Investigate the noble houses of Garreghais. Interview as many people as you can and gather information regarding what each house knows of their true history… Job is considered complete when you have deemed the information you’ve gathered sufficient enough.
Rhey looked over the list of notes that she and Jru had accumulated thus far throughout this journey. Seventeen noble houses they had visited. Seventeen more than she cared to have visited.
The notes were nothing spectacular in most cases. Unsurprisingly, these wealthy families and whatnot didn’t care to divulge more information than necessary regarding their family history, how they came into possession of the lands they owned, and where their wealth came from. That info could be used by a competitor, after all, even though Rhey and Jru were clearly not competitors. Paranoid stuck-ups.
Geren was right though about there being a trend here—some kind of pattern. Each of the people she spoke with claimed they had their lands passed down through their family… which, sure—it made sense. Nothing weird there. How had their ancestors obtained those lands in the first place, though?
Historians documented the time that the first settlers arrived in Venterias and discovered the Architects’ blessings of already-existing cities and technology as a time of prosperity, wonder, and great fortune. Here, this continent had an infrastructure in place for a new civilization to move right in and begin starting anew.
Everyone got along nicely, settling in their own areas and developing their own cultures, governments, and the like. The different races unsurprisingly stuck together in most cases, with cities like Vizam and the small villages of Hohm and Boarzden being almost entirely composed of singular races, but otherwise got along well.
The truth was far bloodier. It was only natural that an influx of people suddenly having access to completely unclaimed land would squabble over who received what, especially in regards to leadership. Those squabbles of course boiled over into all-out war in the initial years. High King Vangren’s father before him, High King Granivad, had ordered all the accounts of Venterias’s early days scrubbed clean and re-written. The Settlement Wars would become a thing of myth.
Jonas’s father had been an avid historian. The dangerous kind. One who actually cared for accurate history and not simply repeating lines from a book as though they were undoubtedly fact. It was through his work that Jonas—the laid-back, bespectacled master of administration for the Last Stand Mercenaries that Rhey admitted to herself was kind of cute when he wasn’t nose-deep in papers—had learned of the truth. He consequently had confided in Geren and the others. This led the ever-lost-in-thought Geren to want to dig deeper, and find out what other secrets these truths-turned-mythos possibly held.
The job she and Jru were on was a fairly simple one. Try and find out what the noble houses of Garreghais knew. Geren had done similar work in Freleria already to little success. He wanted Garreghais hit next due to its proximity to High City, and gave the job to Rhey and Jru to carry out together.
These noble families would likely know the most. Conversely, that seemed to mean they were willing to share the least. That contradiction made Rhey’s face turn nearly as bright red as her hair.
“No matter how much you read over those notes, they aren’t changing.” Jru piped up, walking alongside her on their way to their next target.
Rhey looked up from the paper, meeting his eyes. Well, kind of. She couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark glasses he wore to counteract the effects of the magic he used. If she focused, she thought she could see their golden color very faintly but… that could just be the reflection of the sun, actually.
With a sigh, she tucked the paper away. “Yeah, I know. It’s just… we haven’t really gotten anything useful yet. I keep feeling like we’ve missed something.”
She tossed her long braid of crimson hair back over her shoulder, realizing she had been playing with it absently. “We either find something useful and head back home, or stay in this bothersome land full of unnecessary letters forever.”
It was depressedly true, many of the cities and people in Garreghais had silent letters in their names. The blasted country itself had that ‘s’ at the end that everyone just pretended didn’t exist. Made it damned difficult to know whether you were pronouncing something the correct way until someone laughed at you.
Jru gave her a sideways glance accompanied by a slightly dismissive scoff. “Yeah… this coming from the woman who has an unnecessary ‘h’ in her name.”
Rhey glared at him. The bright red of her eyes, matching her hair color like all Hylennials, tended to intimidate people when she did that, but Jru just chuckled.
With a huff, she looked back at the paper. “Maybe this next one will be more helpful. Vay. Sess. Ner.” She said, sounding out what she thought was each syllable of the person’s name. Hopefully correctly. Ragan Veicesner… He was younger than the others they’d visited. Maybe he wouldn’t be a boring goat.
They arrived at the approach to the gates of the estate a short time later. Ten-foot high walls of fine brick with metal arches along the top surrounded the property. The walls did not surround as large of an area as Rhey had guessed they would have, however. By noble family standards, this was a humble amount of land. Still more than anyone reasonably needed, but humble nonetheless.
Atop the pieces of the wall that connected to the barred iron gates sat two golden statues. Each of the statues depicted a ram of all things. Not a lion, a tiger, or a bear… but a ram. Most families tried to associate their house with some kind of predator animal. Rhey smiled, hoping maybe this lordling would be different than the others they’d wasted their time with.
