"I'm sure his and her majesty have already explained everything to you," walking with a tall stride, a demi-human with inward curling goat horns, led Raven and the others through the colossal halls. Proud as her master's servant, she only ever glanced sideways at the party as, still judging them from first impression. "The demon general has plagued our city with a parasitic blindness. His seat lies beyond a bramble of withering forests, but to get there, we have no arms."
Looking right at Raven for once, she added with a snarky touch.
"And by arms I mean an army–in case you were confusing it with the literal sense of the word."
"By the way you talk, it would seem like you people are infested with a brain-eating parasite instead of something that affects your eyes."
"What?!" Although she was baffled by Raven's response, clenching a fist onto her long white sleeves, the demi-human advisor kept her anger to herself. Turning her head forward, she no longer felt like showing her face to these outsiders and instead had them follow the rhythm of her long white hair dancing right in front of them. "I heard you destroyed one of our cities, off the southwest. What kind of magic did your mages use to sink an entire city into the hells?"
As prideful as she was, the advisor couldn't help her curiosity. Passing by the marble pillars, her eyes lingered on the party's reflection on their smooth surfaces. But to her question, they gave a peculiar answer–one she could only suspect to be mockery.
"No army, no mages, it was Erika–I didn't bring her with me because I wanted her to look after our home while we were gone."
'A single woman?' Gritting her teeth some more, the advisor scoffed, her humanoid expression contorting to what she assumed to be a deceptive tactic by Raven.
"Trying to intimidate me, are you? As if a single person can do something like that!" Retorting with a firm bravado, she stared at the reflection and met Raven's eyes. "Whatever, hide your secrets as much as you can; it doesn't matter as long as you do as my lords require of you."
"Are all women in the castle bitter cunts?" Aria shot at the demihuman goat.
"What did you say?!" Unable to contain herself, the advisor turned around with a red, raging face. Huffing and puffing, she took a step closer to the elf. Eying her up and down, she tried to contain her anger by returning aggression through her words. "A dark elf, so much for a chosen of a god. I knew Asmareth was horrible, but I guess Athenia likes to have literal rapists under her belt."
"Hey, that's enough!" Moving between the two, Melicia pushed the advisor away from Aria. Even so, glaring at each other, the elf and the demi-human were more than ready to slice each other's throats open given the slightest chance. But as a few seconds passed and the advisor's mind calmed a little, she looked at the fair elf as her lips moved to talk again. "I was under the impression that you would be someone agreeable from the way the monarchs described you before you arrived. So why don't you act agreeable instead of pushing buttons?"
Honing in on Mel's words, Melenai, the advisor, glanced around at everyone's faces. Raven, Regalia, Amedith, Lily, as well as the elves, this wasn't the first time that she'd been around heroes or people of other races, and yet something deep within her made her feel repulsed by them.
"Asmareth's influence, it's making me irritable…" Finally figuring out the cause of her conflict with another god's chosen, Melenai shook her head and wore a neutral expression. Lifting her head, she looked at Aria and whispered in a somewhat apologetic tone. "I'm sorry, that was no way for a diplomat to talk. Our lord isn't quite known for acceptance, and I'm sure that's the cause of everyone's hostility towards your group in this city."
Bowing her head lightly while taking deep breaths to keep herself calm, the advisor turned around again and began leading the party to her other associates.
"But enough chatter, I should introduce you to your new allies for this specific mission." Turning around to the left side of the passage thrice and then leading the group down a flight of stairs, Melenai led them to a wooden door held up within coarse, rocky walls. Reaching for the door, she quickly opened it and gestured for the others to follow her inside. "We have a paladin here, don't talk to her about your god, ever."
Nodding to the request, everyone followed her in. Surprisingly, what felt like it would be a dungeon turned out to be a workshop. A workshop with stone walls, creaking wooden benches, a raging furnace and countless racks for standing spears, weapons, armor and the rest of the armaments.
The ding of metal rang like clockwork. Following the sound, the party noticed a pair of highly decorative bronze gauntlets striking hot metal on an anvil. Juggling the hammer and fluttering in the air like a trained pigeon with its tricks, the gauntlet kept on hammering in a rhythmic fashion that, although loud, yet somehow soothing.
"Aaahaaa~ Ooooo~ Humhmmm~ Hehooohaahaa~" Drawn by the sudden melody mixed with the instrumental, the party finally noticed a long, white-haired girl standing on a bench right next to the furnace. Half the size of a dwarf, she was tiny as a young goblin, but her snow white skin and hair had a bloom like no other, and the same went for her clothes and everything that she was wearing.
'Her limbs…' Honing in on the girl, Raven noticed that her limbs were all gone. She'd instead replaced them with magic, the same way he and the others conjured arms of different elements to do small tasks.
"Follow me, I'll introduce you folks to the two." While his empathy still lingered, Melenai urged the group forward, and that's when the half-dragon paladin arrived from a corner.