It was always a hard thing to pry the Sunlit Emperor away from his women and his palace. For the most part, he allowed handpicked men to oversee matters of state. He participated enough to not be an absentee Emperor and to keep an eye on his appointees, but he largely allowed his chosen ministers to govern with great autonomy. As a result, he spent nearly all of his remaining time in his palace...
2022-08-08 15:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostThe Jaguar stared out at the scene before him with utter disbelief. The fleets that had taken the Sword, sailing back into port at Raimondas. So many had returned despite the barbarians undoubtedly still reeling from their losses. Now was the time to press their advantage, not return to Kataigida and kick back!
And yet, return to Kataigida was exactly what the Thunderer had done, apparen...
The Director seethed, and for that, Leon felt a strange sense of glee. Sure, he was infuriated that the Keeper had attacked him and broke so much of his villa, but in the days since, he’d calmed down enough that seeing the Director so irate was far more fun than wallowing in anger against the Sentinels’ head of state.
Still, Leon could tell that the Director’s ire wasn’t solely r...
“That all happened much sooner than I anticipated,” Anastasios murmured as he and Leon sat down in one of Leon’s private sitting rooms, the enchantments in the walls still robust despite the damage that Leon’s villa took during Keeper’s assault. “Leon, I humbly apologize, the Keeper never should’ve gotten this far.”
Leon, his mind still reeling from his villa barely manag...
Claudia, Marcus’ older sister, looked quite a bit like him: rather tall, though not overly so; sharp eyes that didn’t wander; dark brown hair cropped short; tanned skin that spoke of long days spent in the sun; and a body that had been obviously trained for combat. She matched Marcus in magical power, but given there was almost two decades between them, Leon thought that Marcus would be pas...
2022-07-29 15:01:04 +0000 UTC View PostLeon carefully sized up Alcander’s opponent. ‘Daniel’, as Narses had called him, was a rather handsome man, but generically so, in Leon’s uncharitable opinion. Classically handsome, but his eyes were just a little too close together, black hair that was just a little bit too long, and a long neck. His body seemed fit, but his shoulders were kind of narrow and out of proportion with the ...
2022-07-27 15:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostLeon leaned back in his chair, enjoying the quiet ambience of his villa at noon. There were a few workers out in the adjacent field, but they were only doing their daily checks on the medicinal herbs that filled the field and removing any weeds that showed themselves. Anastasios was still around, and he had a few retainers staying with Leon, but they were being surprisingly good guests, not mak...
2022-07-25 15:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostIndentured servitude to the Ilian Empire. If Leon were forced to, he’d have to admit that it wasn’t that bad of a prospect as his independent streak insisted it was—though, it wasn’t an onerous duty. He and Anastasios had come to an agreement as they were on their way back to Leon’s villa that Leon’s priority was Heaven’s Eye, and that any work with the Empires would come second.<...
2022-07-22 15:01:03 +0000 UTC View PostWhen he returned home after his meeting with the Director, Leon went straight to a quiet meditation chamber where he could ruminate on the upcoming problems he had to deal with on his own. He didn’t regret his decision to face off alone against the Sky Devils, but the consequences of that decision were undoubtedly going to give him a headache.
It wasn’t long before a knock came at the...
2022-07-20 15:01:04 +0000 UTC View PostVictory. A fantastic word.
Honor. Glory. More great words, depending on the ideals specific to each person.
The Jaguar never put too much stock in vague notions of glory or honor, but victory was something he could measure and achieve. When he returned to Kataigida, victory, honor, and glory were the words on every tongue. The Thunderer’s forces, while the Jaguar had been busy giv...
2022-07-18 15:01:08 +0000 UTC View PostLeon sighed as he sat back in his chair, the past few days of paperwork weighing as heavily on his mind and sanity as his recent visit to Argos.
He’d returned to Occulara almost a week ago and had been expecting to meet immediately with the Director. However, the Director had simply sent him a curt message saying that they’d talk later. That irritated Leon greatly, but instead of dwe...
Turning down a monarch, let alone a tenth-tier Emperor, wasn’t an easy thing, but there was nothing Leon wanted to do more as he readied himself to head to Argos’ citadel. He’d be heading there alone, without Penelope or Red. In fact, Penelope had told him that there would likely be no women attending at all, it being codified in law that women weren’t allowed in the government and had ...
2022-07-13 15:01:04 +0000 UTC View PostLeon breathed deeply as he walked away from the square, hardly believing that that had worked at all. He’d taken quite the risk in blasting the Blood Thunder Jaguar’s descendant with the Thunderbird’s lightning, hoping with little evidence at all that he would recognize it, or at least be affected enough not to continue the fight.
He was right, but he was surprised, relieved, and a...
Leon watched with much conflict as the Sky Devils rampaged through the impressive defenses of Argos. On the one hand, he wasn’t all that keen on seeing the Imperials slaughtered, but neither did he want any potential powerbase he could build in the Sky Devils to be ravaged—not until he’d met with them and determined how much sway he potentially held over them, at least.
In some resp...
2022-07-08 15:01:03 +0000 UTC View PostThe Jaguar breathed deeply as his ship emerged on the other side of the sea gate, the huge troop transports of his fleet following close behind. The ship’s weapons were firing as fast as they could, providing withering cover for the transports. The Imperial Lances answered in kind, but their deadly fire was blocked by a large shield of light that sprang into existence around his ship. Even be...
