I reluctantly entered.

The Elder seemed irritable when she occupied the library or worked all day to reanimate corpses. She finally got her toy back but Lambert got away again. The most cowardly plaything of them all left her to work overtime again. I stepped in expecting a hail of curses, but she surprised me.

"What is it, Stern?" She asked, a bit grumpy but nothing out of the ordinary. I saw fewer wrinkles on her face too, indicating something good happened. She got me curious but I knew better than to ask her directly. She glanced up from her work and seemed impatient. "Go ahead, don't wait for an invitation. Let's get this over with."

"I, um... My lady! None of our scouts reported back from that village still." I claimed, starting with the bad news. If I survived her initial reaction, I had a smooth ride to the end. She didn't seem surprised, letting out a tired sigh before she put down the parchment she read. She moved her office into the Church's library now, at least I usually found her here. However, this happened way before she attacked the beasts.

"It is to be expected... I take it, they still have a wyvern or two out on patrol. But Lambert went back there, I'm sure of it." She said calmly. The shouting match I expected seemed to be postponed. What was her deal? She failed to point out how useless I was too. "So? Is that all? As you see, I'm busy... The manor house still needs my attention too."

"Ugh, lady Elder, if you know he returned there, why don't you drag him back again?" I asked, instead of switching right over to the good news. Her apathy concerned me, she was my future wife, after all, political wedding or not. I liked it better when she was more... How to say? Vigorous? Vitriolous? "You overwork yourself again."

"No, not quite..." She claimed after a long sigh. I wasn't convinced but she explained it in detail. "I managed to learn the spell he used. He almost finished the job anyway. We'll get to the harvest next week, no distractions until then. Every time I go to that village, I return half-dead, even if they aren't a real threat... There is only so much humiliation I can take."

Oh yes, under the disguise of calmness, she was most certainly mad. She just looked lethargic instead of the usual craziness. Normally I'd twist the knife a bit to mess with her, but I felt pity this time. She barked more than bite, being a good sport about it, but if I pissed her off right now, she might take my head off, and literally.

"In another news though... I got reports about the Princess and Catherine." I announced cheerfully. Her eyes suddenly regained their shine, opening wide. Now that I grabbed her attention, I decided to play with her a bit. "Spies spotted them in the arena of the Saipole capital, but not as spectators. They won the beginner group match, and apparently, our Princess struck down their royal heir with lightning."

"What?!" Yes, she didn't let me down with that reaction. "What are you talking about, Stern? Princess Elizabeth, not Cath? Wait, no... Cath carries Remmol's blessings, she couldn't possibly use lightning either. Who told you this nonsense? Sounds like some drunken rambling."

"I can assure you, my sources are genuine." I bowed my head, struggling to suppress a grin. I knew this news would shake her up. The last time we heard about the rogue Princess was when they escaped her grasp. I still remembered how she raved about that, injured by the blue-haired paladin and losing sight of them. "They probably arrived at Saipole two weeks ago. No idea why there though."

"I think I hinted at the pope running away to the Sea People..." The Elder pondered, dropping everything she worked on before. But she seemed hesitant. "No, I said no distractions until harvest. This is the most important part of my plan to become a saint. Still, they took me seriously, just how gullible is the Princess?"

"From the looks of things, Lambert worked with the Goddess, or at the very least, she forced him to stay there. And the girls did not consider her an ally, they went to find the pope in Saipole instead?" I tried to sum it up. She forgot to mention that little detail earlier, but considering she bluffed, I imagined she forgot about it herself. Still, if the Princess or Cath took it seriously enough to go all the way...

"Forget about Lambert, how did those two end up in the arena? And since when can the Princess cast lightning?" The Elder started to lose her patience again, and I didn't have a proper explanation. My source reported everything they found, but I put the puzzle pieces together. "There is no way she learned magic, on her own in such a short time."

"I believe, the Wizard Princess captured them without knowing who they were. They just tossed them into the arena and once they won the event, they realized who they were." I presented my version of the story. The Elder leaned back on her chair, deep in thought. I nearly forgot to add the conclusion. "They defeated that woman but the guards recaptured them right after. No escape from those prison complexes, but maybe poisoning them..."

