Dismayed by the words inside the letter Bjorn decided it was time to call it for the night. He made his way back to the palace and was let back in through the doors without obstruction. When he was walking through the halls of the palace it was dead like he had never seen before. Apparently there wasn’t much activity in the middle of the night.

  He was almost back to his room when he finally came across a servant. He had the servant take him to Duke Dornan. Surprisingly the lord was still awake when he got there. Bjorn gave the duke a quick rundown of his activities for the night. He handed over the letter and then called it a night after the Duke said he was going to give it to his spymaster to see if there was any hidden code in the words.

  The next morning Bjorn found a letter on the table next to his door.

  Bjorn,

  After reviewing the letter last night I have concluded that the letter was authentically just talking about going to see a new baby girl. I had one of my men look into it and have determined that the couple you saw last night are lord and lady Haven. Lady Haven has a younger sister who just gave birth and she seems to be doing well. The bartender was their cousin who was going to go visit in a few weeks. If you have any other leads don’t hesitate to bring it to our attention.

  Vilgaforts

  Well shit. He did all of that and probably killed two people for no reason. He could have sworn he had some sort of lead, especially with how they were acting suspicious. Oh well, there was nothing to be done about that, might as well keep trying.

  Over the next week nothing really of note happened. Bjorn spent most of his days exploring both the streets of Blackrock Bay and the undercity. There were a few interesting encounters but nothing that led to anything substantial. On more than one occasion people tried to mug him, understandably that didn’t go well. Bjorn was actually almost cordial with the muggers and no one ended up dead. There were plenty of the muggers who ended up with broken body parts though.

  Finally on the morning after his message from Vilgaforts he received another message this time from Dornan. It informed Bjorn that the court alchemist has returned from his mission. It stated that sometime in the late afternoon that if he would go to the alchemist's lab he should be able to find the man and he should do so.

  Over the week he had spent in Blackrock Bay and in the palace he had a decent grasp on the layout of the city and the palace. Therefore it was extremely easy to make his way to the alchemist lab on his own without the assistance of a servant. He had been there many times before over the last week.

  As he drew near the lab he could hear a voice speaking in an almost quiet but firm tone. It sounded somewhat familiar but for some reason he couldn’t quite place the voice. When he opened the door to the lab the voice came spilling out and a memory sparked, he knew that voice. With a smile he entered the room.

  The inside hadn’t changed overly much. The only real difference was the state that the lab was in. On his pervious visits the lab had by no means been dirty or unorganized, at least by Bjorn’s standards. His own lab had been a mess as he left herbs, components, and equipment scattered all over the benches, tables, and floor. There was still some of that but to a lesser degree in the palace’s alchemy lab.

  Now however it was actually spotless. All of the equipment had been stored, all herbs and alchemical components had been put away, and even some unfinished projects had been either tucked away or were now organized along the outer walls. The counters even looked to have been wiped down with some sort of cleaning solution.

  That isn’t what brought the smile to Bjorn’s face however, it was the man who was talking. There were 5 alchemists standing in a row standing at attention with their backs straight, looking like soldiers getting yelled at by their drill instructor. The drill instructor in this case was an older man of average height, his skin was the only major thing that stood out about him. It was covered with shimmering and shifting patterns of runic symbols.

  “-on guys. I leave for two weeks and you turn this place into a pig sty. You can’t do efficient alchemy in a dirty work space. You have to clean as you go. What would have happened if some of the residue of the pine oil mixed in with your snapdragon while brewing a simple stamina potion? You don’t know, do you? I’ll tell you. Instead of making a potion that restores stamina the pine oil would instead turn it into a stamina draining potion.”

  Skarit moved around to the other side of his alchemists and he caught sight of something in the corner of his eye. Glancing over he saw Bjorn standing there in the doorway. Recognition dawned on Skarit’s face momentarily and he held out a finger to Bjorn in the universal sign to wait.

  “It doesn’t take much of the pine oil to accomplish this task. I don’t know which one of you was using the pine oil next to the cauldron and to be perfectly fair I don’t care. All of you need to do better, based on the state the oil was in. It had been on the table for at least a few days. I know that it doesn’t seem that bad. But what happens if you mis produce the wrong potion? What if one of the guards who is in need of stamina gets one that drains what he has left in his body? He will probably die. But it’s worse than that, that reaction is hardly the worst outcome out of everything he has here. If two of the wrong ingredients get combined intentionally or unintentionally this whole lab could go up in flames and there is nothing we could do to stop it.”

