Chapter 114: Reasons and Conditions
That same night, Frederic Hall, anchoring the opposite boundary of the Golden Temple complex, stood brilliantly illuminated by thousands of tall wax torches.
Unlike the austere, monumentally balanced stone sanctuaries housing the alternate demigod lineages, Godrick's private palace broadcasted a visible, un-bracketed luxury across its interior and outer parameters. Every monumental pillar flanking the grand courtyard was heavily plated in brilliant gold powder; the marble-paved processional avenues were intricately inlaid with countless precious gemstones, and even the carriage horses resting within the stables were draped in rare, exotic furs transported from the absolute farthest corners of The Lands Between.
The absolute majority of these extravagant decorations had cleared the capital toll houses to enter Frederic Hall strictly across recent winters. Before the Golden Prince Godwyn had been entirely consumed by the endless orchestration of regional pacification campaigns and border rebellions, the adolescent Godrick had yet to demonstrate such an un-checked indulgence regarding material desires.
However, across the past two cycles of the sun, localized uprisings had manifested with an increasingly frequent, high-fatality velocity across the Golden Dynasty. With Godwyn permanently absent from the capital to command the frontline legions all year round, Godrick—who was rapidly approaching the threshold of his formal adulthood—had naturally mutated into the single most legitimate administrative representative of the Golden lineage remaining within the capital ring. The solitary authorities commanding the legal right and raw spiritual power to restrain his movements were their Majesties themselves.
Yet, perhaps because the Lord Consort Radagon desired to broadcast an absolute public reverence toward the memory of the First King, Godfrey, the crown had consistently desisted from expressing a single drop of dissatisfaction regarding the surviving remnants of the Godfrey era; he was recorded as exceptionally tolerant toward Godrick, who stood as the eldest legitimate grandson born to the Golden Line.
Concurrently, Queen Marika, whose scepter should have naturally stabilized Godrick's character, demonstrated an almost indulgent, blind attitude toward her grandson's behavior. Her hand not only permitted the youth to drown his focus in material pleasures, but the high ministries frequently downplayed Godrick's administrative errors, ensuring his name never sustained a genuine judicial punishment before the courts.
Over time, this unchecked environment birthed an unbridled, reckless style across Godrick's maneuvers. Beyond anchoring his reputation to a notorious vanity, his boots frequently cleared the path to intersect the highly restricted, underground gladiatorial games managed by the corrupt nobility, harvesting immense fortunes of gold runes by manually interfering across the major arena operations of the capital. Beyond accumulating private wealth, his spirit took a specialized, dark delight in organizing high-fatality spectacles—forcing the Misbegotten, the Mountain Trolls, and alternative non-human lineages to draw steel against ravenous wild beasts, comfortably indulging his sight across the bloody, brutal realities of the sand.
As the cycles turned, the private arenas operating under Godrick's hidden seals consumed non-human slave casualties at a velocity that far out-stripped the statistics logged by any competitor across the capital. This economic necessity functioned as one of the primary source codes driving his house closer to the Duolis Family—a lineage whose active command of foreign legions abroad could guarantee a long-term, un-interrupted supply of captive laborers to feed his pits.
At this exact watch of the night, Godrick sat elevated upon the master dais of his central banquet hall, two beautiful housemaids locked within his casual embrace. He occasionally hoisted his gilded wine chalice to execute a toast with Godefroy and Carlyle, who sat anchored to the lower cushions of the floor. Following a sequence of un-measured rounds, the alcohol had thoroughly compromised his balance, rendering his tongue entirely loose across the space.
All three youths currently occupied seats as active students within the benches of the Royal Private School, and their casual conversation mostly turned over the minor events that had materialized across the lecture halls. Godrick commanded the single most noble demigod bloodline clutched by the scions of the Golden Saints, and omitting his slightly mediocre aptitude across the Magic Domain, his parameters scored as exceptionally excellent across every parallel discipline.
Naturally, the definition of excellence depended entirely on which specific entity his lineage was measured against. Matched against the alternate demigod heirs whose primal talents scored parallel to the monumental baseline established by Prince Godwyn, his output suffered a total deficit across every quadrant of the board—his muscle lacked the raw battlefield proficiency clutched by Radahn; his throat lacked the high-voltage incantation resonance mastered by Miquella; his intellect lacked the deep academic methodology archived by Rykard, and his entire existence suffered an absolute eclipse when aligned with the all-encompassing parameters demonstrated by Lucia.
His mind completely failed to decode by what specific arcane equation that damned Ancient Dragon could inexplicably overcome the draconic race's inherent biological limitations regarding the manipulation of localized Magic Domains. Not only had the hatchling awakened a reservoir of Primal Mana that far out-scaled his own golden birthright, but the boy's developmental velocity across the sorcery circles scored as remarkably intense, broadcasting definitive signs of actively rivaling the three childhood sorcerers ruling the Carian academies.
