The Hundred Reigns

Chapter 80: The Elf Conspiracy (7)

Airships weren’t allowed too far into the Goetia Research Center’s airspace, so they landed nearby and then took a fortified train to their destination under military surveillance.

Patriate and Elaine were tense, as were Simon and Belzemine, albeit for wholly different reasons. The elf archmage continuously shifted in place with a torn look on her face. The situation weighed on her mind, and she lacked the training to hide her anguish. It was growing so noticeable that Simon eventually took her hand into his own to reassure her.

“You don’t need to worry, Lady Firewand,” Simon said warmly, his eyes meeting her own. “Everything will go as planned.”

“Yes, I… I know this, Your Highness,” Belzemine replied with uncertainty. His words had eased her mind and guilt a little, but probably not for the same reason the Malphas family expected.

The train eventually passed through the Goetia Research Facility’s defenses and checkpoints, which Patriate and Elaine closely observed through the windows, until they reached the front gates. Lauriane was waiting for them there alongside a squad of Knights dressed in military uniforms. Simon climbed down holding Elaine’s hand like the perfect picture of a loving couple.

“We meet again, Simon,” Lauriane greeted them. She saluted his retainers, squinted slightly upon seeing Patriate, and then respectfully nodded at Elaine. “I did not think this day would come so soon. My dear little brother, betrothed…”

“Does it surprise you, Your Highness?” Patriate replied with a pleasant smile. “You were the one who originally suggested this match to His Majesty, if I recall.”

“Yes, but I didn’t think he had listened, or that my brother would go along with it.”

“It was a good surprise,” Simon replied. “Elaine and I have gotten along very well. I wish you had introduced us earlier.”

“If it had only been up to me,” Lauriane lamented. “I feel you’re both being too hasty all the same. Is it really true that you plan to hold the wedding during the last week of Nivose?”

“The fault lies with me,” Patriate insisted. “I thought it prudent to push up the timetable and bind our families together, considering recent developments.”

Lauriane studied him for a moment. “Have you finally picked your side, Lord Malphas?”

“I have, but surely we can discuss the matter inside.” Patriate grimaced. “I have information we should not discuss out in the open.”

“I see…” Lauriane pondered his words and then nodded. “Very well. You and your daughter will be granted clearance inside, but everyone else will have to wait outside. Even Firewand.”

Simon squeezed Elaine’s hand and exchanged a glance with her. She nodded almost imperceptibly, and the two followed Lauriane and Patriate past the front gates. Guards checked them for any magical devices or weapons, then let them into crystal halls.

“Would it be possible to get a Vassal Crestone?” Simon inquired as Lauriane guided them through metal gateways and corridors inside the facility. His fiancée and her father carefully observed everything around them to commit the place’s layout to memory. “Since my barony is next to a monster-infested hellhole, I figured I should start investing in a combat Class.”

“Yes, you can have your pick,” Lauriane replied, a hand on her waist. “I have been preparing a custom one for you, but it’s not ready yet. Templar would be a good placeholder in the meantime.”

“A custom Class?” Elaine asked with sudden and genuine interest. “Could I have one too? I could never pick between Vassals of the Dancer or the Bard.”

“We could create one for you, if your father helps us secure the imperial treasury. Manaliths do not come cheap.” Lauriane guided them into an elevated observation room with a single window that oversaw a Crestone production line, with the metal door softly closing behind them. “As you can see, we produce them in immense quantities that no other force in the world can compete with.”

Sleep and Paralysis Ailments negated by Unyielding Essence.

Simon glanced at the Malphas’, who had either failed to receive the notification or chosen to ignore it. It didn’t take him long to notice the slowing of Lord Patriate’s eyelids or the way Elaine began to waver slightly.

“Now, what’s this information you had to share with me?” Lauriane inquired.

“I have heard that… Prince Thalas and…” His voice slowed down midsentence. “Lady Anna…”

Then he collapsed onto the floor like a rock.

