Crowned in Black: Chapter 9

The tunnel grew larger once it began winding upwards toward the palace, widening out almost to the size of mineshafts. After the draugr, it was uneventful - except for the fork.

I sent Mehkhet to scout the shorter tunnel, and Ebisa to scout the longer. Vash, Karalti and I waited in tense silence for them to return, sharing pieces of jerky and venting our tension by chewing. Mehkhet returned first, his shadowy face as calm as the surface of a black lake.

"Mehkhet: What did your ghost eyes see?" I asked him.

"Hah. How droll you are, Master," the wraith replied. "The passage exits into a short shaft with metal rungs, a ladder which emerges into the palace garden behind an old well. Said garden is teeming with people. Soldiers, mostly, as they watch the lords and ladies of the realm arrive."

I thought on it. "How many people? Give me an estimate."

Mehkhet did one better. He drifted toward me, icy hand extended. I didn't flinch as he touched me - and passed on what he had seen. A spectral monochrome image of the garden played out like an old-timey movie, the living showing as bright white figures against the dappled grays of the garden. There were a hundred soldiers present, at least: all humans in the Ilian uniform, or Mercurions in exotic, ornate armor. Worse, there were dragons. Two full-grown dragons waited to either side of the entry to the palace, looming over the parade of carriages crawling in through the gates. Knights of St. Grigori were watching over soldiers as they searched - and occasionally looted - the nobles being shepherded inside the building.

"Shit. It’s like watching a cattle pen empty into a slaughterhouse." I hissed under my breath.

Karalti chirped anxiously. “That bad?”

“Yeah.” I withdrew from Mehkhet, who drifted back from me. "The garden is packed with enemy soldiers. Let's hope Ebisa finds a better route."

Ebisa still hadn’t come back, and as the minutes wore on, I found myself wondering if she’d fallen into some kind of trap. I was about to make the call when I spotted her by the glint of torchlight off her battle mask.

"Tunnel leads to a storeroom, I think," she said brusquely, keeping her voice low as she rejoined the group. "But there’s a problem."

I sighed. "Of course there is. Go on."

"Guards," she replied. "The entry to that room is locked from the other side. There’s at least three warm bodies in that room. Pretty sure one of them is Starborn."

“How would you know?” Karalti asked.

Ebisa tapped her mask, just beside the glowing red sigil. “This.”

"Shit. They must know about this tunnel, then." I scowled, thinking. "Why the fuck would they post guards at one entry, but not the other?"

"Because you aren't thinking like a megalomaniacal idiot, Dog," Vash replied softly. "Lucien knows about the tunnel, yes... so he put guards in front of the end with the door, trusting that he or someone else will spot us going up into the garden."

“That, or they only know about the storeroom entry,” Karalti added.

"Given how many people are loitering in the gardens, the Gran Parade, and the Entrance Hall, he may be right," Mehkhet said. "I could pass through this locked door and attempt to silence the guardsmen. A storeroom is likely to put us closer to the dungeons."

"He's right." Ebisa jerked her shoulders, like an agitated bird. "Even if the enemy knows about the storeroom entry, they won't be expecting anyone to break through that lock from the other side."

"Mmhmm."Karalti nodded. "My vote is storeroom."

"Give me a minute." I calmed my mind as much as I could, held up a hand to silence the others, and thought about it from the tactical, then the strategic perspective. It was part knowledge, part instincts that made me shake my head after a few minutes, and look toward the garden entry.

"No to the storeroom entry," I said. "There's something about the setup that we're missing. Lucien is a dickhead, but Ororgael isn't. If Ororgael ordered him to lock it up, then there's another layer of security beyond that room we can't see. And if there’s a Starborn there, it means they can alert Lucien as soon as we break through. We’d literally have to kill them within a second of entry… and even then, once they respawn, they’d be able to report."

“Hrrn. True.” Vash frowned, tucking his pipe back into his belt. “I suppose we must infiltrate the palace through the garden, then.”

Ebisa folded her arms. “If you don’t think you can do it, I can go ahead and find a path forward.”

“Mehkhet already showed me the lay of the land. I’ll go first.” I nodded to her, then looked at the wraith in acknowledgement.

“No. Let me do it.” Ebisa stepped forward. “No offense intended, but of all of us-”

“We’re directly opposing a Starborn player’s intentions with this rescue mission.” It was my turn to be terse. “Which means that the Overconsciousness, so to speak, is going to flag this as PvP. Player versus Player, Starborn versus Starborn. Lucien is at least an even match for you and is probably ten levels higher, but If I die, I come back from the dead – and that’s why I’m at the front.”

Ebisa went still in a way that told me that she was frowning in the face of that information. “... Understood.”

