"We don't need any reward," said Suzanne. "It was enough just to get the truth out."
Zelt chuckled, "Well aren't you the humble bunch. Whatever you say, you should go visit our duke or maybe even the emperor himself. I'm sure you'll get a nice reward from them. I could write you a note so they don't think you're lying."
"Bru mod murmury," said Alice, her mouth full of food.
"I think she said, 'That's not necessary,'" translated Ron.
"I've never seen a young woman eat so much," laughed Zelt.
By this point, Alice had swallowed her food. "Hey, I need a lot of food to work my magic! Where do you think all my incredible power comes from?" she defended herself.
"That's funny, because Suzanne uses magic and she's finished eating. Thomas uses as much magic as you do and he ate the least," Ron said.
Alice sent a glare at Ron of such anger, he was worried he would turn to stone if he looked her in the eyes for too long.
Despite the group's objections, they could not stop Zelt from giving them the fee for a night at the inn. The next morning the innkeeper gave them a package sent from the whole village, inside of which was a green cloak and a note from Zelt.
The note read, "Well, we found it. Protest all you like, you're keeping it. This handy piece of clothing enhances the wearer's ability to dodge blows. It's called the cloak of evasion. It's got some magic in it, it does. Great for those that don't like heavy armor."
The group could not help but stop by Zelt's house to thank him and the village for the generous gift. Alice donned the cloak over her clothing. Then the group finally decided to teleport to the castle town of Romaly.
It was not difficult for the group to get another audience with the emperor. When the guards at the town gate saw them, they immediately shepherded them to the emperor's throne room. They found the ruler on his throne with the crown Kandar had stolen from his on his head and with a large smile on his face.
"Hail, great heroes!" he addressed them. "I have heard of your wonderful deeds! You'll be happy to know that the riots have stopped in the land Kandar usurped. A new duke has been appointed and peace and order have returned to the region. I also got your message about the village on the northern side of the empire. Might I ask what happened?"
The group explained the story of Noaniels and the elves to the emperor. The ruler was quite impressed with the story.
"So you saved the village without the use of force," the emperor recapped. "Your abilities, in diplomacy as much as in battle, are great. I don't know if I could have gotten the elves to lift their curse. I truly thank you."
"It was our pleasure, your Majesty," said Suzanne. "At the risk of sounding pushy, does this mean you will support us on our quest? Will you endorse us to other nations as we try to unite all against the Archfiend?"
The emperor's smile grew, "I will do better than that. Do you remember the reward I hinted at last we met? It is now time to give that reward."
The emperor got up off his throne. To the surprise of the group, he took his crown off his head and stood before Ron.
He turned his head to the side to address Suzanne, "Forgive me. Although you seem to be the leader of this group, I do not believe the Romalian Empire is ready for a female ruler, despite her deeds."
The group looked at the emperor in shock as he turned his attention to Ron and said, "Ron of Aliahan. I give to you the crown of the Romalian Empire along with the position of Emperor. Do you accept this great honor and responsibility?"
All four were speechless at first. Ron managed to ask, "Forgive me, your Highness, but is this a good idea? This isn't what we had in mind."
The emperor chuckled, "Not what you had in mind, I'm sure. This is far better. Think about it, one of your number, the ruler of a nation! Surely there is no better way to get that nation's support! I ask again: Ron of Aliahan, do you accept this great honor and responsibility?"
"It's been four days, and I still can't believe that idiot accepted the emperor's offer," grumbled Alice.
"While one has to question the former emperor's wisdom, how does that make Ron an idiot?" questioned Thomas. "What Vilisik said is right, how better to get a nation's support than for one of us to rule the nation?"
"But we don't need just one nation to stand against the Archfiend. If it were that easy, we would be done here. Now we're a man short on the rest of our journey," argued Alice.
Thomas decided to drop the argument. "Where's Susie?" he changed the topic.
"Talking to that his Numskullness, I think," replied Alice.
