Kestra still have nine of the fifteen slaves that had begged her not to be freed.

She had no illusion that they didn't want their freedom; they were terrified that as soon as they were free they would be cast aside and easy prey. None of them had made it over level four, and they were all of an especially timid nature. There was also the prestige of being owned the City Lord; it was a level of protection.

And that was how Kestra intended to fix this little mess.

She had set an appointment with Lady Nar and Lord Astril. Laura's interview had gone far easier than Kestra had hoped, and looking at that 145 / 147 freed slaves felt good . Hopefully, she could finish off this quest, and severe the last tie binding her to the First Horizon at the same time.

The blue screen notices she received just before the pair were ushered in only made her smile with genuine joy.

After the had been tea poured and sipped, Kestra passed the pair identical documents. "Please read through these. I swear before the Ten Horizons that if you accept the bargains I have described in these documents before you leave my office now, I will honor my end of them."

The light of the Ten Horizons shimmered over Kestra.

Lord Astril and his mother read, and then conferred through communication devices. Kestra merely sat back and enjoyed her tea.

The youth cleared his throat. "Why? I know you have said you planned to give up the city, but, why did you come here ? Why did you kill Father? Why -- all of this ?" he asked, brandishing the document.

"I killed your father because I believed him when he said he would never surrender. It was as quick and as clean a death as I could give him, though that was not in his honor, but to preserve my own soul. Which was also the reason I came here. Oh, the Ten Horizons issuing a quest to free those he had unjustly enslaved was confirmation, but I was coming here before the Blessing of Benevolence kicked in."

Lady Nar was doing her best to blend into the background, but Kestra saw the bloodless white of her tensed hands on her cup. Lord Astril didn't, too busy peering intently at Kestra. "You had a quest? To kill my father?"

"No. To free those he enslaved. Challenging him for his fealty oaths was necessary to that end, and taking control of the city was also intended to remove his power to enslave. When I first got the quest, the count was 132 unjustly enslaved. Now, the total is 147. As I said, he died because I believe him when he refused to consider surrender."

"But you were coming here before you got the quest. Why?" Astril asked.

"You met Tank and Puck. They evaded your father's attempt to enslave them, and discovered the poverty he inflicted upon the people whom he should have been cultivating. It wasn't too hard for them to find people who wanted to free their families from your father's authority.

"They warned me of your father's actions, that he was enslaving strangers to Sortalheim that didn't have anyone stronger behind them to restrain him. When I first heard that, I was weak. I got stronger, and when I was telling my friends that I needed to see what I could do to stop the wrongful acts of your father, well, we all got the quest."

The boy looked back at the bargain. "Why would you give me the city?"

"One, I'm not. I'm naming you the City Lord's Successor, and making it a condition that every City Lord after me must pass a tribulation to prove their right to rule. So, I'm giving you the opportunity to take the city. It is an important distinction.

"Two, Oste. Under Oste's laws, you are the rightful successor to your father, and I am a usurper that they're honor bound to kick out. That's a war no one needs to fight, and blood that's better left unshed.

"Three, your mother. In that viper's nest of a seraglio your father made, she didn't turn to murder, but instead inspired the kind of loyalty that kept you safe. You have much to learn from her, and I expect that with her guidance you will become the kind of City Lord that the Ten Horizons issues quests to support instead of supplant."

Kestra remained relaxed while she said all that, and now she sipped her tea.

The boy's lips moved, talking through his communication device, and his mother answered. He looked over the document, sucked in a deep breath, straightened up and said, "Before the Ten Horizons, I accept this bargain you have presented in these pages."

The light of the Ten Horizons shone over him, and then over Lady Nar when she repeated his words.

Kestra grinned, holding back an internal sigh of relief.

"Let's go to the City Stone, then."

It was a matter of a few moments for Kestra to enable citizenship and update the legal code. Inspri verified the changes, and Kestra confirmed them. Then she offered citizenship to every adult who had lived or maintained a home within Sortalheim or its territories for the past year, or been freed from slavery within the territory of Sortalheim during that same time.

"You need to accept the citizenship offer for the next part," she advised.

Winks of white light put a pendant with Sortalheim's heraldry around the necks of the Lady and Lord. While they studied the tokens, Kestra set up the successorship. There was an option for appointing a regent, and that went to Lady Nar.

Again, Inspri checked everything before Kestra confirmed the changes.

Last, but most importantly now, Kestra abdicated.

It felt so good to answer YES to that confirmation screen.

Kestra interposed herself between Astril's reaching hand and the City Stone. "You still have one more part of the bargain to fulfill, Lord Astril."

The frown on his face cleared. "Yes, my apologies."

"After you," Kestra said.

Back in Kestra's office, her nine slaves entered. She hated that they knelt, but it was this realm's custom.

"You received the notice that I am no longer the City Lord of Sortalheim, correct?" she asked.

"Yes, Mistress!" they chorused.

