"Ah, finally back. Was going to send a search party out for you." Robert, the overly protective bartender, said as she entered the Inn.
"Oh, really, and who would have been a part of that. Just you, running around shouting out her name in panic, I imagine," his wife said as she came out of the back room.
"Wha- no." He said sheepishly to his wife.
"I hope you show as much dedication if it's our daughter or me who is home late."
"Even more. It would be even more dedication." He said, kissing her hand, missing the fact that she had just rolled her eyes.
"Also, who would have been running the Inn as you scoured the city. I hope you wouldn't expect me to do everything around-"
She trailed off as she headed into the back room. As the door closed, Oriana just heard the sound of giggling from their daughter, probably playing with some toy.
Before Robert followed after the love of his life, he quickly left a bowl of stew, still with some pieces of venison in it, for her to take.
Thanking him, she headed over to her seat, but couldn't help but notice that she was the only one who had stew with venison in it.
"Softy."
---
As she sat there eating her stew with chunks of venison, she thought about all she had learnt at the Peacekeepers Headquarters.
She had thought that she would get in, find a way to sabotage the place, reduce their aggressive patrols, and flee before anyone knew.
Of course, there would be a little more in terms of execution to such a plan, not that she had a plan in place to actually do all of this, but she didn't expect to be receiving full training for becoming a Peacekeeper.
She also hadn't expected it to be so thorough.
She had only had a few run-ins with the Peacekeepers. They had chased after her at the festival, and she had been interrogated by them twice, technically, while working as a Merchant in the Guild. The word impressive isn't what she would associate with those experiences.
But as she thought more on that, she had rather a large head start on them during the festival. Had they been on equal footing, she might not have made it out of there.
Then, aside from the interrogation in the warehouse, which she had wholly been prepared for, it was quite a shock for the Peacekeeper to have been interrogated when she was messing with the Castle Ball documents.
Something as simple as a random worker taking too long in a room caused him to question her, and if it wasn't for Simon, she might have been caught then and there.
From all of that, and the training they received, she definitely had to go back on them, not being impressive.
It also occurred to her that the man that she and Bethany fought during the caravan heist wasn't he just a guard?
Yet, when bumping into him in the street, he was in a Peacekeeper outfit.
Was he always a Peacekeeper, and for some reason didn't wear his gear for the security job? Or, could he have become a Peacekeeper after that whole incident? If he had, he had done so rather quickly.
Questions and questions that she probably wouldn't get answers for unless she actually spoke to the man. But with his demeanour, she didn't plan to do so.
But enough on that. She realised there was one other thing she had learned from the Peacekeeper's Headquarters. Something that might be just what she needed to go after to cause some chaos there.
The device that removes illusions.
Something that, if it is fully finished, would be the bane of her life.
Now, she didn't expect to stop it from being made. But she might be able to delay its production for some time. She didn't know what, however.
For now, she needed to get more information on it. Where was it located? The security around it? And how far along they are with its development.
When she has that, she will then be able to formulate a plan to deal with it.
---
Dinner was lovely, and shortly after that, she headed back to her room for some much-needed sleep. All the exercise and combat training took its toll. She had fallen asleep early each night since she joined the Peacekeepers.
As she hit the bed, face down, she felt the goblet push against her chest, hurting a little as it did.
Moving to pull it off, she caught her obsidian ring along the thread, and realised she still had the trinket from the warehouse heist stuck inside it still.
There was no problem with being there, but she had been boxed with all the other objects, and all it was currently doing was taking up space that could be useful for something else.
Untangling herself, she then pulled out the intricately painted egg.
"Ouch!"
Dropping it in panic when she felt how hot it was.
"What the-"
Before she could go any further, the sound of sizzling and the smell of burning hit her nostrils. If that wasn't enough, what looked like smoke started to form underneath it…from where it was resting on the bed sheets.
"No, no, no!"
She had to play hot potato as she frantically juggled the burning hot egg, dashing over to the nearby table to place it on something that wouldn't burn. The only thing available was a metal tray that was left for carrying up food and drink should she want any in her room. Thankfully, while it was ridiculously hot, it wasn't enough to melt the tray.
"How did that happen? "
She headed over to the basin to cool off the burn marks on her hands. That was going to sting tomorrow. She would definitely need to head to the apothecary to grab a potion to help heal the damage.
But before could get to that, she had a burning egg to deal with.
---
As much as she needed the sleep, this mystery was too good to just leave sitting there. To solve it, she got started by looking at the egg from all angles. As far as she could tell, it was a little more red than before, but other than that, all the intricate paint looked to be as it had before.
What had caused it to get so hot?
She pulled out the rest of her gear that was in her ring, looking to see if there was anything else that could have caused it. But between rations, firelighters, which were not currently producing a flame, a canteen of water, and a few other odds and ends, there was nothing that she could feasibly imagine would cause such a reaction to a monster egg.
That left only one reason for the change. At least as far as she could come up with.
When Bethany had said that the monster inside the egg was likely dead…that may not be the case with this one.
Either whoever had this egg never did anything to kill the monster inside, which just seems foolhardy. Or they tried to and didn't realise that it didn't take. Or this one was just missed.
What luck she had to get one that was still alive.
But the question now was, why was it getting so hot…and inside her obsidian ring of all places.
Did heat mean it was close to being born?
As far as she knew, it wasn't possible to put living things into a storage space…well, most living things. The magic that people had, naturally rejected the magic of the ring. Whether that was by design or just a coincidence, she didn't know, but thankfully, it meant you couldn't just end up in darkness all of a sudden, someone having trapped you there.
But that didn't mean all living things couldn't be stored. It was always thought to be impossible, but when a fisherman stored his live bait in such a space, people began to wonder what else could go there.
It had been hit-and-miss, and generally, the size of the creature played a great part in whether it took. Size, because of the space the ring could take, was one reason, and larger creatures were generally more complex. Where complexity coincided with magic potential as well.
It was, however, different for monsters, as far as she was aware. Monsters inherently had magic, and with all the testing people had done, of the ones that succeeded and hadn't been ripped to shreds by the monster they were testing, they just wouldn't go into the space.
But here she had one that did. Well, the egg of one. Was it being an egg that made it possible?
Was it not actually a monster, but some small animal instead, which could actually be stored in a storage ring?
As she contemplated this, the red hue to the egg started to fade, and it seemed like the egg was getting colder. It was by no means cold inside the Inn, so it just seemed odd seeing it happen.
"Is the storage space void hot?"
She was fairly sure it wasn't.
She tested it, placing the egg back into the storage space void, and after only a few minutes, pulled it out to find it heating up again. Yet, none of the other items she had put in the storage space ever came out at a temperature different from what she put them in.
"This thing is going to hatch, isn't it?"
Not right now, but probably at some point.
The sensible part of her said, "This is a monster. Nothing good will come from letting it hatch. When it does, it's likely to rip my face off."
But another part wondered. "Could she tame it, if it did hatch?"
There were tamers in the world, so it's not impossible. But she knew nothing about how it worked.
"Well, guess I need to find someone who knows about this. "
So for now, she placed it back into her storage space. She figured that it being hot was probably better than being cold. She had no way of knowing for sure, so a visit to a tamer's shop would definitely be for the best.
"Looks like I'll be a little late to the guild tomorrow."