Cloak is right now carrying me into the truelands. I wish that I could describe this place properly, but the only thing that I can see here is a white void. Cloak says that the place is supposed to be beautiful if it were not completely obscured by a storm. (Somehow that doesn't seem likely.)
The man is delivering me to the council, who will be deciding whether I am going to die. I actually have quite a bit to report about the council. Let's just say that Cloak has been very open about it. I am surprised the man was willing to speak about them so much. Even our allies don't tend to be so open with us, and this is one of the tribes. They are supposed to be as hostile as they can get.
I guess that I should speak about the council now. Turns out the snow tribe is not a monolith as they like to show themselves to be. Instead, they are an alliance of smaller tribes that work together to form the council.
The council is the only representative of all the tribes. Well, there are supposed to be hundreds of different tribes that make up the council. I just need to speak about the five tribes heading the council. It is these five tribes that are going to vote on my fate, after all. (They are supposed to be the strongest tribes here.)
The first tribe is the tattoo tribe. As their name suggests, they are masters of tattoo magic. As far as I can tell, these tattoos of theirs are supposed to be a variant of formation magic.
They are the strongest of the five tribes that make up the council. In terms of pure military might, only the spear tribe comes close to challenging them. They are supposed to be strong enough that none of the other tribes can beat them on their own. An alliance of two or more tribes would still be able to beat them, though.
They are also going to be completely against me. Turns out the giant was a person of the tattoo tribe and a pretty important one at that. (I haven't been told how he is important to the tattoo tribe, though.) The fact that I almost killed the giant would have been enough to make them hostile. Turns out, they also don't have a pleasant relationship with my master.
The tribe after that is the Spear tribe. They are master spearmen and are supposed to be masters of weapon conjuration. They are supposed to be particularly proficient in making spears. These spears are supposed to be some of the strongest weapons present here in the truelands.
They are also after my head. In this case, though, the reason is due to my identity as a sage. Cloak has been very careful that I don't know why that is the case. I have to assume that it has something to do with that place called the Spear Valley. Well, at the moment, that is not important. The spear tribe is going to oppose me at every turn.
The third tribe is the beast tribe. They hold the ability to command the ice beasts (and a variety of other beasts.). They hold a pretty unique position in the council since they do not have much combat capability. Cloak claims that the only reason they are part of the five tribes is that they are traders. Nobody can fight them without losing a lot of money. They provide ice beasts and many more things to the various tribes in this place.
Due to their tendency to be merchants, they are also the only real neutral force of the council. They have a good relationship with every force of the snow tribe. Due to this, they also have the most unpredictable vote. It could be against me or for me, depending on whether I manage to convince them that I don't harm their bottom line.
The fourth tribe is the wolf tribe. They are supposed to be item mages, based on how Cloak speaks of them. It is a rare branch of magic where the mage uses magic to bind to and empower a particular item. In this case, their magic is bound to their cloaks, made from the skin of the winter wolf. As you can guess cloak is supposed to be a part of this tribe, though the man claims that he is independent of them.
They are also the only force in the council that supports me. More accurately, they support my master. With him coming, the wolf tribe is my only ally here.
And that leaves me with the fifth and the most interesting tribe of them all. They are called the blood tribe and I don't know anything about them. Cloak is unwilling to tell me about them. The only thing the man has confirmed is that they are weirdos. They are the smallest tribe, having only a thousand or so people. Yet, none of the other tribes seems particularly inclined to fight them. Cloak doesn't tell me why they are so feared, only that none of the other tribes want to fight them.
They are also supporting me, though the only reason for that is my master. Cloak doesn't know anything beyond this. How and what my master has traded to buy their support we don't know.
So these five tribes together form the council. I guess that I should also explain why the council is needed in the first place. Well, the simplest way to put it is the truelands are not a gentle place to live in. The snow tribe can indeed resist the chill and live in the northern wastelands. Even they are not able to survive the storms of this place, though.
