Knight of the Realm: Fookin' Princesses

Fookin' Princesses Character Sheets

 

The Knight – Our dear nameless and faceless (so far at least) protagonist.  Given his nameless/faceless nature a description of his appearance would be inappropriate.  His personality however is kind and loyal.  He won’t lead his friends into danger and won’t hurt people who don’t deserve it.  He wears heavy armor and uses a sword.  He is a competent swordsman and an excellent tactician, but a terrible archer.  He also has a tendency to make poor decisions when drunk.

 

Martina – The dragoness Martina is a bit of a mystery to us.  She obviously has some sort of emotional connection with us, which is why she stays around, but never even seems to acknowledge it.  In her draconic form she is a fire breathing beast, a great winged lizard beast capable of ravaging nations and armies alike.  In her human form she looks amazing, “like the sort of girl who would be on a nobleman’s arm as he went to the seedier sort of parties, but less… sleazy.”  She has red hair and yellowish eyes which sometimes glow when she is using her magic.  While she is emotionally closed off to others, she does get quite angry when someone makes a move on someone she has feelings for.  She normally doesn’t wear much equipment as her innate draconic nature takes care of most of her protection and offensive needs.  She is skilled in both enchantment and healing magics and can work both with ease.

 

Aimée – Aimée is a young maid that Martina (while under the influence of Princes Emile) abducted and used her enchantment magic on to enslave her as a servant.  We rescued her when we killed Princess Emile and she has clung to me since.  Evidently her father taught her how to be a serviceable thief and she has proven her use to us time and time again.  Aimée is a young human woman with dark hair and fair skin.  When not expecting trouble or not out in the wilderness, she likes to wear her maid uniform and tries to make herself as useful to me as possible.  When in danger or the wilds she has taken to wearing skin tight leathers and practicing her stretching and acrobatics where I can get a good view of her.  Apart from the maid’s uniform and the leathers, Aimée usually has a small assortment of knives on her that she can use with uncanny accuracy.

 

Siegbert – Siegbert is a young male dwarf alchemist with an obsession about the new brewing techniques used to craft Lagers.  Until recently he and his father got along well, the only argument being about how much time Siegbert spent listening to his Uncle Michi’s stories of adventure.  However with the development of Lager, the traditionalist father and his innovative son found themselves at cross purposes.  After a particularly bad argument Siegbert left his home and joined up with the Knight.  Siegbert has reddish brown hair and always reeks of some mixture of alchemical supplies and hops.  He typically carries at least a few beers on him at any given time along with his regular alchemist equipment.

 

Sieghild – Sieghild is the older sister of Siegbert.  When Siegbert left home, Sieghild went after him to make sure that he returned home safe.  She is staying with the Knight out of a desire to protect her little brother, although that could change in the future.  Sieghild is a young and very buxom dwarven woman with blond hair and well developed hips. She typically wears heavy dwarven armor and wields a battleaxe and a tower shield.  

 

Felìcita – Felìcita is the Crown Princess of Albero Città and a squad leader in their border guard, a position she gained and kept through the power of pure nepotism.  She ambushed the Knight and his compatriots as they entered Albero Città and was knocked out by the Knight.  Her companions succeeded where she failed and captured our party.  However later that night Felìcita freed the Knight and his friends because they were due to be executed in the morning by the mysterious Mr. Aldric, a figure who slipped into her nation’s political scene seemingly overnight.  She has followed the Knight since and despite one easily solved disciplinary issue, she has proven to be a loyal member of the team.  Felìcita is a young elf with platinum blond hair and a graceful but well rounded body.  She prefers wear light armor and use her bow, although she has a tendency to use it far too close to her target.

 

Regulus the Terrible – Regulus is the senior member of the Dragonmoot Council and effectively the ruler of all Dragonkind.   Although Maximus seems convinced that he is a fair ruler, the Knight noticed that he seems to set up situations so that its almost impossible to refuse his wishes.  He also is capable of creating a ritual that can bind another creature to a mission, an ability he used on the Knight before he left on this quest.  In his dragon form, Regulus is a massive beast with black and gold scales.  In his human form, he appears akin to a wizard, with the same black and gold color scheme.

 

Maximus – Maximus is a friendly dragon that we met in the Dragonmoot Fortress.  He was the one who assured us that Martina would likely come out okay.  He has a bit of a fondness for terrible puns but is otherwise quite friendly.  His natural form is that of a mighty red dragon, but he often took the form of a human warrior when talking with the Knight.

 

Gaël – Gaël is a mercenary archer who, along with a few other soldiers of fortune, attempted to ambush the party on the way to Hammerburg.  He claims that he was hired by an individual known as Mr. Aldric who only contacted him through messages.  The Knight spared his life under the condition that he never return to Hammberburg.  To his credit, Gaël complied with that, instead heading for Albero Città where he took advantage of the warrants issued by Mr. Aldric for the party’s arrest to… embellish his story.  The party again encountered him in a tavern where he wound up blowing the Knight’s cover.  In the ensuing chaos, he was knocked out again and his current whereabouts are unknown.

 

Guildmaster Vinzenz – Guildmaster Vinzenz was the dwarven crime lord and leader of the Schatten Gilde.  He was hired by the mysterious Mr. Aldric to deliver the orders to kill the party to Gaël and his friends.  When that failed, he received a follow up contract to kill the party.  When that too failed, Mr. Aldric used his enchantment magic to force the Guildmaster and his closes aids to kill themselves.

 

Nadja – Najda was the right hand woman of Guildmaster Vinzenz.  She was tasked by him to kill the Knight and his friends.  Although she is a dangerous warrior, she was defeated both times by the Knight and fled combat.  She is a stout dwarven maid with brown hair, who tends to wear clinging black and red leathers.  Her current whereabouts are unknown.

 

Mr. Aldric – Mr. Aldric is the individual behind the attacks the Knight and his friends have been suffering.  It is unknown who he really is, how he knew about the Isocrates’ Rod, why he wants it, and how powerful he really is.  All that is known is that he has a large number of financial resources, large reserves of magic, and an unyielding desire to obtain the Rod no matter what.  He has only appeared once before the party, and that was in an illusion directed at Guildmaster Vinzenz, so it is impossible to say what he actually looks like.

 

Fookin' Princesses Part One

 

>Be a Knight of the Realm.             

>Received a message from a Princess of a far away realm.

>She tells me of how she is being held captive in a tower by a fearsome dragon.

>The dragon torments her daily.

>I get on my noble steed and ride off to save the damsel.

>I ride for many months, fighting brigands, bandits, and other foes to reach the tower.

>Finally reach the tower.

>I meet the dragon in combat and drive him off.

>I ascend the tower to meet the princess and take her away from here.

>I see the most beautiful woman in the world in front of me. I drop to my knee and introduce myself.

>She looks at me crossly and says, "If I wanted a rescue, I'd have asked for one. I just wanted someone to listen to my problems! Not try to solve them!"

>MFW

 

Fookin' Princesses Part Two

 

>Arguing with Princess.

>"I'm a Knight of the Realm! What did you expect me to do?"

>"Just like a man! Thinking that everything revolves around himself and that he needs to do everything himself!"

>I remember I'm supposed to be a Knight, not a whining child.

>"I'm sorry for my unwanted arrival, mam. However, now that I'm here, can I offer you the service of an escort home?"

>"What? No! I like it here!"

>"But you said that you were tormented daily by the dragon? Why would you want to stay with him?"

>"I can change him."

 

Fookin' Princesses Part Three: The Return

 

>Hold up /tg/, I want to try something.

 

Dear Journal,

 

After returning from my disastrous attempt to rescue one Princess Emile, I did what any man of the Realm would do. I went to a bar, got drunk and complained about the whole thing to my friends. However, while I was there, some of the Valiant Guard I was drinking with expressed interest in the fate of the dragon, rather than the princess. After all, they reasoned, you wouldn't leave a comrade in such a situation. Why should the dragon not receive the same warning? In hindsight, I should have responded by reminding them that the dragon is a foul beast, or that he tried to kill me, or any of the countless other reasons for not rushing to save a dragon. Unfortunately for me I was too drunk to recognize a terrible idea when I hear it and decided to rush off to "rescue" the dragon from a princess. Even more unfortunate was the bar's close proximity to the docks.

 

I awoke this morning to find that I had purchased a ticket on a boat for a trip to the dragon's tower and no the crew wouldn't turn the boat around for me.

 

We are evidently going to make landfall in a few days. I'll work out what to do then.

 

 

 

Dear Journal,

 

I made it to the tower this morning.  As I entered the tower, I immediately noticed that things were different.  Gone was the lingering gloom, things look almost clean.  And then the smell hit me.  As a soldier, I have walked across battlefields where the smell of death and despair fill the air, I have faced monsters that dwell in the foulest pits, but none of those smells was as disturbing as the smell that hit me when I entered that tower.  It was potpourri.  

 

Now, nothing is particularly scary about potpourri in and of itself, however it is not a smell that one should associate with a dragon's lair.  I keep thinking back to what Princess Emile said, "I can change him."  Could she have been right?  Are she and the dragon now happily living together?  Would my foolish attempt to interfere only cause sorrow for an otherwise happy couple?  And if they are a peaceful and happy couple, I certainly cannot kill them and loot the tower, so how would I get home?  

 

These thoughts were interrupted when I nearly walked straight into a woman. (Being lost in thought tends to do horrible things to your situational awareness)  At first I thought I had somehow gotten lost as the woman was clearly not the princess and lacked the ornamentation that dragons usually prefer to wear in their human forms.  However, as soon as I saw her garb, I realized she must be a servant of some kind.  I tried to use this opportunity to gain insight into the situation in the tower, but when I began to question her, she ignored me.  It seems that she didn't even notice my presence at all.  As a fully armed and armored knight, this is quite unusual to say the least.

 

A quick look into her eyes confirmed my suspicions.  The dull glazed over look is indicative of enchantment magic being used to bind this woman against her will.  I had read in my studies that some dragons possess abilities similar to the magic practiced by wizards; it is likely that the dragon obtained these servants for itself.  

 

I will soon attempt to breach the inner chamber, if all goes well I will be able to resolve this situation and make my way back home with something for my trouble.

 

 

 

Dear Journal,

 

As I made it to the main chamber, I heard voices from inside the room.

 

"Please, stop this has gone too far!  You can't keep doing this to me!"

 

"Oh, no dearest one.  We are just starting our lives together.  And obviously we need to make some changes around here!  We're going to be spending a lot of time together after all."

 

"You’re mad!  I'm not even a-"

 

"Stop saying that!  You're perfect, dearest."

 

Much to my surprise, the voice doing the pleading was in fact the throaty hissing of a dragon.  What on Terra is going on here I thought to myself as I bent down to look through the keyhole.  What I saw inside was... bizarre to say the least.  

 

Princess Emile had the entire lair cleaned up by the enslaved servants, and decorated as some sort of throne room.  The dragon, its scales colored a resplendent red, was kneeling in front of the throne where the princess herself sat.  In her hands, she held a brilliant red rod of some arcane nature, and was toying with the tip using her gloved fingers and tongue.  

 

"It’s so fortunate for us that I found this rod in your secret chambers dear Martinus.  Without it, I don't know if you could ever overcome those silly prejudices that prevented you from realizing your true feelings for me."

 

The dragon rose up to its feet and snarled, "I have no such feelings for you!  And my name isn't Martinus its-"

 

Without even twisting her hand, Princess Emile somehow caused a brilliant white light to emerge from the rod, the dragon howled in pain and returned to a kneeling position again.

 

She smiled a disturbing smile, "Tisk, tisk.  Dearest one, you don't need to fear forbidden love, as long as we have each other we can prevail.  And you don't need to worry about anyone coming between us, we'll be alone together.  Forever.  For always."

 

I had seen enough. I slammed into the door with all my force.  "Hold villainess!  Release this... evil dragon from your... eviler spell?" I finished rather lamely.  I'll have to come up with some better challenges for situations like these in the future.  However verbal sparring would be a concern for another day, actual combat was needed at the moment.  

 

Princess Emile snarled at me, "Interfering wretch!  Can't you see that we're in love!  Your oppressive morality is stifling our love!  Can't you accept that we're meant to be together!  Your zealotry and racist bigotry is stifling me!"  I stood there stunned, without even have the strength to argue with that insanity.  

 

However dull her arguments may be, she was quick to react to combat.  She leaped over the dragon's lowered head and ran up his neck to seat herself on its shoulders.

 

"Come my husband, let us take to the air and destroy this scum!"  

 

"I told you, I'm not your husband!  I'm not even-"

 

The dragon was cut off with another wave of that ruby rod.  It lunged from its kneeling position and with a beat of its wings crashed through the wall and was out into the open sky.  I stared blankly at the small red dot in the far distance cursing myself for giving the princess the opportunity to escape.

 

"Damn.  The witch got away.  Seriously, 'Hold villainess?'  What was I thinking, grandstanding like that?  If my teachers could see me now they would... Is that dot getting bigger?"

 

I barely managed to take cover before the flames covered the top of the tower.  As I scrambled down the stairs, the dragon's tail swept the building crushing more of the top floor's walls and decor. A small voice in my head noticed that there was no gold among the rubble.  I was about to chastise myself for thinking of gold at a time like that, when I realized that unconscious greed wasn't my motivation here.  The last time I was in this tower, it was full of the dragon's treasures. Now they couldn't be found.  I rushed down the stairs, trying to find a servant.  I was able to find a maid who hadn't fled the scene and alternated between dousing her with water from my waterskin and lightly slapping her face until the stress broke the enchantment she was under.  (Fortuitously it was a weak enchantment, meant to bind a group to one's will rather than a single powerful individual)

 

As her eyes regained focus, her mind came back to her as well, "Where... where am I?"

 

I (rather unchivalrously) barked at the woman, "Listen carefully and try to think!  Our lives may depend on it!  You were a prisoner, under the influence of foul magic, here in this tower.  At any point did you clear the upper room and remove items from it?"

 

The maid seemed confused, but after concentrating for a few moments she responded, "I think so.  I remember someone telling us to 'Clear out this old junk' and we then moved it to the basement levels."

 

"Great.  Now do you remember if there was a bow, crossbow, by the Hells even a sling would do?  Any ranged weapon at all?"

 

Now, I hate archery.  Never had a handle for it.  Preferred to do my combat up close and personal.  But even a handful of darts would do more good against a dragon in flight than a sword would.  As such I was incredibly grateful to learn that the maid thought that there were several bows and even a crossbow or two in the treasure piles.  I ran (as much as a man in heavy armor can run down narrow spiral stairs) as fast as I can.  Digging through the poorly sorted treasures at the bottom was an unusual experience.  Never before had I casually discarded so many otherwise valuable items.  I eventually managed to find a crossbow that seemed to regenerate its ammunition and a longsword that somehow seemed… right for me.  It wasn't much for someone going against a flying armored death machine, but it was going to have to do.

 

I carefully loaded the crossbow and crept up the stairs to the now entirely destroyed upper chamber.  The dragon and the princess were still flying around, making casual passes overhead, hoping to spot me and turn me into a burning corpse.  So instead of rushing out foolishly like last time, I decided to lay in wait.  I watched the dragon make several passes and I did my best to get a feel for its movements.  I decided that I should focus my fire on the princess first; she was the one who was controlling this dragon.  I carefully took aim, adjusted to "lead the target" as I heard many rangers put it, and waited for the dragon and its rider to come into sight again.

 

As they emerged into view I fired the crossbow, the bolt speeding towards the insane princess.  For a brief, shining moment, I thought I had her, but with another wave of that rod the dragon banked, taking the bolt in the wing instead.  

 

She called out, "See how true our love for each other is?  We'll even take wounds for one another!"

 

"Oh really?  I have yet to see you take one for your mount though!"

 

Princess Emile laughed, "I don't need to!  My husband is strong and powerful!  Your puny weapon didn't even scratch his scales!"

 

Looking at the dragon from my spot in cover, I had to admit that she was right.  The powerful enchanted crossbow I thought I had didn't even make the dragon wince (although in hindsight that could have been a side effect of the enchantment it was under).  Regardless any attempt to try again was foiled as a green ray struck the crossbow and obliterated the magic runes on the weapon.

 

I looked up to see the princess laughing at me, "And now look!  Your little toy is now broken!  Ha ha ha!"  She had a really annoying laugh.

 

I responded the only way I could think of, "This one may not have worked, but you have an entire basement full of weapons!  One of them will do the job!  Hells, maybe one will even counteract that funny rod you have there!"

 

That at least seemed to scare her.  "Well, we'll have to fix that then now won't we," she howled.

 

"Come my husband; let’s seal off his chance at ruining our lives!"

 

At that they pair dived low towards the tower base, I rushed up to the top dreading what I would see when I looked down.  The dragon and the princess were positioned in front of the main entrance to the tower, as I looked on in horror, the princess was beginning to order her dragon to use its breath on the base of the tower, flooding it with fire, burning wooden supports and melting the stone walls.  This would not only seal off the basement, but it would bring the entire tower down with it!  As if things weren't tense enough, the door burst open and the maid from earlier stumbled out, right into the path of the dragon.  Armed with only a sword and the life of at least two people in danger, I did the only thing I could do.

 

I drew my blade and jumped.

 

The first thing I noticed was the look on her face.  It was beautiful in a schadenfreude kind of way.  First it was amusement; she must have thought I jumped out of despair or something.  Then as I drew my blade and stared down at her it changed to confusion.  Then came the dawning comprehension, the look of sheer horror as she realized what I was trying to do.  Finally as my blade cleaved her head from her neck there was the disbelief, the surprise that I had actually pulled it off.  

 

The second thing I noticed was the look in the dragon's eyes.  It changed as soon as Princess Emile died.  Its eyes showed its relief, and dare I say it... possibly its gratitude too.

 

The third thing I noticed was the horrible crunching noise, the sound of metal and bones cracking in horrible ways from the force of my fall.

 

The last thing I noticed was the pain shooting up my legs.  And then I blacked out.

 

I awoke seemingly hours later.  My legs were still ruined, but it looks like some efforts to heal them were made.  I looked around the room, the maid from earlier was waiting by the bedside.  She looked nervous.  

 

“Where… where am I?”  I asked and then realizing what I had said smiled a little and continued, “Feel free to snap at me about how I need to need to listen carefully and try to think if that helps.”  

 

At that she smiled a little at least.  I returned it and took the opportunity to use the goodwill between us to ask about my location again.

 

“Oh, yes,” the young maid said, “The dragon whose rider you killed took us both in its talons.  It flew us up over north over the mountain range, and into some cave.  Unfortunately I’m not sure exactly where we are in relation to anywhere.  The dragon then tended to your wounds a little before departing.  It didn’t tell me where it went.  However before it left it did say that it would be back-”

 

At this moment a tremendous thud, the sound a massive creature makes when it touches the ground, echoed around the cavern.

 

“-soon,” the maid finished rather lamely.

 

At this moment, one of the walls of my “room” disappeared, flickering out as though it was only illusionary to begin with.  I suddenly found myself face to face with the red dragon from earlier.

 

Is this it?  I thought to myself.  Is this how I die?  Quick, try to remember the etiquette for talking to a dragon.  Is there etiquette for talking to dragons?  

 

I began to speak, “Oh mighty red dragon Martinus-“

 

The mighty beast cut me off immediately, “SILENCE WORM.  AS I TOLD THE OTHER HUMAN WHO DARED TO CALL ME SUCH MY NAME IS NOT MARTINUS.”

 

I felt that pointing out that that human could have called it many other things without suffering any consequences but thought better of it.  I may be crippled and trapped in the lair of the most dangerous creature in the known world, but I’m not a complete idiot.  As I opened my mouth to say something more polite, I interrupted again.

 

“MY NAME IS MARTINA!  THE PATHETIC HUMAN WHO BOUND ME COULDN’T EVEN BELIEVE THAT I WAS FEMALE.  NOW SERVANT GIRL,”

 

The maid immediately came up and curtsied before the might dragon; or as I should be saying dragoness, and asked what she should do.

 

“MAKE THIS MAN INTO SOMETHING THAT IS EVEN MARGINALLY PRESENTABLE TO A MIGHTY WYRM SUCH AS MYSELF.  OR AT LEAST DO WHAT YOU CAN WITH HIM IN HIS… BROKEN STATE.”

 

I could swear that that dragoness was sneering at me as she added the last bit.  As she turned away and plodded off deeper into the cave, I had to wonder what exactly she wanted me for.

 

So journal, here I am stuck in a dragon’s lair, Gods know how many miles away from home, with a cute maid and a dangerous dragoness who wants to talk to me.  Hopefully, if the Gods are on my side, I’ll be back soon to update you more.

 

 

 

Dear Journal,

 

The meeting with the dragoness went… well for two individuals who are practically born to fight each other.  It started out with a long and awkward silence.  I was dressed in some almost archaic courtly garb that was somehow perfectly tailored for me and she was a massive dragon who could destroy me with a sufficiently deep sigh.  For some reason, I’m convinced that she felt as awkward as I did for those first few minutes.

 

Then she coughed a little and spoke, “I understand that some human worms find the majestic form of dragons to be somewhat intimidating.  As a show of my magnanimity, I will deign to shift into a form that would be more suitable for… interacting with creatures like you.”

 

I was all-but rolling my eyes at the arrogance displayed by this creature, but when she shifted it was another story entirely.  I’m not too proud to admit that the sight of her human form left me a bit speechless, she looked like the sort of girl who would be on a nobleman’s arm as he went to the seedier sort of parties, but less… sleazy.  

 

Martina saw me staring at her and looked pleased with herself.  “Yes, human.  Stare in awe as I assume this new form is more suited to your tastes?”

 

Before I could help myself I opened my mouth and chimed in with, “Yes, and then some!” with the goofiest smile on my face.

 

Martina immediately went as red as her scales.  For one terrifying moment I thought that my careless words had enraged the dragoness, but from the way she was biting her lip and looking away, it seemed that she was more embarrassed than anything else.  Its worth mentioning that when she is flustered, she snorts little puffs of smoke when she breaths.  Its actually rather cute to tell you the truth.  

 

The two of us sat there in another awkward silence for several moments, until the maid came back with a pot of tea.  The poor girl looked incredibly nervous.  I suppose I would be too in her position though.

 

Eventually Martina spoke up, “The purpose of this meeting, is to say that although I should be killing you for the wounds inflicted upon me at our first meeting, that I shall not do so… err… right now that is.  Um… I’m trying to say that I saved your pathetic life as a show of gratitude for your assistance with that princess.  Uh… you’re welcome to stay until your wounds heal.  But then you must leave this place never to return!”

 

“Uh, mam I’m not even entirely sure where I am.  Hells, I don’t even know how I’m going to get back home, let alone return here.”

 

At this Martina coughed a little again, “I suppose I could help with that as well.  When the time comes for you to leave, that is.  But, you don’t need to feel rushed or anything!”  She finished the last bit with a bit of a flush before calling out, “Maid girl, please help my guest return to his rooms and tend to him!”  She turned to me and quietly said, “I’ll check on you later, if you don’t mind that is,” before turning and leaving the room.

 

The maid from before was at my side in a moment.

 

“Here sir, give me your arm and let me help you back to your room,” the young girl said smiling.  

 

I returned her grin quickly and asked, “Thank you miss… I’m sorry I never caught your name?”

 

She smiled at me, “Sir, my name is Aimée.”

 

“Thank you for all your help Aimée. By the way, do you mind if I ask what the deal between you and our host is?  She treats you like a servant, but I didn’t see anyone around the first time I traveled to her tower.”

 

“No sir.  I’m not her servant.  I’m a lady’s maid in a city to the south of that tower.  About a week before you freed me, the dragon showed up with that woman on his back.  She waved some sort of strange crimson rod and told the dragon to ‘Find some servants to make our new household,” then the dragon looked me in the eyes and muttered something.  I vaguely recall fuzzy memories of working but the next thing I knew I was being slapped in the face by you.”

 

That stung a little to be sure.  “I’m sorry about that.  If I had the choice I would have gone with a gentler method.”

 

She laughed at my bashfulness, “No!  Its fine!  I only really felt that last one anyways!  And after all, you did save my life and free me so it’s no problem at all!”

 

She continued in a rather sly tone of voice, “Say, since I met you, you’ve saved a dragoness and a young maid.  Do you make a habit of going around and rescuing damsels in distress?”

 

“I’ll admit that this is an unusual situation, Aimée.  But as a Knight, I am called on from time to time to rescue damsels in distress.  In fact, I initially met our host when I thought that Princess Emile was one herself.  And then she turned out to be… well…”

 

“Crazier than a wizard on a power trip?” Aimée asked with a small smile.

 

“Ha ha.  Yes!  That is a good way of putting it.”

 

We reached my room, or at least my three walls.  Aimée excused herself for a moment and walked into an adjoining room.  As I was gingerly sitting down on the bed, feeling my tender wounds, Aimée returned with a tub of warm water.  

 

Beaming from ear to ear, Aimée chimed in, “Alright.  Lets get you out of those clothes.”

 

Seeing the look I had on my face must have made her realize what she just said, she blushed an adorable red and stammered, “I-I mean so I c-can help change your dressings and tend to your injuries!  N-nothing else!  I mean, not that y-you’re not- “

 

I cut the poor girl off there.  “Its okay Aimée.  I see what you mean.”

 

At this I stood up and awkwardly let Aimée begin to gingerly remove my garb and bandages.

 

Now some might think me funny for getting distracted from a beautiful girl tending to me like Aimée was, but this was my first time since I regained consciousness that I could see the damage I caused to my body by jumping off that tower.  I could quickly see that this was no second rate healing job that Martina threw on me.  I could see from the pattern of the bruising, that I would be dead from the original wounds if not for her healing efforts.   I made a mental note to express my sincere gratitude to her later and was about to get lost in thoughts of how lucky I was to be alive when Aimée touched me.  

 

Her touch was soft and gentle, a strange contrast with the calluses of my own skin.  This moment was awkward for both of us and as she set to work, cleaning me and my wounds, she tried to avoid looking at my… well my nether regions.  As such we wound up making eye contact for almost the entire time, rarely speaking but so very close together as her hands worked their way over my body.  Although I had spent more than my fair share of time wooing the ladies of the courts of the Realm, this medical care by a lady’s maid was the most intimate and tender moment I’ve ever experienced with another.  

 

When she finally finished, we were both breathing hard, although neither of us had done anything even slightly exerting.  Aimée was silent for a moment before asking, “Is there anything else you would care for tonight my lord?”

 

At this moment, we were interrupted by the sound of someone clearing their throat.  Looking up awkwardly, I saw Martina looking at the two of us with an angry glare in her eyes.  “I think our dear knight here, should get his rest without being disturbed.  Don’t you, maid?”  

 

Aimée suddenly jerked upright.  “Y-yes.  Yes, I do milady.”  Turning to me sadly, she continued, “I’m sorry to have bothered you, Sir Knight.”

 

Before I could say anything, Aimée hurried out from the room with an almost indecent haste.

 

I turned to Martina angrily, “There was no need to terrify the poor girl!”

 

Martina returned an icy glare, “Yes there was.  She was a peasant.  You are a Knight, a member of the nobility.  She needs to know her station.”

 

I looked at her like she was crazy.  Yes, there are social rules involved with our positions, but really?  Did they really apply here of all places?  

 

Not feeling up to arguing with a dragoness, I simply sighed and asked, “What is it that you want, Martina?”

 

“Hrmph.  I was just coming in to make sure that you were being tended to acceptably.”

 

Well, at least it appeared that Martina managed to at least regain her composure since our last meeting.  

 

“I was doing fine, to be honest.”

 

Martina stiffened at my tone, but forced a smile in return.  “Good, get some rest then.  We’ll have a busy day tomorrow.”

 

“Why?  What is tomorrow?”

 

“Well, first I’ll have to finish healing your wounds, but after that we have a meeting to attend.  A Dragonmoot.”

 

Unfortunately Martina refused to elaborate any further so I’m left here trying to sleep and worrying about what on Terra I’m needed for at a meeting of some of the most powerful creatures on the planet.  Hopefully I’ll survive to update you again soon.

 

 

 

Dear Journal,

 

Well, life has been interesting since I last updated you, to say the least.  I woke up the next morning to see both Martina and Aimée waiting for me.

 

Martina wasted no time, “Good.  You’ve finally roused yourself from your stupor.  Aimée, fetch his clothes and equipment.  I’ll finish healing him.”

 

Now, I’ve heard the stories of healing magic from other soldiers lucky enough to receive it (or unlucky enough to need it, depending on your point of view), but never experienced it myself.  Let me tell you, it is amazing.  You get this sense of… wellbeing or health.  You feel like you’re up to do anything, climb a mountain, fight off an army single-handedly, hurl boulders, and arm-wrestle giants.  

 

When it was over, I looked Martina in the eyes.  She was looking a little nervous, as if unsure whether or not I would react well to the spell or not.

 

“You know Martina,” I said with a small smile, “I never got around to thanking you for saving my life.  If it wasn’t for your help, I’d surely be dead.”

 

“As you should human,” Martina replied haughtily.  (At least she was feeling a bit like her old self)  “It is rare for us dragons to even take notice of lesser creatures like yourself.  But… but, you are welcome though.  Now come, we have little time to eat before we must leave.  Once Aimée finishes dressing you, find me and we’ll see about setting off.”

 

With Aimée’s help I got dressed fairly quickly.  Both of us seemed content to pretend that whatever almost happened last night never… almost happened I guess?  Either way, after dressing I left to find Martina to get some answers about what was going on.

 

I don’t know what I was expecting, possibly something like the tower I’d been in earlier, but a dragon’s true lair is an impressive labyrinth of tunnels and rooms, each large enough to house a dragon in its full form.  It was some time before I found Martina, waiting in her human form in a side room that evidently served as a dining room of some kind.  Food was already on the table, though with Aimée helping me dress I have no idea how it was set out or prepared.  Martina doesn’t seem like the type to do this kind of work herself, perhaps she used her magic?

 

Martina started talking as soon as I entered the room.  “Took you long enough to get here.  You creatures wouldn’t be able to find your own heads if you weren’t attached to them by that weak neck of yours.  Eat quickly.  We need to leave soon of we don’t want to be late.”

 

“Hold on, Martina.  I have a few questions first.  Such as why am I going to a Dragonmoot for starters?”

 

Martina sighed.  “I suppose you should at least know what is going on.  As you know, dragons are more powerful that almost anything else on this planet.  Don’t look outraged.  It’s simply true.  A human can train for his entire life to become the pinnacle of his art and he might, just might, be able to match a dragon.  We’re stronger, smarter, and more magically attuned than most other creatures on Terra.  Our dominance is especially prominent in the fields of magic, where mighty Archmages study for years to gain powers that dragons inherently have.”

 

I kept quiet at this point; I felt that reminding her that I drove her off in our first meeting with my own sword despite her “draconic superiority” wouldn’t be well received.

 

She continued, “However there are some exceptions.  One notable one was the human Archmage Isocrates whose power could match our own race’s spellcasters.  Hundreds of years ago, Isocrates waged a war against our kind and slew many of us.  As you know, dragons are mostly solitary creatures, only accepting the company of others in order to dominate them or to mate.  This tendency made it easy for Isocrates to hunt us down, one by one.  However, we rallied and joined together at the First Dragonmoot.  As one race, we vowed to attack our enemy.  However Isocrates learned of our plan, he set out to craft an item that would allow him to turn us against each other and to dominate our will.”

 

“Was that the red rod I saw Princess Emile using earlier?” I hazarded a guess.

 

“Correct.  Isocrates’ Rod is a dangerous item to us dragons.  It nearly caused the war effort to fail altogether, with dragon turning against dragon.  Eventually, we had to resort to some pretty dark deeds to overcome Isocrates’ power.  However that is another story entirely and one that non-dragons don’t need to hear.  The point is that Isocrates’ fortress-tower was razed to the ground and destroyed.  The only remaining trace of Isocrates was the rod, found undamaged in the ruins.  It was given to the head of the Dragonmoot at the time, my father Martinus, who kept it safely until his death.  It was hidden in one of the outposts to my father’s- now mine, I suppose- lair.  The Rod remained safe until last week when that dreadful princess took it.  Now an entire Dragonmoot has been called in order to evaluate the current state of affairs and determine the future of Isocrates’ Rod, and me as well I suppose.  After all, I’m the one who let it get back into human hands.  As witnesses to the instance, we’ve been called in to testify, and possibly receive judicial action.”

 

Martina finished that last sentence with a dejected look on her face.  I could tell that she wasn’t optimistic about her chances with the Dragonmoot.  I’m still not sure why I did this but I stood up and said, “Martina, you couldn’t have known that Princess Emile would be able to find that rod, let alone that she would be able to use it.  I’ll do what I can to help you at the Dragonmoot.”

 

The dragoness seemed stunned at that at the very least, “I- I don’t know what to-  Thank you, Sir Knight.”

 

As I finished eating, Martina filled me in on the details of the Dragonmoot.  Evidently it was a council of the twelve oldest (and presumably the wisest) dragons in the continent.  It held a careful balance of power over the dragons in the land.  Theoretically, it had total control of their lives but in practice any attempt to use this power would soon result in the entire draconic race rebelling against the council.  It mainly handled disputes between dragons on the rare occasion that they met and the rarer occasion that their own teeth, claws, and magic didn’t resolve the problem.  From time to time they would charge a dragon with safeguarding an object of some danger such as Isocrates’ Rod or watching over a piece of land.  Few dragons objected to these rulings as it added treasures to their hoard or lands to their territory.  For major decisions such as changing the organization of the council, nine out of the twelve councilors needed to approve.  For minor cases of justice, such as our case, only seven of the councilors need to approve.  

 

As Martina was wrapping up her brief summary of draconic political organizations, Aimée entered the room, carrying my equipment of all things.

 

“Good, you’re here girl.  Knight, armor yourself.  You may need it to save your life.”

 

Now as anyone familiar with heavy armor knows, its impossible to fully equip the armor by yourself, so I had to enlist Aimée’s help.  She may be a substitute for a decent squire one day, but today she needed constant guidance to help me properly, “No Aimée.  That’s a vambrace, not a rebrace.  It goes on my forearm, not my upper arm, no not now, wait until I get the rebrace on first!”  And so it went for some time.  Finally I was ready and armored.  

 

I turned to Martina who watched the whole process with some degree of amusement.  “So how are we going to reach this Dragonmoot anyways?”

 

“Simple,” Martina said with a smile, “You’ll ride.”

 

And with that she transformed.  Gone was the attractive woman and in her place was the fearsome creature that I had seen before.  However, now that I looked closer, I could see the hint of her other form in her eyes, which twinkled with amusement at my expression.  

 

“Get on, human.  And be honored, few have had the honor of riding a willing dragon before.”

 

“Uhh… Martina, I’ve never ridden a dragon before.  Most of my experience is with a horse, and even then I had a saddle.  How do I… do this?”

 

The dragoness laughed a throaty, hissing laugh.  “Simple.  You wrap your legs around my body and enjoy the ride!”

 

And with a wave of her claws, one of the walls opened up to reveal clear skies.  She took off with a beat of her wings.  Below me I heard Aimée scream as Martina picked her up in her claws, “Can’t forget your armor assistant, now can we?”  Martina laughed, louder than the wind blowing past my ears.  

 

And with that we were off, towards our destiny and the Dragonmoot.

 

Flying on Martina’s back was an incredible experience.  Feeling the air rush past me was a familiar sensation from my experience with riding horses, but on a dragon’s back it was amazing.  As we ascended I watched everything grow smaller and smaller until even the mighty mountains formed from the very bones of Terra became as anthills.  We entered the clouds and after a brief moment of darkness we were in open skies.  Clouds stretched on for miles around, looking for all the world like a large cotton field that one could lay down in to rest.

 

Martina, somehow sensing my awe, gave another roaring laugh and said, “I’ve heard stories of how you human creatures constantly overact to this sight.  It never ceases to surprise me that you could be so awed by such a mundane sight.”

 

“Well Miss Martina, we humans don’t get up here as often as dragons do.  And are you seriously telling me that this does nothing for you?  Being above the clouds, seeing the sun overhead, perfect weather?  Nothing pleasant about that?”

 

“I suppose if you put it that way, why yes it is a nice day.  But hardly anything to be awestruck over.  If you really want to see something impressive, you should see the sunsets or sunrises some time.”

 

“I-I think I’d like that.  If its no trouble that is.”

 

“If we make it through this trial, none at all.  In fact-“

 

“MILADY!  CAN YOU PLEASE CEASE SQUEEZING ME IN YOUR CLAWS SO HARD!  ITS GETTING DIFFICULT TO BREATH!”

 

“Ah.  Yes.  I forgot about her.  Aimée was it?  There we go, that should be more comfortable.”

 

We passed through a cloud bank that was higher than usual and as we cleared it we saw the top of a massive mountain, one so tall it jutted through the clouds themselves.  A massive castle was built into the peak, somehow carved out of the very rock of the mountain.

 

Martina lowered her head and banked towards the peak.  “This is it.  Here we face the Dragonmoot.”

 

As we flew around the castle, I saw that the far side had a large platform jutting out of it.  Martina flew towards it, set Aimée down carefully, and then landed.  As she touched down, two larger and stronger looking dragons emerged from the castle.  

 

The first one said, “Martina the Younger, are you prepared to face the judgment of the Dragonmoot for your failure to safeguard Isocrates’ Rod?”

 

Martina sighed and said, “Yes, Lucianus.  I, Martina the Younger, stand ready to accept the Council’s judgment.”  

 

“Very well.  Now that the formalities are done with, I must inform you that the Council will see you tomorrow.  Rooms in the fortress are available for the night.  Is your… human… capable of performing his duties as a witness?”

 

“I’d say that he is capable of that and more,” Martina said with a small snarl.  

 

“Very well then.  We will escort you to your chambers.”

 

Now here I am, trying to sleep in a chamber sized for a creature many times my size, awaiting some sort of council of dragons in the morning.  I have the feeling that getting sleep is going to be difficult.  

 

 

Dear Journal.

 

Well neither me nor Martina are dead so that’s something to be thankful for.  However we’re not quite free yet.  I’d better explain from the beginning.  We woke up early the next morning, and were treated to a feast that wouldn’t be out of place in the courts of a king.  It turns out that many dragons are partial to meat for every meal of the day.  After dinning we were taken to a hallway that, much to my surprise, seemed to be sized for humanoids of my size.

 

One of the dragon guards, a rather cheerful fellow named Maximus, told me the reason for it.  “Now the form of a dragon is majestic and can’t be compared to any lesser creature, yada, yada, yada.  But somethings are better done with hands that come with opposable thumbs, and writing down notes and taking the minutes at a meeting is one of them.”  He seems like a nice guy.

 

Eventually Martina and I were called into the council chamber; Maximus explained to me that since Aimée was under Martina’s spell at the time she wouldn’t be considered a reliable witness for what went on.  Since the dragons and dragonesses of the council were in humanoid form, they wouldn’t have looked out of place in any other political setting.  It was hard to remember that these aged and aging old men and woman were actually dangerous creatures that could kill me in a heartbeat.

 

Everyone was silent.  Eventually one man in the center of the room spoke up.  He was an elderly looking man, and while the rest of the council could have passed for nobility or at least well off merchants, this one reminded me more of a court wizard.

 

He said, “Alright.  We all know why we’re here so unless someone feels the need to stand on ceremony we should get to the matter at hand.  For the benefit of the… lets call it a witness shall we, I am the Master of the Council, Regulus.  Now to the matter at hand.  Martina the Younger, do you have any reason why this council should not have you slain for your negligence in guarding Isocrates’ Rod?”

 

I’ll admit that I was a little shaken by that.  While I knew that Martina was in a bad way and could face execution, hearing Regulus outright demand a reason not to kill her was still startling.  I’ll spare both of us a full transcript of the court proceedings, but suffice to say that the two of us were questioned until the full story of how Princess Emile came to be held by Martina and what she did with Isocrates’ Rod came out.  I did my best to spin facts to help out Martina, but it didn’t seem to do any good.  Hours later, the testimonial phase of the trial was coming to a close.  We were both asked to wait in the hall outside.  After a few moments Martina was called in by herself.  I turned to ask Maximus what was going on.  

 

“Now that the Council feels that they have the solid facts of the case, the trial is now going to the appeal phase.  Here both you and Martina are going to be asked for your views on the matter.  Martina is probably pleading that the entire fiasco wasn’t her fault right now, the Council expects this so its unlikely that her appeal is going to do anything to change a verdict.”  

 

My face fell at his words, “So, is Martina going to be executed?”

 

Maximus shifted to human form and unexpectedly patted me on the back.  “Don’t worry too much.  Regulus is a strict ruler, you could almost say he’s draconian!”

 

As I tried to punch Maximus for that pun he swatted my fist away and continued, “But he is fair and sometimes even merciful.  While screwing around with something like Isocrates’ Rod is dangerous, if he feels that no malicious intent was involved he very well  may let her live.  And also you still have your appeal too, and it looks like its time for that now.”

 

Sure enough, Martina was emerging from the Council’s chamber, her face was ashen.  One of the council attendants caught my attention, “Sir Knight, the Council is awaiting your testimony.”

 

I quietly entered the chambers.  The sound of the heavy door behind me reminded me uncomfortably of a tomb.

 

When I entered the chambers, I was called over to the spot where I testified before.  I looked around the council, hoping to see a touch of sympathy in their faces, but it appeared that they were all taking their cues from Regulus.  

 

Regulus sighed and poured himself a drink of some kind.  He then leaned forward and said, “Human Knight.  I understand that your involvement in this case was crucial in ending this Princess Emile’s rampage with the Rod.  However I also understand, from your own testimony in fact, that by failing to force Princess Emile to accompany you the first time you visited Martina’s tower that the security of the Rod was compromised in the first place.  You evidently also fought against Martina the first time you saw her and then saved her the second.  Seeing as you’ve been on all sides of this issue, is there anything that you have to say with regards to the verdict?”

