Chapter 19: Chapter 19 – The dine and dash

Trista thanked the group of people before her for all their well-wishings and turned her head around to look for her husband. That term still felt odd to use. She'd never seen herself marrying during her years as a squire. Spotting his bronze-colored mane amongst a cluster of people near the large statue of Rasiel the Resilient at the center of the garden she briefly announced her leave to those she had been conversing with and made off towards her Corbyn. She grabbed the hem of her dress to adjust it as she moved through the crowds of guests that all congratulated her as she passed by. She couldn't get used to wearing clothes like this.

This day had been more intense than even some of the worst back when she had been a squire. There was just so much that they had had to do. Both she and Corbyn woke up at three to begin with all the preparations and get ready for when the guests started arriving at nine. After greeting the first of them it had all just been a flurry of things that had to be completed before the actual service, both ceremonial and other. Since the actual ceremony, she and Corbyn had barely had a minute of free time to trade words with each other — which was especially irritating as she had something she needed to ask him.

As Trista approached the center of the garden with determined steps she scanned the people around her. She couldn't believe Scarlett was here. She'd kept worrying that blasted woman would do something the whole ceremony. Instead, Scarlett had just sat there in the audience, completely still. And when the speeches were over and the reception started Trista had quickly lost sight of her in the crowd. But knowing the woman, she was probably planning some kind of deceptive scheme.

Trista couldn't understand what she was doing here. Did she sneak in? Or did Corbyn invite her for some reason? She loved the man, but sometimes he did the most stupid things. Locking onto his back with her eyes she walked past a group of her fellow knights and gave them a short greeting before walking up to Corbyn and tapping him on his shoulder. He stopped his conversation with those in front of him and turned around. "Trista!" he exclaimed with a large smile and leaned in to kiss her. She returned the kiss before gesturing to the side.

"Can we talk for a moment?"

She saw him scrunch that nose of his in confusion as he sometimes did before he nodded his head. "Of course." He took her hand as they moved a short distance away. "What was it that you wanted?" he asked as they stopped next to a small concrete plinth. He was tall, even for a man, so he ended up looking down at her.

She stared up at him. "Did you invite Scarlett to the wedding?"

"Scarlett?" He gave her an inquiring look.

"Scarlett Hartford."

A look of understanding spread across his face. "Ah, Baroness Hartford! Yes, I did send her an invitation."

Trista sighed. "Why did you do that?"

He looked confused again. "Shouldn't I have? The Hartfords have some involvement in my business so I felt it was only right."

"You should have told me if that was the case."

"But she didn't accept it?"

Trista paused. "...I saw her earlier."

Corbyn's eyebrows rose. "Are you sure? I'm certain I remember her sending a letter declining the invitation."

Trista clenched her fists. Of course that woman would do something like that. Declining the invitation just to attend anyway. Whatever she could to cause a mess and insult her as much as possible. She didn't know what Scarlett was planning, but she wouldn't let it pass on the day of her wedding.

"Tell me if you see her. I'm going to make sure nothing disastrous happens," she told her husband. He gave her an uncertain 'okay' as she walked off. She then walked around the garden for a short while, looking for Scarlett's burning red hair amongst the mass of people. In the process, she spotted Leon talking with Corbyn's parents. The viscount and his wife were starting to get on in years, but they were still as energetic as ever. They'd spent a lot of money organizing this whole wedding and inviting all the guests to their home.

Walking up next to Leon she looked at the viscount and his wife. "Father, mother, do you mind if I borrow the vice-captain for a moment?"

The viscount gave her the largest smile. Corbyn had taken a lot after his father. "Of course not, dear. Just make sure to give my son some attention later too, or he'll soon start crying, I'm sure."

She smiled. "Of course, father."

With that, the viscount and viscountess Stratford soon walked off and Trista turned to Leon. "Vice-captain, have you seen Scarlett?" she asked him straight out.

Leon shook his head, a scowl on his face. "I spoke with her when she first arrived about an hour before the ceremony, but that's all. I haven't seen her for a while now. Did she do something?"

Trista shook her head with a sigh. "Not yet, as far as I know — except for attending uninvited. But I also haven't seen her since the ceremony. I'm afraid of what she might do."

Leon crossed his arms as he looked around the area. "When I spoke with her she told me she wasn't planning anything."

"You believe her?"

"No," he answered. "But it also isn't like her to disappear like this."

Trista frowned. This was the last thing she needed now. The wedding itself was stressful enough.

"Your husband is coming here," Leon said and nodded towards one of the side buildings. Corbyn was waving to her as he walked towards them. When he got close enough he gave a short greeting to Leon before turning to Trista.

"I checked with the servants regarding the Baroness. Apparently, she arrived twenty minutes to twelve despite declining the invitation."

"Yes, I already heard that," Trista said.

Corbyn held up a hand. "But then she left forty minutes ago."

Both Trista's and Leon's eyes widened.

"What?!"

 

 

"That was much shorter than I thought it'd be," Kat said from the opposite end of the carriage as Scarlett. "I thought weddings always took ages."