Elaine’s hand slipped through Simon’s fingers as she joined her father in sudden slumber, so swiftly she didn’t even notice the moment she fell from the world of consciousness into the dreamlands. He caught her in midair before she hit the ground, her breath faint and slow. A true sleeping beauty.

“Goodnight, Elaine,” Simon said with neither joy nor contempt. “I hope you have better dreams than the reality you will wake up in.”

“Is she in on her father’s plot too?” Lauriane inquired.

“Yes,” Simon confirmed. “Frighteningly effective, that anesthesia gas. It took effect in less than a minute, and I couldn’t even smell it.”

“I’m surprised you could shrug it off without a mask or antidote,” Lauriane said, her eyes squinting with suspicion. “What passive Perk allowed you to do that?”

“A Dreadnought one,” Simon lied as he checked the Malphas’ bodies. Their pulses were slow but stable, and their fireball necklaces had yet to trigger. “I think we’re good for now. How long will the gas keep them unconscious?”

“At least two hours,” Lauriane replied upon pushing a hidden button. Air vents opened up and sucked away the invisible gas. “Was this entire charade truly necessary, Simon? We could have seized them the moment you all showed up at my doorstep.”

“Their necklaces can explode at will, and considering what they have to hide, I don’t think they’ll hesitate to activate them rather than being caught,” Simon replied. “We needed to incapacitate them in a way that would instantly knock them unconscious without arousing their suspicions. I knew they would have defenses against poison, so sleep and paralysis seemed a sure bet.”

Ensuring they lost consciousness immediately also had the benefit of letting Simon pretend he had been knocked out too, should he need to keep Elaine’s trust in the future… though he doubted he could keep that charade up for much longer.

It annoyed Simon a bit to move forward early rather than wait, but he would rather be safe than sorry. Patriate confirmed at the meeting that the Oracle had a way of sending messages to her followers, and the risk that she picked up on Simon’s immunity to her future divinations and warned her followers was too great. He had to ensure this progress wouldn’t end with half-answered questions.

“I can’t believe you fooled me. I knew something was up when Father kept denying you any opportunity for self-advancement, but this…” Lauriane crossed her arms. “Were you always working with Shabram on a sting operation from the beginning?”

“This plan was years in the making.” Simon hated lying to his sister, but he wasn’t ready to reveal the full truth yet. “Father suspected Illusea had infiltrated the High Council and Frightwall, and that they would eventually try to contact a Magnos they believed would support their cause. I was secretly trained and primed to become that person.”

“So all the times he blocked your advancement or kept you isolated… it was all for the purpose of luring the mole out?” Lauriane shook her head. “And here I thought Father hated you.”

Oh, he did. He made sure I could never join the one group I had the most affinity with. “I’m sorry, Lauriane. I wanted to tell you, but I wasn’t allowed to until Lady Shabram gave me the go-ahead.”

“I almost didn’t believe her when she messaged me and asked me to set up this trap.” Lauriane glared at the sleeping Patriate. “I always knew he was a snake, but the elves… why would he side with them? He had everything to lose and little to win.”

“I have my suspicions,” Simon said, “And we can confirm them shortly.”

The door slid open once the last of the gas had left the room, allowing soldiers to pour in and take Elaine off Simon’s hands. A certain creature waltzed and merrily hopped along in their wake, giggling to himself.

“Greetings, Lord Merchant!” Gourmand said as he leaped over Patriate’s body. “The good Gourmand is very happy to feast on your soul for free, especially when he would have paid a great deal for it!”

“Do not be hasty,” Simon said. “According to our information, Patriate’s Inventory will release all its accumulated items upon death. It wouldn’t surprise me if he left a bomb or a last unpleasant surprise in store for his killer.”

“We have secure vaults meant to imprison captive monsters below,” Lauriane reassured him. “We will execute Patriate there and harvest his soul in secure laboratory conditions.”

“In the meantime, here’s a list of all the people invited to my wedding.” Simon presented his sister with a piece of paper including multiple names. “They’re all involved with the White Unicorn and Malphas’ conspiracy, though some like Lady Eligos can be bribed to our side so long as we keep her niece alive as a hostage. I shared it with Shabram already, but you may want to look into it.”

