Chapter 14: Roundtable Palace

The next evening Rose and Sergei walked through the noble's district to the palace.

"You know I've never been here before," Said Rose "do I look at least somewhat respectable, cuz well this is all I have."

"I'm sure you look fine." Said Sergei. "After all common clothes are rare exotics to nobles." He joked. Rose snickered.

"Too high up in their ivory towers to know they're the weird ones?" Rose joked back.

"Yep." Said Sergei.

"Focus you two." Said Mikleo.

"All right fine." Said Rose. The two approached the palace where two soldiers stood guard and a butler waited for them upfront.

"Welcome, Captain Strelka, Shepherd, unfortunately chancellor Bartlow is busy at the moment, if you would follow me please." He said. They nodded and followed.

"You two split." Rose whispered to the Seraphim once they got into the palace. Rose and Sergei were lead into a room with a bookshelf and were told to wait there.

"So when will the Seraphim return?" Sergei asked.

"Who knows." Said Rose pulling out a book labeled Mad Screams of Love and slumping back in a chair. "We have to wait." Meanwhile with Edna and Mikleo,

"I'll check the upper floor while you check the lower floors." She ordered.

"Doesn't that include the aqueduct?" Mikleo asked.

"Yes." Said Edna.

"You do realize that I'm going to ogle the architecture of the ruins for a few hours." Said Mikleo.

"Fine then, we're not splitting up, let's just start from the top floors and work our way down." Said Edna.

"Fine by me." Said Mikleo. The two walked up to the upper floors of the palace where it seems like the royal family sleeps, they quickly investigated each room and if there were people in any of the rooms they tried to determine if malevolence was coming from them but they ended up concluding that the source of the malevolence was further down so they did the same thing with the next floor and the floor after that until they got to the main floor just as Rose and Sergei were going to see the council. They snuck into the council room just as the doors were closing behind them they split up and searched the room and investigated the council. Rose and Sergei saw them and pretended they weren't there as reacting to the seraphim in the room would've made their plan to have Rose play dumb in front of the council blow up in smoke.

"Welcome, Captain Strelka, Shepherd," Said an elderly man in fancy clothing with chin length grey hair. "I am Lord Bartlow, the king's right hand, this is Military Chancellor Mathia, leader of the royal army which I'm sure you're familiar with Captain Strelka." Sergei nodded, Bartlow continued, "This is professor Simon, Hyland's law administrator and this is Archbishop Nathael, the Kingdom's highest ranking holy man."

"I am Rose, thank you for the invitation." Said Rose.

"Please, take a seat." Said Bartlow, Rose took the seat across from Bartlow while Sergei took the seat next to her.

"Now if eye witnesses are correct you two were seen at Falkewin hillside and made the river there calm down and stopped the rain." Said Mathia.

"That's an over exaggeration. We just saw this waterspout come up and since it was going to hurt some of the civilians we just protected them. Everything else must be through the will of the Seraphim." Said Rose.

"I'm not getting anything from them." Said Edna.

"That leaves the Aqueduct." Said Mikleo. The two started to leave.

"If I may ask what were you two doing in the area?" Simon asked.

"I was just looking for a friend of mine when I ran into Sergei." Said Rose.

"Yes, I asked her for some help with Falkewin and she agreed to come along." Said Sergei. "We just happened to arrive at the right place at the right time."

"If I may ask what is your relationship?" Bartlow asked.

"We're just friends." Said Rose. "I helped him out and he helped me out, no more no less."

"Is that all?" Bartlow asked.

"Yes. No more. No less." Rose insisted. The seraphim opened the door behind them and closed it, the councilmen looked around as well as Rose and Sergei. "The fuck was that?" She said.

"So, Strelka, what is the real story? Is she really the shepherd or just a fraud in a stupid outfit that the people are starting to believe in?" Said Bartlow.

"Either way what will you do about it, kill me?" Asked Sergei.

"We both know that would be far too risky. Since you and your brother were born into a family of commoners the people will riot if one of their representatives in the knights got suddenly executed. But we also can't have the people siding with the Shepherd for easy salvation." Said Nathael.

"After all the common man is nothing more than a fool. It is an unfortunate observation but it is reality." Said Bartlow.

"You know I heard somewhere that the one whom calls others fools is a fool himself." Said Rose. Sergei shot her a dangerous look.

"I'd watch your mouth in our presence girl." Snapped Bartlow

"Excuse me, I am a woman." Said Rose. "And I would say the same for you cuz I can very well destroy you."

"Rose what the hell are you doing?" Sergei whispered.

"Oh? And how can you do that?" Bartlow asked.

"I have connections." Said Rose, "And I have my ways."

"If that's the case Shepherd Rose why not side with us. You can still keep your connections you'll just be helping us boost the people's morale." Said Barlow.

