When Gunnar heard the response of Lina his eyes widened and a flash seemed go off in his head. The Titan clans. His grandfather was of the Titan clans, which meant that…his eyes turned to Narrick who had slapped his forehead into his right hand. The man then looked up and gave a slight nod to Gunnar, before looking towards the other council members and spoke.
"That is a deadly insult to those of my Titan Clan's Badger line. You would do well to remember that using it would get your ass handed to you in any other situation. The only reason you don't have a blade in you right now is that, she." He now pointed to Lina next to the door, still furiously glaring down the table gritting her teeth. "Happens to respect me enough not act in such a way as to create difficulty for me by killing and/or maiming you. I suggest you sit down and keep whatever filth that those Baldur fools fed your clan, Feld, behind your teeth."
As Narrick spoke a pressure came over the room, Gunnar had a hard enough time just breathing, but he noticed Cassie couldn't even draw a breath and was turning more red by the second. While straining with everything he had to take a breath deep enough to get a word out, he leaned forward and almost fell out of the chair. Then in a shout he got out a single word. "Narrick!"
In an instant the pressure broke and Cassie began taking gasping breaths. Gunnar shot to be by her side and noticed her mother already beside her patting her back, and talking her through some deep breaths.
A fury rose in him and he spun to the table glaring down its length at all of the assembled elders. He began to speak with a quiet tone slowly getting louder as he went.
"You summoned two new students to the room, so I will thank you all to keep in mind that one of us has no mana at all and therefore has not the strength to take even a breath. Keep your mana pressure in line!" He finished this line in a shout and a slam of his hand on the table.
"You are adults! And one of you begins by throwing out school yard insults about my height because rather than judging me by your own sight or bothering to learn anything about me. You listened to a man and a clan who hasn't seen me since I was born! You know nothing about me and I will thank you to keep a civil tongue in your mouth or make an enemy of one of the only clans on the three planets that makes high tier weapons. I don't think you are that stupid, are you?"
The young human from the clan Feld was turning more red by the second and amusement was now shining in Lina's eyes as she backed to her former place by the door. A smile was on the faces of both Gunnar's mom and his grandmother on Gunnar's left side a couple of seats down.
Narrick retook his seat, a little smirk on his face from Gunnar's action of chewing out his elders. A shaking of shoulders was seen from both of the canine beastkin representatives as well as most of the fae delegation. Both species appreciated the boys bravery, though it was likely for different reasons.
One of the elven council members stood and moved to the far end of the table. Gunnar saw the tall dark haired and slightly tan man, likely one of the old elves from the third of the forge-planets, the jungle covered planet, Rhya, begin to speak with a bluntness that he appreciated.
"If you are all done with your grandstanding and if the Lady Athelina will hold her temper, we will return to the reason we are holding this meeting in the first place."
He tapped on the edge of the table and pulled up a holographic map of the volcano and its interior that popped up several times along the length of the table.
"We have settled the first problem by sending a mixed squad of five to the local in question. Two from the high elven side, sensitive enough in their magic to trace the demon mana and find if there are any more demons in the area, as well as to see if they can trace the special coordinates to find the base the demon jumped from. One from my wood elven, Windstealer clan to scout the surrounding forest for any more of the Crystoid race beings. And finally, two bearkin females to go speak to the Great Bear female, so as not to stress her any more as a new mother."
As he spoke he highlighted the areas of the mountain that the individuals would be investigating. He then made the holograms smaller, so that he could see over the table and his eyes met those of Cassie and then Gunnar.
"The second reason we are her is to interview all of those who had a connection to this incident. We have interviewed the first response team and believe we have a good idea of what happened and would like to get that testimony from both of you as well."
Gunnar and Cassie's eye met as they held a brief internal discussion before Gunnar motioned Cassie forward to go first. She stood, still breathing a little fast but quickly recovering.
"Sir would you like only the last day of the rest or the whole overview?"
The tall slender but well muscled man gave a small smile and responded. "The whole trial please."
She nodded, took a breath and began. "We lAndes the first day and made our priority finding a good water source, then scouting a place not to far away to make our camp. We knew where our stash site was so we didn't want to be too far from it either. We scouted the area and found the territorial markings of the bear, so we moved back in the opposite direction. We found and made safe our chosen campsite."
She took a deep breath before continuing. "My companion is far better at scouting than I am so while I made plans for how to trap our campsite and the stash site, he went out and set snares around the water we found so as to secure food for us. When he returned we began making and setting the traps around both sites."
"After that we spent several days finding and collecting different resources to our stash site. The final day we decided to scale the mountain to see what other resources could be found higher up in the more risky area of the volcano. It was then we found the first signs of the beast of burden, the Crystoids."
Her breathing began to quicken and she couldn't continue. Gunnar stood and helped her back to her chair.
"I will finish it Cassie. Finish composing yourself and you can fill in your part later."