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“So many traitors in our backyard… obtaining this information must have been exceedingly difficult.” Lauriane assessed her brother with fondness and respect. “When did you grow from a boy to a young man so quickly, Simon?”

“When you weren’t looking,” Simon quipped.

“I will forever beat myself up for missing it,” she said with a warm smile. “I am proud of you, Simon, and I’m sure our father would be too. You have done our family and empire a great service.”

She meant it as a genuine compliment, but it left Simon feeling hollow. He thought surrendering Patriate to imperial justice would grant him joy, but it failed to bring him much satisfaction. Betrayal and treachery had become a chore; and while it did give him some experience, it still wasn’t enough to grant him a level.

I’m truly sorry, Elaine, Simon thought. This had to be done. I still hope we can become true friends in another reign.

True to Simon’s suspicions, Patriate Malphas did have a live bomb within his Inventory, which popped out and detonated the moment Gourmand beheaded him with his scythe. Lauriane had coated his body in alchemical resin to shield it from any damage, removed his fireball necklace ahead of the ‘operation,’ and had Dreadnoughts in her employ take wounds on Gourmand’s behalf so he could feast on Patriate’s soul unharmed. The blast still blew the rest of Patriate’s Inventory to smithereens, including a set of manaliths.

The truth came out almost immediately.

Patriate’s corpse began to undergo a metamorphosis the moment his head was split from his body. His ears lengthened, his cheeks thinned, and his wrinkles smoothed over into pristine skin. The middle-aged Merchant had transformed into a fair and ageless elf version of himself.

“By the Light…” Lauriane muttered under her breath. “What is this witchery?”

“Let me introduce you to Lord Barthandelus,” Simon explained. All of his suspicions were finally confirmed. “Patriate’s real, elven self.”

“How droll, how canny!” Gourmand began to cackle uncontrollably, holding his sides so as not to roll on the ground in his laughter. “What a funny joke you’ve played on us all, Lord Barthandelus! An eighteen-year-long con for such a pitiful finale!”

Lauriane’s jaw clenched in pure frustration. “This is worse than anything I could have imagined.” She glared at Gourmand. “Did you learn how he achieved this?”

“With the most auspicious of disguises!” Gourmand replied. “A Vassal of the Beast, the Changeling!”

“I never heard of that Class,” Lauriane replied, a deepening scowl on her face.

“It is the stranger among us, the impostor, the uncanny thing that looks like us but does not, the trickster and the doppelganger!” Gourmand sang. “A Class that gives the inhuman a veneer of humanity!”

“His human appearance is a Class outfit,” Simon guessed. “That’s why his group uses fireball necklaces to incinerate themselves should they be caught. The corpse would lose its disguise once the soul departed and give the game away.”

“The elf ears could be easily hidden by the Merchant’s hat whenever Patriate had to act in an official capacity, if passive Perks don’t let him keep his human appearance when using another Class…” Lauriane examined the beheaded corpse. “But where is his Changeling Crestone? My guards only found the Merchant on Patriate.”

“Oh, he kept it close to his heart,” Gourmand replied with a disturbing laugh. “Lodged between the ribs!”

Lauriane stared at Patriate’s corpse, then immediately put on her Alchemist Class outfit. A cowled white mantle replaced her military uniform, with high leather boots, black gloves, and two bandoliers full of potions and other chemicals strapped to her chest. A golden crow-like mask with glass lenses her head, with a black hat materializing on top.

“I’ll autopsy him myself,” Lauriane decided. “You don’t have to watch, Simon.”

“I have to.” Simon would probably have left the room a few reigns back, but he had spent enough time hanging out with the likes of Duchar to grow desensitized to things like this. “There’s too much at stake.”

“You’ve grown brave.” She flashed out a scalpel. “Very well.”

Lauriane expertly extracted a surgically implanted Crestone hidden between the heart and the throat—the spot all but guaranteed to be destroyed should their fireball necklaces go off. It had gone inert due to an inbuilt safety feature, but Lauriane appeared confident she could reverse-engineer it.

