The Artefact that threatened calamity

It was mostly a sleepless night for the Royal castle of Skuph, first, it was a sudden attack at the Royal parlour, followed by a warning alert for a violent intruder, and then a soundless yet bright explosion in the noble's courtyard. There were already rumours floating about the High Princess herself being caught in it. 

Soldiers, guards, palace servants and maids moved to and fro, from the inner chambers to the outer chambers hurriedly, passing down several orders issued by the Emperor to his ministers and various officials from inside. Apparently, the Emperor was reviewing the matter from his bed only. 

But in short, it could be ascertained by Politics Pundits, that all of it was not something taken as an immediate concern by the Emperor himself. Therefore, the situation couldn't be as bad as these rumours made them to be. 

The Emperor had in fact, like many other times, conveniently delegated the responsibility of this matter to the very people who were involved in tonight's incidents, the most distinguished among them was given the obligation to head this matter along with reign to exercise all the power it needed to close this matter.

In this case, 'High Princess' was tasked to lead the situation of this Rebel Group that had suddenly risen up to a concerning level of a threat after tonight's fiasco where an apparent divine artefact had made its appearance, along with the disturbing identity reveal of the Rebel group. Whatever the real truth may be, this was the extent of rumours circulating among bigwigs. 

Late at night in one of the rooms of the Jade Hall of the Royal castle, two people were seated across a table peacefully. There was a pot of boiling tea placed before them along with teacups, but two of them were least interested in it right now. 

A middle-aged man wearing green was caressing his chin that was sporting thin stubble with a frown on his face while opposite him, handsome Young Master Rook was resting with his eyes closed like he was deep in thought, but instead was communicating mentally with someone from his family outside the room.

Surprisingly, there was not even a shred of injury on their bodies despite them being ambushed by the sudden self-sacrificing attack of the Rebel Intruder just a few hours ago, according to rumours that is. 

At this moment, there was a sudden flurry of activity as maids inside the room hurriedly exited the premises while a graceful Woman in the prime of her life walked in from outside donning a pink coloured robe, along with several of her female bodyguards tallying behind her. 

"High Princess!!"

She nodded faintly towards the greeting men, as she took a seat on a reclining couch placed in the centre of the room. As the owner of Jade Hall, she made herself comfortable in her home. On the couch she folded her legs lightly, making her robe ride up a little revealing her fair-skinned legs outside increasing the charm of this maiden. 

Not daring to glance any longer, both men reigned in their eyes downward as they took seats on their respective chairs. 

"So how would you explain, Sir Edwards. About what exactly happened tonight? And what was that San artefact? "

Sir Edwards took a breath to compose himself as he started slowly going through his prepared answer, 

"First thing first, High Princess pardon me but that thing wasn't a real artefact at all. It was an intricate spell that imitated the real one but only with theatrics. Otherwise, none of us would have been able to escape completely unscathed from the self-explosion of that rebel. 

I am very ashamed to admit but I was fooled 'good' by that criminal along with everyone else, of course except you Princess. For that time I ask for forgiveness from….. "

"Please!" The High Princess rolled her eyes cutely but unfortunately, no men dared to witness such an expression. She interjected, cutting his words before they were completed. 

"I want you to drop unneeded formalities for tonight. The Emperor had already decreed for me to take this matter into my hands and if I insist on following such useless pleasantries. I am afraid I won't be getting a wink of sleep before the sun rises in the east. 

So Sir Edwards, please explain the situation freely. "

Sir Edwards wanted to bow his head in gratitude and praise her magnanimity following customs of the royal court on habit but upon giving it a second thought, refrained from it. 

"Let's begin from the start. You must all know the war of eleven years when the Emperor decided to raze the Cross Kingdom based on the region of Nan'tis, because he refused to bow down to our Empire." He began the history lesson as he glanced at both Princess and Young Noble. 

"It was a completely one-sided war with expected results, but to get an even better outcome - while our main army was on our way to crushing the army of Cross Kingdom on the decided battlefield, our one division slipped past the enemy scouts straight towards the capital of Nan'tis. It was in hopes of capturing the capital, making King Cross bow his head to the Empire's rule and preventing most of the bloodshed. 

But… " Sir Edward halted to take a pause but it was Young Master Rook who completed the sentence he was about to say. 

"But the last princess of Cross Kingdom, deranged at thought of defeat, mercilessly sacrificed the whole city along with herself to the heirloom San Artefact of the Royal family in exchange for souls of our whole division of soldiers… Is it Right Sir Edwards? "

Sir Edwards nodded, "More or less. You have already fetched the most important information from your family. Very good Young Master. "

He continued, "The aftermath scene there was beyond terrifying. More than twenty thousand civilians and five thousand of our soldiers dropped dead to the ground without any shred of resistance. It was like someone had put a city-wide sleep spell on the capital but instead, the spell cast was Grim Reaper's harvesting spell of souls."

"Such a thing happened? I remembered some types of losses during that time but never got to know the full details. I was at the Eastern front during that time learning from Second Brother. "

"High Princess, you or anyone else wasn't made aware of the full details because the news was put under lockdown by the Emperor himself. It was only later that nobles were given a full report after the threat was deemed to be passed. 

