Guardsman Laric urged his mount forward, hoping against hope that it wouldn’t catch its feet in the many cracks and crags of the dry and barren soil. Five additional guards trailed behind him, likely mirroring his thoughts.

It had been a strange few weeks for him. If it was to be believed, it had been a strange few weeks for his king, as well.

First, a blessing. The deadlands, the blighted area which lay to the south of the Antaean kingdom, were dead no more. The skies above them had cleared. The leeching, draining miasma within had vanished. Seeing as he was presently traveling through said deadlands, this much Laric could confirm for himself.

Then, a curse. From what Laric had heard, the king had begun to grow agitated. He was convinced that something was wrong.

The builders he’d sent away hadn’t returned. His daughter hadn’t returned. In fact, all lines of communication with Emer’Thalis had gone dry.

Eventually, a few of the citizens they’d sent away returned — builders who had families waiting for them, people who’d decided to come back for whatever reason — but this only vexed the king more. They’d been questioned and all agreed. The deadlands were gone. The kexids no longer posed a threat. The builders’ assigned work was done.

If that was true though, why hadn’t he heard from the adventurer who served as the town’s settlement owner?

And much more importantly, why hadn’t he heard from his daughter?

The entire thing was off, somehow. Off enough that someone had to investigate.

The problem was, however, that there wasn’t anyone whose exact job it was to go snooping around settlements in the middle of a questionably hostile, notably inhospitable wasteland. As a guard with a strong track record, Laric had somehow gotten the job pawned off to him.

He’d almost managed to travel via the city’s Diplomatic Visit function, saving him weeks in transit, but sadly it wasn’t meant to be. It was unclear if Emer’Thalis would be able to use their own Diplomatic Visit to send him back, and faced with the possibility of him having to walk back, mountless, weeks across the wastelands all by himself, such a plan had been vetoed.

Instead, he and the others had had a long and unpleasant journey from Ftheran.

Lost in his thoughts as he was, Guardsman Laric was not the first to notice when the settlement came into view. The commotion from the guards behind him, however, quickly drew his attention, and as he saw the outline of the ruined city, he smiled for the first time in a while. It was an uneasy smile, of course: A ruined city wasn’t the sort of thing to inspire much confidence in a grand reception. If the reports were to be believed, however, the actual settlement would be nestled somewhere within.

Time to see what in all the hells is going on here.

“He- What?” Amak resisted the urge to massage his temples while talking to the group of guardsmen. Thankfully, after the debacle with Ava showing up unannounced, he’d discovered an option in the settlement interface which would notify him if anyone was attempting to enter through the barrier.

When said notification had popped up, he’d been expecting some kexid stragglers, somehow much later to arrive than their kin. It was with some surprise, then, that he received the group from Ftheran. It was with more surprise, however, when they told him their reason for visiting.

“The king never received any news from us? At all?” It had largely been he himself who’d worked with the officials at the palace to manage the logistics of bringing the builders here, but that line of communication had dropped long ago. In any case, it was Hartha who’d had the Mouth of the Forest which had allowed them to communicate, and for obvious reasons, that wasn’t an option any longer.

Still, he’d assumed Tess had arranged for at least something. A few of the builders and citizens had already traveled back, and she could have sent some sort of message along with them.

Having worked directly with the palace staff, it was no secret to Amak that Tess’s companion, Calilah, was a princess of sorts. How could they have not informed her father that she’d been-

Oh. Oh hells.

After thinking it over for a moment, did they want to tell the king what had happened?

Amak, regrettably, did not consider himself to be an expert on foreign relations. Though he may have been groomed for his current leadership position, the shadows weren’t known for engaging with many outside of themselves.

Still, he had some sense that telling a king they’d gotten his daughter abducted would be bad. Further telling him that they had no idea when she’d return, or how to get in touch with her abductor, would also be bad. And topping that off by claiming that his daughter had been kidnapped by a god, of all things, would naturally come off as a flagrant lie, which would also be bad.

Hells and hells again. Amak already had his hands full enough managing the burgeoning new village the shadows were building inside the woods of Emer’Thalis. This was considerably more than he wanted. Sadly for him, Tess was off doing whatever it was she’d agreed to for that high-leveled cleaning mage, leaving this largely as a matter for him.

“The Lady Calilah? Off with Tess. The deadlands issue has been resolved, but there were a number of things they needed to verify and check on to make sure everything is as it should be. No, I’m afraid I don’t know the specifics. Something about the princess being a priestess of light? If you want to know more, I’m afraid you’d have to wait to hear it from them when they’re back. Hmm? When will they be back? You have to understand, it’s hard to say with these types of things. Whenever they finish, I suppose.”

