As they pulled in past the great gates, the crew took in their surroundings. Immaculate gardens punctuated by fountains of marble and gold lined the way to the palace. The carriage pulled to a stop, scattering a flock of peacocks as the riders dismounted.

When they reached the venue, the party was stunned by the display of sheer opulence. Full-sized fountains of wine and chocolate flowed from every corner. The music of a full quartet followed them as they investigated.

“That's...lovely, thank you,” Malakos said. “But you don't need to follow us.”

The servants who had been pushing the quartet after them in what appeared to be a large wheelbarrow scowled and steered the quartet away.

“Now then,” Bardy turned to the King. “Where did the kidnappers appear?”

“Right this way,” the King said, leading them down the aisle. “She was approaching the altar when smoke bombs went off here and here. Then the thugs fired projectiles attached to cords from the trees over there, ziplined in and kidnapped the princess.”

Bardy looked up at the massive columns, where the metal heads of the ziplines could still be seen.

The party continued to investigate, occasionally needing to scatter a flock of exotic pets that roamed the venue—ostriches, leopards, llamas, camels, large lizards, and birds with incredible plumage meandered docilely around the posh courtyard. Even one middle-aged human man, entirely nude, roamed about on all fours. The party wasn't sure if he was supposed to be there or not, but wordlessly agreed that they could do without that story, and continued to look for leads to the princess.

A thorough search turned up very little—even the remains of the purported smoke bombs were unaccounted for.

“I had the mess they left cleaned up,” he explained. “We want everything ready for the wedding when the princess is rescued.”

“Well, I'm afraid that limits what we can do here,” Malakos said. At the king's despairing look however, he hastily added, “So we're going to go down into town to see if we can get any leads on the perpetrators. You said they'd been harassing you some time before this—they must have some kind of foothold in town or somewhere nearby.”

“Excellent!” The king clapped his hands together. “Please report your findings back to me quickly.”

Malakos started toward the gate, fetching a few of the team who had straggled. “Miss Ranger, come down from that tree, please” he asked.

“Yes, please do,” a nervous-looking gardener said in a nasally voice. “It's very expensive. Please, do be careful. Don't break anything.”

“Where's Deruque?” The cleric looked around. Deruque had not been extremely committed to the investigation. He had surveyed their surroundings with a disgusted curl of his lips and a snarl rolling quietly in the back of his throat, his clawed fingers stroking the hilt of his rapier with a sinister slowness. Eventually, unable to take it in anymore, he had stalked over to the pen of pets. Malakos looked in that direction now—the dragonborn was no longer there.

…Nor was the largest ostrich. 

Malakos closed his eyes, pursed his lips, and inhaled deeply before turning and locating their missing party member leading a troupe of protesting servants around the yard from the back of the startled bird.

“Seems he's a bit occupied,” Bardy observed helpfully.

“He can catch up with us later then. We've wasted enough time here,” Malakos stalked toward the gates. “We can't take the coach down—connection to the monarchy will spoil any chance we have at informatio—oof!”

The tiefling had walked face-first into a large knight, covered in black spiked armor.

“Excuse me,” Malakos said, attempting to sidestep him. The knight blocked his path once more.

Malakos narrowed his eyes in confusion. “We're on official business,” he explained, attempting again to pass, only to be obstructed again by the knight's bulk.

“I'd heard,” he said. “But I don't agree with the choice. I think the operation should be handled by the Knights of Whispenshire—not some uncouth group of hired metal.”

“'Uncouth'?” Malakos protested as Deruque trotted up to them on his stolen ostrich, gaggle of distressed servants in tow.

“Prove to me your skill,” the knight challenged. “A duel.”

Malakos bit his lip. It had been some years since his last real fight to the death, and he had never been the strongest soldier, even then. “We have been hired by the king, not you,” he reiterated. “And your fealty to him includes respect for his decisions.”

The knight was unfazed. He drew his sword and pointed it at the group. “A duel. Prove yourselves.”

Malakos was reaching reluctantly for his mace when Bardy stepped forward.

“If you want to nurse your bruised ego, go do it somewhere else. We have a kidnapping case on our hands, and it's a race against the clock. Whether you think we deserve the job or not is irrelevant—the only thing any of us should care about right now is that there is a princess in danger! You think you deserve this job more than we do? You prove yourself–put your time to better use than wasting ours!”

The knight looked down at the halfling—his entire three feet of height brimming with fury—and cleared his throat. “...You...make a good point. Very well,” he conceded, stepping aside and gesturing them through the gate.

Malakos and Deruque (now dismounted from the ostrich) shared a glance of impressed disbelief before following the bard to the path.

The walk to town would take some time, so they used the opportunity to go over what they knew so far.

“The kingdom must be flourishing,” Malakos speculated, “for the monarchy to be able to flaunt so much wealth, even for a wedding. If the kidnappers had been looking for money, though, they would have demanded a ransom by now. And the fact that this occurred during a royal wedding—do you think it could be political? From neighboring kingdoms, perhaps?”

“Maybe romantic,” Bardy said. “A low-born contender for the princess's hand making the only move available to them. That's the stuff of sonnets, right there.”

“Who cares?” Deruque asked. “Let's just find the princess, get our reward, and get out of here. Think I breathed in too much royal filth back there. Just thinking of that place makes me feel slimy.”

“Not a big fan of royals?” Bardy asked.

“You could say that,” Deruque fingered his rapier hilt fondly.

Silence fell on the group again. Ruby's attention turned once more to the tiefling.

“So...Malakos, was it?” she said.