 

I sighed.  “Yes.  From what I gatherd, Isocrates’ Rod was given to Martina’s father as a trophy of war.  Martina then inherited it from him.  It was kept securely in her tower until a psychotic princess who was having a break from reality found it.  The princess was crazy.  She would have grabbed anything to try to get her way in this matter.  She was lucky enough to stumble upon the Rod.  As Martina inherited the Rod from her father in good faith, and did her best to store it properly, it would be unjust for severe punishment to befall her.”  

 

Regulus thought for a moment and nodded.  “Well said.  Were this any other item, the council wouldn’t even get involved.  However you must understand why we are so concerned with Isocrates’ Rod.  I’m afraid that severe punishment may be required… unless…”

 

“Unless what?”

 

Regulus shook his head dismissively, “Oh no.  Its nothing.  I would need an agent of unquestionable character and virtue to perform a dangerous task.  And wherever would I be able to find one of those?”

 

I sighed deeply.  “Sir, you don’t need to bait me.  You know very well I’m a knight.  And earlier I did promise Miss Martina that I would help her however I can.  So enough with the vague hints.  What do you need me to do to ensure that Martina escapes punishment?”

 

Regulus looked a bit surprised at my statement.  “Very well then.  This makes things easier.  It has become clear to this Council that the Isocrates’ Rod cannot stay in this world any longer.  It is too dangerous to both dragons and the lesser creatures.  I simply need someone to destroy the Rod.  They would need to take it to the lands that Isocrates used to rule and find the method to destroy it.  Will you do this?  If you accept Martina and any other companions you may find can accompany you if they wish.  In addition to that we are prepared to offer compensation for your time and your troubles.”

 

It was evident to me that Regulus wanted this from the beginning.  He just likes to use both carrot and stick to get what he wants from others.  Regardless, I had little choice.  I couldn’t let Martina die, not after promising to help her.  

 

“I guess I have to accept.  If you can provide me with directions to Isocrates’ homeland then I will attempt to destroy the rod.”

 

As I said these words, Regulus smiled a serpant’s smile.  “Good.  Good.  Now before we can hand over an artifact such as Isocrates’ Rod, we shall need a few… assurances.  After all, this is a dangerous item to us and we just can't turn it over to someone who might betray us.”

 

He reached under his portion of the long table the council sat at and pulled out a small portrait, a knife, and a candle.  He walked over to me and handed the knife and portrait to me and lit the candle.  I saw that the portrait was that of one of the Draconic Lords, beings that the dragons worshiped as though they were the Gods.  

 

Regulus spoke to me, “Slit your sword hand, only a small cut mind you, and let the blood drip onto this portrait.  Good, now hold the portrait over the flames so it burns and repeat after me:  I pledge my loyalty to the Council of the Dragonmoot.  I swear to obey these orders given to me and to fulfill them to my dying breath.  If I disobey the Council or betray them, may my soul burn like the portrait of this Lord.”

 

As I finished the ritual, I felt a tight constraining force.  I knew that this ritual was more than just words, I would be bound to this quest until I succeeded or died.

 

Martina was surprisingly pained when I told her about this.  “The Loyalty Ritual is meant to only be administered to dragons who the Council governs!  It wasn’t meant to be used on a- a- a stupid human who couldn’t possibly know what he was getting into!”  

 

“Martina, I promised to help you already.  I would have wound up doing this with or without this ritual.  The only thing it did was made Regelus trust me with the Rod.”

 

 Aimée, who had been silent up until this point decided to speak up, “Hey, now that you have the rod, couldn’t you force the dragon council to let us go free?”

 

Before Martina could blow up at Aimée, I interjected, “I don’t think so.  The Ritual felt magical to me.  I don’t think I could betray them even if I wanted to.”

 

I turned to Martina, “You can go home if you wish.  You’re no longer required to worry about the Rod.  I can handle the journey to Isocrates’ lands myself-“

 

She cut me off with a roar that wouldn’t have sounded out of place in her draconic form, “I will absolutely not!  You’re- you’re in this damned mess because of your stupid human sense of honor and I’m not going to let you get yourself killed after everything I did to save you the last time you helped me!”

 

“I’m coming too!”  Much to my surprise, this came from Aimée.  “You saved my life as well and I’d like to pay you back!”

 

Martina snorted, “Oh?  And how could you possibly help us?  I doubt there will be a great deal of furniture to dust or beds to make on this journey!”

 

“I- I can help with his armor!  I’m good at keeping things clean and all the guards at my last lady’s house always companied about how their armor got rusty!  And I can help him put it on in the future too!  You didn’t even try to help him last time!  And finally I know a few tricks my father taught me!”

 

To stop the impending fight, I decided that I should probably try to move the focus away from what they were or weren’t willing to do to what they could do.  “Aimée, what are these tricks your father taught you?”

 

Aimée turned to me, “Well I never knew exactly what he did for a living growing up.  He was often gone at nights and sometimes for long periods at a time.  Eventually I was able to make some educated guesses, but I never asked him outright.  When he was home he always taught me… unusual skills.  Stuff my mother never approved of; such as how to pick locks including those of manacles behind your back, how to lift a purse off someone, where the best places to hide was, and how to move around quietly without being seen.”

 

“So all the things a Lady’s maid shouldn’t know?” I asked.

 

“Ha, actually some of those skills were very useful as a maid.  But yes.”

 

“Well that’s certainly useful.  So we have a dragon who’s a talented healer, a maid who can handle locks and stealth, can you do traps too Aimée?”  A quick and eager nod from her confirmed this so I continued, “and me who is at least an acceptable swordsman.  We should be good to set out.  So now all we need is a map and a sense of direction.”

 

Fortunately for us, Regulus was as fair as Maximus made him out to be.  He gave us a map of all the old holdings that Isocrates ruled and enough money to cover provisions several times over.  We’re spending one last night here in the fortress, and then we’re heading out on our quest.

 

Hope to live to write in you again soon.

 

 

 

Dear Journal,

 

Our quest started off well enough.  Martina flew us to the outskirts of civilization and landed far enough away from a village to not cause any alarm.  We entered town soon after midday and went to the general store to purchase supplies.  Aimée protested that we should go to the tavern on the grounds that ‘All good quests start in a tavern’ but she was overruled on the grounds that although I don’t mind a drink now and then, it was barely morning and the only people who drank that early were those with a serious problem.  We wound up having to go to the tavern anyways because it turned out that the man who ran the general store during the day also ran the tavern in the evening and he was sleeping in late due to sampling too much of his stock the night before.  We managed to rouse him and get him to open up is stores for us with the promise of spending a great deal.  We certainly did that at least.  Martina bought enough meat to feed an army (or one dragon as the case may be) and watching the store keep’s eyes widen as she stuffed it all into some sort of bottomless bag she carries was a sight to see.  We also picked up the other equipment we would need for the trip, from poles of unusual sizes, extra ropes and grapples, tents, alchemical supplies, the whole nine yards.

 

After buying half the poor man’s inventory we decided to have lunch and orient ourselves before setting off.

 

“Alright.  It looks like we’re going to have to head east, past this city called Hammerburg, it’s a dwarven settlement, no surprises there.  As such we should be able to pick up some decent metalwork there.  After that we wind up in Albero Città, an elven town, huh I didn’t know elves and dwarves lived that close together.  But there we should be able to use their library to find out more about this Isocrates guy.”

 

Martina cut in, “While were in Albero Città, we should also try to purchase some magic scrolls.  I could use some more spells.”

 

 And with that we set out.  Hopefully this will be an uneventful journey.  See you soon.

 

 

 

 

Dear Journal,

 

It was not an uneventful journey.  Just two days after we set out for Hammerburg, we were waylaid by enemies and had to defend ourselves.  After leaving the small town we purchased provisions in, we gained a safe distance and Martina transformed into a dragon again.  We took to the air and were fine for the rest of the day.  However this morning upon taking off, some sort of spell came from the ground and hit Martina.  

 

As she cried out in pain, I called out, “Are you okay?”  Not the most clever thing to say, but its what you do when someone’s hurt.

 

Martina looked back at Aimée and me.  I could see tears of pain in her eyes as she said, “It’s a wingbinder spell!  I… can't… maintain…. altitude!  We’re going to crash!”

 

We did crash, rather hard at that.  Fortunately for us Martina was able to maintain enough control that we didn’t plummet directly to the ground.  As the dust cleared, I saw some figures heading towards us.  I turned around to tell Aimée to get down, but she was already disappearing into the undergrowth of the surrounding woods and it looked like she was going to circle around our ambushers.  Clever girl.  

 

“So, André.  You think this is the group?”

 

“Of course it is you damned idiot!  How many people do you see go by on dragon back?  Lets just kill the damn lot of them and take this stupid rod back to Mr. Aldric, okay?”

 

Well that did it.  They were deliberately hunting us and I had to figure out why.

 

There were six of them all told.  Two looked like fighting types, two more had bows drawn, the last one was wearing armor and a mace and was displaying some sort of religious iconography making me assume he was a cleric of some sort, meaning the last one, the man in robes, had to be the wizard that threw the spell at Martina.  

 

“We’re outnumbered two to one,” I thought to myself, then I looked to Martina, still shuddering from the damage caused by the spell and the fall, “and one of us can’t stand, let alone fight and the other is a maid who happened to have some training from her father.  Looks like this one is up to you ‘Knight.’”  

 

My next thought was to decide on the priority target, after deciding it was the wizard (its always the wizard) I had to figure out a way to get past those first two fighters and into close combat with him.  Fortunately, this was an exceptionally undisciplined group, they were still arguing with each other as they approached us, not looking for survivors or other threats.  This could leave me with an opening to exploit, if the two men on guard were as slow to react as I thought.  

 

Fortunately for me they were.  As the first fighter turned to the second to argue about something (I believe that it was about what he did or didn’t do to the other’s sister) I charged the mage.  Unfortunately he wasn’t as slow as his fighter compatriots were and with a quick word he shot off a spell.  I gasped with pain as a bolt of fire burst from his hand and into my chest, but by then I was within striking range.  Much to my surprise as I swung my sword down on him, it burst into fire itself!  It looks like the blade I picked up in Martina’s tower is a bit better than the average sword.  I’m not sure how much damage the flames did as my cut struck the mage’s neck, killing him instantly but they were good to fend off the two fighters as they whirled around to face me.  

 

All of the sudden I heard a low chanting.  Backing up to gain safe distance from the fighters I looked to my right to see the cleric from before.  Unfortunately he was still up and moving and was beginning to cast a spell of his own.  All of the sudden, he stopped.  A small trickle of blood came from his mouth and he slumped over to reveal Aimée standing behind him, a small red stained dagger in her hands.  

 

Turning back to the fighters with renewed confidence, I suddenly had to duck as the archers I had completely been ignoring fired at me.  Fortunately one missed and my armor deflected the other’s shot but it was close.  I had to jump back in order to keep parrying and deflecting the spear and sword blows of the fighters as they closed with me next.  I saw Aimée moving to attempt to get behind the archers, so I decided to focus on the fighters.  I bashed the first one’s shield out of the way entirely before cutting into his shoulder, dropping him to the ground, before whirling to cut into the other’s torso, effectively ending him.  Then I heard the scream.  While one archer was still focused on me, the other had the presence of mind to keep an eye on his surroundings.  He had turned as Aimée was approaching and shot her.  From the blood spilling out of her it looked serious.

 

With Aimée down the two archers could focus on me, for all the good it did them.  My armor was crafted by some of the best of the Realm’s smiths and enchanted further to boot.  Charging forward into the nearest one I attacked, not even bothering to concern myself with the small dagger he was frantically trying to draw.  He fell, in nearly two pieces, as I whirled on the last one, the one that shot Aimée.  Then that horrible little part of me spoke up, the part of me that is always sensible and rational, even when I’d like nothing more than to be an instrument of justice and revenge. It said, “Who is Mr. Aldric?  You don’t know do you?  And you killed everyone who does, everyone except this man here.  He might be important, don’t you think?”  Sometimes I hate being me.

 

Instead of cutting his neck from his shoulders as I would have liked, I settled for striking the bow from his hand.  Pointing my blade at his exposed eyes I told him in my most intimidating voice, “Don’t.  Don’t try anything.  Anything at all.  Or I’ll cut you up and feed you to the dragon you injured.”

 

Unfortunately for my innate sense of justice he complied fully.  As he stood there, not moving I ran over to Aimée to check on her.  She was in a bad way.  I dragged her over to the crash site where Martina was still laying injured.  

 

“Martina!  Aimée is hurt badly and getting worse, is there anything you can do?”

 

“Not like this, Knight… but check the bags… potions in there… might help.”

 

After what was definitely too long rummaging through her bags (Turns out bottomless bags have their downsides too) I found some potions labeled healing.  I ran back to Aimée as fast as I could to pour them down her throat.  After the last one went down, Aimée was still not conscious, but her breathing had stabilized and she wasn’t bleeding out anymore.  She would live at least.

 

 Then I turned to the archer.  Surprisingly he was still there.  I had expected him to try and run while I went for the potions, but here he was.  Walking up to him, I told him to sit down.  With some of our rope (and the aid of a heavy rock), I tied him up securely so he couldn’t run.  Then sitting down to face him, I looked him in the eye and asked, “So why did the six of you decide to go and attack a dragon that happened to be flying by?”

 

He tried to lie to me at first.  Something about how dragons were evil creatures, etc.  It wasn’t working on me today.  “No.  Stop.  I heard you lot talking about how you were waiting for us.  Why?”

 

“I don’t have to tell you anything.  You don’t scare me!”

 

At this point Martina shifted, eliciting a groan from her.  While to me it was clearly a groan of pain, the wingbinder spell still doing a number on her, to the archer it must have sounded like a roar.

 

He paled and backpedaled most admirably, “All right!  All right!  I’ll talk!  I’ll talk!  Just don’t sic your dragon on me!”

 

“I am just a mercenary!  I got hired by this guy, Mr. Aldric to ambush a group of people and a dragon on the way east!  He’s the guy who set the wizard up with that spell that downed your dragon!”

 

“Who is Mr. Aldric?” I asked impatiently.

 

“I don’t know!  He contacted us!  Send the message, a little gold to get us interested, and the wingbinder scroll!  Then he told us where to wait and promised us more money if we did the job right!”

 

“Where did he contact you?”  I exclaimed, almost shouting.

 

“We were in Hammerburg at the time!  The messenger found us at the Rusting Anvil Inn!  I don’t know anything else!  I swear!”

 

It seemed that he was telling the truth about that at least, but I wouldn’t be letting him go yet.  I went over to Aimée, gently picked her up, and moved her near to Martina.   As I approached the dragoness, I asked, “Martina, are you feeling better?”

 

My response was a low groaning from her and, “Yes.  I think so.  It will be days before I can fly again, but I can at least shape shift, make life easier on all of us.”  With that she again morphed into her humanoid form.  Now that her form was somewhat less armored and scaled, I could see and recognize just how bad the damage was.  One of her arms was broken badly, there were cuts and bruises all over her body, and at least half her ribs were broken.  

 

“Oh Gods.  You are badly hurt aren’t you?”

 

“Its okay, Knight I should be able to- Ahh!”

 

That last shriek of pain, in a human voice now, hurt me more than any blow in that battle.  I gently helped her to sit down and set about making a splint and bandaging her.  As I poured some water from my waterskin onto a rag and began to dab at a long cut below her collarbone, Martina spoke up, “S-Sir Knight, w-what are you doing?”

 

“Relax, Martina, I just need to ensure these wounds get cleaned in time.  You’re too injured to do anything, so just sit back and let me help.  I may need some advice or instruction though.”

 

“You, you need to set the bones. Too many of them are broken.  Start with my hands and arms first.  That way I can use a healing potion and be able to heal myself.”

 

I complied as best I could, wincing every time she gasped with pain, but soon her hands were set to her satisfaction.  “Now please, the potion.”

 

I nodded and handed her the remaining healing potion.  “Be careful, this is our last one.”

 

“Understood.  After this however I should be able to heal both myself and the maid girl.”

 

Soon both Martina and Aimée were back up and moving, we were getting ready to move on when I said, “I think we’ve seen our last day of flying for some time.  If this Mr. Aldric is hiring mercenaries to hunt us down, flying around on Martina is only going to draw them to us faster.  

 

“Agreed, and I have no desire to feel the effects of a wingbinder spell again,” Martina added.  

 

Aimée nodded as well, “Fine with me, but now I need to ask, what do we do about him?” she asked, turning to face the bound up archer.

 

The man blanched.  “H-hey now!  There’s no need to do anything drastic!  If you let me go I won’t even go near Hammerburg again!  Please!”

 

I turned to Martina and Aimée and guided them out of our prisoner’s hearing range.  “What do you two think?  I’m not exactly the type to kill helpless prisoners, but he was hunting us and he did hurt you both.”

 

Martina rolled her eyes, “If his life means so much to you then spare him if you want.  I don’t see why you bother though.”

 

Aimée frowned, “If it was in the middle of a fight then yeah I’d take him down in an instant, but now?  It would just feel wrong somehow.  Let’s just let him go.  But we need to take his stuff to sell later first!”

 

It wasn’t long before we were back on the road, heading towards Hammerburg.  Fortunately for us, the mercenaries we killed had rode out here and we found their horses tied up nearby.  We took one for each of us, let the captive archer keep one, and the remaining two we took to sell.  Looking at the bodies themselves was mostly futile, as their equipment was mostly poorly maintained.  We found a few more potions and some sort of magical ring on the cleric and Martina found some useful spells in the wizard’s spell book.  We dropped the archer off at a crossroads where he reaffirmed his vow to never bother us again and then we headed off to Hammerburg.

 

Fortunately the rest of the trip passed without incident and we arrived at Hammerburg, or at least the surface entrance to it.  Aimée looked around confused.  “Where is it?”  All I see is an overlarge gazebo.  Is that the entire town?”  

 

I laughed at her and guided our horses into the center of the gazebo.  I looked at Aimée and told her to watch carefully, and pulled a lever near the center of the platform.  As the floor slowly dropped, lowering us into the actual city of Hammerburg, her eyes widened to the size of saucers.  

 

When we entered the city we got directions to the nearest market.  We sold the mercenaries extra equipment there and made a few purchases as well.  We got a nice set of mithril chain for Aimée, and had the rings threaded with cloth to prevent clinking when she was trying to be stealthy, got the ring identified as having a minor protective charm, it was agreed that I keep it for now as I was the front line fighter and the bulk of enemy attacks were aimed at me, and most importantly got directions to the Rusting Anvil Inn.  

 

The rusting anvil inn was a typical dwarven building, which meant that it would pass as a military fortification in many other places.  The only thing distinguishing it from the other buildings around it was the smell and sounds of a tavern/inn and the rusting anvil fastened above the doorframe.  

 

Ducking to enter the building, we passed under the anvil only to hear a shouting match going on inside.

 

“Siegbert!  Siegburt where are you?  Damned boy!”

 

“What is it father?  What’s wrong?”

 

“What’s wrong?  What’s wrong?  Did you realize what you put on tap for tonight?  That… that… abomination, is not fit to be called beer!  It’s a vile concoction made by dwarven traitors who got mixed up with some thrice accursed human mages and alchemists!  It isn’t a real ale!”

 

“IT’S NOT AN ALE FATHER.  ITS CALLED A LAGER!  AND GET USED TO IT BECAUSE IT IS GOING TO BE THE FUTURE OF BEER!”

 

“DO YOU HAVE NO RESPECT FOR TRADITON?  NO RESPECT FOR THE ART OF BREWING?  NO SON OF MINE WILL SERVE THAT ABOMINATION IN MY TAVERN!  NOW EITHER GET YOUR HEAD STRAITENED OUT OR GET OUT OF MY INN!  YOU HAVE AN HOUR TO MAKE UP YOUR MIND!”

 

And with that the dwarven patriarch stormed off.

 

Cautiously we walked up to the remaining dwarf.  He appeared to be deep in thought.  Eventually I hazarded to interrupt him, “Excuse me good dwarf, could you help me?”

 

The young dwarf turned around, “Oh sorry there.  I was thinking and didn’t notice you.  Can I interest you in a fine lager?  It’s on special!  Buy some; get it all free before my idiot father throws it all out!”

 

“I’ll buy all your lager and more if you can answer a few questions for me.”

 

One moderately expensive financial transaction later, Martina was grumbling about how her bottomless bag wasn’t actually literally bottomless and that too much of it was going to storing this beer, and I was sitting at a table with the young dwarf.  

 

“I’ll keep this quick as I suspect that your father may not take kindly to you selling me all this… lager did you call it?”

 

“Yes!  Did you notice the smoother and crisper feel?  The subtle and balanced aroma?  The-“

 

I cut him off here, I had the feeling he could go on all day about this, “I liked it a lot.  But-“

 

“But yes!  It’s not as good as it could be!  Its supposed to be served colder than ales, but because of my backwards father I cannot get some cooling enchantments done in this establishment!  I have some extra chilling crystals that you can rub on the outside of the barrels to cool the beer down; I’ll give them to you free because you bought everything!  In fact-“

 

“Err… thank you, but I had some other questions about-“

 

“About how it was made?  Only natural!  Through a combination of human magic, dwarven alchemy, and both of our brewing traditions combined-“

 

“No!  About some people that tried to kill us!”

 

Siegbert looked taken aback at this, “Huh?  Wha?”

 

“Some days ago, a group of mercenaries ambushed me and some of my friends.  They were evidently hired in this inn.”

 

“Hmm… That is concerning.  Can you describe them for me?”

 

I gave him the general description of the mercenaries.  Siegbert thought for a moment and then called out, “Sieghild!  Can you come over for a moment!”

 

A rather… well rounded.... dwarven barmaid came up to us.  “What do you want Siegbert?  I’m not sticking my neck out for you with father again for this lager fad again.”

 

“Its not a fad!  It’s the future of beer!  Its-“

 

I cut him off with a cough.

 

“Right, sorry.  This isn’t a question about the perfectly good drink of lager.  Its about some customers that were in here.”

 

He reiterated the description of the mercenaries that I gave him, looking to me for clarification from time to time.

 

Sieghild looked a bit worried as she responded, “Oh I remember them alright.  Were causing a lot of fuss.  And I remember the messenger who met them too.  The problem is… the problem is that he looked like he was with the…”

 

I interrupted, “With the what?  Come on this is important to us!”

 

Sieghild sighed, “He looked like he was with the Schatten Gilde.”  

 

This meant nothing to me, “The Schatten Gilde?  What’s that?”

 

Siegbert looked at me strangely.  “The Schatten Gilde is the primary criminal organization here in Hammerburg.  If your mercenaries were contacted by them, someone must really want you dead.”

 

Martina, Aimée, and I looked at each other.  “Thank you for your help gentledwarves.  I think we’re off to find the Schatten Gilde.  Thank you for your time.”

 

I tipped both of them and as we were about to leave I heard Siegbert calling me, “Hey!  Wait!”

 

I turned around and he was standing there awkwardly. “Err… well… can I come with you?”

 

Martina sputtered, “What? You want to come with us?  Why?”

 

“Well things here at home aren’t exactly the best right now, and I feel that some time away from here will help clear the air at least.  Come on, I’m a decent alchemist and a damned good brewer and you could do worse than taking me!”

 

After a few minutes of debate between the three of us, I turned to him.  “Well if you’re sure.  We are in the middle of a rather lengthy quest, we won’t be coming back here for some time.”

 

Siegbert beamed, “All the better then!  Let me grab my things and we’ll get going then!”

 

Sieghild sighed, “How did I know it would come to this?  Go on brother, I’ll try to stem father’s wrath a bit when he finds out you’re gone.”

 

Siegbert made his farewells with his sister and rushed up to grab his stuff.  A few minutes later we were on the road to another bar where Siegbert assured us that Schatten Gilde members could be found.  

 

When we arrived at this bar, by the name of The Blade Shards, we heard the sounds of typical tavern carousing.  However the second we opened the door, everything fell silent.  We could feel the eyes of the entire place upon us.  We took a seat out of the way of everything to plan how to handle this.

 

“Well, we can’t just walk up there and demand to speak to their secret criminal organization!” I hissed.

“I know that, did you have a plan when you came in here or were you just hoping things would drop into your lap?” Martina snapped back at me.  

 

Aimée sighed, stood up, and walked over to the bar.

 

“What does she think she’s doing?”  Siegbert whispered at me.

 

“What ever she thinks she’s doing, she’s doing it properly it appears.”

 

Indeed Aimée somehow managed to make herself somehow belong to the group of dwarves she was talking to.  They were laughing and joking like old friends.  I simply marveled at her father’s ability to teach her skills without ever actually revealing what he did for a living.  

 

After several hours of watching Aimée socialize with the strange dwarves, she returned to us.  “Alright, I think I might have an in with the Schatten Gilde.”

 

Martina squawked, “What?  Already?  After only knowing them for a few hours?  How?”

 

Aimée smiled.  “Its easy.  You just need to say the right words.  In the right language too, I guess.  Well, its not really a language but rather a special Cant that only Thieves are supposed to know, but its all the same really.”

 

I just shook my head and smiled.

 

Several hours later a carriage pulled up to the front of The Blade Shards.  A dwarf clad in black came in and came up to us.  Evidently he was to take us to the Schatten Gilde higher-ups.  I had a bad feeling about it, but we got in the carriage and it sped off into the darkness of the lower quarters.

 

After what felt like ages of twists and turns in dark tunnels, my gut feeling getting worse and worse with each minute, we came to a small building.  The carriage driver escorted us inside and led us to a set of stairs.  We followed them down to reveal that the small building above, was mealy the entrance to a large compound below.  There were at least a few lights here so we could see a little as we were being escorted to our meeting.  I could see dwarves, garbed in black practicing the arts of theft, mugging, and murder.  

 

Finally we reached our destination.  A small black table with chairs for five set around it was in the center of the room.  Leaning against the wall was a young dwarf woman in fitted red and black leather armor and an array of dangerous looking lives at her belt.  In the fifth chair, at the head of the table, was an old dwarf man.  He stared at us quietly each in turn, before speaking, “So.  What can the Schatten Gilde do for a knight, a maid, an alchemist…” he paused, staring intently at Martina before continuing, “and a dragon?”  

 

Siegbert looked taken aback at the last bit but I gave him a look that said “I’ll explain later,” and he seemed to calm down.

 

Martina spoke first, “Recently one of your members delivered a message to some mercenaries.  This message was from a Mr. Aldric.  We’re simply trying to get in touch with him.”

 

“Ah yes.  Mr. Aldric.  He had a very unusual request for us.”

 

Encouraged, Martina spoke again, “Go on….”

 

“Yes.  You see we offer a wide variety of services within the city.  However this is the first time we were contracted as mere messengers.  However there was a secondary request attached to Mr. Aldric’s commission.  It was sealed and evidently can only be opened under certain conditions.  He told us to try to open it if we were ever met by a group containing a human knight, a young maid, and a dragon.”

 

The old dwarf looked at us closely.  “Now would that be you?”

 

He continued, “Don’t bother answering.  We’ll find out soon enough.”

 

He pulled out a black disc with some strange runes on it.  As he did, I felt Isocrates’ Rod grow warm where I stored it in my belt.  As it did, the runes on the black disc began to glow a blue color and it cracked into two pieces; immediately black smoke poured out of the disc, forming the image of a massive hooded figure.  

 

A raspy voice filled the room, “Ahh.  Guildmaster Vinzenz of the Schatten Gilde I presume?  I see you have found the people I described.  Good, now here is the second part of my offer.  Do you know the large rooms you use for training in endurance and running?  Of course you do, its your organization after all.  Here is my offer, if you kill these people for me, I’ll fill one of those rooms with gold and gems.  As a sample of my generosity, please take the inside of the disc as a partial payment.  Good day, Guildmaster.”

 

As the smoke faded, I could indeed see that the inside of the disc was packed with gold and gems, a small fortunes’ worth.  Guildmaster Vinzenz looked at us and asked, “I don’t suppose you’d care to try to beat his offer?  Oh well I suppose that’s asking a bit much.  I’m sorry, but business is business.  Nadja, would you please?” the dwarf woman leaning against the wall suddenly sprung to action.  She kicked open the door, revealing a small squad of thugs and soldiers; before we could react, she tumbled across the room to place one of her knives near my throat.  The other guards readied crossbows and aimed them at my compatriots.  

 

As Vinzenz stood up, he looked at Nadja and asked, “Can you please clean up the mess when you’re done this time?”  He then took the disc and walked out of the room without another word.

 

After he left, Nadja leaned in towards me and whispered under her breath, “Oh its been a while since I got a chance to get my blade wet.  We’re going to have so much fun together.”

 

As I was preparing my story to tell the Gods, the door burst open again.  Suddenly an armored dwarven figure was in the center of the Schatten Gilde thugs, a hulking tower shield in one hand, a battleaxe in the next.  In a whirlwind of steel and blood, the dwarf cut each of them apart before they could react.  Nadja pulled back, stunned, and I took the opportunity to grab my own weapon and strike at her.  Unfortunately she was back on her feet quickly and dodged my strike.  As Martina, Siegbert, Aimée, and the armored figure surrounded Nadja, she realized she was outmatched and pulled some vial out of her belt.  She threw it against the ground and suddenly black smoke was everywhere.  When it cleared, she was gone.

 

After securing the area, I turned to the armored figure to thank them, but Siegbert cut me off, “Sieghild, what are you doing here?”

 

The armored whirlwind of death I saw earlier removed her helmet to reveal the smiling face of the friendly barmaid from earlier.  I’ll admit that I was a bit surprised, I’ve met my share of deadly women before, but they usually are professional soldiers or otherwise have a full time job that involves directing violence towards others.  I never met one who had a day job as a bar wench before.  

 

“Well Siegbert, father was rather upset about you running away with a group of adventurers.”

 

I was about to object to being called an adventurer, but on reflection I realized that that was exactly what I had become of late.  Considering my usual job involved cleaning up after the aftermath of an adventuring party’s foolishness, it was a bit depressing.

 

Sieghild continued, “He didn’t actually want you to leave, despite your lager obsession, so he sent me to bring you back.  His exact words were to ‘Go out there and find your damn fool brother and don’t come back without him!’”

 

Siegbert sighed, “That does sound like father, but I can’t go now!  This is getting interesting!  We have a dragon, a knight, and… and well some sort of maid – but a really interesting maid though!  And the Schatten Gilde had this special contract from this mysterious figure that wanted us dead and everything!  This is just like one of Uncle Michi’s stories!  I can’t back out now!”

 

Sieghild sighed and looked at me, “Is this true?  And if it is, do you even want my brother along?”

 

I looked at Martina and Aimée, they nodded, “Well Sieghild, he was instrumental in helping us find the Schatten Gilde.  Without him we’d still be looking for a place like that inn.  So, yes we do want him.  And his story is actually true.”

 

Sieghild didn’t quite look convinced, admittedly a story about a dragon is a bit hard to swallow, but relented.  “All right.  Then where are we going?”

 

Siegbert exclaimed, “What?  What do you mean ‘we?’  Why are you coming?”

 

Sieghild rolled her eyes and said, “Didn’t you hear me?  Father said not to come back without you, so I’m not.  I’m going with you.”

 

The two of them argued for several minutes until they came to a compromise which was basically Sieghild getting what she wanted by staying here and Siegbert having to deal with it.

 

I coughed politely to get their attention, “If you two are done arguing, we need to find a way out of this place.”

 

Martina added in, “And look for clues about who this Mr. Aldric is.”

 

“Yeah!  And look for valuable treasures!”  Aimée finished.

 

Our concerns were well placed, when we looked outside, we saw a small squadron of guards creeping down the hallway towards us.  There were dozens of them, with all varieties of weapons.

 

“All right,” I said, “we can hold them off in this hallway.  Here their large numbers won’t help them, however we need to be cautious.  If a second band of guards comes around from the other direction, we’re dead for sure.”

 

Martina disagreed, “I have a better idea.  Protect me so I can get close to them.”

 

“What?  Are you out of your mind?”

 

“Sir Knight, trust me on this.”

 

I sighed and relented.  Thankfully between my shield and my armor, I was able to physically cover Martina so she could get close enough to the dwarven thugs heading towards us.

 

Martina suddenly barked, “Knight, drop now!”

 

I did so without hesitating for some reason, it was a good thing too as suddenly Martina breathed fire.  I didn’t know before that they could do that in their humanoid form, but it was certainly effective in these close quarters.  When she was done, the entire dwarven block was destroyed.  

 

Aimée let out a low whistle and began to poke through the remains to see what could be salvaged.  I turned to the rest of the group to come up with a plan.

 

“Okay.  So we’re stuck in the middle of this complex of unknown size with an unknown number of enemies looking for both a way out and information on a certain Mr. Aldric.  So-“

 

Sieghild cut me off at this point, “Actually I know a way in and out.  I found you guys remember?  I should be able to work our way back there.  However I didn’t see anything about a Mr. Aldric so I can’t help you there.”

 

“Well this makes things at least a little bit easier then.  All we have to do is find that Guildmaster and make him talk.  Shouldn’t be too hard with Martina’s enchantment spells.”

 

And so we set out throughout this underground maze of tunnels and doors.  Aimée proved her worth over and over by being able to handle most of the traps and locks that blocked our every path.  Sieghild and I were able to cut through most opposition, and Martina and Siegbert were quick to aid with magic or healing as the situation required.  Finally we came to a section of the lair that was lavishly decorated.  The stone floor was replaced by a posh rug, the candles that dimly lit the rest of the compound were replaced by bright lanterns, and there was a general sense that this was the living area of someone important.  This conclusion was further strengthened when about a dozen tough looking guards led by Nadja came to block our path.

 

“You lot aren’t getting away with this!” Nadja snarled at me.  

 

“Sorry lady, but we need to get through there, and you’re not stopping us.”

 

With that we fell to combat.  Nadja fell back behind her guards, who immediately charged me and Sieghild, well technically they were charging at Siegbert and Martina, but they were intercepted by the two of us.   Aimée knew what to do and she moved in to flank the guards and was able to get in some blows to vital areas that took two guards out of the fight.   Martina used her magic to turn guard on his allies, he was able to cut two down before he was dropped in turn.  Siegbert threw some sort of acid that killed three guards and had to fall back a bit to prepare another dose.  I took a blow from one to the side but my armor absorbed most of the impact.  I was about to return the blow when I felt a small spike of pain in my side.  I looked to see that the fighters blow had dislodged part of my armor plating, and Nadja had came out of nowhere to exploit this opening.   Her blow went deep, and her blade was likely poisoned.  I began to feel woozy.  I was able to strike one return blow against her that cut her shoulder open but looked like she would live as she fell back.  At the very least she was healthy enough to spit curses at me as she retreated.  As the edges of my vision turned black, I could see Sieghild fighting off the remaining three soldiers and Martina, Aimée, and Siegbert running towards me to assist.  Then I blacked out.  Again.

 

When I came to, I saw Martina and Aimée leaning over me looking concerned.  When I opened my eyes, relief was evident in their faces.  

 

Martina looked away and began to stammer, “I-I’m glad you didn’t die in this pointless fight,” she began.  Aimée on the other hand was much less restrained, she practically leapt on me as she hugged me, “I’m so glad you’re okay!  I was worried about you!”  The look on Martina’s face was almost comical when she saw this, “What are you doing!  Get off him he’s m- He’s still injured!  You could reopen a wound or something!”

 

Sieghild and Siegbert were much less happy.  While Siegbert was content to stand down the hallway and look nervous, Sieghild came up to me while Aimée and Martina were arguing.  She looked to make sure that they were distracted and then suddenly grabbed my head by my hair, “Alright Knight.  Just what in all the Hells did you get my brother in to?”

 

Confused I asked her what she meant, under the guise of assisting me, she pulled me to my feet and dragged me down the hall towards a double door.  Inside was a rather horrific scene.  Guildmaster Vinzenz and what appeared to be several of his advisors and councilors were in there.  Each had a hand crossbow in their hand and a crossbow bold in their head.  Sieghild looked me in the eyes and pointed to one of the bodies.  This dwarf had evidently not killed himself cleanly, the bolt punching through his eyes, not his brain.

 

Sieghild remained quiet for a moment then said in a low voice, “When we came in he was still alive.  He was saying two words over and over.  ‘No Trace.’  We checked the firepit, there was a lot of burned paperwork in there.  Now, I’m not afraid of a lot, but the Schatten Gilde was something I always respected.  If it weren’t for my brother, I wouldn’t even be here.  Now it looks like something caused their leaders to off themselves.  So tell me.  What is going on?”

 

I looked Sieghild in the eye and said, “I’m not sure.  I’m really not.  I’ll tell you what I can though.”  And so I explained how I had come to meet Martina, how I had helped her break free of Princess Emile, how the Dragonmoot Council had secured my cooperation with destroying Isocrates’ Rod, how we were ambushed on the road, and how we came here.  I finished by saying, “I’m not sure what we’re facing, in truth.  But what I can say is this: I’m going to destroy this Rod, one way or the other.  And I will NEVER put the lives of my friends and allies at risk without a DAMN good reason.  If Siegbert wants to join me, that’s fine.  I’ll treat him as though he was my own brother, but I can’t guarantee either his safety or yours if you come with me.  If that’s not good enough then you can return to your tavern, but both of you are grown adults, you can make your own decisions and take your own risks.”  

 

When I was done with my little spiel, Sieghild was looking at me differently, almost with a new respect in her eyes.  I suppose I could just be seeing things but she quieted down and apologized for doubting my leadership.  So there is that at least.  

 

As I looked over the bodies of the dead thieves a bit closer.  I saw in one’s hand a small glitter.  I gently pried his fingers open and revealed a small gemstone.  A thought struck me, and I quickly looked around the room.  Sure enough I found the small black disc that Mr. Aldric had given to the Guildmaster.

 

I turned to find Martina and Aimée still arguing.  I called out, “Martina, could you come here for a moment?  There’s something I need you to look at.”

 

With a look of triumph aimed at Aimée, Martina walked over confidently.  “Yes, Sir Knight?  How can I help you?”

 

I nodded at the gems from the disc.  “Could you take a look at those?  In particular, can you check to see if there is any form of enchantment magic on them?”

 

Martina looked almost disappointed for a moment, but recovered quickly.  She carefully picked up a gem using a bit of cloth and stared at it intensely.  Her eyes began to glow and the gem levitated off the cloth and began floating in the air.  Suddenly her eyes returned to normal and the gem dropped to the floor.

 

Martina turned to me and looked grave.  “Your suspicions are correct.  Handling these gems imparts a magical effect that dominates the holder.  They become compelled to destroy any records that could tie them to a Mr. Aldric and then kill themselves.  It’s a dark form of enchantment and I know of few who can use it, let alone would.”

 

“Where would you be able to find these people?”

 

Martina smiled.  “At least that’s a bit of good news.  The best place to find that out would be the Mage’s Library in Albero Città, and we’re already on the way there.”

 

On the way out of Hammerburg we stopped, at Siegberg’s insistence, at one of the only taverns in the city that would openly serve lagers.  We decided to spend the night there before setting out and enjoyed a great evening of carousing and drinking.  Siegberg and Sieghilde insisted on trying to teach me at least one dwarven drinking song, but the problem is that most dwarven drinking songs double as their race’s epics and history books, meaning that they are quite long and complicated.  Still, I’m moderately proud to say that I was at least able to get the first six verses of “Lord Winfried Against the Giants” memorized before I excused myself to finish updating you, journal.

 

Tomorrow morning we set off for the elven lands and hopefully answers.  Now I need to go back down and try to handle the next six verses of dwarven epics.

 

 

 

Dear Journal,

 

The trip started out weird before it began.  Evidently my attempt to learn the entirety of Lord Winfried Against the Giants” resulted in me passing out drunk.  Sieghilde and Siegberg don’t hold it against me for trying though.  However what happened afterwards was weird.  Aimée offered to bring me to my room since I was passed out whereupon Martina suddenly objected saying that, “The low class woman” would try to take advantage of me and that only someone of impeccable standing such as herself could be trusted to assist me.  Aimée evidently retorted with something that no one felt comfortable repeating and a small fight started out.  Sieghilde broke it up and carried me up to my room herself whereupon she guarded the door the whole night in case either girl tried anything.  That was awfully nice of her although I’m not going to consider the fact that I was changed out of my day clothes too hard.  I may have to impose some sort of drink limit on this group.

 

Regardless, that morning was a quiet day.  Neither Martina nor Aimée were speaking to each other and I had a hangover that resulted in me quickly quieting anyone who tried to do as much as talk.  

 

By that afternoon things had somewhat quieted down.  Both Martina and Aimée both claimed that they didn’t actually mean anything they said the night prior and both had honorable intentions and the whole argument was just a joke that got out of hand, although I still caught them glaring daggers at each other.  My hangover had died down and the whole group seemed less likely to turn on each other at the drop of a hat.  

 

We decided to stop for lunch and figure out a plan for the next few days.  I opened up with, “Alright.  It looks like its about two-and-a-half to three days until we reach Albero Città.  If our friend Mr. Aldric hasn’t let up yet, it is safe to expect some sort of ambush along the roads, but we should be safe once we enter elven territory.  Their border guard are generally good at keeping bandits and monsters out of their neck of the woods, which is in fact pretty much all of the woods.  So there is that.”

 

We took the rest of the afternoon preparing, I practiced sparring with Sieghilde, Martina researched some spells that may be of use with dealing with enchanted or dominated foes, Siegbert brewed up some alchemical substances that were supposed to make us faster somehow, and Aimée managed to get me bruised a few times by practicing her acrobatics and stretching right in my line of sight while I was sparring.  Seriously, she is quite distracting.

