Word of the Third Prince being incarcerated in his chamber spread throughout the Iron Kingdom's Capital quickly and in the meantime, another more scandalous rumour accompanied the news. The Third Prince had been enthralled by a witch that had used some dark tricks to pull the Iron King's soul from the abyss!
While some of the population did not believe in the rumours but there were many others who did. Those jealous and enemies of the Third Prince quickly used this rumour to their advantage which was actually what Lord Sincia was planning for and the reputation of the Third Prince plummeted in the minds of the citizens.
-----
Blake sat in his chair and silently appraised the young elf standing before him who was clearly uncomfortable in his presence from the way the elf was trying not to fret. The feminine looking elf was the adjutant of the Third Prince and in the past few days, he had been constantly coming over bearing messages from the Third Prince.
"Young Master Aeguil..." Blake finally broke the silence as he gestured to the opened letter on the table. "Is Prince Herod not planning to uphold his side of the bargain?"
"Lord Captain," The adjutant quickly replied, glad that the stiffing silence was broken. "My Prince has instructed me to inform you that once he is freed, the materials and items you wanted will be delivered immediately to your ship."
"So he wants to blackmail me?" Blake's eyes grew cold. "I do not take kindly to such... ways..."
"Please, Lord Captain!" Aeguil who came from a noble family went down on one knee and bowed his head low. "Please help us save the Prince!"
Blake's anger dissipated as the young elf on his knee begged him to save his prince. He no longer felt any anger but only discomfort at the situation. "Alright! I will try to help him!"
"Thank you, Lord Captain! The heavens bless you!" The adjutant wiped away tears of joy from his face. "His Highness will be saved!"
"But!" Blake interrupted the elf's self celebration. "I will only do my best to help him and only if the materials I needed are delivered to me by tomorrow!"
"B-but but..." The adjutant stammered in surprise. "The deal wa-"
"Accept my terms," Blake cut in again. "Or you can get out of my ship... right now!"
"I- I..." Aeguil calculated in his mind the amount of time needed to return to the Capital, sneak a message to his Prince and wait for his reply and back to here. He shook his head as the time needed would be too much and there was always the chance of the messages getting intercepted by the Crown Prince and his faction. Such a message would spell doom for the Third Prince and everyone involved.
"It is a deal!" Aeguil sucked in a deep breath and made his decision. To him, his Prince was more important than the strange arcane materials that were mostly useless to anyone without a large supply of magic crystal. "But on one condition!"
"Oh?" Blake leaned back on his chair and gestured to the young elf who was trying to prove himself. "Go on. State your condition."
"I will deliver the goods... But I and some guards will be accompanying along!" Aeguil declared firmly.
"You don't trust me?" Blake shook his head.
"No! Until I see the Prince is well and freed!" Aeguil replied firmly. "This is a deal!"
"Alright, fine," Blake gave in. Securing the materials for the tracking spell was more important. If needed, his Marines were more then capable of defeating anyone brought along by the young master Aeguil. "Tomorrow by the time the sun is overhead, I expect to see my goods here."
Aeguil gave a stiff nod before he gave another bow and left the cabin. Blake sighed and shook his head at the back of the elf before he picked up the handset on his desk. "Comms, tell Lieutenant Commander Trism to find me in my office."
"Yes sir!" The operator over the line replied and not long later, there was a knock at the hatch and Trism entered. "You called, Sir?"
"Send word to the Vengeance," Blake said without looking up from his paperwork. "Order them to set sail for combat. I want them to take up position at the mouth of the Border Straits."
"Aye aye, Captain," Trism replied. The Border Straits was the massive dividing inland saltwater river that ran between the lands of the Protectorate and the Iron Kingdom. "Shall we order the Icarus and Daedalus to link up with the Vengeance?"
"No, leave those two airships where they are for now," Blake said before he pushed the letter from the Prince to Trism. "What do you think?"
"Prince Herod wants our help to rescue him?" Trism frowned. "And he is holding the stuff we want as hostage..."
"I changed the deal," Blake smiled. "Our items will arrive tomorrow with a small group of... overseers... while we think of a way to get the Prince out in one piece."
"Sir, I know the items are important for the spell," Trism's frown deepened. "But is it worth risking for the Prince?"
"The Protectorate will be invading soon and this... this could spark off a civil war with us right in the middle!" Trism warned. "We only have one ship and a crew of just two hundred..."
"I know," Blake replied. "That is why I changed the deal. If they do not follow through, then, I have no obligation to remain here. The items we lack for the spell... We can get them in other places... Like the Cartel."
"That would mean pushing back our schedule by weeks..." reminded Trism. "And we would need to make a big detour to avoid the attacking Protectorate fleets..."
"Yes," Blake nodded. "Still this spell will save us time and effort in finding her. If not, just blindly searching through the Protectorate lands would take up even more time and lesser chance. Anyway, I will decide after we see if we can have a feasible plan to get the Prince out or not."