"I did not attend all of it," Scarlett said. Their carriage was currently passing through the gates of Ambercrest and out of the walled city.

The speeches after the wedding ceremony had continued for even longer than the ceremony itself and had almost driven Scarlett crazy with their dullness. She knew none of the people there but still had to listen to them awkwardly praise each other. It seemed some things never changed no matter the world you were in. After the speeches there had at least been a small feast with some decent food. Better than the appetizers she'd had earlier, at the very least. When that was finished and people had begun mingling with each other again, Scarlett had realized that the clock was closing in on five. She had already been there for the most important part, was pressed for time — and frankly, she couldn't really be bothered with pretending to enjoy the wedding much more than she already was, so she had taken the chance to leave. It had already turned out that she didn't have a particularly good relationship with the bride anyways. From there she'd managed to get a servant to fetch her carriage and went over to pick up Kat.

She looked out the window as they drove down a well-traveled gravel road outside the city's walls. Rocky cliffs overlooking the water were to their right and large fields of green grass to their left. Scarlett made sure to keep an eye on the scenery as they moved on. She was a bit uncertain if she was going to recognize all of the landmarks she was looking for. She'd made some basic drawings of them early on in the journal she kept to remember things from the game but she was far from the best artist. It had also been a while since she was last in this area in the games. It was during her second playthrough — which she'd completed over two weeks before she arrived in this world. As such, her memory was a bit hazy.

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The two of them stayed mostly quiet during their ride. There was lots of activity on the road, however. Wagons, carriages, and groups of people moving both from and to Ambercrest. The city might be smaller than Freybrook when it came to its size, but it was very lively.

Eventually, after around twenty minutes of travel, Scarlett spotted a resting spot to the side of the road with a large marble statue overlooking it. The statue was surrounded by several half-broken pillars and depicted a woman surrounded by flames with her hands reaching up towards the sky. It was situated right at the edge of a small overhang jutting out over the steep cliffside.

"Stop here," Scarlett called out loud enough so that the coach driver could hear it from outside. Soon the carriage steered off of the road and stopped a short distance away from the statue. There was a small group of other people resting here too, but this place was close enough to the city for most travelers to just pass it by.

"We are going on foot from here," Scarlett told Kat and quickly stepped out of the carriage, telling the older coachman to rest here for now. The senior Shielder soon followed her out of the vehicle and threw a quick glance at the statue before looking at Scarlett.

"Don't tell me we're exploring another Zuverian ruin or something like that?" she asked with a quizzical tone. "It's beginning to feel like you're pulling these places out from behind your ear."

"No. This is something different," Scarlett said as she studied the area around them. It was relatively close in the game, but distances were different in this world so she couldn't completely rely on that. She walked up to the circular platform the statue was on and carefully leaned out behind it to get a look at the cliffside.

"Whoa, what are you doing?!" Kat's somewhat worried voice sounded out behind her and the woman soon stepped up beside her with her hands held out. "Don't do something stupid and fall off now."

Scarlett took a step back. "I am fine. I merely required a good vantage point." Though she hadn't seen much but cliffs and rocks. She stroked her chin.

In 'Chronicle of Realms' you always had a handy minimap of the surrounding area with a compass next to it so finding what locations you could walk to was relatively simple. Here, she had none of that. She couldn't really think of any special way to deal with that so after a moment of pondering she decided to simply walk in the general direction of what she was searching for. Stepping off the statue's platform, she started following the cliffside in the direction facing away from Ambercrest. A slightly confused Kat followed not long after. Keeping her eyes on the cliff's edge, Scarlett kept on walking for five minutes without spotting anything that stuck out to her.

"What exactly are we looking for?" Kat asked her from the side.

Scarlett stopped and took a few careful steps closer to the edge to look down the cliffside. Kat grabbed hold of her arm to stop her from falling. "We are looking for a path to climb down on," she said. She didn't find anything but water and rock. "Somewhere along these cliffs, there is a small cenote. Or a cavern, if you will. It has something I need in it."

"...Right. So we're just looking for a hole in the cliffside?"

"In essence, yes." Scarlett nodded her head.

"Ok," Kat said and gently pulled Scarlett further away from the edge. "Then let the person who's not wearing a fancy dress do the dangerous hanging-over-a-cliff part, alright?" She then started moving along the cliff's edge, intermittently stopping to lean out over it as far she could to look down before moving on.

Scarlett glanced down at her dark red dress. It wasn't the most flexible of clothing, true, but she hadn't brought anything to change into. Nor did she have anywhere to change. She was pretty certain that there was no way she could bring the Scarlett part of herself to change in the carriage or in any kind of public setting. But would it have been that hard for her to bring some change and stop by at an inn or something for just a moment? God, sometimes she was stupid. She'd thought she'd planned this out. She gave a short shake of her head before taking a few hurried steps to catch up with the Shielder.

They probably moved on for another ten minutes before Kat finally stopped. "I think I see something," the woman said and got down on her stomach to lean further out and get a better view.

Scarlett looked around them. They were a fair distance away from both the resting spot and the road now. She could only barely see the tip of the statue from further up the cliffside. This was certainly much further away than it had been in the game. And she really couldn't recognize anything special from the ground around here.

