After the duel, Rhea, Seteth, and the Eisners returned to continue listening to the Rising Sun Company (bar Ashe) tell their tale.
"Where were we?" Jeralt asked.
"Impa had just defeated Sooga, son of Sooga," Seteth answered. "Actually, before we get back to the story, I want to talk about the Agarthans for a bit. Kronya, if you would..."
"Certainly," Kronya agreed. "What do you want to know?"
"How, exactly, do you plan to pacify them?" Seteth asked.
"Well, first, we have to get rid of Thales outside of Shambhala," Kronya stated. "He's the only one who has access to the Javelins of Light. There are only nine left, but nine is still enough to do a lot of damage."
"After that, we besiege Shambhala," Claude said. "We offer to let them surrender, and offer amnesty to all those who do except for some of their leaders."
"Do you really expect them to surrender without a fight?" Rhea asked.
"No, of course not," Claude said. "They're going to fight back, at least initially. But as long as we treat our captured prisoners well, it's going to get back to them that we're not as merciless as they might think. And then some of the Agarthans are going to start questioning why they're fighting and dying to defend leaders who don't even treat them that well to begin with."
"Eventually, when the people of Shambhala are dissatisfied enough to consider the offer, I'll sneak in and assassinate the leaders marked for death," Kronya continued. "I'll then open the city gates."
"We'll offer to let them surrender again," Claude said. "Some of them may still distrust the offer of amnesty and fight back, but most will surrender. After that comes the hard part. Integrating them into the rest of Fodlan."
"With care and caution, of course," Hubert added.
Yes, that was definitely going to be the hard part, not to mention the most dangerous part. Still, what other options were there? Wipe them out? Rhea knew that for all the Agarthans had done, she didn't have it in her to murder innocent children, and there would be a number of those in Shambhala. Exile them? That would be shortsighted in the extreme. They would build themselves back either way, and if she chose to exile them, she wouldn't know what they were doing. The only option was to try to make peace with them—but also to watch them carefully, and be prepared to crush those who chose not to accept the mercy they would be offered.
Trust, but verify.
"And as for what else was happening in Hyrule?" Rhea asked.
"Of course," Hubert said. "Sooga the Second was not the only assassin who made an attempt on our lives..."
Mercedes and Hubert returned to the construction site to meet with Kilton and pick up their Poe cloaks. While they were there, they met with Hudson.
"I gotta say, you kids are something else," Hudson commended them. "I don't know exactly what you've been doing, but you go to Zora's Domain, and then their Divine Beast goes from rampaging around trying to wash away the city to firing its weapons at Calamity Ganon. Then you head to Goron City, and then their Divine Beast does the same thing! That can't be a coincidence, now, can it?"
"Well...no, it's not a coincidence," Mercedes admitted. "We are a mercenary company fulfilling a contract...but it just so happens that we were contracted to free the Divine Beasts from Ganon's control."
Hudson whistled. "Wouldn't have taken that one, myself."
"We had our reasons," Hubert stated.
"I imagine you can tell why I want to set up your guild hall in Tarrey Town," Hudson said, chuckling.
Suddenly, two guards deposited Kilton in front of Hudson. "We found this shady-looking character trying to get into the construction site," one of them said.
"Kilton?" Mercedes asked.
"Oh, good, it's you," Kilton said, relieved. "I just came here to bring you the cloaks you ordered, but these two grabbed me and dragged me here!"
"You know this guy?" Hudson asked.
"I do," Mercedes said. "He's not lying. We did pay him to make cloaks for us. And we did tell him to meet us here."
"Oh. Well...sorry about that," Hudson said. "You have to admit, though, you do seem a bit suspicious."
"Yeah, people do say that from time to time," Kilton admitted. "I'm just a guy trying to make an honest living, though."
"Here, why don't you have dinner with us? We'll make it up to you," Hudson offered.
"Sure," Kilton agreed.
"You come have some too," Hudson offered Mercedes and Hubert.
A man served the two of them bowls of stew. But before they could take a bite, Kilton sniffed the air. "No no no, don't eat that!"
"What's wrong?" Mercedes asked.
"I know that smell...Manhandla venom!" Kilton said. "Someone's trying to poison you!"
Hubert turned to the server, who snarled. "The Viper bites!" He tried to stab Mercedes with a dagger, but Hubert caught the blade in his hand.
The Viper grinned wickedly. However, Hubert cast a bit of dark magic at the Viper, causing him to let go of his dagger. Hubert then used the dagger to stab the Viper in the shoulder.
"Judging by the fact that you call yourself the Viper, I'm guessing you poison your blade," Hubert said, as the Viper quickly took the dagger out of his shoulder. "Let's hope you have an antidote."
The Viper tried leaping back out of Hubert's reach as he drew an object Hubert recognized out of his clothing. It was a syringe, one of the tools that had been used by Those Who Slither In The Dark on Lady Edelgard and her siblings. It was used to deliver a liquid substance directly into the bloodstream. Presumably, it was the antidote. The Viper tried to stab himself with the syringe, but Hubert cast a blast of Miasma into the Viper's face, and while the Viper was distracted, Hubert grabbed the Viper's syringe hand and injected himself with the antidote.
The Viper began coughing up blood. "I'm guessing you only had the one antidote," Hubert surmised.
"Bitch," the Viper spat. He then coughed up even more blood, before falling down, dead.
Nobody spoke for several seconds. Eventually, Kilton broke the silence. "On second thought, I'm not hungry."
"Probably for the best. I wouldn't be surprised if he poisoned all of the food," Hubert said.
"Hopefully he didn't poison our entire food stores," Hudson said. "Mister Kilton, you know something about poisons, right? I'll pay you to figure out what's poisoned and what's not poisoned."
"All right," Kilton said, still staring at the Viper's corpse.
"Why would someone try to kill you two?" Hudson asked the two Rising Sun members.
"He probably worked for the Yiga Clan," Hubert theorized.
"The Yiga Clan," Hudson frowned. "Yeah, I definitely wouldn't have taken your contract."
"Well, someone has to do it," Mercedes said. "Hubert? Thank you."
"Of course," Hubert said. "Perhaps we should leave."
"I left your cloaks on my cart, over there," Kilton pointed it out.
As they went to collect the cloaks, Mercedes noticed that Hubert still looked frustrated. "Hubert? Are you okay?"
"The Viper brought up bad memories," Hubert admitted.
"Do you want to...talk about it?" Mercedes asked.
"Not particularly, no," Hubert said. "I think we need to pay the Yiga a visit."
I'm going on hiatus for the holidays after this chapter. Next chapter will likely be in the last week of December or the first week of January.