Sage walked up to the side of town that used to be a normal road but had now become a wide no-man’s zone. The city had its own wall around its perimeter that met up with the huge wooden wall of the Lang Clan’s home. For a dozen yards in front of the giant wall there was a cleared space. This area was kept clear to prevent any sabotage to the base of the wall, especially inside the city where others might let other buildings be built in close proximity. With buildings up against the wall they could conceal digging or tunneling operations much easier. Of course, it was only a dozen yards further to dig, but they had Formations Arrays placed to protect against that sort of thing.

It’s also something of a prestigious move. Showing that those in the town can’t build too close and showing off the majesty of our wall.

He stopped to tilt his head and enjoy the imposing height of the wall for a moment before stepping forward the rest of the way and heading up to the gate. The Lang Clan had only two gates on the giant wall, one inside Lionheart Town and another larger one outside of the town for their own private use. This gate in town was somewhat small, only large enough for a single wagon to travel through at a time. It was tempting to have a grand and gigantic gate, but they cared more for defensibility over grandeur. They focused all that sort of thing for Golden Cricket Cove. There was the danger of making it too heavily defended, actually acting as a lure, but that’s why they made the provincial capital even more enticing.

Sage flashed an identity token to the guards at the gate and the Dragoons pulled back their crossed Horde Halberds to allow him to pass. While he was walking past them he passed through a field of energy created by a Formation Array. This energy interacted with the token he was carrying and his own body before allowing him to pass. If the token was not authentic then the array would have locked him down and raised an alarm. The way the array checked his body was a bit more loose considering the higher ranked members of the Lang Clan could have altered their bodies. So, instead of having a single thing it could check for legitimacy it had a whole litany of things it looked for and as long as the person fulfilled at least one of them they were likely a member of the Clan. Those things were basically the natural racial abilities of the Mantis body that the Lang Clan members were all born with. It was very likely they would keep at least one or two of these traits in order to follow one of the Clan’s schools of technique.

After passing through the gnarled wooden tunnel, he finally entered the proper home of the Lang Clan. In this area, at the bottom of the wall it was akin to a rainforest. The many layers of tree canopy above meant the light here was dim with spots of dappled brightness where a few narrow shafts of light pierced through all the leaves and made it to the ground. There was a somewhat larger clearing here, but there were many nearby buildings that ensured any disturbance would get an immediate response. Sage walked past this first block and then took a turn heading towards the location of the Clan’s Great Hall.

He passed through another gate, showing his token which got a more detailed scan by the attendants which caused them to bow. Not wanting to waste too much time on formalities he ushered them to stand, “Alright, enough of that, I haven’t been the Clan Leader for a long time. Send someone to call for a Clan meeting.”

One of the two attendants that were currently in charge of the gate looked over to the other. The man being stared at stood up and carefully cleared his throat, “Pardon me, Lord. There is already a Clan meeting scheduled to start within the hour. Would you like us to inform everyone that the reason for the meeting is changing?”

The two in the lead seemed extremely nervous as soon as Sage spoke and now he knew why. He laughed and shook his head, “Relax, no one is in trouble here. If there’s already a meeting scheduled then that saves me time. Good work here.”

Just like that he walked past them, heading into the walled area that was the core of the Clan. This was the part of the Clan home where the great hall and the few other important buildings of the Lang Clan had been preserved. It was also the place reserved for high level functions, a sort of government capital for them. The reason for Sage to call a meeting was actually very simple: he didn’t want to meet with hundreds of people individually. Rather than waste so much time making house calls with every person of the clan that was important to him in order to check up on them it would be much faster to just call a Clan meeting and share all the most important news directly.

Then, with all the important stuff out of the way he could meet with his family members to talk about their personal matters and catch up with them on a more intimate level. He had no idea what was going on in the clan while he’d been gone, but what if they were mired in some sort of argument? It wouldn’t be unusual for them to all try and tell him their point of view about whatever the contentious issue was and then he’d be forced to waste hours just hearing the same arguments over and over again from different people. It’d be much better to just call a meeting and get all the trouble out of the way first to make the visits more pleasant.

Entering the Great Hall, Sage passed through exquisitely decorated entrance hallways and then entered a more hallowed area. In front of the huge doors that led into the Great Hall proper was a sort of waiting room that was populated with many ancient murals and artifacts showing off the vast history of the clan. Compared to the decor in the hallways leading up to this point they were far less magnificent and could even be considered old and shabby to some, but to the discerning eye they were quite ancient. Upon closer inspection many old stories were told on these museum pieces of the Clan. The hallways showed off the clan’s wealth while this antechamber showed off their long history.

Of course, these weren’t the clan’s real treasures. There was no telling what all those ancestors down in the tombs had secreted away. Sage took a few moments to enjoy the ancient items on display before pushing open the doors and heading into the Great Hall. To his surprise he wasn’t as early as he thought as there was a group of people at the far end of the hall. Hearing the doors open the group stopped talking and turned to see the new arrival. After a moment of shocked silence there was a loud exclamation, “Father!”