"Why didn't you tell us about Mary's death, Sebastian?" Darthmund asked sternly, as blood dripped from his and Drackiella's nose. Half of the wine in their wine glasses was drunk, whereas Sebastian's wine glass was full; completely untouched.
Sebastian paused for a moment and walked back to the bench. He sat and looked at the sky. He saw an indiscernible but large winged figure in the distance and he stared at it for a moment. "Sebastian. You gonna answer my question?" Darthmund asked as he and Drackiella stepped into his line of sight with inquisitive looks on their faces.
"Oh yeah, sure," Sebastian said, but then pausing for a moment again. "...The Ilios family didn't want news of her death spread... Word getting around that there is someone out there that can kill a member of the Ilios family is sure to cause trouble in many ways. Especially if people begin to find out how she was murdered."
"How was she murdered?" Darthmund asked as he quickly wiped away the blood from his nose on a sleeve. Drackiella did the same. Sebastian saw this and was confused, but it was only a small amount of blood, so he ignored it.
"None of us have any idea. Do you? She wasn't poisoned, either, she was stabbed."
"If anyone were to do it...." Drackiella said, sitting down on the bench next to Sebastian. "It would be Fearter."
"You think it's Fearter?" Sebastian said as Darthmund nodded in agreement. "He's a pretty messed up guy but he doesn't seem brave enough to challenge an Ilios of all people."
"You say that because you've only seen him sober. You wouldn't believe how creepy he was yesterday. He met me in this garden and started talking and flirting with me - way too many compliments"
"Just because he's awkward doesn't mean he can kill an Ilios."
"Oh no, I didn't have a problem with the flirting. It wasn't like he was being that forward; just a weird number of compliments, i thought. It was what he followed that up with during the night that I have an issue with. Throughout the entire night, I heard someone humming some incomprehensible melody. It was more like one big grunt than a melody, but anyway that - again - wasn't a big deal.
"The big deal was that Fearter knocked on my door and started trying to chat me up and push himself into my room! He's a small wuss so I kicked him out, but then a few hours passed - an hour or two past midnight - and I wanted to go to the toilet. And guess who I see sitting on the window sill at the end of the hallway, holding an empty cup of ale, humming and supposedly staring out of the window?"
"Wow," Darthmund said, sitting down on the bench next to Drackiella. "Add on to that his debauched appetites and I have no idea why he's able to get away with this."
"He's not very intimidating, but he does have a large army and an even larger treasury," Sebastian said. He then thought to himself, "If Fearter was humming in that hallway throughout the night how could he have killed Mary?"
"Doesn't the Royal family have an even larger... everything?" Darthmund said. "What does this generation of the Ilios family lineage even do?"
"They tell me to go and kill dragons." Sebastian scoffed.
"Which is funny, because in the past you were doing crazier stuff than that without even being asked. Not just you, but all three of us were!"
"True, and I still would. We all would." Sebastian then noticed blood dripping out of Drackiella's nose. Her eyes kept closing for a few seconds and then opening again as if she was about to fall asleep. Her entire face was flushed. "Hey, Drackiella, you alright?"
"Oh, uh, of course. Is it the nosebleed? I've been having quite a few recently, because... the stress... ever since the incident with the star I've been getting nose bleeds. It's weird, isn't it?
"Right, but you also look really tired. Are you sure you're ok?"
"As I implied earlier I didn't sleep much last night. I wanted to keep vigilant just in case Fearter tried to somehow bypass the locks on my bedroomed door."
"Hmm... right. We really need to sort him out."
"But anyway, Sebastian, Drackiella." Darthmund interrupted. "We should do our own stuff for a while."
"What do you mean?"
"Screw the Kingdom. Hire a bunch of mercenaries, and set off on an expedition to the Mystique Continent."
"Why in the world would we do that?"
"How do you think Fearter's family got so wealthy? His grandfather and a bunch of other hardened warriors set sail to the Mystique continent, and his grandfather was the only one to come back alive with insane magical objects like Portal Gems and Troll Eggs. Now after they've learned to raise and train the rapidly reproducing trolls to work on their agriculture, fight in their wars, and then use portal gems to swiftly transport goods, the family is filthy rich!"
"Yeah, I know how lucrative the Mystique Continent can be. My father went there as well with a group of people. He somehow survived and gave me these powers."
