Free Web NovelChapter 52: Meeting, part 1
The room was dimly lit, the kind that had an oppressive aura about it. It scented of flowers and silk, a weird mix.
At the center of this large, dim room was a round marble table. It was made clean and smooth, showing that careful consideration had been placed into the crafting of the table.
Its surface was covered in geometric patterns that created some sort of sophisticated, multiple-legged creature that stood over everything.
There were four marble seats around the table. Each one was made the same to show equality of some sort. But today, one of the chairs was empty.
On one chair was a figure, an Ogre. He was tall, easily seven feet, with blood-red skin and long hair that flowed down his back. Two horns came from his forehead and curved backwards. His chest was exposed, extremely ripped and jacked, with some thick black line tattoos that followed a symmetrical pattern down his body. Only his bottom half was covered in loose, baggy pants.
His eyes focused on his interlocked fingers resting on the table, as though there was a lot on his mind at the moment. He oozed an aura of calm before the storm, like he could rip apart anyone if they managed to get under his skin.
Opposite him at the table was a lady, and the first word for her was beautiful, stunning. She was the type of woman you walked past and did a double and triple take to be sure such beauty was real.
She sat cross-legged, dressed in an elegant black gown that showed her curves beautifully. A grey wolf-like tail curved from behind her and rested on her thighs. The tips had a blue color that looked like bolts of lightning.
Her hair was the same grey with blue tips, and so were the wolf-like ears that she had. Her eyes bordered between looking human and looking like those of a wolf. She carried the demeanor of someone who would absolutely wreck your entire life if you crossed her, but that was only if you crossed her.
She stared right at the ogre with loose interest, as if wondering what was happening in the head of the being opposite her.
To the right of her was the last person in attendance. He was the weirdest of all in this place because he looked the most normal. He was a human middle-aged man in a suit, a three-piece suit with golden trims and professional tailoring.
His silver, nearly translucent hair was slicked back. He gave off a massive CEO vibe, and his pose did not let down either. He leaned back into his chair with his legs fully crossed and both hands placed on the armrests.
His eyes darted between the woman and the ogre. He watched what they were doing for a few solid minutes, as if watching some sort of interesting show, and then, after what seemed like a very long time, he finally spoke.
"So when do we start, or do we act like we had no reason to converge here?"
After he spoke, there was a little bit of quiet before the ogre spoke as well.
"Calamity is dead, one of us is dead, murdered a few days back," the ogre said.
"That orc had it coming, being the weakest by a huge margin and being a brute. I sometimes wondered why we allowed him to become a member of the Forest Lords, equal to us," the lady said. She looked up, staring at the ogre to see his reaction.
The Ogre King had an older-brother relationship with the Calamity Orc. They all knew this, and so she was poking the bear right now.
The Ogre King clenched his fist tight. He raised his head and looked right at her. "Aris, you should really be careful of what you say. Calamity, much like us, deserved his position," the Ogre King said, trying to suppress his anger at the moment.
"Tch, we need to stop lying to ourselves, Tempest. There is no world where that brutish orc compared to us. Before him there were three of us, ruling, watching. It was you that forced our hands into sharing with him.
You said he had potential for greatness. I guess that has ended with him in the grave. Tch."
Tempest, the Ogre King, could not take this when he heard it. He slammed the table and rose to his feet.
"You stupid dog, I’ll cut you down if you utter one word against Calamity again," he barked in a rage.
Her face twisted, but she did not get to her feet.
"Call me a dog again, and I’ll make sure your head hangs at the top of your tallest house and make every ogre see it," she threatened. Her eyes glowed for a moment.
"Come on, you two, take it down a notch. We have more pressing issues," the Spirit King said. He stood up and stepped away from his chair.
"If you two have not forgotten, someone killed Calamity. Which means that someone is now the new Forest Lord along with us, and that someone is pretty powerful.
We have to know what move comes next, to extend an arm, to aid them."
"To destroy them," Tempest said. He looked up at the Spirit King. "William, that being killed Calamity. I’ll not allow him to take the territory of Calamity. I’ll take it for myself after I kill whoever that was.
No one will touch someone dear to me and walk away without my wrath."
"And what if he turns out to be stronger than you?" Aris said.
"That’s impossible. If he was stronger than me, we would have for sure known," Tempest said.
"He was stronger than Calamity, and yet we did not know. You can’t jump into a fight just like that. You have more brain cells than the orc, use them."
"Leave me be, I’ll do what I wa..."
"You will do no such thing, Tempest," a sharp voice cut through the hall, and the three of them froze.
