"We were expecting you."
Said one of the Elders.
Andrew and Catharine were silently leaving the room as well, which only left me and Froggy against the Elders.
"But the messenger didn't know about the surprise guest from what we can guess."
Said another Elder while looking at Froggy with interest.
They were concentrating more on Froggy who seemed to get shy all of a sudden, slowly pieces of the puzzle started to put themselves in place.
One of the Elders did come to meet me, but since she saw that I had more powerful friends than she expected, she planned to accept only me to the Clan and intimidate me with the whole council gathered.
That's why one of the witches was missing from the group, he was sent ahead to warn the others.
But they didn't know about Froggy, and they seemed more interested in him now than me.
Finally, I was back to reality and could hear how the Elders were interrogating my poor friend.
"So you're saying you weren't forced to make potions nonstop."
"Of course they didn't, the Sandstone Kingdom didn't know the full potential of my abilities, and the Stone Kingdom only had me as a guest of honor. When I left, they were a little saddened, but they didn't lock me up."
More murmurs were exchanged between the Elders, this seems like an fascinating topic for them.
"Excuse me, but we've been traveling for a while and were still tired, so can we discuss the stuff we're here for?"
They all stopped and looked at me.
But for the past year, I have been through a lot, so their attempts to pressure me weren't that notable.
"Yes, about the incident with Piligers, it is indeed concerning, but they are the ones to suffer first after the internal fights are done. We're more hidden than them in the arms of the great mist."
What's with the sudden change?
Didn't I come here to negotiate about how we should deal with the Pillagers?
Instead, he gave the impression like they wouldn't suffer that much from this endeavor.
This also took the other Elders by surprise, as they looked in confusion at the one who spoke.
Not all of them, another three besides the one who spoke seemed to have a calm expression like they were expecting this development.
So this isn't a perfect paradise either, they have some internal disagreements as well.
"What if the Piligers will tell the others of your location?"
"We made a contract with them once we left so they wouldn't do that."
Before I could think of an answer, another Elder spoke.
"Brutus, what's the meaning of this? We decided to help Trader with his revenge for the Piligers. This will only help us not bring us any harm."
"And how do we guarantee that? The first time he met Catharine he was pointing a weapon at her! That's not an act of looking for allies, only getting rid of enemies. What guarantees that he's not an enemy?"
That was a very good point against me to make, which didn't make me feel too comfortable.
But the same Witch that spoke up before said something in my defense.
"The fact that Froggy stays willingly beside him should be enough proof."
The silence was in the room after that statement.
It surprisingly had more implications than I initially thought.
Brutus didn't say anything, instead getting more moody in his chair.
"I'm sorry about this Sir Trader, we do intend to help you fight against the Piligers. My name is Flora, and if you have any questions that I could answer I'm always open to them. I'm sure you're tired after the long travel, why don't you two get some rest and discuss more things tomorrow."
I could only accept the offer and left the room, still confused about what just happened.
Catharine was waiting outside for us and guided us to our temporary homes.
We each got one, not too far from each other.
It was a smaller hut than the others, but it was cozy enough for me to feel comfortable in it.
So after I said good night to Froggy and Catharine I went to sleep.
POV: Flora
Early in the morning a messenger came to our building. The man who threatened us with the banning our kin, was more powerful than we expected.
Fortunately, he seems to be willing to talk before starting a fight, which is a rare sight in this world.
But even with this, we wouldn't be used as tools to achieve his goal, instead, we would be the ones to put pressure on him.
This is our home, we have the most strength in here, if he doesn't meet our demands we can get rid of him quickly and stay hidden for a few years to cool things off.
A day has passed since then, and all the Elders gathered in the big room except for one.
But she was on her way back anyway.
Meanwhile, we started to talk with each other about our lives and experiments.
While we were all in a small community that didn't mean we knew every move of everyone in the Clan. We didn't grow up together, the only thing that united us was the curse of being a witch.
We can't have children like the other villagers, so the only new people we get are outsiders.
And everyone is adapting to their new life at their own pace.
We are the Elders, usually the oldest residents in this Clan, we are selected by our groups as representatives for the whole, that's why there are ten of us.
While we have this curse upon us, we also get an unexpected benefit, a prolonged life. We can live for around 80 years or maybe even linger, which is a lot more than what a normal village will live.
That is why, even if we don't get too often new members, we keep our population stable.
As we talked with each other about their experiments and their life, our rude guest finally arrived.
They arrived in the middle of the room, where Anastasia was with them, but soon joined us in the ranks.
Our chairs were elevated which gave us an imposing aura.
The witches in the leather armor slowly retreated only leaving the armored man.
He had fully enchanted iron armor, but his helmet was missing so we could see his face at least.
He had black hair, big eyes and no nose surprisingly. I didn't even know that was possible.
