When we finally have explained everything to Faladel and Briareth– Istere ending with, “So now everyone believes that my Dad is insane, and I’m some sort of hero for trying to stop him.” Briareth is the first to reply.

“Well, your dad kinda is insane.”

“And you are a hero.” I mutter under my breath. I feel my face heat up as Istere turns her golden eyes on me.

“Did you say something, Balderk?” She asks, and I feel relieved. She hadn’t heard my muttering.

“Errmm… Nothing much. I was just wondering who exactly wrote all this.” I say. And it isn’t a lie, that question has been bugging me. “There’s very few people who would know all this information. I mean, lots of it isn’t exactly secret, the lowering of the conscription age is a recently passed policy, but not one that’s being put into action yet. I can totally believe that the King’s murder plots and the Queen’s addiction are open secrets in the castle. And even I could find out about the super weapon. But it takes a dedicated mind to connect it all and weave a story like this.”

“True.” Istere says, considering. “It would probably have to be a noble, and one high enough to have the sorcery training to pull off the spells to send copies of this all over the city.”

“Or maybe there are multiple authors and they’re working together.” Faladel says. “That would make it easier. One to gather information, one to write it up, and one or two to perform the sorcery necessary to spread the word. We need to figure this out. If someone on the King’s side finds them first, they could be in grave danger.”

“You think he’d go so low as to get revenge on the people who published this?” Briareth asks, picking up the pamphlet for another read-through.

“I wouldn’t put it past him.” Istere says darkly. “Faladel’s right, we need to find these people as soon as we can, hopefully they can find someplace to hide themselves in the meantime though, because we also need to go confront my father.”

“Cut off the head of the chicken, and hope the body stops flailing soon?” Briareth offers.

Istere snaps her fingers, “Exactly. Strike while the Iron is hot.”

“If this scandal can turn around the public,” Faladel muses. “We might not even have to murder him, you can just oust him with the public and nobles’ support, and then put him on trial and in jail for the rest of his life. Just because there isn’t a history of it, doesn’t mean it has to fail. Especially if the reaction to this is as big as we’re expecting.”

I share a glance with Istere, I thought he had gotten over this already.

“E–Excuse my I–Interruption.” Uggard breaks the silence that had fallen after Faladel’s suggestion, his gaze jumping nervously between the four of us. “Bu–But wouldn’t this be a perfect time to rescue the other PPG members as well? I–I mean, we don’t have to… But I’m w–worried about the repercussions they might face. What if the King decides to make an example of them anyways? To try and cow Your Highness?”

Istere’s eyes narrow as she considers this. “You’re right, we can’t just leave them there… wherever there is.” She glances at the nervous young dwarf, who’s fiddling with his scabbard self consciously.

“Do you happen to know where they’re being held, Uggard?” She asks. Uggard nods, and Istere grabs an old book from one of the multitudes on the study shelves, riffling through the pages to find a map.

“Where?” She asks, and Uggard points out their location. Unsurprisingly, it’s in the same prison we were being held in. “Of course he’d keep them in the simplest place.” Istere mutters, “He never did have any imagination.”

“Will that be a problem?” Faladel asks, “You managed to break us out of there quite nicely.”

“That was with weeks of preparation and an excellent team.” Istere says, “No insult intended, but you haven’t prepared for this at all. Last time, I snuck sleeping powder into the guards’ food to make them drowsy, then Blix went in with specially trained members of the PPG to incapacitate but not kill the guards. We had started planning that extraction pretty much as soon as you were sentenced.”

“And you still took months to get us out.” Briareth remembers. Istere nods.

“Currently the castle is probably in chaos though. I can’t imagine most of the public is receiving this well, and I doubt the nobles like it either.” Faladel says.

“Yes, that would make a rescue attempt easier.” I admit, “But I doubt the guards would desert their posts, these papers only just started raining from the sky, so the one’s in the underground prison probably haven’t even heard anything about it yet.” I try to think back to when we were rescued from the prison. Blix had taken the key off his belt, right?

“You wouldn’t happen to still have the key to those cells?” I ask.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“Blix had taken it off the head of the guards in a different part of the castle, we had to return it inconspicuously later on.” Istere says, “However,” She grins, “I did make a copy, just in case.” Reaching into one of the hidden pockets in her rumpled formal outfit– obviously it had suffered from the chaos of the past few days– she retrieves a key ring. “Luckily I kept it with my other important keys instead of storing it in my rooms like most of my unused items with potential.” She removes an inconspicuous looking silver key from the chain of about twelve, handing it to Faladel. “Can you hold onto this?” Faladel nods, pocketing the key somewhere on his person.

Turning back to stare at the map on the table in front of us, Istere taps her fingers, considering something.

“There’s only five of us, and so much to do. I need to request a meeting with my Father, we need to rescue Blix, and we need to figure out who wrote this pamphlet.” She frowns, delegating tasks in her head. “Uggard, you’ll have to be the one to go request the meeting, I suppose you could guide Faladel down to the prisons first though so he can rescue Blix…” She trails off.