Gourmand then provided them with Patriate’s entire life story.

“Once upon a time after the Doom, there was an elf boy called Barthandelus, born the elder of two sisters; crafty Sebile and kind Lutzelfrau, who lived carefree existences in their forest with their parents, pixies, and other leprechauns…” Gourmand cackled. “And then came Mardok, to eat their hopes, burn their fields, steal their houses, and force them to run, run away beyond the sea to the mermaid country.”

“Bujan?” Lauriane guessed.

“Indeed, my dear! There he found peace for a few precious centuries, then love with a human maiden most fair, upon whom he sired little Elaine. And they all lived so very happily among halfbreeds… but not ever after, for our beloved departed Majesty climbed the Crimson Throne atop Gargauth’s corpse and set his sight on further conquests. He came, he saw, and he pillaged with his merry men, who showed the halfbreeds some burning love at the end of a pitchfork.”

Simon knew that part of the story even before Gourmand gave all the lurid details, though it did confirm that Elaine was far older than she looked. Bigots and inquisitors murdered Barthandelus’ wife, which hardened his stance against the empire.

“His hatred caught the Oracle’s eye, who gave him and his sisters precious disguises worthy of their acting skills, with orders to slither like vipers into the enemy’s nest,” Gourmand said. “The long centuries had granted them wealth and friends across the sea, who could help these fae tricksters be reborn as men… but alas, their disguises had a flaw.”

Gourmand revealed that the Changeling Class allowed its user to shapeshift into a human and be treated as one by nearly all magical effects, but the disguise wasn’t entirely perfect. The elves were still elf enough to require regular infusions of manaliths so as to not sicken, which limited the scale of the infiltration plan; though Illusea’s archmages were apparently confident they could refine the Class to patch up that weakness.

This has to be the way Vouivre and Casval can pass for humans too, Simon thought. The Beast Noble Class was apparently somewhere in Telluria, so locals could have ended up independently creating the Changeling Vassal Class there. The transformation being imperfect would also explain why Casval still retained his draconic instincts even when transformed.

Patriate believed he and his sisters were the only elf infiltrators with that Class according to Gourmand, though the Oracle might have sent out other undercover agents without his knowledge.

“Though she didn’t trust poor Barthandelus with all of her secrets, she entrusted him with a final gift,” Gourmand said. “A crystal ball to contact her apprentices across the sea, so that he could receive her wisdom and guidance in trying times.”

Patriate apparently received magical messages from his superiors in Illusea thanks to a special crystal ball kept in his Inventory and destroyed by the blast, which comforted Simon in his choice to strike now. He might have been only one report away from discovery. This device could also potentially open up the possibility of establishing some form of contact with the Oracle in the future.

Gourmand otherwise proceeded to reveal to Lauriane all that Simon had already gathered beforehand, from the Goddess’ Judgment plan to destroy Frightwall, the successful plot to eliminate Balzam Magnos, and their attempts to kickstart a civil war to tear the empire apart. Lauriane remained eerily silent throughout it all, besides the occasional question.

It was a lot to process at once.

“And thus ends the Tragic Life of Barthandelus,” Gourmand concluded. “He died peacefully in his sleep at the ripe young age of three-hundred and eighty-eight!”

“This is beyond anything I could have expected…” Lauriane clenched her fist, her eyes now gleaming like stainless steel behind her mask. “I will bring these findings to Louis and Euphemia at once. We must disable that Goddess’ Judgment’s homing rune before it destroys Frightwall and reveals our weakness to the world.”

“You think we could prevent a civil war?” Simon inquired, his heart skipping a beat.

Lauriane nodded sharply. “None of us can tolerate the possibility of elven infiltrators slowly overtaking our institutions from within when guided by the Oracle’s foresight. The entire High Council’s members will put its rivalries aside, at least until the threat is dealt with. Even Euphemia will rally by our side.”

