Court's First outing

"Fuck, not the right thing again," Flint groaned.

"What did we get this time?" Hera appeared behind the tree she used to evade the Monarch's gaze. One thing they realized was that when the monster would use the Chromatic Moose skill, it would lock into one of the group members and chase after them. But, if that person was able to hide from it, the dungeon boss stopped running to try to find them. This was just a plan B for them since making it stop moving was still the best option. Unfortunately, this time, that idea didn't work. It was late, and Neria's spell was missed since the Monarch was too close to the rest of the group.

"Another verdant pelt," the dwarf sighed. This was considered a rare drop from the dungeon, but it wasn't the horn. Ever since they started playing poker, they would get better rewards, but not the one thing they were trying to get.

"Really? C'mon, I'm tired of losing money!" Hera gasped.

"I mean, the first-time reward of this dungeon still got you covered, didn't it?" Vash asked.

Hera rolled her eyes, "Oh fuck you. You alone already got 70 thousand gold from me."

"It's not my fault you have such an obvious tell. And this was your idea," Vash snickered.

"Yeah, but I can still be annoyed," Hera huffed as they started to move out of the dungeon. This was already the 10th day of their mission, and they had over 200 drops, but no horn. However, this run happened without any of the Empress's titled blades. The reason was simple: their cores had reached a point where they felt comfortable enough to do a few runs on their own. They even had a 'test run' where everyone came inside, but only Nimbus and the others fought. Hera and the rest of the team waited close by but didn't interfere in any situation.

Their cores only reached about 2 million mana each, but thanks to the combo of Lurize teaching what he was learning and the [Army of One] skill making their skill double dip into each other, Hera's core was already reaching 4 million. She could only use that mana for her legacy, which was likely part of the reason why it was increasing so fast, but it was clear that speed was changing.

She spent the last few days topping up the mana in her titled Blades, and this was the time to try if the whole idea of an extra team running the dungeon would work. Hera and her team left the dungeon, and the Empress called the titled blades out.

"Are you guys ready?" Vash asked.

"Fuck yeah, I am! This is going to be awesome!" Livy pounded her with a massive grin.

"OK, calm down. We need to be careful there," Lurize sighed.

"C'mon. Stop being a wet blanket," Crimson rolled her eyes.

"We don't use blanketz!" Lurize huffed.

"To be fair, you don't use blankets. We do, we snuggle when we are watching something," Viper added.

"The hotel doezn't have a decent blanket for me, Livy, and me!"

"Are you all going to be ok?" Hera asked.

"Oh yeah. Don't worry about it. This is just bantering. We got this," Nimbus said with a confident smile.

Hera looked back to the team, "Do you mind if we wait here? Just for their first run. I'm really worried."

"That's fine. That shouldn't last more than an hour, and the entrance of the dungeon is not in a particularly dangerous spot," Roan said and sat down at the side of the entrance.

"Do you want to play cards while we wait?" Vash smirked at Hera, who just rolled her eyes.

"OK, everyone. Come here. I'll give you all the quest," Hera called her court. They all kneeled in front of her. With Viper and Crimson just lowering their bodies to mimic that motion, "What I ask of you, my noble blades, is for you to get the horn of the boss of this dungeon. Unfortunately, that is only a drop. You cannot get it any other way. So please, help me find that drop so we can help the people who are sick and in need of a medicine made with that horn. You can keep trying until morning. I should be waking up at 6 am, so this is when you should be back. If you get the horn earlier, you are to come back with the drop. If you feel like the item you got has some value, feel free to come back to the city and leave things in the hotel room. But it's more important to get the horn than a bunch of random materials," finishing the request, the court members took turns kissing Hera's hand and getting just around 100 thousand mana each to finish completely filling up their cores.

"Did that work?" Skyler asked.

"We will be going now. Empress," Lurize gave a quick bow and started walking inside the dungeon. Followed closely by the others.

"Thank you all for doing this. And remember to focus on yourselves first. If you realize you can't do this on your own, that's okay," the Ophidianite smiled and turned to the elf.