 

However our preparations were almost completely pointless because over the next few days we were almost completely ignored by the world.  Even dangerous animals preferred to go the other way for some reason.  Once in the distance we saw a small gang of bandits but when the spotted us they immediately ran the other way.  I suppose we looked a bit dangerous, but this was too easy and I didn’t feel comfortable about it.

 

In fact we got all the way to the elven forests before anything happened.  We had just begun to relax after days of being on edge, when it happened.  I was leading the group up front, and was busy pushing through a bush when all of the sudden an elven woman leapt in front of me, aiming an arrow at my face.  She snarled, “Freeze!  And don’t even thing of going for your weapons!”  Naturally I didn’t, there was no time for one, so I simply struck out with my left hand snapping her drawn arrow in half, as she released the bow the two pieces harmlessly spun to the side instead of firing in my face, then my right hand connected with her face.  As she slumped to the ground, her camouflage cloak fell away revealing the uniform of the Albero Città border guard.  

 

“Well, this isn’t good,” I said to myself.  The sudden rustling around me confirmed my fears, I was surrounded by elves, and elves competent enough not to close into melee range with a bow.  A second glance confirmed my suspicions, bodkin arrows, armor pierces.  I raised my hands slowly in the air and spoke, “Let me just say that that last blow was pure reflex and wasn’t about any malicious intent on my part!”

 

We were taken anyways, as I expected, to Albero Città’s nearest border guard outpost where we were disarmed and placed in a cell.  Somehow they knew to put us in an anti-magic cell where Martina couldn’t use her shapeshifting ability.  All that was left for us to do was sit and wait.  

 

Barely an hour later I overheard the officers in charge of our arrest come in.  Evidently the elf girl I put down was in charge of the squad which struck me as unusual.  Normally the elves of Albero Città exhibit at least some degree of competency, whereas this girl managed to botch a surprise attack.  Had we actually been intent on attacking Albero Città we would have been entering prepared for the boarder guard and that stunt she pulled by jumping right in my face could have gotten her entire squad killed.  My hope that this group would simply recognize that there has been a mistake was beginning to fade.  

 

By listening in I was able to learn a few things, one that our young squad leader was named Felìcita, and two our arrest was based on information coming from one Mr. Aldric.  Fortunately, Felìcita seemed to have one redeeming trait.  She distrusted Mr. Aldric almost as much as we did.  I could hear her screaming, “The man’s minions have practically taken over the Library of Magic and seem to be behind every Lord and Lady in Albero Città and no one knows anything about him?  And now we’re making arrests on his behalf?  Does this strike anyone as the least bit odd?”

 

Now in all fairness to the elves, mysterious figures moving in and out of power is nothing new.  Back in the Realm where I come from, they are practically a seasonal thing.  For this elf not to be experienced with that is rather unusual.  When combined with her other inexperience and general incompetence… the only conclusion I could come up with was some form of nepotism; it’s a shame, the elves used to be so good about avoiding that too.  

 

I listened to Felìcita badger her men about “Signor Aldric” for another few hours then the night shifts began and the day crew went to bed.  I was trying to decide between letting Aimée break us out or settling in for the night and hoping for justice in the morning when I saw a cloaked figure enter the jail room.  Quietly out of the corner of my eye, I saw the figure take out a small knife and disable the alarm system that would ring when the door was opened.  It put the knife back on its belt and quietly approached our cell.  

 

I waited with my eyes almost entirely shut for the figure to get near, it opened my cell quietly enough and approached me slowly.  Then I acted.  I grabbed it by the collar and pulled it over my body, grabbing its knife from its belt as it fell.  I then flipped over on top of it, pressing my hand against where its mouth should be and pulling the knife I snatched in to menace my would be assailant, or possibly not.  As I had the figure pinned down, its hood fell back to reveal Felìcita.  

 

“What are you doing here?” I asked in a low whisper.

 

“Trying to preserve what remains of justice in this kingdom!  And trying to save your ungrateful lives while I’m at it!” the elf hissed at me.

 

“What’s happened?” I asked, immediately getting off her, but not returning her dagger quite yet.

 

“New orders.  Evidently we’re supposed to execute you at dawn tomorrow.  I should leave you to die for daring to touch me, but I am merciful.”

 

“Well.  Thank you for your assistance then.  Where are my companions and our equipment?”

 

“I can lead you to them, follow me quickly and quietly.”  

 

She was hardly one to talk about stealth, but she was as good as her word for leading me to my friends.  I quickly explained the situation to them and we quietly slipped out of the fort and into the woods.  Once in the woods, Aimée helped me and Sieghilde get into our armor and we set about planning what to do next.

 

Naturally this was started when Aimée asked, “So, what are we supposed to do now?”

 

Before I could say anything, Felìcita spoke up, “I’ll tell you what we’re doing.  We’re going to the capital to see why the king has decided to let this Aldric person run the entire country for him!  However before we go, there is something about me you should know…”

 

Suddenly it began to click, the position obtained through nepotism rather than skill, the whole “daring to touch me” bit, the attitude that she should inherently be in command, the casual attitude about confronting a king….

 

“Gods above and Hells below,” I thought to myself, “Please, please don’t let this be another-“

 

“…I am the Crown Princess of Albero Città.”

 

Damn it.

 

 

 

Dear Journal,

 

The last few days of traveling with the now Princess Felìcita have been every bit as terrible as you could expect.  The dumb girl has no sense of navigation, no stealth skills at all, and no sense of when she should really just shut up.  She has however managed to accomplish several things single handedly; for instance she has entirely destroyed any impression I may have had about elves being wise, stealthy, naturally skilled in stealth and woodcraft, and generally competent.  These are by no means unimpressive feats, but I don’t think she was really trying to accomplish them.

 

Evidently she had been begging her father to give her some sort of military post for years, but he had never relented until recently.  This appears to be soon after “Signor Aldric” showed up, but I don’t think she has made the connection yet and appears to be convinced that she was somehow appointed on merit.  

 

When we asked about the other actions that “Signor Aldric” had taken, Felìcita told us that it appears that he has virtually monopolized the entire Magic Library of the city and has his minions working behind every noble.  Furthermore she has repeatedly told us that she can’t believe that her father could be deceived by such a man as he is normally an impeccable judge of character.  When I broached the subject of enchantment and mind control, Felìcita dismissed it out of hand, claiming that “elves would never fall prey to such feeble magics.”  I suspected otherwise and upon conferring with Martina, she confirmed that while some elves may be resistant to some enchantment magic, they are by no means immune.  

 

The disagreements with Felìcita came to a head on the third day of traveling.  Our map indicated that there was a small village a few miles away from our current position.  Naturally this set off another argument with Felìcita.  

 

It started when I said, “Alright.  Here’s the plan.  We’re going to go into town, quickly, quietly and in disguise.  We’re going to simply pick up supplies from the stores and-“

 

“No.  We’re not doing that.”

 

All of us turned in surprise to look at Felìcita.  Why not?

 

“The guard captain in this town is a good man.  We’re going to go find him and get his assistance with reaching my father.”

 

Which admittedly was a fair reason but, “Alright.  What if he thinks we shouldn’t be helped?”

 

“What do you mean by that?”

 

“You received orders that said we were to be executed at dawn right?  What if he’s received orders regarding us as well.  Orders that said something like… we’re dangerous criminals who kidnapped the princess and are brainwashing her to work with us?  Or that you were taken by us and need to be secured against your will because you caught a case of Captive’s Remorse [spoiler]Stockholm Syndrome[/spoiler] and think you’re working with us?  We should avoid this guard captain until we have more information about what’s going on, and that means we’re going in with stealth.”

 

“An elf would never fall for such a simple lie like th-“

 

“YES!  YES YOU WOULD!  Okay?  You’re not some sort of mystical superbeings, you’re just elves!  Mortals like the rest of us!  We can get fooled!  And when you have someone with enchantment magic like Mr. Aldric, and don’t even start to tell me elves are immune to enchantment, then fooling you becomes really easy!  Sorry, princess, but your royal authority carries no weight in a combat situation.”

 

As I turned back to the map, I heard the tensing of wood and bowstring that comes from someone drawing a bow, I turned around to see Princess Felìcita aiming her bow at me for the second time.  With a steely glare she said, “Well then respect my authority as a squad leader in the border guard.”

 

Some people just never learn.  I was ill position to snap the arrow apart like I did last time, so I settled for kicking the bottom of her bow up, causing her shot to go high and get stuck in a tree somewhere.  Before she could draw another arrow, I had pulled the bow from her had and threw it aside.  She winced, expecting a second blow to the face but instead I grabbed her arm and started to drag her off back into the woods.  As I left, I turned to my companions and said, “Wait here.  There are a few things me and the princess need to discuss.”

 

I walked several yards into the woods dragging Felìcita along with me until I saw it, an overturned log that was intact enough to sit on.  I pulled Felìcita over to it and she managed to stammer, “W-What is it that you wanted to talk about, human?”

 

As I removed my right gauntlet I glared back at her, “This isn’t going to be that kind of discussion, princess.  You drew a weapon on me.  Twice actually, but the first time was part of your job so I’m ignoring it.  However the second time…  You’ve never not got your way have you?”

 

I sat down on the log and pulled down Princess Felìcita over my knee.  I took her arm and held it behind her back and positioned my leg behind her knees to prevent her from escaping.  Felìcita could only stammer “Wh-what are you doing?”

 

“I’m teaching you a lesion you should have received a long time ago.  How to respect someone else and their authority.”  

 

As I said that I managed to remove Felìcita’s belt and started to tug down her trousers, revealing one of the most exquisite arses I have ever had the privilege of seeing.  It was lightly toned, plump but not too large, slightly jiggly from Felìcita’s attempts to get free, and utterly unblemished.  The dainty lace panties that Felìcita was wearing underneath were just the icing on the cake, but those too were pulled down.  However I wasn’t here to stare, as much as I would have loved to, I had instructions to give.

 

Needless to say, Felìcita was protesting the whole time, “What are you doing?  I’m a princess of Albero Città!  You can’t do this to me!”

 

I ignored her and concentrated on my work.  “The first thing you should know is that you don’t deserve the position of border guard.”  *Slap* “Did you think nothing of the fact that your father refused to appoint you to it until Mr. Aldric showed up?” *Slap* “Do you know why Mr. Aldric had you placed in the border guard?” *Slap* “Can you guess?” *Slap* “Go on you can try to answer that one.”

 

Felìcita, with tears beginning to form in her eyes turned to look at me, “N-no sir.” she said in a meek tone of voice, “No I don’t.”

 

I sighed.  *Slap* “Its because of us.  For some reason Mr. Aldric wants us gone and you were meant to be the reason.” *Slap* “Its one thing to be detained by the border guard, but he expected us to resist violently and kill you.” *Slap* “That way we would never have any chance of getting help from the Magic Library.” *Slap* “You were not placed there because of your skills.” *Slap* “You were, in fact, the least competent member of that patrol.” *Slap* “You don’t deserve to wear any part of that uniform, you don’t even deserve to wear the pants crumpled around your feet!”

 

As I was about to deliver another blow, I stopped for a moment.  Felìcita’s sobbing had ceased to sound like those of someone in pain and began to sound more like a girl who was truly sorry for something.

 

I pulled her back up and set her in a sitting on top of my knee, she winced as her battered bottom took the pressure of her weight but didn’t say anything.

 

I sighed, “Look, did you ever listen to your instructors when you were training for your job?”

 

Felìcita sobbed, “N-n-no.  I always thought I knew enough already.  Some of them even gave up because they felt I was too difficult to teach.  And when I was in the squad, no one dared say anything about the princess.  I didn’t know…”

 

“There, there,” I said, patting Felìcita gently on her lower back, “Its okay.  You’re just untrained.  You have some skill; in the forest where we first met you got the drop on me.  You just need training so you know not to do stupid things, like attack someone in melee range with a bow.  I can help you with that.”

 

Felìcita’s eyes widened, “You would do t-that for m-me?”

 

“Yes.  But I need something from you first.  I need your word that you will respect my authority in the future.  Promise that you will not use what I teach you against me or my friends.  Okay?”

 

“Y-yes it is.  You have my word hum-“

 

Quickly I bent her down again.  *Slap* *Slap* *Slap*

 

“Uh, uh, uh.  Not human.  The way you use it it’s almost a slur.  Try again.”

 

Felìcita looked me dead in the eyes and whispered,

 

“I-I p-promise to do whatever you say, M-Master Knight.”

 

I didn’t quite expect to be called master, but I must admit when Felìcita says it, the word has a nice ring to it.

 

“Good girl.  We’ll make a soldier out of you yet.  Come on, lets get you cleaned up and meet back with the others.”

       

We had barely left the area when we ran into Martina, Aimée, and Sieghild.  With a start, I realized they were close enough to have overheard what I did to Felìcita.  “… I thought I told you to stay where you were.”

 

Martina blushed, “Well… you were taking a long time and we… um…”

 

Aimée stepped in to cover for her, “We were worried that something happened to you!”

 

Sieghild snorted, “Yeah.  Something like an elvish princess.  Heh, you should have heard them.  They were worried you were going to take her into the woods and ‘make her yours’ or something.”

 

Martina and Aimée both flushed furiously at that.  Aimée shouted out, “Hey you were just as worried about it as we were!”

 

This time it was Sieghild who turned a deep red, “I- it would have been a mistake. T-that’s all.

 

Felìcita, who was beginning to realize that everyone had realized what happened was blushing furiously as the eyes of the rest of the women turned to her.  In order to diffuse the situation, I looked around and asked loudly, “Say, where is Siegbert?  I notice he’s not with you?”

 

Sieghild laughed, “Oh I just pointed out some mudwort to him and mentioned that an ale could be brewed from that instead of hops.  He’s busy gathering as much as he can to try to make a lager out of it.”

 

We all laughed at that, a bit more then necessary possibly, but we all needed the tension diffused.  

 

After catching up with Siegbert, who was beginning to wonder where we all went, we continued to plan for our visit to town.

 

“Alright, Siegbert and Martina, can you hit the general store?  Get what supplies we need to continue traveling overland, Sieghild and Aimée, can you look at the smiths and armories to reequip our ammunition and such?  Felìcita, can you keep an eye out for guards, especially those who are acting suspiciously?  When everyone is done meet back in the tavern to confer with each other before we leave, I’ll hold a spot for us.  Make sure to wear your cloaks, as conspicuous as they are, they will at least hide your faces and features in case there is already a description of us out.”

 

As I entered the tavern, an airy wooden dwelling named The Falling Star, I saw there was a moderate crowd for this time of day.  It was composed mostly of young elven women who were fawning over a human speaker.  “Well good for him,” I thought to myself.  To my minor concern, a lot of the town guard seemed to be in the crowd but they were also focused on the speaker and seemed content to ignore me so I figured that suddenly leaving would draw more attention than staying.  I went up to the bar to order a drink (they only had elven pale ails, Siegbert would be so disappointed) and tried to find a corner that wasn’t already occupied by another mysterious cloaked figure.  After finding a spot I still had to drive off a few would be adventurers with cryptic warnings about how “they are not the foretold ones,” or other nonsense like that.  After clearing out all the distractions, I settled in to observe the area when I overheard what the speaker in the center of the crowd was saying.

 

“With the magnificent spell crafted specially by my dear companion André, we set out to find this foul beast!  After tracking the beast for days we finally were able to find its hunting grounds!  We laid in wait for days, hoping against hope that we would catch the beast when suddenly it appeared in the far sky against the sun!  André cast his spell and the beast crashed to the ground!  With the discipline of trained soldiers we rushed forward to kill the beast when suddenly before us emerged its foul rider!  A deathknight sworn to the most unholy demons and devils!  Helplessly I watched him cut down dear André before my eyes and turn on my companions.  My cleric companion was taken down by one of his succubi guardians and he slaughtered the rest of us like cattle!  I say, if it wasn’t for that foulness made flesh, we would have slain the red terror!”

 

One of the elven maidens clinging to the speaker’s story spoke up, “But Gaël, how did you get away from the deathknight?”

 

The speaker sighed and put on a weary tone, “It is a sorry tale, you see after killing my dear friends in front of me, the deathknight seemed to grow bored of us.  He sent his vile succubus demon to fight me in his stead.  After a long and hard fight, I defeated the demon and banished it to the underworlds from whence it came!  The deathknight seemed amused with me.  He congratulated me on my battle prowess and offered me the chance to live.  Had I known then what that bastard would do to our princess, I swear I would have fought him to the death instead.

 

With that the speaker stood up on the table in a dramatic pose, I choked on my drink, the man telling this tale was the mercenary archer who ambushed us on the road to Hammerburg!

 

The archer, or Gaël as I should probably be calling him now, saw my spit take, jumped down from the table, and walked over to me.  “What is this?  Don’t you think I would have fought that foul knight?”  

 

“Keep calm,” I told myself.  He evidently hasn’t recognized you yet.  You might still make it out of this without alerting the entire town to your presence.

 

I did my best to disguise my voice “Err… no brave warrior.  I have no doubts about that at all…”  Unfortunately it came out ridiculous sounding and seemed to only annoy Gaël more.  He came over to me, egged on by the guards and his personal fan club.  “Do you think you could have done better?  Do you?  Who the hell are you anyways?”

 

And with that he snapped his hand out and pulled down my hood.  As he saw my face, it was clear he recognized me.  “Oh… oh Gods… its you!  ITS HIM!  THE DEATHKNIGHT IS HERE AMONG US!  RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!  RUN-“

 

At this point I drew my blade, slamming the side of his head with the pommel as I did so.  He crumpled to the floor like a house of cards.  As the guards drew their own blades I went for the door to funnel them into a single file and called out at the top of my voice, “WE’VE BEEN MADE!  WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!  NOW!”

 

As I fended off the guards coming through the door, I could see my friends moving as fast as they could.  Felìcita, when not trying to use her bow at point blank range, turned out to be a decent archer and disabled several guards with shots to the feet and knees.  I resolved to ask her whether that was intentional or not when we got out of this.  By the general store I could see Martina and Siegbert running with their arms full of items the had purchased.  Sieghild and Aimée came running from the smithy at the same time.  Aimée’s arms were full of miscellaneous items from the store and Sieghild was shouting at her, “Hey we didn’t get a chance to pay for those!”  Aimée retorted with “Who cares?  We’re already criminals, just run with it!  Both literally and figuratively!”

 

As they were heading out a figure in decorated armor was coming up behind me, I recognized from his armor filigree that he was the captain of the town guard.  I remembered that this man was supposed to be a good man, I looked over to where Felìcita was and could see the unspoken plea in her eyes.  I was being flanked by skilled opponents who wanted me dead and I didn’t want to kill any of them.  This wasn’t going to be easy.

 

I decided there was only one possible way out, lowering my guard for a moment I baited both the captain and the guard in the doorway to attack me.  As they did so, I raised my blade, beat the doorway guards sword aside, stepped towards him and slammed into him hard, causing him to fall back into the other guards, knocking many to the ground in a cacophony of clanging armor and noise.  As I had stepped back, the captains blow fell short and I immediately stepped back towards him, and pressed my foot against the side of his blade twisting it flat.  As I leaned in towards him, my weight pulled the sword from his hands and I cut upwards, against his head, knocking his helmet clean off and leaving a scar on his face.  I then brought my pommel down on top of his head, his eyes rolled up and he fell unconscious. As the remaining guards were still trying to get up I took the opportunity to head for my own horse and get out of the village.  

 

We beat feet for our horses, and managed to exit the village, surprisingly without causing anyone any injuries that wouldn’t heal over time or with magic.  Once we were several hours away from the sound of pursuit, we slowed down and changed directions.  I took the opportunity to make good on my promise to Felìcita to teach her what I knew, “Alright Felìcita.  You wanted me to teach you right?  Now I’m not a ranger, but I have worked alongside them from time to time.  One of the first things they teach you is how to track and avoid being tracked.  You see the prints our horses are leaving behind?  Anyone could track us by those so lets try to get rid of them or obscure them.  There are several ways to do this.  The easiest way is to have someone take some branches or something and brush the ground behind us.  It can’t be too even or too regular or else it would be just as good for tracking us as the hoofprints.  Another option is to walk on hard surfaces or stones, but with horses that is a bit difficult for us right now.  Now another way to avoid being tracked is to confuse your trail, by either backtracking or circling around or otherwise taking a complicated overlapping route.  Note that few of these methods will work if your pursuer has a trained hunting dog, they can sniff your trail out and follow you anyways.  One final method of evasion has some degree of success against dogs, but that is by no means a sure thing, and that is to walk in rivers or streams.  The water will hide your physical tracks and should wash off at least some of your scent for dogs or other scent based trackers.  So knowing these three options, which would you use right now?”

 

To her credit Felìcita took the time to think about it.  “Well we can’t reliably stay on hard surfaces with these horses, we don’t have time to slow down our pace so someone can brush our tracks away, and we’re not near a river, so I’d say we backtrack and loop around for now.”

 

I beamed at her, “Good job girl.  Well done.  Alright everyone, lets loop around.”  

 

We must have laid a dozen false and overlapping trails for the next hour before we set out.  As we were leaving I showed Felìcita how to conceal our actual trail with a branch by brushing it away.  Siegbert surprised us all by producing some sort of pungent liquid that he threw on top of one of our few real trails.  He claimed that it would disorient anything that was heavily reliant on scent to track.  

 

Freshly provisioned and now reasonably certain that we had eluded further pursuit, we continued on our path towards the heart of Albero Città.  We still had a few days to go, but we were definitely nearing the heart of the small nation.  That evening, as we set up camp, I told everyone about the archer, Gaël, and his “interesting” interpretation of events.  Aimée was tickled pink to hear that she was a succubus and threatened/offered to “suck my soul dry” if I let my guard down.  Martina was somewhat offended by the fact that she wasn’t the main star of the story and felt that she should have had a larger role.  I promised that next time we fight a band of mercenaries I’ll let her take center stage.  Siegbert was laughing his arse off after hearing both versions of events and Sieghild said that she wanted her own place in the next story, “I could do a decent valkyrie or something.  Coming down to aid the fallen and all that in a heavenly glow.  Don’t you think?”

 

As the evening died down, we began to move past the ridiculous nature of Gaël’s story and got to setting up camp.  It has been an exciting day.  Hopefully tomorrow will be a little bit more relaxed.

 

 

 

Dear Journal,

 

Hopefully today will be more relaxed because last night certainly wasn’t.  It started out in the women’s tent with Sieghild teasing Felìcita about having to sleep on her stomach and the pained expressions she was making as she bounced up and down in her saddle today.  Felìcita tried to claim that she had stomach pains, but none of the other girls believed it.

 

Sieghild even said, “Oh?  Is that what we overheard this morning?  Was our dear Knight mealy helping you with your indigestion?”

 

At this point, evidently Felìcita crossed the line by saying, “Just because he doesn’t even look at you during your sparring sessions doesn’t mean that you can take it out on me!”

 

And that’s where it got ugly.  I wound up having to separate the women into different tents, naturally because there wasn’t enough room for me in those tents (actually there was but I had the sneaking suspicion that me asking about it would start another fight) I wound up resting outside under a relatively thick tree.  

 

The next morning started off promisingly enough with the issues of the prior night seemingly faded below the surface.  Felìcita still was getting laughed at every time she winced from bouncing on her saddle but the outright hostility had died down a bit.  We were only a day or two from the heart of Albero Città and as such we needed to start making plans for whatever came next.  We gathered around midday to take a break and eat whereupon I broached the subject.

 

“Felìcita, how much of Albero Città’s layout do you remember exactly?  We’re going to need a way into the city.”

 

Felìcita chewed on her jerky for a moment then responded, “I remember a lot of the noble and theater districts as well as some of the other upper class areas.  However I never really got to know some areas very well, such as the slums or the other poorer districts.  I’m sure you can see why.”

 

“Fair enough I guess.  Do you at least know an easy way into the city past the guards?”

 

“Unfortunately that is gong to be difficult.  Albero Città is a tree city.  The only ways up there are the bridges from the ground level and those are almost constantly guarded.”

 

“Almost constantly?”

 

“Yes…”

 

I could tell there was something that Felìcita didn’t want to talk about.  

 

“I won’t pry, Felìcita, but if there is something that can help the group get into the city safer, it would be better for both us and Albero Città.”

 

Felìcita sighed, “All right.  The is a small entrance near the noble’s quarters.  A lot of the children of prominent families tend to use it to sneak away from their homes and go out.  Unfortunately its in the noble’s quarter which is heavily patrolled by guards and there is a decent chance that we could be seen, but at least its not a sure thing like with the other entrances.”

 

“Well then that’s our best chance.  Any objections?”

 

Everyone seemed to accept this option so we began to circle around so we altered our course so we could approach the noble quarter.  

 

At about noon the next day, Felìcita turned to us and said with a smile, “All right everyone.  Just over this next ridge we should be able to see the city.”

 

I’ll admit that Albero Città took my breath away.  It was a beautiful city.  It reminded me of the tree house I made as a kid, not the actual wooden box nailed to some branches at about head height that I actually built, but the tree house as I imagined it was, a majestic realm high above the world and its cares.  

 

Even Sieghild seemed impressed, “You know, elven architects can't use stone properly or even build something that doesn’t look like it wouldn’t fall over in a strong wind, but the is a chance that they might – just might mind you – actually know something.”

 

Martina snorted, “It doesn’t even touch on the Dragonmoot fortress.”

 

Aimée was a little disappointed, “You know, when I heard that Albero Città was a tree city, I kinda was expecting vines that people could swing from building to building on, or at least ropes.  There’s just bridges and platforms everywhere.”

 

Rolling my eyes at their antics, I turned to Siegbert, “So what do you-“

 

I stopped, Siegbert had his spyglass out and was staring off into the distance at some point beyond the city, a look of absolute horror on his face.

 

“Siegbert?  What’s wrong Siegbert?  What did you see?”

 

He turned to me, face pale.  “I-I s-saw v-v…”

 

“What?  What is it?”

 

“Vineyards!  We’re in wine country!”

 

I swear this group is going to be the death of me.

 

We made our way to the edge of the city near the nobles quarters.  Felìcita, using Siegbert’s spyglass, pointed out to us the small, almost unnoticeable, handholds and footholds that would allow us to climb up the tree to the city.  It looks like a long climb and I don’t want to be caught in the middle of it at dark.  We’re camping the night here and embarking in the morning.

 

Hopefully things will go smoothly.

 

 

 

Dear Journal,

 

I don’t have a lot of time to update you, but I feel I should at least try to recount what happened before I go to what may be my death.  

 

We started the day off well, everyone got along surprisingly well last night and we got to climbing early.  Siegbert was having some problems with the climb, so we stopped and had him give his alchemist equipment to Martina to hold in her bag.  We also had him store his leather armor in there too, in hindsight that was a mistake.  

 

You see, the Albero Città guard was waiting for us.  Almost as soon as we got to the top we came under arrow fire, the bodkin arrows the elves use would have punched through my armor so I ducked behind a nearby wall and took cover.  Martina, Felìcita, Sieghild, and Aimée wound up behind a building on the other side of the killzone from me.  Suddenly Siegbert came up, the poor lad has had so little combat experience.  He tried to hide behind a thin wooden fence.  I immediately ran to get him and almost pulled him to safety when a crossbow bolt came out of nowhere and struck him in the neck.  

 

He’s bleeding pretty badly, I can’t stem the flow and Martina is still pinned down on the other side and can’t get to us in time.  However the Albero Città have a medic with them… perhaps I can barter my surrender for his healing.  I’ve already waved the women off, they must think I have some sort of genius plan to win but honestly I don’t have anything.  I’m writing this down and will toss it onto a nearby rooftop so at least Aimée might find it.

 

In case I don’t come back, goodbye journal.  Give my love to everyone.

 

 

 

[In a different handwriting]

Dear Journal,

 

As you (Oh what am I saying, you’re a journal you can't think.  In fact you’re not even a you.  You’re an it.  However Sir Knight always referred to you as a person, so I guess I will too.  Out of respect for him at the very least.) may have noticed I am not your previous owner.  I am the Martina that he so often wrote about.  That idiot Knight has gotten himself captured for the sake of a dwarven drunkard!  I can barely even see straight for my anger at that wretched fool!  Couldn’t he have found some way to stay with me us?

 

We have found a relatively seedy inn, Felìcita the damned bitch who told us to use that accursed route in the first place, led us there.  It was a quiet journey to say the least.  The innkeeper is a man who doesn’t ask questions about his clientele which is nice, but he has the most unreasonable habit of charging us for the crappy furniture I may have set fire to in my anger.  

 

Now we’re sitting in a large private room.  Sieghild is sobbing her eyes out crying about losing “both of them,” Felìcita is looking at the ground sadly, and Aimée is sulking that I’m the one who gets to keep recording in this journal “even though she found it.”  Sorry Aimée, but I knew the Knight the longest (Even if barely and through combat at that) and I should be the one in charge of this.  

 

I miss-

 

Huh that is odd.  I’m beginning to see why the Knight prefers to write in you so often, and I may be beginning to see why he calls you a you as it were.  It is comforting to be able to confess your thoughts to someone else, even if it is an inanimate book.

 

I miss the Knight.  One of the few secrets about dragons that is actually a secret is that we don’t like leaving our lairs.  It’s a sort of racial predisposition to social phobias and avoidant personalities.  We don’t socialize with each other often, and we prefer to spend our time in our lairs counting and organizing our treasures.  And when someone does manage to breach our homes we react violently.  In all fairness, dragons barely manage to be a race at all.  A little more distance between us, a little less impetus to mate, and we would die off within a generation or two.  Admittedly our generations would span much of the history of other creatures but that’s neither here nor there.  But the knight was different.  He broke in to my castle and tried to remove something that wound up being a danger to me.  Then when that princess did turn on me, he returned and saved my life.  He continued to stand by my side even in the face of Regulus the Terrible and the entire Dragonmoot.  I began… I began to feel… comfortable around him.  Like he was a mobile lair that I could relax around.  When I woke up in the night because of a strange noise in the distance or a breeze or air current around my skin that wouldn’t be there in a lair, he was always nearby and I could relax again.  Now that he’s gone… I don’t know what to do.

 

I think I’m done writing for now.  I need to do some thinking about what I should do next.  

 

 

 

[Another hand, different from before starts writing here]

 

Dear journal,

 

Heya its me Aimée!  You know, the beautiful lovely girl that your owner is so enchanted by right?  (I would look through your pages to make sure, but that feels like cheating somehow, which I normally am on board with but somehow feels wrong in this case.)  So that Martina bitch is now sulking in the corner, she claims she is “deep in thought” but I’m pretty sure she’s crying.  I mean, I don’t see any tears, but occasionally you see steam coming from around her eyes and remember that she is some sort of fire dragon thing.  Now don’t be put off by my cheereful tone, I’m just as distressed as the rest of the girls about the Knight’s capture, but I have a plan!  I’m going to break the Knight out of jail!  It will be a daring rescue that will involve all my acrobatic skill and cunning talents!  I’ll burst into the jail and defeat all the guards by dodging all their blows and stunning them with well placed strikes!  Then, I’ll cunningly pick the lock to the Knight’s cell and we’ll escape into the night!  But other guards will come!  We’ll have to run!  We’ll make it to the rooftops and begin a high speed, high risk chase!  We’ll get away by cutting up the rope bridges and tuning them into swinging ropes so we can move freely while the stupid guards are dumbfounded!  Eventually we’ll get a safe distance away and we’ll have a moment alone… He’ll look into my eyes and say “Aimée, I couldn’t have done all of this without you.”  I’ll try to brush it off by saying all I did was help him get out of jail, and he’ll then say, “No, not the jail escape.  All of this.  I wouldn’t have had the strength to go on without you, I love you Aimée.”  And then he’ll slowly take off-

 

Hold on, Sieghild just started talking.  The damned dwarf just totally stole my idea for a rescue!  I’ll get back to you later.

 

 

 

[Yet another hand starts this journal entry]

Dear journal,

 

This is Felìcita speaking.  Or more precisely, this is Felìcita writing.  From the way that Aimée began breathing heavily I’m sure that this is a relief from whatever she was writing down.

 

I know I haven’t been the most impressive member of this party so far.  I’ve caused more problems for this group than the other three – well four actually, somehow I wasn’t counting Siegbert – put together.   I’ve botched ambushes, threatened Master Knight, made his life harder by making him hold back in fights against elves, and now I led him into an ambush that got him captured!  I don’t know if he’ll ever forgive me.  And I need him to!  He’s the only person who ever made me stop and think about what was really important, made me pay attention when I needed to learn something.  As a princess, I could just order inconvenient people away.  If someone tried to tell me something I could shut a metaphorical door in their face and continue to amuse myself with my own delusions.  However Master Knight kicked that door down, seized me and pulled me out into the real world and promised to guide me through it!  I can’t lose him, I don’t want to go back to being a spoiled princess anymore and I don’t know anyone else who can make me change like he did!

 

Sieghild is talking about how we all need to work together to rescue Master Knight.  I’m going to cooperate fully with her and do whatever she says for a change.  I’ll prove to Master Knight that I can be a good member of the team!  If I can do that, maybe he’ll forgive me and let me keep following him!

 

Goodbye journal, hopefully we’ll get both of us reunited with our Master soon!

 

 

 

[As some might expect, a fourth handwriting begins here]

 

Hello Journal,

 

Pretty much all of the other ladies have taken their turn writing in you, so I suppose its time to confess my own sins.  I can’t believe that Sir Knight got captured.  I can’t stop blaming myself.  I was supposed to be the one who was taking care of Siegbert, not the Knight.  He did tell me in the Schatten Gilde tunnels that he would treat Siegbert as if he was his own brother, but I didn’t expect him to follow through!  I knew he was somewhat honorable at least, but… but I didn’t expect this!  

 

[Two splotches mark the paper here as though drops of water fell on the page]

 

There is no good stone to engrave a vow in to be found in this damned city, but I can at least put this oath in writing.  I swear by my ancestors, that I will have Sir Knight inducted and honored as a member of our family one way or another.  He deserves it.  There are a few ways I can do this, some more appealing than others, but it will happen.

 

But I’m a dwarf, not some flighty elf.  My emotions and my intentions for the future can wait.  I have work to do first.  I need to rescue Sir Knight and my brother from the elves.  Currently I have Felìcita making the best map of the city’s guard quarter that she can, marking the places that guards usually hang out and the local jail and other such things.  The girl was surprisingly cooperative, I suppose she feels as bad about this mess as I do.  Martina is finishing work on an idea that Sir Knight and I had a while ago, researching an invisibility spell so she can take dragon form safely and give us some reconnaissance.  We’re also going to have to work on some sort of telepathy spell so we can communicate quietly over long ranges but Martina is sure she can do it.  Aimée is almost too flighty to be trusted, she said something about wanting to do the rescue by herself, but she is the only one who has the skills to investigate the area surreptitiously and to deal with security measures.  Finally there is me, who is getting ready to prepare a distraction to end all distractions.  If I remember all my brother’s failed experiments (the alchemical ones, not the lager ones obviously) I should have every guard in the city coming at me when the time comes.  

 

An old dwarven drinking song comes to mind, “The Ballad of Meinard the Elementalist” one of the few dwarven wizards.  When challenged to a battle with rival elementalists who scorned his choice of elemental earth, he only had two words to say.

 

“Lets rock.”

 

 

 

 Dear Journal,

 

Sieghild still here.  The preparations for the rescue are underway.  We have a vague plan currently, but I don’t want to write it down just yet.  For one, it may still change a great deal and I don’t want to have to keep updating it.  The other, more pressing reason, is that this journal changes hands frequently enough that I wouldn’t feel comfortable writing it down anywhere.  In one of our post-sparring discussions, me and Sir Knight were talking about the value of secrecy in planning.  He told me a few war stories of times where a spilled secret changed the course of battle and I reciprocated with the “Ballad of the Cloaked Savior” a ballad about an espionage mission (there are quite few of them for obvious reasons).  These stories and others came to mind when we were planning this rescue so the first thing I did was ban any mention of our specific plans or specific details.  Sorry journal (Martina’s right for a change, it does feel nice to talk to you like you’re a real person), but you’ll have to be in the dark for the time being.  

 

The first thing we did was set about finding supplies.  Martina fished my brother’s alchemy equipment out of her bag and I set about looking through it for the right recipes.  After writing down a list of the ingredients I would need, I showed the list to Felìcita.

 

She gave a low whistle, “Some of these things are illegal in Albero Città.  As in, serious contraband illegal.”

 

My confusion was evident in my voice, “What?  Illegal?  Why are these illegal.”

 

“Because you can mix these things together to create dangerous substances!  Which of course is the reason we need them, but they were banned so that a citizen couldn’t just brew up something to kill another with?  Don’t you have a similar system in Hammerburg?”

 

“No!  If someone wants to kill someone in Hammerburg, they’d use a weapon!  There are enough of them laying around!”

 

Arguments about government policy aside, it was decided that Aimée would be our best bet of acquiring these substances.  With a smile, she quickly darted out of the door to go look, before retuning a second later sheepishly asking to borrow some money to pay for these supplies.  

 

After she was gone, Felìcita turned to me.  “I don’t want to cause any problems with this plan, but…”

 

“But what girl?  Spit it out?”

 

“Is there any way we can avoid killing elves if possible?  I suppose if we need to get Master Knight out…”

 

“Relax elf.  I already took care of it.  If everything goes according to plan no elf would even get their pointy little ears scrached.”

 

“And if everything doesn’t go to plan?”

 

“Well… it could be anything from no one gets hurt to everyone dies.  Depending on how things go wrong.”

       

Felìcita shuddered.  “Lovely.”

 

“Indeed.”

 

At this moment Martina came in.  She had finished her invisibility spell the night prior and spent the morning flying over the city unseen and observing what she could.  

 

With a sigh the dragoness sat down in a chair.  “You would not believe how tempted I was to just burn everything.  Such a tempting target.”

 

Felìcita glared at her, “Please don’t.”

 

“Relax elf, the dragoness didn’t mean anything by it,” I assured her.

 

And then we were all business.  Martina spoke first, “Alright.  I flew over the city and this is what I could see,” she made some minor changes to Felìcita’s map.  “Elf girl, can you tell me what those could be?”

 

“Most of them are probably shops, but those one’s near the jail look like they might be guard towers of some kind.  Strange, they didn’t have them when I was last here.”

 

Martina glared at the map, as though it had personally offended her.  I made a mental note to buy fireproof stationary if it existed.

 

The dragoness growled, “Probably because of us.  I saw heavy ballistas on the tower and saw mages reviewing wingbinder scrolls.”

 

I made a note of that, “That rules out going in by air, or out too if there are any mages still standing by the end of our mission.”

 

Felìcita started, “I thought you said that-“

 

“I know.  I said they wouldn’t be hurt, in the metaphorical sense.  We’re not going to do anything to anyone that can’t be fixed with time, and in some cases less than that.  Okay?  Some of the ingredients on the list I gave Aimée were for a little mixture that the Schatten Gilde likes to use when they don’t feel like killing someone to subdue them.  I don’t even want to know where my brother got the recipe…”

 

Eventually we got what could be the basics of a plan ironed out.  When Aimée came back we filled her in on her role.  She was thrilled with it.  Martina got to developing the telepathy spell and me and Felìcita began to carefully work on the alchemy.  When we get him back, I’m going to be much kinder to my brother.  This stuff is harder than it looks.  We wound up having to send Aimée out for additional supplies several times as we botched the recipes over and over.  We also wound up paying a substantial chuck of change to the innkeeper to ignore the ruckus we were making.

 

Finally we were ready.  We’re about to retire for the night to get as much rest as possible before the mission tomorrow.  If all goes well the next person writing in you will be Sir Knight!

 

 

 

Dear Journal,

 

Its still me, Sieghild.  The mission was – well, this is better explained than just stated.  That way I can include all the details that I neglected to tell you earlier.

 

The day started out as planned.  We waited until around noon then began our preparations.  I donned my armor, Martina prepared her spells, Felìcita grabbed her “special” arrows, and Aimée chattered about whatever crossed her mind.  

 

Then I headed for my spot, the central park of the city.  I got a few odd looks because of the heavy cloak, but I figured it was less suspicious than full armor.  With Martina’s and Aimée’s help, I placed the “surprise packages” around the park.  With the last package placed, Martina gave me the final piece, a horn, the glowing magic runes still fresh from last night.

 

“Its going to play the right song right?” I asked impatiently as Martina began to cast her telepathy spell on me.

 

“Yes, yes, it’s the one you told me about last night while we were doing alchemy.  I got it.”

 

“Good because if this plays the wrong song… well the mission might still go off without a hitch, but it wouldn’t feel right I guess.”

 

“I got it.  It’s fine.”

 

“All right then.”  Turning to face both Martina and Aimée I continued, “Good luck to you both.  And wish Felìcita good luck for me too when you see her again.”

 

They both returned my good wishes and left for their positions.

 

Then I sat down to wait until nightfall.

 

[The handwriting here changes]

 

This is Martina writing now.  After me and Aimée left Sieghild in the park, we had some additional errands of our own to run.  Aimée’s agility and ability to move surreptitiously allowed us to place several of the remaining alchemical packages at several key locations, bridges that connected the various platforms of the tree city around us for instance.

 

Noticing that it was late evening already and the sun was about to set, Aimée prepared to leave, she needed to reach her position before nightfall.  I gave her a spell or two to help her be more agile and stealthy, wished her the best of success, and then we parted ways.  

 

I continued on, back towards the inn where we stayed at.  There I met up with Felìcita.  As she looked up to greet me I said, “Alright.  We are short on time as is, are you ready?”

 

“All ready and able, Martina.”

 

“I need you accurate tonight.  If you screw up people could die.  Can I count on you?”

 

For a moment, Felìcita’s face looked like she was about to start a fight about that, then surprisingly she calmed down and said, “I’ll do the best I can.  If you have any magic that could help me however I would appreciate it.”

