The colour drained from Ayesha's face upon hearing something so morbid. She looked at Rhetta and Khio who were completely unfazed as if being fitted for a coffin were so natural. It was a natural thing after death, but not for the living who appeared so healthy.
'Is this normal? Is it because they're criminals and are preparing for the worst?' Ayesha questioned in her thoughts. She shook the thoughts from her mind and took the measurements without any further delay. The two former knights looked awfully eager for their coffins. Kramoris snickers softly in the background at how transparent Ayesha's thoughts are. She handed him the measurements and Kramoris concluded by writing two letters. "Would you mind delivering these?" He asked Ayesha. She took the letters from his hand and left the shop to Kramoris.
"With your merchant magic or whatever it is, how long will this take?" Khio abruptly questioned.
"Hm? A few days at least." Kramoris buzzed around the shop and set things up for opening.
"A few days? That's troubling..." Rhetta murmured.
"Well it is a few days of waiting here or a few days of travelling there. Is it not all the same in the end?"
Florian stood off to the side, pensive in her actions. Rhetta could not help but notice it, up until now with everything that happened on their journey it had been dangerous. Florian's nonchalant attitude anchored them in a more light hearted attitude rather than sinking into the depths of despairing thoughts. The look of concern was an unusual expression on her face. "Florian, is there anything bothering you?" Rhetta calmly asked.
"The disease the knight spoke of regarding the animals, it's bothering me."
"We have nothing but time to organize our thoughts right now." Rhetta reassured, not knowing if what she said would provide any comfort but she wanted to try.
Belladonna's Estate, Capital City Luz Das Esterlas. Evening.
Laila sat in her armchair, poised and graceful even when taking a sip from her cup of tea. Laila, in every right presented as a very noble woman with such precise and practised etiquette. Amidst the rumours that circulated of a deadly assassin by the same name, no one suspected her of actually being the same person. Most of the social circle surmised it was a cruel trick of the assassin to use a noble's name to disparage them. They never suspected her past, nor career and supported her whole heartedly.
A gentle tapping against the window alerts her of a presence. Her eyes turn towards it, a bird sits upon the windowsill and gently raps its beak against the glass again to catch her attention.
She lifts the window's latch and pushes the window open, the raven hops in and softly perches atop the table. By a standard of normality, the raven is unusually large and with a strange colouring of blues and purples that provided a colourful sheen to the dark feathers. The colouring bore a resemblance to a grackle.
Laila did not have a keen eye for identifying avians and assumed that the little fledging she saved from a fallen nest must have been a crow, with time she changed her initial suspicion to a grackle only to discover it was neither a crow nor a grackle. For lack of a better word, she had found a mutant raven.
The raven drops a small, folded note onto the table and nuzzles into Laila's hand.
"Thank you for the hard work my dear, it must have been a long trip Azrael."
Azrael responds with a soft coo and flies to her perch. Laila picks up a bell from the table and rings it, beckoning a maid to her room.
"Please prepare something to eat for Azrael, you know what she likes."
The maid nods and closes the door behind her. After living at the estate for years and hiring all of these people, many of whom had been present for a few years alongside Laila all held an inexplicable fear towards her. She hid what she did for a living, and gave no indication whatsoever however human instinct proved to be strong in times like this.
Laila shook her head in pity and picked up the folded note, her name was elegantly written on the front and beneath it the bold words 'confidential.' A bemused smirk formed on her lips. "How much more obvious do they want to make this letter? I wouldn't have sent Azrael to begin with if I wasn't concerned about someone looking."
She unfolds the letter, surprised by the sweet scent coming from the paper. Paired with a delicate calligraphy on the page, the letter had evidently been written by a distraught noblewoman. Laila noted the paper with stains of tears. The content read eloquently, painfully roundabout from the true point. It held a multitude of pleads, sob stories and reasons that could have been put into a single sentence summary.
"Poor thing, a sweet and devoted wife tired of her husband's wayward nature wants me to kill him and make it look like an accident."
The letter was filled with rage and sorrow, but the underlying factor remained that she wanted him dead. Laila stood from her armchair retrieving some necessary stationary. Azrael cocked her head to the side when Laila shuffled through her drawers to find her items. She smiles gently and strokes Azrael, heading back to the desk to write a letter to the Legacy guild to inform them of her arrival.
"I'm sorry you didn't have much of a rest, little one." She apologises to Azrael, opting to wait for her to eat first and have a short moment of reprieve.
Laila secures her letter in a violet envelope, a telling colour of the sender. She binds it with some string. The simple letter read: I'll be arriving soon for information. - L.B
Azrael flies without any delay and Laila prepares for her journey to meet at the Legacy guild.
