Turn Four

After Akroma returned hours later, she told Gideon she picked out a good spot.

"Good, just don't forget the location within the next few days," Gideon replied. He then slowly dropped the Sanctum back down to their little peninsula, putting it back where it was before. The group made their way back to the lowest layer of the Sanctum, where most of their rooms were. All the way they were trying to make small talk. When they reached their floor, they retired to their rooms.

In the morning, Gideon was awoken by a knock on his door. Leaving his room, he joked, "Much easier waking up when you just fall asleep instead of being knocked out." Receiving a slight nod in return from Prava, Gideon headed out of the Sanctum.

He walked up to the library and began picking out his cards for the day. He noticed he already had two cards in his hand, Daru Warchief and Rain of Blades. Gideon sighed to himself knowing that he wouldn't be able to cast these cards for quite a while, meaning that he would have two fewer slots for cards for a few days. Gideon picked a basic land card and the Empire artifact trio.

He walked over to his plains and connected himself to more of the plain of this peninsula. He now had 10 mana he could use every turn. He used the three plains to summon the first of the three empire artifacts: Scepter of Empires. He caught it in his hand while he was slowly walking back to the Sanctum.

Along the way, Aegis questioned him, "I thought you were focusing on bolstering our number for the rest of the 'protection period.' Why are you summoning artifacts?"

"This artifact is a part of a set, when all three are summoned, the last of the set can make 5 soldier tokens every turn for only one mana. Speaking of the last artifact, you wouldn't have seen a good throne room in the sanctum during your explorations, have you?" Gideon responded to him.

"I did, less than halfway up as compared to the war room," Aegis replied.

"Lead the way," Gideon said. As Gideon followed Aegis, he directed the mana from his two Mox artifacts to summon the second of the three empire artifacts: Crown of Empires. He plopped that artifact down on his head rather than carrying it. In fact, he was slowly beginning to look like a young emperor. He was carrying a royal scepter of silver and sapphire, wearing a crown of silver and diamond, flanked by soldiers and an angel, but wearing a disheveled t-shirt and jeans, which ruined the whole image.

After walking ten minutes, the group arrived at an empty grand hall with large windows that overlooked the center of the Sanctum. Gideon looked over the room and said, "Good choice, though it's a bit of a walk, hopefully, that will be taken care of soon."

He then walked to the end of the room and channeled 4 of the 5 mana from the Sanctum into the last of the three empire artifacts: Throne of Empires. A majestic ornate throne appeared facing the entrance of the grand hall turned throne room. Gideon was forced to slump into the throne. All the walking and casting since he drank the Elixir of Immortality had finally caught up to him.

Gideon gave his army a weak smile and said, "Let's recruit more troops, shall we?" He then channeled the final mana from the Sanctum into the Throne of Empires. Five kneeling figures flashed into existence in front of the throne.

"There is only one thing left for me to do today, and with how I feel, it might knock me out again. I don't mind spending the day resting in this chair. Plus I need to find out if this works as I hope," Gideon said while indicating the scepter. He then looked at the newly summoned soldiers, "The five of you follow the orders of Prava."

Gideon next looked at the Scepter of Empires, willed it to activate, and thought, 'Spandam.' He smiled when he felt the Scepter of Empires drain the last bit of mental energy he had since there was no way for Spandam to survive this. The Scepter shot out a white streak of lightning through the Sanctum towards the sky.

**At Enies Lobby**

Spandam was having a normal day. Threatening and blaming the low-level Marines and government agents on the island for mistakes that he made and preaching how important he was compared to them since he was the Chief of his department. Mid-tirade, a flash of white lightning struck him while he was inside the main building. Spandam was instantly cooked and collapsed to the floor, dead.

The entire island went on alert and contacted Marineford for assistance from an enemy attack. The island was searched for hours, with no enemy found on or within 100km of the island. Eventually, the investigation would show that Spandam was killed via an extremely uncommon clear weather lightning strike due to the oddities of Paradise. However, there were two additional peculiarities about this bolt of lightning. Firstly, all witnesses to the bolt described it as white, unlike the normal blue, yellow, or purple. Secondly, despite the bolt going through multiple floors, there was never any damage throughout the Tower of Justice, not even so much as a scorch mark.

However, the incident and its peculiarities were swept under the rug. And Spandine was called back to cover as Chief of CP9 in place of his son.