Standing on either side of the gate was a soldier wearing a uniform of black and yellow and wielding a spear. They weren’t straight-backed and at attention as one would usually expect. Instead, they leaned their backs against the brick, arms crossed and spears propped up against their shoulders. The two men seemed to be taking turns cracking jokes about the shapes of clouds in the sky, from what Rhey could tell as she and Jru got closer.
The pair turned their attention from the sky to the couple of strange visitors, frowning slightly as though they were disappointed they needed to do their job. The man on the right looked back and forth from Rhey to Jru, then had a visible look of recognition dawn across his face.
“A tall Hylennial woman with bright red hair in a long braid, and a dark-skinned Human man with white hair tied behind his head… An unusual pair, you two are. The kind of people that word gets around about!”
The guards laughed for a bit but didn’t say anything further.
“So, word gets around—does that mean you two will let us in without us needing to convince you?” Jru asked.
The guards looked at each other, then the one on the left shrugged. “Yeah, why not? Lord Veicesner has been expecting you, actually. We just wanted to jog your jitters a bit.”
“Jog… what?!” Rhey asked, looking towards Jru who shrugged.
“Just a figure of speech, ma’am. Not big on the verbal arts, eh?”
“I mean, sure but… wait, did you say Lord Vess-ner? That’s how you pronounce his name?!” She shouted indignantly, seemingly shocking the guards.
“Uh… yes ma’am. Not familiar with how we do things here in the big G, I take it.”
“Oh, I’m familiar. Doesn’t mean I’m used to it. Or much less like it.”
Jru placed a hand on Rhey’s shoulder, smiling at the guards. “She’s a bit of a hypocrite, just leave her be. Does Lord Veicesner have time for us right now to jog his jitters for a bit?”
“Wai—” Rhey began to object.
“That he does! Just knock on the door and someone will let you in.” The guards said between laughs. One began to open the gate while the other reached into their pocket and started muttering to himself as he glanced away.
“Using an echo crystal to announce our arrival, I’d guess…” Jru whispered to Rhey.
Echo crystals were supposed to be strictly for authorized parties, namely the military and traveling healers.. It was no surprise, though, that plenty of the devices made their way onto the black market for well-connected merchants, wealthy families, gang leaders, and the like to purchase for themselves. With how poor the miners’ wages were at the crystal mines, taking the risk to smuggle a pair of crystals out and make a pretty penny was well worth it in the eyes of some.
The gate opened and they entered, thanking the guards as they passed. Rhey could hear the two men continue their game of cloud-naming from behind her as they resumed their slacking. She swore she heard one of them say that one of the clouds looked like a Halvan being eaten by a Gralbear. Curious, she stole a few peeks towards the sky as they walked. She thought she found the cloud in question, but surely not… It really looked more like—
“You listening?” Jru’s voice brought her mind back down from the clouds.
“Oh. Yeah! Sorry—lot on my mind.” Rhey gave a quick reply and a nod.
Jru raised an eyebrow but accepted the lie. “Alright,” He began with a sigh, “so let me do most of the talking. We don’t want a repeat of when we tried talking to House Ralenze.”
Rhey flushed. “What do you mean by that? Are you trying to blame me for that prude kicking us out so rudely?”
“Yes.” Jru responded plainly. “Your temper gets the best of you. If memory serves, you implied the man’s ancestor was a lizard.”
“I was trying to trick him into proving me wrong and accidentally telling us something useful about his ancestry!”
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“Let’s just say that subterfuge isn’t your forte. Comes with the explosive personality and magic, I suppose.”
Rhey wrinkled her nose at the jest, but didn’t object. “I’ll blow that know-it-all grin off your face one of these days if you’re not careful.”
“I like to think I’m careful. Careful enough to still be here, at least.”
“Heh, fair enough.” Rhey gave a small chuckle.
They were just about to the large oaken doors of the building. Before they could approach and knock, the doors opened. A burly man sporting a butler’s uniform greeted them, bowing. The sleeves of his coat were rolled up to the elbows, revealing impressively large forearms. A towel was draped over his right arm that he held in front of him across his abdomen. The man held the pose for several seconds, unspeaking, until Jru finally broke the silence.
“Hello. Am I to presume you to be the butler for Lord Veicesner?”
“I wouldn’t be standing here waiting for you to come inside if I wasn’t.” He remarked, his voice scratchy and deep like a sailor’s.
Rhey could sense Jru’s surprise at the man’s way of speaking, though his darkened spectacles helped to shroud his eyes enough to not easily convey his emotions. Weren’t butlers supposed to be formal and pleasant?