 

I obliged her with a spell that should help with accuracy, then we went into a deserted lot where I cast my invisibility and telepathy spells on myself and the girl.  When we could no longer be seen, I transformed into my draconic form and telepathically told her, “Get on, we should be in the air soon.”

 

Now an invisible creature, climbing on another invisible creature is harder than it sounds.  There were a lot of falls and misplaced hands before the elf managed to straddle my back and get in a decent position where she wouldn’t fall off.  With that out of the way, we took off into the darkening sky.

 

[At this point the handwriting changes again]

 

It is Sieghild again.  Once night fell, I sent a telepathic query to the other women to ensure that everyone was ready.  One by one Martina, Felìcita, and Aimée responded in the affirmative.  

 

With that out of the way, I then contacted Martina, “Is everyone clear in the park?  Any civilians or other noncombatants?”

 

“None that I can see, Sieghild.”

 

“Good then activate the surprise.”

 

With that, small runes of detonation scribed on wax and used to seal small packets of highly volatile alchemical compounds detonated.  The resulting explosions set almost every tree in the park on fire.  

 

“How does it look up there Martina?”

 

“Oh it looks like something alright.  Every guard in the city is converging on your position.  Are you sure you want to do this?”

 

“No but there’s not much of a choice is there?  Where are the mages?”

 

“Still guarding the prison unfortunately.”

 

“Well then at least you can pull my arse out of the fire if things get too hairy down here.”

 

With that I set down the small horn that Martina had given me and activated it.  Immediately music filled the entire park, the Ballad of Raginis.  The thing to know about Raginis is that he wasn’t a dwarf or even an ally of ours.  He was an enemy, but an enemy who fought to the last against the forces of a corrupt dwarven king and died holding him off in a last stand that went down in history.  

 

As the music began to play, I removed my cloak to reveal my arms and weapons.  The first elven guardsman who stepped into the park would see a dwarf armored for war wielding a padded club and hear nothing but the most glorious ballad of a last stand ever.  

 

“Alright,” I said to myself, “Lets rock.”

 

>For the real Raginis see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C5%82adys%C5%82aw_Raginis

>For the real battle he took part in see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wizna

>For the real ballad listen to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivgCD31iKyg

 

>Its pure awesome.

 

[The handwriting changes again here]

 

This is Felìcita now.  As the tides of elven guardsmen poured into the park where Sieghild waited, Martina flew me towards a guard tower that was overlooking the area.  Abandoned now, with all the guards running towards the park, it was the perfect vantage point for my work.

 

I waited with bated breath for the guard patrols to enter the park platform.  I could see from here that Sieghild was holding off large swaths of them with her club and shield.  I queried Martina, “Are the bridges clear yet?”

 

Martina responded, “First bridge is clear.  Take the shot.”

 

With that I aimed, controlled my breathing, and fired a flaming arrow at the point I was told to shoot at.  I must have hit it because the alchemical package there detonated and took down the bridge.  Unfortunately this meant that my invisibility ended but I was out of the way enough that things were okay.

 

“Good shot Felìcita.  Try the second bridge.”

 

And so, one by one we cut off the park from the rest of the city.  I “heard” Martina tell everyone, “All right.  The bridges are cut, all the guards are now trapped in the park.  Felìcita, start disabling those wizards,  Aimée you can start your entry, Sieghild do you need to be pulled out?

 

Sieghild responded in the affirmative and Martina flew off to retrieve her (not that I could see either way with her invisibility spell still up).  I ran to the other side of the tower and began searching for the mages who were near the jail.  After spotting the first one I pulled the second type of special arrow from my quiver.  Evidently these were supposed to be a form of long range dart used to deliver poisons or other drugs into a person without actually causing major wounding.  I was dubious about their efficacy but Aimée swore that her dad had some and Sieghild also claimed that Hammerburg’s Schatten Gilde used them as well so I suppose I had no choice but to trust them.  These arrows were loaded with some of that Schatten Gilde chemical that Sieghild had told me about earlier.  As I shot at the first mage, I had a brief moment of terror where he merely grabbed at his injury and turned and looked my way, but he was down on the ground in an instant.

 

As I put down the last of the mages with the special arrows, I got a brief glimpse of a leather clad maid climbing over the jail walls.  Aimée turned and waved at me before dropping down on the other side.

 

[The handwriting changes again]

 

Finally my turn!  Its Aimée again!

 

After dropping down into the jail, I quickly found the nearest shadowy corner and crouched in there.  After briefly looking around to check and see if any guards were near, I ran to the door of the jail and tried to open it, however as I was leaning down to pick the lock it burst open and a heavily armored elven guard stepped out.  

 

He shouted an alarm, but thanks to the work of the rest of the girls there was no one to hear it.  I stood there resolutely and readied myself to dodge around his blade with an acrobatic whirl that would stun him.

 

I actually wound up with a horrible scar on my stomach.  Although Martina healed it later, it still hurt like the Hells.  It turns out that it is much more difficult to dodge a blade than you would think. I now understand why Sir Knight likes to wear such heavy armor, and here I thought he just did it to look good!  

 

Staggering back from my opponent, I fumbled for my knives and pulled one out, intending to throw it through the slits in his visor.  However I couldn’t get it in the small slit and it clattered harmlessly off his helmet.  

 

The guard advanced on me with his blade drawn, intending to run me through for good.  I couldn’t kill him, I couldn’t stop him, so I did the only thing I could.  I grabbed some dirt off the floor and threw it into his eyes.  The small granules of dirt got through that visor all right!  As he was trying to clear out his eyes, I ran into the jail, closed the door behind me, locked it, and hoped that there were no more of those guards inside.

 

I looked around inside.  There were cells everywhere, many of them full of prisoners of one sort or another, all begging me to help them get loose.   I figured it couldn’t hurt but I wanted to get Sir Knight out of the area before I tried that.  After all, one of them might let that guard in from outside by accident.  And so I ran frantically around the jail until I found what must have been their heavy security wing.  I looked through the food slot and who did I see but Sir Knight!  Overjoyed, I picked the lock as quickly as I could and opened the door.

 

Although our reunion wasn’t the fantastic getaway that I had imagined and hoped for, Sir Knight was very glad to see me anyways.  

 

I told him about the plan and how Sieghild was holding off an army of guards and that Martina was doing that reconnaissance thing he came up with and how Felìcita was shooting all the elves outside, but she was using sleeper arrows because she doesn’t want to hurt the other elves.  At this point, Sir Knight told me to just fill him in later once we were out of her with Siegbert who was located elsewhere in the jail.  I told him that I couldn’t leave because of the guard up front.  He said to follow him.  He took me to the prisoner’s belongings storage chest and turned to me and asked me to help dress him!  Regrettably this meant he just needed help with his armor so there wasn’t a lot to look at that whole time.  After he was armored up, he found the warden’s log and told me where to find Siegbert.  He said, “Say what you will about the elves, but they are at least as good as their word.  They healed him up as though nothing had happened.  When you get him free, meet me out front.  I’ll deal with the guard.”

 

I retrieved Siegbert without any problems and went to the front of the jail, dreading what I would see.  Fortunately, what I saw was the guards sword stuck point first in the earth, his shield on the far side of the jail grounds, and the guard himself, helmetless and unconscious on the ground with a small scar on his cheek for his trouble.  

 

I used that telepathy spell to contact Martina and tell her that we were out.  Soon I was treated to the amusing sight of Sieghild riding an invisible dragon, which is way funnier than it sounds!  We got on board, picked up Felìcita and flew out of there, through the smoke of the burning park to hide our path before swooping down to an abandoned lot near our inn.

 

Mission success!

 

 

[The handwriting here indicates that the Knight has finally regained possession of his journal]

 

Dear Journal,

 

Well today was a great day.  I got rescued by four lovely women and they all cooperated to do it too!  They insisted on using the journal to record what they did, “for their children to read” they said.  Of course that implies that their children will have ready access to my journal, but the implications of that are something to worry about at another time.  There’s more important things to record first, particularly the meeting I had with one Mr. Aldric.

 

To keep things simple, I’ll record what happened in chronological order, starting with my surrender to the elven guards.  

 

After tuning my blade over to the elves, they proved as good as their word and did heal Siegbert.  They removed my armor carefully before placing the two of us in manacles and escorted us to the jail.  As they took Isocrates’ Rod, I almost panicked, but they were evidently unaware of its properties and stored it with the rest of my possessions.  As we were being escorted back, I noticed something odd.  All the elves carried bows as was their tradition.  So where did the crossbow bolt that hit Siegbert come from?

 

On the way I turned to my captor and asked, “Excuse me sir elf,”

 

Without even looking at me he replied “Its Captain Rinaldo.”

 

“Excuse me Captain Rinaldo, just out of idle curiosity can you tell me what the charges I’m accused of are?”

 

The Captain sighed, “The charges are as follows; intent to cause damage, intent to kill, trespassing, multiple cases of assault and battery, kidnapping, kidnapping a member of the royal family, evading arrest, and theft.”

 

“And let me guess, the person who filed these charges was one Mr. Aldric?  Am I correct?”

 

The Captain furrowed his brow.  “The initial charges of intent to cause damage, intent to kill, trespassing, and theft are.  The others appear to have resulted from you resisting being charged with those crimes.”

 

“Captain, between you and me, I wasn’t going to be charged, I was going to be executed without trial.  And I didn’t kidnap your princess, she helped me escape to avoid a miscarriage of justice.”

 

“Prisoner, you will have your chance in court.  I will see to that at least.  Then we can see about the rest of your fanciful stories.”

 

“You should probably say, I’ll have my chance in court if Mr. Aldric lets me.  That’s what it will wind up being, I’ll bet.”

 

At this moment Captain Rinaldo did turn to look at me.  “Alright prisoner.  I don’t know what your problem with Mr. Aldric is and I don’t know what his is with you.  But I don’t care.  I’ll see you tried fairly for each charge and sentenced.  Now, you’ve been careful not to seriously injure anyone so far so you should do okay but take my advice and try not to paint yourself as being framed.  It tends to look like guilt to many people.”

 

We traveled in silence to the jail where I was checked in and placed in the high security cell where I settled in for the night, hoping against hope that one of the girls would find that journal and know what happened to me.

 

The next day I was awoken by a rapping on the door.  I could see the eyes of one of the elven guards through the slit.

 

“Prisoner, stand up!”  She barked.  “Prisoner stand facing the far wall.  Prisoner place your hands on your head.”

 

I complied, not seeing much else to do and I heard the door creek open.  

 

I was manacled again and brought to another room in the jail.  This one had a table and several chairs around it.  Some of the chairs were fastened to the ground and I could see places for prisoners to have their manacles fastened.  

 

Captain Rinaldo was in this room.  I looked at him and asked, “So Captain.  What is this about?”

 

Rinaldo glowered and said, “Mr. Aldric is here.  He wants to see us.”

 

When the figure of Mr. Aldric entered the room, any hope I had of finding out more about the man by seeing him in person died.  He wore the same concealing hood that he wore when speaking to Guildmaster Vinzenz and it was no easier to see inside it than before.  He was about my height and build but somehow seemed almost sickly in the way he moved.  

 

He nodded to the Captain and both sat down at the table with me.  

 

Captain Rinaldo spoke first.  “Mr. Aldric, thank you for coming down here on such short notice…” he began but was cut off by Aldric.

 

“No, thank you captain for capturing these… dangerous fugitives.  I trust you retrieved their possessions?  Something of mine was stolen by these brigands and I would appreciate its return.”

 

I said nothing, not seeing any good it could do at this juncture.  

 

Captain Rinaldo continued, “Yes, we’ll get to that.  However I did have some questions about the nature of these original charges.  I tried to see where they originated, but all my inquiries led back to you.  Evidently you just filed these charges yourself and they were distributed down to the individual guards.  I do need to see some…”

 

“You don’t need to see anything of the sort captain.  I have been authorized by the king to do this.”

 

“Yes Mr. Aldric, but not even the king would dare to override a man’s right to trial now would he?”

 

“I don’t care about his Hells’ damned trial.  I just want my property back!”

 

“Whether the property is stolen or not is one of those things that will be determined at the trial, Mr. Aldric.”

 

Mr. Aldric’s tone changed suddenly at this point.  “Captain, are you trying to be difficult with me?”

 

“Mr. Aldric, whatever do you mean-“

 

“Very well then Captain.  I understand that a signed confession will invalidate the need for a trial?  Am I correct?”

 

“Well yes, but-“

 

“Good.  Then I’d like a moment alone with the prisoners who were captured.”

 

“You can’t just do that there are-“

 

“Oh captain, I believe I can.  Please take the time to examine these documents thoroughly.”

 

As Mr. Aldric slid the papers across the table I could see the Royal Seal of Albero Città pressed on them.  The captain looked at them with raw disbelief in his eyes, his mouth hanging open.  He silently shook his head and left the room.  Outside in the hallway the guardswoman from before was waiting with Siegbert in custody.  With a nod from Mr. Aldric she brought him inside and secured him in a chair across from me before leaving with an almost indecent haste and a look back, one of pity for me and Siegbert one of disgust for Mr. Aldric.

 

Mr. Aldric came around to my end of the table and bent down behind me.  I heard a click and one of my hands was free.  Before I could react, Mr. Aldric was on the other side of the table back by Siegbert.  I was still fastened to the table by my legs and remaining hand, but I could try to hit that bastard if he came near me again.  Mr. Aldric slid a single piece of paper towards me.  A confession, that I had stolen one red rod of a magical nature from him.  Nothing more.  A quill pen was placed beside it.

 

Siegbert looked drugged or something, he was only beginning to come to.  “Sir Knight?  What happened…”

 

Then Mr. Aldric laid a finger on him.  That isn’t a metaphor for something, he quite literally laid a single finger on his shoulder.  Suddenly Siegbert began to scream, a horrible agonizing scream.  

 

Mr. Aldric spoke, “I know your type, Knight.  You can withstand almost any punishment I inflict on you, but will cave to save your friends now won’t you.”

 

Again and again he used this ability on Siegbert, I’ll admit that I almost did cave and sign that confession.  However when I reached for the pen, my hand suddenly felt as if it was on fire.  I pulled it back shocked and the feeling went away.  

 

Mr. Aldric sighed, “I almost forgot about that ridiculous spell that was placed on you.  Let me take care of that.”

 

He then cast some sort of spell, I don’t know what it was, but small pieces of ash began to drift from my body into his hand.  Soon, these flakes of ash merged together to form the card of a Draconic Lord, the same card that was burned as part of the loyalty oath Regulus administered to me.

 

“I have released you from your oath, Knight.  Will you sign the confession now?”

 

Before I had a chance to consider it, he began to hurt Siegbert again.  I was reaching for the pen when the door was kicked open by Captain Rinaldo as he charged into the room.

 

“Enough is enough Mr. Aldric, I don’t care what authority the king gave you, I’m not having torture happen under my watch!”

 

“Torture?  Whatever do you mean captain?  Do you see any signs of torture?  Any blood?  Any bruises or-“

 

“No!  No excuses!  I don’t care!  Get out of my sight now!  You’re lucky I don’t arrest you myself!”

 

Mr. Aldric stood up and faced the captain, “Be careful guard.  You don’t want to make an enemy of me.”

 

“I want to make a friend of you even less, GET OUT NOW!”

 

Mr. Aldric sighed, straitened his cloak and left the room, but not before turning to the three of us and hissing, “You haven’t heard the last of this.  Not at all.”

 

Captain Rinaldo looked at me sadly and said, “I’m sorry I couldn’t get here fast enough.  Guardswoman!”

 

The guardswoman from earlier came in and stood to attention.  “Yes Captain?”

 

“Take the prisoners back to their cells, and be gentle, they’ve had a rough enough time as it is.  And under no circumstances are you to retrieve a prisoner for Mr. Aldric again.  Is that understood Guardswoman Rina?”

 

“Yes, sir!”

 

The two of us were then returned to our cells and I was left to wonder when Mr. Aldric would return to try again.  I was certain that he wouldn’t let this be, not if there was any chance of him loosing.  

 

Later that night, I was roused by the sound of a large explosion and a loud sound that sounded like a dwarven ballad.  I was reminded of the lovely women that I had been traveling with and wondered what they were doing.  That question was immediately answered by my door being flung open and Aimée standing in my doorway.  As I stood up to greet her, she ran to me and pressed herself against me in a powerful hug that nearly drove the air from my lungs.  As she breathlessly told me what was happening I noticed that she wasn’t wearing the chain tunic and had received a cut across the stomach as a result.  I resolved to ask her about that later, once we were out of this mess.  

 

Well the story that the ladies told you is accurate from this point.  We flew out on Martina and are holed up together in this inn for now.  I was initially worried by the fact that the other patrons were looking at me with loathing, but a second look recognized envy mixed in their expressions and I reasoned that this was probably more about me sharing a room with four beautiful women than it was about any crime I was falsely accused of.

 

One disturbing final bit of this tale came the next morning.  Aimée came in to our room after running errands for us, full of smiles and glee.  She laughed, “We made the pamphlets everyone!”

 

Sieghild was a bit confused by this.  “The pamphlets?  What are those?”

 

I explained, “You know what a printing press is, right?  You have those in Hammerburg right?”

 

Sieghild rolled her eyes, “Of course we do, but what does that have to do with anything?”

 

“Well some elves got the bright idea to replace all their town criers with printed pamphlets of information.  Some of the larger dwarven and human cities have picked up the idea as well.  I’m surprised it hasn’t made it to Hammerburg yet.”

       

Aimée rolled her eyes at us, “Forget the lesson!  Check it out!”

 

I looked at the pamphlet.  It was indeed impressive.  A picture of the park fire with a larger than life Sieghild in the center of it crushing elven guardsmen dominated the cover.  The headline read, “IN DARRING RAID, VILE BANDITS AND BRIGANDS FREE IMPRISONED LEADER!”  In smaller print a side article read “Royal Advisor Aldric Warns Populous!”  I was about to put the paper away when a smaller article caught my eye, “Many Wounded, One Dead in Raid”

 

“One dead?” I asked out loud.  “I thought you were trying not to kill anyone?”

 

Sieghild blanched.  “I didn’t!  I may have broken a few bones at worst, but I’m sure no one died!  I’m almost positive of it!”

 

To calm down both Sieghild and Felìcita, who was nearly beside herself with worry, I examined the article to find out more.  What I saw chilled me to my very bones.  The article read “Last night, although much of the action was focused on the park district and the jail itself, a third attack occurred as well.  Captain Rinaldo was attacked last night as soon as the jailbreak ended.  He was speaking with his daughter and subordinate officer, Guardswoman Rina in their family home when he suddenly started and stared out the window.  Guardswoman Rina reported that he said ‘No, not you!  You can’t be here!’ before fleeing upstairs.  His daughter pursued and when she found him he was standing in front of his guard equipment and reaching in his throat as though gagging on something.  In front of his daughters own eyes, he suddenly ripped out his own tongue.  As Guardswoman Rina tried to intervene to help her father, something stopped her and held her still and forced her to watch what was coming next.  Captain Rinaldo then proceeded to gauge out his own eyes with this thumbs and then, guided as if by magic to retrieve his sword and gut himself in front of his horrified daughter.  Subsequent investigation revealed that Captain Rinaldo was the officer responsible for the arrest of the brigand’s Deathknight leader and this attack was likely some form of retribution.”

 

I got very quiet after this.  Eventually Martina worked up the nerve to ask what was wrong and I explained what Captain Rinaldo had done and what I suspected Mr. Aldric did in retaliation for loosing the rod.  At this everyone grew quiet.  I broke the silence with a question.  “Felìcita, does the Royal Advisor live in the palace?”

 

“Huh?  Oh yes Master Knight, he does.  Near the king’s quarters in fact.”

 

“Good.  Captain Rinaldo died because he wanted justice to be done for us.  Let’s get ready to do some justice for him.”

 

 

Dear Journal,

 

That day we began preparation for what Aimée insists on calling "The Great Palace Raid." I have begun to suspect that the poor girl may have some disconnect with reality. She seems to believe on some level that she is living in a fairytale or a bardic epic. I found her chain shirt. It was tucked neatly away in her pack and looks almost like new. I say almost like new, because while it was apparently never actually worn, there was an aborted effort to cut the shirt to display the wearer's midriff. I suspect that when this attempt failed, Aimèe switched to wearing the leathers I have frequently seen her in.  I tried to speak to her about this decision, but she simply laughed and said that if she was injured she would be healed by Martina anyways.  I need to speak to her soon before she gets herself seriously hurt, or even killed.  She’s a sweet girl and I can’t shake the sense that if anything happens to her, it will be my fault.

 

Unfortunately when Aimée returned from running errands (she is the one best suited for remaining unnoticed), I was distracted from my impending lecture by the news pamphlets she brought back.  The headlines on these ones read, “CAPTAIN RINA VOWS TO HUNT FOR BRIGAND RAIDERS!”  The illustration on the front was clearly of Mr. Aldric promoting the Guardswoman to the rank of Captain.  The article went on to say that Captain Rina personally vowed to “hunt those scum down wherever they may hide and put them down.”  It was official, there was a manhunt for us now.  It would be harder to move about the city unnoticed after this.

 

On an unrelated note, I should really do something nice for the girls.  When I was stuck in jail, they really pulled themselves together and got me out of there.  I know what they want… but I don’t think I can give it to any one of them without the other three getting mad.  So I’ll have to think up something else in the meantime.  It will have to be somewhere secluded, after all we’re still wanted men and women, but still classy enough to be considered nice and rewarding.  Hmmm… what to do?

 

 

 

Dear Journal,

 

I think I’ve decided what to do with the girls.  However, for it to work we would need to leave the city for a few weeks and I’m not really comfortable about leaving Aldric at my back for that long.  I was thinking of low key areas and the idea of stargazing in the wilderness came to mind.  I then remembered that the Druidic Groves to the northeast of Albero Città were supposed to be lovely during the Winter Solstice.  It is only a few days boat ride away from the city and would be an easy way to reward the girls.  There was even supposed to be a natural hot spring there to relax in while there.

 

However that is still something to look forward to in the future.  For now we need to deal with the current problem, Aldric.  Aimée reports that guard patrols are becoming more and more frequent and I’ve been on the opposite side of this situation enough times to know it won’t be long before they begin systematically searching buildings like this inn.  Later tonight we are going to come up with a rough plan of attack for the palace, but first I need to have a little talk with Aimée.

 

 

 

Dear Journal,

 

After I finished writing in you last time, I went to find Aimée.  As expected she was downstairs in the tavern as though nothing was wrong.  A quick word that I wanted to talk with her privately was more than enough to get her away from there but it may have raised her expectations of what was to come too high.  She bounded after me, full of energy but when she entered our room and saw me sitting at the table with the chain shirt laid out she paused and a confused expression crossed her face.

 

“Err… Sir Knight?  Why are you…  What’s going on?  Is something wrong?”

 

“… Yes Aimée, something is wrong.  Can you sit down for a moment?”

 

Aimée sat down timidly, and I was reminded for a moment of the nice young maid who she was deep down.  I gave her an encouraging smile to try to put her more at ease and she returned it, still worried but not on the verge of panic anymore.

 

“Aimée, when I bought you that mithril chain shirt do you remember why?”

 

“You said it was going to be my armor, so I could be safe when fighting.  But I haven’t needed it so-“

 

“So what?  So you thought that because you were lucky so far that you would keep being lucky?   Didn’t you think that I gave that to you for a reason?  Hells, I wear my armor, and far heavier armor at that, all the time!  Even when I’m not in combat or likely to be!  Because relying on your own luck to see you through isn’t a good idea!”

 

Aimée started to say something but I cut her off.

 

“And if you were going to change out of your armor, why did you choose those leathers?  Yes, leather can be made into armor, but that’s when its been cured and fastened into a stiff leather protector!  The stuff you’re wearing is for showboating fools who care more about display than substance!  Why would you choose that?”

 

“I-I wanted to look good for you…”

 

And with those words all my righteous anger was dissipated and I was left with a sinking sensation of guilt.  At that moment I felt about an inch tall.  I quietly pulled my chair up alongside Aimée and sat down.

 

“I- I’m sorry, Aimée.  I didn’t mean to- I mean-“  I stammered, lost for words.

 

Aimée sadly got up and began to walk away, the tears in her eyes beginning to fall to the ground.

 

At this moment I said the only thing I could think to say, “Aimée I just don’t want to see you get hurt ever again. You mean too much to me.”

 

Aimée turned around and looked at me, tears were still in her eyes but for an instant her expression lifted.  Softly, I walked over to her and the two of us embraced quietly together in that small little room.

 

“Aimée, I’d never be able to forgive myself if something happened to you and I could have stopped it.  That’s why I got you that armor, because I wanted you to be safe.  And Aimée, you don’t need to try to look good for me.”

 

Aimée pulled back from me for a moment and looked me in the eyes.  When I looked back down at her there was the brief hint of the clever young woman I met in Martina’s lair rather than the wildly playful but increasingly reckless girl that had been around for the last few weeks.  She chuckled to herself, “I suppose I’ve been acting really childish lately, haven’t I?”

 

“Heh.  A little bit, but it wasn’t too bad until you started risking yourself.”

 

She blushed, “Yeah.  I really should have known better.  But this is your fault too you know!”

 

“Huh?  What are you talking about?”

 

“Yeah, think of the way you’ve been stringing us ladies along lately!  A girl is bound to get desperate!”  With a cheeky grin Aimée prodded my chestplate, “You, Sir Knight, need to start thinking through your actions better!  I think you owe us all an apology at the very least!”

 

“Well, actually I may have just the thing for that…”

 

After sharing the news about the Druidic Groves Aimée became quite excited, a familiar twinkle in her eye was back, but this time more… tempered than before.  We quickly decided not to share the news yet with the rest of the girls, thinking that they would appreciate it more as a surprise.

 

We were still standing there, chatting quietly when Felìcita knocked on the door quietly and looked into the room.  “Umm…” she said hesitantly, “I’m not… interrupting anything am I?”

 

I chuckled, “Not at all Felìcita.  Come on in.”

 

With a sigh of relief the elf did so.  “Good, I heard in the tavern that you asked to speak with Aimée privately and… er… well…”

 

At this point of course she caught sight of Aimée’s eyes, still red from crying and perked up, “Oh.  Oh!  Ha ha ha.  You too?  What did you of all people do to warrant a discipline lesson?”

 

As I placed my head in my hands and groaned, Felìcita skipped off to be “helpful” and bring Aimée some ice.

 

Of course the other girls (with the exception of Felìcita who became rather clingy all of the sudden) spent all afternoon trying to guess what Aimée “did.”  On the plus side it kept them from jumping to the other possible conclusion about what a man and a lovely young woman could be doing together in private.  On the minus side it really made it difficult to get them focused on planning for the palace.  Eventually however I got everyone settled down, even including Siegbert who had spent the entire day negotiating with the bartender in the hopes of getting him to stock beer, any form of beer at all, in his tavern.  

 

The first thing I did was to start appointing roles and tasks.  Felìcita was placed in charge of making the general map of the palace from memory.  Aimée, now wearing her chain shirt and a comfortable but still pleasantly snug pair of trousers, was placed in charge of finding any local criminal connections that the manhunt for us hadn’t yet shut down.  Siegebert was to spend his time crafting alchemical compounds for us to use in entering and moving about the palace while Sieghild was going to spend her time analyzing Felìcita’s map for potential structural weaknesses we could use somehow.  Finally Martina would spend her time performing invisible reconnaissance checks while in telepathic communication with me.  

 

Dear Journal,

 

Aimèe came to me with some good news today. Apparently she had found a way for us to get into the palace itself for reconnaissance. A local criminal organization known as the Sussurri Notturni had managed to avoid the guards sweep of the city so far. For a price, this group will take two of us into the palace itself and show us some secret ways in. The obvious first choice for this mission is Aimèe, she has all the skills needed for this job. However the second candidate is in the air. As I already tasked everyone else with important work, I'm afraid that I am the only option.

 

Dear Journal,

 

Since I last wrote in you, a lot has happened. Dispite the protests of the girls, I decided to accompany Aimèe to meet with the Sussurri Notturni.  I reasoned that if it is a trap like Martina and Sieghild suspect, then I'd be walking right into it, however if it is a trap, then I certainly can't let Aimèe walk into it alone after the talk I had with her the other day.  Eventually the girls gave in and Martina even made a spare bottomless bag for me and half filled it with healing potions and supplies, "To ensure your success" she said. Felìcita wished me well and begged to be allowed to accompany me but quieted down when told to. Sieghild gave me a jade dwarven ceremonial good luck charm usually reserved for family members and wished me good fortune. Siegbert gave me a few alchemical draughts and apologized for not having more. Evidently he's been sleeping poorly of late. After saying my goodbyes me and Aimèe set off to meet the Sussurri Notturni.

 

Although the city's arboreal nature precluded the use of horse and carriage, I had sort of expected that the Sussurri Notturni would send something like the driver used by the Schatten Gilde to bring us to some hidden headquarters. Instead, Aimèe led me to another tavern, this one was carved out of the interior of an overlarge branch of one of the trees that Albero Città is based on. It was named "The Robin's Nest" and had a friendly looking atmosphere. It didn't look like a great place to stage an ambush but on the other hand it didn't look like the lair of a dangerous gang either.

 

I said as much to Aimèe and she shrugged and simply said, "Well they're not actually."

 

"What do you mean they're not?"

 

"They're less of a gang of criminals and more of a band of thieves really. You know the type, showboating who care more about style than substance.”  

 

Seeing the look on my face, Aimèe laughed and continued “Don’t worry.  Evidently they have more than enough actual substance to them.  They’ve apparently pulled off some pretty impressive heists before and many people in the underworld suspect they may have robbed the palace once or twice before.”

 

I suppose I had to trust her word on that and so I entered “The Robin’s Nest.”  I was immediately struck by the colorful nature of the place.  Whereas our inn ensured our anonyminity by being a place where people looked the other way when things were out of place, this tavern could ensure it by being entirely out of place.  There was no common element to anything, and the clientele suited it.  I could see elves, humans, dwarfs, and even stranger races such as the occasional orc or goblin and I even think I saw an effrete and a genie talking to each other in the corner but they disappeared before I could get a better look.  

 

Finally Aimèe led us to our contact who turned out to be a young elven woman.  In my personal opinion the woman looked more like an exotic dancer than a hardened criminal but I remember enough stories of similar thieves trying (and sometimes succeeding) to make their fortune to believe Aimèe’s stories of her reputation.  Of course, these are also the type of people who inspired Aimèe to try similar types of shenanigans so I can’t put too much trust in them because of that.  

 

 The woman gracefully stood and gave a bow that was clearly designed more to show off her body than to be polite.  Ah… this must be the famous Knight who has this dull little town in such an uproar.  A pleasure to meet you finally.”

 

The woman watched as I sat down and ordered a drink and waited until I was having my first sip before leaning forward with a sly grin and asking, “So is it true that you kidnapped our little Princess Felìcita and have been ravishing her each night since?”

 

Naturally I choked on my drink when hearing that.  Fortunately the bar was too noisy for people to easily overhear the woman’s words nor my reply.  “What?  No!  And I’m a little disturbed that you would still offer to help us if it seemed like we were the type of people who would do that!”

 

“Relax your Knightship, I didn’t actually think you were, although from what I hear the stuck up little bitch could use it,” before I could voice my disgust the woman continued, “and I base my opinion on the fact that these here ‘authorities’ heard of your alleged crimes before those of us who keep our ear to the street did.  If you were half the murderous monster that this Mr. Aldric fellow keeps claiming you are, word of your actions would have passed through the underworld before.”

 

Well that seamed reasonable at least so I decided that the woman, even if she had expressed some opinions on discipline that were at best sarcastic and at worst rather vile, was at least worth going out on a limb for, “Alright then so you trust us.  Why should we trust you?  All I’ve got to go on is a group name that my friend here has heard of.  I don’t even know who you are or anything about you.”

 

With a thud I looked down to see a knife embedded into my chair between my legs.  She had thrown it there, underarm, without me seeing it.  As I watched, she stretched her legs out to reach the knife handle with her feet and began to slowly toy with it with her almost bare feet.  “Sir Knight,” she said with a sensual grin, “I am Velia, and I run the Sussurri Notturni.”

 

After a few more drinks and some intense negotiation between Velia and myself, we came to an agreement.  She led me and Aimèe out of the tavern and to a nearby warehouse.  There I met the rest of the Sussurri Notturni.  There were only six of them total, including Velia and much to my surprise (although by this point it really shouldn’t be) they all were young females.  

 

Velia took care of the introductions.  “This,” she said pointing to a felinid woman in those ridiculous skin tight leathers I had recently persuaded Aimèe to cease using, “is Agata, she handles our second story jobs and is an excellent climber.”

 

Another elf, this one was in the process of changing out of some courtly garb and into her own ridiculous outfit was next up.  “This is Oria, she normally only works confidence games and cons but she will be with us tonight in case we need to sweet talk any guards.”

 

The next was a human girl who was packing variety of wires, picks, and other strange tools I couldn’t identify into an innumerable amount of belt pouches.  “She is Gabrielle and she handles locks and traps of most sorts.  She will be our best friend tonight.”

 

A halfling girl who looked almost normal, if a bit shifty looking, was next.  “This is Amyas, our primary pickpocket.  Don’t worry she won’t swipe your stuff while you’re employing us, it makes bad business.”

 

“And finally we have our problem solver, Catriona!”  An orcish woman stood at my height in front of me.  I noticed that instead of some ridiculous suit she preferred leather armor, actual leather armor rather than the form fitting leathers that the other members of Sussurri Notturni wore.

 

“I take it that she is your strongarm or bodyguard?  Basically the person who handles actual combat?”

 

“Why yes, yes she is.  Very astute of you.”

 

Once again I found myself surrounded by deadly and beautiful women.  It’s been happening often enough lately that I should really start a collection or something.  I was musing on this so Velia’s next words took me by surprise.

 

“Lets get you out of that armor now.”

 

“Sorry, what?”

 

“That armor is fine if you’re walking into a war, but for skulking around in dark places?  No chance.”

 

“Hey, this armor has saved my life in many battles!”

 

“If you wear that on this mission, it will be a battle!”

 

“Well… I’ll need something else at least.  I’m not entirely comfortable without any form of armor.”

 

“Don’t worry we anticipated that.  Here, take this.  You can keep the sword though.  It suits you.”

 

Velia handed me some leather armor to wear for the mission.  I donned it and stowed my plate mail in the bottomless bag that Martina gave me and we set about waiting for dark.

 

Once night fell, we headed out along back alley paths and using smugglers tunnels that ran through the branches of the trees themselves to reach the Noble Quarter and the palace itself through one of the cellars.  As the last of us entered the room, we suddenly had to hide as a guard patrol passed by.  

 

I turned to Veila, “So what do we do if the guards spot us?”

 

“Oh that shouldn’t be a problem with the rout we’re planning.”

 

“Alright, I’ll trust you on that, but what if things don’t go according to plan and we’re spotted anyways?”

 

“We run.  Same as always.”

 

“…Right.  And if we’re cornered?”

 

“If that happens we usually surrender.  We aren’t fighters and we aren’t stupid.”

 

As Veila said those words Aimèe turned and gave me a sheepish little smile, I felt unexpectedly comforted, at least these people wouldn’t get Aimèe to turn back to her old bad habits.

 

Once the guards were gone, we headed up the stairs and into a side room.  The room appeared to be an ordinary sitting room with a portrait of some long dead king against the wall.  I was looking around confused and wondering what possible purpose Velia could have had in leading us here when she walked up to the picture and kissed it on the mouth.  After several seconds of this, the picture swung open to reveal an entrance secret passageway.

 

I looked at Velia quizzically, “So… how exactly did you find out about that particular entrance?”

 

With a roll of her eyes she led the way into the tunnels.

 

As we walked along the passages I could see lots of small pricks of light along one wall.  Velia explained that these were peepholes that old kings used to use to spy on those around them and look for disloyalty.  She was quick to assure me that they were no longer used and that as far as she can tell, no one even remembers they are here.

 

“In fact,” she went on, “these tunnels have been a major boon to our little gang here.  You’d be surprised who will suddenly start talking about important treasures being moved or valuable items that were out for cleaning or repair.  Here, watch these two guards,” she said pointing to a peephole.

 

I looked through it into what appeared to be a break room for the palace guards.  Two royal guards were lounging in the room idly chatting.

 

“So, Adriano,” the first said, “have you ever heard of the Golden Saber before?”

 

“Nope.  Not a word, but apparently the high and mighty Mr. Aldric has.  In fact he trusts them so much that he decided to replace the entire inner guard with them and the king says nothing about it!  We’ve had a perfect record of guarding the king for over a century and a half and we get replaced at a moments notice?  What’s wrong with this picture, Eustorgio?”

 

“Heh, loads.  I’m surprised that there wasn’t a major outcry over the change though.  I mean, this new advisor comes in and replaces us within a week of his arrival?  Mr. Aldric must have kept it on the down low to avoid that.  But hey, at least it took a lot of work off our hands.”

 

“Those guys could do our entire job for us and give us their salaries and it wouldn’t make me like the swine any more.  They’re arrogant, they’re rude, and they treat us like we’re incompetent imbeciles.  Yesterday I cleared a delivery from a baker who crafted this grand cake for the king in gratitude for a decision he made a year prior.  Something about a legal case where he would have went out of business or something.  As I was bringing the baker and his cake to the king’s chambers, these Golden Saber bastards stop us and demand that I return to my post with the ‘intruder.’  I tried to explain what was going on with the baker but they wouldn’t have a word of it.  They threatened to have me fired and the baker arrested if we didn’t leave now.  And I can swear that I saw one of them wiping some of that cake’s frosting off his face as he left their break room!  Why do they even have a separate break room anyways?  And why is it better than ours so much?  I don’t like this Eustorgio.  I don’t like it a bit.  I don’t like this Mr. Aldric, I don’t like these Golden Saber bastards, and I especially hate their Gods damned commander.”

 

“Heh.  Tell me about it.  With that armor you’d think he was a Deathknight instead of this guy we’re supposed to be looking out for.  Anyways, I’ll catch you later, my break is up.  Ciao!”

 

This left the one guard alone in the room.  Seeing as he was unlikely to continue to expose his grievances about Mr. Aldric and his staffing changes to the empty room I left him and turned to Velia and inquired, “I don’t suppose any of these peepholes show the men this Golden Saber group do they?”

 

“We haven’t used them since before Mr. Aldric arrived, but we can find out.”

 

Sure enough of the myriad peepholes that showed assorted rooms in the inner palace grounds, several showed the Golden Saber guard rooms.  There were surprisingly many of them, evidently large parts of the inner castle were converted for their use.  I found out several things from this for one, I would have been able to correctly name the Golden Sabers from their logo alone, it was unsurprisingly enough a golden saber on a black field.  The second thing I found out was that they were crude bastards but incredibly disciplined on the job.  In the barracks and recreational rooms where soldiers were off duty, they had all sorts of chaos present.  People were fighting, girls who were presumably also the palace’s maids were being… well used is the only right word here, however in the rooms where soldiers were on duty, they had cleaned them up to military precision before they left them, presumably in case someone comes by for inspection.  When we saw the Golden Saber soldiers on duty they were almost perfectly silent, only relaying orders and commands.  It was rather uncanny to be honest.  However we did have a small stroke of luck.  Two Golden Saber Officers, high ranking ones by the look of it were chatting casually in a small out of the way room that according to (the by now quite disgusted) Velia was once a temple to the Elven Gods.  

 

“So, Evgeni.  What does the General want from us tomorrow?  Are we finally to be in the city hunting this Knight or stuck in the castle watching over this doddering brainwashed fool?”

 

“Bah. You should know better than to ask that by now Kuzma.  We’re always on palace duty.  And we had better do a damned good job too.  Remember this ‘doddering fool’ has broken free of the Mr. Aldric’s headband before.  Last time he nearly got around to attacking Mr. Aldric himself.  The General had to threaten to beat the queen senseless in order to get him to put the headband back on.  Of course he did it anyways, and made the old man watch too, so I don’t think that will work again; that’s why we need to be careful with him.”

 

“Speaking of the queen, has she healed enough to perform another ‘dance’ for us, eh?”

 

“Heh, heh.  I think she has.  Do you want to use Mr. Aldric’s collar or not?”

 

“Eh.  Only if she won’t be intimidated into doing it.  The collar makes her look to happy”

 

“Yeah, her tears really add to the experience for me.  Nothing like watching a proud woman broken to get you in the mood, right?”

 

As the two monsters in human flesh continued their walk down the hallway I stood there, seeing red.  Eventually I felt a hand on my shoulder.  I whirled around, quite prepaired to beat whoever dared touch me, and stopped when I saw Aimèe looking quite concerned.

 

“Sir Knight, are you okay Sir Knight?”

 

Even Velia was looking concerned.  “Are you feeling okay Knight?  You looked like you were going to break down that wall and kill those two men with your own bare hands.  I’m not saying they don’t deserve it, but well is this the best time?  I mean there is probably a time when we aren’t surrounded by enemies who outnumber us that you can do that, right?”

 

I stopped.  Took a deep breath.  Took another deep breath.  And kept on taking deep breaths until the urge to start killing everyone in this palace until there was nothing left that even hinted of Mr. Aldric’s evil went away.  It didn’t go away but it at least subsided enough that I could think rationally again.

       

I turned to Aimèe.  “We’re going to kill them.  That’s a given now.  There is no way we’re leaving this city until Mr. Aldric is driven from here and faces justice.”

 

Aimèe patted my shoulder, “I know, but getting killed here won’t help anyone.  We know about these tunnels, we know the king is under mind control, and we know the actual palace guards don’t like Mr. Aldric.  If we can get the king out of there we can use him to get the guards and the kingdom on our side.  That way we can purge these Golden Saber bastards from the palace for good.”