Deception has reached level 7!

Not a skill that he tried to make much use of, and as a result, not a particularly high leveled one. Still, he was glad for it now. Without it, he knew the lie would have been far less believable. As it was, he was still a touch worried that he was sweating.

Hopefully that would be the end of it. No, hopefully the Lady Calilah would come back soon. As much as he hated lying, the prospect of a king learning that his daughter was gone was just a small touch worse. Amak wasn’t entirely sure what the man would do in such a case, but it wasn’t anything good.

And if the princess did fail to return in a timely manner, then the task of informing the king would thankfully not fall on him.

The Protagonist had been the one to recruit her. The Protagonist was the one the king held responsible for her safety. If anything, it would be the Protagonist who delivered the news.

Good. Then that’s settled.

“Report.” King Antaiu sat upon his throne, his commanding tone a byproduct of both his class and his decades of exercising his authority. It had taken no small amount of time, but the guards he’d sent to investigate the matter of the deadlands had at last returned. He would be the very first to hear their account.

“Reporting. The settlement was there as expected. Unfortunately, we found no trace of either the settlement owner or her highness Calilah.” Laric continued to detail the conversation he’d had with one of the leaders there, only for Antaiu to stop him.

“And? In your estimation, does any of that ring true?” He had his own suspicions, but he wanted to hear it from the guard.

Said guard seemed almost reluctant to speak, clamming up before remembering himself. One did not keep the king waiting.

“No, your highness. As a guard, I’ve picked up a general truth-sensing skill for when I’m interrogating people. I believe he was telling the truth that the settlement owner is out of the city, but not that her highness is with her.”

It was all the king could do to keep himself from trying to crush the arms of his throne under his grip. That his daughter was unaccounted for was enough of an issue. That the Protagonist would attempt to string him along like this only made it all the more unforgivable.

“I see.” He schooled himself, ever the image of royal poise. “Continue.”

Laric detailed the rest of his investigation. The settlement was continuing to be built up, despite having completed its stated purpose. Non-essential construction work had been done to create a bar and a bathhouse, and further work was being done regarding food storage. The settlement dungeon remained open, with adventurers training within.

Worse yet, it appeared that the Protagonist had something on the foreman he’d sent to oversee construction. He’d been dodgy on why he hadn’t already returned to the city like he’d been supposed to, and when Laric revealed that the Protagonist wasn’t even paying him for his work, it became clear that Foreman Tuk was somehow being forced into it.

Seething, he dismissed the guards, giving himself a moment alone.

It could be a mistake, he knew. Low level truth telling skills could fail. There were genuine reasons why communication might break down.

But at the first glance, it certainly looked like the Protagonist had co-opted his builders and was building up a permanent settlement near the border of his kingdom. One with access to a dungeon, and citizens that were actively running that dungeon and leveling up.

Even that would have been no more than a minor cause for alarm. There were simple ways of handling such things which didn’t require a heavy hand.

His daughter, however… The guardsman could have been wrong. He could have.

But the king knew he wasn’t.

King Antaiu pulled out a small, nondescript charm from an inconspicuous pocket in his emerald garb. He channeled some mana into the trinket, and-

Nothing. It lay inert.

Of course he hadn’t sent his only daughter away without a means to track her. That he’d had to go along with the entire farce was bad enough: He certainly wasn’t going to lose the girl’s location. How could he? The girl had absolutely no real world exposure, and while he approved of her piety, he’d been worried from the offset that the real world would eat her alive.

So, he tracked her.

An expensive tracker too.

It would work even if she was incredibly far. Even if she was in a dungeon. It should have worked even if she was dead, though he refused to even consider such a thing.

Instead, it now told him nothing. Either his daughter was somewhere the tracker couldn’t track — unlikely, if not unthinkable — or someone had noticed it and purposefully disabled it.

He could hardly think of any non-hostile reason to do so. All the less so now that he had something of a confirmation that the Protagonist was working against him and one of the settlement’s leaders was lying to him.

The king left his throne and began to pace, fretting to himself. Do they have her locked away? Preparing to use her as leverage of some sort?

He cursed a dozen things, not least of which, the Protagonist herself. Most of all, however, he cursed himself for allowing such a thing to happen. He’d misjudged the Protagonist. Gravely misread her character.

It was a mistake he would not make again.

He didn’t care what level the Protagonist was. He would be getting his daughter back, and that was final.