  Skarit made it back around to the front of his students. And his face fell, in a moment he looked to have aged 10 years. He ran a hand through the hair on his head and took in a deep breath and sighed. “What I am getting at is all of you need to do better. I expect better, and if you can’t do better than I will have to replace you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” came a chorus of mumbles from all of the assembled alchemists.

  “Good. Now I want all of you to take the rest of the day off. I want you to think about everything I told you today, it may seem dramatic but I promise you that it is a matter of life and death, if not for you but for those who brew your potions. Now go on and get out of here.”

  There was another half hearted assents before they began shuffling out of the lab. Bjorn and Skarit watched them go. When the last alchemist left the room he closed the door behind himself. Skarit turned towards Bjorn and smiled. He got up from where he sat and walked over to Bjorn, arms spread wide.

  He wrapped Bjorn up in a hug. “It is good to see you again, friend. I wasn’t expecting to see you for quite some time, if ever again.”

  Bjorn gave the runic a hug back before pulling back and away. “Honestly, same. I see you haven’t changed much, but your station seems to have risen over the last few years. Going from helping run the alchemist guild to the personal alchemist for the Duke. That is quite impressive.”

  Skarit clapped Bjorn on the shoulder. “That it is. Apparently helping devise the poison that tipped the scales in our favor against the snatcher spiders was enough to impress him. Actually I heard that he intended to give you the position until you and your party left Blackrock Bay.”

  The smile on the runic’s face faded. “He informed me about the fate of your friends. I am truly sorry. Even though I didn’t know them anywhere as well as you I still mourn their fate. They were great people based on my limited interactions I had with them. I do know that you are a good man and wouldn’t keep terrible company, so they too must have been great people.”

  And just like that the brief break in the clouds that shrouded his life was gone. “Thank you for your condolences. They didn’t deserve their fate, least of all my wife.”

  “I was also informed on how the city was being turned over to try and find the culprits, are you sure that they came to this city?”

  Bjorn just nodded his head once. “I overheard them talking just outside where I got this.” Bjorn held up his hand. “They are without a doubt in this city, or at least they were here. I can’t say for certain that they are still here.”

  Skarit looked at Bjorn’s hand when he held it up. “Can I see that?” he asked as he walked around one of the tables.

  Bjorn nodded and brought his hand over and set it on the table in between the two of them.

  The runic grabbed Bjorn’s arm with surprising strength and began looking at the hand closely, slowly rotating Bjorn’s entire arm looking at the dark wood and the veins of color running through it. After his first once over on the arm he grabbed a magnifying glass and did another once over. Over the course of several minutes the two men didn’t say a word to each other. When he finished he grabbed a small metal spoon and tried to scratch the bark.

  Finally he sat back with a contemplative look on his face. “Tell me everything you know about the spriggan that is now your hand.”

  Bjorn complied.

  Afterwards the look on Skarit’s face deepened. “Hmmm.” was all he said. It was obvious that he was thinking over everything that Bjorn had just told him so he remained quiet. It was close to 15 minutes before the silence was broken.

  “I have never heard of these creatures, but I have a fear that it might be hard if not impossible to remove this creature from your body now that it is fused. So if we can’t remove it then we have to manage it. There are two directions we can try and take this. One is that we can try and kill it, the other is that we can try and slow down its take over of your body.”

  “Okay. What about the first option? If we kill it will I lose full control over the limb again, and I'll have a rotting corpse of a wood being attached to my body?”

  “Honestly? Probably. This route will pose certain challenges however. The first of which is that I am not certain that we can kill the spriggan without killing you as well. You told me that it uses your health regen to regrow itself. As it takes damage it drinks more from you to heal itself. I think as long as you have health regeneration then the spriggan will always return to life no matter what we do. We will have to do some research if that information is even written down somewhere or if we can find the answer.”

