Of Updates and Arrivals

Brighton Manor was much busier than John had seen it either of the times he’d been there before.

A small fleet of black and dark red vehicles had been packed into the front circle, some even spilling over and parking on the grass. Reginald seemed entirely unperturbed, however, expertly navigating the ocean of steel on the way to the front door. Meanwhile, The Gamer was scanning all around, counting everything from expensive-looking luxury cars to armored personnel carriers to plain looking cars not all that different from what his mother drove.

“Whew.” He whistled softly as a cluster of four heavily armored transports passed by, their outer layer of plating shimmering with magic. “Are those things street legal?”

“The Order has permits to operate those kinds of vehicles,” Ela answered. “Though, I believe that they should be enchanted to help with discretion as well.”

“Interesting… wonder what that looks like to someone without magic…”

“This does not bode well for ‘simple,’ does it?” the blonde teased.

“Uh, maybe it’s just a drill?” John asked with a grin, turning his gaze towards his girlfriend. Her deadpan and soft smile were the only responses he needed. “Yeah. Didn’t think so.”

The last stretch of the drive passed in silence, with Reginald carefully driving them past the lines of other Order cars and up one open space at the front of the Manor. As the car came to a clean stop, the engine winding down, John looked out the window and up, reminding himself just how impressive the building was, with all its pristine red brickwork and gold accents.

Today, though, there were no gardeners moving between the rose bushes, maintaining the grounds’ immaculate appearance. Only a scant few knights stood guard alongside the silent stone statues.

The Gamer suddenly felt massively under-dressed in his comfortable t-shirt and pants.

With a couple taps through his inventory, he put on his spare Ashcroft button up to try and make himself a little more presentable. He spent a moment debating if he should don the jacket as well when a brush at his side brought his attention back to the car.

Ela reached over, handing him back the basket so that she could turn and get out of the car, as Reginald had already made his way over to her door to open it for her. John nodded, accepting the egg and pulling the cover back over the top of it. Then, he turned, opened his own door, and got out, trying his best not to slam his door too hard as he did so. The Order’s head butler nodded appreciatively at his care, then led the couple up the pristine front stairs.

“The Lord-Protector has been engaged in meetings all morning,” the older man said, holding one of the manor’s imposing doors open to let them in. “However, I do believe the young Warden intends to meet you in one of the downstairs reading rooms, once she is free from her duties.”

John nodded and stepped inside, his sneakers echoing off the impossibly white marble. While the outside had been filled beyond capacity, the interior was a ghost town - and eerily silent. On both the previous occasions that he’d been at the manor, there had been some amount of ambient noise, muted chatter, footsteps, anything echoing around through the halls.

Today, nothing. Naught but an eerie silence crept in or out of any room.

“A suppression spell?” Ela wondered aloud, walking up beside him.

“What?” John asked, glancing at her sideways.

“It is not just quiet. There is no sound at all,” she explained, pointing to one of the side doors. “I have heard of privacy magic like this, but I have never seen it on this scale.”

“Definitely… definitely just a drill,” he muttered. “They’re practicing.”

The blonde smiled. “I appreciate your optimism.”

“Someone’s gotta try thinkin’ good thoughts. It’ll work eventually.”

She giggled at that - all the justification he needed. Then, Ela gestured at his shirt, one eyebrow raised in question. “Why did you change? When?”

“...I didn’t feel dressed right, so I just swapped into one of my spare uniform shirts. My inventory makes it pretty easy.”

“Hmm… very convenient. I do not believe that the Lord-Protector expects us to be in our finest today, though I am sure he will appreciate the gesture,” she said, looking down at her own outfit. After her shower, she’d donned her combat suit again, with a clean shirt and pants over it. “Perhaps I should have considered something nicer.”

“I think he’ll understand you having a medical reason more than me being too lazy to tie a tie.”

“Ahem,” Reginald cleared his throat, ending their hushed conversation. “I believe that Lord Brighton has many more things to worry about today than that. Now, shall I lead you both to the room?”

John and Ela flushed together.

“Um, yes, sorry,” he said, scratching the back of his neck nervously.

For the next few minutes, the butler led them through hall after hall of unnatural silence.

