I put on Alloralla's skinsuit before leaving the Dungeon. I wasn't a flasher.
Fat Felix gave me the location of Torgo's hideout. A farm on the southern shores of river Windemerem, outside the city near the foothills. Once I got closer, I could feel the spells tossed on the Tabard to kill it. I infiltrated the farm without any problems. Their paltry magical security was no match for centuries of skulking around. I had the Wellspring set to recover nobody's MP but mine. It still gave me 5% of the MP spent on spells next to me. After following these emanations of MP, I picked up the exact location, the interior of a heavily guarded barn. A testament to the relic's resilience and accumulated energy, it was still repairing itself and slowly recovering its massive MP pool. almost all of its Perks were either defensive or to store and recover MP.
> The Tabard of Windemere - Level 158
>
> MP: 42,457 / 13,720,000
It hurt me as if they were torturing a friend. The Tabard was barely holding, threadbare, and regrowing as it was continuously damaged. Examining it, I damaged the fake Tabard to look like it and waited for a spell that caused either a flash of light or smoke to switch them. I readied myself, layering an illusion of the Tabard over the genuine article. A mage tossed a fireball. Right before it exploded, I switched both pieces of cloth underneath the illusion. The fake tabard had no resistance to anything. It was burnt to a crisp by the fireball.
The mages started to cheer, hugging each other and jumping around. One of them shot fireworks into the air.
"I got almost a million Exp!"
"We did it!"
"I leveled up my Class!"
"I can taste the kingmetal of our reward!"
They barged out of the barn, talking loudly. Some guards entered and checked around but found nothing. I slipped out of the barn and followed the mages to the main house. Inside, the tired and ragged spellcasters demanded to talk to Torgo. After some bickering, they were admitted to the large room the slimy Lord Torgo was using as an office.
"We did it! The Tabard is no more!" The lead [Wizard] cheered.
Torgo spun, smiling. "Finally! I was starting to doubt that fat cat's information. Congratulations, gentlemen. Did you get the kill notification?"
"We did!" Another mage exclaimed. "For killing level 158 Tabard of Windemere, you gained Exp."
"Darius?" Torgo turned around to talk to a guy outside my field of view.
"They speak the truth, my lord," Replied a lizardman shaman. Was he a shaman? I couldn't tell but he seemed like a caster.
"Great, great! Now, your reward!" Torgo clapped his hands.
A trap ward activated, sealing all spellcasting in the room. I could fight against it but decided to let it freeze my Energy. Torgo drew a sword from a scabbard slung over the armrest and killed the mages with very precise and graceful movements.
"Kill the guards and set fire to this farm. Nobody can know the Tabard is dead," Torgo ordered the lizardman. With a hiss and a nod, the scaled man walked out of the room, deactivating the trap.
I could assassinate Torgo now, then eliminate the shaman. I would learn everything he knew. But I had good reason to suspect Torgo was a puppet of someone bigger. His demeanor screamed middle management, not evil overmind. Killing Torgo could prompt his shadow master to either come out of hiding or vanish, leaving a threat out in the open.
Torgo sidestepped the dead mages and walked out of his office, locking the door behind him. Some wards came to life but not the spellcaster trap. I think it was a single-use ward, designed exactly to kill these mages.
Should I take this risk and murder him? Maybe, maybe not. But before I committed myself to a choice, I went around exploring the now-empty office, taking care to leave everything exactly as it was.
The desk drawers held a lot of scrolls. With {Titan Skin} I could read them without removing them from the drawer or even breaking the seals. Adventurer contracts, magically sealed by the guild. One scroll had the payroll for the contracts with several names scratched off. Probably the ones Kazuyran's crew killed in the Dungeon.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Torgo had about one hundred and sixty Adventurers on his payroll. Most of them were on the second rank, levels around one hundred. I wrote down their names and characteristics like species, Class, and party name.
The mages didn't have anything of worth on them. No storage rings, nothing. Their belongings probably were in their rooms.
I went outside and found the barn already in flames, with the lizardman coming back to torch the house. The guards outside were all dead. The shaman entered the office and retrieved all the documents from the desk. Then he walked away from the house, chanting a spell.
I dove into the ground underneath the house seconds before a massive fireball blasted the house to oblivion. I couldn't be in the area of a combat spell or the caster would see a damage notification.
Torgo was riding inside a carriage on its way back to Windemere, to report to someone else, I was sure of it. I slipped into the Ethereal and went back to Vugh Tarim.