"Exactly, so why wouldn't we go?" Drackiella began to look even more exhausted and started pulling on Darthmund's sleeve. Darthmund then subtly gestured towards her, pointing up one index finger. His face also began to flush and his eyes were forced open.
"It's dangerous. Didn't you tell me before about your father trying to go on an expedition with a crew of a thousand people that he spent decades earning the money to hire, to then return with one arm, empty-handed and a few other mentally scarred and physically ruined friends?" Darthmund's passion tempered as his glistening eyes looked away from Sebastian, his face full of sorrow. "I'm gonna be having a wife soon, I can't afford to be doing that."
"My father's expedition was complicated. Not to mention in our expedition, you could bring your wife with us. She could probably get to the top of Mount Silver by herself. Just like her ancestors did."
"That was a story from a hundred years ago. Ilios the first probably went with a large group of people. The stories about her only said she did it on her own because she was the only one that survived."
"Who cares!?" Darthmund's passion was reignited. "Haven't you heard of what's at the summit of mount silver? Silver water that if you drink, gives you the ability to make any wish you want come true!"
"Hold on, we don't know that's how it works. We know that Ilios the first cured a continent-wide plague, but despite what the stories say, I'm sure there are limits."
"Something that could cure a continent-wide plague is invaluable! Not to mention there's probably even more than that out there! The number of problems that you could fix in the world! All the evil people that could be wished away! All the people that sabotaged my father's expedition... Wouldn't you want that? I know how much you hate the Queen for killing Nihilvid's girlfriend, rightfully so as well."
"I don't hate the Queen for that. It was my fault." Sebastian raised his wine glass to his lips.
"Are you kidding me? All the bullshit that's happening in the Kingdom now is the Ilios family's fault! They have the power to change things, but they just sit back and watch. We're the ones risking our lives to fix things! We deserve to be provided with an army of soldiers by the Ilios family's own garrison. We should then be able to travel into the Mystique Continent with that army, take as much treasure as we want, and keep it for ourselves. We're heroes and what do they give us?"
Sebastian shook his head, disagreeing with what Darthmund said on the front layer of his mind. Yet, he still smiled and laughed, because he wanted to believe Darthmund deep down. "You're insane."
"You agree with me though don't you?" Darthmund said as Sebastian finally took a sip of his wine. As soon as he did so, Drackiella pulled on Darthmund's sleeve again. Darthmund then gestured a thumbs up to Drackiella. They both sighed in relief.
"I guess. It is weird that such powerful people wouldn't make the effort to explore what's in the continent, considering every trip that contains survivors wields invaluable rewards, except your father's of course." Drackiella then reached into Darthmund's pocket and pulled out a small vial. She drank a quarter of the clear liquid that was inside it and then passed it to Darthmund. "What's that you're drinking?" Sebastian said.
"Some kind of medicine - for the stress," Drackiella said. "But anyway, Sebastian, it's pretty obvious why the Ilios family won't go to the Mystique continent."
"Enlighten me." Sebastian then started gulping down the wine.
"They don't care about anything. They're already living perfect lives. They don't need or want anything else. The only reason why they would go to the Mystique continent would be to benefit the Kingdom."
"The only way of making anyone in that damn family care about someone other than themselves would be to put a knife to their throat," Darthmund said. Sebastian suddenly stopped drinking the wine and put the glass to his side, now a quarter full.
"I think the King and Queen are problematic, but I don't think there's anything wrong with Elizabeth."
"We've already spoken to her," Drackiella said. "Even after talking to her about all the ways this Kingdom and the continent as a whole could be benefited from the things people have known to find in the Mystique continent, she had no interest in going. She said it was too dangerous."
"She's not wrong."
"She's a member of the Ilios family!" Darthmund snapped. "Why would anyone in that family care about the danger? Don't you see? They're all selfish bastards!"
"Elizabeth is anything but selfish." Sebastian then began to become covered in a cold sweat. "What's going on?" he thought.
"I... I just can't fathom someone not understanding this. What did the Ilios family do to you, Sebastian? Where has your passion and decisiveness gone!?"
