The Oracle Paths

"What the hell did you just do?" Lady Lyria stammered in horror, witnessing the bashful state of the legendary vixen, whose icy heart was known far and wide.

The icy heart in question had just melted...

"Exactly what I promised. I simply charmed her," Jake explained calmly, scrutinizing the reactions of his new admirer with genuine curiosity.

It wasn't every day he got to see his Charm attribute at work. It was a chance to take notes.

Usually the first to not give a damn about what happened to that bitch, the Keeper of the Archives paled solemnly, foreseeing the far-reaching consequences of such a capability. Though the foreigner was focused on Faye under the guise of retaliation, it was unmistakably a veiled threat towards her too.

If she provoked him, he would do the identical to her…

"There's a difference between seducing, charming, and enslaving," Lyria finally retorted, having regained enough confidence to converse without her voice trembling.

Unexpectedly, Jake didn't contradict her, even agreeing with her.

"You're absolutely right. But where you're mistaken is that I'm not doing anything. If a naïve girl falls for a stunning man, idolizing him for his looks and overlooking his flaws, is the man guilty of manipulating her into falling for him?"

Lyria frowned, reluctantly pondering the question. After a brief introspection, she cautiously replied,

"He... shouldn't be guilty. It's the girl, in her superficiality, refusing to see beyond, blinded by the tree that hides the forest."

"And it's the same with Faye and me," Jake concluded, winking at Faye, who blushed so much you could almost imagine steam escaping from her ears. A bit more, and she would have fainted from the emotion.

Finally understanding what he meant, but still skeptical, the Keeper of the Archives repeated several times in her head what she wanted to say, then ventured,

"Are you trying to say you're not manipulating her at all, but your innate charm is so extraordinary that no woman can resist it?"

"Bullseye."

His confident, quick response still didn't dispel her doubts.

"Then why am I not affected? If it were a permanent trait, like your physical appearance, shouldn't I be in the identical state as Faye?"

Jake calmly locked his galactic eyes with hers and clarified with a gesture,

"If your arm can lift a mountain, does that mean everything I do with it must exert such force? If that were the case, just brushing my teeth would trigger cataclysmic tornadoes capable of leveling all of Lustris in a heartbeat." Before she could object further, he added, "When self-awareness exceeds a certain threshold, just as one feels the existence of their arm, one can sense other traits about themselves, even if they're conceptual and hard to quantify objectively. I could elaborate more, but even I don't pretend to know everything about such a subject.

"In conclusion, I'm not manipulating her. I just chose to display her my 'true appearance'. And since I'm good enough to choose whom I reveal myself to, you continue to see a watered-down version of me. Am I clear?"

Lady Lyria still had all sorts of doubts and unanswered questions, but she chose not to dig further, fearing he'd snap and decide to subject her to the identical fate. However, she had to verify something.

Turning to Faye, she waved her hand in front of her eyes, then snapped her fingers to catch her attention. When the vixen turned to her and glared with the identical haughty and slutty air as usual, she felt slightly reassured.

"What?" Faye barked sharply.

"Do you feel manipulated? You realize the feelings you have for him are totally irrational, right?" Lyria reminded her with a worried look, carefully probing her expressions.

She still held a faint hope that her colleague would affirm she wasn't that naïve, that a seductress like her wouldn't be easily caught in her own game, but her response gave her a surge of hope, which was utterly crushed immediately after.

"I'm fully aware he did something. But…"

"But?"

"But even knowing that, I'm regrettably unable to disregard what I feel. If… If he asks me anything, I won't refuse. As long as I can keep looking at him…"

Lyria paled, receiving confirmation of her fears, but Jake had no intention to entertain them any longer. The night had been long and full of twists, and it was time for him to bow out.

Now ignoring the shaken Keeper of the Archives, he flashed an innocuous smile at the lewd narcissist gazing at him like a lost puppy and 'kindly' ordered,

"Make me a list of all your artifacts and treasures, from the most precious to the least."

Jake didn't go as far as asking her to reveal all the state secrets she knew in front of Lyria. Not only was Anthace reporting their conversation to the Celestial, but if they didn't preemptively kill her that night, he'd have other opportunities to interrogate her without raising unwelcome suspicions.

"My most precious artifact is…" Faye rushed to reveal all her possessions passionately, as if eager to prove she was worthy of his interest.

Jake and Lyria listened in silence, the former stoic, the latter becoming more pallid as she heard her revered colleague reveal the obscene fortune she had amassed through evil machinations and plots defying imagination. When she learned at one point that her family heirloom, a mage staff enchanted over 20 times stolen during a burglary targeting one of her ancestors, was in the bitch's possession, her face turned green.

"I… I can't believe it…" Lyria growled in a voice abnormally hoarse and ominous. "I constantly thought it was a tribe of raiders from the Duskwight Lands who had stolen it. The traces left at the crime scene supported that theory."

*****

If the expression of the renowned Keeper of the Archives was ashen with rage, then at that moment, the Celestial listening to Anthace's report transmitting their conversation was downright furious.

And not just him…

The other two Radiant Conclave members were beyond outraged. On the verge of rushing to where Jake was to strangle Faye right before his eyes.

"That bitch!" Lord Calyx cursed, violently smashing the stained glass behind his golden throne with his fist. "That bitch swore to me, looking me straight in the eyes, that my Ode to the Titans was destroyed during the last raid!"

Ode to the Titans was his favorite painting, a masterpiece that one of his painter ancestors created after pushing his art to its apex. By using the blood, sap, and pigments of plants and beasts that had acquired a certain number of Life Enchantments, then dipping these ingredients in the western half of the Lumyst River, it was possible to create a 'living' painting.

To paint Ode to the Titans, his ancestor had undertaken a lengthy task before painting the piece itself, collecting the blood of the Titans he intended to paint to use as paint. The value of this painting, both militarily and sentimentally, was immeasurable. Its disappearance had been a severe loss for the Lustra Plains and his clan, but today he discovered that his cherished painting had never gone very far…

"I'm going to kill her…" Calyx declared through clenched teeth before being stopped by a resigned shake of Master Eldrion's head.

"I also long to torture her extensively, but we have a more urgent problem," the old warrior sighed bitterly.

Noticing the gravity on the faces of Eldrion and Valandar, the blood rushing to his head receded as it had come, his face turning pale with horror.

"No!"

"TOO… LATE…" Anthace's somewhat mocking sigh resonated in the room, prompting them to slump back into their thrones, defeated.