Belissar made his morning rounds. He went to the bumblebee meadow and fed the Heart of the Forest some honey, then checked on the room as a whole. At this point, the flowers in the bumblebee meadow were growing a bit larger each day. Princess Finnakynne was still there as well, sleeping on a bumblebee soldier. Belissar spoke with the queen of that particular nest.
“Are you ok with Princess Finnakynne?”
The bumblebee queen responded by zipping a few fast circles around Belissar, then returning to her nest. Belissar followed along with his Tower sight and watched the queen point her antennae to some of the wax pots filled with honey and pollen. She then crawled over to the bumblebee soldier and pointed towards the sleeping pixie. She crawled back and forth between the wax pots and the pixie a few times as Belissar’s eyes widened.
“Ah, she helped you forage?”
The queen climbed back out and resumed flying rapid circles around him. Belissar smiled.
“Great, glad to hear that.”
Indeed, he was. He had been worried about Princess Finnakynne messing with the bees, but it appeared she was not only behaving but also helping them out. Now it seemed he had nothing to worry about…besides the pixie princess and dungeon master still refusing to go home, that was. But as long as the bees were fine with hosting her, then so was Belissar.
He resumed checking on the bees throughout his dungeon, finishing up by passing some mana to the spiderkin eggs. The bees were also giving mana to the eggs throughout the day, apparently, but Belissar wanted to take as much burden off them as possible. It was his decision to take care of the eggs, after all.
He was just finishing up when Nenavann, Tarwantrad, and Tamosmed came through the nexus door. Belissar furrowed his brow, for all of them seemed upset. Tamosmed was frowning, Tarwantrad was full on scowling, and even Nenavann looked exhausted. Belissar thus had a bad feeling, but there was nothing to do but see what was going on.
“Hi Tarwantrad. Did…something happen?”
“Well, there’s good news, and there’s bad news. The good news is…the Compact has finally decided to open up to you. They’re also willing to help defend you if the Tower Lords show up.”
“That’s great…isn’t it?”
Tarwantrad scowled again.
“It would be, if those dumb old signatories would bother to be even the slightest bit grateful to the person saving our entire civilization!”
Belissar blinked at Tarwantrad’s outburst. She was currently mumbling to herself, so he glanced at the other two. Nenavann sighed.
“The Compact wishes to offer you limited citizenship, Belissar. You would be protected under the Compact and permitted access to it. However, you would be subject to the Compact itself, and any land your Tower purified would be considered as belonging to the Compact. Additional restrictions would be placed on you regarding the House of Lore and other such places of knowledge within the Compact.”
“That’s…how would that work with the sigmaka? Part of the land I purified belongs to them.”
“An excellent question.”
He declined to answer it, though. Belissar’s frown only deepened…and soon became a full-on scowl.
“You know…this sounds an awful lot like what the Tower Lords do. If that’s how it’s going to be, then I want nothing to do with it.”
Honestly, he had just finished convincing the karnuq not to kill helpless spiderkin eggs! The last thing he wanted now was for someone else to tell him he had to kill beastkin or withhold potions from peasants or something like that. He wanted to believe the Compact wouldn’t do such things…but Nenavann himself had started off calling the karnuq hybrids or something and hated humans at first as well. Belissar took a deep breath, noticing that his mana was starting to buzz slightly again.
“…at this point, I don’t know if I even want to deal with the Compact. You in the Circle are about the only ones I care about.”
Nenavann just hung his head. Tarwantrad nodded with a huff. Tamosmed crossed his arms and grunted.
Just then, a light flashed from a pouch on Tamosmed’s waist, and out zipped another pixie. She flew out towards Belissar, halting once she was surrounded by Niobee and buzzing soldier bees. She cleared her throat and then curtsied to Belissar mid-air.
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“Ahem, how do you do, Tower Keeper Belissar, dungeon master of the Circle. My name is Henilett, Chancellor of Queen Vanieskon, Keeper of the Law, Recorder of the Compact, Duchess of the Rose Garden…”
Henilett cut her introduction short as the soldier bees continued to buzz.
“…and I mean you no harm. Quite the opposite, in fact. So…if you would be ever so gracious, could you ask your guards not to sting me…please?”
Belissar raised an eyebrow, but he did hold up his hand.
“Wait, for now. Let's see what she has to say.”
The bees kept buzzing but didn’t move any closer for now. Belissar was about to ask for explanations but Nenavann beat him to it.
“Henilett, what are you doing here? No one but the masters of the Circle are permitted beyond the wards.”
Henilett puffed her chest out.
“Officially, Queen Vanieskon has received permission from Wardmaster Varilold for me to search for the missing Princess Finnakynne!”
She then turned to Belissar with a sly smile.
“Unofficially, I am to make contact with Tower Keeper Belissar and facilitate negotiations! Ah, as well as to clear up any…misunderstandings as to my queen’s intentions.”
Belissar crossed his arms.
“And? What exactly are those intentions?”
Belissar’s tone was a bit pointed but he hadn’t fully calmed down from equating the Compact and the Tower Lords. Henilett didn’t seem bothered by it, however, judging by the continued smile on her face.