"Are you done playing around here?" asked Suzanne.
"Is that any way to address an emperor?" asked Ron.
Suzanne gave Ron an angry look and he replied, "Hey, I'm kidding, I'm kidding! Look, you gotta get me out of here!"
"Is that throne uncomfortable? Maybe you could make it law that all thrones will have an ample supply of pillows," countered Suzanne.
"Come on, Susie! It sucks being emperor! They won't let me out of the sight of the guards, and they won't let me practice fighting or go to the bar or anything!" Ron complained. "But I can't just step down or this place won't have a ruler. I have to name a successor."
"Fine, I'll find the old emperor and get him to take the throne back. Since this is really formal business, it'll probably help if I had a message from the emperor to prove I'm not trying to stage a coup or anything," said Suzanne.
"Thanks Susie, you're the best," thanked Ron.
Ron wrote an official message stating his wishes to give the throne back to Vilisik and Suzanne went off to find the man. She also got Thomas and Alice in on the search. Unfortunately, their search did not go well. They checked libraries, inns, shops, and just about every other public building they could think of, but there was no sign of the former emperor.
"Did you try the fight ring?" asked Ron, the next day when the rest of group told him of their lack of success.
"Why would he be at the fight ring?" asked Suzanne.
Ron shrugged, "Watching vicious monster fights and gambling. It's the first place I'd go after so many years of having to sit here all day."
"That's nice Ron but this man is an emperor," said Alice impatiently.
"Correction: used to be emperor," Thomas said.
"Whatever!" Alice yelled. "Point is, this guy has a bit more class than you do Ron."
"Then again, he certainly hasn't behaved like typical royalty so far," observed Suzanne.
Thomas nodded, "And Ron does make an interesting point. The man has led a very formal life for as long as he's been on the throne. I think anybody would be itching for some action when they got the chance."
The group adjourned from their audience with Emperor Ron and waited until nightfall, when the fight ring was at its busiest. The place was packed to see a big fight that was scheduled for the night. The three split up and searched for Vilisik. It was Alice who managed to find the man.
When Alice walked over to talk to the former emperor, he spoke to her first, "The common people have it good indeed! I never knew gambling was so much fun!"
"Your Majesty, I – " Alice began.
"You forget, I am no longer the emperor. You can call me Vilisik now," the former emperor replied.
"Vilisik," Alice began again, "You have to take your throne back. Susie has a note from Ron – "
"Emperor Ron, you mean," cut in Vilisik.
"Okay, Susie has a note from Emperor Ron saying he'll give the throne back to you," Alice said, getting frustrated.
"Bah, that's not necessary. He'll make a fine emperor." Vilisik replied.
Alice was very frustrated now. "He doesn't know the first thing about being a ruler!" she yelled at Vilisik.
Vilisik laughed, "He has plenty of advisors and supporters. They'll show him how it's done."
"But shouldn't somebody more experienced have the job? The people don't want to have to break in a new emperor!" Alice protested.
"I'm sure he's doing a fine job," Vil
isik said. The ex-ruler began to walk away.
Alice grabbed Vilisik and spun him back around to face her. "But we can't have him on the throne! We need him to come with us and talk to all the people from all the other nations! We're a man down now without him!" Alice shouted at him.
"All it is with you is, 'But, but, but.' You can find another warrior to fill his spot. He'll be happy supporting you on the throne." Vilisik said, now getting frustrated himself.
"No he won't! He doesn't want to be emperor!" Alice said.
"Of course he does, why would he have accepted the position if he didn't want to be emperor?" Vilisik asked.
"He didn't know what it'd be like. And he thought it would really help us out. Truth is, he hates it there and we need him with us!" Alice explained.
Vilisik thought for a moment and then sighed. "Well I won't have him keep doing something he dislikes. I'll take the crown from him in the morning. Just let me see this fight tonight. A four-way battle: a poison toad, a giant caterpillar, a spiked hare, as we call them here, and a demon anteater! Everyone's betting on the caterpillar but I'm putting my money on the poison toad for the major upset!"
