A hotel.

One finely furnished, to the point that had a less well-traveled person been brought to it during the decade prior, they might have thought it to be a palace. Hell, it was one that its current occupants knew was a palace. A hotel with a pristine exterior and interior, walls and floor decorated with the most lavishly polished marble, gold, and wood, beaütiful as the most delicate flower.

Hideous.

I could scarcely believe that such an affront to nature was possible. This was once a proud volcano, covering the land in ash and lava; now, its innards were paraded around as a place for relaxation and comfort. The internal plumbing stood as a twisted perversion of the raging rivers of magma that once flowed through here. Was there even any consideration given for the wildlife that could only survive in such a place? For the loss of the new land the volcano might have creäted? For the natural cycle of birth and death? No, none.

For now, though, we must persevere, I thought; we can't give up here, now that we're so close to defeating the Dark Queen.

As I was concluding my musings, I turned off the shower. Even with the charmed ring my parents left to me, I wasn't immune to dirt and sweat. Thus, I was grateful for the chance to cleanse myself, even if it wasn't in a more conventional river or stream. Besides, it's technically—

"Ew, what the heck, Kirik?"

"Sorry?" Lænzey was covering her face with her hands, sitting hunched over.

"Put some clothes on before you just walk in on us like this!"

I looked around, donning the towel I'd been using to dry myself. Everyone was sitting in a circle, almost like—oh, oops.

"Sorry guys, am I late to the meeting?"

"Yes!" shouted Lænzey

"Now, now," cautioned Sulmoro, as inscrutable as always, "I would expect you to behave yourself appropriately during these meetings. It is unbecoming of a lady to feign such shock at merely—"

"Oh, come on! This gets an 'unbecoming' speech too? He's naked!"

"Nothing is more natural than the human form, dear."

"Well," intoned Sekterns, "you said the same thing about—"

"Silence, pest." was Sulmoro's swift reply, and Sekterns stared dejectedly at the ground. Perhaps we needed a talk about her incivility to Sekterns.

Throwing him a bone, I asked him "So, what did I miss?" Explaining something to me might be able to bolster his confidence a bit.

"We were putting together a gameplan for figuring out this whole 'find the queen' thing."

I shot him a winning smile and a thumbs up. "Thanks. What ideäs did we have so far?"

"I thought we maybë could talk to the servants—"

"Talk to them, he says!" crowed Cåktakal. "And how would that be useful, you dumb orc?"

I sighed. How would Sekterns ever acquire any self-confidence if his every ideä was shot down?

"I also am unable to scry at present," added Sulmoro, "meaning that I cannot pinpoint her either."

"Can you see if someone's telling the truth or not?" Lænzey asked.

"Thankfully, yes."

"So what exactly is the problem with Sekterns's ideä, then?" Thank you, Lænzey! I thought to myself.

"I do not follow."

"We ask the servants questions and use your spell to see if they're lying or not. I'm surprised you all didn't think of that." Perhaps next time you should listen to your teammate.

"Yeah, why didn't you add that part, Sekterns?" taunted Cåktakal.

I facepalmed.

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

Earliër that day...

"Welcome!" said two inhumans in servant dresses, as we stepped out onto the strangely-cool and unnaturally-verdant volcano. One, a dark elf, was clad in green: a green the shade of bleachgrass, yet more vibrant than any plant could hope to be. The other, a vampire, was clad in a pink far pinker than any pink that should exist, as if this were the primeval pink from which all other pink derives. We knew that the reign of the dark queen had turned the world topsy-turvy, but it was a warning to us all that such a strange reception party was possible.

"Welcome?" parroted Cåktakal, with a look of profound skepticism.

"Yes!" eagerly replied the pink one. "We wish to welcome our distinguished guests to Castle Coldfront on behalf of our benefactor, Queen One of Many, first of her name."

"All hail," the green one somberly added.

"We wish to request for you to stay with us for 3 nights and to make full use of our hospitality."

"We are shortstaffed at the moment, but we are nevertheless hard at work getting your rooms into tip-top condition."

I stared at them.

