The ceremony for Lady Alianne was held at the Palace. This had obviously started out as a medieval motte and bailey, but had sprawled beyond that long ago—the original keep had expanded into two stately wings, and was surrounded by a vast complex of grand houses and stately gardens.

Josh had new clothes for the occasion, paid for by Silbury, which consisted of a blue doublet with silver embroidery, blue satin britches, white stockings, and black shoes with buckles. He had a matching hat, with a long feather that he had enchanted to glow, but since everyone took their hats off at the door and passed them on to a waiting footman, there hadn’t been much point. The suit of clothes was tight in the wrong places and slightly itchy, and he felt ridiculous.

On the other hand, he was confident that no-one was going to be looking at him, partly because the stupid clothes helped him fit in, but mostly because of Ramina.

Ramina most certainly did not fit in.

She wore a satin dress in deep crimson with a black overskirt and ruffles. It had a tight, low-cut bodice, with a long skirt and a bustle. On her arms were long, black, lacy gloves, and there was some kind of black and crimson feathery confection pinned to her hair.

Josh wasn’t an expert on female fashion by any means, but even he could tell it was out of place. It was like she was wearing fantasy clothing, but it was the wrong kind of fantasy. She looked as if she’d walked straight off the set of a vampire movie, or popped right out of the pages of a steampunk comic, rather than a medieval swords and sorcery epic.

He offered his arm, exactly like the gentleman out of a period drama, and she took it. Together they swept into the hall where the ceremony would take place.

It was gilded and ornate, with a parquet floor that had been polished to within an inch of its life, and gleamed like a mirror. There were panels separating antechambers along one side, and large windows overlooking a pleasant courtyard on the other. At the far end was a dais where the ceremony would be held, with rows of benches lined up before it, and you would think you would be able to sit anywhere, but no, the seating was highly regimented, and depended on your social status.

Josh knew this because he’d suffered a whole afternoon of instruction on court etiquette, so that he could follow Ramina around and guide her away from glaring social solecisms. From the things she had said, he didn’t think she had been subjected to hours of explanations involving which fork to use, or the difference between greeting a baron and a duke.

It galled Josh that he was doing his best to fit in with all their complicated social rules, while another outlander could flagrantly disregard them. Silbury had to know Ramina was from Earth, but presumably it was his protection that allowed her to carry on as she did.

Which meant Ramina had something valuable to offer Silbury. What did Silbury want with pirates?

Josh realised he had been distracted, because a servant had come up to Ramina, spoken to her in a low voice, and now Ramina was tugging on his arm.

They followed the servant to one of the side rooms, where several nobles were clustered. As Ramina and Josh reached them, there was a little burst of applause, and one lady said to her neighbour, “So pretty!”

The pretty thing was apparently an illusion cast by, of all people, Lady Paleyne, which was just fading as the servant pushed through the crowd. It looked like it had involved colourful, dancing butterflies. Standing at one end of the room was a young, handsome man of Josh’s age with dark blond curly hair. On his left stood Lady Paleyne, and on his right was an older man who sported bushy eyebrows and a grim, turned down mouth.

The young man turned to Lady Paleyne, taking her hand and saying, “Marvellous as usual, my dear lady.”

She curtseyed and inclined her head, her expression serene, although Josh noticed she had that pale, pinched look that suggested she had been overusing her magic.

“Do you not agree, Northcrag?” the young man added, turning to the older man on his right, with a light teasing note in his voice.

That must be the Earl of Northcrag, Josh thought, staring at him with interest. The one whose father had killed the huldra, locked the survivors out of their city and imprisoned their Queen for all those years. He didn't look evil, just grouchy.

“I am a simple man of simple tastes—” Northcrag began, but immediately closed his mouth when the young man laughed.

“Yes, yes, you have no time for our court fripperies! Ah,” the young man’s eye fell on Ramina. “And here she is.”

The servant announced, in a clear voice, “Miss Ramina Brown of the Seamount, and Mr Josh de Haven.”

