15 days after the explosion - Hell room

It was paperwork hell, paperwork everywhere, and since he didn't work yesterday, the pile that was slowly disappearing was full again, making the prince feel a sense of despair with no hope of getting away. And to make it worst, 2 of the helpers quit and the servant was busy with what the prince asked, so extra work for him and everyone present.

He was starting to regret not running away when he could

16 days after the explosion - Hell Room

Any attempt to run away was useless. There were 8 guards outside the room and even 1 each at the adjacent rooms, so there was no point in making a hole in the wall. And to make it worst, he was follow 24/7, not giving him a chance to slip away as soon as he was out of sight, not even in the bathroom.

So in the end, he had to keep working with no hope of escaping. It also didn't help his mood when he saw the letters.

The letters not only were perfectly made to hide all traces of where did they came, the information they had made the prince feel really paranoid. The letters showed not only that the makers were extremely careful and had great knowledge of the different investigations tools, they were also well-informed, too well for the prince taste.

What had been written showed that they knew everything that he had done in plain sight and had a lot of connections on the palace and/or police force. Luckily, they didn't know of his activities as the alchemist or he would really start to worry he had a tracker or a ghost following him

Still, this confirmed two things. First, there were at least one or more moles near him, and whoever send the letters had great power and wanted him out of the palace, but not necessary dead. So far, he had five different attempts against the crown, but he couldn't be sure they all belong to the same people. The first one was the explosion at the temple

The first one was the explosion at the temple, but sadly he had no clue about who did it or why

the second was the priestess murder in the hotel. He knew that an expert had done it and it was probably related to the explosion, but until he found his brother Jorge, he doubted he would find more about it

the third was the dead maid and the stealing of Princess Rebecca's stuff. For the timing, the stealing was probably related to the explosion, but it may be possible that someone was just taking advantage of the explosion. Well, it was possible that the ones that killed the maid were the same ones that killed the priestess since they looked like assassins, but he couldn't be sure yet

The fourth was the guard, but he obviously got killed before he could spill who hired him, and the way he was murdered showed connections with either the police, the guards or Aria was a great liar.

And now this letters were the 5th one. But unlike the rest, he couldn't properly connect it with the others since it was a little different from the rest. If he had to find some similarity with each one, he would say that the 5th and 1st attempt looked similar, the 2nd may have some connection to the 1st, the 3rd could be involved to the 2nd, and of course the 4th happen to cover for the 3rd.

It was all speculation, so the prince couldn't be sure if it was all a big conspiracy or just different people taking advantage of the situation. And knowing full well how this world full of scum worked, he wouldn't be surprised if it was different people taking advantage of a bad situation instead of the obvious big bad conspiracy

17 days after the explosion - Hell Room

With no hope of escape, the prince kept working none stop and wishing he could get away from all this or he would go crazy.

The servant did manage to make a proper route for the prince to reach the city where his brother was last seen(not like he told anyone about that) but he wouldn't let him go until he finishes his papers for the day at least

The city was a 4 days travel by griffon, so it would take him at least 8 days to come back so the servant wanted for the prince to finish as much paperwork as possible, and the prince only managed to convince him by telling him it was urgent to go there

In the end, he spends most of the day doing as much paperwork as possible and promising to himself that he would find Paul no matter what

18 days after the explosion - The Palace

Most of the work was done by the servant, so he didn't need to even pack his clothes. Well, he did prepare apart his adventures plate, armor, magician clothes, utility belt with some extra sleeping powder in his bag(the little he had left) and gold coins, just to be sure

He stepped outside his room and went to the stables where his bodyguards and niece were waiting for him. Everything was packed and ready to go, and since they had a light breakfast a little while ago, they were ready.

"Uncle, where are we going?"(Lina)asked a little excited since it was her first time traveling in a griffon

"A secret ;-)"(prince) didn't want to get her hopes up since he wasn't sure it was Paul

But he needed to bring Lina for two reasons. First, even if the travel was dangerous for more than one reason(specially since the plan wasn't just to look for Paul), he didn't want to leave her alone in the castle since not only she would get depressed, he didn't trust the people in the palace. The other reason was to use her to convince Paul to come back if he was the adventure they were looking for

If everything went as he hoped, the travel to the city would go without problems and they would find Paul at the adventures guild with a good reason for why he didn't come back and easy to solve. But he knew it wouldn't be that easy, and he wasn't even sure he would reach the city safely

He chose on purpose to stay one day in each of the of the factions residences(adding an extra day to the travel) to act as bait and see if they do something. Besides he requested the servant that only he knew the way the would go, and not anyone else, and to make sure no one would be able to intercept them

Even if no one did nothing, he wouldn't be absolutely sure of their innocence since a lot of strange things have gone on, but it would calm him a little bit. And if someone did make a move, he had an ace in the hole that no one should know

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