I sat on a simple chair with my elbows on my knees, hunched and peering over my steepled fingers. I felt broody, like a detective trying to puzzle through the clues, but the effect was probably lost since my feet didn’t reach the ground and swung freely. Across the room, Princess Charitomeni had been given a soft and fluffy looking bed and was being attended to by members of an order of healing mages that were stationed as part of the temple staff.

She didn’t look like she’d be waking up anytime soon but the mages were able to provide her with enough mana to satisfy the spell keeping her in hibernation. Vice Captain Afosiosi was at her side, pacing like a nervous father. He visibly calmed down when the doctor mage told him that she was out of danger but they had no way of knowing when or if she would wake up.

The underling was in another room, smaller and less opulent, of course. He had just passed out from having WAY more mana passing through him than he was used to. Probably more than he could expect to cycle within his lifetime. I felt a little bad about that. I hoped that I hadn’t burned the guy out like a weak fuse channeling my power through him to cast the spell to free Princess Char from her ice coffin.

I had been banking on Char waking up once she was freed so that she could clear Lena of any suspicion. Now with her locked in her hibernation spell, I wasn’t sure what to do next.

“Hey Prime! There you are!” a voice called from the outer hallway.

I turned to see the night imp, Roy, peeking his head in the doorway.

“Captain Wendy’s awake! She’s still groggy, but she’s comin’ around!” he said, excitedly.

The Vice Captain got a weird look on his face. Might have been concern, or worry. Then again, it could also have been stomach cramps, I had a hard time reading lizard expressions. He then headed out of the room in a hurry.

I hopped off of the chair and made my way for the door, but then paused halfway across the room. Charitomeni was a key witness, even if she was in a coma. It wouldn’t be unheard of for an assassin to come visit her as soon as I stepped out. Where were the rest of her guards? Shouldn’t she have, like, a whole company’s worth over the squad that Lena got? That jerk Afosiosi, running off and expecting me to just hang out and do his job for him. A bit unreasonable given that I’m a member of the prime suspect’s party.

A loud crash came from down the hall followed by a scream. I ordered Roy to keep an eye on Char in case someone wanted to finish the job and ran down the hall. The sound came from Wendy’s room where I found one of the fish-people healers in a crumpled heap near the door.

Remi was in the room with a wide-eyed Wendy sitting bolt-upright in her bed. Remi peeled a soaked cloth from his faceplate and held it at arm's length.

“What happened?” I demanded.

Remi walked over to the healer and lifted their head up. Their eyes were glassy and a dark blue liquid oozed from their nostrils and mouth. Their chest was completely caved in.

“This boyo here slapped that cloth over me face and put a blade to my back while I was faced away from ‘em. Dey twarnt esspectin’ me ta be an Auto,” he explained.

“Any idea who that is? Not actually one of the temple staff, right?” I asked.

As I looked closer, I could see a spell running over the would-be assassin. It was an illusion spell, but it looked like it was only good to run for an hour, tops. I hit it with the same trick I’d used on the magic ice to drain the spell of its mana and the illusion dissolved leaving behind a very dead chimp. From what I could tell from the spell, it hadn’t been cast by the chimp but it did have the same mana signature as the ice spell that Princess Char had been hit with. Could I track that? I could probably write a script that could scan for a specific mana wavelength; maybe I could even output the results visually to my HUD.

“Prime? That’s you, right?” Wendy asked.

Oh biscuits, getting distracted again. I left the chimpy corpse and hurried to Wendy’s bedside.

“Yeah, I have to keep this disguise running but it’s me. How you feelin’ kid?” I asked, reaching out to pat something but then thought better of it and retracted my hand.

She was nearly covered in bandages with what looked like wooden platters wrapped against her tiger rib cage. Unlike a human who could lay on their back and sit up with ease, she had to lay on her stomach due to having the lower half of an entire tiger. She was obviously feeling weak, though she was trying to sit up by basically doing a push up to lift her upper body off the bed.

“Lay back down, take your time,” I coaxed.

She nodded and let her arms relax, collapsing back onto the bed; though she did push enough to roll onto her side so that she could face me. As she rolled, her tiger body pulled nearly all of her blanket off of her, but she didn’t seem to notice. It was highly probable that she was heavily sedated.

“Let’s just pull that back up for you. An unmarried woman needs to protect her dignity, right?” I joked, repositioning her cover. “Remi, get the other side? This blanket is huge.”

“You’re a nice, nice... whatever you are,” she slurred.

“Not really, I’m just good at faking it,” I winked. “Can you tell me what happened during the conference?”

She nodded again but her eyelids got heavy and she was gone. Crud. Getting an account of events would have to wait a bit longer.

“I’m sorry sir, but the Captain really needs her rest to recover,” a healer said, attempting and failing to push me back.

“Of course,” I said, giving the healer a slight bow and withdrawing.

“Hey Remi, can you hang out and keep an eye on Wendy till I bring Roy back? Just in case more assassins decide to visit?” I asked as I tossed the current assassin into [Inventory].

“Aye,” he nodded and took a seat in the corner.