The tiefling jolted and turned to her. His eyes widened innocently. “Yes? Ah, I'm sorry, I don't believe I've gotten your name yet, Miss....?”

Ruby's eyebrows knitted. “Ruby. My name is Ruby,” she emphasized.

“Ruby, then, thank you,” he smiled, flashing pointed fangs. “Did you need something?”

She stared at him for a long second. “No,” she said. “I guess not.”

Finally, the team reached the town—but after seeing the palace, the contrast was difficult to process. Ramshackle houses that barely met the most basic definition of the word melded together as though huddling for warmth even in the pleasant [season] weather. As the group continued deeper into town, the houses crammed more closely, stacking on top of each other four or five stories high. They were packed so closely that they reminded Ruby of the strata in the cliff sides she loved to scale during her ranger training period—only these looked...sad. Dilapidated, weathered, threatening to fall or collapse or both, they creaked as even the mildest breezes blew past. Rope ladders swayed, clattering wormy wood rungs against wormy wood walls.

Amid all the urban decay however, was a sort of patchwork beauty—an effort of flowering diversity and tenacity that the citizens seemed to pride themselves in.

“Uh...I'm starting to think the kidnapping wasn't a romance thing,” Bardy said, as three thin children in patched-up clothes raced past.

“The disparity here is unbelievable,” Malakos said. “Isn't the king aware of this?”

“Monarchs are only aware of what they want to be aware of. They never take the time to know about the needs of the people—until they're made to be aware of them,” Deruque answered. “Trust me, I would know.”

“Lots of experience in the area?” Ruby asked.

“I grew up in a place a lot like this—only worse. The slums of [Drakkonille]. No parents, no family—it's a miracle I lived to adulthood...if you can call it living. Warmth was scarce, food even more so, but what the place lacked in necessities, it made up for with its abundance…of crime.”

The group turned another corner as the large ranger continued. “I'd mostly been able to keep clear of it, but one day, I found myself in the hands of one of the slimiest gangs to crawl the gutters. I thought I was done for, but out of nowhere appeared a heroic band of armor-clad knights. They destroyed my opponents in one fell swoop and then disappeared, not even staying to accept my thanks. I was star-struck. I found out that the gleaming band of heroes were members of the king's royal guard—sworn to serve the kingdom and protect the innocent, and I promised myself that I would become one of them if it killed me.”

“I'm guessing this is where the twist happens,” Bardy said.

“Not quite,” Deruque laughed. “Not until after ten years of dedicated training and pushing myself to the limit, so that I would be worthy to stand alongside the heroes I admired. Serve the people with them—make the kingdom a better place for the people who needed it, as I had. At tryouts, I was sheer force and determination, plowing through all the other applicants like a raging minotaur. But when the time came to select the champions, I was dismissed—on the grounds that I had no parents, no pedigree. The king was only interested in being surrounded by pretty things, and I would have been a blotch on his pristine image.”

Deruque's eyes narrowed. “I was crushed. I would never be good enough to stand by my heroes as I had dreamt of for so long. I was making my way back to the slums—to the dregs of society, where I belonged, when I heard a voice. After the final judging, the captain of the guard was strolling the courtyard with his lieutenant. They were discussing the applicants, and my name came up. They laughed. Then the captain said, in words that will always fuel me: 'Kid belongs back in the gutters—we're always running out of bait for those sewer-dweller gangs.'”

Ruby let out a small gasp, “No!”

“Well, that was when I snapped. I had built my life on a facade, and now the entire illusion was crashing down around my ears. I stormed the castle. Stole this rapier off the body of the first to oppose me. Killed as many guards as I could get my claws on, and then finally got to the King. I wonder how he felt about his noble blood coloring the boots of a slum-slug like myself? Then I took his crown and escaped. I later had it fitted to my rapier's hand guard, so that for once, the crown could protect something other than itself.”

Awkward silence fell on the entire group. Surrounded by poverty like this, the team found it difficult to feel sympathetic for the societal leeches that caused it; but at the same time, discovering that one's teammate had been the one behind the infamous and bloody [Drakkonille] Regicide [] years prior was unsettling, to say the least.

“So anyway, long story short, yeah, I've got some experience with the evil we call monarchy,” Deruque grunted casually while stretching his arm across his chest. “Now, how should we look for this princess?”

“You're...willing to rescue a princess?” Bardy asked. “After all that?”

“I mean, there's gold on the line. I'm always up to liberate gold from the hands of the corrupt. Even if I have to earn it honestly,” he shuddered.

“You're not going to be looking for an opening to...ah...color your boots again, are you?” Malakos squinted at him.

“I'm making no promises,” Deruque said. “But it's not in the plan right now; we'll see if those royals make it a part of the plan. And anyway, I'll make sure we get paid before it comes to that, so don't worry, little buddy.”

“'Little'?” Malakos protested.

“Can't get paid till we get the princess, though, so how do we go about this?” Deruque continued.

“We could ask around,” Bardy suggested. “But I'm not sure where to start. People tend to be suspicious of out-of-towners, especially out-of-towners that have a lot of questions.”

Malakos looked up to seek direction, and received it—about three stories up sat a white structure, crammed in between several more florid ones. Above the doorway, red rope twisted over some crudely carved wooden hands.

“A sanctuary to Ilmater!” Malakos cried out. “Let's see if the Ilmateri here can tell us anything—I have some background with this faith, so maybe they'll be more open to us.” He tentatively gripped the rope ladder before ascending quickly, worried that it may fall apart beneath him.