Julie ignores the question about rope in light of Ellara's mobility, chosing instead to grapple the one dealing with the illusion.
The runners legs vanished into the ceiling and the sound of running thuds were the sole reply.
Julie manages - just - to grapple the distracted assassin.
Lady Karnelia approaches the frightened foe and draws her scythe, but remains out of attack reach. She prepares to strike if he should make any aggressive movement, and calls for her spectral sibling to do the same.
"This one will be back to his senses very soon. Lady Kiyomi, let us make sure he doesn't get away, shall we?"
"Of course." she says, with a blade of force.
Without hesitating, Ellara shot after the fleeing assassin, shifting into a canine form as she moved. In this form, she could move about twice as fast as a normal person - and she was confident in her ability to catch up before too much time had passed.
Julie attempts to pin the one she has grappled.
Julia successfully grappled the one she was after.
Kiyomi coup de grace'd the frightened enemy.
Ellara was easily able to catch the fleeing target.
As she closed in on the fellow, Ellara opened her mouth and sent out another burst of energy-
for
-without particularly caring if it hit or not. That wasn't her goal, after all. "This is your last chance to surrender." she said, readying herself for a full assault if they didn't comply.
Lady Karnelia blinks voicelessly, shocked by the sudden demise of the man she held at scythepoint.
Little Sister, shocked by the sudden attack, retreated into her manifester's consciousness.
"... I merely intended for us to subdue him, was this truly necessary?"
"With more than one captive, interrogation is more effective. Threatening to kill is much more believable when you have a plan B for information after you've killed them." Julie offered, cheerfully supporting Karnelia's position.
And then realizing that probably wasn't her position. And turning her head away, thinking to herself.
The figure dodged Ellara's magic...and kept running through the attic space, heading for a skylight on the far side. It was clear that stopping was not on there to do list.
With her enhanced speed, Ellara pursued the figure - aiming to get ahead of them and block off their route of escape. She would be darned if something as simple as running was going to let someone get away from her.
"Well, I've got him pinned... Anyone got a rope?"
The goon Ellara was attempting to block tried to rush right though her, hoping to knock her down and out of the way.
She was knocked down by the force of the tackle, but both of them went down in a heap.
Julie located some rope and bound her victim.
Lady Karnelia carefully approaches the fallen goon, scythe still in hand.
She gazes intently at him with the glares of not one, but two sets of eyes. Little Sister's fearsome presence made itself known through her icy tone.
"Your fellow attackers are slain and subdued. I do not like bloodshed such as this, and I do not wish for my companions and I to have to resort to any more of it. You will peacefully surrender to us. Do I make myself clear?"
Without hesitating, Ellara raised one claw and glared at the man for a moment, then swiped out with a considerable amount of force. Rather than simply hurting him, though, she was aiming to stagger him and weaken him enough to make it clear that surrender would be a good idea.
for
"Last chance. Surrender." she said flatly.
While the man Ellara hit didn't surrender, he was knocked unconscious by the blow. Which was almost as effective, from a certain standpoint.
----
The man nodded to Karnelia in sullen silence.
...Eh. Good enough. Ellara stood up and allowed herself to revert back, then simply kicked the man's weapons away and began dragging him back to the rest of the group. They could always heal him and interrogate him later - for now, she just wanted to be sure he wasn't able to run off.
"Well, now it's time to find out what they know." She will start with the unconscious prisoner, asking What do you know of the princess' abduction? and Who hired you?
Kiyomi saw...spies, special couriers of the crown. Sealed orders. True seal. Seal correct. The King's Signet.
Find the Princess. Find the Fake. Before she caused more trouble.
Eliminate.
Eliminate the Fake.
Darkness. Red. Hunger. Consuming. Feast on the intruder. Feast on the mind. Devour. Consume. Take our secrets to the Boneyard.
20 if it's compulsion or charm
Kiyomi manage to avoid the hideous spell implanted in the man's mind, pulling out as it tried to drag her to the next life...along with the minds owner. The man had collapsed, breathing but not moving.
"...I still have one." Ellara said, physically lifting up the man she'd beaten unconscious. She wasn't feeling too much sympathy for their group, all considered - after all, they'd been the ones to attack here, and certainly seemed to be acting against the Crown's interests.
"I'm sure this one would be willing to talk as well," Karnelia adds, indicating the man who surrendered.
"... please don't kill him too. He's been cooperating." She adds under her breath.
"Is that a typical side effect of mind reading?"
She seems quite shaken by the experience and takes a moment gasping for air. "Beware. They have protections in their mind to kill them if their mind is being read and take the observer with them. She will relate what she saw, spies, special couriers of the crown. Sealed orders. True seal. Seal correct. The King's Signet.
Find the Princess. Find the Fake. Before she caused more trouble.
Eliminate.
Eliminate the Fake.
Darkness. Red. Hunger. Consuming. Feast on the intruder. Feast on the mind. Devour. Consume. Take our secrets to the Boneyard.
[b]"They have access to the highest levels of government. And I believe that they think there is an impostor princess out there. That would explain why loyal servants would be involved in this."
"Huh, at this point I have half a mind to just sail off with the princess once we find her till this gets resolved. Of course, it'll probably get resolved WRONG."