  “But not being able to kill the spriggan is only half of the problem. The other half is that most if not all herbicides that I know how to make are just as dangerous and deadly to people as they are to plants. We can’t just inject the herbicide into the spriggan as it will most likely end up in your bloodstream as well. So we might be trying to kill the spriggan and will end up killing you instead. So we will have to come up with some sort of herbicide that could kill it without killing you in the process.”

  “Not dying would be a huge bonus.” Bjorn said.

  “That it would. Which leads up to option two and that is handling the growth of the spriggan. If you want my opinion this is the better choice by far and the one that is more likely to actually work. I think it would be easier to come up with a herbicide that hinders the growth of the spriggan while not affecting you too badly. I am assuming you would like to retain the ability to do whatever it is you do daily.”

  “That is a safe assumption.” Bjorn said.

  “Which also leads to the next thing to consider is that even with the looming inevitable doom of the spriggan overtaking your body, it does provide you with some great benefits so far.”

  “What do you mean so far?”

  “There isn’t much known about spriggans as most of the spriggan race was wiped out years and years ago, right around the downfall of the grove elf empire. We don’t know much about it as it happened several thousand years ago, and a lot of texts from that time have been lost over the countless years. That is actually where oral history come into play. There are stories that parents tell their kids, these stories have been past on for countless generations. One of the stories told is about spriggans and how dangerous they are. It hints at the fact that spriggans gain more abilities as they grow more powerful.”

  The gears in Bjorn’s mind began to turn. “So that means that there is a chance that at higher levels the spriggan may gain new abilities, and if it gains new abilities then I too might gain those abilities."

  “That is correct. Keep in mind this is nothing more than speculation but I think there is a chance. As it levels up it could be able to provide you with more powers, gain access to spells, or just all around get stronger. It is already impressive however. For example.” Skarit picked up the tool and tried to dig it into the bark of the hand, it didn’t do much to the wood but small flecks did break off. It looked like he had to give the hand a lot of force to do anything. To showcase the difficulty Skarit placed the tool on the back of Bjorn’s left hand and pulled it across lightly. The tool dug into Bjorn’s skin and left a shallow cut in it’s wake.

  “Sorry. But you see what I mean. The spriggan gains natural armor each level. Currently it isn’t anything major to write home about, but given a few levels and your entire hand and maybe part of your forearm could gain the benefit of the natural armor. It could be the equivalent of having high steel armor on your body at all times. I don’t have to explain the benefits of that.”

  “So I think for the time being the best course of action is to find a way to hinder the growth of the spriggan so that it doesn’t overtake your whole body turning you into that creature. In the meantime your best bet would be to work hard to try and out level this creature, further increasing your chances of survival. Who knows maybe having a higher level will make it easier to remove the spriggan, it could also make you more likely to survive separation. I think that is a risk worth taking.”

  Bjorn sat there for a moment lost in his own thoughts, he hadn't realized that Skarit stopped speaking and was watching Bjorn expectantly waiting for an answer. During the silence Bjorn’s mind was a whirl of thought.

  On one hand everything that the runic had just suggested was all speculation. There is nothing that Bjorn knows about that is able to suggest that the spriggan will gain new abilities, it could just continue to grow without anything leading to his own personal growth. Or even a power that he could leverage assuming that it did gain powers. At the same time however, what if it could actually manifest new powers and that he could use those powers, it could help bridge the gap between himself and his enemies. Either way if the spriggan gained more power or not it was a risk, one he wasn't sure was worth taking.

  With that in mind Bjorn was at least partially confident that if they injected the hand with an herbicide he would probably survive. There was no concrete proof of that but Bjorn was assuming that Skarit was working under the assumption that he regained 1% health back per day not the 32% that he actually regenerated. But he didn't know that for sure. He had a feeling that the spriggan would take a certain percentage of his natural health regeneration regardless of how much he had. He was thinking that if the creature took more damage than his health regeneration could heal it would continue to sap what it could. But that too was speculation, it could be that the still fairly weak creature couldn't take all of his health regeneration and that is why it hasn’t taken more. Who is to say that if it grows stronger that it won't take more of his health regeneration and become impossible to kill it without killing Bjorn as well.

  After all of his deliberation he settled on an answer. Instead of being worried about what could happen in the future he knew one thing was for certain. If he had any hope whatsoever to kill Kairon he needed more power. Power that even if the spriggan didn’t gain new powers he would still gain just purely with the natural armor. In just a few levels it would have the same natural armor rating as high steel. Meaning he could easily use the arm just like a shield to catch swings and catch the attackers off guard. The risk was well worth the reward.

