Personal System Calendar: Year 00015, Day 1-28, Month VI: The Imperium
Imperial Calendar: Year 6859, 1st to 28th day of the 6th Month
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Count Xavior
They were escorted to the castle of the ruling lord, Count Xavior, who led the Xavior Bloc.
The reason they'd come this far south was simple enough on paper: to have Maya Village acknowledged, not just by the Empire or the Kingdom of Ogind, but here as well, in a region where they had no direct influence and they were barely known at all. That mattered more than it might have seemed. Maya Village was still fairly new to the political landscape, it was not even a kingdom in any formal sense, just a village with two settlements, the main Village of Maya and Tagkarit, along with the imperial military settlement still under construction. The Outland Waycamp didn't really count as belonging to Maya Village either, sitting just outside the forest's boundary well beyond the scope of their actual territorial claim, somewhere in the grey zone between the two.
The Xavior Bloc's interest in the village had been a mystery, at least until Minstrif explained it plainly. As mentioned before, the Empire maintained a direct military outpost within Maya's territory, positioned there strategically, meant to serve as a first-strike force should imperial interests in the region come under threat. Chief among those interests was the imperial highway, the one that had once cut straight through Arwen's territory, connecting cities and kingdoms along its length while also linking the Empire's northern and southern holdings. It had been a service to allies along that stretch as much as a matter of imperial convenience. With the highway effectively closed, traffic along it had slowed to almost nothing, merchants unwilling to risk the route while Arwen remained this unstable.
That was exactly what interested Xavior: the chance to build friendly relations with a protectorate settlement of the Empire, one that already hosted a staging ground for imperial forces. It wasn't something he could afford to pass up. He needed the Empire's help to reunite Arwen's fractured territory, and the intelligence the Empire had already shared with him, about someone pulling strings from behind the scenes, was enough on its own to convince him this was worth pursuing directly, even to the point of sending his own diplomatic envoy to the village. A deal with the Empire was infinitely preferable to the deal his own kingdom had already made with the devil, one that had brought nothing but ruin down on them. So much death, so much was lost, such a heavy blow to a man who considered himself a pillar of his kingdom.
But that was the past, a grave mistake best learned from and left behind.
Now the people necessary to actually strike a deal with the Empire of Elms-Arkanus were standing right in front of him. He intended to ask the Empire to send in its forces and clean house, root out the other blocs and factions still dividing the kingdom apart, with his help if nothing else. Once that was done, he meant to see someone of true Arwenian blood seated back on the throne, though where exactly he'd find such an heir remained an open question. The other blocs already had their hands on a few of the late king's bastards. That missing piece was the one thing standing between him and completing the picture. Economically, the Xavior Bloc stood stronger than most of its rivals, but without that particular puzzle piece in hand, strength alone wasn't enough.
A knock came at the door, followed by an announcement of who had arrived. The massive doors leading into the Count's hall swung open, and the delegation from Maya Village was formally welcomed inside.
"Greetings, Lord Xavior. I am Red Peerce, Chief of Maya Village. I've come as our village's envoy, to discuss and establish friendly ties with your faction."
"Omo, welcome, friends from Maya Village, to my humble home! I am Zain Xavior. Come, let's have a feast before we speak about matters of state!"
So their first day began with a feast, hospitality opening with food, as it always should. They spent the rest of the day at it, the Count more curious about Maya Village than anything else on the table, peppering them with questions about the legendary forest and how they'd managed to survive there for as long as they had.
August and Chief Red answered as best they could, careful not to reveal more than necessary. They'd come here in good faith, certainly, but goodwill only extended so far. They weren't nearly close enough yet to start handing over details someone might later use against them.
Meanwhile, on the eastern side of the central subcontinent, war had already begun, and trouble was starting to brew within the Federation of El as well, even as its leaders prepared to attend a meeting at the Empire the following month. Things were only getting worse from here, though none of them knew it yet. Even the Empire, for all its strength, wouldn't be able to stop what was already coming. It would keep growing, festering quietly under the cabal's guidance, until, sooner or later, every ritual necessary would finally be completed. Whether anyone liked it or not, the blood oath meant to summon the Great Evil back to this continent was proceeding exactly as planned.
