Axium

CHAPTER 18

"You shouldn't have gotten that angry," Verin said as she stepped out of the portal into their palaces throne room.

"You're awake?"

"Ya," Verin said as he unfolded himself and stood up. "I just didn't think it was wise for me to draw attention to myself while your grandfather was talking."

"How do you feel?"

"Like I had my insides were ripped out then unceremoniously pushed back in," he said with a teasing smile.

"It's not funny you almost died."

"Not really. Your grandfather and father knew what they were doing."

Images of blood splattering everywhere as her grandfather and father brutally ripped the poison out of him flashed in her mind and she found herself cringing.

"It wasn't that bad."

"It was too! Your blood was splattered all over their arms."

"It was just poison."

"Blood and poison!"

He shrugged.

"Well you might be okay with it. But I'm of a good mind to go rip Shan's city out of the sky then hunt down headmaster Alton myself."

Neo appeared in a doorway at the far end of the cathedral room. "Permission to approach?" he asked, his voice echoing off the floor and glass domed ceiling.

"No." "Sure." XRenia and Verin answered at the same time.

Verin waved for him to come over and XRenia shrugged walked over to her makeshift throne and plopped herself into it.

"I'm glad to see that you're well your highness." Neo said as he approached.

"Please don't call me your highness just call me by my name like you always have."

"Your name?"

Verin frowned. "You know Vifc.. "Verin." XRenia snapped. tif."

"Ah, right Verin," Vifctif sighed.

Neo smiled and glanced over Verin shoulder at her. "I trust you are in good health?"

"Ya, were both fine. She is just upset because her family refused to rip headmaster Alton's head off."

"I don't see how you're not!" She shot back.

Neo chose wisely to stay out of the subject and instead said, "After you left I hacked Shantopia's systems and I have a few things I wish to show you."

"Sure," Verin said. He walked back and sat on the arm of XRenia's throne while Neo formed a scrying. As Verin leaned back he casually reached his arm behind her and rested it on the top of her throne. He hadn't exactly put his arm around her but she fully felt the intention. She was not however sure how she felt about it. How could he and her grandfather excuse Alton so easily?

"Hey, I've never excused him."

"Yeah but I can feel that you let him off the hook!" She exclaimed.

"That's different. I've chosen to forgive him and not to hold a grudge against him. That does not in the least bit mean I agree with his actions or methods. In fact despite his good intentions I fully believe him trying to kill me was wrong."

"Then why aren't you mad at him!"

Verin opened his mind to her then pushed how he felt at her. It was completely different from how she felt. Her insides were all in a knot, her shoulders tense and anger burned in the back of her throat, but he.. But he felt completely at peace. In fact she had never felt such peace before. The peace flowing through him like an ocean was beyond all comprehension... It was almost supernatural.

"That's because it is. The moment I chose to forgive Shan and headmaster Alton and gave the whole thing to God he gave me his peace."

God? she thought twisting her upper lip. What did he have anything to do it this? Verin definitely had some strange thoughts.

He smiled at her and lovingly stroked the right side of her hair with the arm he had rested on the back of her throne. "God is a part of every part of my life."

"Okay.." She said sitting up straight and pulling her head away from his hand.

"He is," He tried to assure her as he removed his arm from behind her.

She wasn't sure why but she suddenly felt extremely uncomfortable and agitated. "You're sidestepping my question! I want to know how you could possibly up and forgive headmaster Alton for trying to kill you."

"That's just it God told me to and he has forgiven me of so much. But if I hold a grudge and won't forgive someone all that he forgive me of comes right back on my own head. And I certainly don't want that. Plus to top it off God told me that vengeance was his not mine so I am plenty happy to let him deal with it."

XRenia couldn't believe her ears. Verin was downright insane and she could feel he completely believed every word he just said.

"I do. But I'm not insane."

She raised her eyebrows. "I think you have smelled one too many sheep and slept far too many nights alone in the wilderness."

He shrugged as he gave her a toothy grin. "Maybe but hopefully one day you'll understand as well."

She certainly hope not, this God talk was downright ludicrous. She glanced around the room for something to change the subject and realize with a start that Neo was still standing there silently with the scrying he had formed floating beside him.

She reached out and pumped some of her magical energy into Neo's scrying increasing its size. "What was it you want to show us?" She asked as if her and Verin's argument hadn't at happened.

Neo graciously played along. "Shantopia is a marvel of technology and magic," the hacker said as he maneuvered the now enlarged scrying showing a 2-D diagram of Shan's city so it was perfectly in front of her and Verin.

"It is a combination of four main subsystems which are displayed here." Sections of the diagram lit up. "The first of which are the engines. Here." The 2-D diagram flipped on its side displaying the bottom of the city and highlighted an X shape formation of engines that stemmed out from the middle of the city. "Their engineering is some of the most intuitive and masterful combination of machinery and magic I have ever come a crossed. It behooves me to say this but if I still had my former contacts selling these things blueprint on the dark net would net me a fortune."

"You have their blueprint?" XRenia asked in surprised. Such information was usually kept in a special vault and were heavily encrypted, Neo must be a far better hacker then she realized.

Neo nodded. "Yes, I found in unencrypted version in the maintenance subroutines designed to repair and rebuild the engines if need be."

She felt excitement fill Verin as a question popped into his head. "Would it be possible to make our palace fly like his city?"

This time Neo shook his head "While the base of the Palace is built in such a manner such a thing would be possible, the engines themselves require many rare resources one of which is refined uranium and seeing that the world knows what a mage is capable of doing with uranium it would not be wise for either of you to try to obtain some at this time."

