I squinted up at the door in front of me.

Unlike the lower floor of the building, which was full of antiques and clearly unused though well kept, the upper floor of the Silver Prince’s fortress home was more obviously lived in. The carpets were askew here and there as if they were actually walked on fairly frequently, and the small dining area at the top of the stairs had been clearly in use recently.

Down the hallway from it, and on the left side, Mr. Durn stopped at one of the doors, politely tapping on it before clearing his throat. “My prince, your guest has arrived.”

The voice that returned was rather odd, though muffled through the door. It was clearly female, but Tinny in a way I hadn't heard in this life as if it was put through a voice modulator.

“Very good, he can come in.”

A bit of nervousness crept into me, between the weird voice and the obviously evil looking Mr. Durn I wondered if coming to this tea party was the best idea. I soldiered on, however, to avoid being rude at least.

The first thing that hit me as I entered the room was how, well, girly, everything was. It wasn't all a garish pink or anything, but several well-loved dolls sat in neat rows along the bed, and there was probably more lace in the room than anything. Moreover, the makeup desk and the wallpaper only continued the trend, and that was before we got to the room’s sole occupant.

At the table a young woman, probably fourteen sat. She wore a long velvet dress with black lace and a tasteful amount of silver jewelry that matched well with the crimson of her clothing.

Of course, all of that didn't matter in the slightest to me, as my eyes were immediately drawn to the face-obscuring silver mask that she wore. It was clearly patterned after a male face, and on its brow, there was an inlaid ruby surrounded by jewels, it covered her face completely, wrapping back to just before her ears, and the only hole in the entire thing was a narrow hole between the things pursed lips. The entire mask pulsed with an intense aura of raw magic.

She must have caught me staring, as the woman moved a lock of hair away from the mask. “Do not be alarmed, Father Abbot.” The odd voice rang out, a bit of sarcasm present in my title “I am Publius Silverine, the Silver Prince, though in the form of my descendant, Hilda, who currently wears the mask.” The shock must have shown on my face as she continued. “Please, come and sit, I have heard much about you.”

I moved cautiously to the seat opposite her at the circular table, which was just a bit too low for me to sit comfortably, though if the ancient noticed my discomfort she did not respond.

“I take it I am not what you were expecting?”

“No” I admitted plainly still wary of the clearly powerful magic at play here. “I was not expecting any of this to be honest.”

“That is understandable. My situation is rather unique after all, though it is a shame your father never told you about me.” the prince pulled the letter of introduction from the Archbishop off of a side table.

If the mask’s nature was a surprise then that last line might as well have sent me for a loop. “You knew my father?” I asked, trying to contain my excitement, everybody who knew my father was cool, at least as far as I could tell. My dad was one of the prophet’s disciples after all.

“Oh yes, though I was not one of the disciples, I fought alongside them on several occasions. It is the reason that the feuding cities have let me hold Mirno so long, well, that and a lack of desire on their part to spend their money holding back the dead.” A bitter laugh escaped the mask. “No, better to let a dead old man hold the line.”

“Erm… about that, are you possessing that girl?” I asked, hoping that was an acceptable thing to ask, I didn't really want to try my hand against a thousand-year-old monster wizard.

“Ah, I suppose that would be disturbing, but yes, in a sense, at least I am possessing this great-granddaughter of mine, as I have possessed her father and her grandmother and many more in between, all the way back to my own son.” The prince chuckled as if it was a funny thing. “Oh, do not make that face. Each and everyone who has worn the mask has done so of their own free will. I am not so vile as to force my mind onto my descendants. There are so many at this point that at least one of them can be convinced to take it up.”

“I'm… well, honestly I'm not sure how to feel about that.” I spoke plainly, staring at the silver eyes of the mask, before closing my own. “Fine, I won't worry about it at least for now.” the concept wasn't entirely evil, but something about it just felt, well, wrong.

“Ah, I'm sure you could give me a two-hour lecture on why it's amoral, your father certainly did, but then, as far as I know, he never married, and yet here you are.” The mask put on a pouting tone. “So basically you both can go stuff it.”

“Hey!” I cried almost immediately rushing to defend my father's virtue before coming up blank on the situation of my own birth. “I'm sure it was more complicated than just that.”

“And you think being eternally trapped in a mask is not?” The prince asked, a teasing tone in his voice. “Do not presume to know me, my descendants take up their burden out of duty, and I will not hear a lecture from you besmirching their morality, at least not when you are still so young. Spend more time in the world first.”

I turned my eyes to the table, accepting the scolding for what it was. I was butting into matters that weren't really my business here. “I… I apologize if I've offended you. It was not my intent.”

