Abnegation

Treasure

                    -Wit and Lora walk to the glow under a small pile of sand-

He crawls opposite of the princess and partially onto the dilapidated wall "This is it, right?", Lora replies "It has to be!" she kneels slightly and brushes the sand, revealing a book with the family's emblem glowing on it. She grabs it, but a zombie hand suddenly grabs her leg. "Aaaah!" Lora let slips, but Wit quickly rips the hand upwards out of the ground, revealing a rather huge, muscular zombie... Wit easily chops off it's head and stomps the brains out. "Now let's hurry! We gotta see the asshat in the palace!" the white demon smirks, Lora looks at the dead-man's blood and dirt on her blue-jeans' pant leg... "Y, yeah..." she agrees. Wit smiles at her, assuring her that he wasn't going to let anything hurt her, which she caught onto and was somewhat relieved.. 

They leave the ship to find the others outside talking... Gawain instinctually turns to see Lora. Wit notices the men before he emerged from the ship deck and had let himself fall backwards,  into the hull and crawled out into the ocean waters... "Princess!" the paladin exclaims in utter surprise, the mercs turned in shock, too... Gawain ran to Lora and helped her down from the wreckage "Wh, what are you doing, here!?" he asks in fear and confusion. Lora smiles warmly "I couldn't make you blokes go yourselves, and not help. So I decided to search, too! And look!", she says as she holds up the filthy book. Gawain stares in surprise "Y, you found it!", Jacob adds "Wait, that WAS her screaming then!?". The princess' happy expression turns wry as she explains "I might've seen a zombie, but I'm fine!", Gawain sighs in relief "I'm glad you're okay, but please don't do that again!". He grabs the book "At least now we can show the... Acting-governor this and maybe find the real one!", Jacob adds "Yeah, we probably wouldn't be able to find her with all the other pirates in the bar and shit, but maybe he'll call and show her the pic of this!". The paladin agreed "Yeah, let's hurry!", they immediately travel back into Neptune...

A few minutes later, the group makes their way to the palace. Gawain excitedly knocks at the door, the new soldiers (who were switched from the daytime guards,) stare at him in curiosity because of his un-professonalism, rather than being suspiscious of the paladin's action. Leopold comes to the door and yawns, now wearing footie-pajamas... strangely... "What is it?" he asks sleeply. Gawain and the others are a little surprised at this sight, nevertheless: the paladin explains "We found it!". Leopold's eyes lit up a little and he stands aside "Come in, come in...", the group enters the palace, now it's dimly lit with electric-lights, but seemingly: everybody's going to their bedrooms or doing leftover work before turning in, now. The butler adds as the group comes in "Aron should be happy to see this: I'll tell Master Olimpia in the morning, too... She's sure to be back by then.", they follow the butler to the acting-governor's room as Leopold further says "She's usually gone for almost 24 hours, but comes back frequently, more than it would seem to most. It would be difficult to find her now, so it's a smart thing that you came here, first!". Jacob proudly smiles until the butler stops them at a door "Wait here, and give me the book..." Leopold instructs. Gawain hands it to him, and the butler enters the room... The paladin looks down at the princess "You did it! We'll probably get him to agree if this soften's their hearts.", Lora replies "Yes, I can see it now: he'll probably call the gov'nor and whatever's going on here would clear up over some reminiscing!".