Merchants Road, Cagrown City Entrance. Morning.
"Are you sure this is going to work?" Florian stammered, questioning the plan that they were about to execute.
Kramoris in contrast looked relaxed and sat comfortably in the carriage. His carefree attitude provided some comfort of confidence to Florian. The idea was a funeral procession. Nobles got precedence in most things, including the use of the merchant roads which as the name suggests; should have been for the exclusive use of the merchants.
Nobles valued their comfort and convenience above all else. As such, it was not an uncommon sight to see them using the road as their own for whatever purpose they had. In this particular case it would be a funeral procession.
The first carriage held the coachman, Florian and Kramoris. The second carriage concealed Rhetta, Khio and Hammy. At first glance it did not look like a funeral procession, until one noticed the second carriage was a hearse. The difference from the norm is they had drawn the curtains to hide what sat inside the hearse. For nobles this was unheard of as even in death they wanted to show who had the finest caskets and coffins.
Florian looked at her clothes, it felt more accurate to call it a costume and she simply masqueraded. She donned a priest's attire, a higher rank than her reality as a disciple who sat on the lowest rung of the temple's ladder. Her name for this play would be sister Rian, alongside Kramoris who chose the name Marl. The names were simple to not arouse any suspicion, he would portray the poor heart broken relative of the deceased and sister Rian would be the kind priest who comforted him and performed the final goodbyes.
The hearse differed slightly from a conventional hearse, it held enough space to hold two coffins side by side and a little space to sit outside of that. Rhetta and Khio sit to one side, cramped into the space that they could rest. Hammy rested on top of Khio, he sat quietly and behaved. He lacked his usual energetic nature due to motion sickness and a feeling of confinement.
Thus far on their journey, they had come across a few checkpoints and most just allowed them on their way after seeing the hearse and hearing the basic explanation of the funeral proceedings for the day.
Merchants road. Late Afternoon.
"How much longer? I thought this was supposed to be faster." Florian whined, her voice battered down with exhaustion.
"It is faster. On the other roads it would have been twice the time! Plus-"
"It's already been five days!"
"It would have been ten days on the other road."
Florian sighed with the circling conversation, she never thought she would encounter someone who could rile her up the same way as Basil. Endlessly circling with a conversation that never seemed to reach the point, she slumped further into the seat. "I can't wait to sleep in a bed...Eat a hot meal from a bowl and finally have a bath!"
Her wishes and protests gave her a second burst of energy that made Kramoris cackle, finding her attitude to be rather childlike and animated.
Rhetta and Khio held the same sentiments when they heard Florian's shouting from the first carriage.
"At least you have leg room!" Khio barked back bitterly. Rhetta laughed knowing that Florian could not hear Khio's complaints but easily imagined her response. Five days of travel was considerably shorter than the time they would have travelled on normal roads. The risks ran high with this plan, but the outcome had proven rather favourable to them thus far.
The second last checkpoint came into view, only one more until they were close to Azmar village; the home of Legacy guild.
Unexpectedly all the checkpoints they passed had been relatively lax in checking items and passengers. Kramoris had presented his merchant's pass to a few, a platinum grade that only a handful of merchants possessed. He did woefully admit to the knights that he used his merchant's privilege to transport his poor relatives to rest in peace. As for the knights that did not buy his sob story, they did accept money to keep them complacent.
A silent concern did fall on the group, the subtle shifts in the checkpoints that neared the capital were on a different level. They showed and enforced much stricter security measures in comparison to the outlying checkpoints.
There had yet to be any issues whatsoever, this called for the collective thought as to why no one thought of this method earlier.
"Ah Kra- I mean Marl...I was planning on asking, why didn't you just use the scroll to take us directly to Legacy?" Florian questioned
"I'm glad you asked sister Rian! You see, each scroll is written with a specific place in mind, I don't go to Legacy so I've never needed a scroll to go anywhere near there. It just so happened at the time the scroll I did have on me was specifically for Cagrown." Kramoris explains.
"I see then-" Florian's question is cut off by the carriage coming to a halt.
A knight approaches the carriage, questioning the coachman who provided his papers and permits. The muffled conversation followed the general inquiry of who and what was being transported.
The coachman removed his hat and spoke respectfully, "The young master and priest are in the first carriage. The deceased are in the hearse behind us."
The burly knight looked surprised. "A funeral procession?"
"That is correct sir"
The knight eyed the coachman, turning his gaze to the hearse behind the first carriage. Without saying it directly, he felt something was odd about this funeral procession, he held a suspicion. It's rather unfortunate that previously, every one of his gut feelings had been correct. His intuition had always been spot on when detecting danger. If he found something suspicious, a fact confirming this would be discovered not too long after.