Faint motes of dust floated through the stale air of the ballroom. Despite the roar and crackle of the fireplace and the beaming rays of light through the towering windows, there was still an aura of chilliness there. Whether it was magic or coincidence, no one could tell, and no one seemed to really care. Even though the cold air required Protea to wear her thickest clothing she still found herself at ease in the room. Perhaps it had something to do with that strange stele at the front of the complex - on a side note, the monument had somehow disappeared overnight - but she simply couldn't bring herself to be uncomfortable here, Willow's creepy tales notwithstanding. But at the moment this wasn't what was at the forefront of her mind. Rather it was the "minor" fiasco that Protea's little group had gotten into with the goblins.

Willow and Zephyrine chatted faintly in the background, going on about the catacombs that supposedly lay underneath the castle. She could tell from Willow's furrowed eyebrows and her tight frown that her attempt to disconcert Protea's lady-in-waiting had fallen flat on its face. The porcelain-skinned woman simply sat there with a tiny smile on her lips, as if Willow had just reminded her of a memory from her childhood. It amazed her how the other two had seemingly forgotten all about their encounter with the goblins yesterday.

With a frustrated sigh, Protea stood from her seat and strode to one of the many balconies. The other two hardly seemed to notice her leaving. She opened one of the glass-paned doors, taking in her first breath of outside air for the day, reveling in that moment of minty freshness. There was no snow that day, so Protea had been free to enjoy a little excursion outside.

As she stood overlooking the grand castle, a tiny itch began in the back of her head. She was only vaguely aware of it, in the same way that one was only aware of a bug bite because it always itched, so she refused to do anything at first. The spring equinox was only two days away at the tail end of the month of Sagios - she made a note to herself to study Vostea's calendar once more - so the tingle could have easily been a strange reaction to the cold. But as time went on, the itch became stronger and stronger, until it was practically impossible to ignore. It wasn't really harmful, but Gods be damned if didn't make one hell of a nuisance.

For some reason, Protea felt compelled to peer at the front end of the courtyard that the balcony overlooked, and she almost stopped in her tracks. At the entrance of the castle, practically on her doorstep was a single lanky, olive-green goblin. It didn't take much for her to draw Zephyrine and Willow's attention to the goblin. They were at the front in an instant, Zephyrine and Willow poised and ready for another fight or some sort of ambush. None of them could have prepared for what happened next.

"Stop!" the goblin cried in a scraggly voice as Zephyine lifted her wand. She gaped at him like a fish with her wide, violet eyes. Willow and Protea were nowhere near as surprised as her - in a world with multiple sentient species, it would only make sense that a few people would be able to speak more than language. Although, Willow seemed more excited about the fact that she had yet another unfortunate soul to subject to uncomfortable probing and scary stories.

"I have deal to make. You listen, yeah?" Well, no one said that he would be fluent in both languages. Protea motioned for Zephyrine to lower her wand, and she complied reluctantly.

The goblin pulled a meager sack from underneath his cloak, saying, "This all I have. Tribe exile me, say I too soft." The bag held only a single scraggy hare and a few branches-worth of dried berries

"I remember you," Protea said. The goblin seemed to perk up at that.

"Why are you here?" Zephyrine butted in. Her face still held that perpetual serene smile to it, but now there was an air of intimidation to it.

The goblin clammed up, quivering in his tiny boots. "How do you say, offer services? I can help!" He launched into a long rambling list of things he could do for the tiny groups of women, seemingly forgetting about their presence entirely.

"I say we leave him out here," Zephyrine whispered to Protea harshly. "This could be an ambush."

"No! No ambush!" He offered the meager sack of food to her once more, opening his mouth to plead for help, but Protea simply raised a hand to stop him.

"There's no need. Stay as long as you need to." She told him. Willow rejoiced at that, quickly taking hold of the goblin's arm and dragging him up the steps as she fired question after question at him. The goblin sent her a vaguely confused and terrified look as he disappeared behind the thick wooden doors, but Protea could only offer a sympathetic grimace in return.

It was hard to stop Willow once she got into a mood like this.

"My lady," Zephyrine called, "Please excuse my language, but why in nine hells would you let him stay with us?" Protea didn't miss the disgusting emphasis she put on the word "him."

"We have no reason not to, and it's not as if it's going to hurt us to keep him around."

