The morning song of the roosters fell on unappreciative ears as the spell weaver woke up groggily, several low curses leaving his lips. After getting dressed in his armour, he left his room and headed downstairs. He barely left the manor before he ran into Tristan.

“You’re up early.” Regis noted as he gave his steward a slight nod.

“Like you’re one to talk, milord.”

“I want to head over to Rust-well Keep to ask Lieutenant Ernest about hitching a ride to White-spire Keep if possible.”

“I see. Will you head there immediately, if possible?”

“That’s the plan,” the spell weaver confirmed. “Synchronizing my amulet with the local gateway could save us a lot of trouble down the road. If Ernest doesn’t have a way to send me there, I’ll ask about the next best option he could suggest.”

“In that case, good luck. I’ll ask around in the meanwhile to see if there’s anything important that requires your attention.”

“Thanks.”

Reaching Landwaker Square, the loremaster could still see the people leaving the church after the morning sermon ended. They gave a slight nod after noticing his presence which he returned in kind. He deactivated the barrier of the gazebo that housed the gateway and soon the runes of the magic circle lit up, teleporting him to Rust-well Keep. Once the arcane light faded, the familiar sight of the ever-so-busy military outpost greeted him. Rust-well Keep was a true-blue bastion of the royal army, now even more so as they received plenty of reinforcements and supplies throughout the past month.

“Halt,” someone set from the side, a group of spearmen pointing their weapons at the dark elf for a few moments before recognizing him. “My apologies, sir. We weren’t expecting you.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Regis waved at the worried soldier to ease the mood. “Where is Lieutenant Ernest? I was hoping to have a conversation with him regarding some important matters.”

“The Lieutenant is over at the barracks as usual.”

“I see. Thanks.” The spell weaver nodded before heading over to the local barracks where the guards further pointed him toward his target.

He knocked on the door of the lieutenant's office, a tired voice calling out to him from the other side.

“Come on in!”

“Good morning, Lieutenant,” Regis greeted him cordially. “My apologies for the sudden visit, but I came here regarding an important matter.”

“Oh, Lord Regis,” the soldier stood up, inviting him in to have a seat. “How can I help you?”

“I’ve received an invitation to the Annual Lords Assembly at White-spire Keep and I was hoping to ask for your help in the matter.”

“My help,” the lieutenant muttered. “I fail to see how I can help, since I am not a noble and as such have never been invited.”

“I was hoping that maybe you have a spellcaster capable of taking me there or somewhere close to it using the gateways. If not, then I would like to borrow a horse to travel to the nearest keep on the way that’s under military control.”

“I see,” Ernest hummed as he listened attentively. “I would like to help, but we don’t have any spellcasters capable of taking you there in the keep currently. However, if it’s not too urgent to leave immediately, we’re expecting important supplies in a day or two through the gateway. I could ask the magi responsible for teleporting the supplies to help you in the matter.”

“That would be great,” Regis nodded somewhat excited. “The assembly is held on the first of the Azure Dragon, so I still have plenty of time. I would be grateful if you could talk to that magi on my behalf.”

“Of course. I’m sure that she would be more than understanding of the situation. We usually get supplies brought to us at noon, so if you could visit around that time tomorrow and the day after that, that would be for the best.”

“That’s easy to arrange, but what’s this about important supplies? Are you short on resources? Is there anything we can help with?”

“I appreciate the thought,” Ernest said with a grateful smile, “But it’s mostly just regular soldiers and tier-one shardwaker elites who need to be transported to either here or the surrounding outposts. They use Rust-well Keep as a stopping point, since we are at the crossroads. The supplies we’re specifically waiting for are some standard medicines and equipment.”

“Alright,” the dark elf nodded. “If you do need help with anything, don’t hesitate to ask. Thornfell will help if we're able to.”

“I will,” the lieutenant agreed. “Though we’re already indebted to you for selling us those wands of healing below the market price.”

