“... so I grabbed the key and kept it on me because it seemed important. That’s about all that happened while I was still a prisoner,” Sofia recounted.

“Then Armand rushed things and rescued you early,” Jen continued, nodding along.

“Precisely,” Sofia confirmed, “In fact, it was Fox who snuck into the palace and got rid of the guards in front of my door. He broke the barrier, stomped in, grabbed me and broke a catalyst. Next thing I knew, we were in the forest behind the palace, teleported there by Nyse.”

“Didn’t you say it was Astelia’s uncle?” Saria interrupted her.

Sofia nodded, “I did, he was the same ‘Cardinal’ guy who paid me for blood in Drakron, just that he was lower level and used a different name back then.”

“That tiny vampire lass is ol’ Nyse’s niece?” Jennifer muttered, “It’s a small world, eh. He must be glad she’s also a space mage.”

“This is where things get a bit messy, it turns out you were acting as a diversion with Armand to allow Fox to get in, and Jevvin took the opportunity to assassinate the old king and frame you two for it,” Sofia explained.

“Jevvin was good at being a sly fucking dog, we can give him that. Must’ve made things much easier for him to have us show up to take the blame. Sent the army after our ass?”

“Not quite… Nyse teleported you and Armand to us, but the royal mage advisor guy with a dumb face followed you. He was outnumbered though, when Armand broke his shield you sliced him in half with… Uh, is that the same sword, actually?” Sofia asked, pointing at the scabbard behind Jennifer.

“Not the same, but a similar design,” Jen answered. “I remember that one dude, was part of the coup, if I remember things right. Died to the Phageid. I coulda handled him alone, probably. But if Nyse had ta teleport us, must mean we had the whole ass Royal Guard after us. What next?”

“Well… We hid in Fox’s place for a while, and Armand analysed the situation. His conclusion was that it was unlikely that Jevvin could mobilize the army against us right after the coup, and that he would want to keep the royal guard close because he was a coward. So the most likely thing to happen would be to have the Church’s heroes hunt us.”

“The Church?” Jen asked, “Why the hell woud the Church get involved in this crap? They never gave two shits who the king was back then.”

“Supposedly, if they retrieved the Aurelia’s key, they could keep part of the treasury’s contents.”

“Oh… That do make sense… Pretty sure there were some old relics of their god in there, not enough to make ‘em commit regicide, but if the new king was to offer to give it to ‘em…” Jennifer mumbled, thinking to herself.

“What happened to that, by the way? You said you would explain,” Saria asked Jennifer.

“Right. Well, the treasury was essentially a big space magic storage lockbox in a vault, according to Armand. So when the Phageid came to nab all the mana it could, guess what the first thing it reached for was. Treasury’s pretty fuckin’ dead,” Jennifer explained with a laugh.

“Oh… What happens to the contents of a storage item when it breaks? Does it spill out? I’ve never encountered that actually,” Sofia asked.

“That I can explain,” Saria chimed in, “The storage space inside of a storage item is its own bubble of compressed and stale space contained within the mana plane, and linked to the item. But if it breaks, then the bubble bursts, spilling the content, yes, but not in our physical realm. The logic behind it, if I remember what Zephir said, is that the only new matter that can be brought into the physical realm is mana, since it’s not really wholly physical. So we do swapping instead of subtracting and adding. When we store something in a storage item, the stale air in the storage space is swapped with whatever we put in there, and inversely when we take something out, preserving the balance. But when the storage item breaks, no swap can happen, therefore the matter can’t be brought back into the physical realm. So to conclude in simple words… It all gets thrown directly into the Margin.”

“Sounds about right,” Jen confirmed, “Shit is lost forever, pretty much.”

That… Sounds like an interesting way to permanently get rid of something. Like incriminating evidence, or something useless to you but that could be used by your enemies.

I wonder if Pareth could teleport back to me if my storage ring broke while he’s inside.

Probably not if I’m here, but I’d think he probably would be able to if I’m sticking my hands out of Zangdar’s outer shield. If he can even survive being in the margin. Hard to say if he would, considering the Phageid we threw in there died in a few seconds…

“So yeah,” Sofia started again, “The Church sent the heroes after us, all of them.”