I felt unusually serious as we pushed to the ladder. The time for banter was over. Karalti, Vash and I, working together with Suri, had done infiltration before - but this was the first time we’d expressly and deliberately tangled with another player, the first offensive PvP I’d initiated. I needed my team to be wary. While I believed in my heart that Archemi’s NPCs were as human as I was, Starborn still had the edge over them most of the time. I’d figured out a while ago that NPCs were also subtly manipulated by the game’s system to provide player characters with story, opportunity, and gratification. It put them at an automatic disadvantage.

When we reached the ladder, Ebisa cupped her hands and gave me a boost up. She didn’t need to, but I understood the gesture - and accepted. When I reached the top of the shaft, I slipped out into the concealment of the old well Mehkhet had shown me, pulled a small mirror out of my inventory, and used it to peek toward the courtyard. There were a lot of soldiers in the courtyard: a LOT of soldiers. The crowd of attendees at Lucien’s party was still being processed. We had time.

I scanned the surrounds, focusing on finding the path we needed to take to get in. It was a trick I'd learned in the jungle, before my time in Archemi: if you focused on the obstacles to your goal, that's all you saw. If you focused on the paths between them, your brain and feet would guide you through the forest, even if bullets were zipping and mortars rumbled overhead. By focusing on the clear areas, I spotted a way in: behind the hedges, there was a wall we could climb to a small balcony. The doors on the balcony looked to be made of solid metal, and there was a darkened section of wall to either side of the doors - and more importantly, no people. The metal French doors were locked, but they'd be no match for Ebisa.

After I'd gone back down to relay my plan, the four of us slithered back up and pressed through the nine-foot hedges to the back. It was prickly and noisy: every scrap of armor on stone made my butt pucker a little more each time. Fortunately, there was so much noise - hookwings screeching, men yelling orders, dragons bellowing, powered armor whirring, thumping, and clanking - that the sounds we made were insignificant. Rustling or swaying plants were the greater danger. We scraped along slowly and carefully until we reached the wall under the balcony, then formed a human pyramid to boost the heaviest person up first - Ebisa. Mercurions weighed about three times as much as a human of the same size, and it took me and Vash both to get her spidery carcass up the wall and onto the fence. She climbed the last ten feet and vaulted over, slipping into the shadows with effortless grace, then let down a pale white rope that matched the white walls of the palace. I went up next, because of my keen vision: at the top, I was the best suited to keep watch as Karalti, then Vash followed. Mehkhet was last, floating up into the darkest patch of shade along the walls.

"Curious. The walls are protected against incorporeal undead, but the doors are not," Mehkhet mused, standing back with us as Ebisa dropped to one knee in front of the door with her lockpicks.

"What does that mean?" I glanced at him, then flicked my eyes back to the door.

"Many kingdoms tie the security of the palace to a living person who must maintain the locks," he explained. "Sometimes the ruling monarch or their regent, via the Kingdom Management System. Sometimes, the duty falls to a Seneschal of the Locks, who is in charge of arming or disarming the wards in the castle. My hunch is that Queen Aslan made use of the latter, and that person was killed and not replaced when the palace was taken."

"Sounds like something Lucien would do," I muttered.

The lock clicked, and Ebisa grunted in satisfaction as she moved away. "Done."

"I'll take point," I said. "Ebisa, Mehkhet, I want you to stay hidden whenever possible. Karalti and Vash bring up the rear. Use any hiding spot we can find. The map Torquist gave us says we can get to the dungeons via one of three routes: the barracks, the kitchens, and the judicial chamber. I'm leaning toward the last one."

"All the routes will be guarded," Vash replied. "I think we should take the kitchens. The Ilians are invaders, and they’ll be treating the servants cruelly. If we pick them off, we’ll have the aid of the palace staff."

"Good point. Let's go in and suss it out." I nodded, and cracked the door open - only to hear a startled yelp from the other side.

Shit! We'd been found already? There was no way to move except forward, though - so I threw the door in and rolled into the hallway, the spear lifting up to point at the face of a terrified older man. He was patrician and well-dressed, with a neatly groomed beard and snow-white hair. His eyes were wide, white-gloved hands raised. There was a spilled tray of what had been neatly folded napkins at his feet.

"A butler?" I asked him aloud. "Are you Lucien's man? Or the Queen's?"

The whites of his eyes were showing now. "I-I... L-Lord Lucien's, of course..."

The lack of conviction in his voice and the fear in his expression convinced me otherwise. "Hands up. Voice soft. You're not really Lucien's servant, are you?"

He shook his head, too scared to speak aloud.

"We're on the side of Revala." I dropped my voice to a whisper. "Can you help us?"

The man's lips trembled for a moment. "Sir... please, please, if you can save the queen, I beg you. I fear it's too late, but… they have her bound in stocks downstairs in her own banquet hall. That... that GHOUL is torturing her there, burning her with irons. They're going to kill her as soon as the food is served. It’s running late because they’re searching every noble for weapons but… Please! If you’re part of the resistance, you have to do something!"

If the queen was already staged for the execution... fuck. There was no way we could pull her out, not without risking everything. "We’ll do what we can. What about Ignas Corvinus, the Vlachian king? And the princess? Do you know where she is?"

