Edited by: Solyom
Note from author: Jason’s POV and the story with Zari will have a bit shattered timeline. At Zari’s place, it’s already evening, and soon it will be the next day. For Jason, it is still an afternoon. I just want to push the Zari story onward while “disturbing” it with Jason Povs from time to time. So as for Zari’s days (and/or weeks) will pass, Jason would be “stuck” in the same day, maybe two.
Jason put another barrel on the ground in the small storage-like room next to the dining hall. It was both painful and humiliating for him. No, not because he despised physical labor, but because he was mostly carrying alcohol he was not allowed to drink, at least not just yet. Despite the fact that the barrels were tightly shut, his mind started playing tricks on him, making him imagine the delicious, heavy smell of the booze and the sophisticated aroma of whiskey. His brain begged him to at least remove the lid and take a whiff of the thick stench of the bear.
But he had work to be done and thus he needed to stay strong. As strong as this wonderful firewater, which would leave a burning sensation down your throat after you took merely one gulp of it…
… BAD JASON! STAY FOCUSED!
- “I need to praise you, Steve, I have never seen you working this hard before. You didn’t even try to run away for a break, even as you had quite few opportunities.” The curvy woman came from the other room. Every once in a while, she would hide in some shadowed corner watching over Jason pretending to be Steve.
Indeed, most people could have trouble finding her, but Jason spent quite a few years in a dark cell, his vision in this dim room was better than most people in the brightest day. So he would just double his efforts in order to make the girl pleased. Remember kids, there is nothing more badass than treating woman with respect and cheering her day up!
He pretended to be scared a little by the “sudden” appearance of his companion.
- “Damn it girl! You spooked me!” he was answered with a cheerful laugh “… I am sorry! I didn’t mean to be vulgar.”
- “Come on, Steve! You gotta tell me what got into you! You are behaving like a completely different person today! Not that I mind, it’s quite sweet.”
- “I will tell you a secret, but you can’t repeat it to anybody else, deal?”
- “Deal!” she smiled once again and her eyes brightened up a little. That was quite a pleasant smile, he had to admit.
- “I am not Steve. I am an agent hired by the king and right now I need to talk with him, I stunned the real Steve, tied him up and dropped in the warehouse outside of the palace. This is why I am acting weirdly, I simply have no idea how the real Steve would behave.”
At first woman’s eyes widened, and then she burst into a hysterical laugh.
- “Good one! Oh my belly! Good one! Unfortunately for you, Mr. secret agent, that’s exactly Steve’s sense of humor, so you gotta try harder.” She punched him lightly in his arm.
- “I beg you, madam, I really need your help! Could you please tell me where I could find his majesty?”
- “Very well!” she said still laughing. “… His majesty is preparing in his chambers, two floors above us. Normally it would be impossible for anyone to get in there because of the guards… but the palace staff has special hidden corridors to move through the mansion faster. As I am thinking about it, it’s finally time to show you these.”
- “Why didn’t you show them to me before?”
- “Cuz you are a slacker, Steve, if I would tell you about all these corridors you would most likely nap in them. And that would give me dozens if not hundred more places to look for you!”
- “You hurt my feelings!”
- “Anyway, here you go. Oh, and take this crate of bottles, it’s about time to refill the king’s private stash.”
So he did as he was told. He walked after his new female-friend to the corridor that seemed to lead to the room filled with paintings, but before they entered it, woman pulled the torch down. Something cracked, something twisted, and the armor resting on the wall moved to the side, showing of an opening in the wall.
- “Neat.” Jason said looking at the mechanism.
- “Every torch, every handle and a few books in libraries are triggers of the secret doors. But they are not all working at the same time. It’s important for you to remember it. If you would try pulling the same torch in two or three days, that armor would slice you in half.” She pointed at the guardian of the passage.
Only now Jason noticed what was wrong with the piece of “exposition”. How could he not notice it before. He saw the material from which the armor was made before. For long years, in the castle of the inquisition.
- “White Onyx Guardian?” he hissed with anger and admiration.
- “HEH?! You knew about them?” she was disappointed. Apparently she wanted to show off her knowledge and lecture him about it.
- “I got once into the bar. There was a bard that was traveling with a group of adventurers. He sang a song about them fighting with golems made of white material.” That wasn’t a lie. That happened. About 10 or 15 years ago. He also knew about the guardians before that, but hey! In the end he didn’t lie!
- “I see.” The woman was still pouting.
So they moved up to the higher floor. Hidden corridors were a true labyrinth. It was also filled with a few traps, just in case. In the end, you didn’t want some assassin to use them to kill the king!
