"I may be weaker and less well-equipped than you, but in my lair, I need but a snap of my fingers to summon the entire Council. Can you do the same?"
Crevan opened and closed his mouth, having no way to retort. He was damn good at his job, but being in three places at the same time wasn't part of his skillset. On top of that, he had never joined the Council, considering them nothing but a bunch of weaklings.
Yet Crevan's pride lay in not having ever failed his mother, not in boasting about his strength like a tavern thug.
"No, I can't." He closed his eyes for a second, letting his bright violet aura seep out of his body.
His shadow gained a third dimension that quickly turned into a similarly dressed woman that bore a striking resemblance to Crevan. The phenomenon happened again, but this time another man came out.
With the arrival of each new guest, Faluel felt the annoying chill of fall turning into the pleasant warmth of spring as if their presence alone made the Trawn woods a brighter place.
"What was that?" Leegaain asked in surprise. Only Guardians could cross such a long distance without a Warp Array, yet the dimensional perturbance he had felt was akin to that of a simple Blink spell.
"One of the powers of our bloodline." Crevan said. "It allows us to share a mind link even from afar and to become each other's dimensional beacon. We call it Call of the Blood."
"I'll protect your disciples, Lenanna will take care of the village, and Jhet of the villagers. Are three of us enough?" Each Phoenix gave Faluel a deep bow the moment Crevan introduced them.
"Plenty enough. Let's go, Gramps. I'm all yours now." Faluel gave them the thumbs up and dragged Leegaain back inside her lair, where she set up the Warp Array closest to the Flying Griffon.
The moment they left, the three Phoenixes Blinked in unison, surrounding the dimensional crevice from where Tezka the Fylgja hid to protect Zinya's home unnoticed.
While a dimensional amulet created a sub-space where time stood almost still, a dimensional crevice was a small pocket of space stretched by magic, similar to a very small Fringe, that allowed the Warg-Eldritch Hybrid to hide in plain sight.
The dimensional rift connecting the pocket with the outside world was the size of a pinhole and in the case a dimensional sealing array was cast, it would allow him to choose between sealing himself in or coming out to fight.
It was one of the peaks that dimensional magic could achieve, something the existence of which very few people were aware. Hence seeing his pocket space forcefully ripped open left the Fylgja unpleasantly surprised.
"Don't think that your tricks can fool us, little fox. Are you friend or foe?" Lenanna, the only woman in the group asked.
"Don't think that I'm scared of a bunch of hatchlings, young sparrow." Tezka said as all of his ten tails brimmed with power. "If I meant harm, this place would have been reduced to a wasteland way before your arrival."
The members of the nest were flabbergasted by the Abomination knowing their mother's secret origin, yet nothing transpired from their faces. On top of that, every single tail but one held enough power to harm them.
Unfortunately for Tezka, the atrophied incarnation of his mastery over Spirit Magic wouldn't have killed a fly.
"I can't deal with you without compromising our mission so I'll take your word at face value, for now." Crevan said. "Don't get in our way and we'll return the favor."
Tezka replied by Warping the entire dimensional crevice to a safer location while also cloaking it to the best of his abilities. He had no idea if they could still perceive him or not since they didn't bother searching for him.
To make matters worse, he didn't know if they had managed to find him because of their skills or thanks to their overpowered equipment.
Either way, a subtle feeling of defeat crept inn his mind and ruined his day.
'I must tell Bytra to move her a.s.s and craft like there's no tomorrow.' He thought.
Meanwhile, after changing her clothes into a lovely light blue day dress and giving her hair a uniform c.h.e.s.tnut color, Faluel opened a Warp connected to the Flying Griffon's Gate.
The resort was built on a mountain and it needed its own Gate to have access to the important cities of the Kingdom. It allowed the Flying Griffon to always have the best foods and to provide its guests with anything they might need at a moment's notice.
The concierge had worked there long enough to have seen it all. From members of the Royal family too drunk to remember their own name to a certain Archmage so enraged that his sight had been enough to make the staff faint.
The sight of a lovely lady walking arm in arm with someone he could only hope to be a mage too brilliant to care about appearances didn't make him even raise an eyebrow.
"Good morning. We would like to dine here." Leegaain said with perfect manners that made the concierge inwardly sigh with relief.
"I would be glad to have your patronage, sir, but our restaurant is reserved to the guests for safety reasons. We can't have people freely going in and out of here." He was a man in his late fifties with a gentle face whose kindness didn't extend to his eyes.
The concierge had his greying red hair and mustache so finely trimmed that they seemed to have been painted rather than cut. Even though he used no gel it would have taken a storm to move a single one of his hair out of place.
"Fine, I'll take a room."
"I'm sorry, but all our rooms are booked. I can suggest you another est-"
"I'll take whatever you have available." Leegaain unceremoniously slammed on the reception counter a black card with a golden Griffon drawn in the middle.
Only a few of them existed and they all belonged to the ancient magical bloodlines that had helped Valeron to build the Griffon Kingdom. They granted their owner a high level of clearance and unlimited credit from the Royal treasury.
"The Royal Suite is all yours as soon as I check your IDs." A small light of greed shone behind the concierge's eyes.
Usually, every time a black card appeared, the staff's year-end bonus doubled.
Leegaain and Faluel gave their papers and only when the magical scanner on the counter matched the ID with the card did the concierge open the door leading to the restaurant.
The parquet floor was comprised of wood pieces of different shades of brown that formed elaborate mosaics that reproduced the most famous paintings in the three Great Countries and canceled the noise of the guests' steps.
Seeing some of his best pieces among them moved Leegaain while they waited for the arrival of Lith's parents. Among his hobbies, the Father of all Dragons liked the dabble in arts, and over the millennia he had accidentally started several painting movements.
Seeing people still admiring his works after centuries made him happy, spotting several thralls among the people in the dining area, not so much.