Sebastian's eyes began to feel sore and wet. His nose began to feel unusual, so he touched underneath his nose with the tip of his index finger and he felt something wet but also slightly viscous. He pulled his finger away from his nose and looked at it. He saw blood. He looked at his wine glass, a quarter full; he looked at Darthmund's face; seething with rage, but there was also a tinge of sadness that came from his watery eyes and subtle slant of his eyebrows.
"Drackiella..." Sebastian said, leaning in closer to her, darting daggers straight into her eyes, his face crumpling with anger. "What did your son find on that star?"
Drackiella got up from the bench and reached inside a large bag that was leaning onto the side of the bench. She pulled her hand out of the bag, holding an unusual dagger. It was black but slightly transparent, like glass. "My family and Darthmund found a type of metal that can be forged into armor and weaponry. We have no clue why, but the words that we forged from it can cut through the Ilios family's indestructible skin and poison their blood to prevent the flow of magical energy. It also works on other magical beasts, which is where we got the idea from."
"Mary wasn't a beast, how dare you kill her!"
"We know," Darthmund said, also getting up from the bench and standing next to Drackiella. "I didn't want to kill her. We wanted to capture her, but I made a mistake and she noticed me."
"That must have been a really big mistake for it to result in you stabbing an eight-year-old girl to dea-" Sebastian was interrupted by a violent cough. He roared and spluttered into his hand, and then saw blood in his palm. His vision became blurry and he began to feel exhausted. "Drackiella, give me the antidote," Sebastian said slowly standing up from the bench, glaring at Drackiella. Drackiella, however, kept staring back at him, unflinching and stern.
"Of course, no problem. We just need to know first that you won't try and protect Elizabeth if she resists capture. We plan to capture the Ilios family and force them to help us on an expedition to Mount Silver."
"Elizabeth isn't Mary. She isn't an eight-year-old girl. She and the rest of the kingdom will fight back and destroy you."
Drackiella then began to point behind herself and towards the sky. "You see that winged beast far off into the distance?" Sebastian focused his blurry vision into the direction Drackiella was pointing and saw the large winged figure he saw earlier, but it was closer now and his eyes widened in shock as he realized what it was. "Do you see what it is? It is quite far away and you are poisoned so you might not be able to tell from this distance, but that is a dragon. Darthmund's housecarls, my housecarls, my son and my siblings are flying on that dragon, wearing armor made from the metal we found on that star and wielding swords made from that metal."
Sebastian then suddenly unsheathed his sword and pointed it to Drackiella's neck. The tip of the sword slightly penetrated her skin, therefore causing a small amount of blood to drip down her neck. Drackiella and Darthmund were initially startled but they then relaxed when they saw Sebastian didn't go any further. "We're friends, Sebastian. Don't be like this." Darthmund said as he reached for the large bag next to the bench.
"Is that why you poisoned me and threatened my fiance?"
"It's for the greater good. You're the Hero of Fos, don't you want to be heroic? Or are you the villain Nihilvid says you are."
"You really want me to be heroic...? Fine!" Sebastian kicked Drackiella in the stomach and sent her flying towards the fountain at the center of the garden clearing, her back violently landing on a stone edge. She screamed in agony.
Sebastian swung his sword at Darthmund, but he dashed backward and dodged it, his large bag in hand. Darthmund pulled out a transparent dagger from his bag.
"You're making a mistake, Sebastian. This is not heroic. Heroes sacrifice their wants and petty emotions for the greater good of the kingdom. You're being selfish. "
Sebastian's legs began to falter and bend whilst his face was wrinkled with rage as his nose rained blood and his body rapidly oozed a freezing sweat. However, from his mouth came a whisper, "Kalosummonitores sta plasiain moumihi oi...." Darthmund and Drackiella appeared shocked in response.
"Damn it!" Darthmund shouted. "I didn't think he would be this resistant! Drackiella! Run! My soldiers will be here soon, I'll hold him off!" Darthmund ran in between Drackiella and Sebastian and reached inside his bag. Sebastian's eyes and the inside of his widening mouth began to glow a bright yellow, but then a blinding white as he continued to whisper, "...exousiaquod touautem oi anapnoispiritum..."
Drackiella jumped up to her feet and began running away whilst Darthmund pulled out a black and transparent shield from his large bag and held it in front of him just before Sebastian finally roared, "HAAAAGH!!!"