“Hmph, I bet that cute face of yours get you through a lot of situations like this, doesn't it. Well, it won't work on me, but your apology is accepted, for your father's sake if not yours.”

I bit back another retort. He was a prince, and he probably had a point, I did rely a lot on having an innocent appearance to deal with people.

“Thank you,” I said finally, deciding that speaking frankly would probably be best going forward.

“Good, now we can get onto the reason I've called you here.” The unchanging Silver mask somehow managed to stare at me in a manner that sent a shiver down my spine. “That being the fact that you are creating an army within my walls.”

“Eh?” I asked, a little dumbfounded by the sudden change in topic, it wasn't an army, surely just a… “Huh, I guess I kind of did, didn't I?” I placed a hand on my chin in thought. From his perspective, it very much would look like a threat.

“Were you not aware of it? Amusing. It is not actually all that rare a phenomenon for adventurers to form mercenary groups of some scale while they are here. Normally when a particularly great warrior or a spellcaster such as yourself enter the city and sees great success.” The prince played with her hair as she continued. “I will admit that I've never seen one form in two days mind, normally there's a fair bit of proving themselves inside of the walls first, but the pattern is there, about once every seven to ten years normally.”

“I'm sorry if it's causing you trouble, I guess I can disband it if I have to.” I would probably need to take on debt to make up for breaking the contract, but if I needed to then I needed to. I wasn't here to form an army anyway, just help folks succeed.

“That will be up to you, though I have no issue letting you continue to operate as long as you stay within certain boundaries.” the prince replied and I let out a little sigh of relief, I really didn't want to disappoint everyone in my extended party. “Whenever one of these groups forms I give them the same rules you see. As long as you can keep your men in line you truly only represent more profits for my household, why would I dislike that?”

“What are the rules then?”

“First and foremost, don't let your men get into fights with the guards. When it's a small party they can deal with it, but a whole mercenary group may put them at risk of letting the undead escape greater numbers are pulled from the walls. That would be completely unacceptable.”

“Right.” I nodded, the rule made sense since that was the whole point of the guard. “I already have that type of rule in their contracts.”

“Good. Then there shouldn't be any issues, otherwise please do not occupy all of the housing in the fort at any given time, and respect existing rules for adventurers in general in regards to your behavior here. I don't care how you deal with additional housing, tents or building outside the walls, it's all the same to me, just make sure that there's room for other parties.”

“Sure, I can do that.”

“Good, Then we shouldn't have any problems.” The immortal prince nodded towards me, magic flying from his hand as he caused a tea set to levitate in from the adjacent room, the pot letting out a light amount if steam. “Now then, would you like some tea?”

______________________________________

“Right, first-blood then?” Karsten rolled his shoulders, loosening them up as he stared at the massive man across the earthen ring from him. He wasn't sure how it had escalated this quickly in all honesty. He had mentioned to Strong about wanting to improve his abilities after Abbot had come back from trying to learn life magic in the morning. The big man had immediately pulled him over to the back corner of the fort where a small fighting ring was set up. Now he was fully armored up and wielding his spear against the large man. Strong held a spear and shield himself, slamming them together roughly.

“Yeah, that works I guess, for breaks at least. Remember, the goal isn't to kill each other, it's to spar. I didn't get to see much of what you could do in the city, so let's just try to feel each other out for now.”

Karsten raised an eyebrow at the line but changed into a ready stance nonetheless, Strong reciprocated easily, raising his tower-shield.

Strong had the obvious advantage with a shield and he seemed to know it, immediately charging forward intending to pin him with the great wooden wall. Karsten however easily saw it coming, pushing off of the ground to kick against the logs dug into the sides of the pit and going over the man's head. He swung the bladed tip of his spear down towards the large man, but the giant easily raised his tower shield over his head, pushing Karsten’s spear away.

Mentally cursing Karsten used the momentum of the shove to spin in the air to get his feet onto the ground on the other side of the ring from the man.

“Oho, an agile fighter I see, but that won't work on anyone with experience.”

Karsten eyed the man up, he was living up to his name. Clearly, his strength was above what one might expect even for his size with the way he moved that shield around. “You aren't so slow I'll admit, but that doesn't mean you'll match me.” Karsten retorted, more for the purpose of bantering than because he actually believed it.

‘My best option is his right.’ he decided after a moment. The man might be lightning with his shield, but he probably couldn't match Karsten with his spear.

