192: Change
As the carriage entered the path leading to the house, I couldn’t help but notice that things didn’t look normal.
“Should we be concerned that there are double the guards outside our property?” I asked.
Liane looked concerned but didn’t say anything right away, instead appearing to look through all the windows around the carriage, which only made me more concerned.
“I wouldn’t worry too much. You have me and Crisplet, plus Lily won’t let harm come to you. They probably just doubled the guard to prevent retaliation,” Liane said, still looking out the windows.
This wasn’t terribly reassuring, but she was right. I was with them, so hopefully everything would be fine. I was concerned that Lily had vanished, though I doubt she’d attack someone in the princess’s custody.
Coming past the tree of fire, I also noticed more Royal Guards at the base of the stairs leading to the front door.
As the carriage came to a stop, I went to open the door, but Liane pulled me back, pushing the door open as Crisplet went out first, ember crown in full motion as he grew in size, causing the guards to step back. This was followed by Liane.
“Can we help you?” she asked coldly.
There was a pause before one of the guards took a half-step forward.
“Apologies, miss. We are under orders from the King to protect this property and Lord Ashmoon in the event he is attacked, after the events today,” he said, bowing.
“I see. Thank you. Stay outside,” Liane said firmly.
Making our way into the entrance, we were met by Archie, who had the door open for us.
“Sir, welcome home. Did something occur?” Archie asked.
I shook my head. “Nothing directly to me, just someone causing a disturbance at the shop is all,” I said, forcing a smile.
“I see. Very well.” Archie bowed, and I was about to walk away.
“Archie, no one enters or leaves the house unless they live here. Understood?” Liane said firmly.
Archie looked up but seemed to realise the seriousness of the request.
“Yes, miss,” he said.
I was about to walk off when Liane took my arm and started directing me towards the dining room. I didn’t really question it until she started directing me towards the kitchen.
“Liane, is now really the time to cook?” I asked, confused.
“No, it’s not, but out of every room in this house, which one can survive Crisplet’s fire the best?” she asked.
“Uh, the kitchen or the butcher room?”
“Correct, which is why we’re heading to the butcher room. So we’ll have eyes on the doors from the back, an easy escape should we need it if anyone comes from the front, and a room that Crisplet can absolutely fill from top to bottom with fire, and the house won’t burn down,” Liane explained as we walked through the kitchen.
That made a lot of sense. I looked through my storage, finding what I was after, which was one of the original candies I made and handed out to the team. It was the unflavoured sugar one, but importantly it had fire immunity as part of the buffs, just in case.
“Good idea,” Liane grinned as we entered the butchery room and Liane shut the door behind us.
We ended up taking a seat on the stone vessels holding the bacon, and I was about to start reaching out to Crisplet with my mana when I realised that would be a terrible idea, and I absolutely shouldn’t run my mana dry if we might be in danger.
So I just tried to send the one message to him.
I pushed the feeling of “thanks” and “protection” towards him, putting my all into it.
Crisplet just burst into sparks, sending back joy and happiness, and I truly thought I had failed since I only got basic emotions back. But I got a feeling I couldn’t explain. It came across as two words, but not really: “Lily protects.”
I looked at Crisplet for a moment.
“You know where Lily has gone?” I asked.
I got a burst of sparks immediately. Liane’s attention was locked onto us now.
“And she’s protecting us?”
Another burst of sparks.
I was startled when Liane burst into laughter. “Well, there’s going to be at least one less noble house today, then.”
She then seemed to relax, lying back on top of the stone vessel.
“Also, Trev, you know you could have cut these bellies up into smaller pieces to cure faster, right?” she said.
I felt my face turn red immediately. I didn’t even for a moment consider it, so laser-focused on a rune that would move time forward. Something I noticed, though, surprised me.
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You have earned 25 experience for making an enjoyable meal
…
You have earned 100 bonus experience for a buff used in combat
You have earned 100 bonus experience for a buff used in combat
…
You have earned 25 experience for making an enjoyable meal
There was experience coming in… and a lot of it?
“People are already using my items in combat? Where? How?” I said, shocked.
Liane chuckled. Yeah, that makes sense. It was likely some creatures that the Adventurer’s Guild had locked up for training.
“They do that?” I said, turning to look at her.
“Of course. You’d be silly to go out into the wild with no training at all,” Liane laughed.
My mind raced with the possibilities of what creatures they have there to fight, and if maybe Crisplet would be allowed to fight any. I distracted myself by pulling out Morlin’s journal.
***
Nothing occurred for about an hour before Milo and Jen yelled out from the kitchen.
“Liane? Trev? You guys in here?” Jen called.
“Yeah, in here!” Liane yelled back.
A moment later, the two of them entered the room and likewise shut the door behind themselves, as a couple of stone seats appeared from the floor in front of us.
“Why are you in here?” Jen asked, looking around.
They took their seats, seemingly relaxing, which truthfully helped a lot. Just seeing them relax gave me a sense of relief from the tension I had been holding since arriving.
