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[Chevaleresse]

"Godfried said something about Luitgard, but we already know how that turned out. I don't know if we have enough people for there to be a turncoat, unless the traitor is still here." The mage shook her head. "Let me think. . ." She scraped her memory of their escape here, soaked with blood and fury as it was. I still don't know what the old man meant. Unless he was just asking me to take him back here and tell him I really did fancy him all this time. She cursed at herself mentally; that wasn't relevant right now. Or maybe it was the most relevant thing, and she just hadn't figured out why.

"We took a few wounds ambushing a caravan for supplies in the rain. When we came back, those monsters had slaughtered every man, woman, and child in the camp." She took a small breath, steadying herself in the face of the memory. "We met some drifter who confirmed what had happened. Another force accosted us when we pursued Luitgard, and then we cut this way and camped in some leaky ruins. After the bandit group there decided to try and kill us, of course. We cut through the swamps and got attacked by a swarm of undead, one of which nicely decided to explode and knock us all out. Some ancient king, Lucas can tell you more. After that, we got ambushed again, and ended up here."

[Solymr]

: It's worth mentioning that Emeric knew about the bandits despite it being fairly out of the way, and tried to pin that on us as "innocent woodcutters". It's where we picked up Volk, and I really doubt he could be spying against us, I'm fairly sure we were only able to make it to the border before they caught up thanks to his knowledge of the area.

[RedMageCole]

At the dining table, Marietta was mostly tuning everyone out. If this were a normal situation for her, she'd be wolfing down anything put down in front of her. However, instead, her mind was clearly preoccupied with something as she drummed her fingers on the table with a hand on her cheek. The second she had heard Lucas say the word 'Luitgard' was the second she decided that she was not going to have any part in this conversation, lest she flip the entire dinner table over. Instead, she remained in a dreamy state; completely quiet, unmoving...

Until the old man in the black cloak entered her vision— startling her enough that she made a slight 'yip!' noise and snapped out of her dreamy state.

"Hey- who are you!? What are you doing!?" Marietta was immediately swiveling around to watch the old man in the black cloak— the trust issues she had quickly coming back in full force... though she also looked just plain annoyed about being snapped out of her state.

[Haspen]

"Hrrm, there's something wrong..." At this commotion, Lady Ebrietta turned to the old man.

"Ah, Magister Rolf. What's the problem?" The old man wiggled his finger at the Commander of the fort, skulking closer and closer to the table, his head swaying back and forth.

And he was approaching... Marion?

"Aha! I knew it!" He latched on the ornate staff Marion pillaged back then from the convoy, and lifted it upwards for all to see. "Is there not a competent mage amongst you folk? Look!" He cast a brief but powerful spell.

Suddenly, the staff began to glow with magical markings! Lucas and Sylvianne could easily recognize runes that related to magical targeting, long-range scrying, permament marking of ownership, and other such applications...

"Where did you get this from? Do you have more of this? I can't help but wonder who managed to mask their magical auras so well, too..." The old man muttered another powerful incantation, and it enveloped the room.

Weapons pilfered from the convoy, and even Lucas's Nosferatu tome, started gently shining with their own magical markings as well.

[RedMageCole]

Marietta looked around the room, looking at the magical markings. She scoffed.

"What? Yeah, right! Get real! If Lucas hadn't seen something, then I highly doubt this is actually for real! Come on!"

As Marietta showed her high amounts of doubt, she secretly took out her dagger— obscuring it from the Magister's vision and inspecting it to check if it actually started shining despite her keeping it hidden.

"Turn into a sword, turn into a sword, turn into a sword, turn into a sword, come on, you piece of shit, turn into a sword..."

[Haspen]

Marietta's dagger, was, in fact, shining with the same marks as other pillaged weapons!

[Solymr]

The Nosferatu tome on the table now, things started fitting together in Lucas' head.

: ...Of course. The convoy was a trap from the start, of course they'd had something like this planned. If only I hadn't been so focused on other magical influences, if only I had realized earlier...

Lucas began furiously reading his notebook, and then he dumped the medicine he had taken from the convoy.

: Could you please have these herbs checked in case there's something wrong with them? They might be the case Cedric is ill as well.

: And there might be a way to turn this into our advantage after all. I remember an old but very effective military tactic written in books about the fall of Herzgottia.

[RedMageCole]

Now Marietta was looking at the dagger without caring about hiding it. Her eyebrows were ruffled.

"Come on, fucker, if you're magic, then turn into a sword or they're gonna make me give you to Joram or something and I'm gonna be stuck with nothing!"

Marietta, with an upset face and a whiny voice, waved her dagger at Sylvianne.

"Sylviaaaaaanne! What are these pictures!? I don't speak magic!" Of course, she completely fails to acknowledge the old man who was actually casting the spell. However, she did hear Lucas in the background— with widened eyes, she hurriedly grabbed her Tonic and nearly threw it onto the table. "Fuck- I drank that crap- is this poison!?"

[Haspen]

Magister Rolf cast another spell, but neither the bottles of medicine nor the herb packets lit up.

"Hmph! So they only enchanted wooden and metal items, it seems. Unless you have better ideas, I will have these weapons and staves destroyed. With how many enchantments there are, someone can easily spy their location from across the mountains, who knows, maybe as far as city of Lufin itself!"

[Solymr]

: I do have an idea, actually. We could use them to misdirect our voyeurs, depending on our plan and the level of detail the markings have. They can be used to stage a counter ambush, or to separate their forces by sending them to a different place.

[Chevaleresse]

"I'll show you a competent mage, you-" Sylvianne inhaled. "_{No, Sylvianne, you are not going to besmirch the good Bismarck name by frying a leathery old sack of bones.}" And exhale. "Tracking runes, Marietta. They played us from the start."

[RedMageCole]

Marietta started shaking. Her teeth were barely visible.

"I'm going to kill Luitgard."

She angrily threw her dagger at the ground— then folded her arms on the table and proceeded to bury her face in her arms. A light groan could be heard emanating from her.

[Haspen]

"Hm, well, this could be arranged..."

"You will be returning to Angeborten, then? I doubt that the element of surprise will be worth if you do not use it up soon."

[RedMageCole]

Marietta let out a particularly noisy groan in response. Nothing else.

[Gaterhyme]

Grietje instinctively made to place a reassuring hand on Sylvianne's shoulder, but returned to checking her weapons soon enough. Her javelin seemed to be clean since it hadn't come from the loot, though at this point it was still worse for wear from all the fighting.

"How soon do you mean? With Cedric in this condition, will he be well enough to travel?"