-----
On the next day, a steam wagon escorted by a dozen mounted soldiers made its way noisily over to the side of the Old Ugly. Blake strolled down the cargo ramp and watched as several small chests were carried out and set aside with Magister Thorn excitedly checking their contents.
This time, feminine looking adjutant wore a half plate over his usual set of uniforms. Over a dozen similarly armed soldiers stood in a row behind him. A short sword rattled against his thigh as he came up to Blake and bowed. "Lord Captain, I have brought what you requested... Is this... enough?"
Blake turned to look at Magister Thorn and waited until his inspection was done. Magister Thorn flashed a thumbs up that he picked up from the goblins to Blake and he grabbed the chest containing the most exotic item and personally carried it up into the ship.
"Come, we shall speak of that matter inside," Blake said and he led the way inside. Once inside the cargo bay, Blake brought the whole lot to a small cleared area of the bay. Several foldable benches and tables had been set up in that small space and Blake gestured for everyone to be seated."Now we can speak."
"I have brought along some of Prince Herod's most loyal and strongest fighters," Aeguil said. "We enter the Palace and bring the Prince out but we need your help to get him out of the city!"
"Oh?" Mills standing quietly at the side suddenly stepped forward as he assessed the Iron Kingdom soldiers. "Not bad, not bad, all looking fit."
"This is Major Mills," Blake introduced the Marine. "He commands the... troops on board the ship."
"Let's hear you plan," Blake said as he sat down on one of the benches.
"It's a very simple plan," Aeguil took out a scroll that had a roughly drawn map of the Palace. "As I can enter freely into the royal wing. I will bring half of the soldiers here into the royal wing of the Palace. The other half lead by Sir Raylot here will clear the guards in the main wing of Palace and replace them with his own troops."
"While that is being done," Aeguil pointed to a spot on the map and said. "We will overwhelm the guards outside the Third Prince's chambers and quickly leave the Palace before any alarm is sounded."
"That is sure simple..." Mills shook his head as he commended on the side. "Hopefully it is as easy as it sounds..."
The soldiers brought by the adjutant gave Mills an unhappy glare but he just shrugged them away before he tapped the map. "There so many things that could go wrong here... And you even want to overpower the guards inside the Palace with just a few of you?"
"I have another fifty soldiers waiting!" A bald beefy elf with scars on his face stated. "They are all elites and veterans of many battles! Overpowering some ceremonial guards is easy!"
"But still, you plan to clear a path through the main palace and escape out from the main gates?" Mills shook his head. "I am pretty sure it would be anything but simple!"
"Then what do you suggest?" Aeguil's face turned red as he folded his arms unhappily. "We can't just escape from the sky!"
"Oh of course we can!" Mills gave Blake a wink, to which Blake let out a helpless sigh before he nodded approval.
"Here," Mills shoved the crudely drawn map to one side before he slapped a much larger and highly detailed printed map of the palace on the table. The details and quality of the map made the adjutant and his soldiers hissed in shock and wonder.
"How did you get this?" Aeguil's red face turned white with shock. He had used his own memory and years of familiarity in the Palace to draw out the map. But yet, these mercenaries had only come to the Palace a couple of times and yet they had somehow gotten their hands on a map that detailed the interior of the Iron Palace! "This is a capital offence for anyone not of the Iron King to have!"
"And yet, you have a map yourself too!" Mills grinned, totally unfazed by the hostile stares of the soldiers. "Anyway, we are not interested in invading your Palace, and don't worry, we won't spread this map out either."
"There must be a change in the deal!" Aeguil turned to Blake. "T- This map! It must be destroyed once we saved the Prince! And whoever that made this... You must hand over his identity!"
"Sure," Blake quickly agreed. The map of the Iron Palace was generated by echo mapping which was used in the dungeons and caves by the Marines and explorers. When they were in the Iron Palace, the simple echo mapping tool had been activated and it constantly pinged the surroundings as Blake and his team were led through the Palace. "The map will be destroyed and the person who made this will be handed over to you."
Mills raised an eyebrow at Blake's words and coughed to cover give his laughter. "Alright, this is my plan. It is much simpler than yours and the risks are lower. But still, there are risks!"
"See this," Mills pointed to a rectangular spot on the map that was next to the Third Prince's window. "This is an inner garden right?"
Aeguil frowned as he racked his mind before he nodded, "Yes, that should be the Emerald Garden..."
"How large is it?" Mills asked as he took out a marker and wrote on the map. "Is it as big as the cargo bay here?"
"Erm..." Aeguil closed his eyes as he tried to recall. "It should be slightly wider..."
"Great! Hehehe..." Mills snickered to himself as he made a few more markings on the map. "This will be simple as hell!"
"We will come from the skies and save your Prince! Simple as that!"