Dragon Hunter

Chapter 10: Chapter House

The Insu'ul Albinae chapterhouse ended up being a low, single story building with its own courtyard somewhere in the city's merchant district. As the small group slipped through a gate into the courtyard, they found a team of heavily armed and armored paladins standing guard.

"The Primal Council granted the order's charter," Kith explained at Cooper's confused expression. "But it's up to the individual governments to determine what interaction and freedom we have in their territory and cities."

The elf commander frowned.

"And the Vaen don't like us very much!"

Cooper's expression morphed from confused to understanding. A multinational force that had different rules for individual members. Imagine that. It certainly explained the belligerence that the guard captain had towards them. A belligerence that was unlikely to have changed, despite Cooper single handedly saving their city.

"Okay, so what's the play here?" he wanted to know as he and Kith stepped through the guards, leaving the rest of the company behind to renew acquaintances with them.

"And it better be that we are immediately rolling out on a quest to find the ultimate weapon. Because I forsook my entire species to go with you."

Kith favored him with a quick look before nodding.

"That is indeed the 'play' here, Cooper Jacks," he said, pushing aside the door leading into the building itself to step inside. "We just need to gather some intelligence first!"

Following him, the human immediately staggered to a halt at what his eyes beheld.

"Man, this place isn't this big from the outside!" he declared in amazement.

"No." Kith paused just inside the threshold to look at the relatively vast hall they now stood in. Which, despite having no visible windows, was filled with natural light, beams of it angling down from hidden apertures to cast pools of warmth and illumination on the dark tiled floor.

"One of the first things magic did for us in the Garden was create the ability to manipulate and fold physical space inside an enclosure." He abruptly frowned.

"Not that it mattered when dragonfire was powerful enough to destroy the outside during their assault on our worlds."

The elf pushed aside his dark thoughts with a visible effort. He turned to a frowning Cooper to make a 'follow me' gesture.

"Come. To the war room to update you on our efforts to locate powerful relics in our war against the Scale Empire of Flame!"

The first thing Cooper noticed when they crossed the open central space to step into one of many rooms lining the space was the floating globe in the middle of the room, crafted from shades of light, twice as tall as Cooper at 6'4" was, and slowly rotating in place. So impressive was it, it made him overlook the floor to ceiling planetary maps that covered every wall, again underlining the fact there were no windows. Maps of planets that weren't Earth.

As the human stared at the globe, which definitely was Earth with her distinctive continents recognizable from any map, he also found himself ignoring the bookshelves stuffed with books, the tables overflowing with scrolls and maps, and a three dimensional map table in the corner that also appeared to use sculpted light to depict an unrecognizable battlefield somewhere. And the three weapons stands filled with all manner of swords, pikes, spears, maces and axes only got the most cursory of glances.

"Our mimic map," Kith said as the astounded human watched the line dividing day from night appear and begin marching across the globe's face. "A real time representation of your world, allowing us to track our efforts at any time or location as they actually happen."