House of Amarin

When the following day was about to end, the Misfits were having another meeting at a restaurant close to the inner walls, separating the public sector from the King's District, where the highest-ranking nobles and the ruling family lived.

"The city looks and feels completely normal." Aurora signed while the group was having roasted delicacies for dinner.

"We also found nothing of real interest." With a disappointed sigh, Koa added, "Most rumors we heard were about speculating what is happening!"

"Or what isn't!" Keily nodded, "They found the silence and peace weird after what had happened!"

"We checked discreetly some orders and request lists." Sion started the report of their findings. "Aurora even sneaked into the back and looked through personal ledgers and private requests, nothing really out of the ordinary."

"Yeah." Aurora wrote with her hair while eating. "There were some under-the-table orders of luxury things, but that's normal for people in their positions. It was almost all for avoiding paying the tariff."

"What we couldn't get anything on was the royal family," Sion added, but none of them found that abnormal.

"Well…" Ceiline spoke up, looking around the group, "Here is the thing. We also heard nothing about the royal family."

"We neither… which I don't really find weird," Lia answered, tilting her head, but Simbad explained it further.

"I found it weird. In a capital city, why don't you mention your ruling family? They should be at least part of some discussions, no? Even weirder, many of the nobles were also left out of daily conversations!"

"And we saw none of them come out from the King's District!" Raufon agreed, finding it extra weird.

"Hmm… That does sound odd… but not entirely inconceivable." Lia murmured, thinking about it. "But we will look into it! We will all split up tomorrow and make covert inquiries about the nobles and the king! If someone gets curious why, just tell them that we have some unique cargo that, if they are willing to pay for, we can sell it here!"

On the following day, it had a surprising result. Once again, they were dining at the same place, discussing the strangeness that nobody was interested in talking about the nobles or royal family. They always waved it away, saying that they were living in two different circles that rarely intersected. Only when significant things happened did the king make a speech for the public, which was the most often heard excuse of the people. This alone was highly suspicious as the city's life had to be organized and maintained… doing all that by edicts and only letters straight from the palace to influential people in the outer city? But not directly enforced by the nobility?

"There is more…" Rinzen leaned forward, speaking softly, and her face was surprisingly dark. "Mother sent me the list of people we have here… the innkeeper should be our agent! He was transformed in the past two years, but he was replaced by someone who was still ours!"

"Maybe he's just a professional?" Keily asked, but Rinzen quickly shook her head.

"He should have recognized me at once. I was waiting for him to make contact but never did… It is understandable that he would not speak openly, but at least when it was night, he should have made contact, made a report, or inquired if I had any orders for him. I observed him, but… nothing. I asked my mother about it, and he has been making monthly reports detailing many things, but all is normal in his letters."

"Suspicious." Aurora signed, furrowing her brows, "Not… unexplainable, but yes, it is dubious! Should we confront him? Question him?"

"No," Lia interjected, leaning back in her chair. "We will spend two extra days here! Aurora, Sion! You are going to shadow him, and I mean it! I want to know what he does at every minute!"

"No problem!" they answered at once while Lia continued.

"Sion, you do it during the day, Aurora, you follow him in the night! Ceiline, you should try and send some of your peashooters into the King's District! See if we can infiltrate it and get a picture of what is happening inside!"

"This quickly turned from normal to abnormal, huh?" Keily asked, shrugging.

What they didn't expect was that it was about to get even weirder the following day. Aurora and Sion were walking with Lia, talking with hand signals, getting lost in the crowd in the main market square.

"Nothing. He did nothing but stay in the inn all day." Sion explained as he was following him all day yesterday, keeping up his invisibility spell for the longest time ever. "He didn't do anything. When I say anything, I mean it! Sometimes he was like… spacing out!"

"Worse." Aurora added, her face extremely dark, "At night, he wasn't sleeping. He was simply dazed!"

"Undead?" Lia asked her heart sinking, suddenly remembering Cathalica's landscape.

"No." Aurora shook her head, "I felt nothing the like."

"He bled." Sion confirmed Aurora's observations, "I shattered a glass bottle and, when picking up the pieces, I made sure he cut himself. He bled as plainly as any human. He is not an undead."

"Necromancers." Lia shrugged instantly. "This is already enough proof that there has to be a group of necromancers here, cooperating with the Undead!"

"Very likely!" Aurora agreed strongly, "The others are now looking for more proof about that!" That was when their bracelet pinged, and after getting into an empty alley, they opened it up, reading the message coming from Ceiline.

"With Rinzen, we sneaked into the City Hall… we found some interesting stuff! Heliett held a speech around a year ago! Warning about what dangers people should look out for! Then… gone. She never appeared since! Nobody knows where she is. There were no more records about her going away or on a mission… she just never appeared publicly anymore. Same with the ruling family! No direct word from them in the past year!"

"What is worse," Rinzen wrote, "is that the traffic in and out of the King's District had been minimal since then. Maybe a hundred people come and go every month, which is too low! It is effectively sealed off from the other parts of the city!"

"Good work! Start returning to the inn! We will have a meeting, and I will notify my mother that something is off!" Lia ordered, and before the trio could also head back, a man stepped in their way, wearing the City Guard's outfit.

