Gordan took a bit longer than he had intended to and when he finally came out of the bathroom he noticed that the soilder had fallen asleep. Gordan smiled and sat down in the chair, he knew that he had to go and have the audience with the king, but he decided to let the soilder sleep a bit before they jumped headlong into the fray again. As he sat there the thought about what he had seen when he had entered the soilders mind, from what he had learned the king and that person under the ant were the reason that his mind was twisted like that, which did not bode well for the upcoming meeting. Gordan hoped that things would go over smoothly but he knew that was not very likely to be the case.
Suddenly as he was thinking the presence appeared again, only this time it seemed to be more curious than angry. Gordan held out his hand and felt the presence settle into the palm of his hand slowly materializing into a small blue sphere. Gordan smiled and watched the small sphere turn back and forth getting used to its situation, when it had then seemed to relax in his hand completely. It just stayed still as though it was resting, Gordan stayed perfectly still for several minutes before he retracted his hand to draw the sphere closer. Upon close inspection the blue sphere had completely solidified and was like a jewel but much lighter than a jewel of that size would be. Carefully he transferred the sphere to his other hand and noticed that it was giving off a faint coldness. It was a core, and a very old one at that. Gordan was fascinated by the pattern that was ingraved into the center of the core, it was like a blue sky filled with snow. Gordan frowned as he noticed that the surface had small cracks forming in it. He could tell that the core was incredibly weakened which bothered him quite a bit, since he had a theory as to what the core belonged to, though he couldn't be sure since he had never been in contact with one before. What ever it turned out to be Gordan knew two things about it; first it was on the brink of death, and second, the owner of the core was quite desperate if it was sending its core in such a dangerous way to someone that they didn't even know. Both of these things bothered him greatly since it made little sense why such a being would be in a place like this in the first place. Suddenly he felt a small pain in the palm of his hand that had the core in it, he quickly changed the core to his other hand and looked down to see what had happened. Small letters were forming in black blood on his palm, he stood up and walked over to his bag and gently placed his hand on the inner lid, waiting for a minute and then pulled it back revealing the message.
-The Dungeon-
Gordan smiled and looked down at the core which was covered in blood.
"Well I guess that's one way to get a message to someone."
He took a rag and gently wiped the surface of the core clean, for a core to be able to do something so precise, the being that it belonged to had to be quite terrifying indeed. His smile widened and he gently placed the core into his bag next to the other core under the note, now that all of his business was finished he had to get to the next stage of his mission.
He gently woke up the soilder who was in a bit of a deep sleep.
"Hmm... I'm up, I'm up, let's get going."
Gordan had an even broader smile than usual which made the soilder a little wary.
"What happened while I was sleeping? You seem to be excited about somthing."
Gordan lost the smile, and suddenly looked quite serious.
"Well then I Guess I had better fix that, hadn't I?"
Gordan packed up the rest of his things and the soilder noticed that now both of his hands were bandaged.
=Sigh=
"How is it that you get so many random injuries?"
Gordan shrugged and put the bag over his shoulders. He held out the fir to the soilder and started walking toward the door.
The soilder grabbed the fir and put it over his shoulders, he had to admit the fir had prevented the guards from noticing him so he didn't mind wearing it.
The two of them exited the inn and after saying bye to the horse they made there way for the castle gates which were practically deserted. When they reached the gate and Gordan presented his papers which granted them surprisingly easy entry.
"Is the security always this lax around here, or does it have somthing to do with the arrival of that general person?"
The soilder looked a bit disturbed about that fact as well since he was quickly examining the many flaws in the castles defence at the moment. It was like an accident just waiting to happen, and while he had no real attachment to the kingdom it kind of disgusted him.
"I have no idea why the castle is in such a pitiful state."
The two of them were walking though the deserted courtyard when Gordan suddenly slowed down a bit. He could hear someone fallowing behind them a little way off, he turned his head around saw the person duck behind a pillar, from what he saw they were wearing rather high ranking clothes so he turned back around and kept walking. The last thing he wanted to do right now was to get involved in any more trouble than he was already in for with the core. The thing was, he had a strange feeling that the person that was fallowing them was fully able to see the soilder standing next to him, meaning that he was someone without magic affinity, which would make them meeting most inconvenient.
The soilder saw Gordans change in manor and supposed that he had noticed that somthing was wrong, so he decided to remain silent for the time being. Instead he focused on leading Gordan to the throne room.
When they reached the final set of doors they finally ran into the first people that they had seen since they entered the castle. Two guards stood on either side of the door. When they drew close the guards pulled up their spears in readiness.
"Whoa there, I'm here as a representative for a trade village."
Gordan quickly pulled out the paper and showed it to the guards who began reading the document and whispering to each other. After a bit one of the guards turned and disappeared though a small door for a couple of minutes. The other guard handed the paper back to Gordan and stood back into position.
Gordan let out a small sigh and looked around the almost empty hall which was a deep red color, which reminded Gordan of dried blood. Gordan walked over to one of the walls and looked at a single picture that was hanging on the wall. It was of a lady with pure white skin, golden hair and deep blue eyes.
"That's the kings mother, queen Florence, she was quite the mysterious person over all, never did like her all that much. So after seeing this picture what do you two think of her?"
Gordan turned around suddenly seeing that the person who had been fallowing them had finally decided to reveal himself. As soon he heard that voice it made him want to turn around with a punch, but he stopped himself from doing so and instead turned around calmly, as though he would in any other situation with a stranger. He just hopped that the person wouldn't be able to recognize him after so many years, the person in front of him had been a comander in the joint desert mission, but half way through, his company had broken off and turned on the main forse. It had taken a bit of doing but Gordan had been able to assist in driving back his force. Needless to say the two of them had parted on more than unfriendly terms, and now here he was all these years later, the world really was a small place.
Gordan looked at the man with total indifference, but the soilder seemed flustered to see him, and saluted emediatly. Gordans eyes narrowed as he pieced somthing together, it made sense that the person that the soilder had to report to happened to be someone that Gordan didn't have the best relationship with, since that just about summed up his luck in the past two weeks.
The General was slightly shorter than Gordan, so he had to look up when he was speaking to him. He didn't know why but he had the distinctive feeling that the two of them had met somewhere before.