Mercury knew this meeting was extremely important. It she said the wrong thing, or managed to give the wrong impression, she would be in big trouble. If these adventurers in her presence were to be convinced she was hostile then there was little her imps could do against them, and while she could use her own powers on them, she was loathe to actually kill, and even then she could probably expect regular attacks from the surface, which eventually she wouldn’t be able to defeat by herself.
However, if she could convince the heroes that she was harmless, or even better, if she could convince them that she had something to offer their people, she might be able to parlay that into good relations and a source of minions stronger than her imps, not to mention actual intelligent conversation. Additionally, that would be the best path towards accomplishing the goals which the neutral trinity of gods had given her. After all, if more people were to be convinced to follow the grey path, as opposed to either good or evil, she would have to show them that the grey wasn’t evil, and she couldn’t do that if she was at war with them.
As if responding to her wish for a civil encounter a second adventurer, Gabriel, as Kol had introduced him, joined Kol and herself at the table and was taking one of the cups of tea she had prepared and sipping it. “Hum… Kol was right, it is a tad watery.” He mused, before turning to the two adventurers still standing, “Come sit down, the tea isn’t poisoned, and I’m sure that whatever snacks she must have are similarly unpoisoned.”
The woman, Lynn, who had berated the man with a bow earlier, joined them around the table, while the angry and suspicious looking man simply stayed where he stood, watching Mercury closely. “I don’t think that would be a good idea. I’ll stay here and watch, thank you very much.” He practically snarled at the others; however they apparently ignored him in favor of drinking their tea and looking at their host.
Gabriel was the one who started their conversation while still taking sips of his tea. “If you don’t mind my asking, but why aren’t you acting like a normal keeper? You don’t show up on my detection spells, yet you definitely have a lair. You don’t look like any keeper I’ve even heard of before, yet you claim to be one. I don’t understand.” He questioned her, apparently hoping that since she’d been a gracious hostess so far, she might answer his questions.
Fortunately for him, Mercury was indeed a good host, and was prepared to answer his questions. In fact she had done a lot of thinking on the matter, attempting to figure out what she could say in order to prevent every guy with a sword in a hundred miles from descending on her lair in order to kill her. She had already determined that she would keep as close to the truth as possible, after all she knew practically nothing on the magics used by her guests, and they might have spells which can test for truth or something similar. The books in her library, like An Idiot’s Guide to Dungeon Hearts, didn’t really cover non-combat spells, like truth spells, focusing instead on their combat abilities and what to expect when a magic user tries to attack her dungeon, making it almost useless for her current situation. However, that doesn’t mean that she intends to tell them the whole truth, or even most of it, after all, anything which might make dealing with the surface easier would be a good idea, and tailoring her history a little bit was a good idea.
Thus she began her explanation to the assembled heroes, “Well, I suppose it began long ago, when there were ten kingdoms which lived in peace. I was princess and senshi of one of those kingdoms, Mercury.” Here she was stretching the truth a little, claiming her past life as her own, but she knew that if she ever wanted to have a lasting relationship with the lords and kings of this land it would be easier if they thought she herself was a noble. “Anyway, nine of those kingdoms, including mine, were united in a great alliance under the Lunar Kingdom, while the tenth, the Earth Kingdom remained independent. Eventually the princess of the Lunar Kingdom fell in love with the prince of the Earth Kingdom and they decided to marry, which would bring all ten kingdoms together. However, Beryl, a minor noblewoman of Earth coveted the prince for herself, so she made a deal with an evil goddess, Metallia. Using her new powers Beryl proclaimed herself a Queen and launched a surprise attack on all the kingdoms at the same time. Her attack was devastating, and only stopped when Queen Serenity of the Moon used all her powers to seal her and her armies away. However, by that point all the kingdoms aside from the Earth Kingdom could no longer support life, so she used the little remnants of her power in order to send the survivors to safety. But thanks to Beryl I was trapped here, in the presence of a dungeon heart and a reaper. I defeated the reaper, but found out that in order to escape I would have to bind myself to the heart.” She paused as she took another sip of her tea, and took a look at the faces of her companions, the friendly dwarf looked sad, the friendly human man looked slightly devastated, while the woman had some tears coming down her face. Mercury felt something tracing down her cheeks, she reached her hand up and was startled to find a tear. Surprised, Mercury almost stopped her tale, as the story she was weaving was affecting her, while her memories of her previous incarnation were faint at best, she could still feel some emotion at what she, and countless number of peoples of the Silver Millennium, went through.
It was at that point that she was interrupted;
(Posted Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:07)
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