“Rust-well Keep is an important choke point,” Regis reminded the soldier. “It’s in everyone’s interest to help you stay in fighting shape. Anyway, I don’t wish to take up your precious time, so I’ll take my leave. Thanks again for your help. I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

“Yes. Safe travels.”

Regis left the lieutenant’s office after a slight handshake and headed back outside. The keep was busy as always, the soldiers either training or doing their job, no one having time to worry about him. He used the gateway to return to Thornfell and headed back to the manor, using the middle bridge. As he neared it, he could see how much the construction team achieved during the past few days. The tower on the middle section of the bridge now stood at seven meters tall, waiting for him to fuse the stones together.

“Greetings, milord.” Some of the workers noticed him from afar, greeting him immediately.

“Hey there. I just dropped by to fuse the walls. Is anyone up there?”

“No, sir,” one of the workers answered. “We had just stopped an hour ago after we ran out of building materials.”

“I see. Did you send anyone to inform Tristan about the matter?”

“We did,” the worker nodded. “But he told us that your lordship has left the town and he didn’t know when you would return.”

“Well, I’m here, so let me just fix the walls and then I conjure some more bricks for you to work with.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The dark elf headed upstairs to the small tower, placing his hand on the recently built wall section. He used his earth magic and fused a two and a half square meter section of it before moving on and repeating the process with another part of the wall. He did this several times until he ran out of wall pieces that needed fusing, after which he returned to the workers. He conjured up five cubic meters of condensed earth blocks which he turned into sturdy stone bricks.

“There you go fellas, have a good day.”

Saying that, he headed back toward the manor, meeting Salvador on the way.

“Hey there,” the guild master greeted him. “I see you’re busy as always.”

“No more than usual,” Regis shrugged. “How’s the guild doing?”

“We could do with a bit more of, well... everything, but I’ve no reason to complain. This place is already far better than the one back at Hunor. If nothing else, at least you’re not breathing down my neck like Verhen was.”

“That’s because I don’t need a mage advisor while he needed all the help he could get.”

“True enough. Still, things are going pretty well. Quite a few of the local children show a talent for magic and the library is expanding at a steady pace, already rivalling the one over at East Fork. It makes me wonder if Chera knows that you used your Loremaster skills to copy pretty much every book they have.”

“I’m pretty sure she’s more invested in setting her alchemy supply chains and gardens than worrying about copyright issues.”

“I know she is. She was always captivated by the beauty of alchemy and the last time we spoke she was insufferable in telling me how some of her new students were actual prodigies of the art of potions.”

“Come now”, Regis chuckled. “It’s not like we don’t have our own talents here. I heard that young Dana managed to cast the ‘fire-bolt’ spell less than three days after learning it.”

“That she did,” Salvador nodded proudly. “That girl definitely has a talent for magic and a passion as well.”

“I feel a ‘but’ coming.”

“She’s far too impatient,” the man sighed. “I guess it has to do with you and your companions reaching such heights so soon.”

“I’ve already told her not to compare herself to us or any other shardwaker. And besides, I studied magic even before I came to this world, it’s just that back in ours the arcana in the air thinned out so much that no one got to do too much practice.”

“That’s pretty much what I told her as well, but you know how the young ones are nowadays. Still, if she continues like this, she will reach the qualifications of a first circle magi very soon.”

“We could always use more of those.”

“True,” Salvador sighed deeply. “But she could go a lot further if she would have a mark.”

“I know,” Regis nodded. “I was already thinking about getting her one, but you know as well as I do that it’s not easy to get them nowadays. Maybe if Khan and his team manage to come across a shardwaker bandit or two, I haven’t heard any word of them in the past two weeks.”

“I see. Well, I know these kinds of things take time, but I am glad to hear that you are at least trying to make arrangements.”

“I only wish I knew how to extract the marks sooner,” the dark elf admitted. “We came across quite a few shardwakers before, but now things will be different.”

