Orion didn't complain about his daughters abusing his trust nor about Jirni taking part in the group hug. He could see how worried his little girls were and how happy having both of their parents in the same room made them.
"Girls, I understand why you did this, but the matters between your mother and I cannot be solved just by talking while sitting at a table and drinking tea." Orion broke the embrace and took a couple of steps back to look Jirni in the eyes.
"You can't bandage a deep wound and wait for it to heal. It remains hidden from sight, but it keeps bleeding and festering. On top of that, a Royal mission is hardly the place to discuss our marriage problems, especially in front of Manohar!"
He pointed at the god of healing who had been making retching sounds ever since he had regained consciousness.
"I know that, Dad." Phloria said while keeping an eye on Manohar who was slowly regaining his mobility. "I just wanted you two to meet in the hope that by spending enough time together you can at least build a small bridge over the abyss that Mom created with her schemes."
Orion remained silent. Phloria had already admitted that he wasn't responsible for the situation which didn't leave him much to say, at least in the presence of his daughters.
'The problem here is that this time I didn't do anything wrong. Jirni kept me out of the loop and let me grieve Quylla's fake death like a moron because she considers my love for our children a weakness. I can't trust a person like that and without trust, there's no relationship.' He thought.
"Is the mission real or is it a ruse as well?" Orion said after moving his gaze onto Phloria.
"It's very real and it's also as good as solved." Manohar jumped up.
"Then why are we here?" Jirni asked. "The Royals wouldn't waste our time like this if not for a good reason."
"Because there are still a couple of details to clear up and because they don't trust my methods." He replied with an annoyed snort.
"Professor, keep up like this and your next title will be the god of understatements." Quylla said. "In theory, the case is open and shut just like the Professor said, but reality begs to differ.
"A few weeks ago, a surprise inspection revealed that some of the most powerful artifacts in the capital's armory have gone missing. The Kingdom opened a secret investigation in order to not alert the culprit in the hope they have yet to escape.
"As you know, an armory is hidden and protected, but it doesn't require imprinting to be opened because the City Lord might die or be kidnapped during a time of crisis, which would leave the city undefended.
"All the city's officials with high enough clearance can open it. On the other hand, however, anyone who knows where it is and how to open the armory can access it at any time."
"Still, only a handful of people have the codes so the number of suspects should be very small. You said weeks ago. How can the case not have been solved already?" Jirni asked.
"Here comes the problem and why they sent me." Manohar said. "What anyone who isn't a Royal Forgemaster ignores is that even though those locks can't recognize the magical imprint, they keep a log of who successfully opens them and when.
"Each official is given a different entry code to avoid foul play. The Royal Forgemaster who came here before me discovered that the code belonged to the City Lord, Marquis Beilin.
"Yet he had a rock solid alibi since at the moment of the theft he was attending a party in front of several witnesses.
"To make matters worse, while trying to discover if the Marquis was a willing accomplice or if there was a leak in the security of his household, the stolen weapons have been put back in their place by using a different code."
"I can understand a traitor, but two?" Orion was flabbergasted.
"And here comes the worst part." Manohar glared at his audience. He hated being interrupted.
"This time not only did Countess Metra, the noblewoman holding the second code, have a rock solid alibi as well, but one of the city guards claims to have seen her leaving the building at the time of the crime."
"Maybe it was just someone looking like her or disguised as her." Phloria shrugged.
"No, because he saw Metra coming out of her own office, which needs imprinting. Yet the people who went with the Countess to the city gardens on that very same night swear that it was her and not a body double." Manohar shook his head
"They can't be all her accomplices nor can an impersonator fool nobles and servants that have known Metra for years."
"A shapeshifter?" Quylla blurted out in surprise.
She was aware that Emperor Beasts and Awakened could freely change their appearance, but for regular people, it was just a myth.
Manohar didn't know about it, but being capable of shapeshifting himself, he knew that there had to be at least a few non-idiot mages out there capable of doing the same.
It was the secret behind his many successful escapes and he wanted to keep it that way.
"That's my hypothesis and the Royals agree with me." He nodded. "They sent me here to make sure that the two nobles weren't under the effect of the Golden Griffon's slave spell and to capture the shapeshifter.
"Arresting the culprits would be easy, but we have no idea what they used the weapons for. On top of that, there is no telling if they are actually responsible or if they are just being framed.
"Worst case scenario, we are dealing with a creature that can imitate not only a person's physical appearance, but also their magical imprint."
"The existence of such a person would compromise the entire security of the Kingdom!" Suddenly Orion's marriage problems took second place. "That's why you are still here. What I don't get is why we are here."
Manohar was the best diagnostician of the Kingdom and the leading expert in the field of life forces. He was the most suitable person to recognize a shapeshifter in disguise, no matter how good their ability was.
"The nobles have already been interrogated and examined multiple times with no success. On top of that, there have been more cases of people being seen in two different places at the same time." Phloria said.
"Dad, our task is to use the city arrays to track and find the shapeshifter. Mom, your task is to keep the Professor under control and help him to investigate the two nobles."
"The Royals don't trust me just because I told them that the best way to find our guy is to put Ruham on lockdown and to let me experiment- I mean, use my potions." Manohar said with a scoff.
"That's a ridiculous idea." Jirni said.. "Taking a whole city hostage to search for someone who might not be here anymore would set a very dangerous precedent and undermine the trust in the Royals."
"Why didn't you come with us, Grandpa?"