“So a lot has been going on, and since Lily is not here that I can see, I assume we know the cause…” Milo began.
“Sylverith vanished as well,” Jen added.
I just looked at Jen, confused. She was still inside the shop when we left.
“Yeah, by the time I made it back inside the shop, all of our tables were empty and Sylverith was gone,” Jen explained.
“You don’t think she is on her way in dragon form, do you?!” I said, alarmed.
Milo shook his head. “I can’t say for sure, but I doubt it. It wasn’t a big enough issue for her to come in that form, but something is certainly happening. We saw lots of guards running in two different directions. One I am sure was Valrith’s house. The others, though, were just as alarmed by the look of it and were running in a different direction.”
“You didn’t answer my question. Why are you in here?” Jen asked again.
“When we arrived, there were Royal Guards everywhere, so we came to this room in case Crisplet needed to fill it with fire to protect us. It would be the room least likely to burn the house down,” Liane explained.
Milo was nodding approvingly.
“Milo, why didn’t you tell Trev to cut this bacon into smaller pieces so it would cure faster?” Liane added.
Milo looked lost for words as his mouth moved silently.
“It’s okay. It’s a good excuse to learn the time rune,” I tried to save him.
There was a soft knock on the door that I barely heard from the opposite side of the room, but shortly after, Archie walked in.
“Sorry to interrupt, sir. You have a visitor from the palace, Liam from the Royal Guard,” Archie said.
“Let him in. We’ll stay in this room,” Milo said.
A short while later, Liam, dressed in full plate with his helmet under his arm, walked into the large butchery room, looking around in surprise.
“Never a dull moment, it seems. But I am here on the order of the King. Lord Ashmoon, the King would like to know why you had Lily gather every member of the Valrith household and have them dumped in the dungeon cellars without word?” Liam asked.
I just stared at him, shocked.
“She did what, sorry?” I sputtered out.
Liam sighed. “So it wasn’t at your request to bring every single member of the Valrith household to the dungeon cells?”
I shook my head, confused.
“We left the restaurant as soon as the Princess arrested Corin, and Lily had already gone by then,” Liane said, far calmer than I.
“I see. Then you wouldn’t know what happened with Lady Belwyn, then?” he asked.
I once again shook my head. “I don’t think I’ve ever spoken with her?”
I looked to Milo, since he had gone through all the notes.
“She’s made several requests for an audience, but we’ve denied them all. Outside the initial dinner, we’ve had no interaction with House Belwyn, and as we suspected they had ties to House Valrith, we thought it best to keep our distance,” Milo explained.
Liam nodded. “I see. Well, something happened at the Belwyn manor, and honestly, I was hoping you’d have some insight into what, as Lady Belwyn was stopped with a small bag of clothes trying to flee the city dressed as a servant. She also will not say a word of why and insists she was told if she doesn’t leave, she’s going to suffer for eternity.”
I looked around at the others. “Uh, that can’t be Lily, then. She doesn’t talk?”
“That’s not all. When the guards reached Marie Belwyn’s residence, all her servants were out the front, with the manor itself cut entirely in half. Not a single servant knows how it happened. They all woke up outside,” Liam explained.
I didn’t know what to say. The rend might have been Lily, and she did say “protection” to me once, but would she really speak to Lady Belwyn and not me? That didn’t seem right.
“Very well. I will pass the information back to the King. He may request an audience, but at this time we felt it best for you to stay where you are.” Liam looked around again. “Can I ask what this room even is? I don’t believe it was here on the tour.”
“It’s a butchery room,” I said with a laugh.
Liam didn’t share my humour, just looking around again.
“And what are you butchering that needs a room this size, exactly?” he asked.
“Secret,” I chuckled.
After waving goodbye, Liam left the room, being escorted back out by Archie as the doors to the kitchen closed behind them.
No one spoke for several minutes before Milo seemed to cast some spell. A warm breeze came over me, followed by a small amount of air pressure that made my ears pop.
“Lily doesn’t actually talk, right?” Milo asked.
“No…” I said. Again, I felt like I should tell them she could, but that felt different.
“So Marie was Sylverith, then,” Milo said.
My mind raced at that. Just how powerful was Sylverith’s illusion? Could she really slice a manor in half? Or did Lily do the cutting and Sylverith speak?
“Why, though?” Jen asked.
And it was a good question, and one that I didn’t have an answer to, other than Crisplet telling me she vanished for my protection.
“That, I’m sure none of us know, but we’ve all seen that she has deep insight into people. She knows our classes, our skills, our stats. Who knows what else she knows? Perhaps Belwyn was behind everything?” Milo suggested.
We all sat in silence for a long while before, unexpectedly, without any pressure, Lily arrived and just flopped at my feet before seemingly taking a nap.
Like nothing had just happened!
“Hey!” I tried to say and nudge her with my foot, but it just moved straight through.