Chapter 263: The Keys (1/2)
The woman looked at her for a while and then started laughing, “By the gods.”
“Alright… then I will humor you. The necromancer you see in that machine, he’s powering all of this. All the knights attacking you outside. I need a healer to wake him up safely and I need an army to destroy the knights still binding him to this place. And then we need to cleanse this city of its enemies.”
“Typical old queen of a ruined kingdom.” Terok complained, “Do you have the keys to the treasury and armory?”
Ilea held up a hand to him, “It’s the king isn’t it? The necromancer… he locked himself in his chamber after his son…,” Emotion flashed over the woman’s face as Ilea retold what she had read. “You went in as well. What was the goal with the knights?”
The queen was silent for a while, “To protect Tremor from its enemies… I wanted to be with him. When I heard about our son. Perhaps it was a mistake. The runes and enchantments placed on this chamber were the most intricate, most expensive he could get. They had to be locked for his cursed machine to work. And he needed someone here to look over him.”
Ilea was pretty sure he didn’t but her thoughts weren’t voiced. A hard look at Terok shut him up before he could start. “Why didn’t you leave? Get help?”
“Nobody came. For half a year I stayed down here, waiting, anxious. Nothing ever happened. I rerouted some of his machine’s energy to one of the life support units and developed mist to keep me inside. When I woke up, however many years later, nothing had changed. I tried getting out but the idiot is the only one who can control the enchantments directly. I had to pry my way out. Took me nearly a decade. At least he had thought about food and water.” She explained, looking at the machine.
“When I finally did get out, the Kingsguard attacked me. They couldn’t pass into the chamber but somehow the city had turned into a dungeon. Either we were abandoned or whatever had happened to the dungeons in Rhyvor had caused this too.”
Terok sat down on a chair, “Do you have the keys though?”
Ilea sighed, “We can’t kill the kingsguard. There are other things lurking in Tremor that I can’t kill either. Nor do we have an army, not that I think it would help against anything. What I can offer though, is a healer.”
Her eyes lit up at the mention, the silver glinting with hope, “Bring him here then.”
“Don’t worry about that. The dwarf has a point though, do you have the keys?”
The queen looked at her and then at the dwarf, channeling her fury. Ilea snapped her fingers in front of the woman’s face before she could lash out again, “No. I don’t have the keys, I wouldn’t have spent ten fucking shit years trying to get out only to be attacked by those who swore to protect us. If you wake him up he might know where they are, maybe he can open the doors for you immediately.”
“I don’t trust her.” Terok said.
Ilea agreed, she was obviously holding something back. She believed the general story though, the queen didn’t seem like someone who would act this stupidly without the necessary emotional weight she had endured, “Look. Elana? I’m Ilea by the way and I can heal so maybe we can wake him up. We’re not here to torment you but we’re not here to save you either. Your kingdom is lost, it has been for thousands of years probably. Now I’d gladly help if we get anything out of it. Being honest would be a good start.”
The queen shook her head and murmured to herself, “I need… where are my clothes…,” She said to herself, walking to the chair and putting on the dress, silver roses depicted on the white silk. Its tight cut emphasized the malnourished state of her body. Ilea let her walk to the machine where she put a hand on the glass, “Maro darling, we have visitors. Can you not deal with them I’m so terribly tired.” A sob left her, Ilea looking at Terok who twirled a finger near his head.
Who wouldn’t go crazy being trapped in here. The story matched up with what she had read in the captain’s log. “Terok check the machine, if we can safely wake him up without Kingsguard rushing in here to slaughter us, we might as well talk to him. Maybe he does know something about the keys.”
The dwarf saluted and went to work, avoiding the sobbing woman hammering her hand on the glass. Ilea carefully walked up to her and took her hand in hers. Sending healing mana through her body, she noted that even from the hard hammering the woman had sustained no injury. Level two sixty after all.
“Come, you’ve probably not eaten anything real for a while.” She said and summoned one of her restaurant meals. The queen looked up and smelled at the food. Her eyes remained teary before she shoveled it into her mouth with the provided fork. Ilea put away the plate and led the woman to one of the smaller rooms where a beautiful wooden table and several silver chairs adorned the white marble floor. A painting of a pair of humans clad in royal attire hung on the wall. “Do you have lights in here?”
She had calmed down, wordlessly touching the wall where a small metal plate lit up. Warm magical light flooded the room, Ilea immediately recognizing her as the woman in the painting. Older, without the smile or the beautiful blond hair that reached far below her shoulders. A sparkling queen with a charming king. His silver hair was shorter, clean shaven with a hard jawline. He was taller than her in the painting, his green eyes almost piercing out of the canvas. “He hated it.”
Ilea turned to the woman who looked at the painting as well, “Hated the formal clothing, the speeches and appearances. Rhyvor would have fallen decades earlier if it weren’t for me.”
“Does it matter now?” Ilea asked.
Elana looked at her and then back to the picture, “I suppose it doesn’t. Thank you for the meal Ilea.”
“Tell me about yourself, about the king and this kingdom.” Ilea wanted to make sure she wouldn’t wake up a necromantic death god of old. Getting some more backstory might help her with a decision.
The king was called Maro Invalar and he was apparently the most charming man Elana had ever met. The stupidest as well apparently. Them with their group of adventurers had ventured into the unknown, only to find several undiscovered dungeons. Building a camp between them, on a mountain that reached high above the surrounding lands was the beginning of their long journey. A journey that led to the foundation of Tremor and the kingdom of Rhyvor. The wealth and power from the dungeons as well as resources found in the area made them influential quickly. Elana and some of her teammates quickly showed they were good at other things than fighting and adventuring, becoming the ministers of trade, housing as well as owners of the local adventurer’s guild and inns.
Everybody loved king Maro, people from far away flocking to the newly formed kingdom and swearing fealty on his name alone. The initial assassination attempts, power struggles with the nearest human and dwarven kingdoms as well as internal conflicts flared up in a fire of politics. The two of them decided to marry, to set an illusion. The king apparently had little interest in ruling and the inherent responsibility but Elana was born for it, born for the cutthroats, the schemers. He was the benevolent king, the one who loved his people, many of them quite literally.
Elana on the other hand lived a life of duality. Acting as the disinterested queen who could be easily influenced by external powers on the one hand and being the iron ruler on the other. It was of course a tale she told and Ilea had no way of getting proof for most of it. There were some things she could verify however. The soul rippers being one of the beasts in the dungeons nearby, the name and nature of the captain of the guard as well as many events Elfie had translated in the log book. Elana even knew about the wines and their history mentioned in the second book Ilea had found initially.
“It’s impressive. I’m inclined to believe your story, queen regent of Rhyvor. However you could’ve written those books yourself and planted them for us to find.” There were of course some things like the Soul Ripper’s actual existence that she couldn’t have made up.
Elana groaned and held her face with both hands, “Ilea please. Why would I do something like that? I told you I can’t go out, the kingsguard attack me just like they attack you and I lack and ability to travel through space. I can travel through earth but Maro the idiot that he is wanted everything in bloody marble.”
“What’s their armor made of?” Ilea asked, thinking about things not mentioned in the log book.
Elana looked at her, “Stonehammer steel if I remember correctly. It was mined not too far from here. The best metal we could source ourselves.” The queen explained.