"Because there's no one I can trust to manage the shop in my absence. It's a family business so it needs someone of the family to take care of it." Zekell threw a final reproachful look at Senton before turning to Lith.
"It's nice to have you back, even if just for a little while." The two men shook hands.
The difference in treatment made the poor Senton wonder if he had been adopted.
"Do you have new work for me? Because I have some for you. The stocks of chessboards are running low and once we sell the last pieces, we'll leave the market open to counterfeits." Zekell handed Lith a report of the sales and an inventory of what was left.
"Not now, sorry." Lith examined the numbers and was quite pleased of them. "As for the chessboards, I'll send you a new batch as soon as possible. I can work on them even in the Desert so it shouldn't take long."
Everything was mass-produced in the Alchemical lab and enchanted in the Forge, requiring so little focus that usually Solus did it in her spare time.
"Excellent." Zekell nodded. "You know, it's too bad that you're the only one who can use that Gate. If I had one of those keys, I could triple our profits simply by cutting on the transportation fees."
"Yeah, but you would need to personally make every single trip through the Gate and you'd have a nice target on your back. If something happened to you, one of my enemies could imprint the key and use it." Lith replied.
"Never mind, then." Zekell hated traveling and hated risking his life even more.
'There's no point in making money that I can't live to spend.' He thought.
Zekell invited them for lunch and they accepted. They had just dined, but after not seeing each other for over a month they missed the old blacksmith, even Senton.
The family spent the time before closing to visit the new shops and establishments that had opened during their absence.
Lith noticed that while the citizens of Lutia always gave him a warm smile and invited him to stay over, those who had recently moved there treated him coldly at best, whispering behind his back the moment he turned around.
'Who the heck are those guys? I don't recognize half of them. I wish Solus was here. She would know whether I just forgot about them or if we actually never met.' Lith thought.
He noticed that the same people that treated him coldly would also look with fear at the magical beasts, forbidding them entrance.
Rena noticed that the quality of the clothes had improved, but it was still a long shot from those that Lith bought them from the big cities. The quality of the toys disappointed the kids, but that was hardly a novelty.
They were so used to enchanted items that no matter the craftsmanship, they would always find them lacking.
Lith went to pick up Raaz, but just like Rena, he refused to use a Warp Steps to reach their destination.
"There's still some time before noon and I'd rather have Zekell wait a few minutes than have this conversation in front of the kids." He said with a sigh while taking the old road to Lutia.
"What's wrong, Dad?" Lith asked.
"I couldn't stop thinking about what Bromann said so after I finished negotiating the new contracts with the farmhands and instructing them about the sowing, I called Count Jadon Lark." Raaz felt the need to call the new ruler of the Lustria County by name since the death of the old Count still pained his heart.
"It seems that our honeymoon with Lutia's citizens ended a while ago without us even noticing."
"What do you mean?"
"Son, this is a small village. Gossip about who is cheating with who or about a merchant overpricing his goods are nothing to worry about while rumors about the seizing of fields are not." Raaz clenched his teeth so hard that he snarled rather than speak.
"The famine is no different from the plague in Kandria. Farmers are always informed about the value of their crops and aim to make it big when such occasions arise. Jadon confirmed to me that my suspicions were correct.
"The new citizens of Lutia blame you for the attack and resent you for keeping the Warp Gate for yourself so much that they exploited our absence to petition Jadon to take away my lands.
"They claimed that we had abandoned the Kingdom in its darkest hour and that with the current shortage of food there was no time to waste for my return."
"They did what?" Lith seethed with anger, making the sky quake until Raaz patted his shoulder to calm him down.
"Their argument was groundless but it made sense. Weren't Jadon a friend, things might have gone differently. Once he said no, they petitioned Brinja, and when even that failed, the Royals."
"Seriously?" Lith was flabbergasted.
"Yes." Raaz nodded. "Not to brag, but your old man is the biggest landowner of the County. Nobles excluded, obviously. You have seen how desperate my farmhands are. Right now, crops are just crops, but if the famine endures, they will be worth more than gold.
"Sure, the Royals would enforce fixed prices, but slipping a few sacks of food on the black market can make a farmer earn with a single harvest more than they would in years. According to Brinja, who defended my interests in front of the Court, it was the work of a small noble, Baronet Hogum."
"I remember him." Lith was surprised by how rage could jog even his Lich-like memory. They had met briefly during the gala when Lark had introduced Lith to Mirim for the first time.
The two youths had faced each other with magic and the final result had been an utter humiliation for the Baronet.
"The good news is that the Royals had him waiting in the bad antechamber for hours before dismissing him without even listening to Brinja's counterarguments. The bad news is that they wouldn't have even granted him audience if it wasn't because the people of Lutia backed him." Raaz said.
"Interesting." Lith sounded aloof, but his father could hear the cogs in his brain ticking like war drums.
"Calm down, son." Raaz walked in front of Lith, to look him in the eyes while holding his shoulders.
"You have every right to be angry and so do I, yet these are difficult times. At any other moment, I would have asked Zekell's help and together we would have made those people have a hard time doing business.
"Heck, I would have probably even exploited your and Jadon's influence to screw them up good. Right now, however, messing with them means messing with the livelihood of countless people."
"Give me one good reason why I should care." Lith said with a voice as cold as a death and eyes brimming with violet mana.
"I'll give you two. Because I care and because I raised you to be better than this." Raaz replied.
Lith didn't reply and soon they started walking again, this time in silence.
"What if they make another attempt?" He asked after a while.