"So you want me to cover for you while you continue to use faulty policies to take care of things like your drug problem?" Rose asked.

"Faulty is a harsh way to put it but yes we would like you to do that." Said Barlow.

"What would happen with Sergei?" Rose asked.

"He'd be sent back to his hometown Marlind to help with the epidemic. Though we do wish you the best of luck Captain." Said Mathia with his later statement being sarcastic.

"Very well." Said Sergei.

"Boris, what the hell do you think you're doing?" They heard a soldier shout. The doors busted open with Boris stomping through.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing with my brother Bartlow?!" He shouted.

"Boris, what are you doing?!" Sergei questioned.

"I refuse to stand by and let these fucks take away the family I have left!" He shouted. He draws his sword and steps forward.

"Boris, don't!" Sergei shouted running towards him. Boris pushed him aside and continued charging at the chancellors. Rose got up and ran after Boris. Boris nearly thrusted his blade at Bartlow but Rose got in between them and shoved Bartlow down and took out one of her daggers and blocked Boris's attack.

"Hey now! Don't go attacking shitty politicians." Said Rose. She turned to the chancellors, "No offense."

"Taken." Said Bartlow.

"That man has paved the way for my mother to die, he calls the common people ignorant fools while he steals from them, he cares nothing for our poorest and most vulnerable, and worst of all he intends to kill my brother through the disease that's infested our home." Said Boris removing his blade. "Such a man doesn't deserve to live!" He swung his blade again but Rose drew her second dagger and crossed her blades catching Boris's sword before it could imbed itself into Barlow's skull. "Move!"

"No!" Rose refused. Other soldiers were about to step in when Sergei stood in front of them.

"Wait!" He ordered.

"Move!" Boris repeated.

"No, if I do your brother will be hurt from this." Said Rose. Boris froze. "Think about it, if I move and you split this piece of shit in half think about what this will do to your brother? Once you're inevitably executed for treason your brother will end up suffering for your sins.

"He will be ridiculed, he'll lose his position and respect, everything he worked for will be taken away from him and he'll die alone and unloved all because you decided to murder the man that sent him to a plague town." Boris put his sword back in its sheath. Sergei signaled the other guards to grab him.

"I'm sorry." He said. Other guards swarmed him and took him away.

"With all due respect chancellors I'm not going to stay in Lady Lake for much longer. I just have one last errand to do then I'm going to head back to the mountains and never bother you again." Said Rose.

"Such a shame. But very well." Said Bartlow.

"It's for the best." Rose assured.

"Fine. You two may go." Said Barlow. When the two left the palace, and by extension the noble's district Rose felt the seraphim.

"What's up?" She asked.

"Under the palace is a prison where they let people who've committed minor crimes, and powder addicts die." Said Mikleo. "A lot of them are severely malnourished and some of the more recent additions are apparently suffering from withdrawal symptoms. Their malevolence feeds a hellion that's further down."

"Thank you." Said Rose. "Do you think releasing them will cut off some of that hellion's food supply?"

"Likely." Said Edna.

"Great, then we're going through with the plan where we go through the northeastern entrance?" Rose asked.

"Yeah." Said Edna.

"Wait, what are you gonna do about the prisoners when you release them?" Mikleo asked.

"Well we need to head back to the inn cuz well we're already half way there, and we don't want some people to listen in." Said Rose.

"… All right." Said Mikleo.

"I guess that's where we're gonna part, I'm going back to the barracks." Said Sergei.

"All right what happened? Your squire's been quiet since we got back." Said Edna.

"Well Sergei's brother busted in on our meeting and tried to kill one of the chancellors and I stopped him and some other soldiers arrested him." Said Rose. "So I'm guessing he's still shocked over the whole thing and it might be a reason why he might not be with us."

"Fine." Said Edna.

When they got back to the inn they started to go further in depth with the prison break plan.

"I really think it's a bad idea to go back the way we came in." Said Mikleo. "For one we might get caught when someone spots a lot of people getting out of the lake, and some of them are so weak that they'll die if we try to get them to swim."

"For a Seraph you care too much about the well being of humans." Said Edna.

"What does that mean?" Mikleo snapped.

"He is right though." Said Rose. "Depending on the time they've been thrown in some of the prisoners will be stronger than others. Honestly the safest bet is the abandoned building and we can hope that there isn't some obscure cult using it. And for the next few days we and the healthier people will sneak in food."

"Very illegal and risky, you wanna go through with this?" Asked Edna.

"Yeah." Said Rose.

Part 2 of this ending to the Lady Lake arc. Where Rose insults a politician like it wouldn't bite her in the ass and Boris may be just a liiiiiittle too crazy about his brother.