"We do still, some of us! But you must earn a gryphon. They will never bear a rider they do not respect. I have heard of people stealing the eggs, but not of it going well for them."

"I have to say, I find this sympathetic in the gryphons and the pegasi. Not that it would be right to enslave a race of people just because they're mostly Evil, but - there is something that appalls me particularly, about enslaving a race because they have standards and you can't be bothered to meet them."

"I persuaded Skybreaker he'd get into more interesting fights, win more magic items, eat better and get stronger faster if he came with me. The same way I recruit most of my men, really."

"You have a gryphon?" This would be very cool for most people, but actually doesn't make Xavier in particular much cooler, because you sort of automatically assume that Archdukes are very impressive. It's just that she didn't know what the particular impressive things would be. "Where did you find him?"

"The Mindspin Mountains! I went in hunting Kuthite raiders and discovered he had the same objective. We hit it off and I explained that it was usually this exciting where I was because that's where I was trying to go, and he decided next to me was the place to be."

"I see. I've seen them flying overhead, but I've only really met one. Not friendly. Tolerant, on a good day. He belonged to the father of one of my - well, I shouldn't say adventuring companions in this company. Friends."

"Do you adventure? I've heard Menador is quite dangerous."

"No, no. Only in the sense that I had three older brothers who wouldn't let me hunt monsters with them. Being fourteen and very dramatic, I put together a group of some of the minor lord's daughters who were similarly annoyed, and we decided that we would adventure ourselves, no boys allowed. It was in most respects a very silly children's game. And then we got a little older and the no boys rule was rather embarrassing, and we thought about changing it and being serious, but - at some point people in the area started occasionally coming to us with real problems that they didn't trust my father or his men with. It is easier not to be scared of five teenage girls who like to play hero. So we decided to be silly and help where my brothers could not, rather than serious and take the same jobs they already did. But in the last year half the group has gotten married, so more recently I have been bored."

"Sounds like a good way to get started," he says, making a note of the easier not to be scared point. People in Cheliax seem to be scared quite a lot. "Goblins and wolves, rather than serious challenges?" He is almost-completely straight-faced and only very slightly visibly joking.

"Sometimes! But goblins and wolves are really among the easiest things to go to the local lord about. If the problem is - 'we think the local school is haunted, but the priest does not believe us', or 'my daughter is missing, I do not know if she has run off with a boy or if the orcs have taken her', who will you go to? Certainly not the lord or his men. But you may risk me, occasionally."

"Ah. Yes, I see that." He wants to give her a job offer! The job is "low-level adventuring party leader!" Tragically she's already doing it for someone else.

"That is a very good solution to a problem I've found myself encountering frequently, which is that people accustomed to Asmodean Cheliax often - do not report problems until they have grown so large and unambiguous that there is no question of whether they were presumptuous to report them. Instead of 'at the outset, when there is a single ghoul and addressing it is trivial', or even 'at the point where it was predictably going to become a great disaster."

She's not especially doing it for anyone right now, actually, which is a far greater tragedy.

"It's difficult. They're right not to trust the authorities, in many cases. I think being a group of young women helps, and I think not acting in an official capacity helps. But I also think that starting as near children and patrolling the same area for eight years helps, and there is no shortcut for that."

He nods. It's a good point.

(He briefly considers an insane instantaneous marriage proposal at this point and rejects it instantaneously.) "Well, if you find yourself bored in Westcrown, we're still finding zombies in the streets. Somehow I doubt you will, though."

"I think my father would prefer I not immediately place myself in mortal peril again, so I will leave the undead to you this particular week. At some point I should investigate the city's many and numerous problems, but not alone. Actually - Lady Gaudi-Bittner, you said your sister was a bit of an adventurer?"

"Much less than you, I think, but she would certainly like to be. At the moment she's only first circle."

"A caster! Will you introduce me?"

"Yes, happily."

Her father wasn't expecting it. The news that the war had started had reached Seguer, but their men were still forming up. The first news the war had ended was a team Teleporting in, paralyzing everybody with powerful magic, announcing that Her Majesty Aspexia III was the new Queen of Cheliax, and executing her father on the spot. One of the women pointed, coldly, indifferently, like someone selecting melons at market, at three of his men - she knew their names, somehow - and they killed those too. 

They let themselves into the fortress, then, and let the prisoners out of the dungeons, and asked Eulàlia where they'd find the tax records, school records, the treasury. 

Eulàlia supervised the paperwork fairly closely. It was a good way to get her father's approval, to catch someone cooking the accounts. There was nothing to be gained by defying them. She took them into her father's office and gave them everything they would need. Records, maps, names of local officials, ongoing proceedings of various kinds. Only about half her mind was occupied by contemplating how she would die, once they were done. They asked if she was a wizard - yes - first circle? - no, second - and if any of the guards were hers, personally, and with numb lips she pointed those out. And if any of the secretarial staff were, and she pointed those out too. They asked if she renounced Asmodeus and pledged herself to the service of the new Queen, and of course she did, with all her heart. They notified her that she had their permission for the time being to rule Seguer, in accordance with the new law of Cheliax, and dropped a stack of decrees on her desk, and set off.

You'd think that after that nothing could scare you but it's the opposite, really. Every minute since then has been like watching her life flash before her eyes at its inevitable end.

"Count Ardiaca?"

"de Seguer?" He dips his head in recognition.

"The charming fellow you and the Archduke d'Sirmium apprehended the evening of the riots, the man who identified himself as Riu d'Argent."

"... Has done something of interest? Isn't he in prison?" 

"The thing of interest he has done is 'not be in prison', as far as I can tell. I was following the matter with some interest."

"Ah-hah. Yes, I would expect you to. I don't suppose chance you know where he is now?"