Replying as though the man’s tone was perfectly normal, Jru nodded and began to walk. “Thank you. Come on, Rhey.”
Rhey followed hesitantly, giving the brutish butler a glance as she passed. He grunted in response. Closing the door, he began to walk to one of the side rooms off to the right, motioning with his left hand for them to follow.
Looking around as she followed, Rhey noted that the inside of the home was similarly humble to the outside. Lavish by common standards, but lacking much of the vain decorations of other nobles’ homes she’d visited in the past several weeks.
A chandelier hung directly above the foyer, accented with gold-painted streamers. The candelabras placed every ten feet along the walls were brass rather than a more expensive metal. There were some additional aesthetics that referenced the house’s emblem. A ram head was emblazoned on a large hanging tapestry that draped down from the ceiling, and there were two matching stone busts of two rams facing towards each other as though they were to lock horns. The ostentation in this place was actually… somewhat tasteful. Nothing overly gaudy.
“Lord Veicesner will be with you momentarily. He’s heard of the things you’ve been inquiring about with the other houses, and… is eager to speak to you. Please do not waste too much of his time.”
“Excellent, thank you. It will be a nice change of pace speaking with someone who actually wants to talk to us.” Jru said with a laugh as he took a seat on the long, beige couch across the tea table from what was obviously Lord Veicesner’s chair.
“I’m sure. Please remain seated until he arrives. I’d rather not have to deal with searching the manor for you... Or cleaning up any messes of anything you may break.”
“Well, that’s your job, isn’t it?” Rhey asked.
“Yes, and I do it quite well precisely because I mitigate the amount of nonsense I have to deal with. Makes it easier to focus on my other tasks.”
Rhey gave a light snort and took her seat as well. Maybe this butler wasn’t so bad after all. She liked his way of thinking, if nothing else.
“Hey, aren’t you supposed to serve the guests water and fancy teas and stuff?” She asked, turning and calling after the man as he was leaving.
“No. I’m not. There is a pitcher with iced water, and glasses of varying sizes, over there on the shelf. Just please don’t drop anything.
He quickly exited and shut the door behind him before Rhey could ask anything else. Shrugging, she got up and poured a glass each for her and Jru.
“This place is… weird.” She said, sitting back down.
“Yes, I’ve heard stories of Lord Veicesner. He’s… definitely different, I’ll say that much. Assuming my information to be correct.” Jru replied.
Rhey took a long drink of the water. It tasted cool and fresh, and had a hint of lemon to it. Nice surprise. Good thing she liked lemon, though—that blasted brigand of a butler hadn’t mentioned it. What if she hated lemon, or was allergic to it?
“Maybe him being different is a good sign?” She asked hopefully. “Maybe we’ll get some good information finally.”
“Perhaps…” Jru said thoughtfully. “The fact he was apparently waiting for us to arrive is a good sign. Just remember to let me do most of the talking.”
Rhey wasn’t sure how long she expected to wait when the butler—who hadn’t even been kind enough to introduce himself, which she realized after he had left—had said to do so until Lord Veicesner arrived. She’d have placed a bet on maybe something in the five to ten minutes range. Good thing she hadn’t.
The door finally opened again after about twenty minutes. A young man, presumably Lord Veicesner finally, walked around the couch and headed over to the shelf to pour himself a glass of water. Dressed in fine black nobleman’s attire, he also sported a golden waist cape that came down to just above his knees. His boots were adorned with gold laces that matched the cloak. His hair, medium length and swept back, and chinstrap beard were blonde.
Turning to them from the water shelf, he raised his glass and smiled. “Welcome to my manor. Enjoying the water?”
Rhey and Jru both nodded, with Jru responding. “Yes, thank you. The lemon gives it a hint of sweetness, and it’s quite nice.”
Lord Veicesner gave a hearty laugh. His face returned to a rest for a short moment before he cracked a wry smile, looking into the contents of his own glass as he swirled the liquid within.
“Yeah… that lemon taste is thanks to the larxweed.” He said with a cold slyness incongruous to his friendly tone just moments before.
Rhey simply shrugged and raised her glass to her mouth to take another drink. She knew nothing of botany and herbology, so the man could be lying and she’d not know any different.
Jru, however, stood up sharply. “Rhey, don’t take another drink.” His voice was somehow both firm and shaky at the same time.
She started, looking up at him and pausing. He had unsheathed the small shortsword he carried in the sheath behind his waist. Lord Veicesner eyed him, his head still tilted down towards his glass but with eyes cut upward towards his now-hostile house guest.