Within a handful of sentences, the flow of the dinner conversation naturally veered toward Godrick's bitter denigration and vulgar insults targeting Lucia's name. This output emerged partly from the minor diplomatic friction the two had sustained across the state banquet nights, and partly from Lucia's recent coronation to an Empyrean divine status—a variable that had completely overshadowed Godrick's personal prestige across multiple courtly gatherings throughout the past months. But in the final accounting, the venom sprouted from a deep-seated, systemic refusal to validate the absolute legitimacy of an Ancient Dragon Demigod.
Evaluating the board through Godrick's eyes, strictly those sovereigns who clutched the un-diluted golden blood of the Queen within their veins constituted true, authentic demigods of the realm. The prince and princess of the Carian Dynasty registered as demigods strictly because their sire currently clutched the supreme title of the Elden Lord. While his tongue lacked the leverage to release public critiques targeting the biological children born of His Majesty Radagon's loins, by what cosmic logic was an outdated, prehistoric Ancient Dragon hatchling permitted to be enshrined as a living god by the decrees of the Greater Will—commanding an institutional status that sat subtly elevated above his own golden peerage?
Godefroy and Carlyle, whose strategic positions within the capital required them to permanently prioritize Godrick's favor across their interactions, exerted every effort to loudly validate his complaints across the table, until their sycophancy finally managed to soothe his wounded pride when his focus became thoroughly dazed with the wine.
Glimpsing the data point proving the pointless, alcohol-fueled topic had finally hit its baseline, Carlyle immediately mobilized the primary purpose behind his nocturnal visit. He initial hoisted his goblet to offer a formal salute toward Godrick's station, before casting a casual, relaxed smile across the boards. "Brother... has your office been tracking the administrative variables surrounding the grand Battle Festival locked to the terminal watch of the winter moon?"
Godrick let out a hearty, raucous laugh, his chest swelling as the alcohol emboldened his delivery. "By what metric could my sight ever miss an entertainment asset of that magnitude? If my heart did not harbor a freezing anxiety regarding the temporary loss of my aristocratic face before the ministries, my own boots would have joyfully cleared the gates to personally join the brackets—strictly to audit what specific steel these new provincial fighters truly command across the mud!"
Carlyle wove a slow, meaningful shake across his head, a quiet chuckle escaping his lips. "My query was turning over a vastly more sensitive variable, big brother: has your center been monitoring the high-stakes shadow wager currently separating my father and the Marquis of Osarion?"
Following the un-rolling of that specific question, Godefroy, who sat anchored to the parallel flank of the table, registered an immediate wave of acute aristocratic embarrassment. Given the tight, childhood familiarity linking the three houses since their nursery cycles, Carlyle's phrasing carried an intensely clear political demand—and Godrick's initial, boisterous answer looked exactly like an intentional piece of theater designed to pretend his intellect remained blind to the gridlock.
Godefroy had simulated that the dangerous topic had been smoothly bypassed by the prince's deflection; his mind had mathematically never expected Carlyle to display such a total lack of courtly tact, aggressively pressing the line to drag the absolute truth out onto the floor. Did such a reckless execution not constitute a deliberate move to force his own brother into an exceptionally awkward, high-friction bottleneck?
A sharp, predatory glint of cold intelligence flashed deep within Godrick's eyes, a calculated, tight smile forcing its compliance across features that reeked heavily of vintage spirits. His voice emerged with a flat cadence. "My outriders have likely archived a surface summary of that ledger, gentlemen. The files assert that your two houses have laid down a private wager to determine which minister will ultimately assume the command seat of the Guardian of the North, correct? Hahaha... my thoughts simply reasoned you two grand lords were merely exchanging a humorous joke across the chambers. An imperial appointment of that specific strategic density comprises a matter of monumental national consequence; by what metric could its execution ever be decided by the outcome of a solitary arena match?"
"Brother."
Carlyle desisted from executing a secondary attempt to camouflage his strategic intent. He stood straight, abandoning his cushions to offer a formal, disciplined bow across the space, his voice dropping into a clear, un-fused resonance. "Given the deep brotherhood linking our lines across the generations, there manifest zero requirements for my tongue to beat around the bush. My boots cleared your gates on this night explicitly to petition a monumental favor from your scepter—"
He aligned his eyes to lock directly onto Godrick's countenance—watching the prince's features steadily, visibly darken into a rigid sheet of ice—before continuing. "Brother's strategic analysis is text-perfect. An imperial appointment of this altitude can mathematically never be finalized strictly by the metrics of a single gladiatorial wager. Consequently... my hand has cleared the perimeter explicitly to petition your absolute, un-capped political reinforcement—to ensure your voice loudly supports my father's right to maintain his permanent command over the Northern Legion lines during the supreme court assembly following the closure of the tournament."