"It did, why?"

"I thought you had to be all noble and stuff when doing that kind of thing. The beginning of your request kind of followed that, but then it just turned into explanations for a job," Skyler continued.

"Yeah. I mean, if I start properly and then shift to be more pragmatic, it works, and the skill doesn't understand itself in the wrong way. Not that it usually does, but I've seen it happening," Hera explained.

"Really? I thought legacies would always do what the user wanted," Neria sat on the ground and took out a set of collapsible cups and a couple of tea bags, "Tea, anyone?"

"I'll take a cup. Thanks," Hera said, sitting beside the triton and finishing her explanation. "For the most part, the legacy does what I want. But occasionally, some things are a bit off. For instance, there was this day when I asked Nimbus to go grab something to eat back in the city. Later, he told me that after getting a single grape, he felt like the quest was complete. The same thing happened when I gave Lurize a quest to teach some of the dwarves back in Zaxalam, well. In Boothudurn at the time, how to brew tea. That was just to test the limits of the quest skill, but as soon as he finished the explanation, the quest seemed to be complete, even if that wasn't all I intended him to do. There was also…" Hera continued talking about her legacy, and soon, the subject shifted to other things. About 40 minutes later, all the titled blades walked out of the dungeon carrying a long piece of wood.

"How did it go?" Daskka asked before anyone else.

"It went pretty well, actually. Livy can stop the Monarch's charge even when he uses the moose skill. We just took a bit longer because the fox showed up in the middle of it all, and we had to deal with that," Nimbus proudly announced.

"The fox dropped another one of those small rugs, but this one is pink and red! It works just like the other one thought," Crimson showed the item that was in her waist.

"How was the mana use?" Hera asked.

"Pretty good, actually. We used about 40 thousand from our cores each. Comparing that with the 200 thousand that we spent when we tried doing this without the royal quest, the difference is massive," Nimbus had a large smile.

"Yeah, and I could just go hog wild with my spells. I ran out of mana twice while I was there!" Livy chuckled.

"Twice? Why?" Neria frowned.

"I tried shooting it. Put everything I had into a single skill but it didn't work. I missed it. The good part was that the amount of mana I was using from the core didn't change. Like the skill said, we can't use that mana to fuel our spells and skills."

"And that stick?" Vash got up and walked closer to them, his eyes sparkling. Skyler followed without saying anything, her eyes glued to the loot.

"It's something called Singwood, it's-" Viper started speaking but was interrupted.

"SINGWOOD?!" Skyler and Vash almost jumped on top of Viper.

The spymaster moved back quickly, "Yeah… Why?"

"That is the best thing to make a musical instrument. I mean, there might be a couple of other materials that are better, but those are on much deeper layers," Vash explained.

"Well, we have that now. Just find someone to make you two something," Flint groaned before getting up, "Can we go back to the city now? I'm starving."

They nodded and said their goodbyes to the rest of the court, who was going to stay behind, continuously killing the boss to try to get the drop. Now that they had enough mana, they would stay there for as long as possible. It was likely that the drain in their cores would increase as Hera moved away, but they should at least be able to do a few more runs before they started running out of mana.

Just as they arrived in the city, they sent a daily report to Milla, who told them Queen Typhera needed to talk to them but was currently in a meeting. As soon as she could, she would call them. It was also a sensitive topic, so ideally, they wouldn't be out in the middle of the town. Understanding the request, the group quickly stopped by one of the many restaurants and ordered take out to be delivered. Back in their hotel room, Hera also got a video call from Helena.

"Lena!" Hera opened a large smile, seeing her friend.

"Hera! How is my favorite Ophidianite?" Helena was in a different house from the one the Empress knew. It felt more personal. It looked like the dwarves had managed to clear up some more houses, and more people were getting their definitive homes.

"I'm the only Ophidianite," Hera rolled her eyes, but she still maintained the wide smile on her face. She missed her party. Even if this was important, she spent the last years seeing her friends every day, and hanging out with the team just wasn't the same.