We all just sorta stood there with our mouths agape for awhile. The sheer strangeness of the situation had left us all completely speechless, shifting our gaze from the servants to one another and back. One of us would begin to reply, only for it to die on their tongue before a single word could make its way out. Our greatest enemy was inviting us for a stay at her castle, via the most ostentaciously-dressed inhumans that any of us had encountered in our lives. Never mind the fact that there was no castle anywhere in sight, only a gently-sloped meadow that wound around a fairly unimpressive hill. The hill had nothing on top of it, and there were no other notable features visible on this side of the volcano.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

After awhile, I decided to take charge; I was the leader, after all. I cleared my throat. "You'll have to give us some time to consider your offer." I'm not entirely sure how I was able to keep a straight face.

"Please inform us of your decision before sunset, so that we may be able to appropriately accommodate you."

"This seems dodgy," said Lænzey, once we were back on the boat.

"Agreed," added Sekterns.

I couldn't help but agree at the moment, Why did they welcome us to a castle that we can't see? Wouldn't the element of surprise be more effective? Unless...

That’s when it hit me: That must mean it's clearly visible or somewhere around here! My eyes scanned our surroundings again: meadow, hill...wait, there was what looked like an abri in the right side of the hill. A cave? The Dark Queen is a demon, and they do come from underground. Perhaps her castle is a cave, I reasoned. But why invite us in? Doesn't she know what our mission is? Does she want a favorable playing field? Ultimately, there was only one way to find out.

After a bit of hemming and hawing, I said, "I think we should do it."

Immediately, Sulmoro said "Then we shall do it." An awkward silence greeted her pronouncement.

Lænzey gave her a disappointed stare. "After all we've seen and the places we've been, you still haven't changed in the slightest, huh?"

"Excuse me?"

"There are a worryingly large number of potential problems that you've decided to completely ignore."

"It is not our place to consider such things; that duty lies with the chosen."

"Hmmphh," grunted Imdan. "That's no way to go about things. An army that fails to consider risks is an army that has no chance of success."

"Yeah, that. And what happened to guiding him?" Lænzey added.

"I guide through having faith in his abilities and decisions."

"Oh please, he's not stupid, but he's nowhere near infallible!"

"Then tell me," I butted in, "why we would want not to go along with it." As much as I appreciated Sulmoro's help, the guy had a point. Perhaps there was something I had failed to consider.

"We would be playing by the enemy's rules, in the enemy's home turf," Imdan explained. "This is not a good combination. I'm not even sure where the castle is in the first place."

"I think it's that cave over there," I said, pointing at the hill. "Besides, we've done this before and come out fine."

"This isn't before, lad. This is the Dark Queen's personal entourage."

"Hear me out, though," I argued. "Let's say we go in; what's the worst that happens? We run into the Dark Queen and have to fight her at the same time as all of her minions. That's easy to prepare for, isn't it? We just bring in our best gear, and we win the fight later on. If it doesn't happen, we can just carry our stuff back out again."

"I'm against it," said Cåktakal, finally speaking up again. "This doesn't feel right. This doesn't feel right at all."

"Anything more concrete you can give me?"

"Nah, but I think we're missing something big here."

"Yeah," agreed Lænzey, "shouldn't she hate us? Why is she just letting us in?"

"Why is her vampiric servant over there awake during the day?" replied Sulmoro. "It's meaningless to analyze her motivations, for they are based on such rank principles as to be entirely unrecognizable to the standard average human."

"Hmm, I guess I'm not strictly opposed, then," conceded Lænzey. "I'm worried about getting spied on inside the palace, though. We can't take 100% of our best gear and people inside, or we'll have nothing up our sleeves when push comes to shove!"

"We could have Imdan stay with the boat," I ventured.

Unsurprisingly, Imdan practically jumped at the chance to stay with his beloved ship, leaving myself and the others to accompany the servants to the castle. It turned out that I was right: we rounded the base of the hill to find ourselves inside an impressively large abri, replete with stalactites and stalagmites, as if it were merely an aboveground cave. Carved into the back wall of the abri was a truly majestic-looking castle façade, a beaüty of naturalistic design.

