Chapter 286

Eris Empire, Capital City of Starcore

Imperial Palace, Empress Sylvis Wing

Cassissa, princess of the Eris Empire and former attendant of the adventurers guild, sighed as she leaned back from the workshop table and into her sinfully comfortable chair.

She'd finally pressured her sister, or rather convinced her brother in law to pressure her, to let her have some tools of the trade, so to speak, or she'd grow insane with boredom.

Which was why she'd had one of the rooms in her suite turned into a small, but incredibly well equipped enchanting workshop. Officially, it was because she was getting a serious acquaintance with that young mage.

Unofficially...

She tapped the talisman on the table.

Unofficially, she was researching this. Allya's gift, and through her, the dungeon's. Something that should be utterly impossible.

She was an evocation war mage. Fireballs, artillery, wards, those were her domain. She knew little of the other arcana, especially not astral magic, that which dealt with communication and teleportation.

But she was a fervent student of history. And she knew that teleportation, as it was known and used today, was invented by Saphire Arkhan, the founder of the Saphire Kingdom, a nation who even now, in its decrepit, fallen state, still retained great mastery over it. Some say he invented it altogether, but she knew he had drawn from technology and magic from the Old World, not to mention the works of others before him, who had delved into the same secrets, but been sidelined by the Tesseracts.

This, however...this was something else entirely. A whole new way to teleport. One that could bypass all of the safeguards and countermeasures thus far invented.

Cassissa idly wondered if Allya even realized the implications. With this, the Empire could make weapons supreme, capable of bypassing any conventional defenses. Missiles that could materialize inside fortresses, assassins that would have but a dagger to throw after appearing in front of their targets. With it, one could topple nations, if given the appropriate resources.

With it...With it, one could escape from any situation, no matter how dire. And that was why Allya had sent it to her.

The princess sighed.

"Why, my Knight-Valiant, have you sent this to me? You knew that I would look into it. Is that what you want?" She mused aloud. "For me to dig into your ally's secrets? Or were you sending me on Alexandra's trail?"

She heard a knock, and pocketed the talisman, almost without thinking. Such a trump card was at its most useful if kept as secret as possible after all.

Besides which, the more she learned about it, the more paranoid she grew. About its implications...and its maker.

Because she was grimly certain that only an extradimensional could have dreamed up this talisman, and the enchantment bound to it.

Yet, it had come from a dungeon core. Of that Allya was certain.

"Yes? Enter!" She called out, and her withered old butler, Olivier, stepped through the door.

"Pardon me, your highness, but someone is here to see you."

"Who is it?"

Olivier looked her straight in the eyes.

"Eriksen Dragonslayer."

Cassissa's breath caught in her throat. Erik was here? To meet with her?

That was...unexpected, and insane. Nardria was on the other side of the world! And the Asarian Kingdom was embroiled in a civil war! Though, the western baronies, where the guildhall they had both worked at lay, remained relatively untouched so far.

But that wasn't what made this crazy. He had been the one to guarantee her safety when she had gone to become a guild attendant, under an assumed identity of course. And he had failed.

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"Please, show him in!" She said, breathlessly, and Olivier nodded.

A few seconds later, he returned, accompanied by a graying man that looked twenty years his junior...and yet she knew to be over a millennia old, though only the Gods knew how ancient he truly was. He'd never told her, and sometimes seemed just like any veteran of the guild, joking about current events or complaining about the quality of new adventurers.

Other times he spoke of the wars that had formed the Eris Empire, and later forged it into the globe spanning power it was now, like he had been there. He spoke of Rook the Sunderer as one spoke of a young and promising friend, not one of the most dangerous and ancient beings on the planet.

And he spoke of Saphire Arkhan, the legendary Archmage, discoverer of continents and founder of royal lines, like one talked about a not particularly missed annoyance of a colleague.

"Cassissa." He said, softly, and suddenly she was across the room, hugging him.

"Erik! You came!" She stepped back, as Olivier, sensing his cue, bowed his way out of the room, though not before she flashed him a grateful smile. He had been the one to send the guildmaster a secret letter after all. "How?"

"Your sister may be angry with me, but she does not expect me to kidnap you. In fact, I told her I came here to apologize to you, for failing to protect you."

"Are you?"

"Among other things, yes."

"Then apology accepted. But there are other matters at hand."

Erik sighed, and seemed to...deflate, somehow. As if he was a condemned man, heading to the gallows.

"I know."

Cassissa took a single look at his stance.

"So it's true. What happened to her, Erik? What is going on with the dun-" She stopped as he raised his hand.

"Cassissa. Understand that I am violating many, many oaths even considering telling you this, let alone doing so. Stop asking questions. Forget about it. Forget about Alexandra. Forget about your questions and fantasies about the dungeon. Forget about them all. And never, ever mention them again. To anybody."

"But-"

"I understand she was your responsibility, but there's nothing you can do now."

"She was yours as well!"

