Chapter 181 - The Castle in the Sea II

A cup of tea at her lips and her eyes focused on the window, Claire silently fumed with her expression perfectly controlled. The group had been led straight to the castle. They weren’t inside the palace itself, but one of the many buildings that dotted its grounds. The Cadrian fortress loomed just beyond the glass, its entire frame perfectly visible to all its idle observers. It was just as exposed as Boris; the lazy lizard was lounging in the castle’s garden, floating in the middle of its pond, exposed and vulnerable.

Claire’s state was hardly any better. Her hood was off, peeled back as a courtesy for the man that they awaited. Any Cadrian knight that casually gazed through the window would have been sure to spot a familiar face had the catgirl been missing. Lia sat right beside her, cutting her off from the outdoors and obscuring her features. But while convenient, the berserker’s position was far from comfortable. The pervert had decided to sit close enough for their hips and shoulders to touch, even though the sofa had enough space for four. The longmoose’s first instinct was to shove the cat away so she could secure her personal space, but she begrudgingly acquiesced when she realised that the Paunsean was quite literally quaking in her boots.

Natalya’s eyes were constantly shifting around, her hands were fidgeting uncomfortably, and her curled tail twitched every time someone walked down the hall. A quick experiment had confirmed that she would jump out of her seat and attach herself to the ceiling if poked in the side.

“Calm down.” Claire spoke in a whisper. The servants outside the door were sure to catch her voice if it was any louder. “He’ll only think you’re suspicious. If you’re nervous.”

“Please stop. That isn’t helping,” mumbled the cat. She shot the lyrkress a teary glare before slowly shifting her weight towards her. “Not everyone’s used to talking to nobles, you know? Some of us are peasants that have to worry about keeping our necks.”

“I know. But that doesn’t mean you should be leaning on me.”

“Huh?” Natalya was confused until she turned her eyes on the lyrkress and finally realised the lack of distance. “O-oh, sorry. I didn’t realise…” She backed off in a hurry, her face as red as an apple and her tail flickering about.

“I said calm down, not get flustered. He’s almost here.”

“R-right.” Still jittery, Natalya cleared her throat and sat up straight, just in time for there to be a knock on the door.

An old sea creature wheeled in from the hall, accompanied by an entourage of servants. One was pushing his chair, one had a cart full of sweet treats, and one had both tea and hot water at the ready. There were even another three on standby, discounting the pair idling just outside the doorway. The sheer number was in such excess that Claire would have suspected that it was a ploy to see them encircled, had any fewer of the servants been children.

Nearly all of the maids and butlers were younglings between the ages of 5 and 10, and the rest were hardly any older. The errand girl that they had already met—the maid currently standing behind the snack cart—was the only exception to what otherwise seemed like a rule.

Claire found herself somewhat concerned by the man’s tastes, but kept her mouth shut and quickly scanned his body. Though old and decrepit, the blueblood was incredibly muscular. The individual parts of his frame bulged with veins, and the musculature was further protected by a long series of pins and needles. The spikes that protruded from his spine were sharp enough for her to mistake them as weapons.

But while she was certain that the old man was once a warrior, the lyrkress could discern little of his race. In a way, he almost resembled her true form. He had a snout and a tail, and his body was on the longer side, but that was where the similarities came to an end. His frame was unnaturally thin. Though over two meters long, he spanned only a dozen centimeters from left to right. The flippers sprouting from his chest were the only parts of him that couldn’t easily be laid flat and hidden within a suitcase. They extended a full two meters in each direction and dragged along the floor behind him.

“Mornin’ ladies, and welcome.” He greeted the group with a casual wave. His deep, gruff voice was a stark contrast to what was expected of a man in a ballroom dress. If not for his perfectly trimmed goatee, she would have assumed him a woman from appearances alone. “I’m glad you accepted my invitation, and on such short notice too.”

His speech and mannerisms lacked all the respect and refinement expected of a man of his station, but that in and of itself was not unexpected. Members of the upper crust were known for fooling plebeians with their speech. A false sense of relatability was always an effective card to play when it came time for negotiations.