The butler nodded, then frantically bent to gather the napkins. I helped him pile them back onto the tray to leave no evidence; once they were picked up, he beckoned to us and hurried down the hall. We were in a servant's passage, the corridors used by the staff to move unseen between parts of the palace. The man took his keys to open a walk-in closet full of linens, and motioned us to join him inside.

"Princess Sovi is in the Royal Apartments." The butler closed the door and leaned against it, pale with fear. "Lord and Lady help her, that scoundrel dragged her by her hair to the queen's chambers, and she hasn't been seen since. He had his Mercurions replace the lock... only he has the key."

"I can crack it," Ebisa said softly.

I nodded to her, then turned to the man. "What about the Volod?"

"In the dungeons still, m'lord." The butler swallowed. “I… I have heard talk that he is to be executed tomorrow.”

"There's probably nothing we can do for Queen Aslan," I said heavily. "Not without losing Ignas and Sohvi. There might not be anything we can do for Sohvi, either. Fuck."

Ebisa straightened, her head swiveling toward me. “If we are to save anyone other than Ignas, we will need to divide into two teams.”

Double fuck. It would break one of the cardinal rules of every RPG ever made: ‘don’t split the party’. But the quest conditions and the reality of the situation loomed large ahead of me, and as I wracked my brains for a solution, I realized she was right. There was simply no way for us to stay together AND rescue Ignas AND have a chance at saving Sohvi. Karalti hissed in agitation.

"Alright. I know I said I had to lead at the front at all times… but… we need to take the shot." I drew a deep breath. "Ebisa, Karalti, you two can blend into the palace easily enough, and Karalti and I can communicate without messing with our HUDs or any magic. I want you two to go and extract Sovi.”

Ebisa stiffened slightly. Karalti nodded fiercely, her eyes hard and bright with determination.

“Vash, you're coming with me to the dungeons." I nodded to him, and he dipped his chin in acknowledgement. Then I turned to the butler. The servant swallowed, sweat soaking his collar.

"Thank you," I said softly. "You took a huge risk by talking to us."

"Please: if you can't save her majesty, release her daughter from this monster," he whispered back, eyes reddening. "She's only a maiden, barely sixteen summers old. I will be silent, I swear. I'll die before I say a word of this meeting! If only you'll try!"

I gave him a friendly clap on the shoulder. "We'll try.”

"Thank you. Gods bless you, whoever you are." The butler put his hands together. "Here... I know this place like my own chambers. Let me g-give you a map. And here-" he concentrated, and I got an alert:

[Junior Butler Olavi Harjula wishes to trade with you.]

Curious, I accepted, and four [Palace Servant] outfits appeared in my inventory.

"These won't get you past the guards to the dungeons, but they will get you through the kitchens to the cellar entry," the butler - Olavi - said hoarsely. "You can't use the courtroom; the usurper has troops bunked in there. Pass quickly through the kitchens, and look for the locked, barred door at the entry to the cellars. They have two guards posted there at all times... I don't know how you will get through them."

"We'll figure that out." I passed the uniforms to the others, and equipped my own. It was a neat, tailored white and grey suit similar to the one the butler was wearing. It appeared on Vash and Ebisa in the same way. But on Karalti... it turned into a sort of maid outfit.

"Ack!"She looked down at her bare knees. "Why doesn't it look the same as yours?!"

"Uhh... don't worry about it. We'll test that outfit later on at home. In our quarters." I cleared my throat softly, opening my HUD to share the Butler's map with the others. It was far, FAR more complete than the map Torquist had given us. "Thank you, really."

"Lord and Lady bless you," the butler said. "We've all been tortured by thoughts of what has happened to our queen and princess, but with all the guards slaughtered and replaced by these Ilian dogs, we've been powerless to help."

"You have taken your power back by helping us, zorifer.” Vash put his hands together, palm to palm, and bowed to the butler. Then he turned, and clapped his hand into Ebisa's. “Keep your head on your shoulders, Red. And you, Karalti. Remember your lessons. Do not lose control. Self-discipline is Burna’s gift to us."

“Jai, bagshaa.” Karalti saluted to him as an apprentice: one fist to the other palm, then a dip from the waist.

"Keep in touch, Tidbit." I was worried, even though I'd been the one to order the team split. I didn't have to say it - she could feel it through the Bond.

"Don’t worry! I’m definitely the best at rescuing people. And Ebisa is the best at… uh… being stabby." My dragon reached out and squeezed my hand, sending a thrill of electricity through it, then dipped her head to Ebisa. The Mercurion gave a hand signal, and the two of them stepped out of the closet, following the map marker toward the Royal Suite.

"That's our cue, Dog," Vash grunted. He looked surprisingly dapper in his butler uniform - though it didn't do anything to hide his knee-length falls. “Ready?”

“Born ready.” I gave him a nod, and opened the door out. “Let’s get ‘er done.”