The three went to the inn for the night, satisfied that they would have Ron back soon. They were given a sudden wake up call in the morning.
"Thank you guys!" Ron shouted at the top of his lungs. Alice woke up so violently that she fell off the bed she was on and Suzanne bolted upright in her bed. Oddly enough, Thomas was unfazed by the noise, still sleeping soundly in his bed.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Ron exclaimed as he lifted Alice up and gave her a hug. Alice angrily shoved him back but Ron, unfazed, went on to hug Suzanne.
"If I had to sign one more paper or look over one more hare-brained law, I was going to go crazy!" Ron continued, now shaking Thomas awake and hugging him, only to be pushed away by him as well.
"Couldn't you have waited until we woke up?" Alice muttered grumpily.
"I've got too much energy pent up to allow that!" Ron replied.
Suzanne smiled at his energy. "It's good to have you back, Ron."
"A shame though. I think he was more useful on the throne," Thomas mumbled. Suzanne and Alice laughed.
"Hey! I'll have you know I've got some important information!" Ron said indignantly. "We may soon have another nation supporting our cause. The desert kingdom of Isis to south is an ally of the Romalian Empire. Emperor Vilisik gave me a message for the queen and said we should pay her a visit."
"Wait, for the queen?" asked Suzanne.
"Yeah, apparently Isis is ruled by a queen," explained Ron.
Suzanne could not help but smile. "A human nation ruled by a queen. It'll be nice to be in a nation without sexism that isn't angry at us for no reason."
Alice laughed, "You must have been pissed when the emperor told you that you couldn't rule because you're female! You probably wanted the job!"
"No, it wasn't like that. Though, I was a bit surprised he said that to me at all. Ron is the leader of the group after all," Suzanne said.
The rest of the group gave her funny looks. "Um, you do realize that's not true, right?" said Ron. "You've been running this group since before we got to the empire."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be so pushy," apologized Suzanne.
The rest of the group shook their heads. "No, no, no, you deserve to be leader Susie!" Ron said. "You definitely know more about battle tactics than I do. Remember our fight against Kandar? We probably would have lost without you directing us!"
"Yeah, and you're a lot better at talking with important people than we are," said Alice. "Plus, this guy here only leads us into ambushes!"
"That happened one time! Susie has led us into ambushes too!" Ron protested.
"Yeah but those were because of cleverness on our opponents' parts. You were just being dumb!" Alice shot back.
As the two began to bicker, Suzanne turned to Thomas, "You don't mind me being leader, do you?"
"Not at all. You're definitely the best for the job," Thomas said. "Though you need some work on keeping the group from infighting, by the looks of it."
Suzanne and Thomas both laughed as Alice started running after Ron trying to hit him. "I'm not a miracle worker," said Suzanne.
Chapter 8: Following in the Footsteps
"Do you guys realize how long we've been at this?" asked Alice.
"This is the third day, isn't it?" asked Suzanne. "It hasn't been that long of a trip."
"No, not this trip, I mean our whole journey, since we got permission from the king to break the seal on Aliahan," said Alice.
"We've been in the empire for about a month and a half," replied Ron. "And it took about two weeks for us to break the seal and get here. So I guess it's been two months already."
"This is our 64th day, to be exact," corrected Alice.
After a brief pause to figure out the date, Suzanne came to a realization, "Tom, isn't your birthday in two days?"
Thomas grumbled something unintelligible at the mention of the day.
Alice shook her head at Thomas' reaction, "Tom, you are too young to be dreading your birthday already."
"Just another year closer to death," Thomas grumbled.
Ron laughed gave Thomas a nice pat on the shoulder, "What is it, your 18th? I think you've still got some years left in you. Hey, here's an idea. Assaram is supposed to be a pretty happening place. Why don't we take a day off and celebrate? We'll arrive midday tomorrow, so we can get done what we need to and have the whole next day."
