Watcher's Question: A LitRPG Saga (Life in Exile Book 2)

by Sean Oswald

  Such an insult could not be allowed to stand. Never mind that the slaves needed to be rescued, never mind the financial ruin the raid had caused for several of the southern holds. No, an insult like this could not be allowed to stand on its face. The dwarves as a whole were a passionate people, but for the most part they wanted to be left alone to drink, gamble, mine, and forge. Beyond that, trade was the only true passion. Yet like many sleeping dogs, once roused, they would be hard to quiet.

  Far to the east in another royal council room, the Throne of the moon elves was in a private meeting with Archdruid Hidenori.

  Konoe repeated the question he had just asked, “So your scouts don’t really know how many goblins have invaded or where they are exactly?”

  “My Saisho,” the archdruid began with almost a patronizing tone, “as I have said, the only reports we have are from eyewitnesses and those are all over the place. For some reason all of our scrying magic has been stopped.”

  “What my husband is asking you is, what are you going to do about that Hidenori?” Yua said, clearly the calmest one in the room.

  “Again, I apologize to the Throne, but this is an entirely new situation. The Circle has sent more forest wardens and druids out, but we have to send them in groups since we don’t know the strength of the enemy forces. I have to say that I recommend that you mobilize the military.”

  “You really think it is that serious?” Konoe asked.

  “I simply don’t know, and that is what scares me,” The old archdruid replied. Then continued, “There is one other piece of information which I only received early this morning. A group of druids were attempting to collectively use a Tier 4 Divination spell to scan for outsiders, and they found that there are two humans in Lord Hia’s district.”

  “Humans working with goblins, hmmm … that seems unlikely,” Yua said.

  As if annoyed by the comment, Hidenori continued on, “Well as they were not protected from scrying like the goblins seem to be, we were able to determine their identity. One of them is unknown to us, but we believe him to be an Albian scout. The other human was Consort David Nelson, and one of Lady Emiri’s druids, Fumihiro was with him.”

  “That confirms what Lady Emiri told me,” Yua added.

  “Can anyone get a message to them?” Konoe asked.

  “Some of the druids have dispatched familiars as messengers, but they are not as fast as we would like, and it may well be tomorrow before we have any information. To my recollection, Fumihiro specializes more in combat and movement magic than communication,” Hidenori spoke matter of factly about it.

  Konoe and Yua shared a glance before Yua said, “We must trust then that the consort and druid can successfully delay whatever threat is there until reinforcements arrive.”

  There was a small inn, named the Ruffled Petticoat, a perfectly scandalous name, but appropriate for it was backdrop to more than one illicit liaison. It was situated along the highway between Stettin and Lonn, close enough to the sea to hear the waves, but far enough away that it wasn’t frequented by sailors. Normally, the common room would be filled with young gentlemen from various merchant or minor noble homes pining away for a maiden they perceived to be the love of their life but for whatever reason didn’t meet with their parent’s approval. The owner of the establishment, Gerige, was a hopeless romantic himself, having been unable to marry the love of his life when he was only a poor soldier and not good enough in her father’s estimation. Now that he had risen in the world in wealth if not station, he snubbed his nose at all such fathers by providing the setting for such liaisons.

  Today though, his entire inn was rented out and his bouncer stood outside the front door turning away would be patrons. Gerige might normally fret over the lack of customers or chaff at the fact that a young nobleman acting on behalf of Duke Holstein had essentially forced him to turn the inn into their own private quarters. It would be especially worrisome in that the Harvest festival would be beginning in less than a week, and it was always a time of year to bring out young ill-favored lovers.

  He would have been upset, had he not been told in confidence the story of the beautiful young woman who was even now upstairs in his largest room, pining away for her lost love and her lost honor in equal measure. When Baron Vichie had informed him of the plight of this poor thing, who was none other than Melani, the cast-off mistress of King Borenstein, hunted by the fury of the scorned queen, his heart went out to her. The only real plight he was suffering was that he was charged not to tell anyone about the true identity of his guest upon threat of losing his tongue. Given that Gerige was a hopeless gossip, it was a battle that he was destined to lose sooner or later.

  That in actuality was what Baron Vichie was counting on. This was not the first inn they had stopped atm but it was the first one that they had stopped at for any length of time. He and twenty of the duke’s guards along with a full complement of handmaidens were staying at the inn to ostensibly protect the girl. Eventually it would get out who she was, and then someone with a bit of common sense would seek to ask why the duke was spending so many resources on protecting the king’s mistress. From there, it would only be a matter of time till rumors began to leak as to who she was to the duke.

  Vichie didn’t want to stop rumors, he simply wanted to control the rumors. His was a special kind of warfare. His character build was all around social conflict, and he honestly wouldn’t fare very well if he ever had to cross swords with anyone beyond a Tier 1 commoner. Yet in his chosen environment he was a master, a master of disinformation and public opinion. The story would build and eventually it would turn out that everyone would learn Melani was the duke’s bastard daughter. That he had sought to do right by her, finding her an important position in the king’s own service. That the innocent young girl had been preyed upon by a lecherous older man, lacking the self-control befitting a ruler of Albia. That she had been cast out upon getting with child by the king, a noble bastard carrying a royal bastard. The people would love her.

