Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

A week had passed since Monty and Robin were brought to Lululalia, and Raven had finally begun to get some of the news that he desired for them to draw. From Mercedes' involvement in something nefarious with the demi-humans to the old woman's plea to kill the young merchant, he was made aware of it all, and although waiting on Monty to report back from the top of the mountains, he had assumed that the young man must've found something of value to be spending so long up there without returning.

"And you're sure about this, Robin?" Inside his room with everyone gathered, Raven questioned the blessed girl, and she responded swiftly with a nod.

"I heard her talking about some kidnapping and a war of some sort between the demihumans and the humans of this city," flipping the coin with Tweety's face on it in her hand, Robin sat in a chair anxiously looking at the ground. "One of them was inside her room last night and I heard her whispering something about explosives and kids and the lord of the land, the man was more chatty and I think he plans to do the deed." Discover hidden tales at empire

Lifting her head to look at the mage, Robin couldn't stop her heart from pounding. A sheltered girl who had barely ever been part of such controversy, she couldn't handle the stress that weighed heavy on her shoulders and the same went for the fox-girl sitting beside Raven and pondering if her man was truly gonna kill the merchant on the inn owner's request.

"W-what are we gonna do?" Moxy asked, her fist clenched to her chest.

The answer came but not from the leader, instead it was Amedith who spoke up first.

"We're gonna stop her, what else? We can't let some demihumans kidnap a man's kids for whatever dispute they have!" Standing beside him, Liliyana felt the same and let it be known with a constant nod.

But to their surprise, Raven had something contrary to say.

"No, we're not gonna do anything," eyes widened and a look of shock took over everyone's face. Looking around with not the slightest hint of emotions in his eyes, Raven took a deep breath and explained his thoughts. "We're nothing but tourists to the people of this city, and to stop a revolt which started for god knows what reason, we need to know each side before making any decisions."

"Or we could just not get involved at all," stepping forward with one hand on her swaying hips, Maria moved into the middle of the group. Lifting both hands as she stopped with a sigh, she looked around and added. "If something is wrong let the monarchy handle it, we're not here to resolve disputes, are we? I don't even understand why we're wasting so much time in this stupid city! Let's just get up the hill, you guys do what you want to the other chosen and then we can move on to corrupted lands and cleanse them! I mean isn't that the whole point of this journey?"

"That's right but we can't just let some kids be kidnapped because of something their father did!" Amedith retorted quickly, and the room fell into uncertain silence.

An air of doubt flooded the room, and nobody knew which way thing to nudge. On one hand, their leader was apprehensive towards doing anything about the situation and it made sense, while on the other they would be preventing some kids from being kidnapped for political reasons.

Stepping forward, Erika being the priestess couldn't simply allow such a thing to happen. Staring into Raven's eyes, her brows frowning with the sharpest look in her eyes, she relayed through her gaze alone what words couldn't compare.

Even so, turning to the rest of the group Raven tried to read their minds about the situation, and although they were still reluctant most of them still wanted to help the tragedy from occuring at all.

"This is a stupid decision, but if you guys really want to stick our legs in the muck of this place then I…" leaning forward, he pushed on his knees and picked himself up. "I'll help, but we're gonna need a plan–and a good one at that."

"Mercedes should have the explosives somewhere in her stash, we can always just swipe that and ruin her plans," her eyes still dejected, Robin offered the only thing she'd been thinking about all this time. To swipe the explosives and leave the merchant with no means to keep up her promise.

"What about the inn owner's request?" Moxy asked, tugging on Raven's sleeves.

Looking down at her still sitting at the edge of the bed, he pondered the idea for a moment before speaking.

"We don't know what she's after but we can't just kill her until she does something that warrants it, if anything–" As he spoke, a striking thought crossed Raven's mind. His lips shut seal that very instant as he further explored the idea and settled back on the edge of the bed.

Visibly confused by his sudden change in behavior everyone looked at each other, unsure whether to pull him out of his trance or to let him be for at least a while. In the meantime, Choux clung to Moxy as she had little clue what was being talked about, and the spirit simply watched–hoping that they would fulfil Baba's request as it could possibly be her last wish in this life.

The others, still concerned about the whole ordeal awaited his response, and the moment his eyes lifted again, their heads lowered slightly and their eyes and ears focused to hear what he had to say.

"I have an idea…"

"What is it?" Erika asked.

Jumping off the bed yet again, Raven wore a smirk as he gave his response.

"We offer her to the queen as a prisoner, our offering for benevolence and quite possibly our only ticket to head into the upper cities without drawing the ire of the false chosen!" It took them a while, but the value in his words became apparent to everyone. After all, if Mercedes was truly trying to ruin this town, then offering her to the queen as a prisoner was bound to help them shine in her eyes, at least enough not to be chased out of town.

"N-not a bad idea, but aren't we gonna wait for Monty to come back?" Asked Mel, speaking for the first time in all the chaos.

Nodding back at her Raven began laying out his idea.

"Yes, but we're not going to. I have another idea to get the queen on our side and away from the false hero's party…" Raising his fist, Raven brought out his screen of stats. Quickly glancing through it, his eyes landed on the gift he'd been given by the goddess herself. "I guess, you can say–I have a charm that would help us sort this out in an instant."

The moment everyone who knew Raven well heard those words, they knew exactly what it meant and to some, it was terrifying while the others smirked alongside him.

"This…would be interesting, huh?" Chuckling at the thought with her eyes glowing red, Erika's laughs concluded that meeting.