The Mechanical Era

While Oswald was presenting cement to King Heinrich, the guild master Brax, his associates Lyle and Iman, and the other stonemasons, over at Nexert a meeting between the three families have been assigned.

In a great white room with red curtains of glass windows, the floor made of polished marble tiles, and the furniture made of expensive dark oak, two men sat on a circular table, meeting face to face once again.

ραпdα nᴏνa| сom The one present was Danial Maybale, who was deemed healthy enough to discuss with the men, wearing an aquamarine blue suit with golden buttons and yellow stitches. Under his suit his left arm, was wrapped around in a gauze fabric.

His eyes were blinking a little bit, and he used his right hand, which stood on the arm of the chair, to hold his head. The effects of that poison seem to be getting back to him little by little. The person to Danial's right was Corel.

Corel Gendelburg, though the king of the city, came in a bit later after Danial. He had worn a white suit with 5 black buttons and black threads. Danial had noticed his ruby fusion hair had grown a bit, though he kept silent on the matter.

The third chair, made of dark oak wood, was left empty and reserved for someone. The two have been waiting for a while, yet nothing have seem to come of it. Feeling bored, Danial decided to make some small talk, to pass a bit of time.

"When is he supposed to be here?" he asked.

"He should have been here by morning. I don't know what is taking him so long." Corel replied.

"You think he ran into trouble?" Danial asked.

"Don't think so. He should be able to fight off any threat he might face," he replied.

Just then there was a knock on the door. After Corel granted his permission, a maid with her all-black uniform entered the room. She informs the two kings that Salvatore had just arrived, and is currently coming over to meet them.

"You are dismissed," Corel said. The maid bowed and left the room. Eventually, the dark oak door with a square pattern opened once again revealing none other than Salvatore Dellone himself. wearing a red renaissance suit with white threads.

The comes forward, throws an old envelope on the middle of the table, drags his chair back, and sits on it. Corel and Danial looked at the envelope, then turned their faces to Salvatore with confused faces.

"What is this?" Corel asks.

"A secret letter from the pope himself." There was a bit of silence. The two took a little time to process what he said.

"What? Already?" Danial asked.

"Well, the pope appeared to have got an opportunity to pop up. With a little outside help from an anonymous group, I managed to grab a hold of it.

This is the decoded one. The original is in my pocket." he replied.

"Have you read it?" Corel asked.

"Yes. I have. You should probably read it too." he said. Corel took the letter and read it.

"Is it legit?" Danial asked while he was reading.

"Yes does seem so. You see for yourself, Danial." Corel replied and passed it over to Danial to read. After he finished, he placed the decoded message down in the middle of the table.

"It seems his holiness wants us to plan an escape to Nexert," Danial remarked.

"That is if who is communicating to us is not some impersonator," Corel remarked.

"What are the chances you think that it is an impersonator?" Salvatore asked.

"Pretty high. I mean the speech happened only about 7 days ago. If the letter came after 17 or 18 days after, it would have been more likely." he replied

"Yes. It all seems a bit too early. If it is truly genuine, he must have had a great stork of luck." Danial remarked.

"You can read the original if you want. Handwritings the same from the pope if you ask me." Salvatore remarked.

"Looks like you got a job to do Danial," Corel remarked. Salvatore reached out to his pocket and gave Danial the original letter.

He inspected the original beige letter. The letter itself was written in a unique cipher that only anyone on the inside ever knew. The encrypted letters the pope sends to the monarch back and forth all use 2 types of paper. One is coffee brown, and the other is beige.

Depending on the color of the paper, is the type of cipher hidden in the letters. A message from a coffee brown usually meant that the cipher was hidden in the letter itself. A beige one meant that the cipher was predetermined, with one of either family.

After Danial examined the message, he called in a maid to tell the knight commander to get the previous letters from the pope.

"Is there something wrong with the letter?" he asks.

"That's what I am going to find out," Danial replied. The knight commander entered the room wearing his royal uniform, which consisted of a gray suit with 16 golden buttons, some badges of honor, with black pants featuring 2 pockets.

The man himself had a heart shaped face, with baby blue eyes with straight espresso hair that reached to his shoulder. His face was clean-shaven, with the spots of his facial hair to be near invisible.

On both his hands was a wooden chest. He places it in front of Danial and opens it up and grabs one of them. He places the two letters side by side. He closely examined the two letters and did the same with the others.

After going through them all one by one, he places them all back into the chest, while leaving the secret letter back in the middle and started thinking. The other two, filled with intrigue, wanted Danial's answer.

"Well?" Salvatore asked.

"It is most likely real. The handwriting is near perfect. It's just... seems too early to me." Danial replied.

"Well if the handwriting is what you call near perfect', it's most likely authentic," Corel replied.

"That is true."

"So what are you thinking about Danial?" Corel asked.

"Think about it Corel. If I manage to snuggle the pope out to Villana and over here, that could trigger a potential war. At a time when we are expected to see a demonic wave." he replied.

"That is true. Maybe the... anonymous group that helped us have something they want to achieve?" Salvatore suggested.

"That's what I am thinking. But I am having a hard time questioning who?" Danial replied.

"Well, it could be Rose herself." Corel put forward.

"Why do you think that?" Danial asked him.

"Well Danial, she already made a big speech about taking down the church and all. She is practically arming us to go after."

"But now? Does she really want a war so quickly? Given the time, we might have one this year! No, that's... it's suspicious I tell you."

"It could also be Salvator Humat. Use this incident to cause a war to damage the entire continent" Salvatore submitted.

"That's more likely yes. Those maniacs would do anything to see our heads on a pike." Corel suggested.

"But there is also a problem. Though they have the motives, I don't think they have the ability to sneak messages so quickly, nor have the power to get those messages out of Rose in the first place." Danial said.

"I think your memory is a bit fussy Danial," Salvatore said.

"Why is that?" Danial asked.

"Remember in the last month when we got a letter from the academy? About how they were monitoring your son?"

"I don't... Oh." Danial just remembered what Corel was talking about.

"Alright, I admit though it seems more likely that they were the ones who might have been behind it. But there is not enough information about their... capacity yet." Danial replies.

"Well whoever it is, do we all agree that this message is real?" Corel asked. The other two nodded.

"Well then, that would mean we are going to have to form a plan to get his holiness out of Queen Rose's grip."

"Any ideas anyone?" Danial asked.

"First we got to face the logistical challenge before attempting to fool the queen of Villana," Salvatore said.

"Yes obviously. What do you think?"

"There are two ways we can ship in holiness. Either by water or by land. If we transport using water, then although his holiness will get there faster, the chances of him being caught are high.

If we use the land route, although we could be a lot safer from the knights, the dangers arise when it comes to the demons. What do you all think?"

"Maybe we can use a mix of both?" Danial propounded.

"That could work. Although we need to give ourselves some time to get as far we can." Corel said.

"I have an idea. We can use a decoy." Salvatore advised

"A decoy?" Corel asked.

"Yes. Like for those teachers we used."

"Alright then, we use a decoy then. That will give a few days a head start. Once she discovers the fact that his holiness is missing, she will send out letters to order every city on the basin to find him." Corel said.

"We just need to figure out how long it will take her then. The more similar the actor, the more time we have." Danial said.

"Conservatively it should give us 3 days. Taking that into factor, the pope should drop off at Peckerson. What then?" Corel asked.

"We can hire a cart. Pay them to hide his holiness until they get to the outskirt of the city. Then have a group of hired knights to transport him to small towns in between to travel to Tyrol, then ship him over to Nexert." Danial said.

"Sounds good to me," Corel said.

"Yea. It's good. We should go with that then." Salvatore said.