Back within the Empire, there was no shortage of matters demanding attention. Gathering intelligence on the cabal. Preparing an exploration crew to sail southwest in search of a lost kingdom they'd once traded with. Readying for next month's meeting with the leaders of the free-reigning kingdoms. Preparing to intervene in the current conflict zones. Retaking the imperial highway through Arwen, and quite possibly installing new leadership there, with the Xavior Bloc already under consideration as a likely candidate. Rebuilding the eastern subcontinent. All of it, happening at once. Emperor Janus kept a close watch over every thread of it simultaneously, these being only a portion of what he personally oversaw, though they'd risen, for now, to the top of his priorities.
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The Maya Beastmen Tribe
Meanwhile, back in Maya, the nine Beastmen clans had gathered to discuss their future within the village and how best to secure their place going forward.
The seven new clan chiefs had already agreed: this would be their new home. Technically, they could have formed their own Tribal Chiefdom, the same way the now-destroyed EBT once had. But doing so would mean standing against the village's current ruling authority, and none of them wanted that, not after everything they'd seen. A few days here had been enough to understand exactly how much power this place actually held. It wasn't simply that humans ruled here. It was that these particular humans ruled alongside the beasts of the great forest, and that alliance alone made them formidable. There were, without question, very powerful humans living within the village, powerful enough that rebellion wasn't something any of them seriously entertained. Instead, they wanted the village to understand their position, and hopefully find some way to preserve their own autonomy even while living under the village's authority.
To that end, the current representative for the Beastmen clans remained Chief Tamba. They could have fought over the position outright, but instead used one of the village's own systems, a vote, requiring a 70% majority to win outright. When the votes were counted, Tamba had it, and remained their representative going forward.
The next meeting brought in the entire Elder Council, held at the Council hall to formally discuss the creation of a Beastmen Chiefdom within Zone 3. They would continue following the village's existing rules, much as before, only now as a single unified tribe rather than nine separate clans, to be known as the Maya Beastmen Tribe. Before that name could be made official, though, the village required them to go through the standard vetting process required of anyone seeking citizenship. Until every last one of them had been formally cleared, the name would stay unofficial.
Given their growing numbers, they'd also need a proper administrative building of their own, one large enough to house all nine clan heads. There, matters passed down from the village through Chief and Elder Tamba would be discussed among themselves, and in turn, requests or concerns from the clans would be carried back up to the village through the same channel, eventually reaching the Elder Council hall.
In practice, this meant the Beastmen held no real authority capable of overturning village-wide decisions. Their actual power stayed concentrated within Zone 3 itself, the Special Administrative Zone set aside for them. The village granted them control over matters of culture, justice, health, zone development, agriculture and education, though security remained firmly outside their scope, since the village alone held sovereign authority over the territory and everything within it. Beastmen warriors would still serve the village directly, folded into its broader defense structure rather than operating independently. The zone's administrative body would work in tandem with the relevant village departments, within that limited scope, while anything concerning the village as a whole remained squarely under the ruling council's authority.
They would follow the village's laws in full, while also retaining the right to create their own, applicable only within the boundaries of Zone 3. Village law, by contrast, governed the entire territory, making the village the final word on any dispute serious enough to require appeal or retrial.
In short, once every remaining member had become a formally recognized citizen, Zone 3 would carry more than just cultural separation. It would hold genuine, if limited, legislative power, scoped specifically to the zone the village had set aside in recognition of their customs and traditions. Having reached this understanding, they settled the matter. They would remain, in a sense, a Chiefdom, but one existing under the rule of another. Unusual, certainly, though not without precedent. Much like the Empire itself, which ruled vast territories without directly administering every last detail of them, allowing subject territories to manage their own affairs while still answering to imperial law. In short: power, yes, but bounded power, with the Empire holding final authority above it all.
Even among Beastmen who held little love for humans generally, this arrangement found real acceptance, precisely because the village was both unique and powerful enough to enforce its will without serious challenge.
