"I'm sure his and her majesty have already explained everything to you," walking with a tall stride, a demi-human with inward curling goat horns, led Raven and the others through the colossal halls. Proud as her master's servant, she only ever glanced sideways at the party as, still judging them from first impression. "The demon general has plagued our city with a parasitic blindness. His seat lies beyond a bramble of withering forests, but to get there, we have no arms."
Looking right at Raven for once, she added with a snarky touch.
"And by arms I an an army–in case you were confusing it with the literal sense of the word."
"By the way you talk, it would seem like you people are infested with a brain-eating parasite instead of sothing that affects your eyes."
"What?!" Although she was baffled by Raven's response, clenching a fist onto her long white sleeves, the demi-human advisor kept her anger to herself. Turning her head forward, she no longer felt like showing her face to these outsiders and instead had them follow the rhythm of her long white hair dancing right in front of them. "I heard you destroyed one of our cities, off the southwest. What kind of magic did your mages use to sink an entire city into the hells?"
As prideful as she was, the advisor couldn't help her curiosity. Passing by the marble pillars, her eyes lingered on the party's reflection on their smooth surfaces. But to her question, they gave a peculiar answer–one she could only suspect to be mockery.
"No army, no mages, it was Erika–I didn't bring her with because I wanted her to look after our ho while we were gone."
'A single woman?' Gritting her teeth so more, the advisor scoffed, her humanoid expression contorting to what she assud to be a deceptive tactic by Raven.
"Trying to intimidate , are you? As if a single person can do sothing like that!" Retorting with a firm bravado, she stared at the reflection and t Raven's eyes. "Whatever, hide your secrets as much as you can; it doesn't matter as long as you do as my lords require of you."
"Are all won in the castle bitter cunts?" Aria shot at the demihuman goat.
"What did you say?!" Unable to contain herself, the advisor turned around with a red, raging face. Huffing and puffing, she took a step closer to the elf. Eying her up and down, she tried to contain her anger by returning aggression through her words. "A dark elf, so much for a chosen of a god. I knew Asmareth was horrible, but I guess Athenia likes to have literal rapists under her belt."
"Hey, that's enough!" Moving between the two, licia pushed the advisor away from Aria. Even so, glaring at each other, the elf and the demi-human were more than ready to slice each other's throats open given the slightest chance. But as a few seconds passed and the advisor's mind cald a little, she looked at the fair elf as her lips moved to talk again. "I was under the impression that you would be soone agreeable from the way the monarchs described you before you arrived. So why don't you act agreeable instead of pushing buttons?"
Honing in on l's words, lenai, the advisor, glanced around at everyone's faces. Raven, Regalia, Adith, Lily, as well as the elves, this wasn't the first ti that she'd been around heroes or people of other races, and yet sothing deep within her made her feel repulsed by them.
"Asmareth's influence, it's making irritable…" Finally figuring out the cause of her conflict with another god's chosen, lenai shook her head and wore a neutral expression. Lifting her head, she looked at Aria and whispered in a sowhat apologetic tone. "I'm sorry, that was no way for a diplomat to talk. Our lord isn't quite known for acceptance, and I'm sure that's the cause of everyone's hostility towards your group in this city."
Bowing her head lightly while taking deep breaths to keep herself calm, the advisor turned around again and began leading the party to her other associates.
"But enough chatter, I should introduce you to your new allies for this specific mission." Turning around to the left side of the passage thrice and then leading the group down a flight of stairs, lenai led them to a wooden door held up within coarse, rocky walls. Reaching for the door, she quickly opened it and gestured for the others to follow her inside. "We have a paladin here, don't talk to her about your god, ever."
Nodding to the request, everyone followed her in. Surprisingly, what felt like it would be a dungeon turned out to be a workshop. A workshop with stone walls, creaking wooden benches, a raging furnace and countless racks for standing spears, weapons, armor and the rest of the armants.
The ding of tal rang like clockwork. Following the sound, the party noticed a pair of highly decorative bronze gauntlets striking hot tal on an anvil. Juggling the hamr and fluttering in the air like a trained pigeon with its tricks, the gauntlet kept on hamring in a rhythmic fashion that, although loud, yet sohow soothing.
"Aaahaaa~ Ooooo~ Humhmmm~ Hehooohaahaa~" Drawn by the sudden lody mixed with the instruntal, the party finally noticed a long, white-haired girl standing on a bench right next to the furnace. Half the size of a dwarf, she was tiny as a young goblin, but her snow white skin and hair had a bloom like no other, and the sa went for her clothes and everything that she was wearing.
'Her limbs…' Honing in on the girl, Raven noticed that her limbs were all gone. She'd instead replaced them with magic, the sa way he and the others conjured arms of different elents to do small tasks.
"Follow , I'll introduce you folks to the two." While his empathy still lingered, lenai urged the group forward, and that's when the half-dragon paladin arrived from a corner.
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