[Sidequest] Priceless

Lady Sylvia was having a very bad day.

“What do you mean, the girl isn’t here?”

She fumbled in her bag (to be lowered so far as carrying her own bags…) and removed the relevant paperwork. The Voice of the Beetle didn’t even look up as she pushed the scroll open on the table and pointed furiously.

“We have sixteen petitions to hear,” she said, and watched him draw something else on his parchment. Was that a beetle? “Not to mention the amount of revisions the tax documents need. It’s as if no one’s looked at these for centuries! Why do we still have a tax on anyone acting ungodly without cause? I can hardly be expected to finish all of these by myself.”

Sylvia had even come into the temple before dawn and gotten all of the paperwork ready- she’d even lined up a fake appointment. If only that horrible girl had shown up, she could have left early and made everyone else finish the work. Now, it seemed like she might actually have to do it.

“It’s not my job to keep track of every minor Voice that comes into the temple,” said the Voice of the Beetle. He moved on to an additional beetle drawing. This one had wings and eyes a little too large. “If you really wish to find her, I suggest you go investigate.”

He was hopeless. Sylvia took in a deep breath, staring at the rich furnishings of the Beetle’s office. The thick curtains, nearly closed and filtering out all light. The large desk with piles of paperwork. The beetles everywhere. On the pillars, on the ceiling, even on the floor.

What had she expected? Of course he wouldn’t help. She wasn't a beetle.

“I thank you for considering my petition, honorable Voice,” she said, and tried to make it sound like she meant it.

The Voice didn’t even respond. Of course he didn’t. She pulled her shoulders back and turned on her heel dismissively anyway. Perhaps she would go home early anyway. What was he going to do? Send beetles to attack her?

Midway down the spiral staircase, she spotted a piece of a pale tunic disappearing into a hallway. As the footsteps got faster, she skipped the last two steps and tore into the neighboring hallway. There. At the end of the hall, illuminated by a window.

He was distinctively spindly, all of his limbs too long, a stupid look on his face.

“Lady Sylvia,” said the Beetle’s newest secretary. “I, ah-”

“You and I have some discussing to do.” She stepped forward deliberately. “What, in all realms above and below, has happened to the Pigeon girl?”

“The Pigeon girl?”

She gestured. “The Voice of Celeres! That horrible girl has not arrived as we previously discussed. Due to this violation of my agreement, I think I should be freed of all obligations to the Paladin’s decision.”

He didn’t even consider it before shaking his head. “Oh! No, did no one notify you? You’ll be on your own for the next two months?”

Sylvia took another deep breath. She dearly missed being in charge. If only she was running this place, he would have been fired the first day. Not to mention the girl. “No. No one has notified me. Please, honorable secretary, elaborate.”

“I-” He frowned at her. “There’s no need to be mean about it. She said she was summoned by her goddess to cure some, ah…” She watched as he fumbled in his robes for a little too long, eventually emerging with a crumpled ball of parchment. He pushed his little glasses up and squinted at the ink. “A menacing darkness in the north that must be destroyed immediately.” He glanced up. “I hope that clarifies it for you, Lady Sylvia.”

Could anyone claim to be fighting evil these days? In Sylvia’s girlhood, you had to come up with a better excuse than that. “Did she specify at all what kind of darkness it was? I’ve been a diplomat before. Perhaps I should go and apply my special touch to our international relations. It would be a pity to lose equal trade with the North, after all.”

“I don’t think it’s political,” said the secretary. “We had a man come into the public petition and speak about it. Something about ghosts, possession, and permanent damage.”

If any of that was true, Sylvia would eat her hat. “And I suppose the best you could manage was a fifteen-year-old girl.”

“No. The Great Voice sponsored a ship of mercenaries. They’re going to investigate the matter.”

A ship of mercenaries fixing the issue, and Sylvia was still abandoned? “Well,” she said, trying to think.

Every puzzle has a solution, Sylvie, her mother had often told her as a child. There was a way, somehow, to get out of the Capitol. If only she could…

She let herself smile a little as the idea solidified. Then she staggered back, gasping in horror.

“Are you well, Lady?”

“My son! I sent him to school in the north. Now you claim he’s in danger?” She had sent him, of course, because the Capital was a disaster. The rigor of a military school was exactly what Servius needed. The secretary didn’t need to know all of that, however. “I must go check on him,” she said. “He simply cannot be left alone like this. He’s only fifteen!”

“Lady, as mentioned, we have many people looking for solutions…” He was backing up again. She had to go in for the kill.

“My only son, left to the mercy of Voices and Mercenaries? I think not!” She drew herself up as tall as she could manage. She still only barely made it to the Secretary’s nose. “I will retrieve him as soon as I can. As the last of his bloodline, he is… priceless.”

“I really-”

She shoved the paperwork into his arms before he could finish the sentence. “I thank you for doing this service for our family,” she said. “May the Beetle grant you all the time you need.”

She could still hear him speaking as she turned and left, taking the stairs three at a time. A nice vacation to the North. Why not? Perhaps she could even actually see Servius.

Sylvia pushed the door of the temple open and smiled up into the thick blanket of fog above. She was free.

“You,” she said, pointing at the nearest person to her. “Fetch my horse. I have a ticket to book.”