Storms in the truelands occur only during the winter, and they are devastating to put it in mild terms. Only the snowlords can physically survive in the truelands during the winters. (For every snowlord, there must be a thousand commoners here.)
That is why every tribe has to make sure that they are protected against the storms. Well, the only way to do that would be to erect massive barriers to block the storms. How exactly these barriers work I don't know. Cloak has been very cagey about this topic for obvious reasons.
Anyway, the council is here to make sure that every tribe will survive. Firstly, they make sure that every tribe will be able to set up these barriers. If they are not able to do so, the council will absorb these tribes into other tribes that will be able to do so. They must provide the means of transport to do this.
By the way, I do not know any details about this barrier that Cloak speaks about. All I can tell you is that it is not any kind of formation. (There would be obvious signs of formations.)
That is why they need to raid the Snowwind Empire. That is the only place nearby that would be able to provide them with supplies to take care of refugees.
Naturally, the council does not do this for free. They are supposed to extract a very heavy price for their protection in the form of tributes. However, what these tributes are is something that the man is not saying. Now that I think about it, the man does have experience with the black mountain. He knows how to hide the truly important stuff.
(After about a couple of hours.)
The headquarters of the council is a piece of work. It is a massive crystal mountain that seems to be glowing like a sun in these frigid lands. Well, it would be wrong to call it a crystal since the entire mountain is made up of a special kind of ice.
The mountain is also called the council. As for why that is the case. That was the only name that all five tribes could agree on when naming the place. Any other name and the tribes would have returned to fighting within the week.
The mountain is the manifestation of a powerful piece of environmental magic. The only thing that I can tell about this magic is that it is not formation magic. Whatever it is, I assume it is based on the tattoo magic of the tattoo tribe. I could spend all of my time here trying to study the runes present in this place, and I would achieve nothing.
You can say these runes are a completely different language to me. I would need somebody to explain at least a few of the basic runes to me to make any head or tail out of this mess. For me, all of this is just squiggles in my mana sense.
Still, I can tell you that this is something very powerful. The mountain barely shows any pulsation of mana. No mana leakage is often the sign of a powerful spell. I can say that it would require my master at least to create a formation matching this efficiency.
However powerful it actually is, it is doing its work amazingly well. The instant that the mountain came into view, I could feel the wind around me stabilize. It has stopped now that we are much closer. The white void has disappeared to form the sight in front of me. A bunch of shops through which people are walking about about trading stuff. It is so crowded that it resembles a busy town square.
This market is what gives power to the council. It is supposed to be the greatest market of the truelands. Every tribe can come here and trade for goods without worrying about being attacked. Something stupid like that will acquire the ire of the council.
This place connects the folks of different tribes, and that is what makes the council so powerful. Only the council can maintain this place. It would not be an exaggeration to say this market is the beating heart of the truelands.
It also forces the council to work with each other. After all, even the beast tribe (they are the richest of all the tribes.) would not be able to afford the cost of building and maintaining this mountain. They will bankrupt themselves creating something like this on their own.
As I have been recording this, Cloak has been going over the market to the gate of the council. Even as I land on the ground, I can see the massive gates of the council tower above me. In most places, such a gate would exist to intimidate enemies. Here, it is needed to accommodate the sea of people going in and out of the council.
Right now, I am standing outside the gate waiting for Cloak to take me into the place. Cloak has dropped me outside the gate of this place. He is right now securing my entry into this place. If I were to try and enter without permission, I would be frozen to my death before I could take a step into the place.
I hope that cloak doesn't take too long, though. The people around me are giving me curious looks as if they are wondering who I am. Well, it won't take them too long to guess who I am. While the council has yet to reveal my presence to the public, it doesn't mean that the rumors aren't spreading. If the people realize who I am, I don't think there will be anything of me left for the council to pronounce a verdict on. I am sure that I am the most hated figure in this place, right now.
I almost breathe a sigh of relief as I notice Cloak coming to pick me up.