“Excuse me, are you Lia Amarin, Aurora Amarin and Sion Lavarentian?” The simple fact that he named them was already making them stand on edge, ready to fight at a moment's notice, which was realized by the guard, turning anxious at once. "Please… I'm not an enemy! I am serving Her Highness and part of the underground resistance!"

"A resistance?" Sion blurted out, surprised.

"We can't really speak here… follow me… please!" He pleaded, looking around even more nervous than before.

"Lead on." Lia nodded, but Aurora grabbed her shoulder. "He already knows who we are… They would have ambushed us or fled if they were working for them!"

"Her Highness will make everything clear!" He continued, imploring them to follow, "She was the one who recognized your friend, the one with the darker skin."

"It seems Koa left a deep impression on Heliett…" Lia chuckled, nodding towards Aurora, "Let's go… I want to hear this!"

When following the guard, she quickly made hand gestures, telling Aurora and Sion to be ready for being trapped, and she was also sending a message to the others to follow them in secret but not interfere. Whatever happens next could impact the whole city and result in a second Cathalica very easily.

…
….
……

They were led into a blacksmith's workshop, who simply nodded at the guard and continued working and forging simple knick-knacks, iron tools, or pots for regular people. Disappearing in the back of his workshop, a trapdoor was revealed after pushing some barrels away, and they descended into a vast, underground shelter. There were multiple people, women, children, and men alike, looking at Lia and the newcomers.

"What is this place?" Sion asked, and the guard answered briefly, leading them through another door and entering into an underground stone corridor.

"This is an ancient labyrinth under the city; you can get to almost anywhere from here. It was originally used by the royal family! That is all I know!"

"Used for what?" Lia asked, feeling suspicious, watching him lead them into another room where they stood before Heliett and five other men, standing over a table, their faces haggard, watching the detailed map of the city.

"My great-grandfather had multiple lovers out in the city," Heliett answered, her voice dry and tired, just like her eyes that were looking at them as her last hope for salvation. "He built it so he can sneak out and sleep with his girlfriends."

"Damn." Sion clicked his tongue, almost laughing, but feeling the despairing air surrounding them, he quickly held it back.

"I recognized you lot at once… Not the best of disguises, eh?" She poked a little fun at Lia, who only smiled, taking out her contact lenses. "I didn't expect to run into you, to be honest. The average citizen is none the wiser about our appearances. We are not my mom!"

"Not yet." She walked forward, stretching her hand towards her, "But I am glad you came here, whatever the reason may be!"

"Probably the same reason why you are hiding underground!" She clasped it, shaking, not breaking their eye contact. It was all they had to say and truly buried all the old silliness from their years in the Academy.

"I was afraid so…!" Heliett moaned, introducing them to the men in the room, who all turned out to be part of her personal guards, some high-ranking nobles, and soldiers from the kingdom's army. "The city is under the control of a necromancer group."

"Tsk…" Lia couldn't help but click her tongue as hearing it being confirmed was worse than only suspecting it.

"I don't want to end up like Olivia…" Heliett continued, shaking her head, "I already accepted that my Father is dead and can't be saved…. The same goes for my brothers and family!" While speaking, her fingers involuntarily dug into her skin, her white teeth biting her lips so hard that they almost bled. "But I want to save my city! My people!"

"This looks more and more impossible!" Aurora signed, feeling troubled, "How long has it been going on?"

"It broke to the surface in the past 4 or 5 months." Heliett explained, not holding back any information, "It started early, of course… around a year ago! I don't know when or how, but my Father's mind had been influenced, and he was starting to act weird. I questioned it, and I was immediately detained! By my own brothers! I knew already that this meant something bad was happening!"

"How did you escape?" Sion tilted his head, curious about what had happened in the meantime if it came to the surface only much later.

"By the help of my loyal people." She glanced at the others in the room.

"While Her Highness was imprisoned, we were being fed lies." A man with greying black hair and a goatee spoke up. "My name is Garshak, Her Highness's Guard Captain! At first, we didn't know much, but it got weirder and weirder as the months passed! We were still not told where Her Highness went! It was abnormal for someone at her rank to just... disappear! It was handled as a 'secret mission' we had no qualification to know about... I called bullshit."

"Then some of our own started acting weird." Another man joined in. He was a slightly chubby, balding man, wearing silk robes that were now dirty and unwashed, "When you mingle with nobles of our stature, you notice when their attitude is changing. Especially if it does it so abruptly! So we started seeking out those who felt the same…"

"Then they came for me one day, and we escaped from the King's District to the underground!" Heliett continued once again. "The problem is, we made the main tunnel collapse, so they won't be able to follow us! But this way, we also can't get into the King's District without detection."

"Are you sure it's still collapsed?" Sion asked, but she firmly nodded.

"We are keeping an eye on it every day!" Heliett immediately replied, "They know we didn't leave the city; they are keeping a close watch on who comes and who goes! But they are also not making a fuss about it… Our guess is that they are waiting for a signal."

"From where?" Lia asked, watching her every movement, word, and light in her eyes, confirming for herself that she wasn't lying. Nobody could be that good of an actor to fake the fear and desperation lingering behind her gaze.

"Come…" She pointed at the map, "I'll tell you everything we learned!"