“What are you—”Jru began to ask, stepping forward, but was interrupted by the house lord bursting into a fit of laughter.
Jru paused where he was, watching the man warily. Rhey looked back and forth from Jru to Lord Veicesner, completely lost as to what was going on. She had put together that the water was tampered with somehow, but she didn’t know what larxweed was. The answer to that mystery would probably explain why Jru reacted the way he did, or why Lord Veicesner was laughing.
Lord Veicesner composed himself, and then took a drink as well. Jru seemed to visibly relax. He put his sword away and sat down, arms crossed and shaking his head.
The manor lord gave one more small chuckle as he walked over to his chair. “I was worried there for a moment. Thought I’d have to call Winston in here to bail me out.”
Winston… so that’s that jerk’s name.
He took his seat and crossed his legs. Setting his drink down on the small table next to his chair, he smiled again and addressed them both. “Apologies—it’s a prank I like to play on new houseguests.”
Rhey looked at Jru. “Larxweed is a dangerous poison.” He said, answering her unspoken question. “It takes time to take effect… roughly twenty to twenty five minutes. Despite being poisonous, it actually tastes quite nice. Very similar to lemon.”
She moved her gaze from Jru to Lord Veicesner. The man sat there, his pose formal and well-mannered, but with a grin on his face that was more fit for a child who had gotten away with stealing from the cookie jar than for a nobleman.
“Do you commonly play pranks on houseguests, Lord Veicesner? Or just the unwelcome ones?” Jru asked plainly.
The man shook his head. “Worry not, friend. It’s a… rite of passage, so to speak, for my guests. Breaks the ice—and sometimes my water glasses unfortunately—really well. People either recognize what Larxweed is and panic, get angry—the works. Or, they don’t know what it is, and they nod along and continue to drink a beverage I just strongly hinted at being poisoned.”
Rhey flushed at that comment, realizing she had done exactly the latter. Lord Veicesner continued speaking, still sporting that ridiculous grin. “Either way, I get a good laugh out of it and we all come out of the ordeal knowing a little more about each other. And, please, you can call me Ragan.”
“Is everyone in your household insane?” Rhey asked incredulously, earning her a sideways glare from Jru behind his glasses. She was supposed to let him do the talking, yes, but she had to know. The guards gave nicknames to clouds, the butler was a rude brute, and the manor lord himself played pranks?
“We’ve tested for it. Problem is, if we really are all insane, there’s nobody reliable enough to actually read the test results properly. So, we threw them out.”
This got genuine laughter from Jru. “Well then. Seems the stories I’d heard about you were true.”
Ragan raised an eyebrow. “You’ve heard tales of my house's insanity, have you? Well, we need to squash those rumors as soon as we can. Replace them with tales of how brilliant of mind we are, and how we’re able to use something as simple as lemon water to give people heart attacks.”
“No, no.” Jru replied, still laughing. “Just that you’re… different. Tell me, Ragan. You clearly are different from most other noble lords, as the stories I’ve heard suggest. Your men out front, and your… unique… butler claimed you were eager to meet with us, as well. Does that mean you’ll be willing to give us the information that so many others haven’t?”
“See? You initially think I’m trying to kill you, yet within moments we’re down to business. No useless small-talk. None of the fanciful pleasantries that waste time. Yet some people,” He continued, turning his gaze to look directly at Rhey for a brief moment before returning to Jru, ”would try to say that I’m insane. I say that I’m efficient. Well, and that I like to have fun. Fun is something many men in my position have forgotten exists. Pity for them, given they all seem so miserable.”
This whole visit has been a whirlwind… who is this guy?
Ragan took another sip of water, then resumed speaking. “Yes, actually. I believe that sharing what I know with you will help both of us. You want to know the secrets that the noble houses of Venterias are hiding. The fact you’re even inquiring about such things means you’re already further along than ninety-nine percent of people.”
“And so you openly hint that the things we seek are indeed real.”
“And so I openly hint that the things you seek are indeed real.” Ragan repeated, picking up his glass and raising it in a faux toast.
Jru snorted. “Very well. You said that sharing this information will help you as well. How so, if I may ask?”
Ragan cracked a wry smile. “Simple. My house once was in possession of a powerful item. Maybe it was one of those… Maybe not. Either way, I’d like it back. If I share what I know with you, I’d like something in exchange. Now, there’s supposed to be a grand tournament in the city of Senaire over in Trausen soon. Five weeks away, to be precise. The man I believe to be in possession of what is rightfully mine will assuredly be in attendance at this tournament. I’d like to hire The Last Stand Mercenaries to retrieve this stolen… family heirloom, let’s call it.”