- “Corridors were built to serve as escape routes for the nobility… But in over 400 years there was no assassination attempt, so a few decades ago, we were let to use it in order to do our job more efficiently. Still, not every servant knows about them. If you would ever want to use them, you have to report to the higher tier servants.”
He almost asked who belongs to the group of the “higher servants” but he managed to bite his tongue in the very last moment. These were the supervisors of the staff members and he, as one, should know them. But, looking at the ease with which the woman moved through the passages he quickly deducted at least one of the members.
- “‘Kay. If I ever need to use it again, I will just ask you.”
She turned around and smiled at him once more.
- “We came to the right place, now wait…” she knocked thrice the door, yet no one responded. “… ok! Looks like nobody is in majesty’s office right now, which means we can enter!”
She pushed another brick. And once again, twist, crack, and the wall moved to the side, letting them to step in the room.
- “Come here and start refilling the king’s cabinet, as much as he is a wise man, he also drinks a lot.”
He did as he was told, he kneeled and started taking out empty bottles while putting new ones in their place. But then a click of a key could be heard from the door and King with two guards came inside.
- “As I said, it’s fine! See?! I got in alive! There is really no need to escort me EVERYWHERE!”
- “Sir, because of the party many guests are expected to come. And nobles will not be alone, they will be with their servants, for a potential assassin it is very easy to disguise as some lackey..”
That guard had a point, you know?
- “Will you go with me to the toilet too, Blackwood!?” King tried to mock the noble that was leading his escort.
- “If I would find it necessary, my lord.” Aristocrat smiled in response. Then he looked at them “… Doing your job, good people? Pardon me, but we have to inspect you, normal procedure, you know.” And he picked a white stone from his pocket
FOR FUCK SAKE! Did they start selling Onyx on the street when he was not paying attention!? Still, if they would touch him with it, his spell would shatter, and thus his disguise.
- “Actually, I will spare you efforts. I am from outside.” Jason said with peaceful voice
- “For goddesses sake! Steve! Pardon me, your majesty, sir Blackwood! He is just pulling prank and…”
- “Actually no. I needed to talk with you, so I borrowed this man appearance.”
Still holding a stone in his left hand Blackwood pulled his sword free. Yet Jason kept talking.
- “Arthur, you came to me about week ago with a special task. I came to report some difficulties and ask for a little help.”
- “Robert, leave.” King said with harsh voice.
- “But, your majesty!!!” Head of the house tried to object
- “I gave you direct order soldier. Last time I checked, I was still in charge of the army, despite the rising influence of the Senate.”
- “That’s not what I meant, it’s just… we have no idea if this man…”
- “Robert, I know that you are worrying, even more as I didn’t use to have secrets from you, and I promise, I will tell you everything when the time would come, but right now, the less people know what is going on, the greater are the chances of success. This man is risking everything. Do you think he would just break in to the place during my daughter’s birthday if he didn’t have to? Think about his sacrifice.”
- “I still don’t like… Very well. Miss Barbara, could you please follow me?”
So her name was Barbara.
- “B-b-b-but what happened to Steve?!”
- “Hm? But I already told you.” Jason raised his brow. “… he is unconscious in the storage room.”
- “… You have interesting way of working, telling everyone you are a spy?” The king smiled.
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
- “That’s something I learned while being interrogated by the inquisition over and over again, if you would tell them the truth, and do so in some surprising way, they will never believe you.”
- “B-b-but!” woman still tried to say something, yet she was forcefully pulled outside by King’s guards. Of course not to do her any harm.
The door finally shut, then photomancer finally was able to get rid of the spell.
- “Not many people know, but keeping an illusion up for hours is more exhausting than firing fireballs for half of this time.” He massaged his forehead in order to get rid of the pain.
- “What do you bring me?” king cut the chit-chat right away.
- “The problem is – that nothing. No financial anomalies, no weird visitors. Every house was lately acting nicely, docile even. It is impossible to check on them through notes. I need to spy on them personally.”
- “So… what are you doing here?”
- “For Aira’s sake! Arthur! Think! Four houses! Four families! I don’t want to waste time inspecting wrong people!”
- “… You don’t want to get an invitation for my daughter party so you would chose the house on which you would spy on depending merely on your observation?! Please, tell you don’t. It’s risky. And dumb.”
- “You got any better idea!?”
- “Please, just don’t tell me that you would guess which one to spy on depending on intuition or some other shit!”
- “…”
- “Please?”
- “…I got a sixth sense…”
- “I fucking knew it. We are lost. We are doomed. Somebody tried killing Blackwood’s wife, then people are being kidnapped from my kingdom by a hostile country, and the man I hired wants to lead his case basing on intuition!”