"Not for long. Shane and your dad have been drinking the essence every day, and their Ophidianite skills are growing. Shane is even acting like a sandbag for the guards to see if she can improve the scales even faster."

"Hey, Lena!" Daskka perked up and waved her tail.

"Daskka says hi too," Hera added, "Just to make sure, is everything ok?"

"Oh yeah. Everyone is doing great. We miss you like crazy, and Shane complains about not being able to go to Deakoshara without you sometimes. But then, someone pops up and tells her about a new finding, and she gets busy for a few days. But to be honest, this is not just a check in. If that was the case, I would've kept it through text like we were doing."

"Yeah, I kind of imagined. You are not someone who really likes video or phone calls," Hera chuckled.

"You can say that again. But you are right. There is a reason why I'm calling you. I know you are avoiding telling us much about what you are doing. Just in case anyone is spying on us. Which I completely understand. Information is power and stuff. But, we've been told you killed a wendigo. Also, that might not be the only one you deal with while doing all of this," Hera didn't confirm it with her voice but nodded in reply, "A little bird also told me that your hunter's catalogue also registered all the wendigos as the same thing. And I wanted to ask you. Can you tell me what their affinities were?"

"Their elemental affinities?" Hera frowned and opened the catalogue. After a moment, she had the answer, "They are all marked as 'Devour Affinity.'"

"YES!" Helena shouted, "I was hoping that would be the case. I think I can help everyone deal with that. Not many people can mark down affinities, and the ones who do usually get it from quest rewards or are hunters who completely filled out a specific entry and got the rest of the information as a freebie. Anyway, it looks like the only thing that has a devour affinity is a wendigo. I'm going to try to build a scanner that looks for that affinity, specifically. So let me know if you have any ideas of finding anything about all that."

"That's an amazing idea, Lena! That would help so much! Ok, I promise I'll let you know," the two of them talked for a few more minutes until Vash knocked on Hera's door to let her know Queen Typera was calling. The Empress said to her friend and walked over to the living room.

"Ah, Ms. Quetzaveth. Hello. I apologize for disrupting your evening," Typera was being cast on the TV in the living room while Vash's tablet was being used as a camera for her to see the group.

"Your presence is never an inconvenience, Queen Typhera. I apologize for making you wait," the Ophidianite replied.

The harpy queen chuckled, "I see you are learning political flattery. That will help you in the future, I'm sure. Now, I wanted to talk with you about a specific topic better said in person. Since that is not possible, a video call is the next best thing. I won't be able to say everything about this, but I'm sure you, Ms. Quetzaveth, can fill in the blanks. There is a development that might interest you. Some of our Information suggests that the events that led you to witness a crime and tailing someone are happening again, not exactly in the same way, but in a similar fashion. When we talked with the council, you showed interest in continuing this work. And I would like to know if that offer still stands. Also, if your team will join you or not. If so, we will set up a meeting place where you could receive the full report and prepare to join this assignment. You don't have to tell me right now, but please think about it and give me an answer as soon as possible. Just tell Milla if you will join the feather operation or not. And my apologies, but I still have much to do today. I won't be able to answer any questions about this. Thank you once again for all your help, and please be safe."

The call ended, and the entire team turned to Hera, confused. The Empress just nodded and used a soundproof spell around them all, "I believe she was talking about the prison break I was a part of. I told you all about this, right?"

"The broad strokes," Neria said, "How are you sure about this?"

"First, she said, Ms. Quetzaveth. Not Hera. The name Hera would be attached to that event. If it was something else, I don't think she would be careful about the name like that. Second, she said, 'I tailed someone after witnessing a crime.' The crime was my own death, and I tailed someone. In the sense of putting a tail on myself," Hera gestured to her own tail. "Finally, she said I showed my interest in continuing this work. Which I did when I was meeting with the Council of MAZE Species. Now, I want to participate in that. Let me give you the full story, and I think you will understand why. If any of you want to help, that's great. If not, that is completely fine as well. No hard feelings, and I understand why you decided that."

With that phrase, Hera started to tell the story, the full story of the prison break. How they did it, what they saw in there, and what she lost that day.