“We’ll help,” Sophia spoke without thinking. “Why would you think we wouldn’t?”
She didn’t entirely believe that vengeance against the Blade was the reason Arak wanted to open the door in the Maze; she wasn’t that blind. Arak definitely had a ga plan for after the Blade was defeated. She could easily believe his story, though, and not just because of the general antipathy she held for the followers of the Broken Lord. It made entirely too many things fall together. On top of that, the story would be easy to check once they returned to Mazehold; Sweetfire would probably know the answer without any investigation.
Arak froze for a mont, then turned slowly towards Sophia. “Really? All of you? You know that she has a lot of people she can count on, many of whom are third upgrade just like you. She always has guards, even when it looks like she doesn’t.”
Sophia smiled slowly. “So what? We have so tricks of our own.”
It wasn’t a short list, either. Arak had seen them all fight, but he’d never seen them go all out. He didn’t know about Cliff’s summons or the fact that Jax was not, in fact, a Light-based swordsman. He sort of knew about Taika’s illusions, but he had no idea how good they were or how long the chinchilla could maintain them. He knew Xin’ri as a spellcaster, not the woman who could control multiple automatons as well as using her spells.
Arak probably had a better grasp on Ci’an, Dav, and Sophia’s Abilities. Nightowls were famous, but also famously hard to deal with, and the fact that Ci’an could use her Abilities without shifting shape was unusual. He’d also seen pretty much everything Sophia and Dav could do, though it was likely he didn’t know that both of them could disrupt or steal Abilities from others under the right circumstances.
As useful as all of that was, there was sothing that might be even better. “I think we should start the plan by figuring out what we want to do about the Adherents’ Spheres. I might be able to alter the Blade’s specifically; if I can’t, there weren’t that many people using any of the third upgrade Spheres. We should take care of that before we leave anyway; I’m not sure what will be available outside, but the Guide did say that so stuff requires being in the Imperial Hall.”
There were three other people using the sa Sphere as the Blade. Arak didn’t recognize any of their nas, but he did recognize fourteen of the other third upgrade nas as people in the Arena. There was clearly a concentration of third upgrade Adherents in Mazehold. In many ways, that made sense; the Broken Lord was fixated on destroying the Tower that once sprang from the center of where the Maze now stood. On top of that, Mazehold was probably the single highest concentration of people at the third upgrade in the Broken Lands. It only made sense for there to be more third upgrade Adherents here than anywhere else.
Ci’an recognized only the na of the Hilt. Xin’ri didn’t recognize any of the nas. Sophia initially hoped that that ant the man who led the Temple in Xin’ri’s hotown was gone, but his na appeared when she checked the second upgrade nas.
It wasn’t good news. That had to an that the Templars were spread out far more than the number of third upgrade Adherents implied. Despite that, Sophia didn’t think there was a Temple in Casterville. While the Broken Lord was clearly respected, she didn’t rember anyone ntioning a Temple.
She couldn’t be entirely certain. She hadn’t looked. No one else seed to be certain, either, even though Ci’an had definitely explored more of Casterville than Sophia ever managed. That was hopeful; it probably ant that the Templars weren’t everywhere.
Sophia reminded herself that it wouldn’t matter much longer. She’d cut off their ability to give the people they wanted a power boost and that seed to be a lot of the basis for their popularity in Izel and probably elsewhere. It certainly was the incentive the Blade tried to use on Sophia.
They spent hours investigating the Guide’s Sphere design area. The more she saw of it, the more the Broken Lord’s Adherents’ Spheres looked hacked together. They were simple with powerful Abilities, but that was all they were.
The Spheres that he hadn’t given his Adherents were far less straightforward. They reminded Sophia of the ones she and her team had. Sophia thought her team’s Spehres were better, but she admitted to herself that she might be biased. She’d t very few people with a range of Abilities as broad as her team. Arak was closer than most.
The next day, they settled on a plan. All of the basic, first upgrade, and second upgrade Adherent Spheres would have the problematic pair of Abilities removed. The Adherents would also be granted enough Wisps to either advance or sunder their Sphere. Sophia opened up a number of different upgrade options for each of the Spheres if they wanted to stay within the Imperial Spheres. She also opened up the option to choose a non-Imperial upgrade and removed all of Broken Lord’s Adherent Spheres from the list of choices.
They’d have to figure out they could use the Wisps themselves. Sophia didn’t have a way to communicate with them to tell them things had changed.
The third upgrade Adherents would be treated differently. It was impossible for them to upgrade, since no one in the Broken Lands knew how to reach the fourth upgrade. They weren’t even sure the third upgrade Adherents could sunder their Sphere; once a Grand Talent was fixed in place with the third upgrade, that wasn’t usually an option anymore. The fact that Sophia could alter them was interesting, but it didn’t answer the question.
Arak and Xin’ri wanted to damage the third upgrade Adherents’ Spheres as much as possible, until Sophia reminded Xin’ri of the control the Broken Lord exerted on Mo’ra. They might not have chosen much about what they did since they were taken by the Broken Lord.
That didn’t remove their threat. It also didn’t absolve the Broken Blade of her actions as far as Arak was concerned; perhaps she was pushed into her position, but she was the one who decided to kill her family for power. Each of the abductions was planned to avoid scrutiny; this wasn’t soone pushed into a haze the way Mo’ra was.
