Hotel room in the town surrounding the royal castle

The royal castle was surrounded by what had once been a flourishing town, the shining heart of the kingdom. In a sense it still flourished, but not in the way that it used to. Being so close to the open portal, and the very first place most monsters would visit after coming through it, the town had been almost completely taken over. It was a rarity to even see any humans in this place anymore, since most of them had been flushed out by now. It hadn’t been a deliberate conquest, like was happening further out from here, it had just happened on its own.

There was an inn Tally used to stay at on a fairly regular basis, during the days of his love affair with the Queen, which he hoped to use as a base while preparing to storm the castle. But, by the time Tally reached the street the inn was on, it had already become clear that this was not the place he remembered. Everyone they passed by wasn’t human, to the point where Tally began to draw a dangerous amount of stares for being an oddity. Even more stares than Prennel, who still needed to hold up her pants with both hands to stop them working their way down her legs. Tally decided to send Zori in ahead of him to rent the room, while he stayed outside on the street with the others.

Zori had never been to a bustling hub of civilization like this before. Upon arriving in this kingdom, she’d made straight for the woods, where she felt more at home. She looked around in wonder as she passed creatures of all manner of shapes and sizes in the lobby of the hotel: most of them recognizably person-shaped, but a few she had trouble even making sense of. Not all, but a noticeable majority, were women. Zori strode up to the front desk and dumped her handful of coins on the tabletop. The enticing sound of money attracted the attention of an insectoid lady with mandibles and compound eyes, who emerged from a door behind the desk to greet her.

“I’d like a room for one night please,” Zori lied through her teeth, “it’s just me, no one else.”

The receptionist clicked her mandibles together in acknowledgement, returned to the back room for a moment, and soon returned to hand Zori a little paper card with her room number on it. “Thanks very much,” Zori said, and began exploring the hallway until she found it. Unlike Tally must be feeling, Zori reflected, she felt incredibly safe here. This was a place where monsters like her were perfectly welcome. She felt a little remorseful that she was helping Tally to tear it all down, but she didn’t let her personal reservations get in the way of obeying her master.

Once Zori located her room, she returned to Tally and the gang to let them know. Prennel, Ance, and Mi were all able to just walk in through the front door. Tally, on the other hand, they smuggled in through the fire escape at the other end of the building to avoid drawing attention.

“It’s a little cramped in here,” Ance commented once all five of them were together in Zori’s two-bed hotel room.

“It’ll be fine,” Mi told her, “Tally can brainwash someone in charge and have them reserve the next room over for us, so we can spread out. Right Tally?”

“Yep,” Tally nodded, pushing down on one of the beds to test its mediocre springiness. “That way, we can also stay here as long as we want, for free.”

“Finally, I can be free,” Prennel celebrated, raising her arms and letting her pants drop limply to the floor. “I’ve been needing to hold these up for almost two hours.”

“Speaking of dressing down,” Tally said, “I suppose I can finally get out of this suit of armor, can’t I?”

“I’ll help,” came two simultaneous offers from Ance and Mi. “You can both help,” Tally said, “it’s complicated getting this thing off.”

After a very frustrating time trying to communicate how to correctly undo all the buckles to Ance and Mi, Tally finally collapsed onto the bed nearest the window. Zori, who was already sitting there, ran her fingers through his hair curiously. “You have hair too?” She said, seeing his non-helmeted head for the first time. “That stuff is so strange…” Zori wormed her tail underneath Tally’s neck to give him better support than the terrible hotel pillows could offer. “What’s next?” Prennel asked him, while bouncing on the other bed. Then she heard the bed make a worrying splintering noise under her weight and stopped.

“We wait for our new spy to get us some recon, and get you your weapons back,” Tally yawned. “But until she does… I think I might just have my first indoor nap in weeks…”

“Here, I can help with that.” Zori fished out from her bag one of her tranquilizer darts and pressed it into Tally’s arm.

“Ow! What was that for? I was already... sleepy… zzzzzzzzzzzzz…”

“What?” Zori said to all the raised-eyebrowed faces staring at her. “He'll get better sleep this way. Besides, now we can talk without needing to worry about waking him up. Hey, while he has his little snooze, anyone want to get something to eat? We passed a café on the way here.”

Prennel remained in the hotel room to keep guard on Tally, (and also avoid needing to hold up her pants in public again), while Mi, Ance, and Zori left to go kill some time.

In the meantime, Tally’s freshly-recruited spy, the hydra from the lake, was preparing to get Tally some useful information about the royal castle’s security. What exactly that entailed, she wasn’t quite sure yet.

She had a human supervisor who she had been making daily reports to for as long as she could remember. Which wasn’t overly long, she had to admit, given that she had been brought to life only a few months ago after the invasion had already begun.

The hydra poked her right-most head out of the water like a periscope, hissing idly. She had just spent twenty minutes practicing, looking like she was calmly floating along underwater, while in reality she was constantly grappling to keep her left head restrained and out of view: the only head that resisted Tally’s brainwashing, who would surely out her as his agent given half a chance. She was near some docks at the corner of the lake physically nearest to the rear of the castle, where guards regularly patrolled in case any intruder managed to sneak past her onto land. She soon spotted her supervisor: A chubby little man, in his 60s, fallen asleep in a fold-out chair waiting for her to arrive. She quietly drifted closer to him, and hissed softly “Darren…”

Darren, for that was the man’s name, blearily opened his eyes to see a supernaturally huge snake face hovering inches from his own. He yelped out in shock and tipped his chair over backwards. “Ugh. Every time, Sherry…” Darren grumbled as he flipped his chair upright again, rubbing the back of his head. ‘Sherry’ was the name the hydra had been given upon her creation.

“Here for our daily report, sir,” Sherry hissed.

“Where are the rest of you?” Darren asked, peering over the edge of the deck looking for the other two heads.

“We’re here,” the center head peeked out of the water just a bit, before sinking again. She dearly hoped this would be enough for him and he wouldn’t ask to see the third head. To Sherry’s relief, he didn’t.

“Oh, there you are. So, any would-be intruders try to cross your lake today?” Darren asked the above-water head.

“No,” Sherry lied, “very quiet today.” She spotted a pair of armed guards marching along the road behind the docks, and used this as an excuse to start a conversation about them. “Are those guards on a new patrol pattern?” Sherry asked innocently, craning her serpentine neck to see past Darren. Darren looked over his shoulder. “I don’t think so… why?”

“No reason, just didn’t remember there being a patrol at this time of day,” Sherry said. Her first attempt didn’t get her anywhere, and she dared not pursue the subject for fear of drawing suspicion.

“I didn’t realize you paid that much attention to the routines,” Darren said. “You are a truly frightening creation sometimes, Sherry, you know that? Thank goodness you’re on our side.”

“Why thank you, sir,” Sherry bowed her head.

“Well, if that’s all, then, off you go,” Darren waved, “do whatever you want.”

Sherry looked behind her, about to leave, but hesitated. “Sir…?” She asked tentatively, “you wouldn’t happen to know anything about how we were created, would you? The names of any humans used to make us? That sort of thing?”

Darren looked taken aback. “Why on Earth would you ask that?”

“It’s just been on our mind today. We are curious to learn more about our origins.”

“Well, I’d talk to one of the sorcerers,” Darren said, “they’re the ones who conjured you up. I’m too low on the ladder to know anything about that.”

“Thank you, then I shall pose the question to one of them,” Sherry nodded. “I will be back here again tomorrow evening, as is routine.”

Darren watched Sherry’s head slowly retract itself into the water, and then the blurred glimmer of motion that was her swimming away under the surface.