The leader cleared his throat. "Ahem, yes, well I'm glad you've sorted things out. Anyways, here are our papers." He held them out. The papers themselves were on the right paper, a sturdy linen and ruskweed combination that only the royal family and their monopoly on the rusk weed farms could have produced. The monarch knew that such paper could have as easily been obtained by agents of Richard, however. He continued evaluating the document, checking that the signature curls in the tail, spurs, and terminals of the letters were done the way Aeron's scribing office copied official documents. It all checked out, so he continued to look at the seal. He poked it with a finger and it moved under his body heat unlike the hard sealing wax most commoners used. He held it up to his nose and sniffed to find the unmistakable scent of moonflowers. So far it all checked out, but he still had one final test left. He pinched a small portion of the seal off and placed it on his tongue. It was spicy and bitter and tasted a bit like the Resting House for Beleaguered old Harpies smelled--just like it was supposed to.
He handed the papers back. "I'll admit it all checks out perfectly. It would still soothe my conscious to hear in your own words why you are here and what you are doing in service of the prince," he said.
The man before him snorted. "Fine, I can talk all day if you'd like to do things that way. We are here because we were ordered to work with your lot. I am Alabastor Fyojhan, the general of the Blue Crows." The two vampires looked at him, confused. "What, you haven't heard of us? Good. That's the point of our branch. Our job is to be the personal guard of the crown prince and work to prevent incidents that might require guarding. Right now you are working towards preventing an incident that would risk our prince, so here we are to work with you guys. It's not that complicated, really," he added.
Jackie rolled her eyes and walked over. "Why are we still fighting about this? He's got the papers, and the scent of that seal is strong so it's obviously legit. And now he tells us he was specifically sent by your boss to work with you. What more is there to talk about at this point? It's time to just go and get to work," she said.
They protested at her skipping ahead through the process, but still they had to agree that she was right on the matter. They started to amble forward.
"So where have you lot been assigned to go," Cillean asked them. The rest of the group listened in.
"Same as the rest of you, I suppose. We've been sent to comb both worlds to try to find if anyone has heard more about the specific plans of the wizards, or more likely any news on where they might be hiding right now. It would probably be a lot easier to stop their ridiculous plans if we at least knew where they were hiding out so we could bust some brains," Fyojhan said.
Cillean and Layel looked at each other. "We already know where the Domed City lies. It does move around a bit on the map but it is always located in the Western Wastes. Finding it is easy-peasy. Our jobs are just to go to them and capture the leaders to bring them in for questioning and a trial for treason."
Jackie looked over at him. "That's impossible." The nymph shook her head. "Why would Aeron have assigned two nymphs for a dangerous job like that? We're supposed to be going to visit the city of the witches to see if they are allied with, or against, the wizards."
They all looked at each other. "Why the heck did he assign all of us to do this trip together if we are all supposed to be doing different things?" Darien asked. He'd been moping and quiet since they'd left Layel's Hall, but now he brought up something that had been on all of their minds. The group individually argued that their own mission outweighed the orders of the others and tried to force all of them to attend to their own duties. Finally Aeron grabbed the orders from Fyojhan and the vampires and wizard looked over the document. It proclaimed that they were all supposed to go together to the same place. It then went on to enumerate that they were supposed to go together to the Witch city, the Domed city of the Wizards, and do espionage work and listen for any rumors of where the leaders of the rebellion might be hiding. On the bottom of the page the word "Alchemists" was heavily underlined.
Darien twisted his hands inside his pockets. His regular human gear, and the hoodie that completed the outfit, stood out from the rest of the group in their local garb, but at some point he'd left his initiates robes behind and taken to exclusively wearing the clothes he'd picked up in his time working in the Mundane. "He assigned us to do all of this work by next week? I don't think anyone can travel that fast outside of the royal family. It's not like we can all use transportation spells. And what's that about the Alchemists at the bottom? What
