"Liora!" Mark's voice called from behind the door, gently knocking on it, "Are you there?" Mark asked, Liora squinted her eyes as she felt the urgency in his tone.
"Yes, I'm awake." Liora replied before opening her closet again, "Give me a minute, I need to get dressed."
Liora then began to rummage through her closet, looking for the best outfit to wear. After a few minutes she got dressed In a neat dress and opened the door for Mark.
"There you are, I've been looking for you." Mark said in an irritated tone, his eyes narrowed and his expression showing annoyance. "We need to go to the guild, it's important."
"Important? What's so important?" Liora asked intrigued, raising a brow slightly.
Mark sighed, "First, get dressed in your adventurer uniform, then I'll tell you." Mark said, and Liora understood, closing her door and quickly getting dressed.
–----
Liora and Mark took a carriage that went towards the guild, after a few seconds of silence, Liora began to speak:
"Mark, what's so important that the guild had to summon us? Does it have to do with the quest?" Liora asked, and Mark nodded before responding.
"Yes, it's about the Goblin quest we took yesterday. I've reported everything to the guild master, and he wants to question you." Mark said.
'Oh, I get it. He probably wants to ask me about how I knew the intelligence the goblins held, and the fact that there were more than one hostage. I just hope this information doesn't send future trouble my way.' Liora thought.
After a few minutes they reached the guild and Liora and Mark got off the carriage, Mark handed a few bronze coins, and 1 Silver coin to the man that got them there and then walked toward the guild.
Liora followed suit and entered the guild alongside him, Mark then stopped and looked behind at Liora, "Come with me." Mark said as he then began to walk towards the guild master's office.
Liora walked closely behind him, until they reached a huge door, adorned with the massive symbol of the Bolorius guild. Mark gently knocked on the door, before announcing his presence:
"Guild master, it's me Mark, I've returned with the girl." Mark said.
–----
An old man sat behind his desk, he had long grey hair and a beard, though he was old, he wasn't weak, because his body was trimmed with tough muscles that were visible underneath his suit.
He was signing papers and checking the identity of adventurers, checking out reports of monsters and dungeon sightings, and sorting them out into quests. His concentration was momentarily broken by the voice of Mark, and he immediately got up from his chair.
The old man walked towards the door and opened it, there he found Mark, and the young girl he mentioned yesterday.
"Ah! Welcome, young mistress, Liora." The old man said with a kind smile, his voice deep and emitting a strong sense of masculinity.
"My name is Gabriel, and I would like to ask you a few questions. Please come this way and take a seat, I have something very important to talk to you about." Gabriel said as he stepped aside and made space for them to enter.
Liora looked at Mark, before returning her gaze to Gabriel. She nodded and proceeded to enter the room alongside Mark, Gabriel led them to a long sofa for them to sit on, and they did, while Gabriel sat across from them.
"I have summoned you here to verify whether the things Mark was saying were true."
Gabriel began as he brought his hands together, interlocked their fingers, before letting his joined hands rest in between his knees as he leaned forward, his expression turning to a serious one.
Liora's body tensed as she felt the atmosphere become thicker and much more colder, to the point where she felt like trembling, but kept herself in check to prevent doing so. Mark picked up on the vibrations around Liora's body, sensing the fear coming from her.
'Ah, she's feeling it. Fear. It makes sense, I felt it too the first time I had to meet this man. He's a really strong guy, way stronger than I am. Because this man is the leader of the strongest guild in the Royal Capital.'
Mark thought by laughing under his breath, holding a fist up to his mouth to block the sound, but Liora still heard him and looked at him.
'What's so funny?' Liora thought, a bit confused.
"Mark had told me about the goblins that possessed human-level intelligence, and could speak. Is that true?" Gabriel asked.
"Yes," Liora said with a nod.
Gabriel stroked his chin in contemplation, finding the response very intriguing
"Before you engaged into the fight, Mark told me that you mentioned the intelligence they had before even hearing them speak.
My question is Liora, how did you know? How did you come to find that the goblins had great intelligence before engaging with them in combat?" Gabriel asked her.
'Ahhh…crap. How do I answer this?' Liora thought as her heart began to beat faster, she started to contemplate with the best answer she could come up with. After a few seconds of thinking, she thought of something:
"I..didn't really know. It was more of a hunch, a gut feeling to be more precise. The way the goblins acted were different…usually goblins valued strength more than brains, and would recklessly kill.
This made me have the suspicion that these goblins were smart. Additionally, the information the adventurers we saved gave us, entailed that the goblins were going to kill the men, and use the woman for reproduction.
Which normal goblins wouldn't really consider, as a female goblin takes twice as long to give birth to one child. So the goblins must've known about how fast women give birth in order to abduct them."
Liora explained, silently hoping that this explanation would be enough to convince Gabriel.
The room fell into silence after that, the tension hanging hard on Liora's shoulders as time went by, each second feeling like as long as a year. After a few minutes, a chuckle left Gabriel's lips.
"You didn't tell me this girl was a genius Mark, her ability to analyze the situation is really good." Gabriel said.
'Huh….did it work?' Liora thought with a dazed expression, unsure of what to say,
Mark nodded with a smug smile, "She is the daughter of the Rohart family, and a very gifted Beast Tamer after all." Mark said.
Gabriel rose from his seat, and started to walk up to Liora "Alright, I believe you." Gabriel said, extending a hand for her to pick herself up.
Liora stared at his hand for a moment, before accepting it and helping herself up "Really?" Liora asked, just to confirm her suspicions.
"Yes, after all, Mark handed me this information, and Mark would never lie to me." Gabriel replied as he walked over to his desk, before sitting down on it.
"Mark further explained that one of the goblins had managed to resist his Blood Contract spell, which is a pretty hard feat to achieve for a monster. The goblin mentioned the words 'Not again' implying it had probably been Blood Contracted before."
Gabriel said, before continuing. "This is very important information, as it could mean that someone out there, most likely a Beast Tamer, Is Blood Contracting monsters and teaching them about human beings.
We aren't very sure why, but I want you to check it out." Gabriel said as he opened a drawer beneath his desk, and pulled out a document before handing it over to Liora.
Liora grabbed the document and opened it, there she found reports of adventurers, particularly women, going missing shortly after accepting a quest about Goblins.
"Over the past two weeks, female adventurers, young and old, have been going missing after accepting a quest regarding goblins.
We've sent multiple adventurers to go and find them, organized many search parties, but still came out with a negative result about the details of the women that went missing.
A few hours yesterday, at nightfall. An adventurer was riding towards a very close town not too far from here, while he was riding on his horse, he caught sight of multiple groups of goblins with carriages moving towards somewhere. Behind the carriages of the goblins, were many cages.
The adventurer didn't know what to do in this situation, and found the situation quite alarming. So, the adventurer made the logical decision to quickly ride back towards the Royal Capital and report to the guild.
We're very certain after hearing his report, that these had to be the goblins that were kidnapping women that came to kill them. The women are most likely kept inside those cages, and I don't even want to imagine what the goblins are going to do to them."
Gabriel's words reflected a deep sense of worry, "I want you to go and investigate this, and possibly find out where the goblins are keeping the women. You don't have to engage with them, just finding out their hideout is good enough."