  “Let’s try and find a way to slow down the spriggan’s growth. I will need every advantage I can get and it without a doubt lends me power. Even if we find a solution I might not use it for a while as I want it to level up a few more times before I slow down its growth. It is just too useful as it currently is, let alone what would happen given some time.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Skarit just simply nodded his head as if that answer was what he expected. “Very good. Now its a matter of collecting a sample. I assume you have things to do and can’t fully help me with this project?” He phrased the last sentence as a statement at first and a question at the end.

  Bjorn shook his head. “I would love to but I need to find any information I can find on Meira’s killers. I don’t have the time to hunt for information while helping you brew. I am sorry my friend.”

  “That’s no big deal. I understand and there is no need to say sorry. There are some things in life that a man just has to do. I feel like finding his wife's killers would be at the top of that list. Now if you are okay with it I would like to collect a bigger sample to test whatever I concoct on.”

  “Of course how big of a sample do you want? I can cut off the whole hand if it would help you.”

  “No no, nothing that extreme. I only really would need a finger, maybe two. I suspect that won’t limit you too badly for the time being until they regrow.”

  “Yeah that should be simple enough.” Bjorn said and he withdrew the dagger from his belt that used to be Tayla’s. He then placed his hand on the table and using the dagger he cut off both the pinky and ring finger from his right hand. It took some effort but with the amount of force that Bjorn could produce they served without too much hassle.

  Bjorn ignored the dull pain in his right hand as he handed over the two pieces of wood. As if on queue the spriggan drained more of Bjorn’s health regeneration to start the regrowing process.

  “Thank you for this. I promise I will not rest until I come up with something to help your situation.”

  “I know you will.” Bjorn said as he turned to leave.

  “Oh Bjorn.” Skarit said as Bjorn neared the door. He stopped and turned back to the runic. “Do be careful out there. This is a safe city but there are still accidents all the time.”

  Bjorn gave a small half smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I will.” and with that he turned and left the building.

  __________________________________________________________________

  It had been a week since Bjorn and Adriana had been in the palace and Adriana was exhausted. She had spent that entire time working herself to the bone trying to learn how to fight. It wasn’t something she would learn how to do over night but even with Bjorn’s teachings she was still woefully underprepared to fight.

  This was something her teachers Chta, Ivan, and Owen had been trying to beat into her. She liked the first two very much, they were kind but firm and made sure that she knew both what they were having her do and why. Owen on the other hand was not like the other two. He was brash and rather crude. Even though Adriana was just barely 18 Owen was well into his 30’s. It had never happened while the other two were around but Owen had made some rather not to subtle hints as to what he thinks she should do with a sword.

  That wasn’t the only thing about the man that Adriana didn’t like. Oftentimes when she wasn’t training she was either eating or sleeping, and over those days she hadn’t seen much of Bjorn. She was also something of a pariah in the palace. She was commonly born so a lot of the guests in the palace viewed her as below them in station. At the same time she and Bjorn were obviously in the Duke’s favor so they were above the waiters and servants. So while Bjorn was able to interact with anyone because of his status as the savior of the city, Adriana had no one she could really socialize with.

  This led to her spending most of her free time while eating her meals with her instructors. While they ate together they mostly talked about combat and training. There was so much to learn about the topic and her instructors were well versed in the combat arts. However, occasionally almost once a day Owen had to make some sort of comment about Bjorn. The bastard made it abundantly clear that he thought that Bjorn’s status was inflated, and there was no way at all that he had played a pivotal role in the battle with the snatcher spiders. The fact that Owen hadn’t been there didn’t matter. He had been stationed at the palace, one of the skeleton crew left behind to protect the city. As he put it, there was no way a man as pathetic as Bjorn could have saved a man like Duke Dornan, let alone a fighter as good as Captain Gram.

  His comments were so grating for Adriana to hear that she actually tried to get a meeting with Duke Dornan on the 4th day to get him removed as her teacher. But to no one’s surprise she was unable to do so. Even though she was traveling with Bjorn she quickly learned that she doesn’t have any merit on her own and as such she isn’t afforded the same perks that Bjorn is. Even with the Duke saying that they could ask for his assistance it became apparent that he really meant that Bjorn could ask, as her request was rejected.

