Chapter 15: Intelligence Gathering
When the heroes went through the main entrance, they were immediately stopped by an armed guard.
"Halt. What business have you here?", the guard stated.
"We wish to have an audience with the King," replied Tariel.
"We don't have a king."
"You mean you're a democracy?"
"No, of course not. We're not that far advanced yet. We still have hereditary monarchy. We do have princes. But not one of them has ever survived long enough to become a king."
"Okay, then I'd like to speak to whoever is in charge here."
"You would like to speak to Prince Larethian? Okay, but you must tell me why you wish to do so."
"We are emissaries from Altaria. We have reason to believe that an evil plot is brewing within this kingdom."
"You're probably the twentieth group I've heard say that in just the past couple weeks. Like we keep saying, there's no evil plot. You can talk to Prince Larethian if you'd like, but he'll laugh at you just like he laughed at everybody else."
"Okay, we'd like to do that."
"Fine, then, take a number," the guard said, and handed Tariel a slip with the number 2,387 written on it.
A voice boomed from the back of the hall. "Okay, next up, number 724."
"We've never had to take a number like this before," Tariel said to the guard. "Is this one of these new technology things you Carpathians do?"
"I wouldn't call it high technology," the guard replied, "but I can imagine you would given how primitive all you Altarians are."
"Can you please stop insulting our kingdom," Tariel said. "Just constantly being treated like you're from some primitive tribal culture really gets on my nerves."
Tariel heard another booming voice. "Next up, number 725."
"Okay, at this rate it'll take forever for it to be our turn," Tariel asked. "Is there any way to get what we want faster?"
"Well, if all you want to do is look up information, you can try the royal library in the basement. But like I said before, if you're looking for evidence of an evil plot to rule the world, you won't find it."
Tariel, Artalax, and Talia went down to the royal library, while Robari stayed upstairs to keep watch in case anything went wrong.
A few hours later, in the royal library…
"So, what have you found?" asked Talia.
"We haven't been able to find any evidence of an evil plot. But we did find some information about the history of the Larethian dynasty," Artalax explained.
"What did you find?"
"The dynasty began with Prince Larethian I. According to the history books, he made major reforms that revolutionized the kingdom. But strangely, he was assassinated just months after he ascended to the throne."
"Is it more specific? Does it say what the reforms are?"
"Not a lot. The one word that keeps coming up is 'respawning'. But none of the books say anything about what respawning is."
"You wonder why all the books have to be so cryptic like this. You'd think they would just be more clear once in a while," said Tariel.
"Well, they do help provide jobs for wizards like me, who can help decipher them," said Artalax.
"Okay, did you dig up any information about Kalmeth?"
"Here's what I found out. Apparently, Kalmeth used to be a graduate student at Carpathia University, which according to this is one of the top-ranked academic institutions on the continent."
"Okay, what happened next?"
"It says that he left the University under mysterious circumstances."
"Can you be any more specific?"
"Not really. I mean, if I could me more specific, then the circumstances wouldn't be mysterious anymore, would they?"
Suddenly there was a loud alarm blaring from above.
"Attention everyone. We have an assassination attempt in progress. Repeat, we have an assassination attempt in progress. Please evacuate the building immediately."
"See, I told you there could be a coup at any moment!" said Tariel. "You should have listened to me!"
"Okay, well, we have to get out of here. I think there's a secret passage over there."
"I have a better idea," said Tariel. "We have to be heroic. Let's go up to the throne room and save the Prince."
Later, in the Prince's throne room…
Tariel, Artalax, and Princess Talia rushed upstairs to the door to the throne room.
"Let me get this straight," said Tarlia. "We save Prince Larethian, then since I'm a princess, I get to marry him and we live happily ever after. Is that right?"
"Marry him? But you've never even met him!" said Artalax.
"But that's how it works in all the books, right? Wait, actually, the princess usually marries the hero, so that would be one of you, but I don't know which of you is the main character and which is the sidekick, and there might be someone else involved – this is really confusing."
"We don't have much time," Tariel stated. "Let's go in."
"Okay, but I hope we finish this mission soon," replied Talia.
The heroes kicked open the door and burst into the throne room. There, they saw dozens of monsters of all different types – orcs, goblins, gargoyles, and one who looked eerily similar to an uruk-hai – coming in through a hole in the roof. Several elite guards were fighting against them. Prince Larethian himself was also fighting, but the monsters kept coming and it was clear the guards would fall soon, leaving the Prince trapped in a corner and defenseless.
