September 16, 2152
A gentle knock sounded at the door to Emory's room before a slight creak echoed inside. Three young women crept into the room as Emory continued to sleep soundly under the covers. Once they slunk in and filed neatly next to the bed, the first one in line cleared her throat a couple times. Emory's eyes fluttered and opened, focusing on the closest woman, before she slowly sat up and stretched. The first one spoke softly, "Lady Emory, we have been sent to help you get ready for the day's activities. How can we best assist you?"
"I suppose I could use some help with my hair," Emory yawned, "I saw all these colored robes yesterday. Are they for specific days or can I wear whatever I want any day?"
"As an honored guest, you are allowed to wear whatever you like. Though it would be best to select a simple color for today, like the grey one you have segregated. How would you like your hair done?" the woman kindly asked.
"Do you know what braids are?" Emory replied to which the three women nodded, "I think a five or seven strand would be the most appropriate. Let's do that." She got off the bed and took her clothes to change behind the privacy wall surrounding the bathing area. When she was finished, she returned to the servants and let them get to work on her hair. Instead of spray bottles with product in them, these women carried around small vials of herbs and created the water from thin air by using Arcane magik. Including the hair, it only took thirty minutes to get Emory ready for the day.
Having finished, the woman questioned, "Would you like any breakfast brought to your room or will you be joining the rest in the foyer?"
"I think I'll join the rest," Emory answered after a brief pause, "Is Lord Athos awake and down there yet?"
"Yes ma'am. He just went down before we arrived," the woman affirmed.
Emory smiled, "Then I'll head down too. Thank you for your help this morning." The three ladies curtsied and left the room while Emory took a look at herself in the mirror. She had grown slightly taller, and her body had filled out a little more in certain places. Her skin was smooth like silk, not to mention her senses were all heightened compared to a master tracker. But all of those improvements could be linked to her change at level three. No, what she stared at was how long her hair had gotten. Even in a five-strand braid, her red locks, when straightened, went all the way down to just above her butt. It matched the grey robe well, but she didn't like the heels they had laid out for her. Quickly, she kicked them off and changed into the boots she had gotten the day before. Then she summoned her Arcane cloak, making her robe sparkle, and clomped downstairs to the foyer. As she was coming down the stairs, she met eyes with Athos wearing a plain white robe. Once she reached the bottom, she quickly made her way to him, especially because she had noticed that rather packed foyer had gotten disturbingly quiet since she entered the room fully.
Athos bowed, "Lady Emory, you like simply ravishing. And you certainly know how to make an entrance. Rather bold move to show an inkling of your power before the whole thing starts, don't you think?"
"Oh, the cloak? Honestly, I didn't even consider that possibility," Emory shrugged, "From a magik perspective, it doesn't bother me in the slightest; in fact, it probably helps temper my body a bit. I actually did it though because I wanted to add some sparkle to the plain grey."
"How remarkable it must be to have your power. You came just in time; the ceremonies are going to start very soon," Athos laughed.
"How does this thing go?" Emory asked, "I have to be honest: I hope you don't want me to speak to a big group. I get stage fright a little bit."
Athos shook his head, "No, no, nothing like that. At the beginning, they will announce you and me. Then we'll wave and sit together in the upper row. After that, every member of the Legion will introduce themselves to us and are granted permission to make one request of the Empire. If at least three of the Five approve the request, then it happens. For that reason, most of the requests are fairly manageable but meaningful, often going to core issues for that town."
"That doesn't sound like it will take as long as Soren described last night," Emory scrunched her face, "Why does it take so long?"
"Has he told you there are five hundred members of the Legion?" Soren's voice rang out from behind. He was wearing a navy-blue robe with two silver bars near his neck, and his jet-black hair had been combed back.
"Five hundred and one," Athos corrected him, "Each member gets two and a half minutes to introduce themselves and state their request. Usually, we cast our votes within that time as well, but that's not part of the requirements."
Emory paused while she did some quick math in her head, "Now, I see why it takes so long. That's a lot of people to get through."
"It'll be fifteen straight hours of it today," Soren grieved, "And up to eight hours tomorrow. Of course, you can get up to stretch or use the restroom. Food will be sent out in little trays around lunchtime."