  On the morning of the 5th day she finally caught sight of Bjorn as he was coming back into the palace looking haggard. His clothes were disheveled and his boots covered in the tall tail signs of snow meaning he most likely just got back from his nightly activities whatever they were. She briefly thought about asking Bjorn to say something to the duke but she decided against it. He looked to be on his last leg of energy and needed rest. So instead she let him tamp past her.

  “Any luck?” Adriana asked.

  “No.” Bjorn said curtly before opening the door to his room and closing it behind him.

  His cold dismissal hurt her just a bit but he had a lot going on. She wished he would be open with her. She wished he would return to the kind man he had been just a few months before. It pained her greatly to see the pain and anger that was always boiling just under the surface, waiting to boil over.

  There wasn’t anything she could do for him currently so the best she could do was not be a burden on him during this time. She wanted to get revenge for Meira’s sake, but she was gone, there wasn’t much to do that could help with that. What she could do was help Bjorn. Both of them had been more of parents to her than her actual father was, or her mother.

  She had to bite down her own anger at the thought of how Aiden had acted when they left Leefside. She knew that Aiden hated Bjorn’s guts and he was certain that Meira was the one to blame for him losing the fight. She just didn’t know how badly that wound had festered otherwise she would have tried to warn him off. Not that the stubborn fool would have listened.

  She wondered briefly as she made her way to the training field on how her brother was doing. If they managed to save Aiden in time, even if they had she wouldn’t have cared. He was dead to her anyways. But she still couldn’t help but wonder about Caiden. He always dreamt of having adventures and fighting monsters but that was just a child's fantasy. He was as kind hearted and peaceful of a person she had ever known. Each time she thought about him she regretted leaving him behind briefly before she shook off the thought. They were both adults now and had to follow their own paths, and helping Bjorn was her path.

  When she made it to the training grounds Ivan and Owen were already there. With a sigh she pushed open the door stepping out into the cold winter morning air. Even with the cold it didn’t take long for her to be covered in a thin layer of sweat. She hated the cold.

  Even though she hated Owen and his desire to talk negatively about a great man she had to admit, out of all of her instructors he was the best. While the other two were all knowledgeable on both how to fight and how to teach fighting it was Owen’s teaching style that stuck the best with Adriana. He gave her no quarter and expected perfection out of her. So she just gritted her teeth and dealt with it the best she could.

  On an average day she first spent the first hour doing physical training whether that was lifting weights or running, or even just swinging a wooden sword at a wooden post. After that they broke down into one of three fighting styles. Those were hand to hand combat, archery, or fighting with a dagger. They spent two hours each on it, the first hour was spent on instruction as she worked her way through using the weapon, then the second hour was spent sparring with one of the instructors if it was hand to hand or daggers. If it was archery she spent the last hour working on her aim and firing as her teachers looked over her. She would then get a brief 15 minute break before entering another two hour block working on one of the weapons she hadn’t worked on previously. This pattern repeated again with the last style before lunch.

  Their lunch break was usually in one of the dining halls of the palace. Of which there were two, the main one for guests, balls, and galas, while the other one was used for servant, staff, and anyone else in the palace. Her lunch usually lasted 1 hour, during which time her muscles would cool down and soreness would set in. That was why normally half way through her meal one of her teachers would force her to stand up and stretch before she could resume her meal. Not that she needed to finish often, as her physical lifestyle left her starving all the time.

  Then after lunch she would have two more blocks to train, which also followed the same two hour formula. This time the two weapons she would train with were the sword and the spear. Before her training she was under the impression that it would have been better to train with just a single weapon as it would be her primary way of fighting and it would be better to know how to handle a single weapon perfectly than many competently. That was where her teachers taught her how wrong she was, many lectures were dedicated to that type.

  Due to the fact that Adriana and Bjorn were spending most of their time traveling in the wilderness and as just the two of them it was smarter for her to know how to use multiple weapons. Although her philosophy was correct in a dedicated party or even a small warband, when it was just the two of them it was actually more of a hindrance. It would be foolish for her to only know how to use the bow if a creature got in close to her she would be in trouble. A dedicated party would help alleviate that issue. Apparently it boiled down the the old adage making sense. “A jack of all trades master of none, but a master of none is better than a master of one.” or something like that.