Everyone ignored Josh and stared curiously at Ramina, including the young man. Josh assumed he must be royalty of some kind—a prince? Did King Rupern have a son?

Ramina bowed instead of curtseying, in a flamboyant way that sent a rustled whisper around the assembled courtiers, and included a few titters at the back. Ramina ignored this.

“My mum sends her greetins,” she said, in a straightforward, strident sort of way.

She’d forgotten to add my lord, or your highness, or however you were supposed to address the Prince, if that was who he was. Knowing Ramina, she might have left it out deliberately. Josh nudged her and coughed discreetly, since he thought that was what Silbury was paying him for, but Ramina gave him a blank look. He wished he’d paid more attention to what the servant had said. He thought he saw Lady Paleyne’s eyes roll.

Meanwhile, the Prince’s brows rose.

“So kind of her,” he said, smiling. His voice was indulgent, as if to a child. “We must have a little chat one of these days. It’s so long since I’ve last seen her. And how are you finding Dendral, Miss Brown?”

If Ramina was an outlander, how come she had a mother?

“Nice roofs for runnin’ on,” Ramina said buoyantly. “But the lake is borin’, not a wave in sight.”

The Prince blinked. Northcrag frowned disapprovingly.

“An unusual perspective,” the Prince said. Something in his tone prompted the assembled courtiers to laugh, and not in a kind way. "Do your people commonly run around on roofs?"

From the way Ramina had described the inside of the Seamount, the buildings were all tiered in a way that the roofs of one level functioned as the street of the next level up.

"All the time," Ramina said. "You should try it, yer high-up-ness!"

Josh secretly enjoyed the aghast looks on the courtiers' faces. Northcrag's disapproval had gathered up into a thunderous frown. Lady Paleyne was trying very hard not to laugh.

"I shall take that under advisement," the Prince said to Ramina. “Do enjoy the ceremony, Miss Brown.”

It was a clear dismissal, but Josh had to tug discreetly at Ramina’s sleeve before she realised. The servant was already bringing in another person to be introduced.

When they got back into the main hall, people were beginning to take their seats, so Ramina and Josh drifted towards the benches at the back.

“Who is your mum?” Josh asked Ramina.

“Queen o’ the pirates, o’ course!”

How did that work? He wasn't sure how to ask if the Queen of the Pirates was really her mother, or whether she'd been adopted.

“Does that make you like an Ambassador or something?”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Anyone less suited to diplomacy it was hard to imagine. Ramina grinned, her gold tooth glinting.

“Treasure and treachery, that’s the pirate motto! The difference between us pirates and all these fatsos what think they’re dangerous,” she pointed at the rest of the room, “is that we openly admit it.”

“What, you openly stab people in the back?”

“Now you’re thinkin’ like a pirate!”

Josh caught sight of someone who looked awfully like Orlad, the green-eyed man from Brackstone. He took a step forward, trying to get a better look to see if he was right, but was interrupted by a voice hailing him from nearby.

He turned, and saw Sir Owain. Josh’s pulse immediately sped up, but he tried to look calm.

Beside Sir Owain was a young man in his twenties. Josh focused on him, and wasn't surprised to discover he was an outlander. He looked the same age as Raicheous, but his level was 32, his name was Deathless, and he was an Oathbound Knight.

“So Doug sent you, but didn’t have the guts show up himself?” Sir Owain asked Josh, disdainfully. Behind him, Deathless gave the satisfied smirk of an underling watching his overbearing boss bully someone else.

It was before noon, so Josh thought it was more likely that Doug wasn’t up yet.

“I’m escorting Miss Brown, sir,” Josh said. He ducked his head and spoke in a slight mumble, mostly so neither Sir Owain nor Deathless would be able to catch sight of his teeth. He was aware it made him look timid, but that couldn’t be helped.

Be a bard, he told himself. This is what bards do.

Happily, the sound of a gong interrupted the conversation, and everyone started to take their places. Josh and Ramina ended up behind several tall, inconvenient hairstyles, and therefore had a poor view of the proceedings.

