BECMI Chapter 59 – The Guilty Parties

“There are other… guests in the Inn, who we believe might have been involved with the disappearance of the King, but we have no proof, nor their means of travel or control of the Portal, if such exists. We are unwilling to risk losing our king by forcing the issue, and so Darkmoor has been missing its king for nearly two months now,” Master Kociba went on slowly and deliberately.

I considered him coolly. “Very well, it seems the rescue of your king will clear our own way forward. I will prepare some spells that may be of use.

“We will return to the Inn when our feast is done, and I have completed my meditations. Make available to us your other guests and all of their belongings, and we will solve this mystery for you, I believe.” I inclined my head again. “We have cleared that Inn of hostile beings nearly a hundred times, Master Kociba. Let there be no doubt you could not have a finer group available to go rescue your king.”

Grim heads nodded all around the table.

“Return to your people and prepare, Master Kociba. Everyone, it seems we will be making TWO additional trips to regain our freedom, and this time, we get to rescue a king while doing our job.”

I pushed myself away from the table. “Finish eating and rest. In six hours, we will return to the Inn, free this king, and find our way home.”

Goblets smacked the table as I turned and floated away, the Disk underneath me transforming from chair to meditative platform. I began to Sing the Sublime Chord under my breath, and the air began to sparkle, including the very magical meal in front of everyone, the haunting sound making the surprised Master Kociba glance around in wonder.

“Allow me to see you out,” the dragon stated in precise, deep yet feminine dwarven, picking up a double-sized loaf of golden bread and biting down on the whole thing. Her tail spun his around, and she forcibly ushered him across the short distance to the Wall blocking them, while the celebration behind her cooled down to another quiet and forceful meal, as vastly irritated warriors prepared for yet another fight.

The soldier on the wall quailed to see her coming for him, but the dragon did nothing except effortlessly lift the up the height of the ten-foot wall, enabling Master Kociba to get off it without effort. Then she turned and stalked elegantly away, his trailing after her.

Ketcher watched as the dragon returned to her place, but instead of resuming her seat, she lifted the whole platter of goods obviously meant for her onto his conveyance, which changed form to a flat once again. Then she stalked over to where the terrifyingly beautiful pale and raven-haired elfin in red had swirls of shadows and crimson roses flickering into and out of existence around her, while the air hummed in joy for the haunting melody pervading it.

The dragon coiled herself around the elfin, the mass of her between the elfin and the Wall, and resumed her measured snacking.

Behind her, the men and women of four races were finishing up their meals, pushing away on their own and leaning back in them, their faces turned up toward the sun, only the roughest of cloaks across them.

The look on their faces was of folk who’d fought many, many battles, and were fully ready to fight them again.

Behind them was a spellcaster as powerful as that one, who seemed to be making the very field of mana dance to her voice? Ketcher found himself wondering what it would be like to follow such an elf, too!

If she could recover their king, everything would be worth it, and he hadn’t even had to offer a reward!

On the other hand, not rewarding them would be the height of rudeness. It appeared he would be dipping into the coffers to compensate them for their help, but all would be worth it if King Antius was returned…

Everyone was rested and ready to go when I rose. They’d gotten a lot of experience at Meditation around me, and it was twice as good as normal sleeping when the Sublime Chord was boosting it. The two Priests with me had both recovered their spells in quiet prayer, choosing the standard load-out since we’d likely be facing human combatants.

The one little problem was the I’d dropped around us for our privacy. The amusing row of covered jakes I’d erected that emptied down the side of the cliff I opted to leave, but the I ended up walking along calmly, basically announcing that I was ready by doing so, and reduced it all to piles of bricks.

“A donation to the kingdom. Use them as you like,” I informed Mr. Kociba, who was standing on the other side near where I finished up. He had changed his apparel and gotten at least some sleep along the way. It was now early afternoon, and my people formed up behind me. I’d renewed the , and they were all seated, riding them being much quicker than walking down the hill.

Even Cirru had resumed her humanoid form and was riding, because she wasn’t dumb.

I gestured the King’s Man to a dark chased in roses and skulls, and he sighed but sat down regardless, while the hundred or so troops looked on in envy and some suspicion.

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My Wings snapped out, drawing a lot of eyes and attention for the crimson starfields and ghostly moons inside them, and I took off down the hill.

Mr. Kociba had to grab his floppy hat and keep it on his head from the speed I was moving, the completely magical flight not needing me to be flapping my Wings or anything. They were there for maneuverability and control, not generating lift.

He did sort of pull a long face at how easily I zipped over the walls to the city, probably making mental calculations about just how bad things could have turned if fighting had started, and not liking what he was deducing.

Regardless, I swooped down into the courtyard of the Thisbean Inn, noting that the Inn looked much better now than even after I’d repaired it, the temporal restoration obviously worn down by four thousand years of pressure in the future.