"We've come to help!" shouted Tariel, and rushed toward the monsters.
"I'll cover you!" said Artalax, casting a magic missile spell at an oncoming orc.
"I would help you here, if I actually had any weapons, spells, or other items with any degree of damage-dealing capability," said Princess Talia.
Within a few minutes, Tariel and Artalax had successfully helped the guards defeat all the monsters, leaving dozens of corpses. Tariel started picking loot up off the corpses.
"You wonder why this skeleton would drop an armor plate," Tariel commented. "Sure didn't look like he was wearing armor when I fought him. Oh, well, I might as well take what I can get."
Tariel, Artalax, and Talia approached the Prince.
"Thank you for saving my life," the Prince said. "Those were the toughest monsters I've faced so far. For a minute there I was worried I wouldn't even survive to beat the record."
"Who are you," asked Tariel. "And what record are you talking about?"
"I am Prince Larethian MCMXCVIII, the ruler of Carpathia. But it's hard to rule since I constantly have to fend off all these monsters trying to kill me."
"And what's the 'record'?"
"Oh, that? It's a record for the greatest number of consecutive assassination attempts survived. The current record is 50, set by Prince Larethian MCCXLIV a hundred and fifty years ago. This is my 48th, so I only need three more to break the record."
"Let's get down to business. I have a couple questions for you."
"Well, I have a question for you: Who are you?"
"We are emissaries from Altaria. We were hoping to speak with you, but we had to wait in a line. This certainly helped us skip the long line."
"Altaria again? I know what you're going to ask me. No, there isn't an evil plan going on. Not in this palace, not in Carpathia City, not in the wilderness. No sir, you won't find an evil plot anywhere in this kingdom. But you will find a lot of evil, they just won't be plotting anything."
"They why are all the Altarians who come here disappearing?"
"I'm not sure. It might have something to do with our technological superiority, though. I bet you haven't even heard of matter-compression technology."
"No, we haven't."
Prince Larethian took a small device out of his pocket and pointed it at the big lump of loot sitting on the floor. The loot completely disappeared. When he pushed another button, the loot appeared again.
"That looks like it will certainly help us store all our loot," commented Artalax.
"Now, do we get a reward?" said Tariel.
"Here is your reward. 1,000 gold pieces, to split between the three of you."
"That's a puny reward. I think we deserve a bigger reward."
"Well, it's all you're going to get. Budgets are tight these days, and I'm almost out of the reward budget for this year. If you want another reward, you have to save my life again."
Tariel drew his sword and put it right up against the Prince's throat.
"Okay, Prince Larethian, you said you've survived 48 consecutive assassination attempts. Unless you want to die on the 49th, you better give us a much, much bigger reward."
"Didn't you say you wanted to be heroic?" asked Talia. "Is this heroic? Threatening the life of the one you just saved?"
"Okay, okay, I'll give you whatever you want. But only one request for each of you. Just please let me go."
"I'd like one of those matter-compression devices you just showed me," said Artalax.
"Just give me four tickets to Altaria," said Talia. "I want to go home. All this killing just freaks me out."
Larethian gave the irequested items to Artalax and Talia, and Tariel lowered his sword.
"Tell me everything you know about Kalmeth." Tariel said.
"Okay, here's what I know. Do you already know about what happened at Carpathia University?"
"Yes. He left under mysterious circumstances, right?"
"Well, after he left he started a business venture. He recruited dozens of top-ranked magical researchers and set up a laboratory in an undisclosed location. But Kalmeth and his researchers made groundbreaking innovations. Particularly, he was essential in developing the advanced respawn devices and teleportation portals currently in use all over Carpathia."
"Just tell me, is Kalmeth the bad guy?"
"No, like I said, he's not the bad guy. In fact, he's a good guy. Were it not for him our respawn technology wouldn't even be a tenth as good as it is today."
"And what is this respawn technology?"
"You've already had two questions. I only answer two questions a person. And by the way, if you haven't already noticed, while we were speaking several armed guards made their way up right behind you, so don't even think about trying to threaten me again."
The guards escorted Tariel, Artalax, and Talia out of the palace, but Robari was nowhere to be found."
"I wonder where he went," said Talia. "I know that before, he was talking about how the Communist revolution would begin and the greedy capitalists would get destroyed, but I don't know what he meant any more than you did."