She knew she'd hit home, as she saw him jerk like he'd been shot, and his face became grim. She considered apologizing, but immediately rejected it, and pressed her advantage.

"She was your responsibility as well! And you tell me to give up? To forget about her?"

Erik regained his posture, and looked her straight in the eyes.

She wasn't standing in front of her mentor and friend anymore. She was standing before an immeasurably old being, that had seen whole nations rise and fall. Someone who had endured for a millennia and would endure a millennia more, long after her body and soul had passed away into oblivion and she was naught but a footnote in a history book, if not just some forgotten line in a genealogical tree of her dynasty.

She was looking at an archon, ancient and all powerful. A person who, by their very existence, altered the fate of the world.

"Yes. I do. I will take on the task of remembering her, and making sure others do so as well. I will inscribe her name into scrolls that will never be erased. Archives that will be revered long after you and I are gone and but memories. I will make sure her name is sung for eternity. But for all of that to happen, you must forget."

There was something...something horrifying inside of his tone of voice. She'd never heard him like that he sounded like, like...like a zealot, burning with a holy flame.

She shivered, though only internally, thanks to her Imperial training in keeping her composure even in the most extreme of circumstances, something she'd trying to instill into Allya, to middling effect.

"Why?"

He looked away.

"I cannot tell you." He said softly. "For telling you would mean your death."

"Let them try! I am a princess of-"

"Your. Death. Cassisa." He met her gaze once again, and her bravado died, snuffed out like a candle in a hurricane. "No matter who you are."

There was a long silence.

"And what of the dungeon?" She finally said. "What if it is her?"

"Alexandra...she is dead, Cassissa. Of that I am sure of."

"Bullshit!" Yelled out the princess as she took a step forward.

"Truly? Then tell me, besides a hunch, an intuition, what makes you think otherwise?" She hesitated. She wanted to bring up the talisman, what she had found out, but her paranoid musings of earlier came back to her.

And deep, deep within her mind, something told her to stay quiet. A part of her subconscious that had glimpsed a puzzled she did not yet see.

"Thought not." Finally said Erik. "She is dead. All that is left is to remember her. But you must never mention her again. Not to me, not to anybody. And you must not, under any circumstances, involve yourself with the dungeon, do you hear?"

"What about Allya?"

"Your old friend is long gone. She is a new person now, far from the Empire and her line's legacy. She also has a burgeoning domain under threat from all sides to run. Do not bother her. Stay away."

Cassissa nodded.

And stayed silent about the letters she had exchanged with the newly minted baroness. Well, newly by her point of view at least.

"Good." Said the guildmaster, and moved to leave.

"...Will you make sure her name is remembered in full? Who she was, completely? On Alcheryos and back on Earth? Alexandra Rousseau, lieutenant-commander of the European Federation Star Navy?"

He almost jumped at that, and looked over his shoulder.

"She did not tell you that."

"No, she did not. But I have access to the Imperial archives, and the scrolls of Terra. I have read the records of those of that world, and found her amongst the ranks of their navy."

"How?"

"She was a warrior, but not one at ease on the ground, and the way she spoke about the void and the stars...she had sailed there, for certain. Then it was a simple matter of perusing the scrolls of the nation she was the most likely to have hailed from."

"Did anyone see you do it?"

The princess snorted.

"Did you not hear? I am a princess cursed. Everyone avoids me like the plague, afeared of my sister's wrath. No, the librarians barely even spoke to me as I entered the archives, and I was undisturbed during my search. I don't think anyone even noticed me checking the scrolls of Terra."

"Good." Simply said the guildmaster. "Because that was incredibly stupid."

"What?"

"Accept, without question or explanation, that there are powerful forces that would kill you for what you know."

"Even the Order's reach has its limits."

The silence was deep, and Erik took in a deep breath.

"I should have guessed, that some knowledge would live on, even through to you, and not only directly in the line." He whispered. "Your ancestor was a crafty woman."

"The First Empress is a symbol and inspiration to us all. She was also a venomous snake, and a rampant megalomaniac with paranoid delusions. Or so she described herself."

She had also described, in exquisite detail, some secrets, like her reconstruction of the proscribed, heretical Order to Restore Humanity, from shattered remnants to a force to be reckoned with, operating in the shadows.

Her diaries, which every one in the line of succession had to read under various oaths and compulsions to keep the secret, said it was to help the Empire, and mankind.

Now...now Cassissa wasn't so sure.

For what kind of Order she had helped rebuild would threaten her own descendent for simply knowing too much?

"She was always harsh on herself." He smiled. "But yes, the Order's reach has its limits. And you are well within them. Steer clear."

"Very well. I shall."

"Good. Good. And I will ensure her name...her true name, is remembered. Forever and ever. She shall not be forgotten, that I promise you."

And with that, the guildmaster was gone.

Cassissa collapsed back into her chair.

What...what in all the hells had Allya gotten tangled up into?

And why was the Order ready to kill anyone with even the faintest whisp of it?

She gazed at the talisman.

She was ready to bet her own life that the answer laid within...and with its maker.