The Dragon Queen of Thelvadore

I was a bit embarrassed to admit that it took me a moment to realise that I wouldn’t be getting an answer until I lessened my hold on the room somewhat. By the time I did, grateful that I was able to not show my embarrassment and keep the regal posture I had assumed, I could already feel a number of people outside rushing towards the Inn.

The first to arrive was the Branch Director, followed by the few guild employees present in Dussel’s branch. They stormed inside, quickly assessing the situation.

I spared them no glance, instead focusing on the man who had charged at Nyx. His aura was a mess of clashing emotions–anger, rage, confusion, shock, guilt, embarrassment, to name a few.

It was pretty clear that whatever had transpired, it left him shellshocked and utterly unsure what to do. At least I didn’t feel any hostility from him anymore, which I thought was a good sign.

“Your grace, what is the meaning of all this?” The silence was broken by the Branch Director, just before the mayor and a few of the hunters arrived.

“I am still in the process of figuring that out, director,” I replied calmly, finally turning to the man. “It appears that there were some… hostilities. For the time being, I have prevented the worst. If it is not too much to ask, may I request your assistance in this matter?”

He nodded, giving me a short bow before turning back to the people still frozen in place. “Of course, your grace. My resources are yours. How can we help?”

I flicked my tail towards the man who was still a step away from Nyx. “It appears that one of the mercenaries has had a bit of a… breakdown. I would like to ask you to take him into custody for the time being. Is that something you can deal with?”

Once again he bowed. “It will be done, your grace.”

With a quick glance at his companions, and a few quick handsigns, four of the six quickly hurried over. Among them was the receptionist, although given the way she held herself, I had the fleeting feeling she was more than just your average guild employee.

Actually, that held true for all of them. I decided to inquire about that later.

With a stray thought, I released my hold on Nyx and Cecily, allowing them to move away, before slowly releasing the rest of the people present one by one. I kept careful track of everyone, just in case someone else decided to make trouble.

Thankfully, no further trouble manifested. I had sort of expected things to get worse, truth be told. Instead, the man responsible for this mess let himself get handcuffed with some pretty sturdy looking rope, before he was led out of the room. Likely towards the guild. I kept one mental eye on him, should he try to make a run for it.

The moment he was gone, and the tension in the room started slowly dissipating, I turned to Nyx and Cecily, only to find Nyx kneeling in front of me, her head lowered.

“This one greets the Gravewalker.”

That had me come up short. Out of everything I could have expected, this certainly didn’t make the list. For a long moment I just stood there, studying the woman, trying to figure out just what in the hell she was on about.

Gravewalker wasn’t a title I could recall ever hearing or even thinking about when working on this world. I’m pretty sure it had something to do with Altis, although what exactly I couldn’t be certain. Given how Vuthe’s past was apparently lost to history, I couldn’t imagine Nyx knew that Vuthe had died before, nor could I imagine her being in any way aware of Vuthe’s connection with Altis.

After all, even during the height of her reign, that connection was known to a handful people at most, and all of them had no reason to talk about it. Mostly because they were her friends, and they had nothing to gain from revealing that to any outsider.

Another thing I had to think about later. For now, we had other things that needed my attention first.

“Young Reaper,” the form of address was a spur of the moment decision, something coming from Vuthe’s knowledge and instincts. Given the way Nyx had referred to me, and her own connection to Altis through her nature, I found it only fitting. “Could you perhaps shed some light on the events that led up to the confrontation?”

“Of course, Gravewalker. Whatever you require of me.” She gave another bow of her head, before she began to speak. “I was in the process of healing the wounded, after Lady Cecily successfully removed the taint. She had just finished her procedure on the man who attacked me, when I moved in to complete the treatment. However, when he awoke, he seemed irritated. He asked for the whereabouts of his brother, Luca, to which I informed him of the man’s passing. I did assure him that no foul magic may reach his brother, given that I had personally escorted him into the Shepherd’s embrace, but it appears that my words had the opposite of the intended effect. He became even more irate, and before I knew it, he was already attacking me.”

There was a long pause as she gave us all a moment to digest it.

“For what it is worth, Gravewalker, this one does not believe that he acted out of malice. I’ve had to deal with agitated patients before, and he didn’t seem immediately hostile towards anyone. Only after I had spoken to him did he make me his target. From my personal experience, I believe it was simply a result of an emotional breakdown, thus this one would like to request you to be lenient in your ruling.”

“I see,” I allowed, studying the woman closely. “And you truly believe that there was nothing more to it?”

She opened her mouth to speak, but hesitated for a beat, before continuing. “It is not impossible that my own reputation amongst the branches I work most commonly with might have… worsened the situation. I was already aware of the fact that these people knew of my title, if you can call it that, although given that they aren’t adventurers, I doubt that they know any specifics, past the rumours that seemed to follow wherever I go.”

“And what reputation is that?” To my surprise, the Branch Director asked the question before I could. That meant that he likely didn’t know either, which meant that whatever her reputation was, wasn’t so bad that other branches were kept informed about it.

“Amongst the people of my rank, I am often called the Misfortune Bringer Witch. It is not entirely unfitting, as I do indeed have some limited capability to tip the scales of luck in my favour, although as magic so often is, it is not without drawbacks. In the past, some quests I had partaken in were complicated by the aftereffects of such magic. Thus the moniker.”