Unfortunately, the more experienced fighter made the same observation, and stepped towards him in a shoulder tackle, trying to keep his movement options restricted. Karsten was forced to move further to the man's left as a result, though he did Lance out at a gap in the defense. Strong adjusted his shield and knocked the corner of the attack off to the side, making it only glance against his armor.

“It'll take more than that.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Karsten pulled back, the earlier move having taken his back away from the wall. “Keep talking.”

The two clashed three more times before victory was decided, a shield bash left Karsten with a broken nose, and a laughing Strong helping him up to his feet. “You really ought to wear a helmet.”

“Maybe, but that was a cheap shot anyhow.” Karsten spit out a glob of blood and mucus before retorting.

“Hah, you should have known better.”

“Well, now I do,” Karsten grumbled, feeling where the cartilage was broken.

“Don't you dare!” he heard Mary shout from the audience, glaring daggers at him. “You're going to let Father Abbot fix your nose with magic. Don't you goddammit touch it.”

Karsten glanced up at her puzzled. It wasn't like he didn't know how to set a… ‘ah’

Karsten dramatically flapped his cloak behind him. “Alright “dear”, I'll make sure this handsome face you love remains pristine.

If Mary noticed the oohs and ahs of the crowd around her it didn't show on her face, aside perhaps from a slight narrowing of her eyes. “You do that, oh, and stop preening, you just lost a fight and you look ridiculous.”

______________________________________

“Ahh, this tea is really nice,” I mumbled happily, forgetting where I was for a moment, the drink was a wonderful black tea with a mild flowery fragrance that set it off quite well. While it wasn't my favorite Yorkshire style blend it was still a comfort after being on the road for a couple of weeks.

“Indeed? I have it grown in one of the villages of my household. Perhaps I can have a pot of the stuff brought in for you.”

“That would be nice” I sighed contentedly as the warmth spread through my body. “So you knew my dad? What was he like when he was younger?”

“Heh” the masculine laugh sounded a little unnatural coming from a clearly female body. “I was wondering when you'd ask about that, but yes, I knew Eugene.” The prince paused for a second, gathering his thoughts.

“When I first met your father he was already one of the disciples of the God of light and mercy. Following the prophet around all over the place and putting down the warlords. He was one of the fieriest of the bunch, and we didn't like each other very much as a result.” A crackle of energy left the woman's outstretched finger, and a flickering image of a recognizable if a clearly younger version of my father appeared on the table. He was dressed in a fairly primitive set of white armor and seemed to hold himself more proudly than I remembered him doing.

“At the time, I was only a recent graduate of the Star-Tower academy and working as a mercenary in the wars of Mirnese succession. We ended up on the same side more out of luck than agreement, and the disciples, in general, had little time for wizards. Not that I blame them given what the warlords were doing.”

I nodded at that, the ruined city just a few dozen yards away from us was just one of the scars that those necromancers had left behind on the continent.

“Your father was always an adventurer though, unlike most of the disciples. More than once the army ended up losing track of him entirely because he was off digging up a relic for someone or other, and one time he was even brought before the court by your prophet because of his friendship with the old god Mudra. Though as far as I could tell he was faithful to your God throughout the period.”

“Mhm.” I nodded, Father had told me he had known Mudra. Indeed it was he who made the cornucopia. It had always struck me as a little weird that he had worked with another god, and I was a little glad I wasn't alone in that.

“Either way, I didn't see much of him after the wars of succession wrapped up and necromancy was banned almost everywhere. He went up and built his holy mountain and went about the place occasionally, but if he ever visited Mirno again he didn't let me know.”

I nodded at that, it was nice to hear about my dad from somebody who didn't worship him’s perspective. I would always love him, but him being a saint of the church would probably complicate the historical sources.

“There is one thing I'm curious about.” the prince interrupted my thoughts. “Do you have any idea how your birth came about? From my impression, there was no woman he ever truly fancied, at least in his youth.”

I shook my head a little sadly at that. “No, I know my mother's name, Rebecca, but he never told me any more than that. Though I had the impression he loved her.”

“Rebecca? I know no woman of that name that he might know… the woman touched a hand to her chin. “It seems odd to me though, for he did not seem a promiscuous man during the wars, indeed, if anything the prophet seemed more flirtatious than most of the disciples.” he snorted at that, presumably laughing at some memory. “Eugene always seemed far too committed to his cause to go skirt-chasing, but then, perhaps that changed in his old age.”

“My desire to hear about my father's sex life is low.”

“Ah my apologies.” the prince chuckled, reaching for his drink. “I did not mean to offend.”

We sank into an easy silence as we finished our tea, both caught up in our own memories.

If only everyone could appreciate the value of boiled leaves.