Though John was still somewhat overwhelmed by the opulence of the manor, he was beginning to put together some landmarks in his head in spite of that. Some of the angles of the garden through the windows seemed familiar, indicating that they were in the same section of the building that he’d been in the last couple days, not far from the infirmary where he’d woken up.

The Gamer also recognized a stone bust in one hall, not because he had any idea who it was, but because he had a vague idea that he’d taken a right from it both times he’d been led to Lord Brighton’s study. His memory was correct, and the group passed it the way he expected, reaching the hallway decorated with portraits of the Shield Wardens after only one more turn.

Instead of following the images of that lineage all the way through to the present day, however, Reginald diverted them off to one side (somewhere around 800 years prior in the pictures, if John was guessing the age well enough). The door the head butler selected shimmered rose gold with magic as its sound-suppressing seal broke. He moved respectfully off to one side, holding the door open so that John and Ela could enter.

The room was quite small, almost cozy, if a room that looked so expensive could still be so. A pair of gilded bookshelves adorned one wall, across from a red brick hearth. A window looked out to a fountain in the back garden. Other decorations were sparse, save for a pair of red-cushioned couches on either side of an antique-looking round table.

Inside, sitting at one of those couches, waited Moira Brighton, Warden of the Golden Rose.

All at once, she was elegant and more disheveled than he’d ever seen her. A faint aura of white gold light lit the area around her, brightening the room. John could feel the power and authority coming from her. By contrast, her hair had been hastily pulled up into a sloppy bun, from which many fiery red tangles escaped.

Rather than her normally well-pressed Ashcroft uniform, she wore a thickly-padded set of tanned hide pants, bleached white, which The Gamer recognized as similar to what Knight-Captain Gallacher had been wearing on Tuesday. This had to be part of her own under-armor set. She’d set aside the matching coat top, similarly padded, and with red rose embroidery. That left her wearing only a sleeveless shirt on top, spotted and stained with age and oil.

That singular garment did little to cover the Warden’s impressive breasts, and nothing to cover her well-toned arms.

John flushed slightly, averting his eyes to the small coffee table in front of her, on which sat the outer shell of her suit, every piece neatly organized in its place. The set was all an impressively polished silver steel with gold and red trim. It hummed with mana, enough that it was visible even to his naked eye. Idly, he wondered if he could blind himself by looking at it with his [Unawakened Eye].

Not that he really wanted to find out.

The redhead immediately snapped to them as they walked in, her attention drawn away from the armor laid out in front of her. “Oh! Hello, Reginald. I did not realize you would be back so soon.”

“Traffic was most agreeable today, young Warden.” The butler nodded, stepping back. “If the three of you have no need of anything further, I should go see the Lord-Protector.”

“When last I was with him,” Moira said, “he was still speaking to the Knight-Commanders. They’ve been in talks for the last couple hours. I… needed to take a break.”

Reginald allowed his stoic mask to fall for only a second, letting through only the faintest hint of a smile. “Someday you will get used to it.”

“I hope not.” Moira smiled back.

Shaking his head ever so slightly, the Order’s head butler allowed the conversation to end there. With one final, respectful nod to each of the trio, he departed, off to Lord Brighton’s study. As the door closed behind him, John could see the thin veil of magic wash over the opening, once more sealing the room’s sound off from the rest of the manor.

“So… your armor?” Ela asked, walking over and sitting down next to Moira, gesturing towards the coffee table.

“Ah, yes.” The Warden suddenly blushed, pink glowing behind her pale, freckled face as she realized how little she had on. “I have been in full equipment all morning. It was starting to get quite hot, even inside. So, I excused myself.”

“You do not need to explain yourself to us, Moira,” the blonde replied.

“Yeah. I’m not exactly wearing my Sunday finest either,” John said, trying to sound reassuring as he sat across from the women. Finding no open room on the table, he set the basket down next to him, rearranging a couch pillow to make sure it had enough room. “There ya go, nice and comfy.”

On the other side, the redhead seemed to relax a little, remembering that she was among her own peers, not her father’s knights.

“What is that?” she asked, furrowing her brows in confusion.

“...I’m gonna get that question a lot today, aren’t I?” John mumbled, shaking his head and sliding the cover off the glowing sphere. “This is how I’m transporting the phoenix egg around right now. I, uh, got a suggestion from the guest in my head that I ought not to keep it inside my inventory all the time.”

“The guest in your head? The Lady told you to do that?” Skepticism laced Moira’s voice.

