The only thing that I can think of right now is that I am not supposed to be here. There is no way that I would be able to represent the Mayfires against the people who have come here. A representative is supposed to speak for the power they represent on the black mountain.

  For example, if a power has a problem with the legion, we are supposed to go to the legion. We are supposed to talk to them and then warn them to tone their behavior. Every power is allowed to have a single representative. It can be anybody from the black mountain, but everybody picks the guard corps.

  As a representative, I am not going to be speaking here. The people here are too powerful for me to even be here. I am present here only as a formality. Well, the patriarch doesn't need a representative to talk to the factions. He has the right and the ability to speak with the people here directly.

  Well, I guess that I should speak about where I am in the first place. Right now I am inside a meeting hall in the inner keep. This is technically supposed to be a meeting with the Mayfires. By now though it has taken on a completely different form. Right now all of the four major factions of the black mountain are here.

  The formation corps, the guard corps, the legion and even the scholars are here for some reason. Right now, the meeting hall has split into two halves. One that is standing with the mayfires and the one that is standing against them.

  The guard corps is standing with the many fires. The man who has come here representing them is Grover swordhand.

  To those not of the guard corps, the man would seem like a mere sword conjurer. The man's position in the guard corps is also a supervisor much like the daniel.

  Even a fool would not consider Daniel to be at the level of Grover. The man holds control over a quarter of the supervisors of the head office. They vote exactly as he wishes them to. As if that was not enough the man holds the ability to directly communicate with about six of our major allies.

  All in all, Grover swordhand can be considered to be one of the most influential figures in the head office. I have never seen the man myself. I simply have not done enough to warrant a meeting with the man.

  Well, the other people that are here are just as influential as Grover swordhand. Most of these people I have only heard of in my life.

  From the legion we have Sharon. She is a sworn that serve one of the three generals of the legions. I guess that I should speak about the generals one of these days. All I can tell about them, in brief, is that they are one of the strongest figures in the hexmountain.

  Well, I can speak a bit more about Sharon though. While she might just seem like an assistant, you can say that she is the voice of her general. She is only sent to places where the generals have an active interest in interfering with things.

  Right now they are standing in the part of the room against the Mayfires. That is not much of a surprise in itself. The guard corps and the legion have always had a rocky relationship to begin with.

  From the scholars, we have Elric Starhand. Well, I have never heard of the man myself if I am honest, but he must be someone up there in their hierarchy. After all, he must be someone important enough to challenge the other people in the group here.

  They are standing against the Mayfires which is a bit of a surprise. Well, the fact that they are even here is a surprise. They don't like to interfere with the other factions.

  Finally, that leaves the formation corps and the person that has come for them is my master. Well, I don't know what my master's plan is over here. All I can tell you is that he did not need to come here.

  My master's presence here is kind of like the man is bullying a kid. The other factions' people are pretty important. I have never met any of them before (and I don't want.). They are still not the leaders of their perspective factions. My master is the sole undisputed leader of the formation corps. That is overkill against this bunch.

  One of my seniors would have been enough to represent his will here. Well, as I have told you before, I am not one to question the thoughts of my master.

  The tension in the room is palpable, to say the least. Ironically, the reason for this meeting here has been ignored here.

  The Mayfires are sitting in one corner of the room, with only five people in the room, including me. It almost feels like they are in this room as an afterthought.

  All the other factions in this room have at least ten people. The only exception to this is my master who has come here alone.

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  Well, the relationship between the many factions of the black mountain is pretty weird. We can work together if we need to, but we try and keep as independent of each other as possible.

  The only exception to this is the legion and the guard corps. They have always competed with each other. The way that each faction goes about things does tend to make work much harder for the other faction.

  It is not a surprise that they are at each other's throats, now that I think about it.

  "Well, how long are we going to be staring at each other's face.", my master begins to speak. "We might be in friendly territory but we can't stay here too long now, can we."

  "Leader wolf, you were the one that called us here.", Grover speaks. "Otherwise your disciple had left us with enough of a mess in the north that I can't be very far from it."

  "Well, this is a work of a very urgent nature. I assumed that it would be wiser to get it done here.", my master speaks. "I have reason to believe that there has been an attempt to invade us."

  At this Sharon rises.

  "That is a serious blame that you lay at our feet.", Sharon speaks. "We have the court under monitoring. Do you think that they would be able to launch an attack on us? We would have detected the day their army left the court grounds."

