Isolt meets her royal knights and discusses the first move

The black-haired knight went as far as she could on her raven wings, before the danger of being spotted outweighed the convenience of using them. With a sigh, she replaced the pendant around her neck and hid her wings, then continued the rest of the way on foot. Thankfully, the path to Merridan was mostly free of looters and bandits these days; it was actually so peaceful out here, perhaps owing to the combination of the barrier and the knights, that one could easily prefer it to the roads outside the capital city. For Isolt, this peacefulness was a source of great shame, causing her to glower at the tall walls of the knight's barracks on the way into town. These roads should be full of demon-spawn, threatening travelers and forcing the last dregs of humanity inside. Instead, the hunting parties of the knightly order had turned it into something of a party location, as though the rest of the kingdom wasn't still at war against her master's forces.

She couldn't simply fly over the walls; besides the danger of being seen, she also had to consider the barrier. Madwick wasn't nearly powerful enough to destroy that entire Geodly structure; the only entrance would probably be the main road into town, where their parade of horse-drawn carriages had gone through. The dark angel imagined that the people were probably celebrating the arrival of the royal knights at this moment, or perhaps wondering why Isolt the Lord Herald wasn't among their numbers. No doubt, the people of this ho-dunk town were preparing to fall to their knees and worship her, as so many in the kingdom did. What town wouldn't cheer and flood the streets at such news? The arrival of the royal knights meant the promise of a regiment of the kingdom's finest protectors.

Isolt's face held a dumb frown as she stepped through the barely protected front gate, through the invisible hole that the demon channeler had created. The day looked perfectly ordinary, as though her royal knights had never arrived at all. "No... Certainly they weren't dashed against the barrier?" she questioned, looking around for any signs of the sort of ashy leftovers that accompanied the destruction of a demon by angelic techniques. There were none... The answer that the group had been let inside with no awe or festivities of any kind was almost as disheartening as the thought that they'd all been killed.

Isolt might be naïve, but she was quick enough to understand the politics at play here. Merridan was the closest to an independent city that existed anywhere in the human world in modern times. The citizens placed their faith in one of two things: the church of Geod or the knightly order of Dyna. There was no piece of the pie left for the royal knights here. If anything, the glances she got as she walked by with the royal symbol-- a tall castle-- displayed proudly on her shield were cocked eyebrows of suspicion. A young child wearing a pot on his head like a helmet ran up to meet her, as though he were some vanguard of the town's welcoming party, but his face held a grumpy frown. "Are you one of Dyna's knights? I've never seen you before..."

Putting on her most fetching smile, full of humanity, the girl knelt down to his level and placed her hands on her knees. "No, friend; I am with the royal knights of the capital. We've come here to help bolster the town's defenses-"

"There are other knights?" the boy questioned with a quizzical frown, crossing his arms.

"... Y-You've actually never heard of the royal knights before?"

"Oh! You're like the paladins or the defense loaners, right? Those guys that the demons killed off before the knights took over defenses here!"

The black-haired captain of the royal knights found herself quivering with rage at the commoner's unknowing insult. "No, young man; we are the strongest in the kingdom-"

"Not stronger than Dyna. I've never even heard of you."

"... Well! That aside, did you happen to see a procession of other royal knights move through the square just a moment ago? Did you see which way they went?"

"They're stabling up over that way, by the tavern. Don't head down Church Street; go the other way, like you're heading towards the barracks. Hey, Miss...?"

"They call me Isolt the Lord Herald," the black-haired beauty responded, brushing her hair away from one ear with a smile that could stupefy the empire's populace. "But you may call me Isolt."

"Yeah, Isolt! I think you wet yourself..."

The demon drew back up to her full height, red-faced and dabbing at her thighs with the corners of her short skirt while her other fist trembled. It was all she could do to stop herself from smiting the insolent child right then and there. "Is that so? Well, don't go mentioning that to anyone else, alright? You wouldn't want people telling others that you wet your pants. Keep that a secret. Promise?"

The kid laughed and ran off, making no such promise. Isolt placed one hand to her face irritably, then continued towards the tavern.

By the time she reached the tavern, Isolt felt ready to carry out the massacre of Merridan without any planning or culling of defenses. She just wanted to pick up the nearest commoner and run them through with her sword, but she managed to restrain herself. The tavern keeper didn't make it easy; the portly, balding man seemed ridiculously eager to conscript the captain of the royal knights into some kind of dance competition. She paid her way instead, doing her best to keep a smile on her face as noisy, human music blasted from the next room over. Finally, she joined the others on the upper floors, where they'd rented nearly the entire stock of rooms. "Please tell me I have my own room," she greeted Madwick, spotting his cloak slumped against the sitting area.

"I thought we'd sssssss-share a room, as the most important linchpinsssssss of this operation!"

"Then it is a good thing I don't intend to spend much time in there," Isolt growled, placing her hand on her blade's hilt to remind the bold, perverse channeler of his place. "This town can't face its ruination soon enough. There is no need to involve the others just yet. Let's you and I go over our options together."

"With pleasssss-sure," the shadowy demon chuckled, flickering his snake-like tongue out from his hood a few times as he spoke. "I figure we have two options, ma'am. We can begin work immediately on expossss-sing the fraud of the knights, or we can inssss-stead focus on weakening people's resssss-olve in the church. If you'd like to ssssss-start with the knights, I'd recommend we go to the barracks. Where better to target the **** younglings? If you'd prefer the church, we sssss-should go meet one of their wealthiesssss-st patrons. That church ssssss-surives on its money..."

Ordinarily, Isolt would dismiss both plans and come up with her own, just to assert dominance, but in this case, she was eager to get started. It sounded like Madwick had gotten a better lay of the land on his way in than she had. Perhaps it could work out best to let him have this small victory?