The Gamer shook his head. “It sounds so much more serious when you say it like that…

“It, ugh- It’s not like she said, ‘thou shalt transport the tiny egg in a quilt your grandma made.’ Much more of a general idea thing,” he elaborated, running a hand through his hair as he tried to remember exactly what he’d been told that morning. “The egg was making me heat up pretty badly earlier, even while it was still just stashed away in my inventory. When I couldn’t figure out what was wrong, uh, Lady Gaia gave me a tip that I shouldn’t just hide it away in my inventory all the time.

“Long story short, this was the best solution I could think of.”

“I suppose that all makes sense,” Moira conceded.

“Yup. So my plan is soft blankets, orchestral music, and reassuring words. For now, at least.” He grinned, trying to sound confident in the few decisions he’d made. Ela nodded back, helping reinforce that little bit of confidence. “Anyway, how are you doing today, Moira? Sounds like it’s been quite the morning.”

“Yes. Many things have happened since you both left the manor yesterday.”

“Yeah, heh.” John couldn’t quite hold in a chuckle. “We could kinda tell, given, you know… everything.”

“I have not seen this many knights together in one place in a long time,” Ela added. “What have we missed?”

The Warden paused for a moment, considering her answer. “I do not know how much I should share without my father present.”

“Don’t get yourself in trouble,” John said. “We can ask your dad whenever he’s done with his meetings.”

Moira looked over to him, meeting his gaze with her emerald eyes. Then, she did the same with Ela. The Warden’s next words were careful, but confident, “Someday, if I am to lead, then I will have to be used to making that call on my own. I can… catch you up, at least.”

“Despite the Order’s best efforts, news of the attempt on my life leaked onto the Abyss Auction within hours of the fight,” Moira began, leaning forward to rest her arms on her knees. She looked up at John, smiling. “Our escape from Ashcroft was far from subtle.”

He smiled back. “Hey, we made it out alive, didn’t we?”

“Indeed,” she replied. “You both fought admirably - far beyond anything I could have expected. I don’t think there was any way for us to escape without being seen by information brokers. They tend to keep a close eye on me, most of the time.”

“That sounds supremely exhausting,” Ela said, sympathetically.

“It is one thing that I am already used to, unfortunately.” The redhead sighed. “Anyway, to continue… As far as those watching were aware, a former Order knight, Ela Grzmot, used her vehicle to get the two of us away from the initial ambush, though it was eventually caught by a second barrier, with me still inside. When the gang’s barrier fell, the two of us emerged, injured, but alive. One unidentified mundane appears to have been wounded during the incident.”

“One- oh,” the Bookworm Knight muttered, looking at John. “Interesting.”

“What am I missing?” The Gamer asked, looking between the two women.

“You were the mundane, John. At least, as far as they are aware,” Ela explained.

Moira nodded. “Word of your status as a late bloomer has not gotten out yet, as far as I am aware. The brokers assume that Ela was the driver, and that we were the only two in the car.”

“Ah… I dunno if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.” He shrugged.

“For now, it simply means that you do not have those same information brokers watching you at all times… yet,” the redhead explained. “Someday, when word does get out, they will want to know everything that you can do. Especially if one of them learns that the Lady chose you specifically.”

The mere thought of that sent The Gamer’s stomach into a nauseous spiral of anxiety. “Let’s not. So, how did we go from that to all… this.”

“I should not speak to what actions exactly my father is taking, but I can say that we are still trying to find out exactly how the attack happened. While Ashcroft itself is treaty-bound to be neutral territory, we maintain several patrols around the campus, especially during school hours while I am there. No simple street gang should have been able to sneak by all of them, nor create a trap barrier powerful enough to hold me inside.”

“I was wondering about that,” Ela muttered, bringing a finger to her chin as she thought back to the previous day. “They also had a significant selection of enchanted weaponry. More than I would have expected.”

The Warden nodded. ”Agreed. Someone with far more money and power supplied them with equipment and information. That is probably where that pyromancer got the phoenix, as well.”

John looked down at his side where the phoenix egg lay swaddled. He placed a hand on the sphere protectively. Before he could inquire further, the sound of the door drew their attention. Reginald stepped in, bowing courteously to Moira before speaking.

“Young Warden, your father is ready to see the three of you.”

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