"You are yet to choose the warriors you requested for the trade," Avankor replied.
Lucius paused for a moment, before standing up.
"Bring me any that are willing, and take half for you and your people," he replied after some thought, before starting with his morning training routine.
Avankor watched him for a moment, before leaving the room. After some time, he returned with 9 male Zeldraves -made apparent by their orange skin color- and a single female -who he recognized as Trel.
By this time Lucius had already finished his morning training and was once again sitting beside Alpha.
Without even looking at his new men, he ordered half of them to prepare themselves to leave for the surface, and the remaining half to collect a few of the blue rocks that he had seen at the entrance.
"Havon, my brother has ordered me to give this to you," one of his allocated warriors said, once all the others had left to fulfill their orders. It was Trel, and she had the pouch that Lucius had given Avankor yesterday.
"Ah," Lucius whispered, before opening the pouch.
The glowing blue gemstone, as well as all the herbs, were still inside. Well, it wasn't as if he was expecting a king to steal stuff from him, even if his people were in dire straits.
"You're something of a scientist in this den, aren't you?" Lucius asked tiredly, as he placed the herbs in neat little columns in front of him.
"Scientist?" Trel asked. Even though she was confused by the question, she still had a look of amusement on her face.
"You study things, I can tell by the way you stare at me. You're interested in me, no... you're interested in studying me," Lucius said plainly, as Trel sat beside him, and began inspecting the herbs as well.
"Am I that easy to see through?" she asked, playfully. However, Lucius did not respond to that.
"Do you know what these herbs do?" he asked after a moment of silence had passed.
Trel inspected the herbs for a few moments, picking one of them up, before sniffing it and placing it back down again.
"We use these to make the meat taste better. Though perhaps there are more uses to them?" she replied, as if expecting an answer from Lucius.
"Then give these to Avankor. Tell him they are payment for the blue rocks I'll be using," he replied, before removing the blue gemstone.
"And this?" Lucius asked after.
Trel stared at it in awe for a moment, before reluctantly shaking her head.
~I thought so. Perhaps I should ask one of the golems,~ he thought to himself before putting it back into the pouch. Of course, he would run his own experiments as well, but first, he wanted to create a few stone-cutting tools for a lab.
As stones and other similar mineral formations were the only materials he could easily mold at this point. And even if he somehow found a way to mold metal in the coming seven days, he would need prototypes to start with.
"I haven't seen a creature like you before. And I've seen all the creatures this side of the forest," Trel commented after some time had passed. However, Lucius did not respond to that and instead began making a mental list of all the materials he would need for his lab.
"And you said that he's your child, but from what I can tell, he's older than you. How does that make sense?" she asked after. But yet once again, Lucius did not respond.
"The glowing tree that fell many days ago had the same light as the magic you used last night, was that yours as well?" she continued, now standing in front of Lucius.
The two looked at each other in silence for a few moments, Lucius with a tired expression on his face, whilst Trel with one of youthful curiosity.
"You can find the answers yourself. But first, give the herbs to Avankor, and tell him we'll be leaving for the Chame's den in a few minutes. Their people are hungry, we need to drop the rest of the meat to Shavak before doing anything else," he replied, before moving past her toward Alpha's bath.
She stared at him for a moment, before reluctantly leaving the room.
"Alpha, I know you're awake," Lucius said once she was gone. His enhanced senses had allowed him to pick up the slight movements Alpha had made in the water.
"I apologize for earlier," Alpha whispered after a moment of silence, before attempting to sit up.
Lucius quickly dropped the pouch and moved to help him get out of the bath.
"Eleanor can take over for me. Even if I'll no longer be useful in combat, perhaps I can help the F and C department," Alpha whispered. This confused Lucius for a moment, as it had been a while since he had heard about the departments. But it only made sense, since only a day had passed for Alpha.
"Alpha, the others are missing," Lucius explained.
"Missing? Are they-" Alpha replied in disbelief.
"No, they're alive. Ghost and Pagan's status screens are still active. I checked last night," Lucius replied quickly.
Of course, concepts such as 'status screen' confused Alpha, but so did half the other concepts Lucius often talked about.
"And as for you switching departments. That's entirely up to you, however, I don't think your combat potential is entirely ruined," Lucius added after.
"Then there's a way to heal me?" Alpha asked.
Of course, there was probably a way to heal him, but Lucius knew how damaging misplaced hope could be. No, instead he wanted to offer Alpha a chance to use what he had left.
"I-I can't say for certain. But, there's a story I want to tell you," he said, before helping Alpha sit down on the ground.
"A story?" Alpha asked, audibly confused.
"It's about a great warrior, a samurai, one who was born without eyes," Lucius replied.
Of course, there was no such samurai that Lucius knew of. The story he was about to tell Alpha was one he had made up last night, though the message he wanted to pass on was real. In this world of magic, sight was not necessary for battle. Though he couldn't deny that Alpha's standard of life would greatly be diminished due to his new disabilities.
"What's a samurai?" Alpha asked, his interest piqued.
