“We are to take Guramis, the fallen noble, to the King. You are authorized to come and participate in his trial if you so wishes.” one of the royal guards said.

“Meh, I was just stating the fun part... Well I will come a bit later, I first need to clean up here. Go with him first, I know the way.”

“... Very well. Thank you for understanding.”

“No! Why don’t you detain her! I did nothing wrong! She’s framing me!” Guramis still tried to defend himself, but...

“Lying to a royal guard will only increase your list of felony, traitor.” said one of the royal guards encircling him.

As they dragged him away, he continued to shout his innocence, in vain.

Once they were far enough, Atsi ordered everyone (except Finn’s group) to act like this never happened, then they made their way into the house of Finn’s father.

“Well, I will sum it up right now, then I will leave to go to the audition.
“Basically, Guramis has a long, LONG history of bribes, theft and so on. I already had a list of illegal activities ready for him, and after digging him for a bit I found out that he received a letter from Craig – that’s the noble that spread the parasite that paralyzed your wife – approximately five days ago.
“Unfortunately, I could not get my hands on it, so I put him in my monitoring list, before going through the other potential nobles. I found out that Aftalis too received a letter, then after checking there was no other potential traitors I came here to warn you.
“Then, I left to confront both of them, immediately eliminating Aftalis thanks to our ‘common acquaintance’ as you put it.” she said looking toward Finn’s dad.
“After that, all that was left was to find where Guramis was, finding him quite easily thanks to him not hiding himself, but I was too late to prevent him from trying to take you.”

“““““...”””””
“Well, that’s quite a lot of work.” (Finn)

“Yup.” (Atsi)

““““““...””””””
“Well, I need to go see the King now. I will come back once this is done, but you can consider the part involving you to be over. Do not worry, I know the way out.”

“Well then, goodbye for now I guess?”

“Yup.” And with that, she disappeared from their sight.

“... Right, obviously she knows how to teleport...” (Tris)
“““Yeah...”””

Just as she left
POV: Atsi
I teleported directly to the entrance of the King’s house. You might think that a King has a castle built for him, but actually nobility in this world is a... peculiar thing to say the least.

There is one King per region, but those regions may be as small as a village, or as big as half an ocean.
For the cities of Thesis and Yvon, the Kings are of the city and a bit of its surroundings.

There are also relatively few expansion wars, though that is due to the above average political intrigues. Well, that is helped by them too...

Anyway, as I announced myself to the royal guards, they nodded and let me in, after telling me which room they were in.

As I arrived, Guramis was still full on trying to convince the King to apprehend me instead, but what he doesn’t know is that the ties between him and me are stronger than he thinks... Or rather, stronger than everyone think.

The King nodded at my arrival, then relaxed into his couch and asked me, “So, what do you want to do with him?” in a very relaxed tone, that made Guramis pale a bit as he realizes how deep he is in trouble. Finally.

“Well, I do not know. What do you think would be convenient? I temporarily held the commoners down, but I can release them if you so wish.”

“He didn’t say it, so I was going to put him to torture in the hands of a random volunteer passerby, what do you think?”

“Well, we need to make sure he does not collapse from that. I can get someone for that though. So until he reveals that, we are going to torture him by inexperienced commoners? That sounds good to me. Unless you want to tell us right now?” I asked Guramis for that last question.

“Wai... Wha... Wha... Wu...” Guramis looked alternatively between the two of us, already imagining the pain he would feel.

“Oh, we broke him already.” stated the King.

“Nobles really are no fun.” (Atsi)
“Yeah, I agree.” (the King)

“I... How... When...”

“So, in order, ‘Wait?’, ‘What are you speaking of?’, ‘What are you talking about?’, ‘I regret.’, ‘How did this happen?’ and ‘When did you start being best friends?’ right? We’re speaking about the one you kidnapped – the latest one, it’s too late for regrets, and there are things better left unsaid. Even more to those who won’t live to continue being annoying.”

With a defeated look, Guramis started crying... which did not affect us one bit. “So?” the King asked.

“I... I don’t know... I ordered someone to do it then forget about it...”

“Who?”

“I... I don’t remember! Believe me!”

“Oh, don’t worry, I believe you. That’s why a bit of pain will help your memory, right?”

“NO! PLEASE!”

“Then tell us who you ordered to move her.”

“It... It’s... It’s my f-friend...”

“Oh, so it’s Craig?” the King asked, raising his eyebrow.

“No! No, not him! ...Galer...”

“? Galer? Does that ring a bell for you Atsi?”

“No–”
“Galer is a double agent at the service of the King of the Half-Ocean.”
“Yes. Guramis, I am afraid your information service is insufficient. Now I need to clean up your mess too, and get back what he stole.”

“...What?”

“He is a double agent, at the service of the King near the big lake up north.”

“...What‽”

Well, that’s an understandable reaction.

After cleaning up the mess over here, I headed toward Finn and his group, then left to search for Galer.

rajdakin

1013 words! (Finally a full chapter! Now time to sleep.)

So, which one is next? (Though this does not mean it’s the immediate end of the arc.)

Side note, did you notice how every character ‘raised’ by Anthesis (including himself) doesn’t use any apostrophe (except for the possessive form), like in ‘I’ll’? (I actually need to go back to check if I didn’t missed one while I'm writing x) )