"But what if it's a trick? He could be trying to get our guards down."

"What do you know about goblins, Zephyrine?"

"Pardon?"

"What do you know about goblins?" the porcelain-skinned woman paused at that.

"I know that they're incredibly conniving and crafty. I've heard many stories about the feats of trickery they were capable of."

"Correction, Zephyrine. They're incredibly utilitarian. Goblins don't do anything if they don't believe it'll help them somehow. Didn't you notice the lack of red on his face?"

"I did. But what does that have to do with anything?"

"The lack of markings means that the tribe has stripped him of his place there. I doubt they would want to come to confront us either, after the thrashing we gave them yesterday."

"But I still don't understand. Why?" Zephyrine tilted her head like a confused puppy.

"Because a lone goblin is a dead goblin. Again, there's no inherent harm to be had from letting him stay with us." Protea left it at that and walked past her into the tall gaping doorway, leaving Zephyrine to ponder Protea's words.

It was particularly odd - Protea had never shown such an intimate knowledge of monsters before. She normally considered that monster hunting work, which was far beneath a noble lady of her name. Generally, in her classes at the Royal Academy, she would simply skin over the monster section of the textbooks. Although it wasn't too strange. Protea did have strange moments like that every so often, ones where she spent all of her time reading and studying random and niche topics until she came away with information only a handful of people would have. Perhaps this was simply another phase of hers.

But still, Zephyrine couldn't help but wonder; what if this was something else?

----------------------------------------

The faint sounds of metal clinking against metal floated through the door for the fourth time today as Protea passed by the room the goblin had taken up residence in. Vekz - as he called himself - had been holed up in the room for practically days now, with little to no explanation has to what he'd been doing in there. There would be sounds like opera coming through the doors at first, then it would suddenly stop, replaced by the telltale din of metal being moved around and hammered into place. Sometimes there was a sound like ripping, but that too would disappear quickly.

Protea didn't really mind, in all honesty. The walls weren't so thin that noise could be heard throughout the castle, but it was still a huge departure from the usual silence that permeated the grounds. She couldn't help but wonder what he was doing there.

"My lady?" Zephyrine knocked on the door as she stepped into the massive room. "I hate to pull you away from your... research, but there's a rather pressing matter to address."

"Did something happen?" Protea frowned as she looked up from her journal.

"Nothing too important, my lady, but- Well, our Charm is missing."

"Pardon?"

"You know, the Charm. The audio receiver."

"Oh, that." It was an acronym for Alchemical Audio Reciever Machine - basically a radio. It was a big clunky thing, only a tiny bit smaller than a wardrobe, and it was far too cumbersome to be used for anything practical aside from serving as a makeshift shelf. For whatever reason, Zephyrine had been insistent upon bringing it with them, even though any possible signal it could receive was miles away from here. "I'm sure it's around here somewhere. You did bring it into the foyer, right?"

"Yes, and then I moved it to the ballroom. It's not there anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean it's gone, my lady. As in, it disappeared." Protea pursed her lips. There was no way something that big could disappear overnight, but then again the stele that was at the front of the castle grounds was still missing. She made a note to go look for that later.

"Where have you looked? There are only so many places it could be, and I doubt anyone even stole it." There wasn't anything valuable in the Charm itself, apart from the few enchanted crystals that powered it, but taking those crystals wouldn't necessitate taking the entire thing.

"Well I checked the hallway outside of the ballroom, the kitchen, and the front courtyard, but I haven't found even a hint of dust missing."

"Let me see." Protea pushed her chair back as she pulled her cardigan around her shoulders. Looking for the Charm was sure to be a better investment of her time. She was plumb out of ideas for the library and trying any further would be like trying to get blood from a stone.

The two women set off for the ballroom shortly thereafter. Despite the haunting emptiness of the castle, there was no reason to be afraid of it anymore. Willow's story had lost all credibility by now; there were no shifting windows, no dead-end hallways, and no pointless stairways, much to Willow's chagrin.

The ballroom was completely normal. Of course, it wasn't nearly as grand as the one in the capital or the one in Frostenden, but it served its purpose well enough, and Protea didn't see any reason to complain.

As she came up to the wall that the Charm had been situated against, she realized that Zephyrine's words rang true. It was as if the burdensome device had vanished into thin air. There was only the faintest of outlines against the wall and floor left behind, and there wasn't anything like dirty footprints or the like to show where it had gone.