“Good morning. Thank you for inviting us to your home.” While Natalya bowed her head, Claire bothered with little more than a brief nod. With the Paunsean already volunteering herself as the party’s speaker, she saw no reason to voice her thoughts out of turn. A lose-lose situation was all that awaited an undue verbal response; a curt reply would be taken as rude, and a polite one would reveal her knowledge of etiquette.

“The pleasure’s mine. Now let’s get right down to business.” Skipping the usual formal greeting, he gestured to one of the butlers, who presented a familiar, crystalline object. “This is why I wanted to see you.”

The item in question was one of Farenlight’s horns, only polished, framed, and paired with an artist’s wild interpretation of the monster that it had come from.

“Is there something wrong with it?” asked Natalya.

“Nothing like that.” He waved one of his flippers dismissively. “This thing’s sturdy as hell. Impresses me how tough it is, really. Getting it can’t have been easy.”

“It was a hard fought battle, Sir.”

“I’m sure. Did you beat it on your own?”

Natalya frowned. “Not exactly. There were a number of Vel’khanese soldiers on site when we first arrived, but they were defeated without inflicting any major wounds.”

“And those soldiers, were they kelpfin?”

“They weren’t, Sir,” said Lia. Claire tugged on the catgirl’s sleeve in an attempt to get her to stop, but she failed to notice the signal and continued to speak. “It was a group of scyphs specialised in earth magic. I believe that they had red emblems, but I can’t remember how they were dressed.”

The complete lack of any humanoid or serpentine features made it difficult to read the man’s face, but even so, the lyrkress knew, the moment he began fiddling with his snout, that they had given him the answer he wanted.

“The group that you reinforced was one of the queen’s personal units. They were a greener unit, but still royal guards all the same.” The count leaned forward in his wheelchair and rested his face atop his fins. “Some of the squires did come back and report that a group of adventurers took over, and you two seem to match their descriptions.” He eyed Claire for a moment. “At least mostly.”

“She can shapeshift,” explained Lia.

“Guess that explains that.” The old man removed Farenlight’s horn from its frame and spun it around in his fins. “That pretty much confirms that you’re the ones we’re looking for.” He pointed its crystalline tip out the window and waited for the adventurers’ eyes to follow. “So here’s the deal. Our foreign friends over there are about to do the queen a favour and go plough their way through a dungeon. That’s fine and dandy and all, but we wanted a few local groups to head in as well. Just to make sure nothing goes wrong.”

“Are you asking us to spy on them?” asked Natalya.

“Nah, nothing like that.” The misshapen fish waved off the question and shook his head. “We just want you to head up into the dungeon, do what adventurers do, and report back. Plain and simple. You won’t be the only group either. We’ll be putting up a few notes on the job board, but the recommended level is gonna be four hundred, and we’ve got maybe a few handfuls of those floating in and out of the city. Hard to say how many are gonna be interested, aside from the usual suspects.”

“That sounds simple enough…” muttered Natalya. “Are there any other conditions? What’s the pay?”

“For a two-week-long dive, you’ll be given five pounds of silver per person, plus meals and transport. There might also be a performance bonus, but those will have to be evaluated on a case by case basis.”

The cat’s jaw nearly dropped, but Claire kept it in place with a vector.

“The conditions are pretty much standard for a quick spelunk. We need you to venture down to the dungeon’s fifth floor at least, since we know everything we need about the floors that come before it. Besides that, it’ll just be a quick paper to sum up everything you find, and you’ll be done.”

“Okay,” said Lia. She pulled out the usual diary-cum-notebook and opened it to a blank page. “Can you tell me a bit about what’s already known? Specifically the terrain, the monsters, their levels and some of their behaviours.”

“Sure. I’ve got time, and most of the juicy details on hand.” He looked at one of the youngest servants and lightly waved. “Sa’ahri.”

It took a moment for the daydreaming servant to realise that she was being called, but she quickly snapped to attention in a way that only a child in trouble could.

“Y-yes Master?”

“Could you please go get the binder I left on my desk? The big brown one.”