"Anyone who wants to serve the City Lord shall have to accept their freedom first, but I have secured a realm-oath that those of you who choose, here and now, to serve the new City Lord will be taken into his personal service as paid servants, and shall only be dismissed for a breach of loyalty." Then she went through, one by and one, and rid herself of nine slaves.

Frustratingly enough, her quest count now listed only 146 / 147 slaves freed.

Well, there was one last thing to be done and then she could track down that 147th slave. Maybe they were on a different Horizon now?

Kestra bowed to the young Lord. "Now, I shall be off. May your life be long and prosperity find you."

She exited the Lord's Donjon and headed off to Azure Village.

At the gates leaving the city, Kestra spotted a vaguely familiar face. It was one of the guards, and as she paused to wonder why the sight of him tugged at her memory, she overheard him grumbling to one of the other guards, "Man, she just left me! I'm a good provider, I am! But, nope, my wife thought ten silver was better than a lifetime with me! How crazy is that?"

"I'd pay ten silver to be rid of you, Emgars!" the man he was complaining to growled back. "Sergeant's coming so shut it!"

Kestra felt like slapping her own face for stupidity as she remembered the first guard she had heard tell Emgars to shut it.

"If I weren't oath bound in service, I'd've left, but it's my life to leave."

Kestra set herself in a safe spot out of the way and poked her servitor. «Inspri, how many people are still oath bound to me because of Ramakith Ard's oaths?»

A pause filled with the sense of searching out the answers. «594.»

"Before the Ten Horizons, I release all of the Oaths of Fealty I won from Ramakith Ard," she declared.

Spots of golden lights streaked out her.

[COMPLETED] Quest: Free the Slaves!

Requirements: Free those Lord Ramakith Ard of Sortalheim has unjustly enslaved.

Progress: 147 / 147 Freed Slaves

Rewards:

‎ Liberator title

‎ Considered title

‎ 500,000 Challenge Points

EXP: 12,005

Now, that felt great!

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Liberator

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You have freed over 500 slaves in a single month and restored to them the control of their own destinies.

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Spell: Liberator's Aura

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Considered

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You completed a task for the Ten Horizons with great forethought.

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You are now eligible to serve on a Tribunal of the Ten Horizons.

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Liberator's Aura

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GRADE: Expert

Suppress any and all magical compulsions in the radius of effect, including Summoning Contracts. This ability also affects the caster's own magical compulsions, and is centered upon the caster.

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Components: None

Cost: 100 mana per second per meter radius

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And that was a mixed bag. Kestra wasn't complaining about the Liberator Title, even if it would a long time before she could cast the spell in a useful setting. No, it looked like she had somehow been given the reward of more work for a job well done.

Eh. There were a lot worse ways that could have gone, and it wasn't like she wouldn't have intervened somehow without the quest in the first place. At least she got more Challenge Points.

She still had something to do in Azure Village, so she picked herself up and set off once more.

Kestra took her time on the way to the village, harvesting as she went. It was a familiar habit for her, though she had to admit that she felt a little weird at first when she started harvesting entire trees with a bit of Control Earth to fill in the depressions where the roots had been.

Inspri had been in raptures of joy because according to the Ten Horizons Ramakith Ard had been the owner of nearly all the skill manuals used to train the city's administrators, laborers, and guards. When Inspri brought that to Kestra's attention, she had bought out the stock of one of the city's paper mills and enough ink to fill those pages. Then she tasked Inspri with figuring out how to make physical copies of the manuals.

That turned out to be an Apprentice grade Calligraphy technique called Copy Scroll. Essentially, it was Control Water and Earth to lay out the ink and dry it at very fast rates. Kestra got the skill ups for Inspri's efforts, while she didn't mind at all, especially when the Apprentice rank gift was a scroll with the technique to make consumable documents, Transmute Knowledge.

When Kestra had made Inspri handle the notices from winning the challenge duel with Ramakith Ard, the sprite had had the control of which of the possessions had been transfered via the auto-loot system. Of course that had included all the skill manuals, but also most of the things that had come about through mining the transmigrators other-realm knowledge.

Kestra gave the city the copies of the skill manuals Inspri made. She had no intention of ever surrendering the other-realm inspired writings or devices.

Since Kestra had won possession of most of the furnishings, art objects, and magical tools and artifacts kept in the Lord's Donjon, she hadn't felt the slightest bit of shame in moving over the pieces she liked to her own personal realm.

However, there were more than enough ideas from those skill manuals that Kestra wanted to try out which required wood, like paper making and creating coke, a special kind of char used by blacksmiths in making resilient iron. From the description, she thought this Base grade of iron might actually be what had been known as steel back on Moh, but she wasn't sure.

So, Kestra wanted wood, but she didn't want to fell any of the trees in her private realm, not least because she was pretty sure her Nature Sprite buddy would be offended. Graemire had been teaching him how to harvest the plants for alchemical ingredients, and only the idea that he would be able to make better fertilizers and curatives for the plants he was tending had convinced him the whole concept of Alchemy wasn't Profane.

