Tim and I hung out in the garden for a little while longer before deciding to go look for the others. The palace was huge, though, and after an hour of searching, we'd gotten so turned around that we were completely lost. We made our way through corridor after corridor, but we couldn't knock on any of the rooms for fear that we would disturb someone important and damage the reputation we had already managed to build.
We were now headed down some stairs. There were shelves on either side of us just filled with books. I really wanted to stop and take a look at some of them, but unfortunately, time was not on our side, the ball would be starting soon, and we had to be back in time for that. We rounded a corner when suddenly we heard voices talking just above a whisper. We stopped just before we saw them though not wanting to disturb what could be a conversation between important figures.
"Is everything ready for tonight?" One of the voices said.
"Yes, everything is in place; the King and his family won't know what hit them. The country will be ours." My heart stopped in my chest, and I turned to look at Tim. He was already aware of what kind of predicament we were in and held his finger up to his mouth to tell me not to say a word just yet.
"The strike will happen just as the moon reaches the highest point then?" The first voice asked.
"Yes, and by morning, we will have the young princess in our grasp, and the rest of them will be dead. You don't have to worry about anything." The second voice responded. I leaned forward to hear a little bit better, resting my hand on one of the bookshelves, but I slipped a little, and it caused a small noise.
"What was that? Go check it out!" Tim and I took off in the opposite direction that we came from. We didn't stop running until we had made it to a group of people in a hallway. The two of us slowed down and tried our best to blend in with the group until we made it past them. Somehow Tim managed to trace our steps back to the garden. We were relieved to find that our entire group was waiting there for us.
"Where have ye been? The ball is about te start, and ye have te get ready as ye two have the first dance ye know that." My master was scolding us before we even got to them. We were out of breath, but I managed to catch my breath first.
"There's going to be an attack," I said, the entire group's faces got serious.
"What do you mean, Todd?" Jake asked me while pushing to the front of the group. We explained everything that we had just heard in the lower part of the palace, and by the time we were done, every single person that had been waiting for us understood the situation.
"We have to tell the king!" Jake said.
"We can't right now. They are all en route to the royal chamber behind the ballroom. No one aside from royalty has stepped foot in there since its creation." Sean responded. That's when I had my idea. I remembered that I had the queen's invitation to approach them tonight; it would be our only chance to warn the royal family before the attack would happen.
The group agreed that this would be the best course of action; luckily, I was pleased to find out that my party was not the only ones that incorporated weapons into their outfits. Every adventurer present had something to help defend themselves.
"So we will all look out for anything strange going on and stay prepared. Until then, we have to get you two to the staging area." Grace told us. We were quickly rushed to where we needed to be, and the stewards that were there placed us in the order that we were supposed to be in. I looked down the rows of people that would be leading the first dance. It looked like Tim and I were the odd ones out, but right now, that was not important. We had to stay focused on the task at hand.
Tim grabbed my wrist and suddenly yanked me to look at him; he started fixing my hair and straightening up my uniform. "What are you doing?" I asked.
"You're a mess, and we can't bring attention to ourselves if we want to stop this from happening." He kept using his fingers to straighten up my hair that had become disheveled while running. I decided I would do the same for him, and we started to get odd looks from the others. I stopped immediately understanding how it must look to the others standing around the area.
"We look ok now. Let's just get through this, ok?" Tim agreed, but he looked disappointed. "What's wrong?" I asked him quietly. The man just shrugged his shoulders.
"I was just looking forward to having a fun night with you; now we're stuck dealing with this... you know what." 'Conspiracy? Coup?' I didn't know exactly what was going on either, but I understood what he was saying.
"Hey, don't worry, we're going to hang out a bunch after all of this is settled, alright, bud?" He looked at me quietly for a second before huffing out a short breath.
"Alright. Bud." Was that sarcasm? I didn't have time to think about it as the line had already begun moving. There were only a few people in the line up before us, so we had to get our heads on straight fast.
"Are you ready?" I asked. Tim nodded at me and took my arm, leading me into the open doors that were to lead into the main ballroom. We followed the people in front of us, and each couple did the same until the center of the floor had been filled. I took a look around the room and saw each of our friends, they were all stationed at different areas of the room, trying to look light-hearted and carefree, but it was clear that they were all tense.
Who wouldn't be in a situation like this? Just earlier today, we were all excited about getting dressed up and going to an event like this. Now a few traveler nobodies were doing what they could to stop the assassination of the royal family. I was lost in thought whenever the music began. Luckily Tim covered for me and swept me into the correct position for the dance. I came back down to earth as we began moving.
I tried to remember every dance lesson that we had gotten, counting in my head while looking at my partner. 'Tim sure is handsome when he's dancing.' I thought but quickly dismissed the odd thought. I would have to revisit that another time. As we turned through the dance floor, I was able to start looking around at the other people. Slowly we were all being joined on the dance floor by court members and military staff.
The music was swelling into a crescendo, and all I could do was hang onto Tim as he leads me around the floor. The music finally stopped, and we were able to exit the dance floor, we were finally done with the responsibilities for the ball, but now we still had other stuff that we had to do. The royal family was sitting in thrones at the far side of the ballroom, and I thought that now would be as good a time as any to warn them about the attack.
I walked towards them but was stopped by the guards. I pulled out the invitation to show them, and they became a little more relaxed but still wouldn't let us through.
"I'm sorry the royal family doesn't start seeing people until later tonight. There will be an announcement." I thought about telling them that it was urgent about an attack on them, but Tim stopped me and told the guard that we understood.
"Why did you stop me?" I asked.
"Think about it, ok. We don't know who all is involved in this if we just go around telling people we could do more damage than good. We have to be smart." I wanted to argue with him, but something told me he was right. I would wait till I could talk to the royal family. We decided that we would stay close by, though so that we could be the first to speak with them.
Every now and then, one of our friends would swing by and let us know that they hadn't seen anything yet. I thanked them each time and made sure to keep my own eyes open. The night was just starting, and we already knew that the attack wasn't supposed to start for another couple of hours anyway. Until then, it was a waiting game.