12 Night coup

"Now, let me formally welcome as the chief of the Kaleidos tribe. I'm Diana."

"He is a male! How can you just let him stay here?"

"My dear sister, I know you are still mad about your husband-to-be but you will have to get over it. He has done something beneficial for us and it's not like our men aren't staying here themselves."

Diana had the bearings of a true leader, the charisma she exuded made her sister swallow the insults she had been about to hurl. Helena's complexion grew dark as she seemed to remember something uncomfortable.

After this brief clash between sisters, they both excused themselves and Irene led me to the tent I would be staying in. I called it a tent but it was little more than a frame of wooden sticks tied together and covered with furs. The ground inside was also laid with furs creating a bed of sorts.

"Rest here, someone will come to get you in the morning."

In other words, stay here and don't leave without permission. Got it. Irene left while releasing the fur above the entrance leaving the tent in darkness. Too bad that they didn't know I could give myself night vision. My eyes expanded a little and my pupils turned into vertical slits.

The darkness before me immediately became a well-lit room. Dragon eyes were such a cheat!

Now, what could I do to kill some time? The sun had only just set and I wouldn't be able to fall asleep this early. Best to just make something out of the materials I had gathered.

Since I didn't want to alert anyone outside I used a small noise cancellation spell before I got to work. I didn't have to make gear for specific people anymore so I could finally let my creativity run free.

With a large stock of golden scales from that wyvern, I could make lots of armor pieces. Right now I felt like making a pair of gauntlets so I started connecting the scales to create the desired shape. Thanks to the size adjustment enchantments I used the original size wasn't too important.

However, during the process of making the gauntlet, I could already tell it would end up a failure. It just didn't feel right. The connections between the single parts were flawed and the magic just didn't flow smoothly. At most this would end up at the epic (grade 6) level.

I decided to make it a more flashy gauntlet. Instead of further boosting its sturdiness I focused on shaping the magic to project outward. If I succeeded the wearer would be able to summon two giant phantom gauntlets that would move like his real gauntlets and thus give the user a larger range and extract them from close combat situations.

Not long after, the gauntlets were completed. As I had expected they were lower standard epic (grade 6) gear. Being done with them I placed them to into my separate space and retrieved some more scales. I went through the crafting process again and found hundreds of minuscule mistakes that I had made the first time. I tried again and corrected all my prior missteps with great care. The product was, to my great chagrin, another epic (grade 6) gear though stronger and more durable than the first one. Having killed enough time I placed the second pair of gauntlets into my separate space and lay down on the furs to get some shut-eye.

It was about two or three in the morning when I was awoken by malicious intent and hushed voices. A group of people was sneaking around my tent and their intentions weren't decent. Since using my eyes would be too conspicuous I closed them and relied fully on my magic sense to tell me what was going on around myself.

The fur at the entrance of my tent was raised and two female warriors I hadn't seen before entered. They were trying to be sneaky but their hushed voices were far too loud to be overheard by me.

"Why do we have to take care of this male? He's not going to be able to stop us anyway. Once lady Helena has thrown the chief into the ghost river the tribe will be ours and we can just kill him."

"Don't question lady Helena! Irene said he was a shaman and it would be bad if he were to support Reina to be the next chief."

"Aren't we taking care of those two as well?"

"Lady Helena plans to kill them after the chief is taken care of. If something were to happen in the meantime it might interfere with lady Helena becoming the next chief."

Damn, those two were completely oblivious! And here I thought I'd have to figure out their plans myself. From what I could gather this Helena lady was staging a coup and trying to take over the position of chief. She must have been planning this for quite a while. That she decided to also send someone to take care of me was a testament to her ability to adapt her plans at a moment's notice.

As the two warriors approached my lying form they pulled out bundles of rope and started to tie me up. Was that all they were going to do?

Those idiots called me a shaman but didn't inhibit my ability to speak? Sure, to me it made little difference but this was just unprofessional!

Even the way they wound the rope around my upper body pissed me off. The only things I couldn't move were my upper arms. Everything below my elbows wasn't hindered in the least!

"What now?"

"We keep him here until lady Helena has disposed of the chief. Then he will be judged."

Yeah, I wasn't going to just let this happen. If I had to choose between talking to Diana or Helena I'd just Diana any day of the week.

Better yet, if I saved her life she might be more willing to share some crucial knowledge with me. Sure, I'd be sticking my nose in other people's business but I was seen as the bad guy by most of the world anyway.