There were as many guards there as before, but they kept their distance under careful orders, although they didn’t look happy about it.

My company disembarked, the stacked up under the ones bearing our treasures and Cirru’s hoard, and they all lined up nicely to re-enter the place.

“There… might not be enough room to fit you all easily,” the man hedged.

“Then empty out your soldiers, who are not needed and will get in the way,” I responded flatly, a bit irked. “We and your king can wait.”

He looked at me, I ignored him, and he sighed again.

The middle-aged fellow at the door there swallowed and stepped into position under our gazes, taking his cue from a portly fellow in his forties or so behind the bar. When the irked soldiers inside needed to leave, we watched the man outside reach in, take their hand, and pull them out, which we all observed with great interest.

I noted the interaction, the resonance with the Doorward, and altered my plans somewhat sharply.

At length Master Kociba gestured us in, a good twenty soldiers having been ordered outside, and I led everyone back inside the one place in the world none of us really wanted to be.

There were still soldiers around, but not enough to threaten us. A half-dozen nobles, champions, and Casters had seen fit to join the meeting, including the brawny brute we’d to the ceiling earlier that day, who looked to be spoiling for a rematch.

There were also some people who were very much unhappy, surrounded and forced to be present, dressed more like entertainers or travelers than adventurers or soldiers.

“Lady Edge and company, if I may be permitted to introduce everyone here.” Master Kociba quickly made introductions all around, with the interesting notion that we recognized quite a number of them from paintings hanging in the rooms of the Inn itself! They were obviously champions of the land, famous, and very well-regarded here… and they were naturally impressed, wary, and very curious about us, especially in such numbers.

“How do we know this elven wench can make good on her claims?” the mighty Skarvald fellow bawled out in a direct challenge to me, clearly intent on making me prove myself, since he hadn’t gotten to fight us. “Mere tricks and traps and- ribbit!”

A towering black skull with roses in its eyes had snapped forward out of nowhere, slammed its jaws down on the barbarian, and then spit out a very large frog with an ornate necklace around its stubby neck on the table in front of us firmly, before it faded away under many aghast stares.

“Remove the fool before the friendly dragon gets peckish and eats him. His form will return at dawn,” I stated calmly, as if the matter were of no importance.

All the Casters were bristling in shock, as I hadn’t made the slightest move, gesture, or word, and yet I’d gotten the spell off with literally an eye-blink.

“Lady Edge!” Master Kociba started to say. “I really must protest!…”

He trailed off as my eyes slowly turned to him, and a hum began to build around us as my eyes began to light up.

“Catcher!” the stout fellow behind the bar exclaimed, his eyes widening as he looked all around. “Shut up!”

The King’s Man swallowed, and slowly sat back down. “Lady Edge, there are, there are questions…” he began, while scooping up the agitated frog and handing it off to an elven woman at his elbow, who prudently headed for the door to get the idiot out of there.

“I have no questions for most of you,” I blithely misinterpreted him and cut him off. “I do, however, have questions .”

Crimson vine-woven black flames popped around two women and a man, but only two of them were sitting. The other was serving drinks, and froze as the popped up around her, as did the beautiful woman and the oily fellow seated with her at a table there.

“You all have altered Auras which fairly scream of and magical compulsions to anyone with any observational capacity,” I mused to nobody in particular, and Mr. Kociba’s cheek twitched. A chair scraped, the barmaid shrieked once as she was hauled Telekinetically over to it and then slammed down into its seat.

“And now, you are in the very, very unenviable position of being between me and my way home, which is contingent upon the rescue of the local king you’ve run off with,” I went on, my voice dipping lower and lower, and the hum building up in the entire building as I stared at them. They all went nearly as pale as I was.

Mr. Kociba, the Catcher, blanched again, devastatingly aware he was looking increasingly incompetent in my eyes. He especially gave the barmaid a hard stare as he gave the orders, and his lackeys leapt to obey as I languidly stared at each of the trio one by one.

The blonde woman dared to speak up in a cultured accent, “Great lady, certainly you can see that there has been some sort of mistake-mmf!”

Three ebon skulls came down out of the air, and before they could react, kissed the trio on the lips.

Black vines stitched themselves across their lips, holding them closed and tight, blossoming into black roses at the corners of their mouths.

There were no words, no chants, no motions. There was only magic taking form without any visible effort on my part, and two silently cursing Wizards and one Cleric looking on, realizing how dangerous I might be and turning even paler as they did.

My people behind me just smirked knowingly and watched patiently.

I turned my gaze upon a rather ratty-looking, one-eyed dark-haired fellow sitting off to the side there with two obvious bodyguards. His expression slowly evaporated as I stared at him, Divinations going off unseen.

“You have committed treachery against the king, but you are not involved with these three.”

There were blurs of motion, but his two bodyguards were abruptly sailing through the air and smashed against the walls of the Inn with crushing force. Both crumpled to the ground as the fellow went ghostly pale.