 

With that we continued on to the peepholes that Velia said looked in on the royal throne room although it wouldn’t be fair to call it that now.  It is more of a headquarters.  Instead of the long but otherwise empty hall with a throne at the end of it, now tables and chairs were everywhere and maps of the entirety of Albero Città covered the walls.  Small pins representing guard and soldier positions pockmarked these maps and shaded areas evidently representing the search for me and my party were beginning to cover the large map of the city.  From the looks of things, it wouldn’t be long before the search found our hideout at the inn, a few days at most.  The throne itself was still there but in the King’s place sat a massive armored giant of a man, taller and broader than even myself.  Before him a massive table was set before him with troop reports and other intelligence for him to review covering the surface.  As I watched, a black mist sank into the room from somewhere in the ceiling and coalesced into the form of Mr. Aldric.  He strode forward towards the armored hulk who immediately leapt to attention along with the rest of the room.

 

“Room ‘ten-chun!” the man bellowed with the volume of a siege weapon striking.

 

“Stand down, General Zinoviy.” Mr. Aldric said with a hiss.  “Its time to hear from our pet Guard Captain.”

 

As Mr. Aldric said, the two door guards parted way to allow Captain Rina to enter the room.  Her helmet was held at her side and around her head was a strange gold circlet.  She moved as though she was in a trance and fell to her knees before the throne and the figures of Mr. Aldric and General Zinoviy before it.  

 

Still kneeling Captain Rina began to speak in a dull voice,“I am sorry my Masters.  I have deployed every guardsman and guardswoman I can, but the search still has found no trace of the Knight or the Rod.  I remain a failure to you.  I beg for forgiveness but deserve nothing but your scorn.”

 

Mr. Aldric hissed again, “So you do.  So you do.  By any chance did your search go any better General?”

 

The armored man shook his head, “No sir.  I patrolled every inch of that park and jail and found nothing that would allow you to scry the location of the Knight or his allies.  The fire itself and firefighting efforts ruined my attempts in the park and in the jail.”

 

“The jail too?  There was no fire there…”

“I know sir, but it appears that the then-guardswoman Rina ordered a bucket brigade readied for the jail as well in case of any traps set by the Knight’s allies.  Regrettably a bucket was spilled on an otherwise promising blood splatter.”

 

Mr. Aldric turned to face the prostate elf.  “General, as punishment you may do with the elf as you see fit.  I go to prepare our contingency operations.”  With that he dissolved into mist again and left the room through means unknown to me.

 

General Zinoviy turned to Captain Rita.  “Elf wench.  I omitted one detail from Mr. Aldric about what I found at the park.  Can you imagine what that could be?”

 

“No Master.  I cannot.”

 

“Of course you can’t.  I did find one thing at the park, it was mud.  Lots of mud.  Those damned firefighters poured so much water over that place that it is still muddy.  It quite ruined these new boots.”

 

There was a general chuckle from the assembled soldiers of the Golden Saber.  

 

“So naturally I want you to clean them for me.  No, no.  Stay on your knees, you’re more useful that way.”

 

The chuckling in the hall turned to general laughter, I had to strain to hear what the General said next as he leaned down to whisper something to Rina, “Oh, and I want you to have a degree of self awareness.  Still obey me yes, but deep down I want that fiery woman who fought so hard when we forced that circlet on her head to know what she is doing right now.  To taste every single drop of mud that her tongue removes from my boot.  And I want her to be aware of what she is doing when you look me in the eyes, thank me for the privilege of cleaning my boots, and beg to be of further use to me.  Do that.”

 

At that moment I had to turn away as tears began to roll down Rina’s face.

 

I wanted to kill that bastard.  Since I couldn’t do that I wanted to leave as soon as possible so I wouldn’t have to watch what he was doing to that poor girl down there.  However we had to stay a few moments longer, only to record what we saw on the tables.  At least that was worth it, the information we obtained there was enough to enable us to avoid the guard for the next few weeks at least should worst come to worst.  I am ashamed to say I thought I was building up almost a numbness to the horrors I saw.  Whereas before it would send me in a blind rage to see an attractive elven woman dressed in a dancing outfit being dragged into the room and forced at sword point to wink at everyone through her tears and announce that she will be offering special dances all evening, now it just made my simmering rage even hotter.  I was able to hold it down until Captain Rina finished with General Zinoviy’s boots and crawled up to him.  She placed her hands on his knees and head almost in his lap, looked him in the eyes, and said in a sweet voice, “Master is there anything, and I mean anything, else I can offer you?”  At this I almost got physically ill.  I just couldn’t hold my rage in any more and was about to get sick as a result.  Then unexpectedly I was saved by the arrival of Mr. Aldric (a sentence I never expected to write and hope never to have to use again).

 

“My apologies but you will have to cut your amusements short with your toy,” Mr. Aldric hissed as the General and his men suddenly leapt to attention.  “It has come to my attention that one of my other agents may have news for me.  She’ll be in shortly.”

 

With my nausea subsided and my interest definitely piqued, I waited to see who this agent of Mr. Aldric’s was.  I quickly counted the girls on my end who came with me and saw that all seven were still there.  As such I waited with an increasing sense of unease for the agent to come in.

 

When the agent did come in, it gave me a start.  To my surprise it was Nadja, the dwarf assassin from the Schatten Gilde in Hammerburg.  I had written her off entirely, let that be a lesson to me.  

 

I stood there and listened to what the dwarf had to say, “Ahh.  My agent arrives.  Miss Nadja, I believe you found something?”

 

“Alright Mr. Aldric.  I’m not your agent.  I’m only helping you because of what that dragon enchantress bitch did to Guildmaster Vinzenz.  But, yes I did find something.  So you know that Knight’s other woman?  This Aimèe?  Right, so after finding ridiculously little useful information on the Knight himself or the dragon bitch I turned to her.  Turns out her father is pretty famous in the underworld.  So I stopped tracking her as though she was a ladies maid and started acting like I was hunting a rogue member of the Schatten Gilde back home.  And there I started finding trials.  She’s been trained by one of the best, but she hasn’t got a lot of experience and that’s where I got her.”

 

“So you have this Aimèe in captivity?”

 

“No, I don’t actually have her – have her, but I know what she did recently.  You see she contacted this small thieves group named the Sussurri Notturni about help with a mission.  These six ladies evidently specialize in different crimes.  It appears Aimèe contacted them to help the Knight.”

 

General Zinoviy laughed a deep bellowing laugh, “So this Knight fellow is out there running around with six ladies in some sort of undercover mission?  Well that’s-”

 

Nadja interrupted him, “Seven if you include Aimèe, as well as you should.  With probably three more waiting for him at their base when you count the runaway princess, the dragoness, and the dwarf wench.  So ten women total.”

 

The General laughed again at this.  “Ten women!  A man after my own heart.  I’ll have to thank him for collecting them for me when I run him through!”

 

I felt Veila pat my shoulder, “Steady on there Knighty boy.  I’m sure you’ll get him when the time comes.”

 

Before I could retort about not calling me “Knighty boy” or something, Nadja continued.

 

“I don’t even know why I’m telling you this, I did my part to help you get the Knight when I shot that damned dwarf boy.  He surrendered after that didn’t he?  So how did he get loose again?”

 

The General sighed, “He got loose through the incompetence of elves.  Isn’t that right Captain Rina?”

 

Rina, still kneeling nuzzled her head against Zinoviy’s knee and answered, “Yes Master, it is.  I’m so sorry about my failures.  Can’t I just make it up to you somehow?”

 

As the general patted her head and told her to wait until later, Nadja, clearly uncomfortable with what she was seeing came to the point.

 

“Right so as I was saying, the mission that Aimèe appears to have contacted the Sussurri Notturni about was the breaking into and infiltration of this palace.”

 

That stopped the General’s laughter, “YOU DUMB LITTLE WHORE!  WHY DIDN’T YOU START WITH THAT!  THEY COULD BE HERE LISTENING TO US RIGHT NOW!”  He turned to Mr. Aldric, “Sir, as my patron I must advise you to evacuate the area, I can provide an armed guard should you-“

 

“That will be unnecessary General.  Find them.  Now.”

 

With that Mr. Aldric disappeared into smoke again and left the throne room.

 

General Zinoviy was on his feet in an instant, he kicked the still kneeling Captain Rina out of the way and bellowed orders to his men.  “Golden Sabers!  Relay these orders to the men!  All off duty Sabers who are still capable of action are recalled to duty now!  Lock the palace servants up again so they can’t escape in the confusion!  Double the garrisons on the entrances and exits and station men near the larger windows in the palace!  The remainder of the men start searching for secret passages!  Tap on the walls to sense if they have hollow points!  Use the sledge hammers and the portable rams to break into any you find!  Get moving now!”

 

As the men were leaving and hustling off to carry off their instructions, Nadja turned and looked at our eyehole, she said outloud, “Yes, you guys go and do that.  I’ll be off searching the town in case they’re not caught here.  I’ll probably start with a seedy tavern near the warehouse district if anyone needs to find me.”

 

Then she simply walked off, I immediately turned to Veila and said, “We need to go.  Now.”  To her credit, her girls were already packing up and getting ready to leave.  We ran out as fast as we could but as we were nearing the exit the wall caved in in front of us.  Two Golden Saber soldiers stood there in full battle regalia, and here I was with leather armor and my sword.  I didn’t even have a real helmet.  Fortunately the orc Catriona was prepared and quickly threw a smoke bomb on the ground, we ducked past the flailing guards and into the open corridor.

 

As we ran, I noticed that there were only six of the women with us now, “Where is Catriona?” I called out.

 

“She’s our strongarm and bodyguard!  Let her take care of the soldiers!  She can handle it!”

 

I looked back to check on her anyways and managed to catch a glimpse of one Golden Saber handling her attention while the other went around to flank her and proceeded to cut her head off.  

 

“She couldn’t handle it!  She’s dead!” I bellowed at Veila.

 

“What?  Oh Gods above!  We’ve got to get out now!”

 

Behind us the men we were running away from were beginning to sound the alarm.  Within moments more men would be upon us.

 

Unfortunately we couldn’t get away in time, soon we were seeing men approach from multiple directions and it was becoming harder and harder to lose them, Veila made a tactical decision, “Split up girls!  Divide try to buy each other time!  Knight boy, Aimèe, you two come with me.  Don’t worry, I’ll get you out of here.”

 

Trusting in her for some reason, we headed off with her, she pulled us into another room and started to open a secret passage way, fortunately this time no portrait makeouts were needed and we were able to get into the tunnel quickly.  We started running down the passage way after Veila when we heard Agata the felinid begging for her life, Veila stopped and turned to us, “I know that we’re in a hurry to leave, but can we check and see if we can help Agata?  The poor girl doesn’t deserve to be abandoned to these sick scum.”

 

 We quickly looked through the eyeholes, Agata was indeed there, cornered by two Golden Sabers with crossbows.  She was trying to surrender, “Come on guys, I’m harmless!  What could I do to you?”

 

The first Golden Saber walked casually to get a better position for a shot.  “A lot actually if you put your mind to it.”

 

The second one nodded to back him up.  

 

“Well… I can put my mind to a lot of other things too.  Things that can be fun for both of us!  Would that help convince you to let me live?”  As she spoke her tail twitched nervously.  

 

The first Saber nodded at the second, “You know it just might…” he said slowly.

 

The second nodded, “How about you get to your knees and open your mouth wide for us?”

 

Agata looked hopeful for a moment, she did fall to her knees and opened her mouth wide, winking at the men and asking, “Is this better?”

 

The first Golden Saber smiled said, “Much.  Thank you.”  Then he shot her in the mouth with his crossbow.  

 

Agata barely had time to look surprised before she fell over spasming as she died.  

 

The two Golden Sabers laughed together.  “Dumb whore.  What did she think was going to happen?”

 

“Come on.  Lets see how many of the others we can make fall for the same thing.”

 

With that the two ran off away from our view.

 

Veila stepped away from the peephole, stunned.  “Th-th-they just killed Agata.  They just killed Agata.  They just killed Agata!  THEY JUST-“

 

I cut her off by placing my hand over her mouth.  “Not now.  We’ll get through this later, but now we need to run.  It’s the only way we’ll get out of here alive.”

 

And so we ran.  As we ran we could occasionally hear the scream of another unlucky girl as she was caught or the crashing of another wall as the soldiers broke their way into another section of the secret passages.  However we did eventually get to the cellar with the smuggler’s passage.  

 

Veila stopped and waited by the entrance for a moment, I could tell she was hoping that some of the rest of the Sussurri Notturni would show up alive.  

 

I placed my hand on her shoulder gently, “I don’t think they’re going to be able to come.  If they show up they can make it through the tunnels without you to guide them.  Let’s go back.”

 

As we were returning to the warehouse we started from, I decided that with the alert out about our presence, now would be a good time to change to my standard armor.  Midway through the change, when Aimèe was just about to start helping me with my sabatons, I heard the click of a crossbow and looked up.

 

There was Nadja, standing there with a loaded crossbow aimed at us.  “Well, well, well.  Looks like I caught the rare Knight in missing armor.  What a find.”

 

Feeling rather embarrassed I said, “You know, I probably shouldn’t have absolutely trusted you when you said you’d meet me back at our inn.”

 

“Yeah.  Probably not.  But it its any consolation I did intend to until I remembered that you have a touchy dragoness and a touchier dwarf maid in there too.  And evidently some elf princess.  But I’m not here to talk about them.  I need to talk to you about what happened to Guildmaster Vinzenz. I need to know how he died.  

 

And so I told her.  I told her about how I was unconscious when the rest of my party found the bodies (I tactfully didn’t mention how that was because of her actions), I explained about the last words of the one man who wasn’t entirely dead yet, I described how each man had a gem and the magical effect that Martina found on the “reward” that Mr. Aldric had sent, and how similar this is to the way he treated others around him and how she saw he had powerful enchantment magics of his own.  

 

As I finished explaining, Nadja nodded slowly and said, “That does make sense… it would match some unusual aspects about his death that were puzzling me.”

 

Aimèe looked up with a smile.  “That’s right!  Now that you know, you might consider-“

 

“Hah.  Consider what girl?  Joining up with your lot?  I’m sure that I would probably have some sort of deep interpersonal revelation that leads to me falling in love with your boyfriend there like the rest of you girls, while taking him to bed sounds fun enough, I don’t think I’m going to be giving up my ways to follow him any time soon.  Though for telling me about Mr. Aldric I’ll let you live for now.  Just remember that I didn’t have to do that though next time you have me at your mercy.”

 

She then turned to Veila, “And seriously woman.  Get your act together.  You called your little band a criminal element?  You’re just lucky that none of those Gold Saber bastards have an ounce of criminal training.  You could hear your girls moving around in the damn tunnels from where I was standing!”

 

With that she left as quietly as she came. Veila decided to head out, she claimed that she would try to find us again but that she needed to do a little bit of thinking first.  And so me and Aimèe were left alone in the warehouse.  As she finished helping me with my armor she said, “I really have been meaning to thank you since we got out of there.  I didn’t want to say this in front of Veila, but the way that I was acting would have gotten me killed back there just as thoroughly as those other girls were.  I owe you one.”

 

“Relax Aimèe.  You owe me nothing.  I owe you some backlog from all the times you’ve helped me out with my armor and such.  The least I can do is prepare you well for life.”

 

Aimèe smiled a sad little smile, “All right then.  For my favor I want you to kill all those bastards back at that palace.  Okay?  I’ll even help you do it.”

 

I beamed back at her, “Sounds more than fair to me.  Lets do it.”

 

 

 

Dear Journal,

 

The next day we got down to business.  Everyone was horrified to hear what we saw in the castle and we got to work with a renewed effort.  Several options have been presented thus far (Although Sieghild cautioned me against writing down my plans, I think I’ll ignore her just this once.  After all, I’m storing this journal in my bag with Isocrates’ Rod so if I lose it we have far bigger problems anyways.) the first is to stage an uprising of sorts.  While this is obviously impossible with the few of us by ourselves, we can always start trying to free certain officials from Mr. Aldric’s control.  For example if we can get near Captain Rina (she has returned to work, for my peace of mind I didn’t check the date she came back on duty), we can probably physically restrain her long enough to remove that circlet from her head.  With her testimony and the city guards on our side, we can move in towards the palace whereupon we can try to talk the royal guards around to joining us. If that works we will have every one of the Golden Sabers surrounded and can push in to destroy them.  The second option is reusing the secret passages.  While the Golden Saber have definitely found the passages within the palce, they may not have found the smugglers tunnels that lead under it.  If not we can utilize those to create a surprise attack on the defenders, especially if they are fortifying against the main attack by our hopeful uprising.  Both of these are good ideas and look like they could work out.

 

As for things that are not proceeding so smoothly, Veila hasn’t returned to us yet and Siegbert is significantly behind on his alchemy work.  Sieghild says he’s still suffering from nightmares and poor sleep but is trying not to complain of it.  She has tried to talk to him several times but he hasn’t been willing to share with her.  Martina says that Sieghild has been so worried about her brother that she is starting to slip behind in her work too.  I told them that I would talk to Siegbert this evening.  

 

 

 

Dear Journal,

 

Well that was a long evening.

 

It started with Siegbert.  I found him at his desk, absentmindedly grinding up some alchemical component.  A bottle of beer sat by his desk, untouched.  He was staring ahead with a thousand yard stare that wouldn’t look out of place on a traumatized soldier.  

 

I walked up to him quiety, “Siegbert, you’re beginning to worry all of us.  You aren’t sleeping, you’re not working, you’re not even drinking.  What’s wrong?”

 

He was silent for a long moment.  Then he turned to look at me.  I could see from the shadows under his eyes that he hadn’t slept in ages.  He looked me in the eyes and plaintively said “Why me?”

 

“I’m sorry?  What do you mean by-“

 

“Why did Mr. Aldric choose me?  In the cell, he only took one look at you to figure out that pain wouldn’t work on you, but me he hurt.”

 

“I’m sorry, I know its unfair but-“

 

“No!  No.  It’s fair.  I don’t care about that.  But why did it work on me?  Why am I so weak?  Everyone else around me is strong and capable, but all I’m good for is the occasional drink!  Even Sieghild and Martina can mix my alchemical components when I’m gone!  What good am I?”

 

Ah.  That was it.  He was feeling guilty about being a “weak point” in our little team.  

 

“Siegbert, you’re not weak.  You’re just not… You know what?  I’m going to let you in on a little secret.  Okay?  It’s about pain and why it’s useful sometimes.”

 

He looked at me confused so I continued, “I learned this from a Knight-Commander named Theodore my first year as a squire.  The thing about pain, suffering, and most miserable experiences is that they make you stronger on the long run.  You don’t wish them on someone for any reason, but when they are through with them they are a stronger person for it.  In training a young soldier can take hundreds of embarrassing and sometimes painful blows with practice swords in order to perform well when faced with the real thing.  Sometimes the practice blades are weighted to be heavier than actual swords so the real one feels light in the soldier’s hands.  Commander Theodore called this idea ‘The Strenuous Life’ and he tried to live it every day.”

 

Siegbert looked at me, “But what does being miserable have to do with strength?”

 

“Its not about misery.  Being miserable is about failure.  What it is about is being challenged.  I’ve been challenged by pain before, and I came out stronger for it.  You weren’t experienced with physical pain so he tried to use it on you.”

 

Siegbert looked down miserably, “But I failed that challenge.  I keep seeing him in my sleep, in my dreams…”

 

“That’s not failure.  That’s fear.  Fear is remembering being miserable.  Stop that.  Remember being challenged instead.  Think about what you faced.  Think about how it came to be.  Think about how it was resolved.  If it wasn’t to your liking, think about what you can do better at next time and work towards that.”

 

As I was about to stand up, Siegbert turned to me again and spoke in a timid and concerned voice, “But that challenge wasn’t aimed at me.  It was aimed at you.  He wanted you to turn the rod over, and you almost did.  What are you going to do better next time?”

 

“That’s easy.  I’m going to shove a sword up his rib cage before he can lay another finger on one of my friends.”

 

And with that I left Siegbert to think for a while.  I went to find Felìcita.  I needed to make sure she was taking the news about what happened to her family well.

 

I found her sitting on the roof of the inn, looking over towards the palace and the star’s above it.  I sat down next to her and she turned and smiled at me.  

 

“Hello Master Knight.  Can I do something for you?”

 

“Felìcita I was about to ask the same question. Are you feeling alright?  I know that hearing about your parents today must have shaken you up a lot inside, but you’re barely showing it.  Is there anything you want to talk about?”

 

“No Master Knight, I mean yes, I mean no…”

 

I looked at her confused and she continued, “I mean there are a lot of things I’d like to talk to you about and ask you, but I want to wait on them,” she looked me in the eyes at this next bit, “Asking you for these things with my mother and father captive now wouldn’t be right.  However I’d like to speak with you about me staying… staying with you after this is done.”

 

She blushed bright red as she said that last piece.  I nodded slowly and replied, “You aren’t talking about just joining me on my quest to destroy Isocrates’ Rod, are you?”

 

She said nothing at this, only blushing harder, so I continued, “Waiting for your parents to be free speaks well of your discipline, and of you in general.  Once we get your parents out of Mr. Aldric’s grasp, we’ll talk more.  But I want you to know this, if you continue to improve the way you have, it will always be a pleasure to have you at my side.”

 

A bright smile beamed across Felìcita’s face at this.  “Thank you Master, I – I mean thank you Master Knight, I would be honored to join you.”

 

I decided to ignore that little slip for now, “I just wanted to make sure that you’re okay.  You will tell me if you feel upset about what’s happening, right?  No scratch that question.  You will tell me if you feel upset about what’s happening, and that’s an order.  Is that clear?”

 

Felìcita immediately perked up, “Yes Master Knight!  So far, I’ve been trying not to really think about what happened.  I know what happened and it makes me angry as you can expect, but I’m really, really, really trying not to picture the details.  It just makes me uneasy and I’d prefer to avoid that.”

 

I sighed, “Alright Felìcita.  Make sure to let me know if anything changes.  You should get some rest.  In the next few days we’ll be getting your parents free.  You have my word on that.”

 

Leaving Felìcita for the time being, I went down stairs into the inn to deal with the last personal issue of the night.  Aimèe was a bit surprised when I came up to her and she asked if there was anything she could help me with.

 

“Yes.  I need you to find me Veila.  We’re going to need her help for this next bit.”

 

We went back out into town again; fortunately the information gained from the palace was of immense help to us in avoiding the guard patrols.  We slowly made our way back to “The Robin’s Nest” and asked around about Veila.  Evidently no one had heard of her, so Aimèe had to try a few of her father’s tricks again.  Soon we had a location that Veila evidently used to bunk down a few times.  However, of far greater concern to us was the news that two men in black armor with golden swords on the pauldrons were also after her.

 

As such we hurried as fast as possible to the location where Veila evidently made her home.  To our dismay, the door was kicked in and we could hear voices upstairs.  As quietly as possible we crept our way upstairs and prepared to act.

 

We overheard three people in the next room.  One was Veila, the other two seemed likely to be the Golden Saber solders we heard about before.  They were busy interrogating her.

 

“Come on elf.  Why are you being so damn difficult about this?  There’s no reason to hold out on this.”

 

“You sick swine killed my friends!  They were like family to me!”

 

“Yeah, yeah.  But really apart from that what?  I mean, what were those guys and girls really doing for you?”

 

“G-guys and girls?  What do you… Oh  Gods no, tell me that you didn’t…”

 

“Oh yeah.  Your little mate down in the slums?  We found him.  For what its worth, if he ever told you that he’d die for you, he was telling the truth.  Unfortunately you were foolish enough to leave a hair brush at his place.  Those stray hairs really helped our mages track you down.  Poor, poor, foolish whore.”

 

“But… but why?  Why are you even telling me this?  Do you think I’m suddenly going to spill everything when I have nothing left to lose?”

 

Suddenly there was a hard edge to the soldier’s voice, “Listen here you little whore.  You have so much left to lose that you don’t even know about, alright?”

 

Suddenly however he was calm, “But no.  No I don’t think you’ll give this up voluntarily.  That’s why we brought this lovely little collar here.  You see, once we put it on you you’ll be begging us to let you tell us everything you know; and trust me, the fun won’t stop there.  However you can spare yourself all that, if you just tell us where he is voluntarily.  Then we’ll merely kill you and go on our merry way.  Come on, what will that stupid Knight ever do for you anyways?  Its not like he’ll stop what’s about to happen to you?”

 

I couldn’t help it.  I stormed into the room and said in the calmest voice I could, “Well now gentlemen, that’s where you’re wrong.  Dead wrong.”

 

Now, the Golden Saber is home to some of the worst creatures still within their mortal coil.  I could never adequately describe the disgust I feel for every man who wears their colors.  However, I will say one positive thing about them, they know how to fight.  Before I even finished speaking, they were up and had their weapons and shields drawn and facing me.  Reacting through training instilled instincts they both charged at me, attempting to flank me.  I stepped back into the stairwell, accepting the poor balance and elevation as a fair trade for their momentum and flanking, this allowed me to parry both their strikes with my shield and sword.  My attempt to return the blow was foiled by their teamwork, one would work on blocking and holding my blade while the other attacked and their combined efforts were beginning to get to me.  Aimèe was franticly darting back behind me, looking for an opening to move around behind the Golden Sabers and flank them, but the narrow stairwell wouldn’t allow it.  Realizing that this fight wasn’t going my way, I looked around and saw a lamp hanging above the entrance to the building.  At that moment I had an idea.  I called out to Aimèe to fall back and retreated down the stairs.  The Golden Sabers followed with renewed energy, sure they were coming close to victory.  As they were passing through the entrance way, I lunged and struck the lamp over their heads spilling its oily contents on them.  To my dismay, they remained standing upright and didn’t even slide on the oil puddle as they forced me further and further into the street.  

 

The first one laughed at me, “So this is the famous Knight.  I had heard good things about you and your combat skills, but I must say, I’ve been disappointed.  I expected better.  I think I’ll just kill you here and go back to torturing that whore upstairs.”

 

At this moment I saw red, I remembered a fight that seemed like ages ago, the fight against that first ambush by Mr. Aldric’s mercenaries.  I remembered what I was feeling then, the need to protect Martina and Aimèe.  I focused on that again and expanded it.  I thought about how not only would Aimèe and Martina suffer this time, but so would Siegbert, Sieghild, Felìcita, and even people I barely knew like Veila and Captain Rina.  I concentrated on those feelings, dwelling deep within my chest and pushed them away, down my arms and into my blade.  Suddenly, as when fighting that wizard, the blade burst into flames.  I struck out with the blade of fire, hitting my oil drenched opponents and watched as they burst into flames.  As they shrieked and dropped their weapons and shields, I plunged the tip of my sword into the gaps in their face plates, ending them immediately.  

 

The street was silent for a long time after that.  Finally Aimèe broke it with a low whistle, “You know, after something like that, you can’t expect a girl not to think she’s in some bard’s epic.  You should have let them burn longer though.”

 

I shook my head, “Justice isn’t about inflicting pain on others.  Its about alleviating suffering as best as possible.  While leaving them alive would have sated a thirst for vengeance, it also could have impeded justice.  What if their flailing had led them to the puddle of oil near Veila’s house?  What if the resulting fire killed the girl?  What if their screams attracted more of their friends who finished what they began?  No.  You always kill as cleanly as possible.  Creating suffering in others never ends well, a lesion the Golden Saber will soon learn.  Now come, let’s get that poor girl out of there.”

 

Veila took a bit of time to get going.  It turned out that she had a lot of her own treasures in her home that she wanted to pack before she abandoned this home for good.  Aimèe spent the time recovering what she could from the Golden Saber remains; she had a good point when she pointed out that it could possibly be used as some form of disguise in the upcoming attack.

 

Finally we were leaving.  In the distance we could hear the calls of the city guard stumbling on the scene and calling an alert.  Veila turned to me and asked, “So, Knighty-boy.  Do you make a habit of rescuing women from trouble?”

 

Before I could tell her off again about the nickname, Aimèe interjected, “Yes.  Yes he does.  All the time,” and with that she proceeded into an abridged version of our adventures so far with Veila hanging on to every word.  By the time we got back to our inn Veila had reciprocated with some of her own tails of her escapades and the two were practically sisters.  I have the feeling that our little party has just increased by one.

 

That evening, I sat down with Veila and explained to her what I intended to do.  I asked her about ways in and out of the guard stations where Captain Rina could be found and how best to get near her without getting in a fight with the very guards we’re hoping to recruit.  She said that a few of the guards could be relied on to look the other way for a sufficient amount of gold, but not enough to reliably provide a way in.  Then the discussion took a different turn.

 

“However,” Veila said leaning back in her chair and planting her feet on the table, “we don’t have to take her from a guard house…”

 

“What do you have in mind?”

 

“I was thinking… an ambush?  With the Capt’n personally leading the hunt for us at Mr. Aldric’s behest, she’s probably doing a lot of moving throughout the city.  If we can grab her in the middle of one of those moves, we can bypass a lot of the troubles involved with breaching a guard compound.”

 

“Not a bad idea.  We can use the special alchemical arrows that are already made to disable the guards if we can lay an ambush.”  

 

“I heard about those.  I wouldn’t mid the chance to try them out myself.”

 

“Excellent.  Here, come with me.  I’ll introduce you to your fellow archer Princess Felìcita.  I’m sure you’ll hit it off.”

 

“Umm, before we go… Do you remember what I said when I asked about you and Princess Felìcita’s relationship… can you not pass that on?  I don’t care for the monarchy but it still would be in poor taste given… well everything about the Golden Sabers really.”

 

“It was in poor taste before that too, but I’ll keep it to myself.”

 

Well this is going to be pleasant.  

 

After introducing the two elves to each other, something I may come to regret eventually, I moved on to meet with Sieghild to come up with plans for using the city guard to the best effect.  

 

“You know, it seems a bit daft to be planning troop movements for a group of elves who currently want to kill us,” Sieghild said wryly.

 

“Tell me about it.  But they are our best chance of driving out the Golden Sabers and we should have some idea of what to do with them once we free Captain Rina from Mr. Aldric.”

 

“Yeah.  If we tarry too long who knows what those scum will come up with?”

 

Martina looked over our plans with a careful eye.  “You should try to add more counter caster measures and plan to take those siege weapon positions sooner,” she said as though pointing out an inaccuracy in a child’s math problem.

 

I nodded, “Hmm.  Good idea Martina.  That way we can take advantage of your dragon form as much as possible.  However we do need to be careful.  There are still innocent servants and prisoners in the palace so we can’t just burn it to the ground.  Also I’m concerned about Mr. Aldric and that General Zinoviy character.  We overheard that Mr. Aldric was preparing ‘their contingency operations’ whatever that means.  I suspect that it may mean they have another trick or two up their sleeves.”

 

Sieghild furrowed her brow with concern, “We also need to find a way to keep Mr. Aldric from simply running away.  From what you told me he has already disappeared into smoke several times, how do we keep him from doing that when we try to kill him?”

 

“Good question.  The easiest answer is to kill him before he can escape, but somehow I don’t think it’ll be that easy.  Perhaps the mages can come up with something?  Martina, you know the most about magic, what do you think about this?”

 

Martina pulled up a chair and plumped down in it.  I took a moment to enjoy the way gravity played with her human form’s chest before she began to speak.

 

“Its almost impossible to say exactly what we would need to do to counter his teleporting.  No teleport spell I know of has the visual effects that you described and since you didn’t hear any incantation I can’t even find out what the spell might be based on.”

 

“Based on?  What do you mean?”

 

Martina sighed, “Alright sometimes I forget I’m talking to a human without an innate understanding of magic.  All spells are based on some form or school of magic.  Most of the time this is fairly self explanatory.  For instance if you are raising zombies or skeletons from the grave, you are probably using necromancy.  However things get dangerous when you have clever wizards who start switching things around.  To continue our example from before, imagine a wizard who creates skeletons and zombies by animating the corpses the same way that one would animate an ordinary object.  That wizard would be using transmutation rather than necromancy.  In the case of Mr. Aldric, a normal teleportation spell would use conjuration, but whatever he is using creates a different effect and thus may use a different form of magic.  This makes it difficult for a mage to counter.”

 

I frowned, “That’s… discouraging.  I don’t like the idea of this scum getting away.”

 

“It’s worse than you think.  If he’s using something other than a spell, such as a magic item or something it becomes even more difficult to counter.  I’ll do what I can, but if you get the opportunity to kill him then take it.  We may not get very many of those.”

 

I nodded in agreement.  “You don’t have to tell me twice.”

 

Martina looked satisfied with that, “Good.  Then I’ll leave you two to planning the gruntwork and I’ll go prepare spells.”

 

Sieghild gave Martina a sharp look, “Really?  Gruntwork?  Really?”

 

Martina shrugged, “If you’d like I’ll take on the combat role and you can try to study magic?”

 

I decided to interrupt before this could erupt into a full fight, “Say Martina, could you prepare a bunch of those telepathic spells that you told me about on the day of the attack?  Sieghild can you help me figure out how best to use them to coordinate the guard movements?  Thanks.”

 

A few hours later we crashed, resolving to continue this in the morning.

 

 

 

Dear Journal,

 

Since I last updated you a lot has happened.  We spent the next few days going over the same plans and details and preparing more and more for the raid itself.  

 

Over the last few days I have come to worry about Felìcita’s and Veila ‘s partnership.  The two of them have began a rather intense personal rivalry.  It began when Felìcita took offense to the way that Veila constantly referred to me with nicknames like “Knight boy” and such, Veila started teasing Felìcita about how she really seemed to want me to be her “Master.”  This only became worse when Aimèe let Veila in on how Felìcita started to call me that.  I’d lost count of the times I had to break the two of them apart.  Eventually I had to sit the two of them down and tell them that they had to cooperate or everything involved in this plan could fail.  While Felìcita of course readily consented, Veila had to be reminded of what was at stake before she would agree to work with Felìcita.  The first thing I had them do with each other was sit down and talk about what the Golden Saber did to each of them.  While I would like to say that by the end the two of them were crying and hugging, nothing that dramatic happened but it did seem like the two had a newfound respect of sorts for each other. They still trade barbs from time to time, but it’s less venomous and I rarely need to intervene at all.  

 

Better news has come in with regards to Captain Rina.  We think we have an opening to free her from the influence of Mr. Aldric and his magic in the near future.  She will be traveling along with a small contingent of guards from the north end of the city to another district.  Along the way we should be able to ambush her, disable her guards and remove the headband that is keeping her under Aldric’s control.  Hopefully with her help, we can rally the city guard, and hopefully some of the palace guard against Mr. Aldric and the Golden Sabers.  

 

We have our position set for the ambush and the date of the proposed attack.  The only thing left to do is practice, practice, practice.  With scum like Mr. Aldric and his men out there, I don’t want anything left to chance.  

 

 Hopefully when I next write in you Albero Città will be free!

 

 

 

Dear Journal,

 

Well, these have been an eventful few days.  To keep things understandable, I’ll start at the beginning.

 

On the day of the ambush we made our way through the city towards the spot where we were to ambush the Captain and her men.  Felìcita and Veila set up station in a nearby tower, Martina went invisible and took to the skies to provide watch for us, Siegbert waited on a nearby roof with some alchemical surprises that he assured me wouldn’t be lethal to anyone.  Aimèe was watching from the distance, ready to alert us the moment the patrol started heading our way.  Me and Seighild stayed on the ground level, waiting for the patrol to come near.  

 

After a few hours of waiting, we got the telepathic message from Aimèe that the patrol was approaching.  She reported that Captain Rina was leading, and there were six guardsmen trailing her.  I acknowledged her report and asked that she continue to follow them in, just in case we needed her assistance with the attack itself.  I drew my blade and from the sounds of it Sieghild did as well.  In the distance, I could see Felìcita and Veila readying themselves to support us.

 

Finally Captain Rina and her guards came into view.  Fortunately Aimèe’s report was accurate so there was no need to reevaluate plans or make changes.  Combat was initiated by Siegbert when he threw an “alchemist’s web” onto the six guards in the rear, coated by the sticky material, the guards could only flail helplessly as  Felìcita and Veila began to pelt them with knockout arrows.  

 

Captain Rina was another story altogether.  As soon as the first guard was webbed, she drew her blade and got distance from the rest of her patrol, taking cover near a building to prevent being shot by arrows.  At this moment me and Sieghild moved in to engage her.  As we came into view, Rina glared at me and said “You.  I should have known it would be you.  You’ll pay for what you did to my father!”

 

A part of me knew that this was just the effects of Mr. Aldric’s mind control, but it was disconcerting to hear none the less.  Of course I had little time to think of this as Captain Rina ducked into an alleyway.  Me and Sieghild ran after her hoping to chase her down before she escaped, but were surprised to find her just inside the entranceway waiting for us.  Immediately I realized that I had misread the situation and that Rina had positioned herself here to prevent Felìcita and Veila from shooting her and to remove the advantage of numbers that me and Sieghild held.

 

As she cut at my face with her blade I raised my shield to parry and called out, “Rina!  I need you to let us help you!  We know about the circlet that Mr. Aldric has placed on you!  We can get it off and break this enchantment!”

 

For a moment I saw a flicker of relief on her face but it was immediately replaced by an entirely blank expression and Rina redoubled her efforts to kill me.  I was immediately placed on the defensive, franticly parrying as many blows as I could and taking many to my armor.  I saw a few openings to perform a lethal strike, but that wasn’t my objective here.  I told Sieghild to fall back out of the alleyway.  As she complied, I began my own retreat.  Sure enough Rina followed me and for a moment I hoped that she would follow me out into the open where Felìcita or Veila could take her down with a knockout arrow.  However Rina, even while mind controlled, was too clever to fall for that.  She began to fall back again, feigning another retreat.  While I was sure that this was another feint to draw me into the alley, I had to follow in case it was an actual retreat.  However this time she ran further into the alleys and I pursued until I came to an intersection in alleys.  For a moment I thought I lost her, but then I heard the unmistakable noise of a bow being drawn back.  I ducked just in time as an armor piercing arrow flew over my head and turned to face the shooter.  Sure enough Rina had gained enough distance on me in my armor to feel comfortable using ranged weapons.  Not wanting to go directly against bodkin fire, I ran further down the alleyway and took a parallel street hoping to circle around her.  However Rina was ready for that too and the distance she had was even greater than before!  I took cover near some crates of water and watched several arrows fly overhead.  “How many did she have?” I wondered to myself as fire continued.  Guards usually carry about sixty at a time, she must have fired a dozen of those by now.  That still left over thirty more in her quiver.  This would not do.  So sheathing my sword and dropping my shield I picked up one of the massive water barrels and began to charge down the alleyway.  I heard arrows plug one by one into the barrel but they only caused small leaks to form in the barrel.  As I neared her position I heard the clatter of wood on dirt as she dropped her bow and drew her sword.  A quick glance confirmed this and revealed that she had closed the distance between us and was lunging with her sword.  I quickly stepped back and tilted the barrel, spilling water everywhere and intercepting her blade with the bottom of the barrel, getting it wedged in there.  Before I could use the opportunity to disarm her, she managed to pull both her sword and the barrel bottom back.  A quick smack against a nearby wall was sufficient to break the wood off her blade and she quickly got into position to attack again.  

 

At this point a rather ridiculous idea came to me.  It was a bit silly but it would work and it would keep her alive.  I turned the barrel back upright and dropped it right over her head, pinning her arms to her side and causing her to drop her sword to the ground.  Wasting no time I immediately pulled her helmet off and began to pry the golden circlet off her head.  With some effort, it was removed successfully.  Then I had to step back as Captain Rina began to scream.

 

It was a long drawn out scream, one that was the reaction to every indignity and obscenity that occurred to her while she was controlled.  When she calmed down though she looked me in the eyes and said, “It looks like my father was right to trust your character, Sir Knight.”

 

“I’m glad to hear you say that.  For a moment there, I was afraid I did something wrong.”

 

“Not at all Sir Knight.  Not at all.”

 

After helping her back to her feet, the two of us headed towards her patrol.  By this point, some of the guards were beginning to wake up and find themselves surrounded by a gang of dangerous fugitives that they were hunting.  It took a bit of work for Captain Rina to assuage their fears but when she explained what happened a burning anger that I knew all too well emerged in their faces.  

 

When we arrived at the guard precinct, there was a bit of an uproar about our presence.  Fortunately Captain Rina knew her men well and was able to calm them down enough for the truth to come out.  Soon messengers were being sent to the other guard precincts and a small army of guardsmen was being assembled outside.  Captain Rina turned to me and asked, “So what’s your story with Mr. Aldric?  Don’t get me wrong, I’m entirely in your debt for freeing me, but I do wonder why he’s after you.”

 

I shrugged, “I’m not entirely sure to be honest.  All I know is that he’s after a magical item of mine that I’m trying to destroy.”  I decided that she didn’t need to know the full details of Isocrates’ Rod just yet, but she should at least have some idea of what’s going on.

 

I continued, “He’s been trying to obtain it for weeks.  He started with mercenaries and hired criminals but now he’s evidently moved up to seizing a nation and turning its resources against me.”

 

Rina nodded, “That story works with my timetable of events too.  I was wondering why he showed up out of the blue so suddenly, but if you were heading towards Albero Città that would explain a lot.  And now thanks to my experiences with Mr. Aldric’s unique brand of persuasion, I know how he did it too.”

 

“Do you know of any other officials that may-“

 

“May be mind controlled?  Yes, and I’ve already sent guard teams to liberate them from control.  Don’t worry about that.  Now, form what the Princess tells me you have a plan for my men?  I normally don’t like relinquishing control like this to a man I just met, but you did save me and I can certainly see the advantages of acting before Mr. Aldric can come up with a backup plan.”

