17 16. Hatching A Plan

"We need a plan," Seraph said as soon as we returned home, after the King disclosed to us that we had no choice but to accept this mission and then sent us away as if there was no more need to talk any further.

"That we do," I answered pacing back and forth in our hall. There's nothing that was known about the Ancient Sentries except that they were the ancestors of the current Sentries, were absolute battle-maniacs who brought about their own destruction by dueling each other to death, and were far more powerful than the Sentries.

"Perhaps our Guild could help us with this," she offered. That was right. Afterall, didn't Melvin say that there wasn't any information that they couldn't get their hands on eventually?

But this was the King of the continent. Would they really be willing to investigate about things connected to him?

There was no harm in trying though. And so we headed over to the Assassins' Guild Headquarters in the city.

"Ah, I'm really sorry," the representative on the counter gave us a sad smile, "any information pertaining to Ancient Sentries is confidential and safeguarded by the Guildmaster herself. No one can access it without her permission."

The representative was an Orc lady who donned the long black robe and the metal vest beneath it which was the uniform of all the representatives of the guild. She was atleast six feet tall, pale white in her skin tone, possessed green eyes, and had cropped short hair.

"Do you think we could talk to the Guildmaster then?" I ventured.

"I'm sorry, that can't be done. It's not possible to see her unless you are someone from the royal family, a messenger from the royal family or unless you've signed up for an expedition to the north."

There went our final hope. So all we could assume now was that we were going to face an opponent that was far more powerful than the best of my and Seraph's efforts combined.

How do you beat it? In the end we did come up with a plan, albeit a very risky one. And I didn't like it one bit. Even if we won through this plan and survived, there would still be some irreversible consequences that I didn't want to think about.

***

The day of the death matches soon arrived.

The humongous courtyard within the palace was to be the dueling stage. Seats were built around it in a square for the nobility, while a large and wide balcony connected to one of the palace buildings, which conveniently was just a few feet above the seats was for the royal family to sit in and watch from.

The only thing separating those seated from those fighting on the stage was a blue semi circular barrier spell just as large as the courtyard that came into effect right after fighters came onto the stage, and caged the fighters within it until one of the fighters died.

While the fights went on, I and Seraph were standing to the right of the seated King, a place reserved for warriors he believed to be among the best in his kingdom.