But what truly caught our attention was the man beside the weird-looking stranger, he had the same equipment but no the same appearance, he was like us, with a pale skin and a mole on his nose.
He was a witch.
This was a shock for all of us, he seemed important to this Trader person, otherwise, he wouldn't have gotten such precious items.
The meeting started, but I didn't pay too much attention, and others seemed as distracted as me.
In the end, Trader was lost in his world so we spoke with Froggy for a little.
"How long have you been a witch?"
"Were you forced into this position?"
"What's your relationship with this guy?"
"Do you want to join us?"
At first, he was hesitant to answer the question, or maybe shy, but the more questions he answered the clearer his voice became.
In the end, we could all come to one conclusion, he was truly a friend to Trader, and there was no discrimination between them.
He has some connections with some pretty important people in the Stone Kingdom.
This was shocking for all of us.
Since we couldn't show our faces everywhere, it didn't make our attempts to know important people any easier because of the curse.
We tried to in the Sandstone Kingdom, but Pillagers have a good grip on that place, luckily the most important place for us didn't have the same degree of problems.
Stone Kingdom was important to us, it was the main place where we got our Brewing ingredients from since it was the capital of potion making.
We tried to have a higher connection but to no avail.
But Froggy was a ray of light in the middle of the night, with his help maybe we can break this curse and join a kingdom, and our seclusion could finally be over.
I'm sure everyone had the same idea as me, we have to get Froggy on our side no matter the cost.
But apparently, some Elders had a different idea.
"Yes, about the incident with Piligers, it is indeed concerning, but they are the ones to suffer first after the internal fight is done. We're more hidden than them in the arms of the great mist."
What was that madman doing?
Couldn't he see this great opportunity for us to finally be accepted?
Sure we decided to pressure Trader a little to get some rights in the city, but this is beyond what we previously planned.
Now he will think we only brought him here to silence him, this is not an impression we want to leave on Froggy.
He cares about Trader.
I knew he started to act weirdly in the past 10 years, but we all thought he was having a midlife crisis. We all tried to help him in our ways but he didn't accept any, so we just left him alone.
But he wasn't the only one who seemed interested in this fight, that means they have a different agenda alongside the councils.
This was not a good sign.
In the end, I had to step up and stop this madness. Whatever plan they had couldn't be more important than our chance of befriending Froggy.
I reminded them of this opportunity and Brutus decided to wisely stand down.
After a few minutes, Trader and Froggy left the building, not too late after the rest of the Elders as well, some tension started to appear in the air, this was not a good sign.
Only Anastasia stayed behind since I asked her.
"What was that old geezer thinking about!? Does he want to make enemies with everyone? This is why I think the council is a stupid thing, we're not even that interested in politics, but we still managed to get in each other's way."
"Calm down Anastasia, others may hear you, and you don't want to be sent on a 'mission' once again."
While she was still angry, in the end, she didn't speak anymore.
"So what do you think? Do we have a chance to befriend Froggy?"
After the change of topic, she could only sigh.
"He's been through a lot like all of us, but he didn't have anyone to share the burden with. We can easily befriend him, but our worth won't be higher than Traders. I think it would be wise to befriend him as well, he has some interesting connections that could greatly help us."
"We can do that, I only hope we didn't leave a bad impression with the sudden surprise. They mentioned that they had connections with the Royal Family, do you think they're sent to spy on us?"
"I don't think so. Their more preoccupied with another problem of their own."
She then told me about the Zombie Lord and his destruction in the Kingdom.
This was horrible to hear and also made me question myself if we would be safe.
Sure the monsters seem to ignore us when we pass them, but only the mindless monsters, Endermans are smart enough to realize that we are different, they don't attack us, but they do like to play pranks on us from time to time.
But if an intelligent monster appeared, with an army nonetheless, this could endanger us as well.
"What do you think we should do Anastasia? "
She stopped for a few minutes to think about the answer.
While Anastasia is the most hot-headed in the council, she is the youngest of all of us for a reason
She came here 20 years ago, brought by one of us, at first she seemed confused about what her life came about. But after everything was cleared to her, she started to search for a way for us to prosper, she's the one to come up with the idea for the Sline farm which greatly helped our economy and our contact with the outside world.
Quickly she became a popular witch with the residents and voted to become an Elder.
Not everyone was happy to have such young blood in their ranks but the people have voted, so it couldn't be changed for another 10 years.
Once in power, she gather people like her, ready for change and striving for more.
Her group is the one that has contact with the outsiders the most, and we all benefit from it no matter how much the others complain.
"We don't have enough information, unfortunately, I say we keep them as long as possible here and gather what we can, then we can decide how to tackle this problem."
I nodded my head in approval, I would pull some strings to get more information from outside as well.
The conflict came too quickly one after another, which wasn't a good sign.
I felt like something was about to happen, something big.
And we have to be ready for it.