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Locked inside my room, I held the Tabard in my hands. It sucked my Energy and filled its reserves, then started to repair itself. An hour later, the Tabard was as good as new. I donned it. I waited for a few minutes but nothing bad happened to me. The Tabard was working as intended.
> Congratulations. You fulfilled all the rules set for the Windemere dynasty. Do you want to claim the throne?
No. Net yet, at least.
The truth I didn't want to admit was that I didn't want to sit on the throne without my Queen by my side. The throne of Windemere was surrounded by bitter memories and reminded me that I would never again see the mischievous smile on that naughty cat-kin face. Or have my workday completely derailed by her demands of attention. Bundeus made sure of it, may he rot in whichever new incarnation he's currently living in, oblivious of his former self.
A knock on the door shook me out of my reverie. "Haru, time for breakfast!"
I went out, had my breakfast with Helger and Baritono. While I ate, my father gave me the good news. "You are going back to Windemere and the Academy. There's a treaty with the institution declaring its neutrality. The dwarves are all going back to finish their studies."
I wasn't aware of this deal, but it had Marlowe's fingerprints all over it. His promise of neutrality was worth nothing because I wouldn't allow civil war. I was third in line for this farcical dwarven kingdom. Control was two regicides away. I didn't feel like killing my biological grandfather and uncle, however. I had a bigger fish to fry.
"When are we departing?"
"Today. We are sending some wagons back. There are outstanding contracts and orders we must fulfill with our trade partners," Helger explained.
Getting on a caravan with other students while disguised was a terrible idea.
"I think I'm going ahead so I don't need to expose myself to the other dwarven students. I don't need them seeing me without my ears and tails, or asking which Class I am in."
"Aye, that's a good idea. Finish eating and go."
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Scheduling a meeting with Kazuyran without using the birds was damn easy. All I needed to do was to get on a roof next to the central square, the one with a giant statue of "manly" Locksley, and put a contract on myself, then remove it and put it again, over and over. The flickering ping in the [Assassins] {Detect Contract} was a beacon pointing at me.
I saw some shadows moving across the block but they didn't intercept me. After half an hour, the dark elf appeared from behind a chimney.
"Torgo is on the move. His mages finally killed a Tabard," I reported. "I have the list with the Adventurers he hired. I want all of them dead."
Kazuyran took the scroll and chuckled, "He killed 'A' Tabard. Interesting choice of words."
"Indeed," I grinned. "How's the propaganda campaign?"
"It's hard to go against their agitators without exposing ourselves too much. But we did everything you requested regarding Zacheia and the [Saintess]."
"Good. I retrieved Vanagon and Alfondric's souls. They are inhabiting cloth golems. I'm leveling them. See if you know anyone from this list. I have their souls too."
I handed him another scroll with the names of the ones imprisoned by the former Headmaster.
"Did [Prince] Canary sing?" I asked about Euric and what I revealed to him. Kazuyran was monitoring all the messages my regal classmates sent. We had codenames for them. Euric was Canary, Isengar, Bear, and Mirina just 'girl'. The Smurfette of the trio.
"No. That songbird seems to be tight-lipped."
"I want someone fast to pay a visit to Perenneth. I think they'll mobilize an invasion soon," I asked after I explained the crown and what happened to Mirina and me.
"Lonid recalled the girl. She'll depart next week. They'll probably attack in one or two months. Delaying any longer than that means fighting in Winter."
Even with magic and heightened physical power, nobody wanted to fight in Winter.
"Don't worry about Lonid. I'll handle them personally." He nodded. "Increase security around Fat Felix. I don't want anything bad happening to the lovely cat-kin. He saw black fur," I meant he knew I was the [Matriarch].
We talked a bit more. I told him about my current Quest and Vukdon's Wellspring-enabled cathedral. After I told him about the enchantment, he convinced me to restrict the area of effect to cover just the Academy and whereabouts, then put another enchantment in the Lamia fortress and one underneath the very square we were observing from above. This way the God of Magic would have his magic cathedral, and I could cover more of Windemere without giving the deity all the MP from the city. I had to tune the extra enchantments to defer to the cathedral's Wellspring in case of overlap, but that added just one more step in the design.
"Nenandil will stay with the Lamias. Since I'm handling both the dwarves and Lonid, reinforce security on the west gate."
This way I had only the dwarves and Torgo's agents as internal threats to the peace of Windemere. Lonid, Sadian, and probably Leondirac could attack all they wanted. They would just splash against our walls like the emptied contents of a mug of ale.
Though recalling Mirina was troublesome. They would only do that if they were already mounting an offensive. Too soon.