  The story would build, and in the end, it would be another tool for his Lord Duke to use. Vichie wasn’t privy to all of the Duke’s plans, but the beauty of this situation was that it could be used in so many different ways.

  Bishop Myren Tengur sat reading a report he had received for the second time. He had understood its contents the first time, but what he read was giving him a headache. He lifted his hand to his face and massaged the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. According to his source at the royal academy, the assaults on Jackson Nelson were getting worse not better. The bishop had arranged for Baron Eikhorn’s son with his highly developed habit of standing up for the underdog to be released from his time of service at the palace. As Myren had anticipated, the two became fast friends and this bought Jackson some reprieve from the open attacks upon his person. That had unfortunately only led to an escalation of the attacks. The noble children who were jealous of Jackson’s connections to the church and his family’s meteoric rise were determined enough to plan secret attacks and since their efforts had been stifled, they made the attacks they could get in that much more challenging.

  For Shanelle’s sake, one part of the report read that the boy had had to be healed from thirteen broken bones after the last attack. Myren understood political intimidation and attacks as well as anyone, but that was pushing it a bit far even in his jaded view. What was worse was though the bishop had never met the boy’s mother, she was still a Chosen of Shanelle, and he would lose any chance of gaining her as an ally if he couldn’t even protect her son. That could not be allowed. As the only known living Chosen of any of the three true deities on Talos, she was simply too important a piece on the board.

  It would end up costing some coin, but he hoped that the gesture would be seen for what it was. Erntedankfest, the annual harvest festival celebrated by all the human nations was around the corner. The students at the academy would be given two days before and two days after the seven-day festival off of class
in order to visit with family. Those whose families were too far away, as was Jackson’s, would be stuck staying in the dorm or with extended family who might live in the capital. Many of the nobles with children at the academy would even visit the capital staying in their city residences so that they could spend the time with absent children.

  In Jackson’s case, he had no family in Konig, no friends who might host him, and his parent’s home would be as much as a two week horse ride from the capital depending upon the weather. So Jackson would end up stuck at the dorm with only a skeleton staff and no professors to oversee his well-being. He would be easy pickings, and if a mistake happened, he could even die.

  Two possible solutions had presented themselves to Myren’s mind. The easier and cheaper of the options would be to have the boy spend his holiday at the church. The obvious advantage was having him under control whereas the disadvantage was that it was unlikely to earn him any favor with Emily, and the boy was not likely to be very thankful for it. The church was hardly the most exciting place to be during Erntedankfest.

  The second option came with a much higher price tag but was still manageable and would definitely earn him the appreciation of the Chosen. She was after all a mother, and the bishop had yet to meet a mother who wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to see their children, even when they were practically adults. So Myren would use church coin to pay for the royal wizard to teleport Jackson and a chaperone to Eris’ Rise. He had already investigated what it would cost in the event it was ever necessary to send the boy home quickly. The price tag of twenty gold was stiff, but it would cover the wizard teleporting there and then returning to bring the boy back on the day that classes resume so that he wouldn’t ever be left in the dorms unprotected.

  This plan also had the added benefit of allowing him to send a chaperone with Jackson, someone that he could hand pick to bring him a report about the status of Eris’ Rise and the development of the church there. It was also another string that he could attach to the Nelsons. He thought of the perfect person for the task, Gabriella, a pretty young priestess who had only recently taken her vows. Myren believed her to be something like nineteen and unmarried, which was perfect. From his encounters with the young woman, he knew her to be unerringly faithful to the church and by that, he meant, himself. She also had the perk of having more of her assets in her blouse than between her ears. If he remembered anything about being a thirteen-year-old boy like Jackson, then he knew that the boy would be quickly smitten with the buxom blond chaperone. The boy wasn’t that far from his majority, and by Albian law, he was the heir to his father since women could not hold noble titles except as a wife. So she could further not only the church’s future but also her own by connection with the boy.

  Yes, this was a good plan. He rang the bell for his secretary to come. There were things that needed doing, and now.

  General Steffen Eikhorn had ridden into Konig accompanied by half a dozen guardsmen earlier in the day. He was on a military task and so thought of himself by his military title rather than his noble one. The king needed to know of his guesses. He would have wished to have more specific information, but Captain Raddick had as of yet been unable to report back. The young man was very resourceful so that in and of itself spoke to the danger present in the north. He couldn’t believe that the Captain wouldn’t have found a way to send a report back unless he and all of his scouts had been killed, which seemed highly improbable; or the situation was more grave than anticipated and was taking longer to properly assess. Either way, the goblin’s sudden abandonment of the western front and even their moving out of their traditional homes couldn’t possibly mean anything good for the kingdom.