That was interesting, and something I definitely wanted to talk to her about. Influencing luck wasn’t easy by any stretch of the imagination, mostly because true luck was rare. Magick was fickle and worked in mysterious ways. While it wasn’t sentient, it did have a will of its own. Among scholars it was accepted that that was the reason for any coincidences or encounters with luck and fortune, so to manipulate something so fundamental spoke of quite the complicated spellwork.

I frowned, disregarding my idle thoughts for the time being and studying her for a moment longer. “Which, to someone who is already in distress, might be another point against you. I can certainly see how things could have escalated, if you add all those variables together.”

Emotions were always a tricky thing to deal with, especially in delicate situations like these. When superstitions met with raw emotion, things never went well. And given that the man was obviously concerned about his brother, it made everything only so much worse.

“Your, uh… Ladyship.”

A voice coming from behind me caught my attention, and I turned, glancing at the speaker. From what I could gather, this one was the Captain of the mercenaries, the same man I had seen standing next to Nyx and Mister Shiltain when we first met them at the entrance to the village.

“Do you have something to add?”

He flinched, then bowed deeply. “If you’d allow me, your Ladyship. While it is true that Richard acted out of turn, I am concerned about the summary of events as they were laid out. Not to doubt the words of Lady Viridari, of course, but I’ve known Richard for quite some time now. He is not a man who breaks easily under pressure. In fact, many encounters we only survived due to his cool head and resourcefulness. I realise that it is quite presumptuous, coming from me, given my shared history with him, but if at all possible I would like to request some further scrutiny. Something about these events doesn’t add up in my mind.”

I thought about that for a moment. He was right that his request was rather biased, given the source, but I also wasn’t going to just straight up dismiss the possibility that his words could hold some truth. In any case, I wasn’t just going to judge everything based solely on the words of Nyx, even if I doubted that she was openly lying to me.

She was just one part of this whole mess, and given that she was a thinking, breathing, humanoid being, it was inevitable that she would perceive events through a certain lens. And that was ignoring the fact that eyewitness accounts alone often were not fully accurate, even if they recalled events to the best of their ability directly after everything went down.

Human brains were not infallible. Most of the time they made errors without us ever even knowing about them. Memories that seem entirely real to us, yet might be altered through perception or the flow of time, sometimes made up entirely. That was only worsened in high stress situations, such as an attack on their person, or an accident that they witnessed, even if from afar.

I’ve once read that humans didn’t actually remember concrete events, instead the brain only stored a very minor amount of data and reconstructed it later when recalling those events. I wasn’t sure how accurate that was, but I could definitely see it working that way.

“I shall take your words into consideration, Captain, however it is not my responsibility to pass judgement. These are not my people, not my kingdom. Even if I wanted to take charge, doing so would be quite rude and unfair not only to the people involved, but also the people who are responsible for overseeing such events.” Giving him a nod, I turned my attention to the Branch Director, who was still waiting patiently next to me. “For the time being, the guild will keep him in holding, until it is decided what to do in regards to his punishment. Director, I assume you are capable of such? I will, of course, be of assistance wherever I can. While I am not responsible for sorting this mess out, I did involve myself to some extent.”

“Of course, your Grace.” The reply came immediately, together with a respectful bow. “I shall personally question the people involved to get to the bottom of this. To that end, I would like to speak to you privately later. For now, I shall escort Mister Richard to the guild holding cells. I will call upon everyone here for questioning over the next few days.”

I sighed inwardly. That likely meant that our departure from here would be delayed even further. Well, whatever. It wasn’t like we were in a hurry, and both Nyx and Cecily still had the rest of the wounded to look after anyway.

“Thank you. If you need me, simply speak my name. I shall find you then.” I gave him a small nod in lieu of a dismissal, then turned my attention toward the magician still kneeling in front of me. “Young Reaper. I would like to speak to you privately. If you would follow me?”

“Of course, Gravewalker.”

Immediately she got up, still keeping her gaze lowered. I frowned at her overly submissive behaviour. So far her demeanour had been quite unreadable, so it was hard for me to properly judge her personality. Even her aura was surprisingly serene, although from what I could tell, that was less so due to any advanced aura control, and more so due to her naturally calm disposition.

This sudden change in behaviour made it even harder to understand her. Hopefully that was going to change soon.

We were just leaving the temporary hospital room in the Inn, when I ran into Lucy. She had been busy doing her own things for a little while, stocking up on supplies and helping out where she could, so this was the first time I’ve spoken to her ever since the convoy arrived at the village.

“Vuthe? What is going on?” Her voice was quiet, but full of worry. Her big, slitted eyes stared up at me in concern, her ears attentively flicking this way and that.

I shook my head, giving her a smile. “Everything is fine. There were some… complications that I had to step in for. For now, could you please look after Cecily? I’ll probably need your help later, but for now she can fill you in on the events.”

“Alright, I can do that.” Her gaze switched from me to Nyx who was still standing behind me. “Is she alright?”

“Yes. I just need to talk to her in private for a moment. I’ll be back shortly.”

Lucy didn’t seem convinced by my words. Hardly surprising, really. The woman was sharp, and not only due to her Catkin heritage. Still, I decided not to go into more details, simply giving her a small wave before I led Nyx away. After a quick chat with Margret, the owner of the Inn, she pointed me to a nearby room we could use for a chat.

The room was as I had expected it. Cozy, well cared for, and clean. There was a table on one side, surrounded by three chairs, with a nice view of the streets outside.

Nyx closed the door behind us, as I sat at the table, motioning for her to follow.

“Now then. I have a few questions for you. To begin with, why do you call me ‘Gravewalker’?”

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