  After she had been scolded for her understanding she finally accepted that they must know what they are talking about. Even if she disagreed it did make sense when they talked to her about it. However whenever she thought about it without instruction she disagreed with that sentiment. Either way she still dedicated her entire being into learning how to fight so she could be as much help to Bjorn as possible.

  The instruction would normally last longer according to Chta if not for the suns going down. Throughout the day and instruction the twin suns in the sky would oftentimes warm up the air, after they were gone the air would rapidly cool. The lack of light also led to them calling the day early.

  She had free range of her evenings. She spent most of her time either learning new skills that could be helpful, honing the ones she already had, or spent her time in the private library of the duke hunting for more information on spriggans.

  She learned tons of new skills that could provide useful on their journey. As it turned out they had a small spy school in the palace. That was where she spent most of her learning time. To call it a school was kind of a misnomer, it was more of a spy office that happened to usually have someone there. However whenever she wandered through the door into the office there was always someone on hand to teach her tons of useful skills. Some of which were lockpicking, information gathering, tailing, urban stealth, and lying. Yes, lying was apparently a skill.

  She also spent time talking to various staff members who would be willing to share with her a little about their type of work and how to do it. She knew kind of how to sew from her time on the farm, the tailor who was always on hand at the palace taught her how to field dress a hole in her clothes without damaging the integrity of the cloth around it. The leather worker taught her how to repair and replace buckles and do basic repair on boots and bags. Even the alchemist Skarit taught her how to identify herbs so she could help Bjorn with his alchemy, he even gave her a small book that he made himself which he filled with details about different herbs.

  And finally she spent her time combing through the library trying to find something, anything on spriggans. Though in this regard she wasn’t much use being completely honest. Bjorn and Meira had taught her how to read in both common and elvish. Even though she knew how to read she wasn’t the best or even the fastest at doing so. On top of that many of the texts in the Duke’s private library were written in languages that she didn’t know how to read. There was always one of two scholars that the duke employed to watch over and comb the texts. They were kind and welcoming to Adriana but she could tell that when she was in their domain that she was a nuisance to them.

  All of this was to say that she spent the week they were in the palace to good use learning as much as she could and doing as much as she could. It was still less than what she hoped for but each day by the time she went to bed she flopped into bed exhausted. She was both physically and mentally exhausted and was normally asleep before her head even hit the pillow.

  It was on the 8th day that they were living in the palace that something happened that finally changed the routine that she fell into. In the morning she found a letter on the table in between hers and Bjorn’s room that was addressed to the two of them.

  Bjorn and Adriana,

  You both have been in the palace for some time. I know I haven’t been the best at giving you updates or being around to answer questions. I would like for the two of you to meet with me and those leading the investigation to go over some stuff. I would like to make this a weekly thing, us getting together to discuss how things are progressing. So if you would come by my room tonight two hours after suns down that would be appreciated.

  -Duke Dornan.

  She wasn’t sure if Bjorn was in his room or not so she knocked softly on the door. After waiting a few minutes she tried again, and again after waiting there was no response so she decided to just slide the note under the door and head about her day.

  Her day moved on just like the previous 7 had. She spent the day training though for some reason everything seemed to go just a little easier. Her footwork was a little more sure, her movements just a little more fluid. She hadn’t really noticed how the way she moved her body had changed. Slowly the clumsy and awkward movements of her youth were being replaced by the graceful movements of a fighter.

  For the first time in her week of hellish training she actually looked at her notifications.

  Through rigorous training you have managed to increase your attributes. You have gained +2 to agility, +1 to endurance, +3 to dexterity, +1 to strength, and +1 to constitution.

  She would never be a strength build. Her body was small and lithe, she would always benefit from being more agile than strength. Besides her elf heritage always leaned more towards agility and dexterity being easier for her to gain and attributes like strength, endurance, and constitution being harder to gain.

  After the attribute gains she had a whole slew of skill acquisition and growth notifications. It was actually impressive to see all of them. It was a testament to all of the work she had been putting in over the last week.