Verin's excitement deflated like a popped balloon. "He means it would cause war doesn't he?" He mentally asked her.

She nodded. Even in the best of times if anyone in her family ever touched uranium the entire world would be trying to levy sanctions against them now they would likely just outright instantly declare war. Which meant it was a good thing that no one in the world besides her family knew her grandparents had unearthed over a metric ton of the stuff while fixing up the Badlands. "I understand. But do you mind giving me the blueprint anyway? My mom likes that type stuff and she might be able to make a less powerful version that does not utilize uranium."

Neo eyed her for a second as if weighing her request then closed his eyes and bowed his head.

What's he..

"I think he's praying asking God it's okay for him to give it to you." Verin whispered in her mind.

God again?... She thought as Neo raised his head. To her surprise he said, "Yes, I think she'll make great use of it." He formed an information spell and pushed towards her.

She accepted it, made sure there was no secret virus, and uploaded it to her dimensional inventory.

As she was forming a message to send to her mom Verin said to her in her mind, "you didn't need to check it for a virus he's not that type guy."

She wanted to lie to Verin and tell him that she did it with all of the information spells she ever received but she knew he already knew the truth that even though she did trust him she thought that Neo, or Zach, or yefim, whatever his real name was, was a bit of an oddball. So she just didn't answer him as she sent her mother a message containing the blueprint that said, "Do you think you can give me some uranium to build these? I want my palace to fly."

She was about to ask for Neo to continue when a thought struck her. Uranium was a very closely guarded resource, how in the world would Shan get his hands on some? Heck how did he have the tech he did for that matter?

She voiced this question to Neo. "Do you know how Lord Shan obtained his tech and resources?"

"That is a good question. And it is my belief that headmaster Alton is the one who helped him to obtain such assets. There is no documents specifically stating this in Shantopia's network that I was able to procure but I did find a few trails to seem to indicate this"

"Why would Alton do that?"

Neo shrugged. "That I do not know. I could throw out a few thoughts but they would just be speculation."

"Humor me."

"One he could truly wish to see Thaxium restored or two he wishes to have some semblance of control over you. As we seen he more or less owns Lord Shan if you were to bond with him in some regards you would be underneath that same state. In which case it be killing two birds with one stone with the added effect of most likely diverting war."

"I guess that makes sense," XRenia agreed. And if it hadn't been for my bungling things up it is most likely what would've happened. He did such a good job at making Lord Shan, even my grandfather thought he'd be a good catch."

"He did?" Verin blurted out loud.

XRenia instantly cleared her thoughts not wanting Verin to know what her grandfather had said and quickly said, "what are Shantopia's other subsystems?"

Neo flipped the image in his scrying so it showed the base of the city and Verin found what her grandfather had said.

She expected him to be depressed about it but he just kind of took it while Neo continued. "The entire foundation is a four foot thick interwoven battery system to store magical energy."

XRenia shrugged it was neat but nothing new. "The other two?"

Once again the image in the scrying switched this time showing a closer diagram of the skyscrapers that formed the city. "An energy collector system that runs up the middle of each of the skyscrapers."

XRenia's eyes grew wide in shock. "Wait are you saying he is secretly stealing energy from the people that live in his city?"

"No that is part of the agreement. Anyone can live on Shantopia but as they move around and rest a portion of their energy flows into the systems of the city."

"And the residences are okay with that?"

"No other work is required of them and most of the residents appear to have criminal records so the city provides them with a safe haven that they can freely coming and go from."

"Oh."

"Don't get any ideas. I don't like the sound of that," Verin adamantly stated.

"There has been no proven side effects as yet. Though I do agree with you your highness. It is not a place I would want to live."

XRenia felt Verin about to say not to call him highness but then he remembered what had happened last time and just kept quiet. She flashed him a smile then said to Neo, "And the last?"

The scrying showed the long pyramid like antenna attached to the bottom of the city. "The mining terraform array is a masterpiece of spells designed to shift through giant swath of land at one time. It terraforms the ground while at the same time retrieving any valuable resources. The array runs off the energy collected from the residence and can typically be activated about once a week. Lord Shan sells the resources he obtains from using it to the highest bidder and makes the terraform lands into farms. He has been doing this for about a half year now and has amassed quite the fortune. On top of that he is now able to provide his residence with free food hence why he calls his city Shantopia."

"Wow, that's amazing. If your grandfather knew this he might just kill me and give you to him."

XRenia chose not to comment on Verin's comment and asked. "This array sounds very useful. Were you able to lift its blueprints?"

Neo smiled. "Yes I was. And your servants are out in the courtyard endeavoring to construct a miniature version as we speak."

She shot up from her throne. "Why didn't you say so before?" She asked as she dashed out of the room towards the courtyard.

Halfway through the colossal doorway out of her palace she received her mom's reply to her request. She skidded to a halt and read it.

"No, dear."

"What? why not?" She quickly replied.

As she waited for her mom's answer she impatiently tapped her foot against the floor.

"You know why. Maybe in a few months when things aren't so on edge. But right now none of us can afford to touch such resources."

"Stupid talk of war ruins everything," Verin complained behind her.

"I know." She spat. XRenia was of a good mind to obliterate the other nations just to get the whole crazy talk done and over with.

"It probably wouldn't be that easy." Verin grumbled. "And even if you did succeed you probably then have to continuously deal with the talk of rebellion."

"Party pooper," she said as she trudged towards the courtyard.