I headed back down the corridor to Princess Charitomeni’s room. Royal guards of various reptoid species from her country were standing around, blocking the doorway.

“Whoa there kid, scram. This room is off limits,” a gray lizard soldier said, glaring down at me and flicking their tongue in the air as they spoke.

I glanced up at the tongue and the cold eyes beyond them. I couldn’t tell if the soldier was male or female, not that it mattered. Maybe if I had examples of each I could spot the differences for reference. I leaned to one side and peered past the soldier’s legs and saw more soldiers inside the room. They had their swords drawn and pointed at Roy. Roy didn’t look to be in any immediate danger, but they were shouting back and forth.

“Hey Roy, can we trust these chumps to do their job this time?” I asked, sparing a glance for the lizard.

“I dunno. These guys think I’m an assassin that’s come to finish off their princess before she can wake up,” he grumbled, flicking his wiry tail in agitation.

“Their hearts are in the right place, I guess. It’s a bit late though,” I teased.

“You’re with this guy? You’re both coming with us then for questioning,” the lizard demanded.

“Thanks, but I’ll pass. Afosiosi in there? I’m coming in, out of the way if you value your toes; I’m heavier than I look,” I ordered.

The soldier was caught off-guard by my glib remark but still stepped back when I stomped threateningly at his feet. I looked around at the faces of the soldiers but wasn’t confident that I’d be able to pick the Vice Captain out among all the other reptoids. None of them had the fancy shoulder epaulets though. I pushed my way through the other soldiers until I made a path from the door to Roy.

“Come on buddy, back to Wendy’s room, they have enough eyes on her now. And seriously, you guys should be thanking the Corporal here, not interrogating him, since your Vice Captain ran off, leaving the Princess unattended,” I chastised.

To their credit, the soldiers wilted a bit. Roy followed me out and, thankfully, none of the soldiers tried to stop us. I wasn’t sure it’d work or what I’d do if they tried.

I left Roy watching over the sleeping Captain Wendy and promised to have Toadwart send him someone to relieve his shift. Lena was being held in another building and I was overdue in visiting her. The temple guards keeping watch over her weren’t too keen on letting me see her but Remi was just threatening enough to get us past.

I was expecting her to be in a prison cell of some sort but instead I found her in a room that was remarkably similar to the one in the guest house. It was just lacking in windows, surrounded by armed guards, and had a door of bars blocking the entrance. Lena was laying on the bed waving her hand in the direction of the ceiling, likely interacting with something in her HUD. Chances were high that she was working on her magiScript spells. I noticed a few platters full of untouched food sitting on a table nearby.

“How will you have the strength to carry on if you don’t eat, your Highness?” I asked, casually as I tapped on a bar.

Lena froze whatever she had been working on and sat up, launching herself off the bed.

“Prime! Husband, you’ve come for me!” she squealed.

In a few strides she was across the large room and at the cell door. She put her hands on the bars, her body vibrating with emotion. Her vibrations radiated through the bars and shook the door until the entire assembly was loose. She took a step back and pulled the door, frame and all, out of the wall. We all shot looks in the direction of the guards that were around but none immediately noticed.

Lena set the door aside and grabbed me, pulling me off the ground and smashing me to her chest. Thankfully, I didn’t actually have to breathe or anything. She gave Remi a meaningful look and to his credit he gave her a nod back and pulled the cell door back into position before turning around and leaning against the door frame.

Lena carried me over to the bed and flopped onto it in a way that made me nervous for its structural integrity. Her grip on me didn’t change in the slightest. I was coming around to accepting my role as her emotional support stuffed animal.

“Oh Prime, I’m in real trouble. It’s all my fault isn’t it? If, if only I hadn’t lost my temper earlier,” she said, quietly, as her body shuddered slightly. “And now... Now Wendy and Char are both dead because of me!”

Her shaking became more violent. I gently disentangled myself from her embrace and sat up next to her, pulling her head onto my lap. Carefully, I wiped away tears that weren’t there.

“You were set up. I haven’t unraveled the `why` yet but this has all been a plot against you; or rather against your Empire. Either by luck or by providence, both Wendy and Char are still alive. Wendy got beat up pretty good but the healers have tended to her and she’s recovering. Char managed to cast a hibernation spell on herself before she was encased in ice. I was able to get her out of the ice but I can’t break the spell on her,” I said softly, stroking her hair.

Lena sat up suddenly and grabbed the sides of my face.

“They’re alive?! They’re really alive?” she blurted out before collapsing back onto the bed. “Oh thank the sisters, I’m so relieved!”

She rolled over and smashed her face into me again and resumed her shaking. I resumed stroking her hair, taking my “stuffed animal” role very seriously.

“It’ll be okay, we’ll get through this. Can you tell me what happened?” I asked, gently.

Her vibrations slowed to a stop and she carefully pulled away. She sat up on the bed, grabbed a decorative pillow to hold onto, and pulled her knees up to her chest. Then she went through the motions of taking a deep breath and letting it out, locked her optics on the floor, and told me.