Josh didn’t think they were missing much. The ceremony started with a priest, who immediately launched into a long, rambling sermon, and since there were no microphones, Josh could barely hear a word he said.

He thought wistfully of all his crafting projects back at his lodging house. He had decided to make a second feather breastplate, but this time he had an idea on how to make the feathers infusible with magic as a group, instead of individually, and he couldn’t wait to try it.

Eventually the priest bowed, and gave way to someone else, who announced, in loud voice that projected beautifully, “All rise for the King!”

Everyone stood, and this gave Josh a slightly better view of the proceedings. He saw the Prince—the man he had thought must be Rupern’s son—mount the dais and approach the centre.

That was the King?

Everyone in the audience bowed or curtseyed—Josh and Ramina, caught unawares, hastily followed them—and then the King gestured them all to stand straight, and then sit down, rather like the conductor of an orchestra.

That was Rupern himself, Josh though, in shock. He was fifty years old, but he looked twenty. Was he a Hero, like Sir Owain and Doug? Did he have the power of the Dreamer? Was this something Josh was supposed to know about? No-one had mentioned it.

The King was speaking, something about a great legacy, and a burden.

Josh decided to risk admitting his ignorance.

“Why is he so young?” he whispered to Ramina.

“Yeah, creepy weird, innit?” Ramina said back. “He got Tigerlily’s mantle.”

“What?”

Ramina screwed up her face, trying to remember.

“Like, as she lay dying, after Tylas did for her, she gifted her powers to Rupey-boy so he could save his mum. Only he failed and she died anyway. Or something like that.” She shrugged, as if the details weren’t important.

It had never occurred to Josh to ask what had happened to Tigerlily’s power. He couldn’t even remember much about the circumstances around her death. His brow furrowed as he tried to recall the sequence of events. Tylas the Undying had stolen Gwynifer the Dreamer’s power around thirty-five years ago. Tylas had infiltrated Celespire five years later, killing Tigerlily and Queen Halina. Prince Rupern would have been twenty then, and so when Tigerlily had given him her power, he had become effectively immortal.

Until someone came along and cut his immortality out of him, but that clearly hadn’t happened.

A door at the far end of the hall opened, and two knights in white capes and armour ducked into the hall and came out onto the dais. Behind them was Lady Alianne, also dressed in a simple white gown, with her hair down and a crown of white flowers around her head, like some maidenly sacrifice.

Rupern spoke some more, presenting her to the court, and talking about her virtue, her purity, her dedication to her King and to the Church, in a way that made Josh feel faintly nauseous. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ramina miming sticking her finger down her throat then gagging, and gave a choke of laughter.

Josh turned his attention back to Lady Alianne, standing there on the stage as if she was ready to be sacrificed to a dragon, and … oh shit.

She had a character sheet now.

> Lady Alianne

> Spinner

> Level 1

> Player rank: 865

> Gladiator rank: 496

> Kills: 0 | Deaths 0

> Karma: 0

She had exactly the same stats as Josh had had, a month and a half ago, when he had first arrived.

At that point everything cascaded in his brain in a rush, clicking into place as he realised what Rupern was doing. A philosopher’s stone was a player core. Rupern was taking player cores from outlanders and giving them to his nobles. He was offering them immortality.

Josh swept his eyes along the benches of nobles all patiently watching the ceremony, taking care this time to focus on each one, and sure enough several more character sheets popped up, ones he had missed because he hadn’t looked at them hard enough or long enough for the option to display.

There were about twelve or so scattered throughout the crowd, mostly on the front benches, where the people with the highest status sat. They were all the Earls and Dukes who supported King Rupern.

This was how Rupern controlled the nobles and got them to support him, despite being exiled from Celespire, his historical seat of power. The faction which supported him was the one that wanted immortality.

But if that was the case, why hadn’t every single outlander been killed and stripped of their cores? Because, Josh realised, many of the outlanders were powerful, and they banded together for protection. You would need a group of tame outlanders to catch them, people who didn’t mind risking their lives and wouldn’t—or couldn’t—steal the cores for themselves.