So he had finally found a way to keep the empire in one piece: spooking the establishment with the threat of being taken over by elven infiltrators and then turning their attention outward to overseas enemies. It wouldn’t be an ideal state, because a war with Illusea was the last thing they needed with the threat of the Zodiac Parade looming over their heads, but it might be a start…

“The question remains of what to do with the remaining elves,” Lauriane said with a rather dangerous tone. “You said Eligos will behave so long as we hold her niece?”

“Yes,” Simon said. Lady Justine—or rather Sebile—had hinted as much, and it would give him a convenient excuse to keep Elaine alive in custody. “Lady Flauros will be harder to cow, but she might surrender if we threaten her husband or stepson. I think those two have gone native, so to say.”

“And Firewand?” Lauriane pointed out. “If Gourmand is right, then her slave brands are gone. It might be wiser for us to incapacitate her while she does not suspect anything.”

“She’s still loyal to father’s final orders and will,” Simon argued immediately. “She helped me trap Malphas. I vouch for her.”

“Mmm…” Lauriane held his gaze and then nodded slightly. “Very well, I will trust your judgment on the matter.” She put her hand on her waist. “What are you and Shabram planning to do next?”

“I need to discuss that with her,” Simon admitted. He currently hesitated between having someone replace Elaine and organize the wedding anyway so they could catch all the conspirators in one place, or ‘break her out’ and then escape the continent with her in order to infiltrate the White Unicorn in Valne, if that was feasible. “That Changeling Class is a new discovery. It might change many things.”

“Yes, I agree.” Lauriane grabbed the inert Crestone and studied it. “Patriate fooled all magical detection attempts, and the Changeling Class must drain very little mana if he could keep it up for years. None of our current divination spells can detect it.”

“Do you think we could develop something that can?” Simon inquired.

“Maybe. We’ll need to study the Crestone further or obtain the Beast Class’ schematics.” Lauriane crossed her arms. “I’m more worried about this Mana Sword-wielding assassin. Either the elves managed to plant a hidden killer among our staff, or…”

She left the sentence hanging, unwilling to face the ugly truth they both knew.

Simon hated lying to his sister, but Patriate Malphas all but confirmed that Balzam Magnos’ assassin was someone living in Frightwall. Intel he had gathered across his reigns indicated the killer would have to be someone with a high level and perfect sword proficiency to slay their father in one blow.

That only left three credible candidates: Louis, Euphemia… and Lauriane herself.

Simon personally didn’t think Lauriane could have done the deed, considering how loyal she had been to their father and how she reacted when she briefly thought Simon had murdered him in early reigns, but Balzam Magnos did count her among his deaths. Even if she had nothing to do with it, Louis might have. Simon had no intention of provoking an unknown assassin equipped with a sword specifically designed to counter his Class for now.

Simon sensed Shabram trying to contact him, and opened his mind to her.

“Your Majesty?” she asked. “Did the operation go well?”

“Better than expected, and I will make a report soon.” She would have a field day dismantling the Malphas spy ring. “Did you check the list of conspirators I sent you?”

“Yes, and I wished to report on a troubling discovery.”

One more troubling than undetectable shapeshifting elf infiltrators? “About what?”

“A certain Lord Edric Albert. His name came up in a separate investigation on a shifter slave trafficking operation in Telluria.”

Simon’s blood turned to ice in his veins. “He’s a slave trafficker?”

“Yes. Lord Albert’s holdings are apparently used to ferry Tellurian slaves west to Valne and Muse with the help of the Bert Trading Company, a Lore-Musan conglomerate. Most importantly, the name ‘Vouivre’ has come up as one of their occasional suppliers.”

Bert. Ludwig Bert. The party in Whispermire.

The Cobweb.

“Simon?” Lauriane asked in concern. “Simon, why are you so pale all of a sudden?”

The Cobweb had infiltrated the White Unicorn in both Valne and Magvolia. They knew about Satine and her dealings with the Church Party in the previous reign, something that even Shabram couldn’t learn on her own. Lord Albert must have been their plant in this particular conspiracy.

And he had unknowingly delivered Eole to the enemy.