Chapter 59

Let's Get Quizzical...


If almost being killed by a mutant rat wasn't a bad enough way to spend your afternoon, then being under the interrogative stare of General Ridley would hardly help matters. The regal looking Kobold looked furious that Riou, Nanami, Fitcher, Millie, Andrew, Elaine, Chris and Avara had managed to find a way into the Kobold District of Two River City, despite the entrance being so well guarded. He had already demanded to know what they were doing in the Kobold District, and he was growing increasingly impatient as he awaited an answer.

"General Ridley!" Nanami exclaimed, looking somewhat frantic at being caught in the Kobold District when they really weren't supposed to be there… "Uh…we can explain, really! Right, Riou? Say something!"

Riou briefly looked at his sister with a slight amount of exasperation, before turning to face Ridley. The Kobold general was certainly a very imposing figure to be in front of, "Well, the thing is…we were chasing a thief…and…"

"Ah! No! That's not it…" Fitcher quickly interrupted Riou, an idea forming in his head. It may have been done in a roundabout way, but they had done what they had set out to do in the first place…meet with Ridley, "We're here to see YOU,General Ridley!"

"We are? I thought we were chasing after..." Chris began to ask his question, but suddenly found it hard to continue as he felt a sudden pain in his right foot. This pain may have had something to do with Andrew 'accidentally' stepping on it. Obviously the young treasure hunter had picked up on Fitcher's ploy a little quicker than Chris had, "Ow! What was that for?"

"General Ridley," Andrew began, ignoring the angry glare he was receiving from Chris, "We were asked by Lord Makai to find out what made you so angry this morning. We honestly don't know what's made you so upset with us, and we'd all like to know the truth."

"For once..." Elaine muttered to herself, trying to figure out for herself what was going on here. Some kind of plot, obviously, and Elaine found herself curiously interested in finding out what it was.

"Is that so?" Ridley replied sternly in the tone of voice one would associate with an angry teacher rebuking a misbehaving student, "Typical of you humans…resorting to sneaking into the district like that. I'd have expected more of you, Lord Riou."

Chris seemed to be the most upset about Ridley's words, although the look of hurt on Riou's face clearly indicated that he was a very close second. Riou said nothing in response, but Chris certainly had something to say, "'Sneaking in?' If your stupid guards had just let us through to see you in the first place, we wouldn't have HAD to sneak in through those stupid sewers or nearly get killed by that stupid rat-thing!"

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence as all eyes (including all of Bonaparte's) were looking at Chris. The silence was only broken by Millie, who lightly coughed a couple of times. It seemed the rat's poison hadn't totally left her system yet, she looked painfully tired.

"I'll have to have that entrance closed up," Ridley said eventually, all the while glaring at the brash youngster. Chris' attention had been diverted to the weakening Millie, and Ridley seemed to notice the condition she was in. It didn't escape Ridley's attention that they all looked pretty beaten-up, "And you do all look like you've been through quite the ordeal to get here…fine, I'll take you at your word that you know nothing about what's happened."

"So you will tell us what happened, then? What made you so angry with Lord Makai?" Riou asked, relieved that Ridley was finally willing to talk with them. Truth be told, Riou was more than just a little bit curious about what happened, and he was eager to find out what it was.

"Last night, one of our guards spotted a Highland soldier trespassing in our district. He gave chase, but unfortunately the soldier got away. However, the Highlander did drop something during his hasty escape," Ridley turned to look at Fitcher as he continued, "It turned out to be a secret communiqué between Lord Makai and General Kiba of the Highland Army. It was about a proposed peace agreement between Two River City and Highland. I'm surprised you didn't know anything about this, Fitcher."

Fitcher did look rather confused at this news, there wasn't much that happened around here that he didn't know about. Everyone else, even Avara, had stopped listening at the part about the proposed peace agreement, since that was the really troubling thing. Especially since they had come to Two River to gain an alliance with them, and now it seemed that the Highland Army had beaten them to it. Fitcher decided to play the innocent bystander card, and he shrugged as he replied, "Hey, I'm still new around here, remember?"

"I don't get why you'd be upset about that, though," Elaine said to Ridley, trying to garner as much information as she could about this situation, "Wouldn't such a peace agreement be a good thing for Two River City?"

"Not when one of the stipulations of the agreement gives full control of the Kobold District to the Highland Army, it doesn't!" Ridley replied forcefully, causing the usually unflappable Elaine to flinch away from the Kobold general.