The front lobby of the castle, by contrast, was incredibly disappointing. Don't get me wrong; it was an immaculately-designed atrium, decorated in golden and earthen colors and brightly lit from above. This was supposed to be a volcano, though! There was barely any effort to preserve its natural functions, no ambiënt lavaflows, nothing. The only indication that this was ever something other than a strangely-shaped building was the fact that all of it had been carved into continuous rock, and even then, an earthpower mage could accomplish much the same with enough effort. To our left as we entered was a desk, manned by a jengu in a yellow dress.

"Are these the guests?" she asked.

The pink-green pair nodded.

"Good. I'll tell them you're here." She pressed down a spot on her desk. "The distinguïshed guests are here."

"So..." Lænzey began, "is the castle normally this empty?" Huh, I hadn't reälized, but yeah, it's kinda empty. I waited for the jengu to respond.

"I'm not sure, ma'am."

"Aren't you a servant here?"

"I only started last week, after the previous receptionist got crushed under a rockslide."

"Oh," crowed Cåktakal, "is that why you invited us here? To bury us all alive in your deathtrap of a palace?"

"For your information, he was in Olkol visiting family."

After her statement, a heavy silence descended on the group, which the 'receptionist' seemed very annoyed by. My heart ached for her, but really, it was her own fault. What was she expecting us to say? 'Oh, we're sorry we killed your predecessor in a rockslide; we should've prioritized safety regulations over fulfilling the divine prophecy!' Of course not. There are more important things in a war than sparing the lives of the enemy.

Eventually, we were greeted by a naga. "Have you stayed with us before?" she asked.

What a ridiculous question. Before I could say 'no', though, Lænzey chimed in with "What do you mean by 'staying with you', exactly? Is this some kind of inn?"

"Why certainly! It is, after all, the finest hotel in all the land."

"Isn't this supposed to be a castle? Where's the queen?"

"The queen is inside the hotel," she announced jovially, "but you will have to find her." Her eyes glinted with mischieviousness, as though there were some joke we weren't in on. "Do you wish to be shown to your rooms?"

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

Back in the present, our very-serious discussion was interrupted by a knock at the door. I went over to open it, and I was greeted by our green servant from before.

"We apologize, but we must request your presence in the lobby for an announcement. We assure you that your stay will have no further interruptions."

And just like that, she was off, walking down the hallway.

"Hey guys," I called out, "I think we might have a lead on the queen."

Arriving in the lobby, we were greeted by our now-familiar gaggle of servants, plus one new face we hadn't seen before: a dullahan dressed in cyan.

Impatiënt as always, Lænzey bluntly asked "An announcement?" in a tone that said she wasn't so much disbelieving as bored.

"Yes, an announcement," said the green one.

"Well, what is it? Spit it out already!"

The servants exchanged a few nervous glances, but they decided to simply press forward. I suspect they had something more elaborate that they wanted to do, but were taken aback by Lænzey's ferocity. From right to left, each one cleared their throat in sequence, pink, yellow, green, cyan, blue. Then, they began to speak in sequence:

P - "I communicate this message through my most trusted surviving servants."

Y - "Although I so desperately wish to confront you, and to inflict unto you the pain you have inflicted upon my people..."

G - "I will instead use this rare opportunity of calm before the final storm to attempt to communicate an ideä."

C - "You do not at present reälize that such an ideä can be possible, and it is from this that I have hope:"

B - "Hope that were you to recognize this truth, you would see the folly of your ways."

P - "To simply state the concept to you at point-blank would accomplish nothing, for it comes from me, your sworn enemy."

Y - "Thus, I have decided to construct a game, in which the only way to win is through knowing this truth."

G - "I have hidden myself away in plain sight, for I myself am one of the five servants that you see before you."

C - "All have been instructed not to lie, so please feel free to turn back the clock with them and live their lives once more."

B - "But beware, any that attack the servants shall be inflicted with deadly poison; better to wait until the battle than lose an ally prematurely."

And finally, they all spoke in unison, the two words: "Find me."