Death's New Adventure

Chapter 14: A plot revealed

Later, I sat in a chair in front of a desk, my arms bound in manacles behind my back. The guard captain sat in the chair on the other side, my adventurer card and writ of emancipation sitting on the desk in front of him. He stared at me, and I stared back.

"I'm away at the capitol for a couple of months, and the day I return to Guildsberg I find a succubus fighting in the streets with citizens," he says. "What am I supposed to make of this?"

I sighed. It was getting tiresome repeating myself to the guards, and now the guard captain. Each of the guards before had given an excuse about 'standard procedure', but with as many delays as there had been in releasing me, this was feeling anything but standard. "I told your men, Peter started the fight. He ran me through with a sword from behind. All I did was defend myself," I pointed out.

"Yes, I heard when you told my guards, and I read their reports. But I also have Peter's testimony that you manipulated your owner, Guildmaster Michaels, into having him fired from his job as a Clerk in the Adventurer's Guild office," he returned.

"I'm not a slave!" I said hotly. "You have my writ of emancipation right in front of you!"

"Yes, about that..." he started. "I'm in a position to call Master Michaels' authority to issue such a writ into question. There have been concerns in the nobility about how Master Michaels is running his guild and this city, and those concerns have reached the King's ears. I have been empowered to investigate the situation, and deal with it as I see fit. Master Michaels' little slave succubus brawling in the streets doesn't paint a very good picture of the man, now does it?"

"I'm not his slave, and this has nothing to do with Master Michaels," I pointed out angrily. "I'm a free woman, and you have no good reason to keep holding me here!"

"That's not what my report to the king will say," he told me. "In fact, as far as anyone will be concerned, Master Michaels never had the authority to emancipate a succubus in the first place, so your actions still fall under his responsibility. And so there will be nothing about your emancipation in my report, and Master Michaels will be held accountable for your actions. After all, who's going to believe the word of a succubus over that of an upstanding citizen?"

"That's not..." I started, but stopped. I started to realize there was more going on here than it seemed. This wasn't about who started the fight, or who was in the right. If that's all it was, I should have been released by now. Master Michaels was being set up to be removed as the head of the guild, and I was being used as the excuse!

My realization must have shown on my face, because the guard captain chuckled. "I see you understand why you're still here now. To be honest, this isn't exactly how I planned to overthrow the Guildmaster. He is well-liked by the common folk, so I needed a good reason to have him removed. It's nice that one just happened to fall into my lap, and on the very day I return, no less."

"Tell me, what do you think the King will think of this scenario?" He asked me as he continued. "Guildmaster Michaels was experimenting with training his succubus slave to do adventuring work. He'd managed to train her up to F-rank before she went out of control, attacking and nearly injuring a citizen before she could be subdued. Regrettably, I had to remove the good guildmaster from his posting, pending an investigation into his mental state and why he thought it was a good idea to train a succubus and not keep her on a short leash."

"Well, that's just great for you, isn't it?" I asked sarcastically. "You have your perfect little excuse to overthrow the guildmaster. But what happens to the succubus in this scenario of yours?" I tried to delay him and keep him talking while I came up with a plan. I needed to get out of here, and I needed to warn the Guildmaster about what was going on.