"Guess I see why you might find that a problem…heh...excuse me…" Elaine backed away from Ridley, deciding to just be a not-so-innocent bystander in all of this. Without thinking, Elaine moved to go behind Andrew, but the second she realised what she was going to do she abruptly stopped. Elaine moved directly beside Andrew instead, obviously she didn't want it to look like she was hiding behind him. Andrew watched Elaine with a hint of amusement on his face, but wisely chose not to comment on her actions.

"You're kidding!" Fitcher couldn't hide his surprise at what Ridley had to say. Fitcher thought he knew Lord Makai pretty well, and he knew that Makai would never agree to such a stipulation. Then again Fitcher, by his own admission, was a pretty poor judge of character… "Lord Makai wouldn't agree to such a ridiculous term of agreement!"

"Now had it handed over control of the Winger District, then maybe I could believe such a thing," Avara said tiredly. Not that he would admit it, but the young mage was exhausted and desperately wanted to rest. Couldn't this nonsense wait until the morning? "However, I too must say that Lord Makai respects you too much to agree to such a proposition. I doubt there is any danger of this agreement going past this proposal stage."

"While that may be true, the fact that there has been any communication between Lord Makai and the Highland army without our knowledge shows that we can no longer afford to put our trust in humans," Ridley turned away from the group. Things suddenly didn't look as good as they did a few minutes earlier, "So there's nothing left for us to talk about."

"But don't you think that's what the Highland army really wants?" Riou asked, determined not to give up so easily, "You must know that there's no way Two River can defend itself against an attack if it's army is split like this. They have to know that too!"

"It's practically the oldest trick in the book! Sowing such an obvious seed of discontent amongst you," Andrew scoffed. In actuality, Andrew was utterly shocked that a veteran general like Ridley would fall for such a trick, but he could see Ridley's problem with it. Then again, there was no evidence suggesting that there wasn't a secret treaty being drawn up between Makai and the Highland Army…it just seemed highly unlikely, "Don't you think you should discuss this with Lord Makai in a rational manner?"

"If there is any rationality left around here..." Avara muttered, being the only person callous enough to say what everybody was thinking.

"Hmph, the communiqué indicates the treaty will be signed soon," Ridley scoffed, the mere idea of settling this by words wasn't even an option in the Kobold general's point of view, "As I have said, there's nothing left for us to discuss. We Kobolds will defend Two River since the Humans are too cowardly to fight, and the Wingers are beyond useless. You may leave on your own accord, or be escorted from the district by guards. Either way, you are no longer welcome in the Kobold district."

With that, Ridley turned away from the group and walked away. There really didn't seem to be much of an option left at that moment.

"Well, I refuse to be escorted out of here by a lowly guard," Avara said indignantly, "I'm leaving before Ridley summons them." He began to walk away, but could only manage a few steps unaided before he suddenly felt nauseous. Luckily for him, if not his pride, Riou caught Avara before he could collapse to the ground. Avara said nothing, at least he had the fortune of being helped by the leader of the Orange Army and not one of the other riffraff members.

"Come on then," Riou said kindly. Avara half expected to find himself being mocked by one of the others, but they all remained silent. Perhaps they were just too tired to comment, and simply couldn't be bothered, "We'll get the injured back to the Inn so they can get treated. The rest of us should go see Lord Makai as soon as possible...we need to find out if this 'communiqué' has any truth to it or not."

"If it is true, we'll have to get out of the city quickly," Elaine added, "One way or another, it looks like the Highland Army is going to arrive here soon. Especially if there is a treaty to be signed. Maybe we should just sneak out as soon as we can?"

"We're not leaving until we find out the truth," Riou countered. His latent curiosity was getting the better of him again, "Let's get going. Nanami, you get Millie back to the Inn right away. It looks like all the stuff you bought in Lakewest is going to come in handy after all."

"I'm going with them," Chris stated in a tone of voice that indicated that it really wasn't a request, "I'm sure nobody will mind."

"Go, then," Riou agreed, knowing that there was no chance of talking Chris out of it, "Hurry, we'll meet you at the Inn after we see Lord Makai."