  They stopped training a little early today so that she would have time to get cleaned up and take a bath before her meeting with Duke Dornan that evening. Predictably Owen made comments about how she and Bjorn didn’t deserve the attention they were getting from the duke but he was told off by Chta and Ivan.

  The bath house in the palace was similar to the public one right across from the guardhouse, only private. They were large and opulent with rapid temperature control of the water. It was like nothing Adriana had ever used before. Before she used the baths in Blackrock Bay the only way she ever got clean was by taking a bath in streams and rivers, sometimes ponds. Understandably the water there was almost always cold. Like most people in the Eld they didn’t usually take baths all that often during the winter.

  Finally cleaned and dressed she made her way to Bjorn’s room where she found the door open and him sitting on the couch eyes vacant as he stared off into space. She knocked on the door to get his attention. His eyes slowly drifted to the door but it was as if he was looking without seeing.

  “Um, Bjorn? Are you ready?”

  His eyes finally slowly came into focus and it looked like he finally recognized Adriana standing there. “Yeah, let's go.” He stood from where he was sitting and walked past her leaving her to close the door behind him.

  They started walking down the hallway and were met by one of the servants who was standing at the end of the hallway. “Follow me if you will, my lord and lady.” He said with a slight bow.

  They followed him through the palace and into the corner of the palace dedicated as Duke Dornan’s personal quarters. They followed him through a hallway and he stopped at a rather nondescript doorway. He paused to make sure that his charges were both still following before he opened the door, stepped aside, and gestured for the pair to make their way into the room.

  They stepped inside and the servant shut the door behind them. The inside of the room was opulent with several paintings and busts that adorned the walls and corner of the room. There were two different doors leading out of the room. One was closed and the other was open and lead to what looked like a sitting room. There was a dining table with fancy high backed chairs set around the table. The chair at the head of the table had its seat set higher so that someone shorter could still sit and see over the top of the dining table.

  Standing around the table there were a few people of note talking amongst themselves. The first one was none other than the duke himself. Next to him was the giant of a man Gram. Right across from him was a tall thin man with short cropped wispy hair. She recognized him from descriptions in the spy office, this was the spy master Vilgaforts. Finally there were two finely dressed people, one a male the other a woman. The man was the court alchemist, Skarit. The woman was a human and had a hawkish calculating look on her face, she didn’t recognize her.

  “Ah, Bjorn, Adriana, thank you for joining us.” Dornan said. “I don’t believe you have been introduced, this is my spy master Vilagforts. And this is his second in command, Freydis, she is a prominent business woman here in Blackrock Bay. I believe you both should know everyone else.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Bjorn said.

  “A pleasure.” Adriana said, giving a slight curtsy.

  “I don’t know about you but I am starving, lets get to food right away and we can give reports as we eat.” The duke said and he clapped his hands.

  They all took seats around the table and servants came out with plates of food to set down in front of everyone. They started with a soup and ended with a dish of rice, a black pearl looking substance, and duck.

  As they ate each person gave Dornan a report on everything that they found over the last week of searching. Even though the reports were obviously meant for the Duke he had included them so that they could know what had been going on as well.

  For Gram and his guard they had giving descriptions as well as painting recreations that Bjorn had helped facilitate to everyone of patrol that Gram trusted and there had been no sightings of anyone by those descriptions, or even of those races besides tieflings. He hadn’t had much faith in the guard finding them but there was a chance.

  As for the spy master during his explorations he and his agents found several underground illegal drug rings as well as smuggling rings. They have shut them down as well as imprisoned those involved. After intensive questioning they determined that they had no ties to the Kairon.

  As he was giving his report someone came into the room and walked over to the spy master and leaned down whispering into his ear. Vilgaforts didn’t stop as the man talked. After the man finished speaking to the spy master he stood back up, bowed to the duke and then left the room.

  Finally at the end of the spy master’s report he switched from talking about crime rings they found. “On another note, I was going to report this late as I thought it wasn’t related but I now think it might be. Over the last several weeks there have been reports of renowned craftspeople and builders going missing. I at first dismissed it as they were dissatisfied and just moved, as their homes and places of business didn’t show signs of struggle. Their homes also were packed with their personal items and most were gone. The rate at which they are leaving Blackrock Bay however makes me think of foul play.”