 

I explained the basic details of my plan to attack and seize the palace and thankfully Captain Rina agreed with it. She had one request though, “When you and your friends enter the palace, I want to be there with you.  I have a few scores to settle with Mr. Aldric and General Zinoviy.”

 

I nodded to her, “That’s more than fair.  Incidentally, I really, really want to apologize for not being able to free you earlier.  I wanted to break those bastard’s necks as soon as I saw what they were doing to you.”

 

To my surprise she smiled back at me, “So you were in the walls that day!  Well, fortunately for your conscious, you did save me that day.  General Zinoviy was so damned concerned with securing the castle and interrogating the prisoners that he didn’t want to waste any time exploiting his control of me.  So in a way you did save a maiden’s honor yet again, Sir Knight.”

 

I sighed with relief, “You cannot begin to imagine relieved I feel to hear that.  In fact-“  I started, “Did you say interrogating prisoners?  Were there any survivors?”

 

Captain Rina nodded confused, “Yeah.  There were a few.  I don’t know how many, but they were there.  I don’t know if they are still alive or not though.”

 

“Thank you!  Veila will be damned pleased to hear that!  I’ll be right back after I tell her.  Remind me to buy you a drink when this is all done!”

 

Captain Rina leaned back in her chair and looked at me with a raised eyebrow, “You buy me a drink?  Please, you saved my life and are about to free my city from a megalomaniac. I’ll be the one buying you a drink!”

 

I smiled at her, “I’ll take you up on that!  I’ll be back in a minute.”

 

I hurried downstairs looking around for Veila, finally I spotted her playing a game of cards with a few of the guardsmen and guardswomen.  From the looks of things, several guards would be out of their drinking money by the time the attack begun.  I politely waited for her to finish her hand and then called her over.

 

“Veila, I was speaking with Captain Rina.”

 

“Yeah, the guard captain.  What of it?”

 

Putting her tone aside for the moment I continued, “She says that after our mission, that General Zinoviy was busy interrogating prisoners.  There’s a chance that some of your friends survived.”

 

The sardonic smile on her face remained fixed, but it seemed to be frozen, with all the playful scorn behind it evaporated and only remaining because the mind behind it couldn’t think of another one to replace it.

 

I continued, “I don’t want to get your hopes up too high, I don’t know if they are still alive but I just wanted to let you know that I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that as many of them come back alive as possible.”

 

Veila blinked a few times and stammered a reply, “Th-thank you Sir – I mean – Knight Guy – I mean Knight Boy.  I don’t really know what to say… I haven’t had a lot of time to think about their loss, I suppose you think that I’m a terrible person for that but –“

 

“No, not at all, Veila.  I’ve been a soldier most of my life.  I understand what its like to lose comrades.  Sometimes the grief hits immediately, sometimes it waits for a quiet moment then hits you like a warhammer to the gut, sometimes it’s a bit of both.  Don’t worry.  And if you need someone to talk to about it, I’m always willing.”

 

Before Veila could respond, an alarm rose up amongst our perimeter guards.  A guardsman burst into the room and called out, “The Golden Sabers have sent a messenger!  They wish to speak with the Knight!”

 

I turned to Veila and placed a hand on her shoulder, “We’ll pick this up later if you want.  I should see what this is about.”

 

“You’re certainly not going alone though,” Captain Rina chimed in as she descended the stairs.  “I want to see what this is about too.”

 

In the end everyone in my party and then some of the guards wanted to see what this was all about.  The small squad marched towards the street where the Golden Saber messenger waited.  As we walked, I noticed that the streets were utterly deserted.  Evidently the tension in the air could be felt by the citizens too and they decided to hide indoors until the violence stopped.

 

The Golden Saber messenger was atypical for the organization I had come to know and loath.  This woman was lightly armored and lightly armed.  Her armor was colored gold with black highlights and symbols, rather than the black armor with golden details that the other soldiers wore.  She looked… fast; like she could dart away at any moment.  Suspecting that my intuition wasn’t entirely inaccurate I conferred with Martina.

 

“Well Sir Knight.  You’re right.  Everything on her is enchanted to enhance her speed.  Must be why she’s a messenger, if we try to capture her she can be gone before we draw a blade.”

 

The messenger looked at the small army approaching her with boredom of all things.  Finally settling her gaze on the heavily armored human male of the group she waked towards me and called out, “Sir Knight I believe?  I am Lieutenant Faina of the Golden Sabers.  I bring a message for you from General Zinoviy.”

 

With that she pulled out a scroll, unrolled it, cleared her throat, and began to read, “The Mighty General Zinoviy, Terror of the Reka Valley, Slayer of the Derevo Lyudey, Bane of Maidens and Virgins, Doom of His Foes…”  his list of titles went on for several minutes before I interrupted.

 

“You don’t really need to list off every title the man was ever given.  What are you trying to do?”

 

The messenger cleared her throat and replied, “The General has recently ordered some Golden Saber specialists on a mission that he would like completed before battle.  This –“

 

I laughed, “Does the General expect us to wait until they return?  I didn’t think he was that foolish.”

 

Lieutenant Faina got an angry flush on her face and continued, “He’s not.  However this mission would be of importance to you and your plans so he felt that informing you of your place in it was only polite.”

 

Martina stepped forward, “So he sent you to fill us in on his plans?”

 

The messenger shook her head, “No.  He sent me to buy time for the specialists to get into position.”

 

With blinding speed she then pulled out a wand and activated the spell stored within.  A burst of energy that I recognized as the wingbider spell burst forward and struck Martina in the chest causing her to wince and fall.   As I ran to catch her before she hit the ground I was wondering why they used a wingbinder spell on a dragon who was already on the ground.  The only purpose it could serve was to keep her grounded.  Since there were too many of us for an ambush to be a good idea, the only reason they could want Martina grounded was…

 

A shadow passing overhead was the only clue that I was right before a massive bird swooped down, seizing Captain Rina in its claws and soaring away.  As I looked up enraged I recognized the Golden Saber soldier known as Kuzma riding the giant creature.  He gave me a sarcastic salute and shouted, “Sorry Sir Knight, General’s orders!” as he flew off.

 

The messenger began backing away slowly.  The General’s message was that he was going to be recovering the stolen property that was Captain Rina.  However he was willing to make you an offer.  If you come to meet him for single combat with one of your own women accompanying you, then he would be willing to face you in single combat.  The winner would take the loser’s woman as his own.”

 

As I drew my sword and lunged at the traitorous messenger, she leapt back and shouted “He’ll meet you in the ruins of the park in one hour!” and ran off in a blinding burst of speed.  

 

“Damnation!” I swore.  I turned to look at one of the lesser officers who was following Rina, “How long until we’re ready to attack?”

 

“Huh?  Oh, it will be at least three hours before the first of the border guard begin to return to aid us.”  

 

I turned to Sieghild, “How necessary are the border guard to our plans?”

 

She responded, “Their eagle mounts will be amazingly beneficial towards a victory, especially if the Golden Saber have more of those giant birds.”

 

“Damn.  All right, I suppose that the General will have his duel.”  I turned to the woman following me.  “Now I won’t force you, but anyone who is willing to volunteer to be the ‘reward’ for this duel would have my eternal gratitude.”

 

Surprisingly everyone, even Martina, volunteered.  She said to me, “I’m not going to let you get yourself killed in a duel over some stupid elf captain.  If it even looks like you’re going to lose, I’m shifting form and ripping everyone apart with my claws, wingbinder spells be damned.”  

 

With that settled we all began our walk to the ruins of the old park to fight General Zinoviy.  

 

When we got there, we could see that General Zinoviy was prepared for us.  The hulking figure stood alone in the center of the park, with a small unit of his men standing nearby.  A giant bird mount for each man sat nearby, pecking at the ruined vegetation.  The General himself looked intimidating with his massive form, his ominous black armor, a sword that would be a two handed weapon in the hands of any other, and a tower shield slung over his back.  

 

Martina growled under her breath at the sight of him, “You know, I could shift to dragon form right now and roast him.  Just say the word and this giant pile of scum becomes so much slag.”

 

However, as if he could hear us, General Zinoviy unsung his shield from his back and presented the face towards us.  To my shock, held by chains to the four corners of the shield was a naked elven woman.  As she looked up, I could recognize her as Captain Rina, an expression of equal parts shame and fury on her face.

 

I turned to Martina, “I think the option of burning them all with your breath has just been taken off the table.”

 

The group of us walked slowly into the park.  As I stepped forward, General Zinoviy approached me as well.  He removed his helmet and I could see a giant smile beaming across his face, “Ah!  The man of the hour!  I cannot possibly express how glad I am to see you!  I knew the moment I heard of you that you’d be the sort of fellow I’d like!  And I see you brought all your women!  Five in all, eh?  Not bad, not bad at all.  You know, if you’d lose that code of honor of yours, I could probably find a place for you in the Golden Saber.  Hells, I’ll even throw in little Rina here as a signing bonus!  What do you think?”

 

I sighed, “I think you’re a disgusting creature; a monster in human form; apiece of low filth that defiles women and slays men.  I would sooner die than work alongside you and I look forward to killing you in this duel.”

 

“So that’s a no on losing the code of honor?  Ah well.  I try never to judge another man by his personal decisions, but I do have to kill you now.  Nothing personal, just business.  So, how do you want to do this?  Count to ten then have at each other or what?”

 

At this moment I was seeing red.  This… this monster’s casual disregard for the tenets I had lived my life around, his loathsome inability to recognize the differences in between us combined with the casual goodwill coming from a monster like that made it almost impossible to think.  I drew my sword and slashed at him shouting, “I want you to die!”

 

He stepped back and drew his own massive blade, “All right then.  Straight to battle it is then!”

 

As I attacked again, he moved to parry.  Suddenly the shield with Rina bound to it was in the path of my blade!  I froze, my hot blood going cold.  I had nearly hurt the woman.  I growled at the General, “Let the woman off your shield.”

 

The General smiled and replaced his helmet.  “No, I think not.  I did just get a new paint job on this shield and I’d rather not get it scratched up just yet.  Fortunately I own the best shield cover one can find, a dumb elven whore!”

 

The way he emphasized the words own and whore were getting my blood up again.  I tried to strike at him twice more but he continued to force Rina’s body in the way so I had to pull back each time.  Then he moved to attack.  I was immediately on the defensive, trying to dodge each strike of the massive blade.  As much as I loathed this man on a personal level, I had to admit he was a master of battle.  He moved that blade as if it was a rapier and seemed to effortlessly know how to counter my every attack.  IT wasn’t long before I was wondering if I was going to be the one losing this battle.  

 

With each aborted strike I made, the General grew more and more confident.  After pulling back from one particularly close call, the General began to taunt me, “You know Knight,” he began as he drove me back with his blade, “You should really take the time to enjoy life more.  Stop a moment and smell the burning ash of the trees and enjoy how our little Rina jiggles and winces when I jerk my shield around.”  He laughed again, “After all, our little fight is the only reason she’s on here after all.  I don’t usually fight with whores on my shield, but today I found out that I’d have a chance to challenge you Sir Knight and I said, you know what?  I’m pulling out all the stops today!  Bring me some cheap chain and let’s put this whore to some use!”

 

As I dodged back to take cover behind a burnt tree something struck me.  Admittedly so did General Zinoviy’s blade as he cut clean through the trunk, but my armor took care of most of that.  Something in his words, “take a moment to enjoy how our little Rina jiggles and winces…” “I don’t usually fight with whores on my shield…” and “bring me some cheap chain and let’s put this whore to some use…”  I had an idea.

 

I focused on Captain Rina, tired to feel the terror and fury that she must be experiencing and again I forced those sensations down my arms and into the blade I wielded.  As it burst into flame, I struck out twice, not at the General, but at his shield.  More specifically I struck the chains binding Rina’s arms to the upper corners of the shield.  As she fell I shouted, “Rina, grab the remains of that trunk now!”

 

A look of understanding crossed her face and she held on to that stump for dear life.  I quickly circled the General who tried to pull back to face me, but his shield arm was being held in place by Rina’s death grip on the stump.  He bellowed, “Damn whore!  Let go of that!”

 

But by then it was too late for him.  Seeing my opening I closed and with my blade burning brighter than ever before, I stabbed up into the weakspots near the arms and was rewarded by a spurt of blood.  

 

General Zinoviy fell to ground in pain.  He made a noise, it took me a moment to recognize it as a laugh, “Well done.  Well done indeed Knight.  Your reputation is quite well deserved.  Its been a while since someone could do something like that to me.”

 

I looked down coldly at him, “You can be as good of a sport as you want to about this.  I can’t let you live.”

 

“Oh I know.  I know.  Your code of honor and all that.  It’s a shame really, I think we could have had a splendid partnership if I had one or you didn’t.  Unfortunately I don’t have one.”

 

“Indeed.  You could have been a good man with one.  The world is a worse place for your lack of it.”

 

“True, but I may have misspoke with that last sentence.  It is especially unfortunate for you that I don’t have a code of honor.”

 

Suddenly a bright light was blazing in my eyes.  The Golden Saber soldiers that the General brought with him rushed forward and began to pull him away.  As he was dragged off, he dropped his shield and Rina with it.  “Go on,” he called out, “take her.  You’ve earned it!”

 

When the light faded, I could see me and my friends were all staggering around trying to maintain balance.  Rina was regaining her composure as well.  She looked up at me with a smile, “Sir Knight, remember what I said about buying you a drink?  Forget it, I’m buying you the nicest dinner I can find in this city instead!  What do you say to –“ at this moment she seemed to remember her current undressed state and flushed a deep red.  I gracefully offered her my tabard to cover herself until we could find another uniform for her and she gratefully accepted.  With that we headed back to the precinct to get ready for the real battle.

 

On the way there Rina and Veila started to chat with me a little more.  Rina spoke first, “Say Sir Knight, have you ever considered working as a guard?  I know that you’re in the Realm’s military, but if you ever want to move on, I’m sure I could find a position for you in the Albero Città guard.  You’d make a great lieutenant.  If you’re interested just let me know.  You’d have good hours, a great wage, and you’d be working directly under me so you wouldn’t have to worry about an unreasonable boss.  Any thoughts?”

 

Before I could answer Veila spoke up too, “You know… if you are interested in more, call them lucrative, opportunities you should talk to me.  I could use a man like you at my side in some of the places I’ve been.  You’re great with a blade and pretty quick witted too.  You’d be good in my line of work.”

 

Rena retorted, “Hah.  I’ve heard of you Miss Veila.  What makes you think that a honorable knight would be at all interested in joining up with you?”

 

“No clue.  Maybe it’s the money?  Maybe the glory?  Maybe not having to deal with someone who gets kidnapped twice a day?”

 

I could see this was about to get ugly so I decided that I should intervene here.  “I’m sorry to have to turn you both down for the time being.  You see, I’m on a quest of sorts already.  I still need to destroy the Rod that our mutual enemy Mr. Aldric is after.  After that, I’ll review my options a little.”

 

Just when I thought that the issue was settled, Felìcita decided to offer her two coppers, “Of course after that, you’ll always be welcome in the Court.  I’m sure I can find several openings for you to fill or positions to take…”

 

And then the whole argument started up again.  I merely sighed and kept walking.

 

When we got to the precinct things had finally begun to get into motion.  The first of the border guard had joined us and we were starting to get a considerable army.  When Captain Rina came into view a cheer rose up from the assembled guards.  When they saw that she was wearing nothing more than my tabard, several more cheers and a few wolf whistles rang through the air as well.  Rina quickly went to her office to get changed into something more decent, before returning.  

 

After that, we went strait to the pre-battle meeting.  Many of the guard commanders were there and while I got a few quiet warnings about Felìcita’s abilities, I assured the doubtful that Felìcita had indeed improved since they last met her and began the meeting.  I explained to the assembled commanders the methods that Mr. Aldric had used to seize control over Albero Città and what he had done and what he intended to do.  I glossed over several details about the specific magic item he was hunting and exactly what had been done to those in his power, I figured it wouldn’t help morale if they learned what had been done to their king and queen.  Of course they knew something bad had happened to them, but I allowed them to think it was particularly harsh imprisonment rather than the truth.  After getting their cooperation through outrage at Mr. Aldric’s actions, I then told them what I intended, to free Albero Città from his grasp.  I explained the resources at his disposal including mind control and the Golden Saber soldiers.  Finally I told them what had to be done.  I explained where the guard units would be stationed and what I expected them to do.  I also assigned units to attack the palace itself and begin sweeping it of the Golden Saber.

 

I concluded by saying, “While I expect that the inner palace is where most of the Golden Saber is concentrated, the outer layers will likely be highly defended as well.  Fortunately with the border guard eagle riders here, we should be able to clear those well enough.  Just follow the same procedures that you would normally use for clearing a building.  Are there any questions?”

 

The men as a whole had none so I dismissed them leaving only the few of us there to iron out last minute details.  Captain Rina had the first major question, “So Sir Knight, where will you be in this battle?”

 

I looked at her surprised, “Huh?  I was planning on being with the front line troops, helping out there.  Why do you ask?”

 

Rina shook her head, “No, that won’t work.  If you’re in the thick of things you won’t be able to command effectively.  You’re effectively the one in charge here and hearing your side of this story made a lot of the men and women respect you and your leadership.”

 

I was about to voice my contempt for sitting back while other men died for your cause when Sieghild broke in, “She’s right Sir Knight.  I know you’ve fought in cavalry units and sometimes commanded them, but leading an army is different from that.  You can’t be with the men, you’ve got to be emotionally distant enough to send them into difficult places expecting them to die and you need to be physically distant enough to be able to spot those positions.  Neither of those work on the front line.  You should try to grab one of those eagles or something and monitor the battlefield from there.”

 

“He can mount me,” Martina broke in, “Err, I mean he can ride me – Ride on my back.  That way he can get a good view of the battle and participate when I strafe their soldiers.  As long as your counter mage procedures are up to par it should be perfectly safe.”

 

The other women looked a bit flustered at this but eventually reluctantly agreed that the idea would work.  Rina broke open the guard armory and got me a lance and harness that were sized for massive mounts.  She looked at me, “This lance was originally made for a mammoth rider who was causing trouble for Albero Città a few years back, I think it will work well on dragon back too.  The harness comes from a lizard rider who came from the east and got himself killed in a bar fight.  It lookes about the right size for a dragon, but I’m not exactly sure.”

 

I responded, “Thank you for these.  They look perfect for the job.  By any chance would I be able to buy these from the city after – “

 

“No you can’t, I’m already giving them to you for free.  Consider them a gift,”  Rina put her hand on my shoulder, “and be safe up there.  It could get pretty dangerous,” suddenly she smiled, “and I can’t have you dying before I get a chance to buy you that dinner!”

 

“I look forward to it!  I’m off to mount Martina, I’ll see you at the palace gates!”

 

I met Martina in one of the precinct’s break rooms.  She was standing there alone looking nervous.  When she saw me enter she ran over to me and said, “Alright, I may have made a terrible mistake.  I saw some of the border guard with their birds earlier.  You should try to take one of those!  Trained to work with riders in combat!  I’m not!  I don’t know what to do!”

 

I patted her shoulder to put her at ease, “Its pretty easy Martina.  Horses can figure it out, surely a mighty dragoness can too.  Most of the training is getting the animal to ignore its instincts and run at things it normally would try to avoid, getting it acclimated to battle, all those things.  You don’t have to worry about that.  You’re already one of the toughest girls in this group!”

 

“Well… I don’t know the commands of a mount!  What you tell me to go some direction and I go the wrong way and get you killed?  What then?”

 

I sighed, “The commands are pretty easy and mostly self explanatory.  In horses, it involves a lot of instinct on their part.  I can run through some of them with you though if you’d like.”

 

“Yes!  Er, yes that would be helpful.”

 

“All right then,” I sat down in a tall chair and pulled Martina in close so that our hips were touching.

 

“Wha – Sir Knight, what are you doing?”

 

“Relax Martina, I’m showing you the commands.  It would work better in your dragon form, but there’s hardly enough room to transform in here and I’d rather not give any wizards a chance to throw a wingbinder at you before our counter mage procedures are ready.  Is that okay with you?”

 

“Y-yes it is.  I just didn’t expect you to… er… let’s just get started.”

 

“Alright Martina.  I’m going to be using a shield and lance while I’m on your back, you don’t need to worry too much about me staying on as Rina gave me a harness for riding that should help.  Since I’m going to have my hands full I won’t be able to use a bit and bridle with you, and it would probably interfere with your breath weapon anyways, so I’ll be guiding you with my legs.”  As I wrapped my legs around Martina’s waist, I felt a shiver go down her back.  I continued, “The basic tool to guiding a horse with your legs, or in your case guiding you with my legs, is pressure.  If I increase pressure in a certain way, it is an indicator that you should be turning.  Normally on a horse, I’d move my legs around to apply pressure on its outside or inside legs to guide it, but on a dragon that won’t work as well.  Its going to take some time to get this perfect, neither of us are exactly used to this.  I’ll have to learn how to give commands on dragonback while you’ll have to learn to receive them correctly.  In short, if I apply pressure with my right leg,” as I said this I pushed with my right leg against her hips, “then you should move left, or away from my push.  If I push with my left leg, you should move right.”  I switched the pressure and again pushed against her hips.  Martina was a bit flushed and beginning to but her lip here, but I continued anyways.  “Now I don’t normally work with flying mounts, but I understand that the commands to dive and rise use the same sort of system.  If I remember correctly, I squeeze both legs and lean forward to indicate a dive,” I suddenly squeezed both my legs around her hips and pushed into her lightly.  Martina gasped and flushed harder.  “Whereas if I lean back it indicates a need to go higher,” I finished pulling away from her slightly. She was trembling all over now and was panting a little.  “Now, even if I have you in a bit and bridle and with reigns, I won’t have a free hand to use them.  So the cue to stop or slow down is going to be a little more subtle than usual.  It is going to be another squeeze, but this will be done with my calves rather than my thighs,” as I said this I wrapped my legs around her and this time pulled her hips into mine, eliciting another gasp from Martina and an even deeper flush.  “Fortunately the cue to go faster is easier and even harder to confuse.  It is going to be a swift kick to the flanks as it were.”  As I said this, I took my hand that was resting on her hip, slid it lower and slapped.  She stiffened and her face took on a hue to match her dragon form’s scales.  I continued as though I hadn’t noticed, “Fortunately I don’t have spurs so it shouldn’t hurt too much when I need to do that.  Multiple kicks though,” and here I couldn’t resist giving the proud dragoness a few more playful slaps to the hindquarters, “mean that I need you to go really fast, right now.”

 

I got off the chair and stepped away from Martina, who was still flushed, breathing heavily, and biting her lower lip hard enough that I was worried that she’d draw blood.  

 

“Those are the basics of being a mount in combat.  Do you think you’re up to it?”

 

Martina took a moment to try to regain her composure, failed and then spoke anyways, “What happens if I forget one of the commands?  What will we do then?”

 

I shrugged.  “Its not a major deal.  We can iron out the details using that telepathy spell you have after all.  I’ll expect I’ll be doing most of the commands through that anyways.”

 

The outraged look in Martina’s face was something I will treasure until the end of my days.  Admittedly at the moment it looked like that could be coming up soon though.  Martina shrieked, “What?  We can just do that?  Why didn’t you say so?  What was the point of all that – that – that training?”

 

I shrugged again, “You asked Martina and I figured that you wouldn’t forget about your own spell.  And from the looks of it you didn’t mind it too much.  Now come on, we have a war to win.”

 

Martina was still fuming, but for the time being was okay.  She told me, “It’s a good thing fire dragons like me don’t have to take cold baths after something like that.  Otherwise I’d have to take one that was so long I’d miss the entire battle.”

 

I looked at her with what must have been a deeply amused grin plastered across my face, “Sorry about that.  You can still take one if you want.”

 

“Nah.  Fire dragons don’t typically do well with cold, especially cold water.  We need to maintain a very high body temperature to stay alive.  We can survive brief douses but we’d better get dry and surrounded by warmth pretty soon.”

 

I filed that away under “Things that are important to know” and let the matter drop, well mostly.  I still made a few jokes about not being able to wait to see her in nothing but a harness and a saddle that made her blush even harder but apart from that the preparation time for the battle went smoothly.  

 

Finally the time had come for the main assault.  I met Martina in the courtyard, she was indeed wearing nothing but a harness and a saddle but as she had shifted to her draconic form the sight was a fair bit less attractive than it could have been.  Never the less, I still kept up the playful banter as I got my self strapped into the saddle, “Hello Martina.  Ready for another riding lesion?”  For the sake of decency and Martina’s pride I used our telepathic link to message this.

 

To my pleasant surprise the dragoness’ telepathic voice sounded like her pleasant human one rather than the roaring hiss of her dragon body’s voice, “You’re lucky I’m so fond of you Knight.  This form always reminds me of how small and edible you really are.”

 

“And that voice always reminds me that you’re adorable when you’re blushing.”  I leaned back and slapped her flank and was rewarded with a familiar gasp as Martina took to the air.  

 

I’d forgotten how splendid the view from a dragon’s back was.  From here I could see everyone on the ground below.  When you combined this viewpoint with Martina’s telepathic spells the effect was incredible.  I could guide men to exactly where they needed to be and use them to devastating effect.  Although the Golden Saber soldiers were probably tougher and better trained than the elves, we were able to simply guide the soldiers into the best positions.  There were several attempts by the Golden Saber to set up their own aerial positions to fight us with their giant birds, but Martina and I took care of most of them with ease.  Soon the Golden Saber troops were falling back to the inner palace.  Me and Martina made another circle above the palace, checking for stragglers before getting ready to breach the inner palace.  We then spotted the small garden where Aimèe, Siegbert, Sieghild, Felìcita, Veila, Captain Rina, and several of the important guard commanders were waiting for me before breaching the palace.  

 

We landed and I dismounted Martina and stood to the side as she transformed from her draconic form into her humanoid form… which was wearing nothing but a harness and a saddle.  

 

Everyone reacted differently, many of the men took the opportunity to stare and a few catcalled or wolf whistled, Siegbert’s jaw simply fell open.  Many of the women looked at her with amusement tinged with envy and Aimèe and Veila even joined in with the men in cheering.  Martina for her part looked horrified, covered herself as best as she could, and shrieked at Rina, “Damn it to the Hells!  Rina, was this harness enchanted?”

 

Rina, still looking shocked stammered, “Er… Yes, the previous owner may have had it enchanted to some extent.  What does that have to do with –“

 

“If its enchanted it will change shape with me!  Damn it all!  Someone get me a robe or something!”

 

I took off my cloak and wrapped it around her, “Its not much but it will cover you until we can find something more decent.”

 

While someone ran off to find a spare mage’s robe, the rest of us got to talking tactics.  Or at least got to talking.

 

Aimèe and Veila took up spots on either side of Martina and leaned in.

 

Aimèe gave Martina a coy smile, “So… how was your first time being ridden by Sir Knight?”

 

Veila picked up where Aimèe left of, “And did he get that harness just for the occasion?  How cute.  I’ll bet you felt all tingly when you put it on.”

 

At this moment I saw the runner coming back with a wizards robe.  I decided to take the opportunity to rescue Martina from the two rogues and took the robe from the runner.

 

I walked it over to Martina, still blushing from the jokes that Aimèe and Veila were throwing her way and handed it to her, “Here you go Martina.  This should help,” and when she stood up to leave I leaned in and kissed her on the cheek.  She lit up like a fireball at that, but she smiled back and ran off to go change.  I turned to the absolutely stunned Aimèe and Veila.  “Alright you two, I understand that you like to tease people from time to time, but watch out that you don’t become too mean.  And back of Martina a little, okay?  She’s already had enough teasing for today.”

 

Martina returned and we set to work laying the final plans for the entrance into the palace.  There were a few crude jokes and a few sideways glances that I didn’t care for the tone of, but cracking my knuckles loudly near the heads of the perpetrators seemed to get the point across.  

 

Interruptions aside, soon enough we had a plan of attack prepared for the palace.  Several guardsmen had formed a makeshift battering ram out of a heavy cart and a large log and were starting to batter down the palace doors.  I cautioned everyone to remain careful, without aerial reconnaissance, we wouldn’t have as much of an advantage as we did last battle.  As I finished speaking, the battering ram burst through the door, heedless of my warnings, the guards swarmed in and were cut down by crossbow bolts.

 

“TAKE COVER!  GUARDSMEN TAKE COVER NOW!  AGIANST THE WALLS BY THE DOOR!”   

 

With their comrades dead, the rest of the guardsmen were quick to obey my orders.  I quickly moved over to the wall next to the door and pulled out a small mirror from my belt pouch.  I angled it around the corner and used the reflective surface to see what was beyond.  I immediately noticed about twelve Golden Sabers standing guard and was puzzled, twelve people shouldn’t have been able to take down almost twice their number of city guards, but then I saw their weapons.  Repeating crossbows, emblazoned with runes.  The guards were probably able to cut down a guard or two each before they ran out of targets.  These would be difficult to deal with.  I was wondering whether or not I could clear the distance between them in time before I got shot (probably not), when I felt a tugging at my tunic.  I turned around to see Siegbert standing there.  “What is it Siegbert?  Is something wrong?”

 

“Quite the contrary actually.  I think I may have the solution to our problems right here.”  With a smile that I can only describe as wicked, Siegbert held up a large flaks of some opaque orange solution.  “This little baby may be my claim to immortality should I fail to find the perfect Lager mix that is.  You are familiar of course with traditional alchemist’s fire, yes?  Well I took that recipe and made a few adjustments to it.  Behold: Siegbert’s Challenge!  Oh, quick question, is there anything in the way there that can be burned that you don’t want burned?  Might be important.”

 

I looked in the mirror again.  No hostages, no wooden or otherwise flammable support pillars or scaffolding, no vital documents, no valuable scrolls (that I could see).  “It looks clear Siegbert.  Have at it.”

 

With another wicked grin Siegbert hurled the flask with all his strength into the room near the Golden Saber.  I heard a crash, something that sounded like a strong wind, and then silence.  I looked at Siegbert quizzically.  “Shouldn’t there have been… some sort of boom?  The sound of fire crackling?  The smell of smoke?  Something?”

 

Siegbert was looking worried and confused and trying to think what may have went wrong.  I looked in the mirror again hoping that the soldiers would at least be distracted, and was surprised to see what was inside.  I stepped into the doorway and called out to Siegbert.  “Hey, you may want to see this.  I think when you were doing your alchemy equations do you think you might have dropped a plus or a minus somewhere?  Cause I think you dropped a plus or a minus somewhere.”

 

He looked at me, noticed that I wasn’t being shot to pieces and stepped closer to see what I saw.  The soldiers were still there, standing in position ready to fire, but a thick layer of ice covered each of them.  One had tried to fire his crossbow, but the entire mechanism froze up and the bolt was only just exiting the bow before it too froze in place.  It was quite the tableau.  Siegbert looked around and shrugged.  “I guess this works too.”

 

We continued on into the palace afterwards.  I sent out guard teams to begin to clear the area.  Others would, with any luck, be entering through the old smuggler’s tunnels in the basements while still others tried to climb in sufficiently large windows to try to clear the area of soldiers that way.  Naturally we encountered resistance.  We encountered resistance all over.  Similar set ups to the one before, and Siebert’s Challenge kept on working its magic (or in this case alchemy).  Suddenly we heard the voice of a Golden Saber sergeant ring out, “Men, fall back!  Fall back to the portals!  We’re retreating!”  

 

Martina turned to look at me, “Portals?  You didn’t say anything about them having portals!”

 

“I didn’t know!  I didn’t see any, what about you Captain Rina?”

 

The elf shook her head, “I heard nothing of them, and I was amongst them longer than you.  They must have been recently added.”

 

“Damn.  ALL RIGHT MEN!  WE’RE DOUBLE TIMING IT TO THE ENEMY!  KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN AND ALERT!  LOOK FOR ANYTHING THAT COULD BE A PORTAL!”

 

Martina looked at me, “They should also look for something that is powering these portals.  It would be big and encased in a crystal cage of sorts.  If they shatter it, the portals will cease to work.  And you do have that telepathy spell with their commanders, you can use that and they will relay those orders.  You don’t need to shout.”

 

“Sorry Martina, force of habit.”

 

I relayed what Martina told me about the potential for a portal power source to the men and we set off at an increased pace for the heart of the palace, the throne room.

 

When we got there, the Golden Saber retreat was already underway.  Men were pouring into the portal in rapid succession and very few were left.  There were only two sources of consolation in this, one that they at least didn’t appear to be taking any prisoners with them, two that Mr. Aldric, General Zinoviy, and that messenger woman Lieutenant Faina were still amongst those still present.  I quickly halted my squad and began to approach as quietly as I could.  Lieutenant Faina appeared to be busy casting some sort of healing spell on General Zinoviy.  Mr. Aldric was standing a fair distance back.  As the Lieutenant finished her work, Mr. Aldric moved in closer.  

 

“I see your cleric is finished with her… distasteful work.”

 

“I’m sorry about that sir.  I’m not quite ready to follow your path into undeath just yet.  Maybe when I’m getting up there in years, but not today.”

 

“As you wish General.  As you wish.  You still have failed me however… do you intend to make this up to me somehow?”

 

“Don’t worry Sir, this is only a minor setback.  We’ll find another way to recover your Rod.”

 

“Good.  It is vital that you do so General.  For your sake as well as mine.”

 

Suddenly they began to move, realizing that I was loosing my only chance to get these bastards, I charged into the room.  The three of them whirled around to face me.  To my surprise, General Zinoviy quickly pushed his messenger/cleric into the portal saying “Get going girl!  I’ll see you on the other side!” before drawing his sword.

 

As he was about to step forward to challenge me, Mr. Aldric placed his hand on his shoulder, “General, we haven’t the time for this.  The Knight has won this day.  Even if we slew him, his allies would keep the rod from us.”

 

With that he left through the portal, as the General turned to follow him I lunged desperately at him but he parried my blade as before and said, “It is a shame that we cannot test blades against each other again.  But hopefully soon.  Yes… then I will – AUGH!  MY EYE!”  As I looked up, an arrow had found its way through his helmet’s eye slots and into his eye.  I turned to see Captain Rina with her bow out.

 

“Oh no you don’t you scum!  You aren’t getting away after what you did!”

 

General Zinoviy managed to stand straight despite the pain he must have been in and looked Captain Rina dead in the eyes, “For that Captain Rina, I will get away.  And I assure you that I will be back to repay this injury tenfold.  Goodbye Captain,” and with that he stepped into the portal.  I lunged forward hoping to dive in after him, but the portal flickered closed and I only stumbled through empty air.

 

While I said at the end of my last journal entry that Albero Città would be free, I still feel like I have failed.  Not only have I failed to permanently stop the danger that is Mr. Aldric and General Zinoviy, but I feel as though I’m still no nearer to understanding why they are targeting Isocrates’ Rod in the first place.  While the mood of the city is festive and joyful, there is even a celebration planned in our honor next week, I still feel like I should have ended this today.  Hopefully the next few nights will ease my mood and relieve some of my stress.

 

Goodnight Journal.

 

 

 

[This entry appears to have been added at a much later date by simply insertion of the relevant papers in between regular journal entries]

 

A recording of the the most honorable proceedings of the Fourth Dragonmoot Council on the Fate of Isocrates' Rod held on the Eve of Winter's Advent.   The proceedings were held in the Dragonmoot Council Chambers and the surrounding environs. The meeting was presided over by the most high Regulus the Terrible, Chairman and Speaker of the Council. The minutes and transcription of this meeting were performed by Decimus of the 10th Chair of the Council.

 

Regulus enters the Chambers followed by his guard. All present rise out of respect for his station.

 

Regulus: Sit down everyone.

 

He takes his seat and the council followed suit.

 

Regulus: I now call to order the Fourth Dragonmoot Council Regarding the Fate of Isocrates' Rod. All in favor?

 

There is a general chorus of agreement.

 

Regulus: [Deep sigh] I now allow any who feel unwilling or unsuitable for ruling on this matter to withdraw and spare their honor.

 

There is a shuffling of feet and draconic councilors who primarily took this position for the additional glory, monetary compensation, or other perks leave the chamber. The only councilors left are Regulus and those of us who were unlucky enough to be forced into duties for this meeting, such as myself.

 

Regulus: [Deeply sighs again] Typical. Just typical. I move to abandon normal proceedings due to the fact that I'm evidently the only councilman with an actual opinion on this matter. All in favor? [He raises his hand sarcastically] Well the ayes have it. Doorman, please call in my agents.

 

The first of Regulus' agents enter the chambers and stand at attention.

 

Agent: Special Agent Valerius reporting as ordered, Chairman.

 

Regulus: At ease Agent Valerius. What have you found out about this… Mr. Aldric?

 

Valerius: Sire, he appears to have been behind several attacks on your chosen agent for the Isocrates' Rod disposal mission. I tracked him to the elven land of Albero Città where I was able to observe him from a distance. It appears that your suspicions of his undead nature were correct.

 

Regulus: And have any clues to his identity?

 

Valerius: Regrettably no, sire; we are no closer to confirming your suspicions.  However it is notable that his trail begins in the land of Omrachena Zemli, formerly known as Édra ti̱s Exousías.

 

Regulus: Hmm... indeed.  Tell me Valerius, what of the Knight himself?  Is he still... what's the word?  Bound to the mission?

 

Valerius:  Err... well sir, it appears that the binding you placed on him was... err... removed by this Mr. Aldric. None the less he still remains dedicated to the mission and its success.

 

Regulus turns to Petronius, the Keeper of Prophecy for this meeting.

 

Regulus: So Petronius. Do you still think me paranoid for thinking that the Prophecy of Vengeance is upon us?

 

Petronius sits up for perhaps the first time this meeting.

 

Petronius: Hrmm?  Uh... the signs and portents are unclear...

 

Regulus: Of course they are.  Valerius, you may continue. What was this Mr. Aldric doing in Albero Città anyways?

 

At this point the agent launched into a long and detailed story about mercenaries and mind control and guards. I'll confess that I tuned out for much of the story. Only coming back when the agent mentioned that "she was abducted by a soldier of the Golden Saber mounted on a giant bird of some kind."

 

Regulus: I'm sorry, who did you say got abducted?

 

Valerius: That would be one Captain Rina. Another elf who seems to have gotten caught up in the Knight's wake.

 

Regulus: That is odd... if Mr. Aldric is who I suspect then he would normally target a dragon whenever possible, which is why I entrusted this mission to a human after all…

 

Valerious: Well sire, if it makes any difference, this seems to have been orchestrated purely by the mercenary commander.

 

Regulus: Hmm... possibly. However I still would have expected a similar avian attack on Martina as well.

 

Petronius: Hah!  As if!  A human would have to get up pretty early to pull one over on a dragon!

 

Guard: Perhaps the humans spoke true when they said that the early bird gets the wyrm.

 

Regulus: Maximus, Petronus, thank you for your... contributions. Now Valerius, what are the Knight's current plans?

 

Valerius: Sire, now that the Knight has succeeded in foiling Mr. Aldric's plans in Albero Città, it appears that he intends to stay in the city for a week or so and then head Northeast to the Druidic Groves to enjoy their hot springs.  

 

Regulus looks surprised.  I am noting this down as it may be one of the few times in history that this has happened.  

 

Regulus:  I’m sorry… did you say the hot springs?

 

Valerius: Yes sire.  I did.

 

Regulus: As in naturally occurring hot water?  Humanoids tend to use it to relax?

 

Valerius: Yes sire.

 

Regulus: And the Knight is heading there?  Why?

 

Valerius: While I wasn’t lying when I said the Knight was still committed to his mission, he also can perform his own actions now.  He apparently wishes to reward the women that he is traveling with for their hard work and perseverance in dealing with Mr. Aldric.  Would you like me to try to sabotage the trip to divert the Knight back onto Mr. Aldric’s trail?

 

Regulus:  By the Lords, no!  With the way things are going, the mission would fail and he’d track the attack back here and try to kill us all.  Just let them be, but keep me informed if they decide to linger too long there.  

 

Valerius: Yes sire.  Out of curiosity, how long is too long?

 

Regulus: [Sighs] Use your own discretion.

 

Petronius: Hah!  A hot spring.  I’m pretty sure that none of the Prophecies of Vengeance mentioned a hot spring in them.

 

Guard: No, but it is a harbringer of the Age of the Half Dragons….

 

Petronius: Er… yes, yes it is at that.  The stars and portents indicate that that is more likely than the Prophecy of Vengeance.

 

Regulus: [Deeply sighes again and places his face in his hands] Petronius, there is no such thing as the Age of Half Dragons.  Maximus, quit making things up.

 

Guard: Sorry sir.  

 

Regulus: You know what?  Meeting adjourned.  I’ll meet with my agents on my own time.  Everyone is dismissed.  Get out.

 

 

 

Dear Journal,

 

The last few days have certainly lightened my mood.  We were being hailed as heroes for a change rather than villains and it was a pleasant change.  We could hardly pay for a drink on our own, we were that well regarded.  It also was a relief to my party as well, after so long of fighting Mr. Aldric and his minions, it was nice to see them smiling again.

 

Siegbert was taking advantage of his newfound fame to try to import dwarven beer culture (with a particular emphasis on Lagers) to Albero Città.  I would often hear him at the other end of a tavern expounding on the differences between the various forms of beers.  “No, a stout is an ale, not a lager.  You see, you know dwarven porters right?  They needed to eat something filling and often they were so busy they didn’t have time for anything more than a drink.  So some genius brewers came up with the idea of making a dark, rich, and bold beer that would be filling to them, naming it a porter after the main drinkers.  A few years late someone upped the ante and made one that was even darker and richer than that and dubbed it a stout.  Neither is a Lager.  The main difference between a Lager and an Ale is…”

 

Veila was also having a better time.  When it turned out that several of her gang were still alive she was overjoyed.  Unfortunately this relief didn’t last long as they had to bury the remains of their friends who weren’t so lucky.  After the funeral, they disappeared for a while before Veila returned alone saying that they had agreed to temporarily disband in light of recent events.  “It just wouldn’t be the same without Agata and Catriona,” Veila said when I asked her what brought this change about.  “Plus, I wouldn’t be able to join you to hunt down this Aldric bastard if I was busy leading a gang.”

