King Bjaltair sat around the round table, he'd have gotten rid of it by now if not for it being a cultural icon. an hour ago, the Iron Claw mercenary group had given them the information on a new dungeon outside the capital. He rewarded them, and the situation worried him. The mercenaries hadn't haggled or tried to get more money for the information. all the griffon who seemed to lead them did was take the chits and hand over a parchment with information before leaving. Nighttalon saw them leave by airship the same day.
"Obviously we need to use this opportunity to raise the D ranks," Eagleclaw said. As Bjaltair looked at him, he couldn't help but remember the tales of the old griffon who lead his military efforts. The griffon's feathers had turned greyish white in his old age, and the scar across his right eye only emphasized the glass eye in the socket.
"It doesn't make sense, the place is almost four times larger than a normal low-rank dungeon, but only has low-ranked dungeon monsters?" Emmerick, his magical counselor spoke up. His silver blue plumage was a reminder of the fact that he was the only pure Mage class in the kingdom. Bjaltair had never actually seen Emmerick fight, but the mage seemed to always be where he needed to conduct research. His magical advice was invaluable.
"If you think about it logically, maybe it exhausted itself building the 'Grand Library of Griffonia' huh, nice name. Its basic construction, it built this structure in less than a week and considering no creature has come to us before this, we can estimate maybe even half that or more. If we wanted to do that, we'd need to pull workers from other departments, which would leave us with little manpower to do anything else." Fenrez, his economic counselor replied. His dark brown plumage made him the most normal-looking griffon at the table. He was also the lowest rank in the room with a C class. But Bjaltair kept him around for his brilliance. The bird seemed to have a knack for putting other issues into perspective that his other advisers couldn't.
"So next time someone comes in, it could have tougher monsters?" Eagleclaw asked, getting up in excitement.
"Probably not any that'll put up a challenge for an old roost like you. But it already did, 'after beating the boss, we were greeted at the door by a large construct similar to a griffon. It pointed to a sign that said to exchange something for the book we had grabbed. with everything on our person either too valuable to give up, or not valuable enough, we put the book back and left.'" Emmerick said, reading from the parchment they had been given.
"So it can make monsters while creatures are in it?" Bjaltair asked, worried.
"We can go in with that assumption, yes."
"Then we send in minimum C ranks. Nighttalon-" Eagle claw started before being interrupted by BJaltair. "Will be the only ones going."
all three of them looked at him.
"If I might ask... why? The report said they barely suffered any injuries, and their leader was a C rank at level seventy. The dungeon should either be spawning Low leveled C rank, or level fifty D rank." Fenrez asked.
"The Griffon was walking peculiarly... Like his back was uncomfortable or restricted." He answered.
"So he had a sore back, what makes you think it was an injury from the dungeon?" Emmerick asked, before being surprised as Eagleclaw spoke up.
"Because the boss battle is light on details." Eagleclaw started as he looked at the parchment. "They describe it as a spellcasting book, but not on how it fought, neither on the specific spells, just saying it used elemental magic."
"Which means the boss was C rank and had the means to injure a semi-powerful C rank... Did they lie about the rest?" Emmerick thought out loud.
"No, I don't think they did. I think the boss wasn't actually a high level, otherwise, they wouldn't have gotten out to speak to us. I think they lied about the boss drop so that we wouldn't confiscate it. Most likely the item was something related to how the boss casts spells." Fenrez said.
"...You think it dropped a Staff?" Bjaltair asked gravely. Staffs, true magic staffs, were a rarity. The lowest rank of one ever seen was B, and that staff was improperly made and took a unicorn their entire life to make. What they allowed was for a normal creature to cast a spell that was housed within the staff if they had the mana for it. In a properly trained magic user's hands? it allowed them to not only use the spells within but increased the power of all spells cast with it. Methods to make them nowadays were lost after the disappearance of Starswirl the Bearded, but a newly made one used to be made by every newly promoted Grand Unicorn.
