Chapter 26: The Ruler of the Soldiers

“You know, I’m actually quite impresssssed that you two had the gutssss to pull that” Gander said, glaring menacingly at the two soliders of fortune.

“Please! Save us! They are going to eat us!” One called out.

“Did you lose a bet or something?” A voice called out from the hole in the sphere.

The heads rolled, three eyes and one eye.

“Uh, yeah, we did” One said.

“Wait, that wasn’t anything to do with this was it?” Three said.

“You would say that! You still owe me some essences!” One said.

-Have they forgotten we are still here?- Susasov wondered.

“Silly spirits” Ka agreed.

“Look, just go back to your posts, call the bet done, you can raise it with the High Bookmaker later”

The soldier peering from the wall called out.

Olice once again decided that she had enough of the nonsense of these fortune spirits.

“Do excuse me, but can you please open up?”

There was a crashing noise as the soldier fell back from the hole and into the fortress. A stream of panicked voices came out from the fortress.

“T-that voice!”

“Grand Eye preserve us!”

“Nooo I want to keep my eyes!”

“Not her! Anyone but her!”

“How is she there?”

“I thought we finally caught her!”

“THE SILVER BANE ESCAPED”

There was shrill screams and the sounds of people running about into each other and other things.

“The other has been busy it seems” Gander remarked.

“I have to face it don’t I?” Olice said.

-Don’t worry. We are with you- Susasov encouraged.

“Path to oracle beneath fortress anyway” Ka said.

“Really?” Olice said.

Olice thought about it, pulling on the memories that Ka had shared with her. It was a bit hard connecting the red curtain that the area had once been with what it was current, but Ka was right. Roumotte was built right over where they needed to go.

The Sphere before them began to rumble, and it ground around, opening a way out of the fortress, a wave of soldiers of fortune crashed out from this opening.

Gander cursed, he hadn’t expected such a quantity. He floated before Olice and unleashed the full force of his presence, hoping that his status as a higher and natural spirit would give the soldiers some pause. The bottom hem of Ka’s body formed ragged claws, protectively shielding Olice.

Even Susasov appeared, his cat body on top of Olice’s head and his mouse body on top of his cathead. It seemed he had gained enough power to be able to do something more than talking.

Olice though, simply defused the situation by speaking.

“She hasn’t escaped I’m not her!”

There was the sound of several clicks, then a massive whirring, as if there was some massive bug, as the cores of the soldiers of fortune rolled. They all came to a stop at the same time, and several eyes blinked at Olice.

“I did just see Silver Bane still in her cage”

“She doesn’t look as sinister as Silver Bane!”

“It is a trick!”

“OH EYE THEY ARE BREEDING!”

“IT CAME TO FREE HER!”

“No, everything is fine, if it isn’t her, then our eyes won’t be stolen!”

“What do we do?”

“Pray to the Grand Eye for forgiveness?”

“What if we just go back into Roumotte?”

“Why did we come out in the first place?”

“I’m scared”

“D-don’t worry, this one doesn’t look as dangerous!”

“What about that scary spirit with all the teeth?”

“Isn’t it wearing a spirit of the hated colour?”

Olice sighed.

“Look can you just bring me to your leader?” Olice called out.

The soldiers rolled again.

“Yes, he’ll know what to do!”

“He can save us!”

“He knows the will of the Grand Eye!”

“He’ll think of something clever!”

“You are our prisoner… right?” One asked.

Olice knew that if she didn’t play along she’d be stuck dealing with these spirits for far too long.

She nodded.

“Yes, that is right, I’m your prisoner and you have to present me to your leader”

The mass of soldiers relaxed somewhat.

“Ok then, lets us get moving then”

They led her into Roumotte, what struck Olice first was the sheer amount of magical patterns carved into the inside of the place. As they moved though the fortress it was clear that each sphere had multiple circular floors and an unreasonable amount of spiral staircases. Apart from the soldiers themselves the fortress was quite bare. There wasn’t even any other kind of fortune spirits to be seen. Just a rather amazing quantity of soldiers playing this game or that, though most commonly they played games using thick cards or tiles carved from crystal.

Eventually they made their way deep into the bowels of the Fortress.

There, they entered the throne sphere.

This room was different. The floor of the room was covered in crystal balls, Olice found herself wading waist deep in them. Floating here and there were vast spheres, no eyes, constructed eyes twitching about looking at some distant unseen thing.

What really stood out was the Ironbird King fortune spirit.

Of course most of the soldiers of fortune were mostly iron, which meant that they had been made from the main form of currency in Nortrieln, the ironscar.

The ironbird was similar to the soldiers in that it had a ring within which hovered a head-core. The head-core of this being though had twenty faces! It had a number of eyes from one on one face to twenty on one face.

What was really striking was the wings of this magifactured spirit, extending from the upper part of the ring and sweeping back behind the core-head. Each feather was an individual piece. It had a pair of wickedly taloned feet on a pair of powerful armoured legs.

On the top of the ring was a razor sharp beak and a crown. The crown had a brilliant gleaming azure stone in it.

“BOW BEFORE YOUR KING!” The spirit commanded.

The soldiers all bowed down in submission.

The ironbird nodded, satisfied.

A king of fortune! The power of such a being was not to be taken lightly.

Then the ironbird turned to the side and bowed to a figure sitting lopsidedly on a floating sphere.

It was a Bard of Fortune.

“I refussssse to believe thissss issss really happening” Gander muttered.