"My Lady?" Protea looked back at Zephyrine, who held an expectant look on her face. "Aren't you going to-"

"Yes, yes, of course. I almost forgot." Protea waved her hand, bringing up streams of silver light once more. She wiggled her fingers and the silver lights spread out over the small space they stood in. This spell was meant to essentially reveal the traces of magic left behind in a specific area over time; Zephyrine was prohibited from using seeing how it was a type of spirit magic and true to her namesake, an air mage could only use illusion magic.

As Protea's magic settled onto the ground like falling flour, three shapes became apparent. The first was Zephyrine's figure on the right side of the Charm, fiddling with the large buttons on the device. To her left was Willow's figure, her hand resting under her chin in a thoughtful pose. Right behind the two was another smaller, almost imperceptible figure: one with a wedge-shaped head and long floppy ears.

"The goblin took the Charm?" Zephyrine asked with incredulity.

"I doubt it. The only thing Vekz did was stare at it when you were talking about the Charm earlier. And judging by how faint the trace is, I'm assuming he doesn't have much magic to spare." She almost couldn't even see him there, which made her doubt that he could even pick up a pebble with a levitation spell.

"Well, I don't know who else couldn't have taken it. None of us have bothered it and he only moved into the castle two days ago." She sounded uncertain as she spoke; even Zephyrine had to admit that the thought was preposterous.

There wasn't much else they could do here aside from speculating about possible culprits. This along with the disappearance of the stele that had been sitting at the front of the had simply been a coincidence, so there wasn't any particular reason to be worried at the moment. Protea sighed and placed her hands on her hips, idly looking across the room. As her icy blue eyes scanned the massive ballroom, she came to a sudden stop before one of the doorways. There was an object that hadn't been there before - it was rough, made from crude planks, rusty nails, and a bit of old twine, but the shape it formed was unmistakable. It was a wooden dolly.

"I think I know where it went," Protea said quietly. "Wait here." She left her lady-in-waiting to stand with a look of befuddlement as she headed towards Vekz's room.

Protea didn't know how she didn't see it before. When Vekz had come over to inspect the Charm, he held a look of complete awe and wonder in his eyes. He couldn't stop asking questions about it - where they got it from, what it did, how it worked - nothing was off-limits for the curious little goblin.

Protea knocked on the door, the sounds of cherry music coming to an abrupt hale. The door opened almost immediately, revealing Vekz's lanky figure, covered in splotches of dust and oil. He straightened as he realized who he was opening door to, quickly wiping off a spot of black liquid on his cheek.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything important," Protea said with a tinge of amusement.

"No, no! Just working. I made something good. Come see!" He beckoned her into the room with a clawed hand, and Protea had to pick up her dress and step over a stray mechanical part laying the floor.

His bed had been pushed into the side of the bedroom to make space for the Charm, whose hull now lay empty apart from a few gears and pipes. The bulk of its mechanics had been set to the side in a pile and there was a stack of papers next to with hastily scribbled designs and notes on it.

In the middle of the floor was another device, just a tad bigger than a suitcase.

"Watch!" Vekz began to fiddle around with the cobbled-together machine. A waltzing tune floated forth from the horn that had been seemingly stuck onto the apparatus. Steam lifted off the other parts of it as the gems it was connected to lit up, giving off beams of magical essence. It only did this for a minute or two before the music petered out and disappeared though.

Vekz smiled sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck. "I haven't worked out all the flaws, but-!"

"You made this yourself?" Protea inquired, picking up the now reformed Charm to inspect it.

Vekz nodded uncertainly.

"Impressive. Good work, Vekz." He didn't seem to know how to react at first; maybe he had been expecting a different response. But soon his mouth spread into a wide grin as he heaped thanks upon thanks for the young woman's praise.

"Thanks to you! Tribe says my work is useless, but only because they don't see truth."

"Vekz, how far do you think the Empire's outmost territories are from here?"

He scratched his head thoughtfully for a moment, before replying, "Maybe two thousand miles?"

"And how far can a teleportation spell take you from your original location"

"Depends. If strong mage, then the farthest you go is fifty miles."

"That's what I thought." Protea set the new Charm back on the floor. "I have an important request for you if you feeling up for the task."