"I think I can see a decent path we can climb down on," Kat said and stood up. She then looked Scarlett up and down. "Although I think it's best if you wait here and I go on my own."

"I am afraid that is not an option," Scarlett said firmly. "It will be dangerous if I am not present there myself."

Kat had a doubtful expression on her face as she was quiet for a moment. Then she let out a sigh. "Fine. But I'm going first. And you seriously have to be careful. Otherwise we'll both end up falling to our deaths."

"Of course," Scarlett agreed. The both of them then moved over to the part of the cliffside where Kat said she had found the path to climb down on. Although it looked better than other parts of the cliffside which were basically unclimbable, this part still had an almost 90-degree decline and looked sufficiently dangerous. As Scarlett watched Kat begin to slowly climb down, she found herself wondering if she would actually be able to make this climb. Maybe she should rip the skirt of the dress to make this easier? It did look expensive, but it wasn't as if she cared about it that much. She bent over and started tearing it at knee-level. It was harder to rip apart than she thought, but eventually it tore with a loud ripping sound. She threw the extra bit on the ground and looked down at the cliff. It still looked a bit dangerous...

Thankfully Kat seemed to have thought of this as when she'd climbed far enough down for her head to be under the cliff's edge she looked up at Scarlett and moved one of her hands over the side of the cliff. A moment later the rock itself started jutting out as a small foothold appeared. "There we go. Use this when you climb," she said before using her other hand to create another foothold. Soon she began climbing down again, creating footholds at an equal distance along the way.

"Thank you," Scarlett said as she awkwardly went down on her knees and tried getting her foot on the first foothold to start climbing down. The dress was still partly in the way, even after tearing much of it off. As such it was tedious, but she did manage to slowly make her way down. Kat had essentially created a ladder out of the cliffside for her.

Kat coughed from under her and Scarlett leaned her head downwards. The woman was trying not to look straight up as she created another pair of footholds in the rock for Scarlett. Scarlett felt a surge of anger rise through her when she realized the position she was in. Damn it. It shouldn't bother her, but it did.

"Just keep climbing," she muttered to the woman beneath her and locked her eyes onto the stone in front of her. It took her a few more minutes, as well as a pair of tired arms, to finally reach a small outcropping in the cliffside where Kat was waiting for her. Next to them was a hole with a diameter of about one meter that went down into the cliffside. The light from the sun shone down into the hole to reveal a large cave with a shallow lake of water at its bottom. A long gathering of sediment and stalactites hung down from the side of the hole.

"This it?" Kat asked as she glanced down at the opening.

Scarlett leaned closer to look inside. At the center of the small lake of water was a tiny island of rocks, and the water seemed to become much deeper at one end of the cave. "Yes. This is the correct place."

"Are we just jumping down then?"

Scarlett shook her head. The opening was situated at the lower end of the roof of the cave, but the fall still looked to be about three meters. She couldn't handle a fall like that. Maybe if she were one of her characters from the game.

Gesturing towards Kat's side where Scarlett's [Pouch of Holding] that she'd given the woman hung, she said. "There is a rope in there. We will be using that."

Kat looked down at her hip and reached into the pouch, soon taking out a long piece of thick rope. Her brows rose. "That also works." Then she looked around and found a piece of sturdy rock to tie it to. After tugging at it a few times she threw the rest of the rope down the hole and immediately began climbing down. Soon she'd reached the bottom of the cave and looked up. Scarlett took a couple of deep breaths before also grabbing onto the rope. It had been years since she last climbed a rope in gym class. And she'd probably been more fit at the time than Scarlett was right now. As soon as she began climbing down she almost lost her grip, but after tightening her hands around the rope she managed to slowly make her way down. She burned her hands against the rope in the process, but soon enough her feet touched the cave floor. She looked down. The water was strikingly cold and came up to her ankles—probably ruining whatever material her shoes were made out of—but it was very clear.

"What now?" Kat asked, her words echoing throughout the cave.

Scarlett focused her gaze at the center of the cave where the pile of rocks rose up above the water. She stepped up to it and leaned over to try and pick up the stone at the top, but it was too heavy. Trying not to look too ruffled, she took a step back and gestured towards the pile. "Lift those."

Kat gave her an amused look that Scarlett pointedly ignored before walking over and grabbing the top-most rock with both hands. With a small grunt, she threw it to the side and it splashed into the water a short distance away. "More?" Kat asked and looked at Scarlett.

Scarlett nodded. "Continue."

The Shielder went back to moving the rocks as Scarlett watched on. After a minute Kat suddenly stopped after lifting away a particularly large rock. "There's something there."

"Don't touch it," Scarlett said and moved closer. Kat shifted to the side to give her space. A stained piece of curved gold stuck out from the rocks like a handle.

"What is it?" Kat asked.

Scarlett carefully grabbed hold of the object and pulled it out from the pile of rocks. Kat let out a sound of surprise.

"This," Scarlett said as she looked at the oddly shaped object. "Is a magical lamp."

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