- “… it is sixth sense, not intuition…”
- “For the sake of Aira and Heira and Lux and tits and wine. I am already fucking dead-man walking.” King hid his face in palms.
- “It ain’t that bad!”
- “Fine.”
- “I still think I could… What did you say?”
- “You will get an invitation. We will give you some fake identity of middle-upper noble. Just high enough for other guests not to treat you like garbage, yet low enough not to draw too much attention. Should be fine, right?”
- “Right.”
And they sit like that more two or three minutes in absolute silence looking at each other.
- “Sooo… what are you waiting for?” the king asked.
- “Well… Do you have some spare clothes to spare? And a gift?”
An ugly grimace appeared on the king’s face.
- “Fucking perfect.” king just rolled his eyes.
Zari’s POV
We eventually got out of the bath, dried our bodies and put on clothes. It’s only worth mentioning that “eventually” happened after an hour or so of snuggling. And by snuggling I mean… Ok. Ok. I get it. To the point.
When we left the room it was already late evening, and the guy that showed us the way already stopped working. If we wanted to report the quest back, we had to wait until morning, for another person appear on their shift. Not that it was anything that urgent…
- “Bloody slackers! Why isn’t he working anymore! We need to report the conquering of the dungeon! It’s urgent!” Gis pouted.
- “Why is that so?”
- “Silly you! How would they name a dungeon after me!”
- “Gisele, you are aware that we destroyed that dungeon? Like, completely? Now it is just some cave, you could name a dungeon if you would have conquered it, yet still left it working so other people could gain resources from it. No rescores - no dungeon, no dungeon - no naming.”
Gisele froze in place.
- “No eternal glory for me?” she whined.
- “At least not yet.” I looked up on her. “… Gis, are you crying?”
- “I am not!”
- “You are!”
- “It’s just rain!”
- “We are inside of the building, Gis, and it’s not even raining outside.”
- “I TOLD YA IT’S JUST A RAIN!” and now from sadness she went straight to anger. If my predictions are correct, and they are, then she will want to distress herself. Probably on me. She wants me to provoke her. Ain’t happening.
- “Very well, it is just a raindrop. Come on, let’s have a beer or two.”
I pulled her sleeve gently. Another pout from her. She was in “pouching mood”, so in order to avoid getting damaged by her, I better tried to get her into the bar section, got her drunk, move to the other side of the room and wait for somebody else to provoke her. Perfect plan.
We got to the inn section and ordered a few beers. Pretty quickly, Gisele stopped drinking beer, instead she started abusing whiskey, then vodka. It wasn’t her average cheerful drinking. Her rage was almost visible, floating around her, like a thick miasma. Nobody sane would approach her now.
- “Sup there mates! How are you doing!? Came back alive, didn’t you? Come on, don’t be shy, tell us how was it?!” a cheerful, bit drunk man stepped out of the crowd and started talking to Gisele.
Poor idiot. You brought that upon yourself. As soon as Gisele’s eyes shifted on the young adventurer I started to slowly run away… I mean, strategically relocating myself, to the other side of the room.
- “Oh! So you too think it was a piece-of-cake task, ain’t you!? You also think that you would clear it better! That you could not only survive, but conquer it without destroying right!? RIGHT?!”
- “I… I have never said…”
- “Yes you did! Just now!”
- “I think… I think I will be going…”
- “No!...” dragoness grabbed him by his arm and forcefully pulled him back to his chair next to her. “.. listen now, you little piece of shit, this was a fucking hellhole!...”
And her story started. Now, poor bastard was forced to listen to her. If he has any brain-cells left he will never interrupt her, never question her theories, just nod nicely pretending he is listening to her and gasp in disbelief every two minutes.
Oh, and Gisele will be exaggerating.
- “… But how did a dragon happened to be trapped in a cave-hole like dungeon?” I managed to hear him asking.
… idiot.
- “SO YOU ARE TELLING ME, THAT I AM A LIAR!?”
And then a crunch, and the scream, and a body flew against the bar. And she wasn’t even drunk yet. Now she will start looking for some other prey to tell her half imaginary stories. And woe those who would be foolish enough to get close to her…
But I no longer cared. I was sitting in the opposite part of the room, in a bit darkened corner, sipping slowly my liquor. About a day more till these stupid ballast would lose it’s magic and fell off. Then I will just have to avoid Gisele and focus on the training of my own. It would be good to ask some adventurers for a bit of sparring, just to try myself with different fighting styles than those I am already use to. Also, that would help me get rid of bad rumors about me.
So now, about the training plan. We will spent here some time, maybe a week, maybe two. Will try working on my body at day time, and some magic practices at the evening. An hour of meditation before sleep should keep my cores developing nicely too.