“Wait, I’m going to rescue Blix with only Uggard?” Faladel asks, more than a little surprised. I’m confused as well. Faladel and Briareth and Uggard, I can understand. Briareth is good at subterfuge, good at disguises, decent at magic, and quick witted. When we were captured he was brilliant and took out more people than I did. Uggard knows the way and has a vested interest in seeing us succeed. If he’s gone through training to become a PPG member, he’s probably decent at combat as well. However, Faladel is better suited for the planning stages. He says he’s good with a sword, but I’ve never seen him actually use one. He’s quick to analyze, but he has a tendency to second guess himself. Maybe Istere saw something in him though, when they went to rescue the Queen together. I give her a questioning glance, and she shoots me a significant look in response. I don’t know why she chose to send only those two out together, but it seems she has a reason for it.

“Yes, you and Uggard.” Istere says, not meeting Faladel’s eyes. “Briareth, Balderk and I will search through the noble families to find out who sent the message. When you have Blix, return, and we can divide again so some of us can go and try to find and help the authors of the pamphlet, and Uggard can go arrange a meeting with my dad. If we manage to agree on a meeting, I doubt he’ll allow more than one or two companions, so we’ll have people to spare to go help the authors.”

Faladel frowns, probably guessing something is going on in Istere’s head. But he doesn’t say anything. Instead he nods, and, turning to Uggard, smiles. “Let’s go then. No point in wasting daylight.” He says, and they exit together.

“What was that about?” I ask Istere.

“I don’t want to deal with his morals right now.” Istere says. “Was it obvious?”

“Rather.” I say grimacing. “He almost certainly caught on to something.”

“You were trying to get rid of Faladel?” Briareth says, completely oblivious to what just went down.

“Why did you keep Briareth here then? They would have been a lot safer if he had gone with them. And he’ll probably tell Faladel anything that goes down here anyways.” I glance at Briareth, “No offense meant. It’s just that you owe your loyalties to him.”

Briareth shrugs. “If you wanted to talk about killing the King, I don’t think I will tell Faladel.”

Istere and I both stare at him, a little shocked. Briareth blinks calmly at us, enjoying our confusion. He doesn’t elaborate until I ask for it.

“But– But why not?”

“Hmm…” Briareth considers the question. “Well, first off, I agree with your point of view more than I agree with Faladel. I can see why he doesn’t want to murder the fellow, and I can respect that. However, he isn’t considering the fact that even if he is imprisoned and will ‘never see the light of day again’ someone sympathetic to his cause or who just wants a figurehead they can control on the throne, can break him out quite easily and make all the people who are upset at the current ruler– presumably yourself Istere– have someone they can rally behind. Even if the man does go even more senile, he’s still dangerous because people can make him dangerous. Faladel is used to elvish politics, which have a bit more subtle maneuvering and rules against insane people coming into power, even if they are figureheads, so he probably didn’t consider the option that someone could try and take the throne again through the soon-to-be-dead King. And even if we explained it to him and he somehow accepted it, it would still weigh on his conscience as a wrong that he authorized.” Briareth shrugs, “Besides, I’m an Elf of my word, we said we’d help you, so I’m going to help.” He grins, the brief glimpse of seriousness disappearing again. “If you can’t believe that, then think of it this way. What about the poisons? It took ages to make the first one, and hours of bookwork and a little taste testing to identify the one I found on the high priest! It’s made of ground up Belladonna root, and kills in about five minutes at its current concentration. It would really be awful if I’d done all that boring work for nothing!”

“Won’t Faladel be upset at you for hiding things?” Istere asks, steering him back to the earlier subject.

“Better him be upset than have his conscience clouded by this forever. If he sided with you all, he’d never really forgive himself. If he didn’t know about it, at least he might be able to forgive me.” Briareth grins. “So, what’s the plan?”

“We’re going to send Uggard in to request a meeting,” Istere says, and I can see her coming up with the plan seconds before she says it. “We’ll say each of us should be allowed to bring two witnesses, just to prevent any last ditch murdering attempts on his part. And then we’ll try to explain to him– no, let's just demand that he hand over the reigns of power. Say that the people won’t stand for his continued rule, and threaten to lead a revolt. This will activate all of his suspicions, but he can’t throw me out that easily, so we’ll go into a lengthy negotiating cycle. He’ll try to talk me down so he can get rid of me later, but I’ll just be stubborn. Eventually, we’ll need some sort of food, so refreshments will be called for. Briareth– you can be dressed as a dwarf this entire time, a servant, who will bring in the refreshments. Dump some of that poison you got off the high priest into his wine. Belladonna mixes well with alcohol, right?”

“The flavors blend right in.” Briareth confirms.

“Then there shouldn’t be any problem. He always drinks wine with dinner, so poisoning it before it’s brought in shouldn’t be that hard.”

“Wait, what if he asks Briareth to taste test the wine? To check for poison?” I ask, suddenly worried for my friend.

“I’ve built up a tolerance for Belladonna, along with most other poisons.” Briareth says. “All a part of training. As long as I only take a small sip, and make it look like I drank more, this should work.” He actually looks excited to drink poison.