Warrior of the Void Book 1, Chapter 35

“Moving on from how species always seem to inexplicably develop two tribes of opposing cultures–” Tearing into her last skewer like it owned her money, Kofle swifty moved the conversation along, “The relationship drama actually kinda ties back into that third misadventure. I, being a responsible guildmate, take it upon myself to drag the poor man back to the guild. For some reason the Sultansworn just left immediately after grilling us and healing him, not explanation or anything… You know, now that I think about it. What in the hells were the Sultana’s bodyguards even doing there…”

Muur’s girlfriend slowly trailed off, quietly chewing and digesting that thought just as she was with her food.

“Wouldn’t be the first time a noble decides to have a little outing, which means honor guard sniffing around the area.” The lizard wizard replied with a careless shrug.

“I'm the criminal infested slums?” Kofle asked with a raised brow, “Doubt it. Wouldn't have bothered with an interrogation either. Back to my story, when we got back to the guild, we started to explain what happened to the Guildmaster. Gave me a juicy bonus for those kills, apparently these Duskwights were a big issue? The man I saved wasn't the first they attacked, she didn't think to mention them to me because I was untested. Told me that they only went after Hyur swordsmen, but two non-Hyur guildmembers tried to go after them to get the renown of dealing with them. Found dead the next evening.”

“In the criminal infested slums.” Muur confirmed with a nod and a wry smile. “Sometimes nobles get it into their heads to see how the lowest of the low live, or just want the thrill of going somewhere supposedly dangerous. Then it falls on the bodyguards to make sure it is not, actually, a threat to their charge.” 

“Still don’t buy it,” Kofle said with a shake of her head and a sigh, “But whatever they were doing, Twin’s blessings that it ended better than my day. Just as we finished talking, and the gladiator telling us that the Elezens had been looking for a man named ‘Aldis’, said man enters the Guild! He and the Guildmaster started talking– well, more like he was talking, and she was shouting bloody murder. I think he tried to say something to me, but quite frankly I was too busy thinking about y– I mean other things.”

“What things, I wonder~?” Muur asked with a sharkish grin as she leaned forward.

“None of them to think about for you–! I mean–!” Unfortunately for Kofle, she’d shown herself to be a cat. A creature that, despite pretending to be aloof, uninterested and a mighty beast, was actually quite clingy and cute!

The fact that her new cat could talk just meant that the lizard was free to tease her relentlessly until the two of them finally went back to their homes in the city– though, not before they embarked on a quick adventuring job that lasted two hours, and earned them enough gil to cover their lunch-date.

Shockingly, Muur’s evening ended quite pleasantly. No sudden call to action, no family drama, or anything of the sort– if there’d been one negative it would have been that the handful of people she’d started to befriend in the Thaumaturge Guild were not around at dinner.

Unfortunately…

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Silken drapes danced across Muur’s skin. Their feather light touch caressing her deathly pale skin, all the while a thousand sensual fingers roamed along her oh-so sensitive scales like the breathy whisper of a desperate lover. Held in their embrace, the oblivion of sleep beaconed, a wondrous call to rest and allow herself to be loved and adored in ways she could only dream of–

Someone jabbing her harshly in the ribs, apparently. At least that was what she jolted up from, forcing her to take in her surroundings. First of all, she was still in a bed. Just not hers, rather than the modest one person bed she’d been assigned in the ossuary, this one was a sprawling queen sized one. Four tall posts stood in each corner, while a sturdy headboard of carved wood supported the absolute sea of pillows her head had been resting on.

From where she was lying in bed, the rest of the room was cast in an uncertain haze thanks to long, off-white curtains of near-transparent silk. Looking down at herself, she saw that she had tangled herself in that self-same silk during her sleep. It took her but a few moments before deciding to toss the covers aside and take tentative steps into the room she’d found herself in.

Pushing past the silken drapes confirmed her suspicion. She’d not spent much time there, and the silk had hid just enough details that she hadn’t been sure of it at first, but this was the very same room as the one she had found refuge in during her flight from the gargantuan sharkman Voidsent.

Her first order of business was to go and check where exactly she was in the palace. By her estimate, the best way to do so was to check through the windows where the central tower was in relation to her…

To her surprise though, she couldn’t see the tower at all. Not because she was on the palace’s opposite side either. But because she was in the tower itself, as right underneath her stood the bridge leading to the rest of the floating ruins.

Taking a step back, Muur took a halting breath and moved to explore the room in detail. Whatever the palace was, this specific room held some kind of importance. She could tell as much, why?

Well, it was in a shockingly good condition for one. Nowhere near perfect, but compared to the rot, decay and damage that had been a constant everywhere else she’d been in? The fact that the worst she could see was some slight sagging in the discolored wallpaper, a single missing plank of wood, a dusty floor and no broken glass anywhere?

The place was basically pristine– At least until you looked at the bed. Which was actually pristine. So pristine in fact that it was mildly disturbing. Everything about it was vibrant, like it glowed with the quality of a newly made masterpiece…

Still, as much as she’d like to study it in detail. Something made her attention slip away from it, only to direct it towards other places in the room. Speaking of, Muur strolled back to the foot of the bed and took the time to map it out in her mind. Just in case.

In spite of being in a round tower, the room was somehow a perfect rectangle roughly twice as long as it was wide. With the Bed at her back, the wall to her left had three windows set throughout its length, while the one to her right held the only door in and out of the room. Directly in front of her, behind what looked to be an ancient couch was a long dead fireplace built into the center of the far wall.

That couch and the bed weren’t the only pieces of furniture that Muur could see. Five others were in the room: the wardrobe she’d used to hide– if being dragged in there by a ghost could be called that –laid against the wall the bed’s headrest was pushed against, and three hybrids of bookshelves and cabinets.

Two of them framed the ash-filled fireplace, just far enough that they’d be safe from anything short of an uncontrolled blaze. The third was fairly far away from them, and resting on the same wall as the door to and from the room. The very last piece of furniture though, was a writing desk sandwiched between two of the windows.

At first, she was far more interested in the shelves– but it didn’t take particularly long for her to grow a bit frustrated. Any book she pulled from the shelves were either too damaged to be readable, or in written in some kind of eldritch tongue that flowed and coiled in on itself in unnatural ways– also, she could swear that on multiple occasions, a word she’d looked at had turned into a different one when she came back to it.

The curios themselves weren’t much better either. Beside the few that were sitting on the fireplace’s mantle, they were all behind a protective glass door. Up until the point she actually opened the door to take a closer look at them. Whenever she did, the things just vanished as if they’d never been here. It wasn’t a case of a fake picture being taped to the doors either, since they moved and shifted as they should whenever she walked around the cabinets.

Before she could grow too frustrated and do something unwise, Muur went to check the desk. She’d kept it for last since it was rather sparse, with just one book and a tipped over inkwell, the ink it’d contained long since dried.

It took a single glance at the first line on the first page of the book for her to groan at not having picked it first. Clear as day, in Eorzean letters she could read: ‘We have found–’