  What was now frustrating him was that the palace was all abuzz with the gossip about the king and a chambermaid. Harold certainly wouldn’t be the first man to dip his wick somewhere it didn’t belong, but he had always credited the man with being more prudent about his indiscretions than this. Steffen certainly didn’t approve. He was a man who took all of his vows very seriously, whether they be to king or wife. Yet, in the end, he didn’t care about all the gossip. He simply wanted some time to advise the king. Yet the king could not make any time for him because he was so busy trying to defuse the situation regarding the mistress that he couldn’t even grant his chief general an audience.

  Eleazor, the king’s steward, had run into the general in passing. Even he didn’t have time for the general. He offered to set an appointment with one of the military officers who advised the king, but Steffen didn’t want that. He needed face time with the only man would could order a mobilization towards the north. On that front at least, he had learned one good thing. Apparently, the king had created a new royal barony in the north and appointed a foreign warrior as the baron in reward for having repulsed one attack there. In the general’s mind, the nobility of Albia could use some fresh blood and people who were not purely political creatures. Yet the fact that there had already been a goblin attack in the north only made his news that much more urgent.

  In desperation, Steffen asked Eleazor if he could meet with a certain captain of the Purple and Gold. If any man could cut through the political bs and get a moment of the king’s time, then it would be Maxwell Smart. To his further frustration, Steffen was informed that Max was on a priority diplomatic mission in Faelora, their nearest neighbor in the south. No more details were forthcoming, but perhaps there were other matters afoot if the king’s number one captain had been sent to deal with it. Maxwell was sort of the king’s troubleshooter going wherever problems sprung up.

  Well, if there wasn’t anything for it, then he decided not to wait. He left word that he could be reached at the small home he kept within the capital and went to visit with his son at the Royal Academy. He knew that his wife, Merrule, would be all too jealous that he had gotten to see their youngest son.

  A mere two hundred miles as the crow flies to the south, along the northern shores of the Bouche Gulf, was Galeita, capital of Faelora. The climate was surprisingly warmer, but some of that must be the effect of the gulf. Maxwell Smart was waiting in a garden inside the palace grounds. With him was Olga, the new wizard of his squad. She was only recently promoted to that position upon the death of her master and Max’s close friend, Hastert. There had not yet been time to fill in the missing spots in his squad. That would come later. For now, this mission wasn’t one which required strength. It was more subtle than that.

  The rest of his squad was here though. Ahren the Myrmidon and Engel the Defender were staying in a barracks outside of the palace which was provided for the guards of visiting nobles. King Gaspard Toulous may have had a reputation for enjoying his parties, but that didn’t mean that he was a fool either. He simply didn’t feel comfortable having four members of Albia’s most famous Purple and Gold squad within his palace walls, even if their captain was playing emissary. Unbeknownst to Gaspard’s people though, two other squad members were also in the city staying in separate inns as travelers come into the city for the harvest festival. Max had reasoned that Karl the Ranger and Ronald the Archer could serve better by gathering intel from the rumors in various taverns.

  Max was none too happy about this mission. He had been told that there were rumblings about Faelora taking advantage of the drain the goblin wars had placed upon Albia to perhaps seize a few more miles of land at their shared border. King Harold had insisted though that he go, saying he didn’t want just a toothless diplomat but a reminder of Albia’s strength. So reluctantly, Max had been in meeting after meeting for the past few days with various military and civilian leaders of Faelora. He had yet to be offered a meeting with the king directly, but he was hoping that this afternoon would be different. Rumor around the castle was that King Gaspard had taken a new mistress and was fond of spending time in the afternoons in this very garden with her.

  Faelora hardly had the same stark moral standards that Albia had but Max found that the more he learned about Gaspard’s philandering ways the les
s he liked the man. So far, Max had been able to get updates from his other four squad members but that left one other. Leyna had also come and entered the city two days before the rest of them. She had insisted that her skills as an Infiltrator were better used behind the scenes than being in the spotlight. So here Max stood, pacing the garden, oblivious to the refreshing scent of the lilac tree so close to him. He was worried for his nation, worried for his squad members, and curious about what was happening with his new friend, David Nelson. To have found someone from Earth after all this time and then to not be able to continue to hang out with him, was a cruelty. It left Max missing home, which was an uncomfortable feeling because he really didn’t have anything to go back to since his loss. All he really had left was fighting, and he had become very good at it, first in the rice paddies of Vietnam and now here in Eloria.

  He was pulled out of his private thoughts, as two guards walked into the garden. They both scanned the area, and after ensuring that it was safe, held open a door that led from the palace into this open air space. Following out was King Gaspard with a pretty blond on his arm. Max had to school his expression and pinched Olga to make sure that she did the same. He groaned inside, but then what had he really expected, for the mistress was none other than his missing squad member. Now things were going to get interesting, that is if Leyna didn’t get him killed.

  Weeks had passed for the mortals of Eloria, but what was such a measurement of time to beings who measured time in the lifetime of stars. Far away from all else in that little pocket of the multiverse, the Watcher and his counterpart remained locked in what might have passed for a staring match amongst mortals. Neither had moved so much as an inch since the asking of that last question. Any observer had there been one might have assumed that they were feeling each other out, taking the measure of their opponent.