 

“It would be a pleasure to have you with us.”

 

“Thanks, Aimèe told me that you’d say that.   She promised to take me shopping later today to buy me ‘some decent armor,’ evidently you got her started on this idea so I’m probably going to be blaming you for this later.”

 

“That’s fine as long as you thank me for it when it saves your life,” I replied with a smile.

 

Felìcita was also enjoying her week.  She got to see her family again after all.  Fortunately they were found alive in the palace dungeons where they were locked to prevent their escape during the battle.  After speaking with them for a long time about what happened (I decided that that was a conversation best left to themselves) they evidently moved on to what she was doing the past few weeks.  Thus I’ve been invited over for dinner in the palace to meet the royal family, even more so than normal for a national hero.  To my immense surprise, they were quite supportive of Felìcita coming with me to hunt down Aldric.  I asked the king in private about that later, “Sire, I know its not my place to ask, but you seem to be unusually accepting of your daughter’s choice here.  I value her companionship and her work at my side, but I would have thought that you’d have more concerns about her going off into danger.”

 

The king patted my shoulder affectionately.  “My boy,” a term he’s begun to use to refer to me ever since Felìcita told him about what she’d been doing recently, “I am concerned about her.  But there are other things to consider too.  When I refused to streamline her admission to the border guard, it was because she was – to be quite frank – spoiled.  She didn’t care for much of her training and instructors and it showed.  She would have been killed several times over if she joined.  Then after being forced to admit her by Aldric, she met you.  All of the sudden she’s taking preparing for combat seriously and I think she might actually live through a fight.  She’s also less spoiled than she was before and she seems to listen to you.  I don’t know, and I don’t think I want to know, why she listens to you, but she does; and that may save her life one day.  So now that she’s disciplined enough to survive a fight, and wants to risk her life in service to Albero Città, all that I can do is pray that she finds a worthy cause for it.  And I personally can’t think of any cause worthier than hunting down the scum that is Mr. Aldric.  I only have one request of you, my boy.”

 

“Whatever it may be sire, I’m always willing to assist.”

 

“Be good to Felìcita, okay?  Don’t just keep her safe, but be good to her if you can?  She’s still my little girl deep down and… well…”

 

“I… I’ll do what I can…”

 

“Thank you my boy.  That’s all I can really ask.”

 

While I’m on the subject of the elven women in my party, I should probably include Captain Rina.  She has requested permission from the King to join me in the hunt for Mr. Aldric.  While there were a few questions at the appeal about whether or not her emotions would get in the way of her duties, I pointed out that that would be true of every member of my band and that Captain Rina had some first hand knowledge of how Mr. Aldric works from the brief times she was mind controlled by him and accepted orders from him.  Thus she was granted the permission.

 

As we were leaving the appeal Captain Rina spoke up, “You know, I’ve been meaning to buy you that thank you dinner, but it looks like you’re already getting most of your meals for free at the royal palace and you’re moneys no good in this town the rest of the time.  At least if I go with you, we can probably find at least one nice restaurant that hasn’t heard of you.”

 

“I’ll have that to look forward too.  Plus I have a small surprise of my own for you girls.  Something I readied as a way of saying thank you for the hard work you’ve done lately.  I think you’ll like it.”

 

I then deflected all the Captains questions and left to meet Martina at the Albero Città Arcane Library.

 

While I had been juggling three different elven women, which isn’t a mean feat, Martina had been hard at work researching Isocrates’ Rod.  I went into the library, pestered a few of the librarians into telling me where Martina was conducting her research, and walked over to the private room where she was researching.  She seemed deep in concentration so I didn’t want to disturb her initially; finally she sighed and put down the book.  I crept over to her, and suddenly leaned in and kissed her on the neck.  I was rewarded with the familiar gasp and flush that I had come to love, this time there was even a small puff of smoke with the gasp, which is surprisingly adorable.  “Hello Martina, how’s the research coming?”

 

“It was going fine until you distracted me with your – with your l-lewd advances!  S-stupid human…” Even as she said that last bit I could see her smiling before she continued, “So where were you all day?  I was expecting your help hours ago.”

 

I sat down next to her, “Well, Veila wanted to get my approval to join us, the King wanted to speak to me about his approving Felìcita’s continuing participation on my quest, and then I had to testify that Captain Rina wouldn’t be emotionally impaired if she joined us… so I guess I’ve been up to my ears in elven women all afternoon.

 

“You should quit trying to make me jealous, I’m sure it won’t end well.  Speaking of which, are you still having dinners with the royal family?”

 

“Yes, I’m pretty sure the King is willing to outright admit me into the family.  He’s been referring to me as his son lately and has all but given me permission to spend as much time with his daughter as I’d like.”

 

“Does he know about your… popularity with the rest of the party?”

 

“… I think he suspects.  He’s not blind or dumb.  And if he didn’t suspect, I’d imagine that Felìcita would have mentioned something already.  I think he disapproves but is staying out of it overall, he only asked me to ‘be good to Felìcita,’ whatever that means.”

 

“I guess it means we’ll have a housepet one day.  Don’t give me that look, I’m sure she’d enjoy wearing nothing but a collar with a leash for you.”

 

I chuckled, “Big words from someone who was so readily accepting mount training the other day.  Don’t think I didn’t see you stowing that harness away.”

 

Martina looked down and flushed again, “That… was… for riding me.  In combat I mean!”  

 

“Of course.  I look forward to giving you some ‘advanced lessons’ in the near future.  In the meantime, I’ve got a surprise to arrange for you ladies.  Just a little way of saying thank you, so you’ve got that to look forward to.  Now I’ve got a few errands to run associated with that, so I’ll catch you later to review what you’ve learned.  Goodbye lovely!”

 

The particular errand I had to do was actually at Sieghild’s request.  The day after we had freed the city, she spent the entire day looking around.  Evidently she had found the one blacksmith in town that met her dwarven standards and wanted me to meet her there in a few days.  

 

When I got there, to my surprise there were two dwarfs maids awaiting me, one was Sieghild.  She stepped forward and spoke, “Hello Sir Knight.  Ever since you surrendered yourself to save my brother I have been looking for a way to repay you, to say that I appreciate and value what you risked on my family’s behalf.  As such I called my cousin here, she’s the best arcane blacksmith our clan has.  With your permission, we’d like to make some improvements to your armor.  These improvements would bolster your speed, strength, endurance, and defense.   This would help you by – “

 

“Relax Sieghild.  I am grateful to accept your offer, but I should say that it’s not necessary.  I promised you that I would do my best to protect Siegbert and treat him as though he were family, I keep my word in these matters.”

 

Sieghild’s cousin nodded to her.  “I can see why you thought him worthy.  Sir Knight, It will be a pleasure to work on your armor for you.  Sieghild, why don’t you take his measurements for improving the fit while I get the forge ready.”

 

I could tell that Sieghild was nervous as she removed my armor and started to take my measurements.  It was a pleasant sensation to feel her hands running up my legs and across my chest with the measuring twine.  It was somewhat awkward on both of our parts but it was manageable until she had to measure my… well… my cup size.  As she felt around, a ruddy blush forming on her face, suddenly… well suddenly the parts of me that I was keeping as stiff as steel (for correct measurement) felt like jelly and the parts of me that were relaxed suddenly became as stiff as steel.  Sighild froze, the blush on her face growing redder as she squeaked, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

 

I noticed that she hadn’t removed her hand yet let alone averted her eyes, but the poor girl felt bad enough so I didn’t point that out.  “Its okay Sighild, its just something that happens sometimes.  Nothing to fret about.”

 

All of the sudden, we both head a low whistle.  Turning to face it we saw that Sighild’s cousin had come in to see what the commotion was.  She turned to Sighild, “Now I really see why you wanted to help fit him for new armor, its nice when the family pommel stones have a good blade to go with them, eh?  Now the real question is, do you want the armor to account for that… prowess or not?”

 

“Uhh… Lets go with the standard for that region.  I always thought the more… enhanced armors were just showing off.  And I’d rather not make a target out of that particular region.”

 

“Fair enough Sir Knight,” with that she turned to Sieghild, “Come on girl!  Either start to play with it properly or let the man stow himself and get to helping me!  Don’t just sit there cupping it!”

 

With that Sieghild squeaked and let go of my blade.  She stammered some more apologies and left to go help her cousin with the armor.  I shook my head, bid my farewells to Sieghild and her smirking cousin and left.  Of course I had to duck back in to pass on some information about the Druidic Grove.  I knew this was only going to amuse Sighild’s cousin more but I delivered the news with all the grace I could muster and made my exit afterwards.

 

As I left the forge, I decided to take a walk through the smith quarters market.  It was an uncomfortable experience.  After so many years of effectively living in my armor, not having anything more protective than my clothes and a minor ring was rather disconcerting.  I hoped that simply being near a lot of the armor would be somewhat comforting.  As I walked I was surprised by how little attention I was drawing.  As a knight, I was accustomed to being watched as I walked, the heavy armor tended to attract attention.  Here, once I became known as some sort of hero, the stares were unavoidable.  However without my armor, I’m just another man, easily ignored.  While I’m not vain enough to be disturbed by the experience, it was still slightly disconcerting.  As I walked I saw a small crowd of men trying to nonchalantly stare at something they shouldn’t be staring at.  Or more precisely someone we’re not supposed to be staring at.  For some reason, us men are rarely any good at it when it comes to women.  Naturally I thought I’d at least see what the crowd was staring at, even if it didn’t feel right to join in.  To my moderate surprise the focus of the crowd was Aimèe and Veila, shopping for a chain shirt for the elf.  The two of them were arguing.

 

“I still think that the ‘halfling sized’ one is perfect.  It comes more than low enough to show off my midsection.”

 

Aimèe sighed.  “Veila, its not supposed to show your body off.  You do enough of that anyways.  It supposed to keep you from getting hurt when someone won’t be tricked by you!”

 

The two of them were still bickering when I decided to approach them.  I was immediately stopped by one of the locals who hissed, “Hey!  You can’t just walk up to them!  Don’t you know who they are?”

 

I chuckled, “Somehow I think I’ll manage.”

 

As I walked towards Aimèe and Veila I heard the local mutter under his breath, “Just who does this guy think he is?”

 

He was immediately answered by someone who was better than he was with faces with, “What?  You don’t recognize him?”

 

Leaving the two bickering locals behind, I approached the stall where the flustered storekeeper was trying to decide between allowing a cute girl to wear something that would guarantee him a pleasant view, or maintaining his professional pride.  When I initially hailed the girls they turned to me with that standard look that women use when they don’t want to be bothered by a man, however once they saw me they immediately lit up.

 

Aimèe smiled, “Wellll…. I never thought I’d see the day when Sir Knight was walking around without armor.”

 

Veila leaned into her shoulder as she spoke, “Indeed.  Whatever could have brought this about?”

 

I shrugged, “”Actually I was getting the armor upgraded a little by one of Sieghild’s cousins.”

 

“Oh,” Aimèe replied inquisitively, “I didn’t know she had any, although I should have suspected.  Dwarf clans tend to be pretty large after all, lots of families having lots of kids.”

 

“True,” Veila laughed, “There’s probably not a lot else to do underground than make more kids and practice making more kids.”

 

Then abruptly aware that they may not be furthering their own goals with this line of dialogue they immediately changed their approach, “That of course doesn’t mean they’re any good at it mind you…”

 

“Yeah.  Dwarves tend to like simple and utilitarian things.  Probably nothing elaborate or enticing at all…”

 

I chucked and gave a small wave to indicate that they should really just drop this while they were ahead.  “I was actually on my way to make a certain purchase for a certain trip.  I saw you two shopping and thought I’d stop by to say hello.”

 

Aimèe perked up, “Oh good!  The trip is actually happening?”

 

Veila looked confused, “Wait, what trip?”

 

I briefly explained that I had a small trip planned to reward the girls for being such good help over the last few weeks and that of course she was invited to come along.  She looked quite pleased with that and said she looked forward to it greatly.

 

Aimèe looked at me, “Say… if you’re not eating with the royals tonight, how about you go out with us?  I’d imagine between the two of us we could show you a decent time…”

 

I put a hand on each of their shoulders, “I’d like nothing better ladies, but I already promised my time to Martina tonight.  She is gong to need some help with research after all.  But next time I’m free I’ll see if I can’t find you two in time.”

 

Veila gave me an overdone pout, “Are you sure Knighty boy?” as she continued she wrapped her arm around Aimèe’s waist and pulled her in close, “You’ll make two ladies very happy if you come with us…”

 

I laughed, “You remain as tempting as always Veila, but I did promise Martina and I don’t like to break my word.  I’ll catch you two later.”  I turned to the storekeep, “Oh, and get the best armor possible for Veila.  Protection is the first concern obviously.”

 

And with a faint tinge of regret I left the two of them pouting.  I comforted myself with the thought of teasing Martina a little bit more before the night was over.  I stopped by the city’s merchant guild to check prices for passenger room on ships heading towards the Druidic Groves.  The price for even steerage was a bit high, but I paid for first class, after all this was supposed to be a reward so I figured that I should splurge a little.  

 

I returned to the library and found the area where Martina was studying.  Evidently over the last few hours she had moved to a comfier chair with better upholstery and had fallen asleep.  I took a few moments to admire her sleeping form and how every time she exhaled through her nose a small spurt of smoke was emitted as well. I quietly picked her up to find a more comfortable spot for her but the movement woke her up.

 

Groggily she looked up at me, “Sir Knight, I was comfortable there…”

 

I smiled and sat down, setting her on my lap.  She smiled a little and continued, “but this is really nice too,” she snuggled into my arms and gave a small moan, “nice and warm.  Not like that cold armor you usually wear.  Should I ask what happened to it?”

 

I chuckled a little, “Not unless you feel like a little more jealousy.”

 

Martina groaned, “Oh no.  Just tell me now and get it over with.”

 

I explained about the offer of the armor upgrade and the little incident at the fitting.  Martina simply shook her head.  “Great.  So now I need to compete with the dwarf barmaid.  It’s a good thing that dragons are above such petty things such as jealousy otherwise this would be doing a real blow to my self esteem.”

 

I raised an eyebrow, “…Says the woman that I’m currently holding in my arms?”

 

She laughed, “Oh that’s nice and all, but I only thought that I had to compete with the elves and Aimèe.  I didn’t expect the dwarf too.  Can I at least trust that her brother is also not secretly harboring a crush for you?”

 

“Ha ha.  From the way he was staring at you in that harness I would say that he would sooner go for you.  And while you’re at it, you should probably count Aimèe and Veila as one competitor.  They basically offered me a three way when I saw them in the market.”

 

Martina groaned, “Ugh.  Now how am I supposed to react when you come in and drop something like that on me?”

 

“Hmm… I don’t know.  Maybe you could start a team up of your own?  I heard you express an interest in Felìcita as a house pet earlier?”

 

Martina gave a playful growl and swatted at my ear, I returned one to her rump and enjoyed the mock outrage on her face.  I chuckled softly and said, “My my.  You’re getting to enjoy this aren’t you?”

 

She grinned sheepishly “A little I guess,” her face became serious for a moment, “But I do like spending time with you.  I would like to…” her face flushed deep red, “… never mind.”

 

I pulled her a little closer, “No, no!  Say what’s on your mind, please!”

 

She looked up at me, her face red and her lips were trembling a little, “I-I w-wouldn’t mind the a-advanced mount training.  I-I’d l-like you to ride me any time.  Even out of combat.”  She pushed her face into my chest, “There!  I said it!  I want you to mount me!  By the draconic lords, I am such – “

 

I cut her off there by pulling her head away from my chest and pressing my lips to hers.  As her eyes opened wide, her body pressed closer to mine, eventually as time passed she shifted her body to straddle my legs and began to wrap her arms around me.  We stayed like that for what seemed like eternity, but finally we broke away.  

 

I spoke first, “Martina.  I love you.  I care a great deal about you.  You’re not – whatever you were about to say.  You’re a beautiful woman and an amazing dragoness and any man could count himself lucky to even spend a moment of time with you.  Okay?”  After that nothing was said for a while.  Nothing needed to be said.  We stayed like that for a long and pleasant moment.

 

However eventually Martina broke the silence, “I don’t suppose you’re going to break the hearts of the other girls for me?  No, don’t answer.  I don’t think you could do that even if you wanted to.”  She sighed, “Us dragons aren’t known for being generous with our things, but for you… I might try.  Just don’t expect me to give up every territorial instinct okay?  I’m still your first and main lover.  Alright?”

 

I stared amazed.  I never thought that that would actually happen.  I mean I’d hoped that it could certainly, but it actually working out was entirely unexpected.  In light of this I said the only thing I could, “Of course dear.”

 

We passionately embraced again, things were about to pass the point of no return, my hands were around her robe’s fasteners and I was starting to undo them when she held up her hands, “Wait, just one moment.  You said that you were taking everyone out somewhere after this?  Somewhere special?”

 

I was a bit surprised but I acceded to her wishes, I gave her enough details about the planned trip to give her an idea of what to expect, but not the full thing.  She nodded slowly, “I may be a horrible person to go this far with you and then stop, but… can we wait until we’re there?  Make this something special for the both of us?”

 

I smiled back at Martina.  “If you ever want to wait on something, all you have to do is ask.  Of course we can wait until we’re there.”  Of course various parts of my lower body wanted to veto this plan, but when a woman wants to wait on something like that, you damn well wait.  

 

Unfortunately, this left a large awkward silence to fill.  We sat there for a few minutes until I spoke up, “So… I understand you needed some help with research?”

 

“Oh!  Yes, that.”

 

We both got up and spent several minutes rearranging clothes and straitening up before we returned to the private room where Martina was doing the bulk of her research.  We sat there in another awkward silence until Martina coughed and began to speak.  “So… I started to look into this Mr. Aldric.  Evidently he only spent a small portion of his time here actually maintaining his control over the kingdom.  Easy enough to do with enchantment spells I suppose, but that’s not why we’re here.  The reason I bring him up is that he spent the entirety of the rest of his time in this library; in the Black Section.

 

Martina explained, “The Black Section is where the Albero Città Mage’s Council stores all texts and arcane knowledge that they deem too dangerous to be allowed to fall into the hands of just anyone.  It is protected by arcane runes that are almost impossible to remove, even by the most talented of wizards.  These runes protect against unauthorized entry into the section.  Mr. Aldric evidently had authorization for the Section.  There he began research into some project of his.  I don’t know what it was, but it involved Necromancy.  Lots of Necromancy.  I couldn’t find out what he was doing exactly, so I instead began to look for who gave him access to the Black Section.  Hopefully that person could tell me more about what he was looking for.”

 

I interrupted here, confused, “Wait, why would that person know?  Wouldn’t Mr. Aldric have just used his mind control on the wizard in charge?”

 

Martina shook her head.  “Wizards tend to be wise to wizard’s tricks.  They tend to have strong willpower and its unlikely that the enchantment magics would have been as effective on them, even if they worked at all.”

 

“So who gave him access then?  Lets find them and talk to them.”

 

Martina sighed.  “That’s just it.  No one did.  Part of the agreement the Albero Città Mage’s Council made when they were setting up the Black Section was that anyone who had work sealed in there would have permanent access to the area.  They even wrote this into the runes. Mr. Aldric used that to get in there.  I think I can use divination spell to work out what works allowed Mr. Aldric to enter the Black Section.  That way we might have a clue as to his intentions.  I could use some help though.”

 

I smiled.  “Anything you need my lady.”

 

It turned out that the help she needed was mostly with holding lights for her and helping her carry the divination supplies, but it was nice to spend some time with her.  Eventually Martina found a spot where she could do the divination.  She knelt on the ground and began to cast it.  The spell took ages.  I was initially tempted to make a lewd comment about how long she could stay on her knees but decided against it on the off chance it made her lose her spell.  Then I went to look for something to read, but nothing there was even remotely within my ability to comprehend, being unversed as I am in the arts of magic.  I wound up sitting near Martina as she was working the spell and admiring how the arcane energy made her skin glow.

 

Eventually Martina completed the spell and slumped down, exhausted.  I hurried over to her and helped her to a seat.  “So, Martina.  Did the spell work?”

 

She looked at me with an unusual expression in her eyes, it took me a few moments to pin it down, but when I did it was like a knife cut through my gut.  Martina was afraid.  “Oh, the spell worked all right.  But you won’t like the answer.”

 

“Well, its not like hiding from the truth will make it any less deadly.  Let’s hear it.”

 

“The book that Mr. Aldric authored was Binding the Soul, the Hidden Connections Between Necromancy and Enchantment…” she broke off here looking me dead in the eyes to emphasize her next words, “… by Isocrates.”

 

That was a bit of a shock.  Admittedly anyone reading this could have guessed as such already, but then again they would have the advantage of a version of my life that was free from extraneous details and worries.  Either way, I have to admit that my next words weren’t particularly clever, “Isocrates?  Are you sure?”

 

Martina’s eyes blazed, “Of course I’m sure!  I wouldn’t make a mistake about something like that!”

 

I held out my hands placatingly, “All right, all right.  Fortunately for us this changes very little.”

 

“Very little?  How can you say that?”

 

“Well… before we knew that Mr. Aldric was Isocrtes, we still suspected that he would come after us again and again.  This hasn’t changed.  We knew we’d have to deal with him for good to be free of him.  That hasn’t changed.  We knew we’d have to take the rod to Isocrates’ former dominion.  This hasn’t changed either.  We knew Mr. Aldric was a powerful enchanter.  Now we know that he’s Isocrates, a powerful enchanter,”

 

“And necromancer,” Martina cut in.

 

“And necromancer, but ultimately nothing changed.  The job is still the same, its just that the pieces fit together a bit easier, and that makes our life and our job easier to do.  So there’s no need to panic.”

 

Martina looked at me, her mouth agape.  “I guess you’re right… but how can you be so calm about this?  Isocrates was years before my time and he was supposedly destroyed entirely.”

 

I shrugged, “I’m a human, lots of things in this world came before my time and I still interact with them.  You were probably born before my grandparents were and I can handle your existence calmly enough.”

 

Martina sulked, “Thanks for reminding me about our lifespan differences.”

 

I winced, “I’m sorry Martina.  I didn’t think about – “

 

“No, no.  Its okay.  You were only trying to help.  Its just hard knowing that I will outlive someone I love – unless…”

 

“Unless what Martina?”

 

“Well… there are some… call them techniques, that dragons have developed over the years.”  Martina gave me another beaming smile, “I think there might be a longer future for us than you thought.  Unfortunately its nothing that I can handle on the road or even here in this city.  It would have to wait until we’re done with this quest, but I’d like to ask now; would you want to spend the rest of your life with me, Sir Knight?”

 

I flushed a little at this question but returned her gaze and said, “Martina, every moment I spend with you makes me a happier man.  I’d spend a thousand lifetimes with you if I could.”  At this Martina smiled again and hugged herself closer to me.  “We’ll see just how many we can get when this is all over.  Until then, let’s try to get through this alive, together.”

 

With that settled, we set about learning everything we could about Isocrates, it was depressingly little.  Evidently he was a major Archmage about six hundred years ago and he single handedly created a small empire named Édra ti̱s Exousías.  He built this empire using a mix of powerful enchantment, undead armies, and hired mercenaries. However the records indicated that he disappeared after a confrontation with an unknown enemy and his empire fell into ruins thereafter.  From what Martina and dragonkind in general knew about Isocrates’ Rod, we could easily assume that this unknown enemy was the First Dragonmoot Council, but it was almost impossible to find an exact location for Édra ti̱s Exousías.  We found lots of descriptions of the land, mostly accounts from fearful travelers who claimed that everyone and everything in the land was one way or another an expression of the Archmage’s will, but no maps.  However we did find a description of Isocrates’ tower-fortress, evidently it was built on top of a peak shaped like a devils head.  That lead us to search the entire cartography section looking for a similar mountain.  Finally after hours more of searching, we found a likely lead.  In a large and cold land to the Northeast there was a mountain known as Diabolist’s Peak for its resemblance to a devil’s head.  Notes about the mountain indicated that there was a massive ruined fortress of some sort atop the mountain.  This looked like it was Isocrates’ Lair.  We then gathered all the information we could on the region, a nation known as Omrachena Zemli.  We tried to read some of it, but wound up collapsing and falling asleep midway through the book and rested against each other until the library staff woke us up with their scolding.  

 

The next day we delivered the news to the rest of the party.  Reactions were a bit mixed.  Aimèe was fearful and I had to give the same speech I gave to Martina the night before to calm her down.  Siegbert looked a bit excited and commented about how he would need to create an actual version of alchemist’s fire, evidently the chill of death tends to make other sources of cold less noticeable, and Sieghild gripped her waraxe and grimaced saying she looked forward to returning the bodies to their rightful place in the earth.  Felìcita took the opportunity to reiterate that she would follow me anywhere and do anything for me.  Veila had to be reminded by Aimèe who Isocrates was and Rina simply nodded and said that she expected that they would be heading towards Omrachena Zemli or the nearby region.  Evidently she had been doing some research of her own while Martina and I were doing our work.  She had found out that the Golden Saber was a mercenary army that was formed in Omrachena Zemli after the fall of their King several years ago.  While local lords had seized control of their own lands some enterprising and brutal soldiers had decided to make it on their own.  They quickly established a name for themselves as being incredibly cruel and terrifying mercenaries, and soon began to charge the local lords tribute in order to avoid raiding their lands.  And now they were working for Isocrates, one of the world’s most dangerous Archmages, just lovely.

 

After that meeting, we all went our own ways for the day.  Sieghild said that she had a few new ideas for my armor, and asked me to meet her and her cousin later that day for the finishing touches.  Aimèe and Veila went shopping again, this time to pick up some supplies for traveling into cold regions, as well as some mountaineering equipment.  Captain Rina retuned to her precinct to obtain as much information as possible on Omrachena Zemli, the Golden Saber, and the political situation between them.  Siegbert left for the temple of the elven gods, explaining that he wanted to learn about their policy on blessing liquids that weren’t quite water.  I look forward to the results.  Martina returned to her library to continue research into everything related to Isocrates, particularly looking for information on undead creatures that the Archmage may have turned into.  To my surprise, Felìcita offered to help her, which Martina cautiously accepted. As for myself, I left to make some preparations for the trip to the Druidic Grove before I went to meet Sieghild and her cousin.

 

I set out to head towards the elven/dwarven forge that Sieghild and her cousin were using.  Once I neared the building however the voices inside made me halt and listen.  Sieghild’s cousin was talking, “All right Sieghild.  I added the additional wards that you asked for.  You’re lucky I still had everything out and hadn’t completed the proceedings yet.  Otherwise this would have taken ages to complete.  As is, the armor is ready for the Knight.  So… how about you help me clean these tools.  Let’s start with a hammer.  No, not that one, this one.  A good eight inch handle and a large head.  Seems good enough.  Now let me show you how you should clean this…”

 

I didn’t catch her next few words due to her slipping into a whisper, but Sieghild’s reaction was loud and clear.  “What?  Do you take me for a fool?  I know that’s not how you clean a hammer!  I mean, spit shining is one thing, but sticking it in your mouth?  What’s your game cousin?”

 

Her cousin sighed, “Listen Sieghild.  This isn’t about cleaning a hammer.  Its about teaching you a useful skill.  One that you’re going to need in your little… competition for a certain Knight.”

 

“Huh?  What do you mean –“

 

“Now don’t you take me for a fool.  I heard the way you were talking about him and the rest of your party.  I saw the look in your eyes during that fitting.  You want to play sheath to his sword, don’t deny it.  I’m just trying to help you.  After all, there are three elves in this group, aren’t there?  You know how they are, they’ve probably offered him sex in positions you can’t imagine, let alone replicate.  The only way a good dwarven lass is going to get one up on a group of elves is to use her head… if you catch my meaning.  And that’s what I’m going to teach you.  Alright?”

 

Sieghild didn’t say anything but she must have nodded because her cousin continued, “Good.  Now the place to start is ironically not on the hammer at all.  You want to get him ready for this.  Start by nuzzling or kissing the area around his blade, the stomach or the legs are a good choice.  Wait until his blade is drawn out a little before you continue.  Once that is done, start with the head of the hammer, now we’re reversing this on the Knight himself.  The head of his sword isn’t the end of the handle, and the head of this hammer are his pommel stones.  Now, start polishing that hammer head.  Good… that’s it girl.  Move your tongue around it, give it a good polishing.”

 

I had to admit, that I was having a good time simply listening to them.  I sat down on a nearby rain barrel and waited for them to continue.

 

“All right, now by this point his blade should be fully drawn.  Now you can begin moving down the handle.  Start with the base where it meets the hammer head and begin to slowly worship it with your tongue.  Work it well, vary your tongue’s patterns to keep the sensation fresh and slowly make your way to the end of the handle.  Good.  Now put the tip of the handle in your mouth slowly, just the tip for now.  Now begin to slowly rotate your tongue around the tip inside your mouth.  As you do that slowly begin to suck the tip.  At this point you should be making constant eye contact with him, a man tends to like it when you look him in the eyes, it makes him feel powerful, so don’t look away.  At this point, you can use your hands to help out a little.  Start to rub his shaft like you would when polishing a hammer the normal method, not quite as rough though.  Use a gentle touch.  There you go… that’s right.  Now its time to let go and use your mouth a little more, start to go deeper.”

 

I heard a rather horrible gagging noise before Sieghild’s cousin spoke up, “Yeah.  That will happen the first few times.  You’ll get used to it, but before you try anything on your Knight you should probably learn to suppress that reflex there.  I’ll let you keep the hammer to practice on, I’m probably not going to be using it after this anyways.  Now try again.  That’s better.  Don’t forget to play with the handle with your tongue still.  As you get better at this, you can go further and further.  Eventually you’ll be able to get it deep enough that you could fit the hammer head itself in there, but that’s something for another time.  Now keep on sucking that handle!”

 

A few minutes passed, the only noise being a rather lewd slurping and sucking noise and the occasional word of encouragement from Sieghild’s cousin.  Then she spoke again, “All right, so you learned how to tease him with your tongue, how to use your mouth and your hands, you started to figure out how to suppress your gag reflex, now its time to show you how to take him to the finish.  As he comes closer to the finish, you should be able to feel it a little, even if he doesn’t say it outright.  There are several ways you can take this then.  You can guide him to another hole in your body for the finish, you can attempt to delay the inevitable and prolong the experience, be careful with that one, sometimes it doesn’t work and you just wind up giving him a lousy finish, you can let his blade free and take the deposit on your face or the body part of your choosing, or you can hold on to the end and take it in your mouth.  Whatever you do, remember that his blade will be more sensitive at that point and that you shouldn’t use a lot of pressure or speed then.  Slow down your movements a little and reduce the pressure.  That way you can give him an excellent finish.  You can stop practicing on the hammer for now.  Your Knight is due here any minute.  I suppose you could ‘let’ him catch you practicing on a hammer if you want though…”

 

Sieghild spoke up for the first time in a while, her voice sounded like her throat was sore.  “Oh!  Right!  Um… thanks for the advice cousin.”

 

“No problem.  Now do me a favor and show that Knight the sort of loving that an elf could never give him!  That and help me clean up this forge.  Seriously the place is a mess.”

 

After hearing that, I decided that I should wait a while to enter the forge.  I took the opportunity to calm down so that the more… visible signs of me listening in were not obvious.  Then after several minutes had passed and the two dwarf’s conversation had moved to more normal topics I entered.  Sieghild’s cousin chuckled, “Well if it isn’t the man of the hour!  Lets get this armor on you and see how it fits!”

 

It was a relief to get back into my armor, even if it was different.  I could see the signs of expert dwarven workmanship on the armor and it clearly was stronger than ever before.  It felt lighter too somehow.  As I donned it I could feel the new enchantments taking effect.  As Sieghild promised, I was indeed felt improved in many ways.  I felt faster and stronger even with the reduced weight accounted for.  Somehow I also felt heartier, and safer as a whole.  I expected something from what Sieghild told me, but I never expected the magic to feel this good.  There was also another lingering effect that I couldn’t place.  Somehow it felt like I had another layer of armor around my mind and guarding my heart.  I turned to Sieghild to ask what these were.

 

She shrugged awkwardly.  “They are enchantments meant to ward your mind and life force.  After all we’re going after a powerful lich who is also an expert at enchantment.  I figured that you might need it…”

 

I crouched down and surprised Sieghild by giving her a hug.  When I released it, her face was glowing red and her cousin was trying to hide a smirk on her face.  “Sieghild, you’re the best.  Do you know that?”

 

She stammered out something about how it was nothing, but I could tell she was pleased.  After expressing my sincere gratitude to Sieghild and her cousin we left to meet up with Martina and Felìcita at the library.  

 

On the way I felt that I had to tell Sieghild some things.  I waited until we were in a relatively deserted area and turned to her, “Err Sieghild.  I just wanted to let you know, I heard a little of your ‘practice’ with that hammer.”

 

She turned quite red at that.  “Er… how much.”

 

“A fair bit.  I probably should have stopped you two, but regrettably I didn’t.”

 

 Sieghild turned to me and looked up uncertainly, “Umm… did you at least like what you heard?”

 

I smiled back, “Very much.  Very much indeed.”

 

She sighed a deep sigh of relief, “Good.  I would like to show you what I learned sometime, is… is that okay with you?”

 

“More than okay.  However I also need to let you know that Martina has expressed similar desires.”

 

“The dragoness?  I’m surprised she’d lower herself to sleeping with a non-dragon, but if anyone could get her to do it I suppose it would be you.  Umm… you’re not interested in her are you?”

 

Now here was the acid test.  I shrugged, “Yes, but the whole matter is a bit complicated.  You should talk to her when we get to the library.  It would help clarify the whole mess.”

 

She looked deeply suspicious at that, but at least wasn’t running off in tears, so I counted that as a win for now.

 

We eventually got to the library, we found both Martina and Felìcita in the private room reserved for our use.  To my horror, they weren’t doing more than giving their books cursory glances, and spent the rest of the time glaring daggers at each other.  They looked up, momentarily happy to see me but when they saw that Sieghild was following they began to glare at her too.

 

I thought to myself, “Oh Gods.  This is going to be painful.”

 

What I said was, “All right.  Everyone sit down.  What’s this all about?”

 

Martina gave me a look, “I’m pretty sure you know what this is about, Sir Knight.”

 

I sighed, “True.  But I was hoping it was something else.”

 

I closed the door to the room sat down at the table myself.  “All right, from what I can gather, all three of you are interested in me.  Am I correct?”

 

There was a minor awkward shuffling around the room, but eventually everyone acknowledged that they were indeed interested.

 

“Okay then,” I continued, “and I also understand that you want me for yourselves, which is perfectly normal and understandable.  Is that right?”

 

This time the agreements were much more vigorous.

 

I nodded, “I thought so, but there is one problem.  I can’t choose one of you.  Now before you condemn me for being a womanizer or indecisive, please hear me out.  I’ve never been good at abandoning friends.  I’ve never been good at handling disappointment.  When someone is relying on me, I do the best I can to live up to and exceed their expectations.  And I care about my friends.  I gave myself up to save Siegbert and I would go as far if not further for any one of you ladies.  While these tendencies have served me well in my military career, they are a hindrance when dealing with multiple women who are interested in you.  You see, I can’t break any of your hearts.  Any of you.  It would tear me apart.  So I’m going to leave the room for a while.  If you ladies can’t come to an arrangement, then the old one will stand.  As in I won’t respond to any of your advances.  Is that understood?”

 

An uncomfortable silence was my only response, so I tried again.  “Is that understood?”

 

This time, there were general mutterings of “Yes” so I left the room.  From the outside, I could see that they waited a few minutes in awkward silence before Martina started talking.  The women were soon in a heated argument, so I decided that it was time for me to leave and let them take over.  As I left, I reflected that Aimèe, Veila, and probably Captain Rina should be in there as well, but I decided that hunting them down and introducing them to the little group in there wouldn’t really be conducive to a resolution being achieved.  I wandered through the library until I found an old tome on magic for beginners and sat down to read it a while.

 

I was beginning to note that A Layman’s Guide to the Arcane Arts was an incredible misnomer when Martina came up to me.  All she said was, “We’re ready.”

 

With a fair bit of nervousness, I entered the room.  I sat down and waited.  An awkward silence dominated the room for several moments.  Then Martina spoke, “Well, we all agreed on a few things.  First, you’re an arse.”

 

Sieghild nodded, “Agreed.  What kind of man puts women in that situation.  Really?”

 

Felìcita nodded too.  “Its really unfair to us.”

 

I blushed a fair shade myself, “I’m sorry ladies.  I really do feel bad about that though and –“

 

Martina interrupted, “We believe that.  And that’s pretty much your only saving grace, apart from your good looks, pleasant demeanor, steadfast loyalty, personal charisma…”

 

“And strong hands,” Felìcita added with a blush of her own.

 

“…yes and strong hands,” Martina finished.

 

Sieghild continued, “So that’s why we decided that we’d give this group effort at least an honest try.  I was all for starting tonight, but Martina is insisting that we wait for this surprise trip you have coming up.  Either way, we all expect at least one good dance at the ball tomorrow.”

 

Honestly, with everything that was going on from the revelation of Isocrates to the moments I’ve been spending with Martina and the others, the whole ball had slipped my mind.  Fortunately there wasn’t any need to frantically run about running last minute errands to buy appropriate clothes or anything, the royal family tailors had my entire party covered.  The real concern was remembering what the proper etiquette was for dancing with multiple women at a single dance, as one might expect, there are not a lot of situations where you can do that successfully.  I simply wound up resolving to go through with the ball with as much dignity, honor, and integrity as I could.  

 

On the night of the ball, there was a bit of a stir as I showed up with six women in tow, but most of the crowd recognized them as being fellow travelers of mine so the extravagance was forgiven.  As we entered we were met by the royal family who greeted us with a mildly amused expression on their faces.  As the ladies were whisked away to their dressing rooms, I found myself alone with the king for a moment.  I shuffled my feet awkwardly, knowing I should say something.

 

“Your Majesty, I –“

 

“It’s alright Sir Knight.  I heard.  While I can’t say I approve, you at least are conducting your affairs fairly and honestly.  So I suppose that’s all I can ask for.”

 

I shook my head, “Still sir, it doesn’t feel right to do that.  I care about each of them, but its not right to… well…  I just wish there was a better way.”

 

To my complete amazement the King smiled a little at that, “Well that’s something I wouldn’t expect most men to say.  Ironically despite all of my daughter’s assurances, those words are the first I’ve heard that makes me feel that this… ‘arrangement’ of yours might be something other than a complete and total disaster.”

 

I bowed deeply to the King in respect, “Thank you sir.  I can’t tell you how much that relieves me.  I wouldn’t feel comfortable about doing this without your approval or behind your back.”

 

“Your sense of honor does you some credit, Sir Knight.  As before, I only ask that you be good to my daughter.  Ah, your attendants are here.  I’ll see you at the celebration.”

 

The celebration itself started out with a recognition ceremony for me and my companions.  We were proclaimed national heroes for our work in driving off Mr. Aldric and his Golden Saber minions and were dubbed “Protectors of the Throne,” which basically means that I’m a knight in two different nations now.”  Afterwards there was a small portion of free time to mingle and get drinks while everyone and their cousin came up to personally introduce themselves (and in some cases they came to introduce their lovely daughters) to me.  However I noticed that a group of young elf males were keeping themselves apart from the celebration.  Now, when you travel with a large group of attractive women, you become accustomed to a certain amount of hostile glares in your general direction, but these young elven men seemed to be much more resentful than average.  It wasn’t until Felìcita explained that they were suitors of hers that I understood the exact nature of their anger.  I turned to Felìcita, “I didn’t even know that they existed; er… not that you don’t warrant them or anything.”

 

To my relief, Felìcita just laughed at that, “I think that might be part of why they’re so angry.  All their efforts to obtain my hand just got bypassed by someone who wasn’t even trying!  Don’t worry about them Master Knight, in a few minutes the dancing will begin and they’ll find other things to do than glower and sulk.  Speaking of which, have you ever danced La Furlana before?”

 

“Well my dear Princess, I am a Knight of the Realm.  My training includes some dancing, I may have learned La Furlana at some point but I’m still a bit rusty on it.  Would you do the honor of helping me refresh my memory?”

 

Naturally she was overjoyed and as soon as the dance started she led me to my position in the circle that was forming.  The La Furlana was simple and pleasant enough to dance, we started off in a circle holding hands as a group, on my left I had Felìcita, on the right some noblewoman who was far more interested in me than her dance partner.  The dance started off with the circle rotating to my right for about a quarter rotation, then left to our starting position, some footwork was done and back we were to the rotations.  Then we broke off to be with our individual partners for a second stage in the dance that involved linking arms and essentially twirling around each other.  Then we were back in a circle but this time instead of rotations we moved in towards the center and backed out twice before splitting to twirl with our partners again.  This time when we returned to the circle us men closed into the center and clapped our hands together before backing back out and allowing the women of the group to form their own small circle where upon the whole group went through the same footwork steps as before.  I had to admit, that the leg centric footwork looked very nice on Felìcita, especially in the slit dress she was wearing.  These steps were repeated again before we took another twirl with our partners, a little bit of footwork later and the dance started again from the top.  However after two cycles of it, it was done.  As I said, not a very complicated dance, but it was fun to perform and easy to learn.