Godrick, remaining elevated upon his high master seat, narrowed his eyes to razor-sharp slits. Every trace of drunken instability instantaneously evaporated from his baritone, his voice dropping into a freezing, calculated register. "Hand-deliver a reason."
Carlyle stared un-blinkingly into the pupils of his childhood companion—a friend whose mind his own intellect had tracked across un-counted winters. Although his personal strategy had thoroughly prepared his center to receive this exact transactional reception, his marrow still sustained an overwhelming, bone-chilling cold upon hearing those icy syllables clear the prince's mouth.
He drew a long, chest-stabilizing breath, his posture remaining rigid. "My office can hand-deliver not strictly an absolute strategic reason, big brother... but a non-negotiable set of material conditions."
Godrick's posture suffered a minor pause at the phrasing, his fingers executing a slow wave to authorize Carlyle to un-roll the full density of the dataset.
"The absolute reason code is this: our house is mathematically guaranteed to secure the victory across this arena wager. Even if the Marquis of Osarion deploys his seals to recruit the master Perfumer Rolo to anchor his front, our vanguard clutches a sequence of hidden parameters that will flawlessly guarantee the total liquidation of their line."
"Concurrently, turning our focus to the conditions—when measured against the house of the Ofnir Family, whose command has just catastrophically lost the critical northern border citadel of Kaelen to the rebels, does your intellect truly simulate that a Duolis Family capable of permanently holding the line across the ice plains scores as lesser asset class to reinforce your future? My tongue lacks the requirement to waste its breath explaining that simple calculus to a prince of your intelligence."
"The material condition my house can offer to bind the treaty is this: if my father continues to execute his duties as the Sovereign Guardian of the North following the public closure of the wager under the vocal support of your scepter... the absolute totality of the Duolis Family will officially sign a covenant of total, un-compromised political allegiance pledging our swords directly to your name. Furthermore, the remaining inventory of Icefield Trolls trapped within our holdings, alongside the absolute financial basements of the Caelid Colosseum operating under our family crest following the settlement of the bet, can be cleanly transferred into your private custody—serving as a monumental, pristine monument to verify the absolute sincerity of our house."
Having delivered the terminal parameters of the ledger, Carlyle stood entirely motionless, quietly monitoring the reactions rippling across Godrick's elevated station. Following a dense, suffocating stretch of absolute silence, the Golden prince suddenly let out a sequence of low, amused chuckles from his chest, the sound rapidly escalating into a loud, hearty, and thoroughly triumphant burst of laughter that echoed through the high rafters.
Godrick strode down the marble steps of the dais with heavy, self-assured bounds, coming to a halt directly fronting Carlyle's chest. He aggressively seized the youth's hand within his own fingers, a wide, thoroughly satisfied smile breaking across his face. "Our lines share the deep familiarity of blood brothers, Carlyle! Even deleting the structural weight of these material conditions from the equation, by what logic would my scepter ever refuse to lend an executive hand to reinforce the command of Duke Duolis? The cold vocabulary my mouth released moments past comprised merely a light, brotherly jest across the cups."
Carlyle forced a knowing, perfectly synchronized aristocratic smile across his features at the opportune watch, while Godefroy seized the immediate release of structural tension to hoist his silver cup high to lead a celebratory toast. Instantly, the absolute totality of the banquet hall shifted its parameters to return to the lively, peaceful, and thoroughly un-fused atmosphere that had historically ruled their gatherings.
Godrick, whose inner calculations simulated that his house had just harvested a monumental, un-capped fortune of geopolitical leverage for zero material cost, completely erased the unpleasant memories Lucia's silver hair had carved across his pride weeks prior. Throughout the remaining watches of the banquet, the three high scions turned over their grand ambitions within the dynasty, their physical countenances broadcasting an immense, un-bracketed aura of pure arrogance—looking exactly like three young lords who firmly believed the absolute future of the empire sat securely clutched within their fingers.
Godrick had already finalized the parameters of his executive strategy: he would deploy the full measure of his royal leverage to fiercely reinforce Duke Duolis's right to maintain the permanent governance of the northern frontier following the closure of the sand match. Exactly as Carlyle's tongue had stated across the table, a mobilized Duolis lineage whose entire military apparatus was legally bound to maintain an absolute, un-compromised loyalty to his person scored as a vastly superior asset class than an unstable alliance with the house of Ofnir.
Following the closure of this night, his boots had advanced a monumental, solitary step closer to penetrating the absolute core decision-making matrix ruling the Golden Dynasty—at least, that defined the absolute truth his hubris archived at this specific watch of the world.
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