2022-07-06 15:01:03 +0000 UTC View PostArgos was an old city. Not quite as ancient as some of the most venerable cities on the plane, like Occulara or Ilion, but it had a long history. The site the city had been built on had a fantastic natural port, opening right out on the Argonaut Sea while having a series of hilly islands further out protecting it from the worst weather that the sea could throw at it, each one fortified with a t...
2022-07-04 15:01:03 +0000 UTC View PostLeon and Red made good time as they flew north. Leon was in no mood at all to stop for rest, he just wanted to get back to Occulara as soon as he could.
It seemed that Red agreed with him—or at least, felt no need to argue against Leon’s tacit goal. That was, at least, until about two days into their journey, when they were drawing to within a hundred miles of the border the Sunlit Em...
2022-07-01 15:01:05 +0000 UTC View PostAs Leon stared down at the work he’d just finished, he was greatly impressed—and not with his small part in the enchantment. He’d needed to lend his expertise with lightning magic for his thunder wood research team’s work, and while he was proud of what he’d done, it was paltry compared to what his people had accomplished before him. With Helen and Elise’s nature magic skill and Tik...
2022-06-29 15:01:02 +0000 UTC View PostAs he left the Hexagon, Leon was practically buzzing with excitement. He couldn’t help it; he still didn’t trust the Director—the thought that the man might still be in bed with vampires that wanted Leon and Xaphan dead still flitting through his mind—but being placed in charge of Magical Research and Development was a position of such power and influence that Leon was excited in spite ...
2022-06-27 15:01:02 +0000 UTC View Post“Rufus!” Narses shouted. “I’m placing you under arrest! Are you going to come quietly?”
Rufus smiled back and gave his response. “Fuck off!”
‘All right,’ Leon thought to himself as he took a few menacing steps forward, ‘I guess he’s choosing the better way to handle this. Good thing, I could use a little exercise…’ As he strode toward th...
Leon tapped his foot impatiently on the bricks of the road, waiting for Narses’ people to show up.
Over the past few days, the Chief of Security had been running down Valentina’s leads and achieving some measure of progress. There weren’t many vampires that were caught, but many people were arrested and brought in for questioning. Most of these were unknowing collaborators, ignoran...
It was a beautiful day in Raikos. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and the breeze was cool and pleasant. Raikos itself was the very picture of the idyllic village, with a number of small timber houses spread out in orderly, though not particular straight rows, punctuated by quaint brick roads and fields of some of the greenest grass on the plane. The horizon was dominated by gently...
2022-06-20 15:01:02 +0000 UTC View PostWith his part in Valentina’s interrogation over, Leon made his way back to his villa while Narses took over following up on the leads she’d given them.
Along the way, Xaphan did not remain quiet, and he and Leno argued incessantly all along the way. The argument wasn’t over by the time Leon made it back home, so instead of seeing to some of his other duties, Leon decided to head to...
“All right, what is it?” Narses asked in annoyance as he and Leon re-entered the observation room.
Leon, before answering, glanced out through the enchanted glass and noted that Valentina at least didn’t look particularly bored anymore, but neither did she look anything other than relaxed. They’d only been questioning her for about twenty minutes, but she looked utterly unfazed b...
“You did well out there,” Narses commented as he thumbed through a few of the papers that Leon had just given him, his expression growing more and more foul the more he saw.
Leon could understand the man’s anger—those papers were the documents that he’d retrieved from Valentina’s manor, and just from his own cursory skimming, he already knew that they implicated quite a few pe...
2022-06-13 15:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostLeon’s group, now invisible with their darkness shrouds covering them, watched from the windows as a dozen men came walking up to the front gate of Valentina’s manor. To Leon’s eyes, not one of them had reached the sixth-tier, meaning that his people were more than a match for them if it came down to straight fighting. However, as the group unlocked the front gate and walked in with the f...
2022-06-10 15:01:05 +0000 UTC View Post“So, how does it look?” Elise asked.
Leon frowned, knowing that the question was rhetorical. He knew next to nothing about this, and even if he tried to catch up on knowledge, Elise would always blow him out of the water with her expertise.
They were now standing at the edge of a fifty-acre field that had lain fallow for several decades. They’d had to travel about two hours ou...
2022-06-08 15:01:03 +0000 UTC View PostLeon and his people departed from Evergold quickly. Leon had gone to the headquarters of Evergold’s Heaven’s Eye enclave, but word of Narses being attacked hadn’t been shared with them. Despite this, he was still deeply concerned about the political situation back in the city, and whether or not the Chief of Security had actually been attacked by vampires as Anastasios claimed, Leon still...
2022-06-06 15:01:03 +0000 UTC View Post“… and he just straight-up asked you to join the Ilian Empire?” Elise asked incredulously.
“He did,” Leon confirmed.
He was with his family in his, Elise, and Maia’s bedroom in the guesthouse, going over the meeting he’d just had with Anastasios, and finishing up their conversation in the aftermath of the brief meeting in the Evergolden palace.
“I’m surprised...
2022-06-03 15:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostWhen Leon walked back into the throne room with Cassandra, Valeria, Elise, and Maia, they found that Anastasios was already there, a handful of powerful guards in Ilian colors standing not too far away. He was busy enthusiastically greeting the Empress and the Grand Druid, both of whom had beaten Leon’s group there.
However, as soon as they walked in, Anastasios turned toward them and ...