The dwarves, who now oversaw the entirety of the Apomayon mountain range along with the administrative and managerial responsibilities of maintaining the fortress within it, operated under this same basic principle as the Beastmen zone. They'd been named stewards and guardians of the village's final bastion, the place they'd retreat to should Maya itself ever fall. In short, anyone entering the Zone One Extension answered to that zone's own internal rules, while still remaining bound by the village's laws above them.
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Xelon Castle, First Night and the Remaining Days
With that discussion settled, the story returned south, to Lord Zain's castle. Night had fully fallen by the time things wound down. They had, at last, truly arrived, after such a long journey. The feast had run longer than anyone expected, pushing their planned discussion with the Count back to the following day.
For now, they'd simply rest. Even so, August posted rotating guards to watch over Chief Red from every angle, with shifts changing every few hours. He wasn't willing to hand off Red's security to people they barely knew, not yet. They were well aware of the hostility some in this region still carried toward Maya, and there remained an open question neither of them had answered: whether Lord Zain himself had played any part in supporting the earlier assassination attempt of the village higher ups, or whether that blame belonged solely to a foolish king acting alone. Besides, trusting everyone who offered a warm meal and a soft bed without a shred of caution was, in August's mind, simply a fast way to end up dead.
Even granting that Count Zain himself might be entirely trustworthy, what about everyone surrounding him?
Only the cautious survived. That, above all, was the way of the forest.
The days that followed filled up quickly with meetings, and eventually, tours of the city once the formal business had wrapped up.
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What they'd ultimately agreed on came down to three things. First, both parties formally acknowledged each other as legitimate territories, backed by real economic and military strength. Second, they agreed to open trade between their two territories. Third, they agreed to consider one another as friends going forward, setting aside whatever tensions had come before.
Those were the major points, though plenty of smaller matters came up alongside them. Maya Village made clear it held no control over the Empire's own decisions, that hosting a military outpost within their territory was simply something that happened in places allied closely enough with the Empire to warrant protecting its interests in the surrounding region.
But Zain's goals went well beyond simple friendship. Like the Empire itself, he'd seen something genuinely unique in this emerging territory. If Maya Village ever became a formally recognized kingdom, acknowledged by others the way established kingdoms were, it would sit in a position to control trade running both north and south, a major hub positioned directly along the land route, protected by a forest so dense and dangerous that no invading force could easily topple it.
Maya Village understood something most others never had: how to actually live alongside the beasts of the forest, treating them as the single greatest military asset available outside of imperial strength itself.
Most humans, and most other beings, who'd ever tried living within the great forests had never respected them, not really. They'd come only to take, greedy for whatever resources the forest offered. Maya Village was different, and even without being told the full extent of it, Count Zain could see enough on his own. He was a sharp man, which was exactly why his territory still stood while the rest of the kingdom had burned down around him.
He'd already heard rumors of beasts roaming freely within the village itself, and that alone confirmed at least part of what he suspected, even if the full picture remained out of reach. There was also the matter of opportunity: should Maya Village grow into a genuine economic and military power, as seemed increasingly likely, those who'd befriended them early stood to benefit from whatever the forest had to offer.
Trade had already begun with various territories up north and some in the south, though that had been greatly halted when war broke out in Arwen. Merchants and travelers alike spoke of the goods coming out of Maya, nothing like the standard fare found elsewhere. Food surplus alone had become a valuable export, sold at premium prices. Beast hides and leathers fetched similar respect. He'd even heard the village occasionally sold beast mana cores to neighboring allies, the Millhaven Territory among them.
And the village wasn't purely human either. Humanoids, Beastmen, dwarves, species that had fought wars against humanity more than once, all lived there willingly. That alone suggested something rare: a place genuinely open to people of vastly different backgrounds. Most territories rejected outsiders who didn't share their bloodline or culture. Maya Village didn't. The real advantage, Zain suspected, lay exactly there, in stepping past the usual boundaries of race and culture to find something like a melting pot of real value, not just wealth, but military capability and technology that humans simply didn't possess on their own.