  "Well, the man is admitting his crimes.", Elric speaks. "Lord Jacobo, how did the necromancers get here? Such a large group of vampires could not have come here on foot. The legion might have missed the but the scholars would never have."

  "Scholar Elric, I am under contract not to speak of it.", the man speaks. Looking at the man he doesn't seem particularly worried about being here. "If you want to learn about it, you will have to speak with Grand Wolf."

  "That is enough, lord jacobo.", the scholar speaks. "Everybody knows what the grand wolf does with his free time. Don't mention it out loud now."

  "Enough, Elric. You know that you are not supposed to be speaking about this topic in front of the youngsters.", my master growls. The man reveals his presence. "Does anybody want to break the treaties?"

  "And yet it is you that have broken the most treaties among the people here.", replies Elric. "The council will be meeting you for this transgression."

  "Whatever treaty I have supposedly broken. We will speak on this later when fewer people are listening.", the man speaks. "Right now we should be learning about the plans of our enemy. Even now the necromancers are running away from us. They are valuable sources of information."

  "Do you think that we have not tried to find them? The forest here makes our ships useless.", Grover speaks. "Unless you are hiding a new sensory formation we won't be able to do anything here."

  "Well, I am tracking them even at this moment.", my master speaks. "Their death mana is foreign here. So I can detect it from far away. At the moment they are going to the east."

  "Well, there is nothing of note to the east other than the Death Valley.", Grover speaks. Realization hits him. "They must be running away to the bone pits."

  The Death Valley is a region that connects to the bone pits. It is considered to be an active combat zone due to the number of undead that are present in that location.

  Even necromancers are not able to enter that region freely.

  "If they are running to the bone pits, then it comes under the jurisdiction of the legion. We will send a troop to find them.", Sharon speaks.

  "The bone pits are under our jurisdiction.", Grover speaks. "The last time that your bunch acted in the bone pits, we lost allies that took us centuries to build up."

  "Were they your allies if that was the case.", Sharon sneers. Well, here it starts.

  "Well, you do seem to think that they are allies when you sharpen their swords at their blacksmith. They do seem to be allies when you eat their food.", Grover replies. His voice is rising with each word. "Well once you visit they certainly don't remain as allies."

  "Will the two of you shut up," Elric speaks up. "I would say that this mission should be given to the guards."

  The only reason that they are interfering right now is because they want to be part of the group that goes on this hunt.

  "Elric even you know that something like this is very risky.", replies Grover. "The bone pits is not a place where the scholars would be safe."

  "We must be on this mission.", the scholar speaks. "After all, the grand wolf has been meddling with things that he should not be meddling with. The necromancer might just be the proof that we need."

  Well, that has the wanted effect. Right now both Sharon and Grover are silent, pondering.

  My master is not exactly a popular figure in the hexmountain. He has varying degrees of bad relations with all the other leaders.

  Right now both of them are thinking whether they would be able to work with each other. They might even end up doing so if it means that things would be getting hard for my master.

  "Well, I must admit. At the very least you scholars tend to be direct about things.", my master begins. "Well, all of us want to follow after the necromancers. All of you have certainly made that clear. What I propose is that we all send a group."

  Sharon and Grover are glaring at each other as they say.

  "We agree.", Sharon speaks. "We will need to decide who we are going to send through."

  "Well I had an idea about that.", my master interrupted them before they could present anything. "I propose that each faction sends a troop on this hunt. That way everybody's desires are satisfied. Does anybody have a problem with that?"

  All three leaders nod their heads, agreeing to the deal.

  "I just have a problem.", speaks Elric. "There is a reason that we all work independently of each other. Every faction of the black mountain has their way of doing things."

  "Well, I was already thinking about that.", my master replies, without missing a beat. "The solution to that is my disciple. He has experience in dealing with the legion, the guards and the scholars. He can also represent the formation corps in this hunt. As you know we don't have an army of our own."

  Well, I was expecting something like that. My master always finds me one impossible task after another. None of the leaders react to this other than a short nod though.

  "The Mayfires will also contribute soldiers for this hunt then. Five of the strongest young masters will join this group. ", the patriarch speaks. "After all, the necromancers have attacked us in our homes. We would be damned if we did not attack them for such an affront."