"That means this dungeon is even more valuable..." Emmerick whispered in shock.
"We have two weeks before the Iron Claws reach Equestria's shoreline. The Nighttalons will be running the dungeon day and night as respawn permits. Squad Raptor will be the first ones to run the dungeon as well as the last... where they'll shatter the core." After none of them spoke up or gasped in shock he continued on, pleased that his advisors agreed with his decision, or at least expected it of him and didn't refute. "The area is to be cordoned off as a new construction project, Nighttalon squads are to be on guard twenty-four seven and are to alias themselves as construction workers. No squad is to be informed about the shattering of the core until Raptor Squad begins their final run. Any other business?
"...Alexander's brother still hasn't been found, we can't find any trace of where he went after leaving the city..." Emmerick spoke up reluctantly. Bjaltair's turned to face him, a scowl on his beak.
"A C rank snuck out of the city under the direct watch of Nighttalons, and you're telling me that you're so incompetent that you and half the Nighttalons can't find the tracks of one low-level Griffon?" Bjaltair Paused, taking a breath before calmly putting a talon on the table. "A C rank can't have unlimited stamina, increase the search radius, In the meantime, contact Alexander and tell him his brother's on an excavation at an old dungeon site. Forge a letter saying as such and that he'll return in a month. That will give us enough time to find the featherplucking bird."
He looked over each one of them. "We cannot let Alexander out of our control. If his brother isn't found after a month... Terminate him. All dismissed."
As the three left, Bjaltair looked out the window to the west, towards Equestria, towards Celestia...
"I won't let you win this time..."
Alexander stood in the small house that could barely be called a hut. The furniture in the current room was sparse and taloncarved. Weeks were spent making them, and as he traced his talons along the back of each, his memories piled up. their Aunt's perfect carving honed through decades of living and a dexterity score of near two hundred... His brothers, messy and unrefined, but creative, pictures carved onto the wood, crude and unrecognizable, but he always said it was a tale about a griffon flying as far as they could into the sky, never coming down.
And his... plain and boring, he never had grand aspirations as a child, he wasn't inventive, nor was he skilled, but his brother was. His chair was crude... that's all it was, but he didn't need it to be anything more, his brother's crude scribblings were enough. He promised he'd protect them both from anything.
Anything except sickness it seemed. Blackheart... the necrotizing of the heart, which caused the talons and feathers to eventually turn black... until death. As he looked towards the urn on the table he couldn't help but wish he did have the power to cure sickness. Aunt Fen... He wasn't like his brother, but somehow he managed to look up everything he could. Every obscure reference, every crackpot theory he could get his talons on... Nothing could have been different, he couldn't have saved her even if he was there...
Why wasn't he there?! He promised himself he'd be there! And then he wasn't, on some stupid errand across Griffonia looking into a stupid grave robbing! He picked up his chair before swinging it at the wall. It splintered, and as he swung it back to hit it against the wall once again, he stopped and took a deep breath. Setting the chair down the seat was slanted, causing anyone who sat upon it to constantly have to push themselves back towards the center.
He didn't blame his brother... he couldn't even if he wanted to, he wasn't even here when she died. Blackheart takes only a day, and he snuck out two weeks ago... He doesn't even know...
He blinked away the tears, looking behind him. Gilda was there, she had been the entire time. Her trip to Equestria a year ago changed her. She used to be brash and arrogant, with the skills to back them up. She came back the same, but more muted. The old Gilda wouldn't have stood there and waited patiently.
"I can only assume you're here to tell me that the king has another stupid task and not to just watch your squad leader fall apart." He said, wincing as his voice was hoarse.
"A new dungeon outside Griffonstone," she answered, her eyes trying to look anywhere but at him or the ramshackle house.
He sighed. he put a talon on the urn containing his Aunt. He'd hope his brother would understand. He took a deep breath and turned around, leaving the urn on the table.
"Let's go," he said as he walked out of that house... out of his memories, and back into the unfair world.