Gidea had a rather, shall we say striking look. With firey red hair like her daughter, but cut short so nothing could grab it and piercing green eyes, and as per usual was clad in a set of armour made from assorted monster bits (which when you are crushed against it in a gigantic bear hug is definitely uncomfortable). At her waist sat the legendary holy sword, which for some reason she had named Frank. (This of course lead to far more amusing stories than some poser name like painbringer, and no before you ask it did not suck souls to power their owner as Gidea found that if used properly it didn’t matter if it did silly stuff like that given that a few feet of metal made stuff plenty dead with less chance of turning on you.) On her back sat a small buckler barely larger than her fist, (she liked the way it sounded when she punched people with it alright?) There was of course no cape, no real fighter wears something that practically has “tug me” written in it in big flashing letters. For the same reason despite her rank there wasn’t a scrap of jewelery on her, especially not piercings, as she had zero desire to experience rapid removal of such things by an opponent, that’s a lesson you only learn once.

Mibbet tried desperately to squirm free, but from her suddenly acquired mother’s strength she was fairly sure that being captured by a horned grizzly would give hr greater odds of escape. So she held on until Gidea was done, perfectly willing to swear she could feel her eyeballs bulging out with every megasqueeze.

“What brings you here mother?” Rosalind asked desperately trying to distract her. (She already knew of course, but Gidea tended to only think of one thing at a time, so the key here was to distract her into dialogue while her innards were still... well.. key word here is IN.)

“What do you think? You missed check in silly. You know how I worry when you are late reporting in. Now suppose you tell me what exactly happened.”

Rosalind, just relieved that for now the vise like grip of the Gidea patented crusher bear hug of clinginess +1kajillion had finally been released, or at the least loosened enough for her to wriggle loose, she started to gradually tell the tale of their journey so far, step by step, though they could see her knuckles whiten at particular parts of the story where the team were in danger, it was fairly obvious she was resisting the urge to go, hunt down the people who caused the danger, and thump them one (things that Gidea punched tended not to be the same afterwards. Be it a man, or a 3/4 foot thick reinforced enchanted castle wall when she hit something it always left a mark, and by mark I mean crater.)

Luckily Gidea followed a pretty straightforward system, you fight something, beat it to a pulp, then forget about it, grudges were pointless to her once she knew she could beat something.

“Now about this Malachai person, he scared my daughter, mind letting me handle his punishment sweetie? I have the perfect punishment in mind.”

“Oh? Do tell” Rosalind tried weakly, while inside her Mibbet tried desperately to forget the squeeziest hug in the history of hug-dom.

“He wants to try hiding crimes in paperwork? I’m going to make him fix the mess made by lord Upsidaisi in the archive”

Rosalind gasped in horror at this, she had seen that particular mountain of papers before, compared to it pushing boulders uphill for eternity had a better parole arrangement, being chained to a rock for eagles to extract organs? Sissy stuff, emptying a gigantic lake with a winkle shell? Easy peasy. Death sentence was the humane option here. That lord in question had considered chewing gum to be an acceptable page mark, had thought of filing as a mere suggestion, and had somehow despite being the most incompetent seeming wastrel on the face of the planet, been in fact the most corrupt incompetent seeming wastrel on the face of the planet, till Gidea found out and secretly set him up doing paperwork for the local mob, who really didn’t appreciate incompetence and were rather, shall we say... creative, in dealing with it.

Cleaning up that mess? That made a death sentence seem kind in comparison. There was a life sentence, and a death sentence on the books in the kingdom, but Rosalind had never before heard of a fate worse than death sentence.

“Don’t worry dear, we’ll take care of him, we’ll accommodate him in the student barracks right next door to the knights order. This gained another wince from Rosalind, who was beginning to think not killing him when they fought him had been an act of cruelty. A lifetime in student quarters? Wow even hell wouldn’t be that cruel. Those places cultivated more fungi than the Sporeling forest, she had heard the dust bunnies there were the horned variant with rudimentary skill use, and the thing in the kitchen cold storage was technically speaking an elder god.

“Now about those Automata dear.” Gidea began”

“Mam we handled that , they’re living in peace now, and I’d quite like to keep it that way.”

“Oh I know dear that wasn’t what I was going to say, they’ve been through quite enough.”

“Then what?”

“I understand that they have a protodragon there, do you think he would object to a friendly spar sometime, don’t worry I’d use a wooden sword, I don’t want to hurt the poor thing, but I haven’t had a decent match since Stormfury the dark stopped returning my messages. Can you believe he called me a bully? He’s an elder dragon for Pete's sake, key word elder. How was I supposed to know he would be such a big baby about losing?”

“Mum he’s a multi-tonne necromantic construct made of granite fossil and metal and the only one of his kind in existence, plus capable of using meteor magic.”

“So is that a no then?”