These were, more or less, the thoughts running through Zain's mind regarding the benefits of befriending Maya Village. King Justavous's decision to attack them, to send assassins after them, had been foolish beyond words. But the past was the past. It was better to move forward with these painful lessons in mind. He only regretted that he didn't pay much attention to them sooner.
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For fourteen days, they saw nearly everything the city had to offer until their departure. They traded sparring sessions, exchanged military concepts, shared histories and culture, traded stories between territories, toured the entire place at least for those that weren't restricted to public access. They also told the Arwenians gathered here that their fled brethren had found refuge in Maya Village, news the Arwenians received with real gratitude, thankful for the hospitality shown to people who, not long ago, had counted as their enemies.
But now, they are friends. Not yet allies, but friends nonetheless.
Their remaining fourteen days passed quickly. They saw firsthand what a settlement built along the great river could eventually grow into. August, in particular, asked no shortage of technical questions about the construction methods used throughout the city. He wasn't a builder himself, not by trade, but he appreciated the intricacy of it regardless, and stored away everything he saw in the city's libraries: different farming techniques, construction methods, all of it. To an outside observer, it might have looked like simple reading to feed his curiosity. But with the aid of his Personal System behind it, he retained every detail vividly enough to recall and recreate it later, should he ever choose to.
Though they never made it out to the Xavior Bloc's other territories, what he saw here was enough to understand how far human development could sprawl when left unchecked. This place felt barren by comparison to Maya, stripped of the green, missing the towering canopy his own village had grown up under. It had been built by humans, for humans. Nature had never factored into the equation at all.
So this, he thought to himself, was what centuries of unchecked human territory looked like. Disappointing, in its own way, though he'd been raised somewhere entirely different, in a community that had never been built with this kind of growth in mind. His ancestors, back in old Maya, had deliberately closed themselves off from outside influence. Now, after years spent beyond the forest's edge, after the village itself had chosen to open up, he understood exactly why. They'd already been attacked by humans more than once. They'd already seen humanity at its worst. For a moment, he wondered whether opening the village back up had been a mistake after all, whether he'd undone something his ancestors had gotten right the first time.
But he set the thought aside quickly. Because the village hadn't grown the way this place had. It had grown alongside its environment, not in spite of it, in step with the land rather than in place of it. That had only been possible because of the people who'd stood beside him the whole way.
He realized, too, that he'd never really asked the people of Maya Village how they truly felt about the way things were run there. It was so different from anything established elsewhere. Did they miss whatever lives they'd had before arriving? Or had they come to genuinely love what Maya Village offered instead?
The village's entry requirements ran stringent, even stingy at times. By now, surely, thousands of people had been turned away, not because they lacked the ability to survive there, but because the village respected something else entirely: people who'd never truly belonged anywhere, forced by circumstance into lives they hadn't chosen, learning slowly to accept what they'd been given instead of what they'd once wanted. That was exactly why the vetting process existed in the first place. They might have missed out on real talent along the way, certainly. But what good was talent, in the end, if it came at the cost of harmony with the people and the land around it?
If he'd still been the one leading Maya Village, would he have done half as well? He'd been young back then. Immature, naive in more ways than he liked to admit. But he'd come to genuinely appreciate the adults who'd stepped in when it mattered most, the ones who'd taken up his place and shaped the village into something more than his own vision alone could have built, not their vision imposed over his, he hoped, but something built together. He suspected they felt much the same. He wanted to ask them, and the people of Maya itself, once he finally made it home.
As the fourteenth day approached, they'd already gathered gifts for those waiting back in the village. As for the journey home, that required finding passage of their own. Fortunately, Count Zain had already arranged for one. Not quite the size of the GMV, but more than large enough to carry them up the river.
The day of departure arrived. They said their farewells and boarded the vessel.
They found themselves genuinely looking forward to getting home. Only now did it fully sink in just how many days this proposal had ended up costing them. But it was something they'd learned from, and they'd made another friend along the way. An enemy of yesterday was a friend of tomorrow, or so the saying goes. Count Zain, though, had never really been an enemy to begin with. It was King Justavous who'd dragged his kingdom onto a warpath with their own.
With that, they set sail once more, homeward bound, toward Maya Village.