"Don't worry, I always have my pocket storage of food if you get hungry before that," Athos patted Emory's shoulder just as a gong rang out through the building. Just about everyone Emory could see began moving towards a massive white double door that seemed to appear out of the structure of the wall. Neither Athos nor Soren moved though, so Emory stood waiting as a thunderous clop of footsteps echoed around the stone walls. It took about ten minutes for the horde to enter the next room, leaving six people alone in the foyer: Athos, Bramimond, Emory, Soren, and two women she didn't know. They all began congregating just before the door at the same time. Without a word, they arranged themselves in a single file line in a particular order: Bramimond, the two women, Athos with Emory beside him, and the Soren last.
A second gong chimed, causing the line to start to move. Then an announcer's voice bellowed over all the chaos, "Welcome to this year's third Assembly. As always, please give a warm welcome to our Five! First up is the Primal Champion, Bramimond the Fierce!" Bramimond stepped forward and waved to the crowd as he walked to five grand thrones on the back wall of what looked like an inside amphitheater. Inside she could see a wide dividing walkway that separated two halves of a hemisphere of stone rows that faced the thrones. Between the stone rows and the intricate thrones was a crystal stage with a white wooden podium and a desk with an attendant carrying a big scroll.
"Please welcome our Dark Champion, Hanon the Mysterious!" the announcer continued, waiting for each member of the Five to sit before introducing the next one, "Say hello to our Light Champion, Elimine the Fair! Warmest greetings to our Spirit Champion, Athos the Lucky and his honored guest Emory the Ancient!" As soon as the announcer read those words, the auditorium fell dead silent as everyone turned to look at the guest called the Ancient. Whispers began growing while the realization of the words' meaning became clear.
"Surely they don't mean the fabled Ancients, right?"
"I don't know; she doesn't look very old biologically."
"And look at her cloak of magik. It's at least as impressive as the Five."
"The Ancients couldn't still be alive, could they?"
"Lord Athos must be really powerful to have this kind of luck."
Emory smiled and waved as she listened to all the conjectures about her heritage. She followed Athos to his chair, just left of center, but realized there wasn't a chair for her. With a shrug and a wave of her hand, a throne made of pure magik formed just behind Athos's throne. Audible gasps swept over the crowd because solid magik of this caliber was even tiring for the Five. Yet this young woman simply flicked her wrist and made it like child's play.
"And finally, please give a round of applause for our Legion Champion, Soren the Bold," the announcer coughed, clearly having lost their composure with Emory's display. Emory noticed that Soren and Athos had slightly more enthusiastic cheering than the other three, but Soren's was definitely the loudest. He sat in the last chair next to Athos and winked at Emory when he approached her, clearly approving her display. Once they were all seated, another gong went off while the Legion cheered loudly for all the Five. Then the first row on one side of the center line stood up and began queuing for the podium.
One by one just as Athos and Soren had described, each member of the Legion introduced themselves and stated a request. Some were simple like materials to construct a public building or land approval to expand the boundaries of a city. Others were more complicated like individual leave for specific soldiers or redirection of allocated funds. Sometimes, one of the Five would ask a follow-up question or two, but most of the time they voted without any deliberation, at least no audible discussion. She thought they could be using telepathy to communicate or some other magical method; then again, their decisions were so quick that it didn't seem like they were.
Not all the requests were approved, but large swaths of them were. Generally, the requests that were denied were either projects that only served a small percentage of the city or individuals returning home from the war. On the other hand, requests for military advantages were usually approved unanimously approved. It reminded Emory of the same mentality that the humans had, though they still heavily invested in the public as well. However, there was also a massive difference between the Elandrian who had nearly unlimited resources and humanity which still had plenty of needs.
After they had been listening and responding for over two hours, Emory's belly gurgled loud enough for Athos to hear. He smirked and, without a word, wrapped some cookies from his pocket in Arcane magik, floating them back to her. She munched on the cookies quietly while the first half of the first row finally finished. After each person was done with their request, they would move to the back of the line until the benches were cleared out. So, as the last person approached the podium, the other side of the same row all stood up and queued behind them. At least there were a fairly even number of men and women among the Legion, Emory noticed.