“I don’t have the authority to do that,” Conrad replied to Theodore’s request to evacuate the city and mobilize the army, “I’d need one of the princes, preferably the crown prince, to issue that order.”
“Wait, hold on,” James interrupted, “You can’t seriously be planning to evacuate a major city and mobilize the army just for the possibility of a dungeon break? You only have one witness and even he isn’t sure it wasn’t an illusion!”
“How would anyone be sure it wasn’t an illusion? All I can say is, with dungeons, it very rarely is just an illusion,” Theodore replied with a shrug.
“It’s still just one testimony!”
“Two actually,” Lance pointed out, with a cough.
“What about the rest of the adventurers? Shouldn’t you question them first?” James asked.
The mousey-looking woman spoke up, “They went back in early this morning, talking about a hidden encounter, sir wizard.”
“Trust me, I will question them extensively about this when they get back, but for now, I can’t just ignore the risk to the nearly hundred thousand people living here.’ Theodore said, then added somewhat snidely. “You’re the inquisitor, do you want to verify the truth of his statement?”
James glanced at me, I held out my hand. “One question, James, make it relevant,” I offered. I had nothing to hide, but I didn’t want to give him free rein either. Also, having the active truth spell cast on you felt a bit icky when you could feel the mana tendrils digging into your soul. Souls didn’t feel pain, but soul sight let you sense something that didn’t quite gel with the other five senses when magic touched your soul.
James sighed, “No that won’t be necessary. Besides, a trained wizard with a familiar can eventually learn to lie with their souls, so I usually don’t bother.”
This was news to me, but instead, I ask an indirect question. “You sound really annoyed about this turn of events, almost like you’re taking it personally,” I observe.
James shoots me an annoyed glance, “Well, I can’t ignore this, but it is inconvenient, isn’t it? Especially given that I’ve pretty much made sure that the army won’t be successfully mobilized.”
“You knew what you were doing when you provoked the princess like that, didn’t you?” Conrad asked angrily.
James shrugged, “The eldest prince has been growing increasingly paranoid and erratic, I merely nudged him a bit. But yes, I did hope to provoke him into doing something rash.”
“Why?”
“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” James pointed out. “But, since my actions have caused a bit of an inconvenience, I will just say that we are working to discredit him because he’s dangerous. That royal mage school is really just the tip of the iceberg. He’s got dangerous ideas that, if left unchecked, will lead to another Great Mage War.”
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There was a moment of silence as we all processed that. “This is all above my pay grade,” Theodore said finally, “But explain to me how you know that the kingdom won’t be able to mobilize its army?”
“With divination magic, there’s a lot you can do when you have a lot of wizards working towards trying to figure out how someone will react. Let’s just say, if he hasn’t already left the capital to rally half the army, there would be very surprised diviners calling me right about now,” James admitted.
“But you can’t predict a dungeon break?”
“Divination doesn’t work on dungeons, obviously,” James said with a snort. “If it did, you could be sure the Adventurer’s Guild would have its own divination team. Divination only works on very short-term questions about the future, and needs to be focused on specific individuals.”
“Still, why do you want a civil war?!” Conrad asked, fury in his voice.
“It wouldn’t come to that, the two brothers do actually like each other. The middle brother is a peace-seeker. He’ll rise to the occasion and calm his eldest brother down, cementing his own position, that’s what our divinations show.” James explained.
“Assuming no unforeseen circumstances throw off your predictions…” I comment, “such as a possible dungeon break.”
“Assuming that, yes,” James said sourly.
“I’m still a little shocked you threw all this into motion so quickly, after all, you couldn’t have predicted the king would fall comatose, that was caused by the dungeon, wasn’t it?” I pressed.
“I’ve already given you more details than I should,” James said, folding his arms into a defensive posture, “and only because I need your cooperation. Do you want to use an active truth spell on me? Confirm I had no intention of setting in motion a chain of events that could cost thousands of innocent lives?”
I snort, “Didn’t you just tell me active truth spells don’t work on you?”
James grins wryly, “Hah, I was hoping you’d not figure that out. Doesn’t change the fact that I am willing to put the resources of the Mage Guild towards fixing this. What do we need to do?”
“Well, it’s going to take three days for me to assemble every available diamond-ranked adventurer for our upcoming raid, but you could start by undoing the mess you made? Talk to the princes and get them to agree to mobilize the army to the capital and start an evacuation?” Theodore suggests.
“Three whole days to prepare?” I muse, “Maybe I should do some enchanting, make a few defensive items for myself.”
“That’s probably wise,” Lance nodded.
“Make that ward to detect mind-controlled people. If you succeed at it, bring it to me, I’ll patent it for you, and you’ll get a 20% cut on any such wards other enchanters make for the next five years. I can foresee the inquisitor's office will be ordering a bunch of them,” James suggested.
“Don’t get too excited about shutting yourself into your workshop,” Conrad warned, “I’m going to need you to come with me to talk to the crown prince, explain the mess we’re in.”
“Where is he?” I ask.
“Hunting, at the hunting lodge a day’s ride from here. We need to go fetch him, he might not listen to me if I go alone.”
"What about the eldest prince, you predicted he's already left the capital?" Lance asked, "How will we deal with him?"
“I’ll issue a formal retraction of what I said. Issue an apology for accusing the eldest prince,” James said with a sigh, “Send a Mage Guild ambassador to him. We’ll throw Reginald to the dragon, say we discovered that he tampered with his own memories.”
I stared at James, about to object.
“Don’t worry, Reginald will be fine, we did promise him protection, he’ll just sit in protective custody until this is all resolved. It’s the least he deserves after what he tried to pull with his attempt to use persuasion magic on the king. Sometimes two lies do make a right,” James added with a chuckle.