“To open trade with the Bee Dungeon, of course! Or Bee Tower, if you prefer. As of yet no formal documents record your title or that of your dungeon so you may adjust it as you will until such a time.”
Belissar narrowed his eyes…but paused as Tarwantrad growled.
“If that’s she wanted then what was all that about taking Belissar’s land?! Why was she questioning Belissar’s character?! If you ask me I don’t think Belissar is misunderstanding anything!”
Henilett, however, just shook her head while clicking her tongue.
“Dungeon Master Tarwantrad, how familiar are you with the art of diplomacy? My queen simply stated concerns that were necessary to address. It was then necessary to shift the mindset of the signatories from considering Tower Keeper Belissar as a threat to considering him as an opportunity. Besides, it is the most basic of negotiation tactics to ask for as much as possible in the initial offer. It would not be my queen’s fault if you were to take that as the final and only offer.”
Tarwantrad ground her teeth. Belissar, though, still had a question the pixie hadn’t answered.
“And what about me having to submit to whatever the Compact tells me?”
Henilett blinked for a second before her face lit up.
“Ah! I see now where the misunderstanding lies! You are equating being subject to the Compact as being subject to its signatories!”
Henilett crossed her arms behind her back and began pacing about midair.
“You see! While both the agreement and the signatories are often referred to as the Compact in colloquial settings, in legal scenarios such as this the Compact refers solely to the magical contract all of the signatories are subject to. When we say subject to the Compact, we only mean to agree to the contract itself. The signatories would receive no authority over you save as defined within the Calwaskon Compact itself, which they themselves are also subject to in turn.”
Belissar stood there blinking.
Henilett reached into a pouch at her side, pulled out a scroll, and held it out towards him.
“Here! I have brought a copy of the Calwaskon Compact for you to review, so that you may understand the terms that may apply should you become a signatory.”
Belissar glanced at Nenavann. The dungeon master slowly nodded, so Belissar moved to take the scroll. Just as he was wondering how he would actually hold a scroll smaller than his finger, much less read it, the scroll suddenly expanded in size. The bees buzzed, but nothing else happened as Belissar grabbed the scroll, so they calmed down.
Belissar then opened the scroll before remembering another issue.
“Oh, I probably can’t read…wait, I can read it?”
Henilett held her head up high and puffed up her chest.
“Of course! To prevent any misunderstandings due to mistranslation, all official pixie documents have been enchanted to display their contents in the reader’s preferred language!”
Belissar nodded as he opened the scroll…and then raised an eyebrow as he reached as far as his arms could stretch without opening the entire thing. He let the bottom half drop…and gaped as the scroll extended all the way to the ground. And then kept rolling…and rolling…
He looked to Nenavann for help. Nenavann just sighed.
“It…took quite some time before we were confident we had plugged the most egregious loopholes the pixies might take advantage of.”
Henilett huffed and crossed her arms.
“How insulting! I’ll have you know that all of Queen Vanieskon’s court and subjects have never once broken any legally binding agreements! I’ll not have you question our integrity! How dare you!”
Nenavann just gave her a tired stare.
“I never said you did. Which is why we had to try and put everything into the actual agreement.”
“A comprehensive document is simply the basics! If I recall, it was my queen who proposed the majority of the terms, was it not?”
Nenavann just sighed. Belissar, meanwhile, was panicking over the sheer size of the Compact. He was about to ask the bees to help him read it when Henilett turned her attention back to him.
“Now, I am certain you will want to review the document in full, as any prospective signatory should, but I have identified a pressing issue you should consider first. Would you please turn your attention to the very beginning of the Compact?”
Tarwantrad had walked over to Belissar’s side to try and help him handle the document. She pointed to the first section.
“You mean section one here?”
Henilett, however, shook her head.
“No, I mean the very beginning.”
Belissar looked up to the top of the scroll.
“This part here? The one that says we, the fair peoples, agree to the terms laid out in this Compact regarding relations between all the fair…”
Tarwantrad tilted her head.
“That’s just an introduction, I thought? It’s not an actual term, is it?”
Henilett, however, made a predatory grin.
“Every statement in the Compact is binding, Dungeon Master Tarwantrad. Previously, this statement was simply not considered constraining, as it was all-inclusive for every individual it could possibly apply to…or so we thought. It was, after all, written at a time when we assumed that the land of the fair was all that remained of reality, with all else being lost to the Hunger. But now…?”
Henilett let her words trail off. Nenavann’s eyes widened. Tarwantrad and Belissar both glanced back and forth between the pixie and the elf. Suddenly, Tarwantrad’s eyes widened as well.
“Wait a minute, but Belissar is human! He’s not one of the fair peoples, is he?”
“Precisely. Ergo, even should Dungeon Master Belissar become a signatory of the Compact…none of the terms following the opening statement would apply to him.”
Silence hung over the group. Soon, Tarwantrad and Tamosmed both began to smirk. Nenavann slapped his forehead…though he had a small smile on his face as well.
“This. This is why the Compact is as long as it is…and apparently not long enough.”