor is being created and will be delivered via existing anchor-conduit upon formation.

"Great!" Kestra said, popping out the second one of her anchors. "Seeing as the original one is going to remain as-is, and you're helping with me not becoming Warped, here's the second of the new anchors I made. If there's ways I can improve them to our mutual prosperity, I would be happy for your critiques."

Both of the anchors blipped the way of her City Stone proposal texts.

She took a moment to gather herself, then rose and stretched. She had done what she could for now to sort out Sortalheim. There was just the last three of the unjustly enslaved to see to.

Kestra may have been stuck in Sortalheim to ensure the changes in its governance transitioned smoothly, but not all of those Ramakith Ard had unjustly enslaved had been there. Thirty had been scattered throughout his lands, and one had been sold to a traveler. When Yorgin convinced Vostler and Ralouf that he was as recovered as he would get, the Divine Creatures had gone off to buy up all the slaves and free them.

Kestra had made arrangements with the trade houses to create what someone had termed "emancipation packs", which she funded. The newly freed slaves outside of Sortalheim were given three consumable skill scrolls, ten silvers, food enough for themselves for a month, and a Low Novice storage ring to hold it all. The first skill scroll was for Cooking, the second for Farming. The two others were random crafts such as Woodworking, Smithing, Pottery, Alchemy, Calligraphy, and Tailoring.

The skill scrolls were all of such a basic nature that they mostly just ensured people would form the skills when they applied the knowledge gained from them, but it was still considered a major boon.

Kestra did not believe that slavery could be eliminated in Sortalheim, not when it was still prevalent throughout the whole of the First Horizon, but she did enact into Sortalheim's laws a code that granted slaves standing to seek redress against abusive owners and guaranteed, in spirit at least, that no owner could murder or rape their slaves, or starve or maim them, nor leave them exposed to the elements. Under her new code, no one under the Age of Maturity, defined as 23 years upon the First Horizon, could be sold as a slave, and anyone born to an enslaved parent was free, and the parent's portion of costs related to raising the child were to paid by the slave's owner. In addition, slaves could own property of their own which their owners could not take or demand the use of, nor damage without just compensation, and every sold-slave had the ability to purchase their freedom.

Those enslaved for criminal acts were purchased from individual owners and made the property of the city, their terms of enslavement bound up against their crimes. The city governance and all future City Lords of Sortalheim were expressly forbidden to transfer the ownership of anyone enslaved for a crime away from the city itself.

After those laws were read out, Kestra also put it forward that any sold-slave owners who had been recorded during the Plaza Slave Trials, as the first two days of Kestra's term as City Lord were being called, could receive ten silvers from Kestra for their slaves.

There were a lot of people who took her up on that, and those were the first slaves to receive the "emancipation packs".

The Divines were happy to progress on their quest, and the Elementals took Yorgin and Ralouf's assurances that Kestra's way of dealing with things was good enough.

By the time the Divines had returned, Kestra had also worked out plans with Tank and Puck to help the transmigrator slaves transition to life in the Ten Horizons by sponsoring a new village closer to the tracts of wilderness Graemire had spent his cultivation to make. That area was now called the Azure Wilds, and the new village was Azure Village.

Kestra had bargained with the other transmigrators that wanted to not be in Sortalheim to spend at least two months putting together Azure Village while they figured out what they wanted to do, or calmed down from the injuries done them during their enslavements.

Of the transmigrators, only Laura was deadset on neither speaking of what had been done to her nor letting go of her murderous rage against the unnamed people she planned to kill.

The room Kestra had taken for her office was comfortable more than opulent. Her desk was to one side, but most of her time in the room was spent in the conversation chairs.

Laura was the first of her appointments since updating the City Stone, and dealing with the woman's implacable stubbornness was one of the reasons Kestra had grown to really appreciate the tea addiction of this realm. The cups gave her something to do with her hands, and pausing to sip provided her a moment to bite back the urge to throw her cup at the other woman.

When the slave was shown in, the first thing Laura said was, "Fuck no! I am going to kill those fuckers!"

Kestra had the orb already out. It stayed inert, as it did for a lot of impassioned prophesies. Now, if Laura said she intended to kill "those fuckers", that was a present reality the orb responded to.

"Sit, please. I've had enough time from everything else going on to consider what you're going through, and I need what Tank called a 'sounding board'."

That was apparently enough off whatever script Laura had for this meeting to make the woman blink. She watched Kestra with deep suspicion as she settled into the indicated seat.

Kestra handed her a cup of tea. "Going through and updating the City Stone with all of the laws was a labor. I did, however, find out that there are codified laws regarding formal fights known as duels. Are you familiar with this idea? It's not something I was exposed to before." Her orb's golden glow was also something Kestra had come to appreciate.

"I've heard of dueling," Laura agreed, still suspicious.

"There are a number of grievances from the way Ramakith Ard ran this city, and you are not the only one more interested in vengeance than justice." Kestra narrowed her eyes when Laura opened her mouth, probably to protest Kestra's word choice. A quick pointing at the orb close the angry woman's mouth. "The rules of these duels under Sortalheim's laws are as follows: Participants must be of the Age of Maturity. That is 23 years by the measure of the First Horizon. Participants must be at least level five. There are Duels of Avarice, Duels of Honor, and Duels of Vendetta.

"There is an Office of Duels in Sortalheim. It's currently more of a ceremonial posting, but that can be changed. All duels not directly overseen by the Ten Horizons that take place in Sortalheim's territory must be scheduled in advance and overseen by the Office of Duels.

"A Duel of Avarice may be refused, cannot end in lasting harm to either participant, and both participants must deposit that which they have offered up as forfeiture on loss with an official of the city's Office of Duels.

"Duels of Honor may also be refused, and there is a required mediation session just before the scheduled duel. It is a closed session. So long as no law of the city is broken or conspired to be broken in the session, the mediator may only address the validity of claims made by the participants about what happened during the session. This is enforced by a realm-oath.

"And the final kind is the Duel of Vendetta. These require the challenger to swear before the Ten Horizons that they have just cause to seek bloody retribution against the challenged, and that nothing but the blood of the challenged shall satisfy that retribution. If you lie when you make this oath, the Ten Horizons will slay you."

Kestra paused to let that sink in. Laura had her tea cup up in front of her face, her attention quite fixed on Kestra now.

Kestra continued, satisfied that the warning had been well delivered. "If the challenged is past the Age of Maturity, level five or higher, and physically healthy at the time of the challenge, they will be brought to the dueling field, at which point they will be notified that they have been issued a verified challenge to a Duel of Vendetta.

"Both participants will be stripped of the clothes and equipment they came with, provided white dueling clothes and weapons of their choosing from the armory of the Office of Duels. At that point, they fight until one surrenders. The forfeiture of a Duel of Vendetta is one's life, either as a corpse or as the slave of the winner."

That called for another pause for emphasis. Laura's gaze had hooded, and she took a contemplative sip of her tea. When the tea cup came down, Kestra asked, "With this avenue of legal redress open to you, will you swear to follow the laws of Sortalheim in exchange for me freeing you from your enslavement and realm-oaths to me?"

Laura thought a bit, then nodded. "Yes."

They handled the details. Kestra had one less unjust slave to free, and a Minister of Duels to go make sure had the support staff she figured he was soon going to need.