“Okay, Master! I’ll be suuuper quick!” The tiny kelpfin cheered before energetically hopping out of the room and down the hall.

“Most of the illustrations and other materials are in the file she’s getting, but the dungeon’s called Skyreach Spire, and it’s hidden inside that giant cloud tower you see in the sky most of the time. The damn thing’s constantly moving. It seems to change course day by day, but it’s been slowly inching closer to the city ever since we first spotted it a few months back. The winds around it are harsh as hell, powerful enough to split an ascended turberus right down the middle, shell and all. Landing is pretty much a pain in the ass.”

“Is that why you’re providing the transport?” asked Natalya. “I doubt most groups are going to be able to do much of anything with ascended turberi ruled out.”

“You got it, kid.” The sea creature flattened his snout as he chuckled. “We were brute forcing it at first, but that cost us too many soldiers and turtles. It’s why we’ve asked our Cadrian friends here for help. You see, their flying fortresses are a lot more durable than our giant sky turtles, and they should be able to get us into the dungeon a lot more consistently. I’m not exactly keen on everything else that’s come with it, but hey, you win some, you lose some.” He dipped his nose into his cup and inhaled a breath of tea. “We’d have done the same thing if we were them. But anyway, ignoring all the political bullshit, the point is, they’re giving us a way to get through the door.”

“That would explain a lot…” said Natalya, as she furiously scribbled away. “Does the dungeon start as soon as you break through the clouds?”

“Not exactly. There’s an external hunting ground, and it’d be a pretty good one if not for where the damn thing was. Heard there are some things around 300.”

There was a knock at the door right as he finished speaking. The tiny maid entered right after with a binder larger than her upper body cradled in her arms.

“I’ve got it Master!” she said. “And there’s a guest too! I think his name was uhmmmm… Timmy’is Poo’lots? And he said something about stratafields and battlegies.”

“Right, I guess he’s here to take me up on that offer,” he groaned. “Alright, you can get one of the girls to send him over. He might as well be a part of this conversation, since his men’ll be taking part. Just make sure he knocks before he enters.” He heaved a sigh and looked down at his garments. “Well, at least I’m already in formal wear, I guess. Sorry ladies, but I’m going to have to… pull a bit of a shift in tone. Gotta keep up appearances in front of these foreign dignitaries, y’know?”

When he looked back up, he saw not two girls, but one. The catgirl was still present with her eyes on her notebook and her quill against her chin, but her companion was nowhere to be seen.

“Err… What happened to your friend?” he asked, with his brow raised.

“Huh?” Lia raised her head when addressed and adjusted her glasses. “Uh…. I don’t know.”

“I’m right here.”

The voice came from the window, which soon opened despite there not being anyone nearby. “I have to leave. Something came up.” Without waiting for a response, she leapt outside and closed the glass pane behind her.

“Rogues,” laughed the nobleman. “It’s always like that with them, isn’t it?”

“Uhmmm, sorry,” said Natalya. “She gets like that sometimes,” she said. “And to be honest, I would also much rather discuss this some other time.”

“Yeah, I get it.” He leaned back in his chair and folded his fins in his lap. “They’re not the most pleasant lot.”

“Sorry,” she said.

“Nah, it’s not a problem,” he said, with a dismissive wave. “Come back whenever, and we can finish talking. I’ll tell the guards to let you through. What was your name again?”

The cat hesitated briefly, but swallowed her saliva and spoke. “Lia.”

“Alright, see you soon. Probably tomorrow at the earliest. I doubt he’s the kind to let me off easy.”

“Thank you, Lord Ray’esce.” She stood up and got to one knee, with the back of her fist pressed against her collar. A Paunsean salute. “I really hate to ask this when you’re already being so forgiving, but would you mind if I used the window?”

The seahorse chortled. “Be my guest. Just try not to damage the roof. It was quite the pretty penny.”

“I won’t.” Getting to her feet, she put her writing utensils away and scampered to the windowsill. Just like her friend, she pushed open the glass and stepped out beneath the morning sun.

With both girls gone, the old warlord was left to reminisce, to think about his own daughter, until a knock on the door brought a sudden end to the unexpected intermission.