Sophia knew enough about mind control and ntal influence to know that it wasn’t that simple. She also knew that the control the Broken Lord exerted on Mo’ra was centered on her love of creating things; that was the weak point the Broken Lord used to push her into making herself into a thing she created. After that experience, Mo’ra was a different person.
Arak’s wife’s sister was unretrievable. The only person left was Amaryssa Seuvarin, and Amaryssa Seuvarin was a murderer.
“Designate the ones you are worried about as grantholders,” Ansuz suggested. It was the first ti he’d spoken in over an hour that morning. “Bringing them into the military would be better, but none of you et the requirents to beco the Imperial Commander or the Registry Commander. Making them grantholders is almost as good, as long as the grant they hold is chosen correctly.”
Sophia frowned. She had no idea what the facility-mind was getting at, which definitely ant there was sothing more to this than she knew. She’d seen Grantholders listed on the sa page that listed the Spheres and number of Adherents, but she really hadn’t paid that much attention to the “stratification” since the only positions with people were Emperor and Adherents. “Why?”
“They have Imperial Spheres,” Ansuz said as if that clarified anything. He paused, then sounded almost embarrassed as he continued. “Oh, of course. You wouldn’t know; the Empire is … right. Uh. Imperial Spheres all work with the Stratification. Their offensive Abilities are weakened when they would affect allies, without weakening their effects on others. Who counts as an ally depends on where you are placed in the Stratification. There are special rules for many of the positions, but the important one here is that grantholders’ rules depend on the grant they hold.”
Ansuz seed to gather his thoughts for a mont. Sophia guessed he probably was; she was used to artificial beings processing faster than she did, but her ti with Othala and Tiwaz made it fairly clear that the facility-minds weren’t all that different from humans in how fast they could think. “The first Emperor set it up as a way to have special positions with special rules, but most of the grants beca pretty standard over the years. The best would be the kaiju-hunter grant, I think. Kaiju hunters usually co from the ranks of the Registry, even though the threats they face would otherwise fall under the purview of the Commandery. They …”
Ansuz’s lights pulsed when it paused. “That’s not what you need to know. You need to know the practical effects of the Kaiju Hunter grant. As Registry mbers seconded to the Commandery, they’re subject to both sets of friendly fire restrictions. Their Abilities have a reduced effect on everyone and everything not classified as a monster by the Guide, other than themselves. The grant also reduces Wisp gain from all sources other than kaiju but enhances the Wisp gain from defeating kaiju and protecting others from kaiju. It’s not given out frequently because it has an unusually high maintenance cost, but I can afford the cost for a few. Ah, before you ask, I can’t afford it for thousands of people. A dozen is manageable, maybe even two dozen, but thousands is not.”
Ansuz was right to add the last bit; he’d anticipated Sophia’s next question. She wasn’t sure she’d have applied it to all of the Adherents, but there was no point in thinking about it now.
Sophia figured she might as well follow the advice. It was better than any other idea they’d co up with for how to defang the Blade and her supporters. It wouldn’t completely remove their ability to kill people, especially not Professionals, children, and anyone they caught off guard. It would, however, an that they would be far less powerful when Arak and his people went after them.
Everywhere other than Mazehold would have to deal with the Templars on their own, but without the ability to induct new “Hallowed,” they wouldn’t be any more dangerous than any other group of people. That was admittedly not without danger, but it was definitely not Sophia’s responsibility to handle.
Well, unless she accepted that she was Empress. Then it explicitly was sothing she needed to deal with; they were effectively … was it really rebels when they supported the previous Emperor? Sophia wasn’t sure.
Sophia guessed it was possible that so of them would turn out to be in favor of a new Empress. She didn’t plan to tell them; it was honestly more trouble than it was worth. She wanted to leave the Broken Lands and maybe visit occasionally; she didn’t want to rule the place.
After a couple of minutes of ssing with the Empire’s managent screens, Sophia looked up. “So how do I do that? I can’t find grants anywhere, the Stratification section doesn’t let
assign people, and I can’t do it through the Sphere stuff, either.”
“Tell
who you want to give the grant to,” Ansuz prompted. “I thought you knew that; it’s part of what you returned to
when you returned the Heart. While it was missing, giving anyone a position in the stratification required them to be presented here. The only exception is Adherents; anyone with an Imperial Sphere is an Adherent, whether or not they’ve been formally added.”
That explained why all of the categories were empty other than Emperor and Adherent.
“Three Vocational Registries still use the proper registration thod,” Ansuz added. “I was not able to add their Called as Adherents who fall under the Registry Commander’s purview with the Heart missing, but I will do so in the future. It will be a boon for them in Challenges and the Tower. Once there is a Tower again.”
Sophia started to ask why, then stopped herself. If the benefit of being a Kaiju Hunter was Abilities that were less effective against other people and property - the things a Kaiju Hunter might well damage without aning to, then it made sense that Called who belonged to a Vocational Registry wouldn’t want to hurt each other.
The fact that it was limited to being in a Challenge or a Tower was probably to mitigate the maintenance cost Ansuz ntioned. At the peak of the Kestii Empire, Sophia was certain there were more than a couple dozen Called that ran challenges or the Tower; there were more than that today. They could probably afford higher costs, too, but limiting the protection to areas where it was necessary still made sense.
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