 

Of course immediately after that the song changed into a more traditional courtly dance, the galliard.  The galliard is simple five step dance, but they are a very athletic five steps.  They involve leaping, jumping, hopping, and otherwise athletically moving yourself around the dance floor.   The real question was the lavolta but there was no time to confirm its presence before the dance started.  As we went through the various steps, cadences, and postures of the dance I felt it was time to try for the lavolata.  In hindsight, I should have recognized the minor confusion in Felìcita’s eyes as I guided her legs into position and set her on my knee, but the look on her face as we actually performed the lavolta was one of excitement tinged with desire.  The lavolta was met with a few gasps, ohs and ahs, and a smattering of applause.  Later Felìcita told me that the lavolta was rarely performed in elven galliards as it was sometimes considered inappropriate.  However evidently I pulled it off well enough that soon others on the dance floor began to imitate it.  As the dance came to a close Felìcita and I were applauded as we left the floor.  

 

The other women evidently spent that dance watching the two of us.  Martina nodded slowly at the two of us, “You know, I’m both impressed and jealous of you two.  You made a good pair out there.”

 

I was pleasantly surprised at her goodwill, evidently she meant what she said about trying to cooperate.  “I’m glad to hear it because one of you is next.  Give me a little time to rest and get a drink and then I’ll take another one of you out there.”

 

Of course while I was getting that drink one of the brasher young elven nobles decided that this was a good time to confront me.  “You there, human!” he called out, “I would speak at you.”

 

I noted the use of the word “at” and sighed, “Of course you would.  Gods forbid you speak with me about anything.  Particularly if it’s my success with Princess Felìcita or whatever else you take issue with.”

 

The young elf started, “Wait, what?  You kn –“

 

“Be careful there!  You nearly broke your rule about speaking at me!  If you respond, you’re speaking with me after all, not at me.”

 

“Err… um… yes.  Well human, I represent a large number of the elven nobility that take issue with some scruffy human soldier courting our fair princess.”

 

I said nothing at this and merely poured myself another drink.

 

“I say, human!  Do you hear me?”

 

“I’m sorry, were you expecting a response?  Usually people who speak ‘at’ others don’t care for their targets desire to argue back.  I figured I’d spare you the trouble.  But it it’s a response you want, then one you shall have.  You make take issue with me courting Princess Felìcita but, fortunately for me, she doesn’t.  So I’m afraid your desires simply don’t mean a thing.  Now goodbye, I must depart.”

 

“Do you know who I am human?”

 

“No and I don’t particularly care.  You see, in the time I’ve spent with the royal family I’ve been introduced to pretty much the who’s who list of Albero Città.  In that time, I’ve also come to make the acquaintance of many of the people whose skills and efforts enable the movers and shakers to… well move and shake.  Since I still don’t know you, I doubt I will ever need to.  Now good bye.”

 

“You’re just going to walk off and go back to dancing with our Princess?  Why I – “

 

“No, she’s had her turn.  I’m going to walk off and dance with another beautiful woman.  Good day.”

 

From the way his jaw was flapping aimlessly, I thought I had rendered him speechless, but as I walked off, the young elven noble shouted after me, “You haven’t heard the last of me Knight!”

 

I called out casually, “That depends on how loud the musicians play, now doesn’t it?”

 

As I was about to meet the women again, I reflected that I could have handled that much more diplomatically.  But that elf was rather annoying enough that I didn’t really want to be his friend anyways.  I walked back over to the table and offered my arm to Martina who was waiting patiently, “My lady shall we?”

 

I wound up spending a lot of that night dancing.  I did a galliard of my own with Martina, complete with a more casual lavolta and followed it up with an equally lively Pavane.  After she retired I moved on to Sieghild, who was rather difficult to dance with as the height difference was more extreme, but was skilled enough to go through two basic basse danses before we retired to give my feet a chance to heal from being stepped on.  After several minutes of rest, which was still not truly enough, I had the privilege of dancing with Aimèe which was a fun experience as we both got the opportunity to dance a few types of Minuete which impressed everyone in the room as it wasn’t a common dance in Albero Città.  Veila surprisingly gave me a bit of time to rest my feet, but that appears to be because she was waiting for another La Furlana which she danced with great gusto and some variations that attracted the eyes of many men, including myself.  

 

I was about to accede to Felìcita’s indecent requests for a second round when I felt a small tap on my shoulder.  I turned around to see Captain Rina there, looking quite lovely in a low cut, backless, blue evening dress.  At that moment, I realized that I hadn’t got a chance to speak with her all evening.  She cleared her throat nervously and asked Felìcita, “Mam, would you mind if I cut in?”  Felicita looked annoyed for a moment but then smiled and stepped back to allow Rina to cut in.  

 

The two of us began to dance a lively Courante that carried us around the ballroom.  As we danced, we got a small opportunity to speak.  “You know,” I started, “you look lovely in that dress.  It’s quite flattering.  I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to stare, but I was half expecting you to show up in border guard dress uniform.”

 

Rina smiled at me, “Why thank you Sir Knight.  And I would normally be in dress uniform at events like this, but I decided that since I won’t be wearing my border guard uniform when traveling with you, I might as well get used to it now.

 

“If all your civilian clothes are as lovely as that dress you should have started earlier.  I think this is the first time I’ve seen you out of uniform.”

 

To my delight, Rina blushed at that, “Thank you Sir Knight, I think this is the first time I’ve been out of uniform in a while.  Well… there was that time with General Zinoviy and the tabard afterwards, but that hardly counts now does it?”

 

“True, I suppose not.  Although you did look cute in the tabard.”

 

She gave me a playful frown, “Hrmph.  You would think so.  I should just be glad that that you didn’t complement me on the shield,” seeing my pained expression, she added, “Don’t worry.  Nothing that happened was your fault.  You did everything you could have to help.”

 

Fortunately, the dance was changing to a slower tempo basse dance which suited the mood better.  I sighed and replied, “Either way I feel bad about everything that did happen.”

 

She looked at me crossly, “Alright fine.  Lets say its your fault.  Dance with me this next galliard and give me one of those moves you gave the princess and we’ll call it even, okay?”  

 

“One its called a lavolta, and two, your dress lacks the busk point to properly lift you, although…” I glanced at her hips and well rounded lower body, “if you don’t mind things getting a little personal, I think I could make it work.”

 

Fortunately the ballroom portion of the night was almost over and the few remaining dancers were more interested in their own partners than ourselves, so no one noticed the variant of the lavolt I pulled with Captain Rina.  Substituting the grasp of the busk for what was in multiple ways, a “rear” grasp I performed a modified version of the lavolt with her.  I doubt it would have won me any points with a competition judge, but it certainly did with Rina.  She had this funny, slack jawed smile and was blushing up to the tips of her quivering ears.  As the dance ended, we stood there for a moment before the head butler announced that the ballroom portion of the evening was ending and that dinner was ready.

 

Dinner was an extravagant nine course affair.  We initially started with a aperitivo of a light sparking wine from the Royal Vineyards, a pleasant beverage.  As we were drinking that, I noticed a major difference between the elven courts and the courts of other lands.  Normally the head table in another kingdom would seat the royal family and honored guests this was the same here, but while in another land the table would have seats on one side, to allow the royalty to look out over their subjects, here the table was circular and had seats all around it.  I soon discovered that this was to facilitate conversation with the rest of the table.  I had a pleasant discussion with both Captain Rina about sword techniques used in the border guard and with Felìcita about the dishes that we could expect to be served tonight and how they were made.  

 

As we were finishing the sparkling wine, we were then served an antipasto of small bread slices with diced tomatoes and a white cheese spread on top.  It tasted amazing and when I commented on the great taste I was surprised to learn that the Queen herself had made these, evidently it was a tradition for the royal family to lead the kitchen in the creation of at least one dish when they were hosting a feast.  Evidently the elven people have a strong tradition of hospitality towards guests and they try to keep that spirit alive, even in small forms.

 

After enjoying the antipasto we moved on to the primo which was a simple pasta with meatballs.  I say simple but it was actually one of the best dishes I had in my entire life.  Over the course of this dinner I got into a debate with one of Felìcita’s cousins who was convinced that heavy armor simply wasn’t worth the weight.  I tried to explain just how… wrong he was, but he was convinced that a lightly armored foe could dodge weapons that a heavily armored foe could not.  I told him that I’ve seen people try that on the battlefield and it never works but he wouldn’t believe it.  

 

Fortunately before the debate could turn into a heated argument, the secondo came and we indulged on a main course of veal with a contorno that consisted of a simple side salad.  While we were enjoying that, the King asked of my plans for the future.  “So what is it going to be, my lad?  Is it straight off to find Mr. Aldric, or Isocrates as I should say, again or are you going to stay and enjoy our fair city a while longer?  I must recommend the later, from what I’ve heard of your story, your group must need a break of some kind.”

 

I nodded in agreement, “My thoughts exactly, but I have something special planned actually.”

 

Sieghild nodded, “So you’ve been saying for the past few days, but are you ever going to tell us what exactly we’re doing?”

 

I smiled, “Well, I was looking around the local area and I saw that the druidic grove to the northeast offers several attractions for visitors…”  As I explained about the hot springs I could see the group was pleased with the idea.  Veila staged a mock argument with Aimèe for “keeping this from her,” and Sieghild and Siegbert started taking notes on what to buy for the trip.  

 

After making our plans for the future and finishing the secondo, we enjoyed the “formaggio e frutta” which was a serving of fresh grapes with a side of a pale white cheese, entirely different from the one served with the antipasto.  As we were dining on this, a few elven children came up to our table and were picked up and greeted one by one by the King.  I gleaned that they were evidently his nieces and nephews.  I was content to sit back and watch the family until the littlest one came up to me and asked me to tell him the story of how I became a hero.  Soon all of them were begging me for the story and the entire table was egging me on.  So I caved and told them a sufficiently cleaned up version of the story that evidently met with everyone’s approval.

 

After I finished the story, the various nieces and nephews thanked me and scurried off.  I was finally beginning to be convinced that the meal was over when in came the dolce, this desert course was a massive cake that was almost the size of the table itself.  I spent a lot of that meal watching Felìcita reunite with distant relations, all of whom commented on how much she had matured and changed over the short time.  I also met one or two of her former instructors who practically begged me to tell them how I got Felìcita to listen to me.  I simply said that I couldn’t really tell them but it involved teaching her exactly what discipline means.

 

After indulging in far too much of the cake, to my relief the next course consisted of a caffè, a hot drink composed of some sort of bean that grew locally.  It was quite pleasant and invigorated me a fair bit.  As we drank it, we discussed Siegbert’s efforts at creating alchemical fire.  He said that he had several standard alchemical fires made and even got a priest to bless some of them, hopefully they would be extra effective against the undead.  

 

Finally came another specialty drink known as the digestive, this one was a harder alcohol rather than a wine, produced from pomace.  After we drank it we began to thank everyone for their hospitality and got ready to leave.

 

Overall the meal was excellent, but I had to admit that I was relived when it was over.  I never thought that there was such a thing as too much food, after all you should eat when you can, but a single elven feast managed to change my mind.  We were offered rooms in the royal palace, which we gratefully accepted and when I found my bed I simply threw off my clothes and collapsed on top of the sheets and passed out.

 

The next morning I was awakened by Veila’s gasps of surprise.  It took me a while to work out what happened, but evidently Aimèe had wound up taking some professional offence to the way the palace’s maids conducted their business.  She wound up making a bet that she “could turn Veila here into a better maid than they were by the next morning.  Evidently a considerable sum was bet on it.  And so, over her protests, Veila was dressed up in a maid’s outfit and taught by Aimèe how to serve as a maid.  And thus she wound up walking in this morning to see me completely nude and laying face down on the bed.  As her gasp woke me up, I only compounded the problem by rolling over.  She was speechless for a moment before she overcame her surprise and her more traditional flirtatious personality emerged.  

 

“Well,” she said with a smile, “I can see why Aimèe always volunteers to help you with your armor, why if I had my way –“

 

As I began to try to cover myself, Aimèe rushed into the room.  “Veila!  We’re not supposed to be flirting now!  Maids and servants aren’t supposed to notice that sort of thing.  We’re supposed to be working now!  Remember our bet?”

 

“It was your bet.  And anyways I’m just –“

 

With a smack to the head Aimèe put an end to that line of thought.  She then turned to me sweetly, “I’m sorry my lord, can we help you get ready this morning?

 

I decided that there are worse things than being dressed by two beautiful young women, so I allowed Aimèe and Veila to do so.  To Aimèe’s credit, she remains as dedicated to her job as she was when she was only a maid, and she took her job seriously, dressing me with little fuss.  She even slapped Veila’s hands away several times when they came a bit to close for pure professionalism.  In the end, I was fully dressed and armored.  I thanked the ladies and even slipped a gold piece in their apron pockets.  

 

“Thank you ladies, I look forward to your services again.”

 

Aimèe and Veila giggled at that and left to find something else to do before the bet was lost, leaving me with the rest of the day free.

 

I decided to check on the preparations the other’s were making for their trip to the Druidic Grove.  After all we were leaving in a few days so if they needed help getting ready I needed to know now.  To my delight I learned from the palace servants that Martina, Sieghild, and Felìcita went out together to go shopping that morning.  It was good to see them beginning to really get along and it took a load of my shoulders.  I also had learned that Captain Rina had decided to spend the day taking care of some last minute paperwork and other city guard details that had to be finished before she left the city with us.  As I was about to go find something to do in the city, a booming voice came from behind me, “Ah!  Sir Knight!  Just the man I was hoping to see.”

 

I turned around and saw a beaming Siegbert running up to me, “Sir Knight, just the man I wanted to see!  Hey, we should go get a drink.  There’s a quiet bar near here that just started importing beer.  We should grab one and talk.”

 

It was early afternoon, but the way he said “talk” made me think that this wasn’t purely about the alcohol.  As such I readily agreed and we went to a quiet tavern known as “The Silver Hawk.”  We ordered a beer each and sat down in a quiet booth where we wouldn’t be bothered.  We made some small talk for a while before Siegbert sighed and set down his tankard, or his stein as he insisted on calling it.   “So, Sir Knight,” he began, “What are your intentions towards my sister?  I’ve heard a little bit of talk about an ‘arrangement’ but by the stones, I have no idea what that means for her.”

 

I really should have expected this, but it was a bit of a surprise anyways.  I looked Siegbert in the eyes and saw that he wouldn’t be dissuaded from this course, so I answered him honestly, “I intend to treat Sieghild as best as I can without breaking anyone’s heart.”  I explained a little about the arrangement that had developed between Martina, Sieghild, and Felìcita, coloring slightly under the intense gaze of the dwarf.  

 

When I was finished Siegbert sighed.  “I guess that’s okay.  I don’t like it – “

 

“I can't say I really care for it a lot either.  It doesn’t seem really… fair to the girls.  But I don’t know any better way of going about it.  I don’t want to break any of their hearts, so I guess the only thing I can do is be as honest and open about things as possible and try to keep this fragile thing together.”

 

To my surprise and gratitude, Siegbert stopped glaring at me.  He set down his drink and sighed again, “You’re a decent man Sir Knight.  It’s a pity there aren’t more of you, both for this situation and the world in general.  I suppose that as long as Sieghild’s okay with it, so am I.  But let me tell you this, you mistreat her and I’ll dissolve your dick in acid.  Okay?”

 

“I’d sooner die than mistreat her, but the point is still made.  I have to say I’m a little surprised.  I thought Sieghild was the protective sibling.”

 

“Heh.  We watch out for each other, although Sieghild rarely notices me helping her out.”

 

“Oh?  What do you mean?”

 

“Well, I tend to watch out for her in more subtle ways.  There was this one time back when Sieghild was in the militia – “

 

“Didn’t know she was.”

 

“Yeah, she doesn’t talk about it much.  Evidently she lost a few people and hasn’t really let go of them, but that’s not my story to talk about.  My story is about what I did to one of her coworkers who wouldn’t stop harassing her.  Want to hear it?”

 

“By all means!  Go ahead.”

 

“Right, so… Sieghild was in the Hammerburg Militia, she was a young footman at the time and I was merely a boy helping out in Father’s tavern.  Now she had this fellow footman, a big, red haired, strong as an ox dwarf named Michi.  Now Michi was a real piece of work.  He would get into fights on his time off and harass women, any woman really.  Every time he would come into our tavern, get drunk, and start to harass Sieghild.  Now, normally this sort of thing would get him kicked out of the militia, but he evidently had family in the Schatten Gilde so no one wanted to cross him and my father didn’t want to risk his family’s lives by refusing him service in our tavern.

 

So I was sitting there each night watching this Michi bastard get drunk without paying for a drink and then go up to my sister, slap her on the ass and ask how his little sparring partner was doing and if she missed the feel of his weapon.  I naturally was getting sick of it.  One night Michi went too far, he ripped off Sieghild’s dress and lifted her up for the whole tavern to see.  So that night I snuck out of bed early, got dressed in the dark, and ran down to the craftsman’s guild.  I found the one alchemist still working and I offered him everything I had in exchange for the knowledge of how to get revenge on Michi.  The alchemist thought for a moment, and accepted under some conditions.  I would be his apprentice and I would bring him extra beer from the tavern.  

 

So over the next few months, I slowly continued to sneak out at night and creep down to the craftsman’s guild with extra beer from that day.  Over time, I learned beginnings of the science of alchemy.  Soon I was competent enough to get some revenge.  The next time Michi came to our tavern to drink, I slipped a little something extra in his drink.  The next day I snuck down to the militia headquarters to watch the show.

 

Now Michi had somehow managed to get the position of Corporal and was using his authority to make the footmen do extra practice that day.  I sat there, listening and waiting.  Michi began to bellow his orders, ‘Footmen, attention!  Footmen face… Right!’

 

And then it happened.  Michi was bellowing the next instruction and suddenly his voice went from the deep booming voice he had before to a squeak.  He stopped, put his had up to his face and then tried again.  Again nothing more than a squeaky high pitched voice came out.  There was a murmuring amongst the footmen by now.  Michi tried to order them to silence, but again his voice came out as high pitched as before.  The murmuring turned to a chuckling.  Michi got up on a nearby podium and tried to bellow them into compliance with his squeaky voice.  And then phase two of my surprise started.  

 

Small red wisps began to float away from his face.  At first they were barely noticeable but as they grew in number it became hard to ignore.  It took a few moments for everyone to realize what was happening, but when it did the chuckling from before became a roaring laugh.  Michi was losing his beard.

 

Michi tried to regain control through his commands, he did, but it was too late.  With his beard almost entirely disappeared and still falling out, his voice squeaky as a child’s or a woman’s, he was a rather comical sight for anyone who knew him before.  As he was losing control of the footmen, he resorted to trying to regain control the only way he knew how, with violence.  However as he was trying to beat people into compliance he discovered the third part of my little surprise.  You see, dwarves have this mushroom can put a person into a coma if eaten, however if properly prepared and diluted, it can relax the body’s muscles.  It is the main ingredient used in the Schatten Gilde knockout drug that you already know about.  I put a little of that into the mix.  Not enough to knock him out, but just enough to relax his muscles and reduce his coordination.  So Michi’s blows only managed to amuse the footmen around him.

 

Now Michi might have managed to get away with his dignity intact if it weren’t for what happened next.  As he was shrieking in his new voice, his beard entirely gone at this point, and flailing ineffectually, the sergeant came out.  Now the sergeant was a strong woman named Heidi who wasn’t the type of person to brook nonsense, but when she came out and saw Michi she started to crack up.  And there Michi made his last mistake, he took a swing at Sergeant Heidi.  It didn’t have enough strength behind it to even bruise her cheek, but it did connect.  So Sergeant Heidi stops laughing, picks Michi up by the scruff of his neck and starts to haul him inside the station.  A few seconds later she comes out to grab a spare uniform belt and returns inside without a word.  A few seconds later everyone in the area begins to hear Michi’s shrieks of pain and begins to crack up with laughter again.

 

As everyone was laughing at Michi, I heard more laugher from behind me.  I turned around and saw my father and the alchemist who taught me standing there.  I stammered, ‘Huh?  What are you two – I mean what can I help you with father and who is this man with you?’

 

Father chuckled at me, ‘This man, is actually a good friend of mine.  He came to me the day after you approached him and told me what you offered.  Naturally I agreed to let him teach you.’

 

I boggled at the two of them, ‘Huh?  But why did I have to keep creeping around at night if you were okay with it?’

 

The alchemist shrugged ‘I wanted to test your dedication to the craft.’

 

Father chimed in, ‘And I wanted to see how far you would go to protect your sister.  I’m proud of you son.  Don’t get me wrong, we’ll talk about you offering the extra beer out without my permission later, but I am proud of you.  And now that you’ve accomplished this, I think we can reschedule your hours at the tavern so you can do a full apprenticeship.  How does that sound?’

 

And that’s the story of how I defended my sister’s honor and became an alchemist.”

 

As his story finished, I sat back and applauded Siegbert who was beaming with pride.  “Nicely done Siegbert!  Can I ask what happened to Michi afterwards?”

 

“Don’t know, My surprise wore off after a few hours but it must have taken him forever to grow that beard back.  I think he resigned the border guard and left Hammerburg after that day though.  I don’t think he ever figured out what happened to him.”

 

“Heh.  And Sieghild never heard about this?”

 

“Nah.  I didn’t want her to be concerned about me when I was doing it and there was never a good time for me or Father to really bring it up afterwards.  She was already worried enough about me being an alchemist without her thinking that I was doing it for her somehow.”

 

“Well, I can’t promise never to slap her ass, but I will treat her as well as I can.”

 

“You know Sir Knight, I really didn’t need to hear that first part.”

 

“Sorry.”

 

We spent the rest of the early afternoon drinking and swapping stories before we decided to head out to check on the girls.  After meeting with them, we finished making last minute purchases for our upcoming trips and then returned to the palace for another good dinner, fortunately for our stomachs, it was far smaller than the prior night’s meal.

 

The next day started out the same as the day prior, with me being woken by maids Aimèe and Veila.  Evidently their competition with the local palace maids went into overtime.  The two young women helped me dressed and then served me breakfast in the rooms small dining corner.  I sat eating for a while and enjoyed the show of the two of them cleaning my room in the attractive maid’s outfits they wore.  

 

After they were done, Veila tried to chat me up about “how I enjoyed the show,” but  Aimèe shooed her out, saying that she had to deal with the kitchen about my dishes.  As she was about to follow her, she turned to me and bowed, “By your leave my lord?”

 

To my surprise I found myself shaking my head, “Actually Aimèe, I wanted to talk to you a bit.”

 

She looked surprised, but sat down across the table from me, “What can I help you with, Sir Knight?”

 

“Nothing much.  I just wanted to check in on you and see how you were doing.  Its been a while since we last just talked.”

 

Aimèe smiled, “I think the last real conversation the two of us had was about that chain shirt, and you spent most of the time lecturing me.”

 

“Heh, yeah I guess I did.  At least I got you to stop dressing like… well like Veila.  Speaking of which, how has she been doing?  I noticed that you were kinda taking her under your wing as it were.  I saw you trying to sell her on the real chain shirt in the market and I’ve seen you try to keep her focused on work lately.  Do you think you can make something out of her?”

 

“Not quite.  I think she can make something of herself though.”

 

I raised my eyebrows in surprise, “Oh?  What do you mean by that?”

 

Aimèe shrugged, “Well… she recently lost two of her very close friends.  She doesn’t show it much, actually if I’m honest she doesn’t show it at all, but she felt it deep down.  She knows on some level that she should change the way she’s been doing things, but hasn’t quite got the changes down yet.  I’ve been on both sides of that particular battle, so I figured that I’d help her out a little.  Give her some friendly advice and prodding when needed.”

 

“That’s… that’s amazingly kind of you Aimèe.  Thank you for helping her.”

 

“Sir Knight, its nothing…”

 

“No, it’s not nothing.  You’re taking someone under your care and giving them advice and help that may very well save their life.  You should feel proud of yourself.  Hells, I feel proud of you.”

 

“T-thank you Sir Knight, I’m flattered.  I –“

 

At that point a large crash came from down stairs.  Aimèe turned to me and sighed.  “That would be Veila probably.  I should go see if everything is okay.  Thank you again for the kind words, Sir Knight.”

 

As she was heading for the door I stopped her, “I do enjoy your company, you know.  We shouldn’t let it be so long between conversations in the future, okay?  But we’ll have more than enough time to catch up on the trip to the druidic grove.  I’ll see you later, right?”

 

Aimèe beamed at me, “I’ll be there!  See you later!”

 

I spent the afternoon running around town, helping my various party members with last minute errands that they needed to do before we departed for the Druidic Grove tomorrow.  I had to help Siegbert find about a dozen rare herbs and components in the marketplace, Maritna needed to track down some rare inks for her scrolls, and everyone needed some help choosing cold weather gear for the upcoming winter and our eventual trek into Omrachena Zemli.

 

That evening, I took both Aimèe and Veila out to a play, I hadn’t spent much time with either of them lately and I felt they deserved a treat.  The play was named The Tragedy of Basile.  It was about a young nobleman, the titular Basile, who fell in love with two women.  Over the course of the play, his inability to choose between them drove him mad and he wound up committing suicide rather than leave either girl.  Aimèe and Veila got quite into the play, crying and cheering where appropriate.  I, on the other hand, was struggling the whole time to stay silent, balancing both the desire to rage at the play with the desire to laugh out loud.  Seriously only two women?  Some people don’t know how lucky they have it…  

 

After the play, we returned to the palace for a farewell banquet and got ourselves packed for tomorrow, where we are expected to leave for the trip to the druidic groves.  It is going to be a short day’s ride to the docks at the Fiume River where we will meet with Captain Boniface of the Appât Flottant and travel upriver to the grove.  It is expected to be a decently paced and enjoyable journey.  Let’s hope that it turns out that way.

 

 

 

Dear Journal,

 

Well the trip was interesting to say the least.  We departed that morning from Albero Città to head Fiume River docks.  As we traveled through the woods, we could see the signs of winter beginning to show, snow was falling, many animals disappeared for hibernation, and sapient creatures like us began to bundle up.  Martina herself evidently required two bearskin coats for herself, I had to remind myself that she was a fire dragon and that the relatively mild cold would be indescribably worse for her.  I had my campaigning cloak on and the rest of the party had purchased elven-style winter cloaks in Albero Città.  

 

Fortunately now that we could travel by the roads, the trip to the Fiume took about a day.  We rested in a coaching inn near the river for a night then in the morning left to meet Captain Boniface.  Captain Boniface turned out to be a frail looking human man who spent too much time paying attention to the attractive women in my party, but was otherwise amicable.  He informed us that it was expected to be a three day trip upriver to the Druidic Groves, that we had guest rooms prepared for us and, this part was clearly aimed at the ladies of our party, “should those prove insufficient, I’d happily allow you access to my personal cabin.”

 

The attractions of Captain Boniface aside, the trip was relatively pleasant that first day.  I started out the trip that morning with a good game of Chess with Martina which taxed my abilities with the game to the fullest, I wound up winning one of the three games we played.  Afterwards to warm up I did a bit of light sparring with Sieghild and Rina on the main deck.  It was surprisingly more effective than my usual sparring sessions, having to switch my style from countering the solid, powerful, but less mobile Sieghild to fending off the mobile and quick Rina was effective at keeping me on my toes.  Eventually the two of them wound up teaming up to finish me off, Sieghild pushed my blade aside while Rina tried to tackle me, with her clinging to my torso my balance was off, leaving Sieghild open to knock my legs out from under me.  When I looked up, Rina and Sieghild were straddling me, Rina at my chest and Sieghild at my legs, effectively pinning me.  I smiled at them, “Well done ladies!  Well done!  I didn’t see that coming!”

 

Rina smiled as she panted and heaved from the exertion, “Yeah.  It was a little improvised.  Give me a moment to sit here and catch my breath, okay?”

 

As we were sitting there in that rather compromising position, who should come out but Captain Boniface.  Seeing us he raised his eyebrows and chimed in, “Well ladies, if you’re looking for another sparring partner after your knight… tires out, I’m always available…”

 

Sieghild and Rina politely declined the Captain’s offer.  Sieghild shrugged and said, “We’re just about done for the day anyways.”

 

Captain Boniface chuckled and gave the women what he probably thought was a winning grin, “A pity… I was just looking for a –“

 

I slid Rina and Sieghild off me gently and stood up and picked up my blade, “I suppose if you’re looking for a fight, I could oblige…”

 

Captain Boniface visibly winced at the thought, “…No, no.  I wasn’t looking for a fight, I was looking for a way to help out.  But if you’re done I’ll just get back to the ship,” and with that he scurried off.

 

Sieghild shook her head as he departed, “Disgusting man.”

 

I shrugged, “I don’t care for the way he looks at you.  Still, he has his uses, at the very least he seems to be a competent Captain and host.  The rooms he’s given us have been good and from the smell of things, the chefs know what they’re doing too.”

 

The chefs were even better than I thought, and after a great meal we retired to our cabins for the night and I let the peaceful rocking of the ship put me to sleep.

 

It was the next day when things got interesting.  It started out normal with a good breakfast followed by another few rounds of chess with Martina.  I had just started my sparring sessions with Sieghild and Rina when one of the sailors who were clearing snow off the deck turned and shouted “By the Gods… we’re under attack!”

 

I turned to look at what the sailor saw and to my surprise and horror it was a group of raiders, a mix of two giants and a dozen humans.  The two giants were hefting boulders large enough to make our lives seriously shorter should they hit us.  As they hurled them at us I ducked, only to be surprised when they looked like they wouldn’t hit me.  Too late I realized my mistake, they weren’t aiming at us. They were aiming at the ship.

 

Up until that day I had never been in a shipwreck and if this is typical of them, I never want to again.  The boulders struck the ship and completely snapped it in to three pieces which immediately collapsed into the frigid water.  I thought to myself, “Lucky I’m using my equipment for this sparring practice.  It means I’m armed and armored and ready to go.”  Then I realized.  Being armored may not be as much of an advantage as normal when you’re on a sinking ship.

 

Unfortunately the ships were sinking too fast for the crew to reach the life boats.  Fortunately there was a lot of rope on the deck.  I turned to Sieghild, “How are you at throwing that axe?”

 

She looked at me curiously, “It’s not balanced for throwing, but I can probably hit a target with it.  What do you need me to hit?

 

I lifted the rope.  “Tie this on the handle.  Then try to hit something sturdy.  We’re going to need to pull ourselves over with the rope; I don’t think we’re going to be swimming in our armor.”

 

She nodded, “Good idea,” and proceeded to hurl her axe into a tree on the riverbank near the raiders.

 

By then we were under water and sinking fast.  As I looked up I could see others of the crew swimming to safely including most of my party so I set about following the rope to the shore.  As I was about to reach the shallows, I saw a glimpse of red drifting down river underwater.  I was horrified to see that it was Martina, I remembered that she had been in her cabin at the time, but I thought she would have been able to get out of there already.  I looked closer and saw that she wasn’t moving, the shock of the cold water must have made her pass out.  She wouldn’t live without someone to rescue her.

 

As such I did the only thing I could and went after her.  Now trying to move underwater in heavy armor is almost impossible, but I was aided by the fact that I was already moving with the river and I could use driftwood and debris from the ship to catch myself on the current and make the distance, I managed to snag the edge of her heavy bear coat and pull her in closer to me.  I then began to haul the two of us back up the rope towards shore.

 

As I reached shore, I collapsed to my knees and began to try to regain as much of my breath as possible.  As I looked up I could see everyone still fighting the raiders.  I watched as Sieghild dodged around the single remaining giant and swung her axe into his calves, dropping him to a knee and allowing Rina to reach his vitals.  The remaining human raider suddenly dropped his weapons and ran, saying something about not being paid enough for this.  Sieghild turned to me and began scolding me for worrying her when I didn’t come up after her, but my concern was on Martina.  She still hadn’t regained consciousness and was deathly cold, even by human standards.   I looked up at the gathered party to take account of who was there, “Martina – near dead but here, Aimèe’s here, Sieghild’s here, Felìcita’s here, Veila is here, and Rina is here… where is Siegbert?  Siegbert?  Where are you?”

 

From the other side of the river I heard someone call out, “I’m over here Sir Knight!”

 

I turned around, sure enough a small collection of survivors amongst the crew were pulling themselves out of the river on the banks of the other side.  Siegbert and Captain Boniface were amongst them.  

 

“How did you get over there, Siegbert?”

 

“Sorry!  I followed the rest of the crew and they had this ridiculous idea of heading away from the danger!  How is everyone over there?”

 

“Martina is in a real bad way.  We need to find some shelter soon.  Can you send help our way?”

 

“Count on it Sir Knight!  Keep everyone safe for me!”

 

“Will do Siegbert.  Will do.”

 

With that I turned to Rina and Felìcita, “All right, you two know woodcraft the best.  I need some form of shelter.  If it’s taken by an animal, just kill it.  We need to get Martina warm fast if there is any chance of her living.  Hells, with the temperature out here the way it is, we might all need that shelter to live.”

 

I dug through our possessions that I could find.  Almost everything we own was soaked through and beginning to ice over in the wind, but I found one large blanket at the bottom of Martina’s bags that had managed to remain mostly dry.  I quickly wrapped it around Martina’s frigid body and waited impatiently for Rina and Felìcita to return.  Soon they came back and reported they had cleared out a bear den, I picked up Martina and carried her to the cave and inside it, ignoring the large, arrow filled bear corpse outside.  As I set Martina on the ground, I told Rina and Felìcita to start a fire near the entrance for warmth.  

 

I knelt besides Martina and struggled to remember what my teachers had told me about preventing and surviving hypothermia.  I remember the old grizzled sergeant who taught me wilderness survival.  “Well first off boys, you need to know what to look for.  In some cases when exposed to extreme cold a person can take to it funny.  Look for someone who despite being cold suddenly stops shivering, breaths slowly or shallowly, feels tired, slurs their words, and gets clumsy.  In some cases they even will fall unconscious.  If your victim is unconscious, get a medic immediately. If a medic is unavailable, then you can try these steps.  Now you’re all going to be brothers-in-arms and as such have nothing to hide from each other, which is a good thing because the first step here is to remove any wet clothes that the person may be wearing.”  I remember everyone bursting into laughter at that bit, but the sergeant threatened to beat us senseless if we didn’t listen.  I’ll have to remember to send him a letter to thank him for that.  “You need to protect the victim from wind, drafts, and other things that can make them get colder with warm clothes, blankets, and the like.  Then you should move the victim into a warm dry shelter as soon as possible.  After that you should begin to rewarm the victim as soon as possible.  Use warm blankets, and clothes.  If nothing else is available you even should use your own body heat.”  At this point the instructor had to stop to hit some students who couldn’t stop laughing with his baton.  “Right, well then after that all you can do is wait for a real medic to show up or for the person to get better.”

 

Right, so I need to remove wet clothes, protect the person against winds, move them to a shelter, and begin to rewarm them.  I had done most of those already, but the remaining steps were going to be awkward.  As I began to remove Martina’s clothing, I could hear Rina’s eyes bug out as she asked, “Wh-What are you doing Sir Knight?”

 

“Rina, do you remember your survival training?  Did they ever cover what to do in this case?”

 

“…Ah yes.  Sorry, I forgot about that for a moment…”

 

“But you remember now, right?”

 

“Yes, yes I do.”

 

“Good, because I’m going to need help convincing everyone to help in rewarming Martina as is.  Can you two go and explain what we’re going to need to do?”

 

“What… you mean all of us?”

 

“Martina is a fire dragon.  She needs a lot more heat than a normal person does.  Please Rina, I need your help to save Martina.  Can you do this for me?”

 

“I… all right Sir Knight.  I’ll see what I can do.”

 

“If you can’t convince them, I’ll speak to them myself, now go; Martina doesn’t have much time!”

 

Soon enough the women came in.  Veila glared at me, “You know, if it wasn’t for the fact that this would be absolutely necessary I’d be really angry at you about now.”

 

“I’m sorry about that.  I’ll buy you all a nice dinner at the druidic groves.  Now lets try to make this less awkward if possible,” with that said, I began to remove my armor and clothes.  I could hear Sieghild gaps and ask, “What is this about?”

 

As I continued to undress I answered, “Well.  Sieghild, do you remember why I needed to remove Martina’s clothes?”

 

“Because the wet clothes would only make her colder and… aww.  Ours would do the same thing, right?”

 

“That would be correct, Sieghild.”

 

Aimèe gave me a look.  “You know Sir Knight, if I didn’t know better I would suspect you of arranging this for your own benefit,” she sighed, “but I suppose you’re right.  Veila, can you help me with this courset?”

 

As everyone undressed, I got into the bearskin with Martina and pulled her icy body on top of me, a rather unpleasant experience truth be told.  Worried, I held my hand to her mouth and was at least marginally relieved to feel shallow breathing still coming from her body.  As the others began to get undressed and get in with us, I began to direct them, “Alright, Felìcita can you get on top of Martina?  There that’s good.  Aimèe can you come in beside me here so you can come up against Martina’s side?  Perfect, well done.  Sieghild, can you take the other side?  Thank you.  Now Veila and Rina can you two get on Aimèe and Sieghild so we can box Martina in a little?  That’s great.”  I realized that everyone in the room was glowering at me a little so I took the opportunity to thank them again, “I just wanted to say that I wouldn’t ask this if Martina’s life wasn’t on the line and I really, really appreciate your help in this matter.  Thank you all.  All right, the fire is going, we’re wrapped up.  I’d say that you should try to get some rest if you can.  I’ll stay up and watch the entrance and keep an eye on Martina.”

 

I sat up waiting for hours, worrying about Martina.  Eventually her body did warm up and her breath did stabilize but it was close there for a while.  I almost relaxed for a while, then I heard her voice.  “Sir Knight, why am I in the center of what appears to be an orgy and why shouldn’t I completely panic and shift into dragon form right now?”

 

I hastily explained what had happened and what we needed to do to keep her alive.  Martina blushed as she said, “Oh… thank you Sir Knight.  I… Thank you.”

 

I stroked her hair affectionately, “Just relax Martina.  You still look a little under the weather.  Just fall back asleep and enjoy the warmth.”

 

As Martina laid her head back against me, I saw Felìcita look up groggily.  “Was that Martina?” she said with a yawn.

 

“Yeah it was.  She’ll be okay.  You can go back to sleep.”

 

Felìcita nodded sleepily.  “Good, as jealous as I am of her… I wouldn’t want her dead…” and with that she drifted off.  I wondered if she would remember being up at all, let alone saying that when the morning came.

 

So I relaxed a little.  I laid my head back and thought to myself, “My life may have been hijacked by a quest to destroy some mythical artifact, but right now I’m literally falling asleep in a pile of naked and attractive women.”  As Aimèe shifted in her sleep to move herself closer to me I concluded that thought with, “Life could certainly be much worse.”

 

A few hours later I was jolted into awareness as I felt Martina’s legs slide down and squeeze my sides.  A quick check to see that she was still resting left me initially thought that it was nothing more than her shifting in her sleep, then her arms shifted to grab my sides too.  Before I knew it, she had changed from laying on top of me to straddling me.  I was beginning to calm down thinking to myself, “It’s okay, people move in their sleep all the time, just because her arms and legs moved like that doesn’t mean that anything is about to happen, then her hips joined in too.  At first it was slow, and I thought it was just another awkward shift of her weight, then she did it again.  I tapped Martina on her shoulder with my free hand, “Martina, are you alright?”

 

Her only response was a low moan, “Sir Knight… please…”

 

As she continued to rub herself against me, my shaking of her grew more frantic, but she was still stuck in her dream.  I suppose I could hit her harder, but I really didn’t’ want to do that when she had just recovered from the low temperatures.   I looked around hoping that one of the other girls had woken up and would be able to help me out, or at least testify in my defense come morning, but naturally I was the only one awake.  Even Felìcita who was right on top of Martina seemed undisturbed.  

 

I could feel Martina’s lips near my ear, her breathing was growing more rapid.  At the same time as she rubbed her lower body against mine I could feel an entirely separate set of lips moving closer and closer to their goal.  I could feel heat radiating from them, even the moisture was hot.  Her legs were fully clasped around my waist and her arms were holding me tight, pressing her ample chest into me.  I could feel every shiver down her spine, every pulse of heat in her body, hear every small gasp or moan coming from her mouth.  I remember that the scent of her was akin to that of some imported peppers that I had once sampled and the smell filled the air.  With a unusually powerful movement, Martina shifted Felìcita off her back, as the girl rolled over onto Rina I hoped that this would wake either of them, but I was in no luck.  I turned back to Martian and had to stifle a gasp.  While Martina’s normal clothes left little to the imagination, they certainly didn’t prepare me for the sight of her nude.  Her heart shaped rear was slightly elevated, her back was slick with sweat, and her hair was unkempt and matted, clinging to the moisture on her back.  With the glow of the fireside lighting her up, I nearly lost control of my blade then and there; I must admit that I was enjoying the attention, my own sword was nearly fully erect and the sensation of her growing closer and closer to me with each movement was amazing.  Finally she was on me, her opening was sliding across my blade and nearing the tip.  She moaned quietly, “Sir Knight… your lance…”

 

I knew I was close to losing control of myself, I couldn’t let that happen, nor could I let Martina continue to her inevitable destination.  Not then, not after Martina asked me to wait until we were at the hot springs, not after asking all the girls to trust me in saving Martina’s life.  I did the only thing I could think of; I stuck my own hand down there, using my entire forearm to provide a cover between Martina and my blade.  Soon Martina was moving as before, but this time it wasn’t right up against my sensitive regions.  It wasn’t long before I calmed down and my blade returned to my scabbard.  Moments later, I could feel the sticky trickle of her liquids dripping down my hand.  She curled up against me and was still the rest of the night.

 

With a tinge of regret, I wiped her fluids off on the ground and laid back again, resolving to make the most of our time at the druidic grove.  I gently moved Felìcita back to her former position on top of Martian and replaced the disturbed bearskin blanket.