Chapter seventy

Michael was almost giggling giddily on our way back inside to our unfinished dinner. He kept talking about his favorite parts of the little battle I just had, he seemed to have especially enjoyed the 'great and powerful' Antonio scampered away in fear, practically pissing his pants.

We got back to the dinning hall and sat around the table before they started asking questions about what they saw, I managed to pacify them by telling them I had an artifact that allowed me to summon constructs, which was actually kind of true even if its not the full breadth of its power.

"So you are telling me you have an artifact that let's you make any creature and control it however you want?" Isabella seemed flabbergasted that such a thing could exist.

"No no , I can't make any creature , just something that looks similar. It is not really alive, nor does it have its own will, I have to control it directly. You can think of it as a very large, very scary puppet. And just like a puppet is not a living creature, neither are my constructs."

As a demonstration I created a small savanna on the dinning table complete with grazing zebra and lions lazing about. Recently I have been getting really good at manipulating my illusions, for example I didn't even need to put conscious thought to make the little animals to act like normal animals, not stiff and synchronized but more natural. Except for the fact that it was on a table , it could have been mistaken for a scene on the natural geography channel.

This increased fine control of my illusions started after I had my little meltdown when I thought that Sarah was getting married. I activated the enchantment subconsciously and somehow that seemed to have created a connection between my subconscious mind and the enchantment. Now when I make illusions ,details that were missing when I made illusions before are now filled out by my subconscious. This allows me to create much more life like illusions of living things. Before when I tried to make an illusion of a living thing it was always robotic and fake , but now I bet no one can even tell the difference.

The rest of the dinner passed by watching the small animals. I even made the lions hunt some of the zebras. After everybody finished their dinner I made the little animals disappear, we all said our farewells and went to our rooms.

That night was one of the nights that I promised that I would spend with Sarah so after I locked and bolted my door, I teleported to the edge of the city, walked out of the barrier then teleported directly to the royal bedchamber in the castle in new hope. Surprisingly there was no one in there and I had to go out to look for Sarah, thankfully the helpful guards pointed me towards the right direction and I found her in the middle of a meeting that looked quite serious.

I made a little illusion blue bird appear and fly over to her, and although I couldn't make illusions of sound, I had gotten sufficiently good at manipulating the solid illusion to be different densities and flexibility, so I was able to make a good approximation of a Syrinx carefully making the cartilage and other membranes so when I made the little bird blow air through it , it made sweet little whistling sounds. Most of the nobles seemed to be confused as to what was happening and were staring at the bird incredulously but Sarah's somber and worried expression melted away as it was replaced by a bright smile and that was worth all the effort of creating the bird.

She started looking around and finally found me at the doorway , she waved me over to her and right there in front of everybody gave me a kiss, I was never really big on public displays of affection but I wasn't going to refuse a kiss from my silver goddess. After she let me go I asked her,

"So what's wrong? What's with the heavy atmosphere ?"

"Although new hope is safe behind its wall and the many weapons you gave us, our neighboring countries are starting to notice that the rest of the country is unguarded and that this would be a perfect opportunity to do some expansion, the only thing stopping them is the rumors of a super powerful being able to bend reality to his will but they are starting to doubt that such a being really exists, especially one of our neighbors from the east, Gondar , is starting to mobilize its troops. We believe they could attack as soon as next week."

"That's no reason to get worried, I'll properly outfit an army with gear like the guards, although I'm going to need them to swear a similar vow about only using them to only protect the country. But for now I'll personally go and terrify the shit out of them so that no country will even think of attacking you for a really long time." I started to think of all the plans I could use to terrorize them, I felt very excited because all the options I was considering would be tremendously exciting.

"Why do you have that smile on your face John? Its kind of creepy."

"Oh don't worry, this is my 'I'm about to have some fun' smile."

It seems at some point I had started smiling and rubbing my hands together in anticipation.

Poor Gondar.