“Do not worry about it, lad. You are doing well enough. Now get going! I am sure you have better things to do than listening to me prattle on.”

“Sure. See you later.”

Saying that Regis headed out once more, this time actually reaching his home without any further distractions. With no enchantments for the day and no further meetings or issues to address, the spell weaver retreated into his study where he spent a few hours catching up on his reading habit. Several books regarding both the arcane and the mundane waited for him to read them, some brought with money while others were either earned or traded through other means.

Sadly, the tome from Mayoress Tine this time turned out to be a dud as it held little value outside of the ‘poison seeker’ enchantment and two others that related to creating short-distance arcane wireless switches. The day’s most expensive lore book summarized different treaties between the three kingdoms, an interesting read, although not that useful.

Regis had neither a reason nor the means to travel to the other kingdoms unless he was willing to trudge through narrow mountain paths or sail along the coastline from Hunor. Neither of those choices was to his liking, not to mention that out of the three regions, Ecragurne’s territory suffered the least from the demons and the nobles’ war. He wasn’t sure if Harmarond and Menelrond would be able to get themselves together and clear the demonic infestation any time soon.

That thought made him shudder for a moment, but he had far more pressing matters to worry about. ‘This assembly thing really came out of the blue,’ he thought. ‘The Heart might have acknowledged me as a noble, but I highly doubt the rest of those pricks will be as accepting. Everyone keeps saying that they wouldn’t attack Thornfell to prevent any trouble with the other kingdoms, but can the other kingdoms even do a thing about it with all the shit they have to deal with on their lands? The royals might decide to expand their borders up here.’ His dark thoughts were interrupted by a light knocking on the door that snapped him back to reality.

“It’s open.” He said out loud, a gentle figure entering the room.

“Hey,” Letty greeted him as she walked in, closing the door behind herself. “Dana told me you would be here.”

“Hey to you too.” Regis replied with a smirk as the wood elf walked closer sitting on his lap while giving him a kiss and a hug.

“Is everything alright?” Letty asked as she noticed how stiff his entire body was.

“I received a letter.” the spell weaver said with a sigh while handing her the parchment.

The young woman read the contents of the parchment silently, her eyes showing confusion as she kept looking at the scroll, Regis then the scroll again.

“An invitation to Ecragurne’s Lords’ Assembly? Are you sure it’s authentic?”

“It was supposedly delivered by the royal army to Mayoress Tine in hopes that it would reach me as soon as possible. The seal was official as well, according to Tristan.”

“And... what do you think?” Letty looked at him slightly worried.

“I don’t know. Officially, our territory lies outside the kingdom's borders. This makes our position a bit tricky.”

“Do you think it’s a trap of sorts? Are they trying to gauge our strength to determine whether they could bring us under control?”

“That was my first thought, but with all the shit the continent went through, there’s also the chance that they just want to form a positive relationship with us in hopes of reaping some benefits. According to Tristan, a lot of nobles died during the war and the demon invasion. Some of those empty positions are taken up by outlanders.”

“And you two believe that these invitations are meant to bring these new nobles into the fold.”

“That’s the most logical explanation. We know that the royal family is having some internal conflicts due to the succession debate. It’s quite likely that the princes are trying to gain supporters in the new lords by using the old ones as a medium.”

“But what would they want from you? From us? We’re outside of their borders, so we shouldn’t have any say in the matter.”

“Not officially,” Regis corrected her. “But I’m a second-tier spell weaver who’s nearing the third and that means something. Not to mention the others. I mean, we have a paladin, a necromancer, a warlock, a storm knight...”

“Okay, okay,” she chuckled slightly. “I get it. We have some reputation and a bit of power to match it so they might want to rope us in as an external force.”

“A black ops team they can deny if something goes wrong,” Regis added. “At least that’s the theory my paranoia came up with. Tristan believes that they want access to discount-priced enchanted gear.”