"Not to belittle Tom's birthday, but you know we're working against the clock right?" Suzanne asked.
"Come on, Susie! As our living calendar just told us, we've been hard at work for over two months! A single day isn't going to make much of a difference," Ron protested.
"I have to agree, I think we could use a day off," said Alice.
"Guys, we've got some large creatures ahead!" Thomas warned.
In the distance the group could see two large creatures making their way towards them. The creatures were covered in red-orange fur. They had arms and legs, but crawled around on their arms as much as they did on their legs.
"Those things are huge!" exclaimed Ron.
"I've read about such creatures before," began Alice. "They're called apes. But I swear the books didn't say they'd be that big!"
"Well it's not like we haven't fought giant monster versions of animals before," said Suzanne.
Suddenly, Thomas tackled Suzanne to the ground just before a brown almost man-sized flying creature could hit her. As the creature swooped back around, the group could see that it was a large cat that had wings between its arms and legs.
"Ron, we're going to have to hold off the apes! Thomas and Alice, you keep the flyer off our backs!" ordered Suzanne.
Ron and Suzanne met the apes with their weapons. Both of them dealt solid slices to the creatures, but the apes had great endurance. Ron narrowly ducked under a swipe from his foe while Suzanne was sent flying after being caught by her opponent.
Thomas and Alice kept their attention on the flying cat. The cat stayed in the air out of Thomas' reach while it prepared a spell. Alice was also preparing a spell but unfortunately, the cat finished its spell first. The group was once again engulfed in the strange energy waves of a spell-stopping spell.
"Damn it!" Alice yelled, after finishing her spell only to have it contained by the cat's spell.
The cat swooped down and charged at Alice. She threw herself to the ground but still took a bite to the shoulder. However, the cat made itself vulnerable in going to the ground. Thomas gave the creature a slice to its own shoulder before it could retreat back to the air. It almost fell to the ground but managed to regain its altitude.
After taking a blow to the leg from the ape he was fighting, Ron stabbed the creature square in the chest. He quickly got out of the way as the large being fell to the ground dead. Suzanne managed to roll under her opponent and crawl on its back. Before the creatu
re could throw Suzanne off, she stabbed her foe in the head. She quickly jumped off as the creature fell and made sure it was dead before moving on.
Thomas watched the flying cat carefully as it circled above. Suddenly, the creature came down hard on Thomas. Thomas jumped to meet the cat and caught its claws to his midsection. However, he was rewarded when he stuck his sickle through its back and out its front. Both combatants fell to the ground. Alice quickly ran over and finished the creature with her knife.
After the fight, Thomas quickly made his rounds healing the group of their wounds. Everyone had taken a good hit in the melee.
"Damn those things can hit hard," complained Ron.
"I hate when monsters seal spells!" Alice chipped in.
"They made a good team," observed Suzanne. "The apes for the main combat force and the flying cat for support."
"If monsters keep working together like that, our journey is going to get a lot tougher," said Thomas.
"Could this be the power of the Archfiend?" asked Ron.
"We're still a good distance away from southern Tarasia, where Emperor Vilisik said it's set up shop," explained Alice. "Though I suppose it's possible its influence extends a good distance from there."
The group made it to the trading town of Assaram midway through the next day. Assaram was a prosperous town on the border of the Romalian Empire and the Kingdom of Isis. Since the two nations enjoyed a friendly alliance, Assaram had grown on the business the two had with each other. Although technically within the empire, Assaram featured citizens from both nations. Besides that, Isis even had a hand in making laws and policies in Assaram.
The main reason the group had planned on stopping in Assaram was to buy new equipment. In their recent adventures within the empire, the group had accumulated a good sum of money. Assaram offered top-notch goods from both nations, though at a high price. Besides that, Suzanne was curious about what she heard in Noaniels about her father. She wanted to investigate what he had done in Assaram.
The group decided to split up for the rest of the day. Ron and Alice went through the equipment shops looking for good deals.
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