I was a young Minister at that time, not even a noble but I still remember the horrifying pictures conjured of that aftermath. It looked so eerie seeing the whole city full of corpses sprawled on the ground while they were in motion of doing their day to day activities. There wasn't even a shred of warning about the incoming death, some soldiers even had smiles frozen on their faces at the last moment.

Resistance? We humans pride ourselves in discovering a way of power to twist ourselves as supreme in our fantastical world but there are still powers unexplained like that against which we couldn't even muster an iota of resistance. What a common man ? or a powerful Soothsayer? or even a terrifying San Soothsayer? , all of them collapsed to death within a drop of a hat. 

Honestly, I fear that artefact and its ability even when it was supposedly just a San Artefact. But thinking now I fear even more the real Soothsayer of ages before, who created such an artefact. What would be the level of his powers to create such an artefact…." 

Sir Edward finally took a sip from the tea cup in front of him which had long cooled down. But it wasn't of much issue as the purpose of tea was to only wet his parched throat that had dried recalling history unknown to many. After a brief respite to both his throat and mind, he continued. 

"But as you can imagine, the most horrifying thing was not discovering the effects of the artefact but discovering that the artefact itself was missing. That's why for a while news was put under lockdown. 

There was also one more thing… During the official investigation of what exactly happened there, one of the Soothsayers theorized that during the sacrifice the artefact wasn't at San level but more. He ascertained from a recollection spell that the artefact was already giving the aura of an evolving artefact at that time, but he could not convince fellow researchers thus this observation was only jotted down in the assumptions. 

Moreover, his logic was that even if go by the principle of equivalent exchange, the sacrifice of twenty thousand civilians and 'generously' considering a few of the San Soothsayers that were present on the side of Princess at the time of sacrifice, it wouldn't be enough to exchange souls of our five thousand well-trained soldiers, among which there were at least a five hundred Soothsayers and almost twenty San soothsayers."

Leading from here, Sir Edwards also recalled every bit of detail about the incident such as how they discovered the incident and what happened to the real war. It was everything he could recall but honestly, it wasn't much, moreover, details were extremely vague due to the lockdown of information at that period. 

"But how could an artefact vanish by itself? You said that the whole city perished, then the only possibility is that someone reached the city to fetch the artefact before our scouts. It is only possible if someone already knew what was going to happen there and at which exact time… So someone from survivors of the Cross Royal Family? "

Rook raised a valid question, but High Princess was thinking of something else. She was more worried about the present than the past,

"So we are dealing with a semi-divine, or divine if we think that rebel was not lying to trick us, artefact which can reap souls of enemies quite easily and there is no known defence to put against it. 

Isn't it too straightforward and…dare I say too easy? What is stopping the Rebel Leader from using it to cause massive damage? And why has he never used it till now? Maybe that rebel was lying, there is no real artefact. He just used a replica spell like that to scare us… "

Sir Edwards stood up as he too scrunched his brows in thought. He speculated his musings aloud, 

"All of your points and questions are valid. But one thing I can answer with certainty is that Artefact is with them or at least, that replica in his hands was not entirely fake. It had a very real aura of divine artefact which I can't misidentify. But is it the same artefact of Cross Capital Calamity or some other divine artefact whose aura was used to strengthen that replica spell, that could be questioned. 

But not only this, there are several other discrepancies… There is simply not enough knowledge to delve deep into this matter. But one thing is certain: we have to put more efforts to capture these rebels frolicking around the Empire, we can not dismiss them as useless clowns any longer. "

The High Princess stood up at this moment and slightly raised her hand to brush her long hair. There was seriousness on her face as she relegated orders to both young and old nobles. 

"Sir Edwards, you are the most knowledgeable amongst us regarding the actual history of what happened. You should research more about actual events of that war, related to the artefact like the names of Soothsayer who participated in the official examination of the city and their current status? How and which soothsayers of the main army first find out about the calamity? Also, the real experts report from the royal library and old nobles who may or may not know something about the matter. 

Everything about artefact we could know, please dig it out. "

Then she smoothly turned towards the Young Master Rook, 

"Your work is related to the military of the Empire. Find everything about this event from their side. "

Rook's heart dropped for a second as he heard that he had to interact with the military but he didn't let it show on his face. He listened eagerly to the orders of a high princess. 

"... And you have to search about every Enlisted Soothsayer of the War and their current status, who were involved directly with the city. From scouts who discovered the ghost city first to the military Soothsayers who reached the City for preliminary examination. Everything about our military I leave it to you. 

That would be all, I hope there will be news soon. You two could leave now. "

Hearing the orders, both nobles quickly left the room without looking back, each thinking about how to get their share of work done efficiently. Behind in the room, the Princess shook her head in annoyance as she thought aloud,

"That is why the Emperor threw this problem to me. There is so much work to be done before we can even think about making some decisions about this rebel group. Every detail is foggy at best and how could we take a rebel's threat at face value? 

Divine artefact! Even if it is real it is not something that could be activated too casually. But still if and if it is all true, then to tackle this grave calamity we have to find some solution soon. "