"Thank you," Chris said as he draped Millie's right arm over his shoulder, and Nanami draped Millie's left arm over her shoulder. Once they made sure that Millie was safely supported, they ran towards the exit of the Kobold district as best they could with Bonaparte following quickly behind them. Considering Chris was still a bit dazed from the battle with the Pest Rat, it wasn't as fast as they could have gone. Nanami probably could have got Millie back to the Inn quicker by herself, but nobody dared suggest that to Chris. After that little trick he pulled in the sewers with that Rune of his, everyone knew that Chris wasn't quite as incompetent as he made himself out to be. The rest of the group walked quickly behind them before the guards came to kick them out of the district.

"When we get back, we'll get a doctor to check your arm out," Riou said to Andrew, who nodded in agreement. As Riou turned to face Andrew, he noticed that Elaine was pointedly walking beside Andrew. Not a little bit in front of him, or a little bit behind him, but directly beside him. She was matching his pace step for step, and had that 'come near me and you'll regret it' look on her face. Only, the look was slightly different than usual, and Riou interpreted it as a 'come near him and you'll regret it' look…not that he'd dare ask Elaine if that were the case, of course.

"I can't wait to hear Lord Makai's explanation for this," Fitcher mused to himself, although his sentiment was probably echoed by the rest of the group...well, with the possible exception of Avara. Fitcher was deep in thought, "What will we do without the aid of the Kobold army?"

"Lose, probably," Elaine said cynically, but there was little doubt that she was quite correct, "That Ridley's a stubborn one…we'll need solid proof before he'll help us out."

"We'll worry about that when we talk to Makai," Andrew said as they approached the entrance to the Winger district, "Okay, be on your guard now. The last thing we need is more trouble going through here."

"Being fair, we've only had trouble with one winger," Riou said, being very diplomatic in the process, "The rest of them have largely ignored us."

"Well then, let's just be on the lookout for that one particular winger, then," Elaine smirked, winking at Riou before she continued, "I believe I'm still owed a few ruffled feathers."

Despite the severity of the situation, Riou allowed himself a small chuckle. He ignored the quizzical looks he was getting from the others in the group, and simply walked onwards towards the Human District of Two River. Andrew shifted his quizzical look from Riou to Elaine, who looked at Andrew with a small smile on her face. Andrew's quizzical look became one of mild confusion, and Elaine had to force herself not to laugh at him. Instead, she shrugged at Andrew before purposefully quickening her pace to catch up with Riou.

"Uh...did I miss something?" Andrew looked for an answer, but unfortunately the only people left to ask were Fitcher and Avara, "Never mind...I'm asking the wrong crowd."

"She didn't seem any stranger than usual," Avara offered in a seemingly rare show of non-apathy, "Although she seems more aware than she was earlier."

"Hmm...I wonder..." Andrew said to himself, trying to figure out the situation. Avara was undoubtedly correct in his assumption, and Elaine had definitely fought the rat to protect everyone rather than just herself. Andrew could have sworn he heard her cry out his name when the debris from the ceiling fell on top of him, but the explosion of pain in his shoulder was pretty much the main concern of Andrew's at that particular time. Andrew cursed the fact the Elaine was walking on his right side, that meant he couldn't see the Rune on Elaine's right hand. However...there was somebody who could have seen it, unfortunately that somebody happened to be... "Avara, did you happen to notice Elaine's right hand glow when she was speaking just now?"

"If you're asking me about that rune of hers, I can't say I noticed anything," Avara replied. Even if he didn't usually pay attention to other people, a glowing rune is somewhat hard to miss, "It would seem the rune is dormant once again." Avara was clearly guessing, but by now Andrew had grown accustom to Avara's pigheaded refusal to be anything but correct. Andrew was probably the only one.

"You think so, huh?" Andrew mused, watching Elaine walk beside Riou. They were already near the entrance to the Human district. Almost as if she knew Andrew was looking at her, Elaine looked back at him over her shoulder. She mouthed the word 'what' at him and smiled briefly before turning her head back in the direction she was walking. Andrew shrugged, there wouldn't be any way of telling until he got a chance to talk to her properly. That would have to wait until after the current situation had been resolved.

"Is she always like that?" Fitcher asked Andrew as they exited the Winger district.

"Being honest, I really wish I could answer that question," Andrew replied, feeling increasingly baffled by Elaine's pseudo-schizophrenic behaviour, "I don't even think she knows anymore."


