The First Legendary Beast Master

Chapter 2023 A Good Story

Andrea followed her group upstairs and took her seat, then checked the placard to see what the actual show being put on would be.

She should have verified that the Fae was not going to do anything inappropriate, but Opal had chosen an excellent theatre event for the first evening of their new auditorium. She had gone with a creation myth "The Founding Of A World".

In it, according to the synopsis, the viewers would get to see the first days of a System being granted to a world by the World Dragon.

That was a core story of the Darklight Host, and they had added it to the Guild Library the first day they arrived. So, Opal had naturally already read it, and had adapted it into a theatre play for the masses.

But the best part was that, while it supported their god, nearly everyone knew some version of this story already.

So, they could watch it without interrupting their dinner, while the show would still be interesting enough that it would keep people's attention and not bore them. Especially after letting a Fae remix the legend into something that she thought would be more exciting than the original.

The last of the groups were seated, and everyone had received their drinks when the show began.

The stage shifted into a fully immersive fantasy setting, a Fae Forest that was clearly an [Illusionary Domain] as it extended far beyond what the stage should hold, as if the audience was looking in through a huge door.

That caught every eye in the room and Andrea realized that the story was only a small part of why the shows here would be popular.

The scene glided through the forest, as if the viewer were running from something, and then stopped in a clearing, where a gigantic golden dragon with four wings was standing.

The World Dragon.

The view panned back, and showed that the viewer had been a human at the lead of a larger group of tribal humans, dressed in animal furs and wielding simple stone weapons.

"You have called for salvation, and I have come. But power is not for the unworthy. I grant to you, these System Stones, that you might gain a fragment of the power of the Gods and prove yourselves worthy to stand among the higher beings," the World Dragon intoned.

The stones appeared, and Andrea chuckled. Not only were those a convincing replica of the System Stones design, Opal had actually replicated a portion of the Stones' runic array, and it was enough to give hints of divine power that spread through the room.

"Your Guild really is talented. To think that you could turn a legend into such a fascinating show. I suspect that half the guests are going to forget about trying to socialize with their rivals, and simply watch the show instead," the man beside Andrea whispered.

"That might be for the best. We tried not to seat rivals together, but we don't actually know all the minor details between the Clans, only which ones are at war with each other," Andrea agreed.

That made the Guild Leader chuckle. "That's always the fun part of arranging a larger gathering, you can never quite be certain of what tensions are bubbling beneath the surface."

As he spoke, Andrea gestured to him using the Assassin's Guild's secret body language, but the merchant didn't respond.

However, the man across the table did, and his explanation was quite informative.

{They're merchants, but they're just wholesalers, not information brokers. Tomorrow I will bring someone for you to speak with.}

Andrea sent him a subtle agreement, and then decided to enjoy the dinner.

She had overestimated the Merchant Clans of the region, it seemed. None of them tried to sneak a message to her using nonverbal methods, and none of them seemed to know more than a few of the details about the Clans who were near to them.

Since that was the case, they were mostly useless to her, and Andrea focused on just letting the constructs gather information for her.

Seeing how everyone got along was enough to provide her more information than these guests could provide for her, and she couldn't openly ask about connections to the Assassin's Guild, so the only valuable member would have to wait.

However, in honour of his contribution, Andrea did have the staff upgrade their dining experience with an extra dish.

There would be snacks all through the show, but the spicy fried fish that Andrea liked was not on today's menu, so she had it brought to the table last, as the first snack after dinner during the show.

"I swear, this restaurant is trying to make us fat. But the food is so high in energy that it's hard to say no," one of the merchants laughed.

"Well, we do try to please everyone. Normally, the private rooms are extremely exclusive and expensive, so it's not a matter of quantity, the guests can simply request what they want.

However, today it was only practical to have the house serve some of its specialties, as is the case with most large events."

The merchant nodded in understanding.

The sort of private lounge that she was describing was never easy to get into, even for a visiting Guild Master. Unless they knew the local Guild's leadership, and they were on good enough terms to get an invitation, access was normally restricted only to allies and their guests.

Which meant that today was the perfect day to suck up to the Darklight Host, and try to get an invitation to return so that they didn't have to beg the Guild Leadership for an audience the next time they were in town.

Not a Merchant Clan on the peninsula was willing to let the New Home continue to monopolize the ground transport market from the Darklight Host any longer.

It was costing them too much in lost business, and the profits to be made by introducing these items to their connections inland was too high.