And just as I was wondering about which muscles parts I should abuse tomorrow, somebody sat next to me. Elves. Two of them.
- “Would you mind if we join you?” they question was lacking… a questioning-tone. They merely informed me, as they sat next to me with that sentence.
- “It is pointless to ask for permission to perform a task that was already performed.”
I decided to play same game and offended them with neutral tone. Their eyes shined a little. Elves had that thing to word-duels. They mastered the art of verbal offenses while acting like kind nobles.
- “We have to admit, thou surprised us. You act bit differently than thy companion.” The elven woman looked in the direction of Gisele
- “Is it so hard to understand that two different persons may have two completely different temperaments?”
- “When an individual spends lots of time in a certain environment, he or she tends to converge his behaviors, and even appearance, in order to blend in.” the man followed.
Damn elves and their love to talk. If I would continue this path of conversation we will talk for a whole day about the effects that the environment has on individual’s development. They have time, in the end they can live for millenniums.
- “I allowed myself to imply that you didn’t just sit next to me for no reason.”
- “Thou imply correctly.” Yet they didn’t say anything.
I am not going to give them the satisfaction of asking them what in the bloody hell they want, so I stayed silent. I took another few sips of the beer, pulled a single dagger and started polish it lazily. That made them only smile.
- “We were wondering, if you would like to go on a quest with us, prince?”
I reacted only by rising my eyebrows a little.
- “How did you call me?” again, an emotion-deprived tone.
- “Prince?”
- “Last time I checked I was not even a noble, not to speak about royalty.”
- “Yet that was the way you were addressed by your beast-kin companions.”
- “If you want to know, they mocked me. They implied I am so weak and fragile that I shouldn’t be an adventurer but a prince. Also, I almost stabbed you.” I once again played with the dagger.
- “Is that so?” they didn’t look to be convinced. Or else, somehow they knew that the truth is somewhere else.
- “Also, I am afraid I am not thinking about any quests right now. I just finished one and I want to rest a little, then I will train some more. Also, Gisele has the priority when it comes to taking quests together so…”
- “Training? What exactly are you training? Certainly not daggers-usage.”
- “Why do you think so?” I twisted my head a little.
- “One, it’s quality.” the woman pointed with her head at my blade. “… it’s not a weapon, it’s used and dulled. It can barely serve as camp tool….”
She was right here. I actually was using it to cut meat parts and such. Maybe, just maybe, I hoped I could use it to throw it at an attacker.
- “… secondly, the way you hold it. Not even beginners are this unskilled. How you can turn it in your fingers and not cut yourself is a mystery to me.”
I wanted to pout. Or hiss. Or shove it between woman’s eyes. But I did nothing.
- “You are right. I was thinking about overall body training, maybe some sparring with different weapon’s users, then some magic…”
Why am I telling it to her? I should just reply
- “‘Tis just perfect. Every single person in our party is using a different tool, so you can try yourself with almost every kind of weapon. We will expect you in the morning.”
- “Why? What will you have from it?”
- “Silly human, measuring everything and everyone with his own scale. Maybe we are just generous race that wish to contribute some ungrateful mortals?”
- “Or maybe you are assholes that think that you are better than rest of the world and thus you are free to use them as they please?”
They squinted their eyes a little.
- “We were merely impressed how someone can endure company of such brainless, wit-less individual. We wish to know your secret, it would be very helpful in the future.”
And once again, insults in form of admiration. I waited for a moment trying to remember everything I learned about elvish language, the one I studied from time to time. Joining difficult words together I tried giving them some sense. And then I spoke.
- “Avurn vrazast… est en mile den ir ajir… Vrazaseter dir emen, ent is gret van kraihn.”
Then I finished my bear and left the room.
Elves’ pov
- “How it went, Ajvik?” one of the elves asked the man that just finished talking with the white-haired man. “… you learned anything about him?”
- “Not really, but Tienna managed to make him talk a little in the end. We managed to trick him into joining our training.”
- “You sure he will show up?”
- “Yes. I am pretty sure he wants to hurt and humiliate me.”
- “Hahaha! You always managed to make humans mad at you. What did you say.”
- “It doesn’t matter. Still, he speaks our language a little.”
Everyone’s curiosity was aroused right away.
- “Is that so? A human trying to learn our beautiful language, weird. They are biting their tongues each time they try it.”
- “Of course he made around a dozen of mistakes in two sentences… Also, he mixed dialects, he used a few words from wood-elves speech.”
- “Pathetic. What did he say?”
- “Something around:
If only the man called Ajvik knew that Zariel made no mistake in that sentence….