“And ya managed to escape? Yer trial’s goal was jsut to survive, right? I guess you just gave ‘em the key, didn’t ya? Pretty sure they’d let ya go with just dat.”

“Well. No. I managed to convince you all that I had a plan to deal with the issue, and with Armand on my side, you all agreed to go along with it,” Sofia said.

“Ay, always follow the money, bet he promised to pay us extra when ye weren’t lookin’. Bold move tho, I ain’t too sure what you could do against the heroes. Even with Armand there. Big baldy wasn’t much ov a fighter but he was still not someone we could stand against. Coulda flattened our whole band with a single spell, wouldn’t be hard to retrieve a key,” jennifer commented.

“So… I’ll skip the details, but I had the instructions for an Apostle’s ritual… And by the time Orvod caught up with us…”

Jennifer stared at Sofia, wide eyed. “Ya didn’t, right? And with Aurelia’s frail ass stick body?!”

Sofia silently shared the description of her [Vakariazrehafin of Sorrow] skill.

After a moment of speechless shock, Jennifer burst out laughing so loudly that she her chair fell backward, and she kept laughing for a second even on the floor. “YE BECAME A FUCKIN APOSTLE IN A TRIAL?!” she almost shouted while standing back up. “Yer even crazier than me! I’ll give ye that title any day o’ the week. Damn Archangel must’ve been shittin his pants too for how much ye messed the trial up!”

Sofia glanced at Saria for support, but her sister who was always so supportive seemed to have nothing helpful to say this time, “I mean… She’s not wrong. That was crazy, especially when you know what the ritual entailed…”

“As if you wouldn’t have done the same,” Sofia retorted.

Saria smirked and raised an eyebrow, “We’re sisters alright.”

This made Jen roar with laughter again. Thankfully a small orchestra inside the manor had started playing music for the party, and it easily drowned the loud guffawing of the tanned warrior.

After Jen managed to settle down, Sofia returned to her storytelling, “Orvod reached us right after I transformed. I was still stuck at level one due to the trial’s restrictions but my stats were nothing like a level one. More like a fresh level 200, I think.”

“A fresh level 200 Apostle ey? It’d still be hard to escape baldy but not completely impossible. He ain’t the fastest flyer, his strength was more in holding a siege. Defensive fighter,” Jennifer commented, “What about our group, thought, still with ya at this point?”

“So, at this point… I decided to fight against Orvod,” Sofia narrated.

“Really? Ya got some real balls,” Jen commented with an approving nod, “But I suppose with Armand ye could hold for a few seconds.”

“Oh no, Armand was useless, he was clashing with Orvod initially but clearly wasn’t able to do anything to the man. I told him to go help you lot, and by that I mean you and Nyse. Fox got… Smashed by a big rock, some few seconds before that.”

“Oh. That why you asked about him? Yeah his real life ended a bit more peacefully than that… I suppose in that trial me and Nyse died too, then.”

“Why would you think that?” Saria asked.

“If Armand was holding Orvod back after fox already died, and we weren’t there, means we were trying ta escape. But Orvod wouldn’t come alone, ye can be sure the other guard dogs o’ the church would come, the tiger man and the weirdo paladin. And ta be honest… Me and Nyse from back then against ‘em? Ya we’re completely an utterly dead. Leaves one question, how in tarnations did ya manage to ‘fight’ against baldy and survive?”

Sofia smiled, “I assume you know about the Primordial lake? They built a magic academy on it later…”

“The lake?” Jennifer asked, “Ya took the fight to the mana lake? That’s probably one of the worst places for Orvod to fight in… Interesting. Very interesting! I’m startin’ to understand how ya got to where ye are at yer age. Mah old stories must sound tame in comparison to the shenanigans ya get up to. How’d tha fight go?”

“It wasn’t too bad…”

“And I woke up at the bottom of the lake, with a few days left on the clock. There’s a bit more to the story I’ll get up to later with the Eclipse, but i’d like to know how the real event went first. And I guess, if you could tell us what you know about the Phageid in general…”

“What happened back then ain’t as insterestin’ as ya may imagine. It was hell,” Jennifer started.