Josh’s found his gaze being dragged to where Sir Owain and Deathless sat on their benches.

That’s what the Order of the Unyielding did. They hunted down outlanders, killed them for their cores, and brought them back to King Rupern to give out to his nobles as Philosopher’s Stones.

It was all one big, horrible conspiracy.

Did Doug know?

Of course he did. Josh remembered Sir Owain sneering about how Doug couldn’t show up himself to the ceremony. Doug knew, and his only form of protest was to boycott it. But then Doug had given up on life in general, and spent most of his time sitting around in a tavern getting drunk, feeling sorry for himself, and reliving his glory days with a bunch of aging adventurers.

Josh rubbed his hands over his face.

That was why Rob had advised Josh to avoid the Order of the Unyielding. He was glad he had gone to such efforts to disguise his Earthly origins to Sir Owain. And to Doug. If Doug did indeed condone what was going on.

Someone had died, permanently died, to give Lady Alianne that core. Someone who had probably been snatched from Earth as a teenager, been dumped into a world that encouraged them to become murder hobos, and then ate them.

Josh felt sick.

“You okay?” Ramina asked, darting a frown at him.

Did she know? Was she in danger?

“Do you know where Philosopher’s Stones come from?” he whispered.

“Yeah,” she whispered back. “Gross, innit?” She wrinkled her nose.

It sounded like everyone had known, except for Josh.

Towards the end of the ceremony, Lady Alianne knelt before the King on a cushion. He took a goblet of wine, which was blessed by the priest. A servant arrived, with a golden casket on a red pillow. The King opened it, took something from it and dropped it in the wine.

There were more speeches. Lady Alianne made some kind of vow to be guided by the Church, and to live her life in service to the Crown, then she was given the goblet to drink from. An expectant hush fell over the crowd, and Josh realised everyone thought the thing in the casket was the Philosopher’s Stone.

Except it was a fake ceremony. Lady Alianne had probably got her player core earlier, maybe even days earlier. She would get the same class as the person the core had been stolen from, except with the levels reset.

Lady Alianne passed the empty goblet back, and pressed a hand to her chest. The King knelt by her solicitously, and then two of the knights on either side helped her to rise. She faced the crowd, raised up her hands while sudden music swelled, and then everyone was on their feet applauding.

Ramina didn’t applaud, and neither did Josh. He knew he ought to, but he couldn’t bring himself to make the motions.

“When can we leave?” Josh asked, as servants came to carry away the benches and the crowd started to mill around in the cleared space.

“Give it an hour,” Ramina said. She was looking more bored than upset, maybe because she hadn’t had a shattering revelation only moments ago.

Waiters started circling with trays full of glasses of wine and canapes. Ramina and Josh shared the awkward silence of two people stuck at a large event where they didn’t know anyone else. They sipped their drinks and stared at the crowd around them.

It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes later that there was a thump and an outcry from a knot of nobles. Ramina immediately went to investigate. Josh followed more slowly, still discreetly checking the nobles who had character sheets.

Their levels ranged from the low teens to the high thirties. Two of them were soldiers, but most of them were various crafting classes, including, bizarrely, an ice sculptor. They were a mix of young and old, but they were all the focal point of their individual gatherings.

Ramina backed out of the knot of onlookers a little while later.

“Earl o’ Northcrag,” she reported. “Old coot just keeled over.”

“Is he dead?”

“Nah.”

A bevy of servants had lifted him and were carrying him out, followed by a concerned entourage.

“Was he … uh, poisoned?” Josh asked in a low voice.

Ramina gave him a strange look.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Josh protested. “All these people seem to be scheming and backstabbing each other all the time!”

“Fair point. But nah, he dint have nothin’ to eat or drink. They think it was his heart.”

Or, Josh thought, it was the work of Lady Paleyne. He looked around for her, and saw her vanishing into one of the side rooms with a hand to her brow that suggested a headache. That was highly suspicious. He would have left it, because he didn’t want to get involved, except he saw the man he thought was Orlad go in right after her.

That was odd. Were they conspiring together?