Strangely, if it wasn't one of "his" plants, the Nature Sprite had no care what became of it. He only cared about the fate of the ones he had cared for. Graemire assured her it made perfect sense, so she accepted it as an Elemental thing.

"Why are you storing trees?"

Kestra jumped, turning to face the voice. The shadowy figure that had traveled with her from Song Village to Sortalheim tipped its … head?

Kestra tried her new Liberator's Aura spell, limiting it to just barely above her skin, but the figure was just as indistinct and hard to focus on as before. So that was probably an illusion, or the shadowy figure was an actual animate shadow.

"Hello, again. I'm going to do some Woodworking, and it's quicker to store the tree entire than to stop and strip it down right here. Are you following me?" she asked, keeping her tone light and relaxed.

"Yes."

"Why?"

The shadowy figure said, "You're interesting. I was trying to find a trace of the Divine Seed, but it really is quite far gone. I don't have the anchor's toll to return to home, so I might as well amuse myself."

"How much is the toll?" Kestra asked.

"Two Sky grade mana stone or a High Sky grade Elemental core."

"Can you pay in equivalent Earth stones? That would be twenty, yes?"

"It would and if I had that I'd already be home."

Kestra used Control Wood to sweep up a bunch of sticks and braid them into a crude basket. Then she dropped in twenty Earth grade mana stones.

"Being far from home when you want to return is a sad feeling," she explained as she handed over the basket. "You saw the realm anchor in Sortalheim, yes?"

The figure appeared to fumble at the basket before clutching the container into its shadows. "Yes. I … This is a kindness? This is kindness. How do I respond?"

The words didn't actually seem to be addressed to Kestra, but she answered anyhow. "'Thank you' are the words used to express appreciation or gratitude."

The shadowy figure took a moment to consider. "Thank you," it finally said, before asking, "Why are you being kind to me?"

"I know what it is like to be stranded far from home, so knowing I've helped someone feeling that way to go home makes me happy."

"True kindness," the shadowy figure murmured, wondering, to itself. Then, louder, it said, "I am known as Xanta Liam of the Dusk Walker clan. Should you Ascend to the Eighth Horizon, it would be my honor to host you among my clan."

"Xanta Liam, I am known as Kestra to my friends, and when I reach the Eighth Horizon, I hope I will find that you have prospered."

"I will await you," the figure agreed, before disappearing in a gust of wind.

Kestra quietly decided that she just needed to get over to Azure Village without any more delays. Her nerves weren't quite up to so many fortuitous encounters with entities seeking the Divine Seed.

Graemire met her a kilometer away from the village, pouting in his humanoid form. "It truly wouldn't have been any trouble to come and get you."

She smiled and hugged him. "I know, but turns out it was a happy circumstance that you didn't. I wouldn't have been able to help send another of the stranded higher Horizon folks home."

That just make her "paired cultivation" partner stiffen and pull back to search her over.

"I'm fine!" she insisted.

"What happened?" There wasn't a hint of playfulness in his tone.

That worried Kestra, but none of the Divine Creatures had ever explained why they sprang to this serious alertness at the mention of higher Horizon personages, or at least not in a way she understood, though it was obvious they were trying. Kestra wasn't sure if it was something about being a human or more about being a transmigrator that impeded her understanding.

She sighed at the frustration, but explained the meeting with Xanta Liam, both on her way to Sortalheim and today.

The worry left him, replaced by a very confuddled blankness. After a moment of processing what she had said, Graemire asked, "Eighth Horizon Dusk Walker clan?"

"That's what … it? Said."

"And the Dusk Walker shared a name to you?"

"Yeah, Xa--"

"No! Don't repeat it!" He slapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide with panic.

Kestra blinked away the sudden pain-tears, feeling her teeth loosened by the inadvertent blow.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" He was about as close to tears in his remorse, and healing energy poured over her as he checked her over all over again. He wasn't any less shaken, though not quite as frantically panicked. "Just, don't ever share that name! The Dusk Walkers are Living Shades, and their names are important enough to them that they have razed Sects for disrespectfully pronouncing one of their names!"

That was good to know. Very good, actually. "Okay," she agreed. She pulled out a flask of water and swirled a mouthful over her bloody teeth before swallowing.

"You're planning on coming with me to the Third Horizon, right? We're going to continue on for a while, yes?" She asked.

He paused, the worry and aggitation still close to the surface of his emotions. "Yes," he answered.

"Then I need to temper my body. You do a very good job of restraining yourself, but it's obvious that I'm far more fragile than is safe with all of y'all's stats."

"I am so very sorry!" he said again, guilt weighing heavy in his gaze.

Kestra nodded. "Got that. Doesn't change that I need to be stronger." She put away her flask and looped her arm around his waist. "Let's go see the village."