Wriothesely's POV
After the mess the single call of 'Uncle Wriothesely' got me into, it took Neuvillette a good half an hour to explain to the melusines...
Truth be told I have no idea what they were talking about.
The only thing that I know is that after that conversation, the one who caused the mess, Mamere, offered for us to hold our discussion at her house.
Neuvillette took the offer but reassured her that she shouldn't feel bad.
During this time, I noticed that unlike with the melusines at Court, here he didn't immediately go full parent mode.
"The melusines here are generally on the older side." He explained.
Still, he kept treating them like children nonetheless.
Not that it looked like the melusines minded. They all looked quite satisfied when they got a head pat from the Iudex.
So the three of us-
Yes, just three.
Sigewinne got quite literally dragged away by the other melusines.
So the three of us settled down at Mamere's house.
Well, on the ground outside of it.
It should have been predictable that a house belonging to a melusine wouldn't be big enough to house three people our size.
"How will we go about this?" Lady Furina started.
"We could just start asking questions. We could start with the person who had the least questions and move on from there."
Or something.
I don't know.
This is the first time experienced something like this.
"Let's go with that then." Lady Furnia nodded.
Silence fell and we both turned to Neuvillette.
"Is something the matter?" He asked.
"Well, since you're the cause of yesterday's mess, you're probably the one with the least question so fire away." The archon said bluntly.
The dragon frowned for a bit before letting out a sigh.
"I have just one question."
Sure enough...
"How did you manage to figure out where I was?"
The curiosity in his eyes was so pure I had the urge to pet his head.
But-
Really?
I threw Lady Furina an 'Is he serious?' look and she returned it in kind.
"Neuvillette... You're way too predictable."
"Excuse me?"
"Why don't we ask Duke Wriothesely where he would have looked for you had I not teleported him down there?"
Now his curious gaze fell onto me.
"My first guess would have been the vault with the Primordial Sea as well."
"What about the second?"
Hearing the innocent dragon's question, Lady Furina and I exchanged glances before at the same time saying:
"Your basement."
He muttered something but neither of us could hear it properly.
Leaving Neuvillette to his own thoughts I turned to Lady Furina.
"Oh, I'm good. You go first." She waved her hands.
Well, if that's what you want.
"You two... Explain to me in detail what this plan B is."
The archon stiffened up while Neuvillette's body went pretty much rigid.
"Wriothesely-"
"Spit it out."
I'm done letting you avoid the topic.
I was expecting the explanation to come from Neuvillette, but it seems I underestimated just how much he hates the topic.
He turned to the archon.
"You made your bed, now lie in it." He spat out.
Wow.
That was completely unexpected.
Lady Furina seemed to think so too as it took her a solid minute to manage to start speaking.
"Every archon holds something called a gnosis. You can consider it as something akin to a vision. The difference is that a gnosis does not give an archon their elemental power, it grants them the ability to summon forth elemental power in far higher quantity than they on their own would be capable of.
It also has a strong connection with Celestia but that is beside the point at the moment.
The point is how exactly it grants an archon such power."
"And? How does it?"
"It's a type of authority..."
As she said that, she paused.
She seemed hesitant about saying the next part.
"Dragon's Authority." Neuvillette spoke up suddenly.
Dragon's Authority?
What does he mean by-
"To be exact, the elemental energy that exceeds an archon's own and is instead summoned by the gnosis is summoned by a dragon's innate connection to the elements."
Wait...
"The Seven Sovreigns connection to the elements. Power stolen from them by the first usurper."
It seemed like he decided to take over from Lady Furina as he continued speaking.
"The gnoses are connected to Celestia as such, they would immediately know if something happened to them. The only case of this connection breaking for a short period of time is upon an archon's death.
Should we be unable to stop the Primordial Sea, Lady Furina planned to end her own life, thereby breaking both her and Celestia's connection to the gnosis and having me regain my full power.
Her thought process wasn't wrong, as a Sovereign at full power could quite simply squash something like the Primordial Sea, but-"
He threw a stern look at the archon.
"She will not be going through with that nonsensical plan."
"Yeah, yeah. I got it, okay? I got it."
This...
This was frankly...
"This is a lot to take in."
I don't even know where to start.
You know what?
Let's not start thinking about this now.
Neither of them look like they wish to elaborate further on the subject anyway.
Then...
"Moving on. What the heck is this thing about?"
I pulled out the little conch from my pocket and Lady Furina jumped up from fright.
"Wha- Why do you still have that?! Put that thing away right this instant!"
She was looking at the small conch like it was about to blow up Fontaine.
"Neuvillette, you crazy bastard! Wasn't the last incident enough for you to learn not to make more of those?!"
"Furina-"
"That thing nearly scared me to death!"
"Furina-"
"Do you know how terrifying it is to see seven treasure hoarders dissipate into a giant crimson cloud of blood?!"
Excuse me?
Giant crimson cloud of blood?
I nearly dropped the little thing hearing that.
"Furina, this one only has a defensive function."
"Even if it only has a defensive- It has a what?"
"I couldn't possibly give something so dangerous to Wriothesely."
"And yet you gave me one?!"
Neuvillette's browns creased together.
"Shall I remind you that I didn't give you anything like this? Ever. You stole it from my desk."
As soon as those words dropped the archon tensed up.
"I- I did no such thing! It must have accidentally fallen into my pocket when I- when I was helping you clean your desk!"
Pfft!
Hahahahaha!
Helping-
Helping him-
Helping him clear his desk?
Pfft!
Hahahahahaha!
Putting aside the fact that Neuvillette's desk, no his whole office is the epitome of cleanness, the thought of Lady Furina of all people would help him clean-
Hahahahaha!
Neuvillette was not amused, to say the least.
"Did you not just say that I had given it to you?"
"That-"
"Or else, are you implying that my desk is so dirty that even you couldn't tolerate it to the point where you took matters into your own hands and cleaned it?"
"Wait-"
"Do I have to point out that the only way I can enter your office is by teleporting into the back left corner? The only place in there where it is possible to stand."
Wow!
He just aired her dirty laundry without even blinking.
Come to think of it...
Each time these two meet they start arguing about one thing or another.
How the hell did they survive each other's company for so many years?
I suppose that's one of Fontaine's great mysteries.
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Alright, here is the thing:
There is a mini-arc coming up (around 6 chapters long or so).
Not the end of the story! I repeat! Not the end of the story!
I thought about how it could go, and no matter what, the whole thing is depressing as hell. (it does end well though)
So, I'm giving you guys two options.
1 - I continue releasing one chapter a day for the next week or so.
2 - I stop posting for the next two to three days and you guys get all 6-ish chapters in three or four days.
Leave a comment on the option of your choice and whichever has more comments when I wake up tomorrow (that is in like nine hours) is the one we're doing.