"Stupidity. I am the Princess' bodyguard and have been since birth. Partially so an impostor could not fool us." Seria snorted. "If I hadn't heard of some of the things your ships did, I might not think that such a poor plan."
"I think she'd find a noticeable decrease in people trying to kill her. Which, I'll admit, says more about the current situation than that of my ship."
Ellara looked faintly amused by this. "I suppose we probably should find both of them and let you see which one's the impostor." she noted. "My family can probably help with that if need be." Her House was very big on basically every kind of magic - and since they were ultimately on the side of the Crown, without interest in doing the ruling themselves (too distracting!), she trusted them more than any of the other Houses.
"I would much rather my family not know I am involved with any of this, myself..." Lady Karnelia mutters under her breath.
Father would likely have told her not to get involved, if he knew... perhaps it was best that she laid low for a while.
"Families are such fun, are they not?" The woman leaned back on the bed, eyes closed for a moment. "Several streets from here is a sewer entrance. Oddly it is the only entrance to the particular section of sewers - all the other ways in are blocked off and underwater. Sewer water at that. If you go West, then North, then West, then South you will find yourself in a dead end. There is a hidden door there that leads to a safehouse. The Princess I was guarding should be there, or have left a message for us to follow." Seria paused. "I should probably mention that Bone, the third of her Guards, is somewhere nearby as well. And not entirely rational right now."
"We'll try to be gentle." Ellara answered. After a few moments... "Anything else we can do for you, or would you rather we be on our way?" She wasn't going to force her help onto the lady, but the offer was there.
"Joy. Because why could things be easy, when they could be hard." Julie activates her periapt, the blood on her outfit ever slowly being cleaned away.
"Pleas stay safe. We will pass your regards to the Princess." Says Kiyomi as they prepare to move onward.
"We are very thankful for your help. Let us take the captive men to the Guard and be on our way, shall we? I don't believe it is our place to sentence them for their actions."
"Oh yes, killing them is fine. But sentencing? Completely out of the question."
"Just to clarify your vision... you said they had orders to eliminate the fake?" Ellara inquired. Which one they were targeting was a not-so-minor detail, and it would, in fact, be bad to get rid of guards who were genuinely loyal (if perhaps confused). Her interests mostly lay with her own family and the Crown, but even she knew that such a result could be trouble...
"At the point where the loyal guards are under some sort of magical kill switch commanded by the enemy, I have to wonder whether there's any salvation for them, or if they'll come right after us again."
"But..." Lady Karnelia is visibly intimidated by Julie's retort, and recoils in silence.
... it's different when you have prisoners and when you're fighting for your life...
When Ellara bring up the fake, "It could mean an impostor actually exists, or it could be a manipulation to get loyal supporters to turn against the only princess. We don't know enough."
Kiyomi sighs with her internal conflict. "I hate to say this, but releasing them to the guards likely means that the conspiracy will learn that we are working against them. They could turn our families against us or retaliate against our loved ones to get us to stop."
"We could attempt to find a criminal willing to keep them imprisoned, but it would take time and significant money. It would also likely be a slaver or kidnapper as they are the ones prepared to retrain people. If they escaped or were freed, we wouldn't know."
"If we need to take the ... darker path. I am willing to do the deed." She obviously does not want to do this, but she is willing to take the sin on herself to protect those who may have moral qualms about it.
"Hmph, like their families care whether they died in battle or at our hands? Their tragedy will be similar regardless. If you are insistent on imprisoning them till further notice, it's not like I don't have a Brig on my ship. But getting to it would still take precious time."
Lady Karnelia retreats into the hallway without a word, cowed by stronger temperaments flaring up. "... do as you must."
After dealing with the attackers you went to the sewer entrance that Seria had talked about. Following the directions took only a few moments, so long as you were able to ignore the smell. Unfortunately, when you arrived the safe room door had already been breached. Something had destroyed the door with fire, fire hot enough to reduce the stone around it to something that looked like molten wax.
"Oooooh~" Ellara said, admiring the handiwork. She was curious about interesting effects like this one, and poked a bit at the stone. Still, they had a job to do, and she led the way inside while keeping an eye on their surroundings.
Julie's finger felt blistering heat from the stone. Apparently, whatever had happened had happened recently.
Inside the room showed obvious signs of a fight, with overturned furniture and broken . Oddly, there was no sign of explosive or fire damage to the room, as the blast seemed have been focused out and back into the sewers.
Three bodies remained in the room, dressed in the same way as the attackers you ran into before. A secret door sat open to one side.
Julie went ahead and spent one of her few remaining reserves of mana on enhancing her armor, noticing the recent-ness of the fight.
"Anyone got preferences, or shall we go through through the door?"
"... was this done by some kind of magical spell? A weapon of some sort? What frightful damage..."
Noting the secret door, Lady Karnelia draws from her shared bond with Little Sister, and creeps up to the secret door as silently as possible, hoping to go unnoticed as she peeks inside.
"Heh, we're quite capable of inflicting frightful damage ourselves.."
Before answering, Ellara dropped to all fours as she morphed into something akin to a wolf and started sniffing at the ground, looking for any distinct and unusual scents. If they'd passed by recently, their smells ought to be more than strong enough for her to track - and that was the direction she planned to go.