"No, absolutely not." She surprised me with the firm answer. She jumped from her chair and ran to the bookshelves on her right. "If a god blessed the Princess, that might change a few things... Keep an eye on them for now and have your spy figure out what will happen to them. Maybe the Sea People will execute them anyway, but I'm not sure what would profit us the most... Here it is. Lightning you say?"

"According to my source, Princess Elizabeth yelled Blitzkrieg before striking down her opponent. Before that, she threw multiple grown men into the air..." I tried to recite everything I've read in the report word by word. Now I cursed myself for not bringing the letter with me in the first place. The Elder seemed intrigued.

"Blitzkrieg? And the other sounds like Iron Fist..." She repeated, looking through the ancient books. Then she picked one out, dusting off the cover and opening it in the middle. "That must be Gadurien, The Iron Fist... She's not that popular these days, how did she even learn about her?"

"Her? I thought Gadurien was a man..." I noted, dumbfounded. The glance she gave me said more than a thousand words. But she probably thought I was an idiot for a long time anyway. No surprises there, I tried my best not to react to that. "So Gadurien blessed her?"

"It makes sense... She loved Remmol after all who already blessed our paladin." She explained, putting down the book and opening another one. "I found nothing about royals who received blessings before. Some became mages or even gods, so serving other deities was out of the question. But the Princess learned no magic in that short period, while she ran away."

"Aye, I find that unlikely too, my lady." I nodded, watching her pace back and forth between her desk and the bookshelves. I hoped my news would cheer her up but this was beyond my expectations. Sure, I found the fugitives, but what was the big deal? "Does it have any deeper meaning other than... You know... Is she getting blessed to become slightly less useless now?"

"If nothing else, I have to take her seriously." The Elder noted, flipping through another book. She found what she was looking for. "Cath turned out to be a tough opponent already. I'm surprised they got caught in the first place. But now if the Princess received a blessing too... Here it is. Gadurien banished one of the saints in the east. The only knight at the time, able to do it."

"Never heard about priests banishing divine beings. It makes no sense when they are way below them in rank." I raised an eyebrow. If so, that explained her sudden excitement. Until now, we searched for wizards and mages with the right spell, never considered gods' servants. "I had no idea they could even do that..."

"I haven't heard about such a thing either... But it's not out of the question." The Elder flipped through page after page. I don't think I have ever seen her like that before. She left more and more of the books open on her desk, going back for yet another. "She'd rarely answer prayers, one of the reasons, why she never became popular. Even as a strong deity, people have mostly forgotten her. The main gods like Hetlir and Hemmlir were much more generous with their blessings, I guess..."

"So she became a threat too, not just Lambert?" I concluded, a little worried about asking her. She considered the court wizard a coward first, and only an annoyance at best. The fact that he escaped concerned me more than her, but he seemed unlikely to attack us out of the blue.

But the Princess was a whole different story. She never liked or feared the Elder, and if she learned some new tricks that could threaten her, that seemed terrible news.

"We'll have to treat her that way until proven otherwise... Still, I struggle to believe it." She shook her head, finally calming down. She piled a mountain's worth of books on her desk now. I felt tired just from looking at her run around with them. "It's ironic. I told the Demon Lord, that the Princess is the only one, who banished Gamma... And he remained beyond the Gates of Hell for so long. Now that he finally returned, my warning became a reality."

"W-what do you mean, the Demon Lord returned?!" I asked louder than I expected, shocked by her casual revelation. I heard no reports about this, and my spy network had agents everywhere.

"Oh, right. I haven't told you that... I, um... Sent someone to keep an eye on the lizardmen, after that last fight." She lied poorly. But if she refused to tell me the truth, I chose the safe option and rolled with it. "And they came under attack by the Demon Lord's armies. He led a battalion or two from the front lines."

"An entire battalion?" I expected to bring her the big news, but she turned the tables on me. The Demon Lord leaving his cozy fortress far south to lead his armies and advancing towards the north could only mean one thing. "So he declared war on the lizardmen and the Lesser Races now? I thought they were allies to some degree."

"No, I ensured they can't ally with each other..." Now she talked all cryptic again. "It's more like a war against us, humans, in a sense..."