B4 Chapter 461: Ancient History, pt. 3

Kaius listened to the Castellan’s words numbly.

A duke. Him.

It was patently ridiculous, even before he considered the fact it was the duke of a long-dead Empire that had once ruled the continent. Every time he tried to wrap his head around it, he failed. Was he supposed to introduce himself as a lord now? Demand that simple commoners should not meet his eyes like the other pompous pricks he’d heard of?

What did it even mean? Even if the title was meaningless in his current age, it was still credible.

He giggled, unable to help himself, only to snap his mouth shut as the Castellan pushed down on the hilt of its enormous blade.

Moulded stone crunched as a brass greatsword, larger than Kaius, sank a foot and a half into the floor. Had they done something wrong?

Yet the Castellan only reached forwards toward his blade.

“May I, my lord?”

Kaius nodded; the automaton picked up his blade. It looked like a damned toothpick in the thing’s hands.

The automaton’s eyes grew brighter, shining a light on A Father’s Gift as it turned Kaius’s sword back and forth, inspecting it from every angle. Most of its focus seemed to be devoted to the runes in its fuller and, oddly, its hilt. Could it sense the runes directly somehow? That was where his father had placed the binding array — under the wrappings.

After a few moments, the Castellan gingerly passed back the weapon — its slow and careful movements utterly at odds with the brutal strength he knew its bronze body carried.

“Most fascinating,” the Castellan finally said. “A moment, please.”

Rising back to its full height, the Castellan wrapped its hands around the hilt of its gargantuan blade, and Kaius saw a flicker of mana pass into the weapon. Before he could even tense, there was a sudden vacuum.

The latent arcane energy that still roiled through the chamber pulsed — rebuffed away from them. Kaius could have wept. He hadn’t even realised the discomfort he was under from the intensity of the affinity until it was gone.

Hearing clattering from behind him, Kaius turned and saw four worker drones skittering into the hall. One gingerly held three chairs in its many arms, while the other automatons awkwardly supported a long table.

Sharing confused looks with his team, Kaius watched the automata approach before politely setting down the furniture and retreating once more.

“Please sit,” the Castellan said, waving them to the table. “The accommodations are unfit for a lord such as yourself, but this was a facility of military research and it is in a great state of disrepair. There is not much appropriate finery, and what there was has largely decayed as the stasis wards started to fail.”

The Castellan’s demeanour had changed. Kaius was certain of it. If it had given him begrudging obeisance before, now it was treating him with true respect.

“Help me up,” Kaius said to Kenva.

“Of course,” she replied, slinging an arm around his chest to haul him to his feet, before she slowly backed off as he waved her away.

He planted his blade point-first into the ground, leaning on it with his full weight. It was a terrible abuse of the weapon, but it would do no damage, and with an absent leg he needed something to support himself.

No way was he going to give Porkchop the opportunity to lord something over him if he asked for help. Awkwardly hopping to the nearest bare metal chair, Kaius slid into the seat.

As his friends joined him, the Castellan crouched down once more. Though this time, it kept its hand on its sword, presumably to maintain whatever skill was protecting them from the arcane mana.

“First, an answer to your earlier question, my lord,” the Castallain said. “Your blood. There are biological markers present in all beings, but over significant spans of time they are…unsuitable for determining House lineage. Sympathetic resonance is far more important. Blood calls to blood; one of the sympathies that has resonated within mana since long before the system arrived on this plane. It is an unbreakable bond that can be felt, with the right capabilities. Unterstern was more than aware of this, and prepared…contingencies.”

“Contingencies?” Kaius questioned.

Rather than answer, the automaton gestured to Kaius’s sword.

“Your blade is most fascinating. There were multiple different scripts involved in its construction, and as simplistic as they are, the work is masterful. There is even a derivative of the sovereign star built into the binding. That above all proves your claim.”

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“Excuse me?” Kaius replied. What was that — and how did it relate to what the automaton was saying about his blood?

When the Castellan responded, Kaius could have sworn he heard a hint of delight in its otherwise even voice.

“The greatest achievement of the House of Creation, and the very same mechanism through which I recognised you. It is a lordship, and a divine right to rule, built into my very marrow — into all critical infrastructure that Unterstern had its personal, unminded, unmonitored hands in creating and designing. No one else had the knowledge, or the mastery, to find its far-flung presence in their works.”

The Castellan paused, giving Kaius just enough time to reel at its words. Had it just bloody implied that his family had created it?

“If you are the last, has this treason been discovered?” the Castellan asked, uncaring of his shock. “I will do my best to shield you, should the Emperor or his agents be in pursuit of you. But we must act swiftly.”

Was the Castellan defective? It was possible with its age. How could it not know that the Empire was destroyed and fallen, and its Emperor was dead?