We stayed at the crown prince's residence for another 15 minutes. During that time, we learned that the Princess was threatening Vozzuik with Princess Danika's life. The prince would tend to dote on the younger princess and treated her as his favorite. That was why Votelyn was trying to kidnap her and hold her hostage for the throne. That didn't work out since the princess escaped in our battle. For that reason, Princess Votelyn threatened the lives in the city as well as us adventurers she was holding captive. Apparently, she has positioned her soldiers to attack different major buildings in the city if she gives the signal. We could guess a few of the structures but it was impossible to know all the places she had prepared to strike. Generally, Votelyn was willing to destroy everything if she could not get what she wanted. I considered our options. We could not be everywhere at the same time. Also, I needed my team to stay together if we were to face off against Monte again. What if…
I explained my plan to the others, and they agreed with the tactic. We headed to the princess' residence. It was surrounded by active guards. They looked quite tough but had the looks of bandits. I realized that they probably were bandits hired by the princess, just like Monte. With good coordination, we had Bliss pull the guards away one by one with her vines. At the same time, Rhea was suppressing sound using her wind element. Even though the guard was shouting for assistance, they were only hearing a heavy wind. Since the city was on the side of a mountain, the wind picking up was quite a normal event. We collected the soldiers and knocked them out one at a time. I had plenty of rope in my Storage Vision, so we tied them up and hid them in a nearby storage shed. After we had stored 7 guards, we found direct access into Princess Votelyn's building.
"Alright everyone. It's time to kidnap the kidnappers!"
Using Presence Detection, Mana Sense, and my other superb senses, I knew exactly where all the people were in the building. We avoided needless battles and beelined for the Princess. She was in her bedroom rather than any meeting room. That was a surprising place to find her in the mid-afternoon. We wanted to tread very carefully. I slowly opened the door to the room. The princess was inside, alone, writing a letter to someone.
"Aranair, darling, are you back already? I told you we needed to get something done. I will finish this letter of demand and then you can grovel on your hands and knees for the rest of the day."
Princess Votelyn did not even turn around. She sat at a small desk, signing the bottom of the document. She was so focused that she failed to notice the blade that was soon placed against her throat.
"That will be enough, evil princess. Your subjects have been toyed with long enough."
The princess turned white as she realized her error.
"The adventurers. How could you possibly be here? You should never have been able to escape that dungeon prison! Why are you interfering!"
Her body was shaking in rage as she shouted at us. It was obvious to me that she was just trying to make a fuss so her guards would hear her. There was one that came running, but Midnight had him knocked out before he made it even close to the bedroom. After she was tied up, I removed any special rings and artifacts that she might have had on her person. There was apparently a rare skill in the world for enchanting items with skills. For the princess, she likely had something that would help her escape. Our group backtracked to the same doors that we had entered. As we departed, we had to take out one more guard that had heard the commotion, but this was getting to be easy. Monte was not in the building so we had little doubt we could follow through with the task.
We carried the tied princess to the king's residence. When he saw us arrive, his eyes went wide. He ushered us in. We placed the princess down on one of the chairs in the meeting room.
"Hello Your Majesty. I believe this troublemaker has been using bandits to try to threaten your kingdom."
The king nodded. Queen Volobelle was soon ushered in to interrogate her daughter.
I wanted to leave this conversation to the royal family and thankfully they let our group leave the room. I fully expected there to be a great deal of accusations and chastisement with the return of crying and excuses. I was confident the king could handle the conversation. I told King Shatterfall that we would go find the remaining bandits and tie them up for him. He was incredibly grateful. We started by returning to the residence belonging to Princess Votelyn. We collected the remaining bandits that were patrolling her place and stored them in the storage shed like all the others. Then we went back to the Dungeon Prison and gathered the fake guards there as well. Calling upon a few of the remaining actual guards, we directed them to the storage shed where the bandits could be collected. Apparently, the majority of the king's real guard was slowly killed and replaced by Votelyn's bandits. One guard revealed that some of his colleagues had been removed from duty on false charges. Votelyn did everything she could to establish the dynamic of power at the royal palace. With that power, Votelyn had counted on being granted rule over the Dwarven Kingdom. I was quite disappointed in the lack of imagination. It seemed to me that the bandits would have turned on her once the job was done. They would have soon had a city without any rulers. A perfect place for bandits!
Having finished cleaning out the palace grounds, we knew that we had to cover the city of Malduhr. It was revealed that the princess had placed bandits at strategically placed spaces to cause the most havoc in the city. If they didn't hear from the princess within a certain time, it was likely that they would just start to attack. I looked towards my companions.
"Alright, I have a plan to save the city. Are you ready?"