"Riou...is it just me, or is it rather noisy around here?" Elaine said quietly to Riou. She was glancing around as they entered the Human district of Two River City, and she could hear the sound of a crowd of people gathered together. It didn't exactly sound like a happy crowd either, "I wonder what's going on..."

"We're probably going to find out soon enough," Riou answered, his tone full of foreboding. The sound of the crowd increased in volume, indicating that they were nearing it's point of origin. Both Riou and Elaine had slowed their pace, both hoping to see what was going on without actually being noticed themselves. Being as assassin, this came easily for enough for Elaine, and Riou's martial arts training made it rather simple for him as well. Their decrease in speed also allowed Fitcher, Andrew and Avara time to catch up with them. The noise hadn't escaped their attention either, but they obviously weren't trying to hide their approach to the commotion. Riou and Elaine immediately felt their efforts had just been wasted, and shared a look of dismay as the three approached them.

"Hey, what's going on over there?" Andrew asked hurriedly, ignoring Elaine's futile attempt to hush him, "...is that Highland soldiers?"

"You've got to be kidding..." Fitcher's voice was quivering as he tried to see the central area of the Human district, and to his eternal dismay he saw that Andrew was correct. There was certainly enough soldiers there to take on any potential angry mob, and definitely enough to handle what remained of Riou's party.

"I hope Nanami got through that lot okay," Elaine said quietly, noting that she couldn't see her, Chris or Millie anywhere, "Question is, what are that lot doing here?"

"Look!" Fitcher pointed helplessly at the middle of the gathered crowd, clearly he had spotted someone he recognised; "It's Lord Makai! What is he doing there?"

"I don't believe it!" Andrew hissed angrily, "Ridley was right! Makai is in talks with the Highland Army! He's going to sell us out!"

"Use your head for a second," Elaine rapped her closed fist on the top of Andrew's head, "Since when do peace negotiations require a small army to conduct? Secondly, didn't that communiqué that Ridley was talking about say these negotiations were being held secretly? Does that LOOK secretive to you?"

"And isn't it just funny that the Highland Army arrive and are seen speaking with Makai just minutes after we heard about this so-called secret communiqué?" Avara's voice was dripping with contempt, "As if Ridley wasn't convinced before this little display. It's a grand show don't you think? And Ridley's seeing it all, no doubt."

"I wish we could hear what they're saying," Riou frowned, he wasn't able to hear anything but the noise of the crowd, "We can't get any closer without possibly being seen by the Highland soldiers."

"I think I could, but it'd be risky," Elaine offered, "If I could get a boost over this wall here, maybe I could get close enough to hear what's being said. I can crouch behind the other side, I don't think anybody could see me if I try that."

"However, if someone spots us boosting you over the wall, then we're good as caught," Riou shook his head at Elaine, "We'll wait until they leave, then we'll try and get some answers out of Lord Makai."

"Damn..." Elaine muttered, as she slumped back on the wall, "Wars aren't won by playing it safe you know..."

"Elaine, Riou's made up his mind," Andrew said to her, and she at least seemed to be listening to him, "I don't think anybody could make him change it. Not even Shu."

"I'm not trying to change his mind," Elaine replied curtly, looking at Riou as she spoke. He was still watching the scene unfolding between Makai and the Highlanders, and it didn't look like it was going to end anytime soon, "But it's advice that he'd better remember as this war goes on."

"You're starting to sound like Shu..." Andrew had a worried smile on his face, thinking that he was probably going to get hurt for that potential insult, "Should I be scared?"

Elaine shrugged; she didn't feel ready to joke around with Andrew right away. She just wanted to rest; "It's just advice, Andrew. Nothing more, nothing less."

"Look, they're beginning to leave..." Fitcher pointed at the Highland soldiers, who were indeed beginning to leave the town centre. Although it would be foolish to presume they were leaving the Two River area entirely, "We'd better confront Lord Makai as soon as possible before he does anything rash."

"If he hasn't already, you mean," Avara shook his head, indicating that he already felt the worst situation has already transpired, "I could always use my magic to make sure he doesn't…"

"No!" Came a simultaneous reply from Riou, Andrew and Elaine, although it wasn't quite as strong a reply from the latter of the three.

"Always violence..." Fitcher sighed, he was feeling a headache coming on, "I need a holiday."

"Come on, it looks safe enough now," Andrew grinned as Makai was left alone in the town square, "Let's get some answers."

Riou nodded his consent, and they all walked quickly over to confront Lord Makai...