The two of them got out of the room and closed the door behind them. Orou saw in his spirit vision that the twisted S symbol was no longer there, but since other people couldn’t see mana, hopefully, the shaman wouldn’t notice it. As Orou looked to the right, he saw a steady stream of spirits travelling down the hallway as if blown away by a gust of wind. Whatever it was, it surely couldn’t be good for them so Orou flickered his tongue at Grizz and started picking up his pace. Fortunately for them, no guards came out of the adjacent door as they passed by and soon after, they had arrived at the princess’ room. Grizz had already cleared his throat and was ready to make all kind of excuses to the princess, but as they opened the door, they found the princess nowhere in sight.

“The plan is to simply head back to the entrance and stroll outside as if nothing has happened. We pass by the guard, wave him goodbye and then hide the best we can to survive the shaman’s incoming wrath,” Grizz whispered to Orou as he was already halfway through climbing the window. As he looked back to Orou, his eyes fell on something in the room and practically lit up. Placing his leg back into the room they were in, he strolled to the pile of necklaces and tiaras, opening his backpack and sweeping everything valuable in there. Various gems and jewelry made from gold made Grizz silently whistle to himself as Orou could see him thinking about the profits he was about to acquire.

Orou stood by his side, annoyed by the waste of time due to some shiny toys, though Orou had to give Grizz credit where it was due, he neatly separated the pile into two piles of small, valuable things and heavy, useless things, sweeping the first pile into his backpack. He did so with remarkable speed and experience, showing that it was not the first time he had done something like this. Having finished the looting process, with a single leap, he jumped out of the window and tumbled to avoid most of the impact.

Orou followed along, still keeping his eyes on the invisible garden, though it was as if nothing had changed from when they left. There were no rustling leaves in order to draw Orou’s attention, so he passed by it. As Grizz opened the door to the kitchen, Orou turned around only to find one of the men sitting by the table staring at him. The man’s face was emotionless nor did he blink, he was completely motionless as his partner kept on drinking the tea before them. Orou wasn’t as much freaked out as he was surprised, wondering why the man would behave in such a way. Orou wondered if the man was controlled by the shaman, though he didn’t have much time to ponder as Grizz had already walked into the kitchen and left him behind.

Slithering into the smoldering hot room that was the kitchen, Orou saw that Grizz had adopted his ‘I’m in charge attitude’ towards the cooks, bossing them around. “Come on, the king is practically starving out there. If you can’t get the meal to him in time, who knows which one of you will be his next meal,” saying that, Grizz flashed a toothy grin towards the rest of the cooks, to which they responded by moving their already exhausted legs even faster. Of course, this came with the added benefit of several glares which Grizz didn’t pay any attention to. Thanks to his performance, not a single one of the cooks came up to them and asked them what they were doing outside of the palace, though they were probably too busy thinking of how to murder Grizz to be bothered by that.

Continuing their stroll through the palace, they exited the kitchens and walked through the hallway, arriving back at the entrance. The huge double doors were closed and the servant was doing his duty of cleaning the room. He was currently making sure the double doors were as shiny and intimidating as they were supposed to be. Grizz looked towards the exit to the outside and whispered to Orou: “There were several guards standing next to the door and if we were to open the door, the servant would surely notice. Go to the doors and be ready to attack if he makes too much noise, I’ll take care of it.”

Having finished saying that, Grizz started walking straight towards the servant. Orou followed what Grizz said, quickly and noiselessly arriving next to the door, looking back to see what Grizz would do. He had snuck right next to the servant and with one quick motion, he grabbed the servant and started choking him. Placing his hand on the servant’s mouth to muffle the oncoming screams, he applied more and more pressure towards the servant’s neck until eventually, his body went limp in Grizz’s hands. Orou didn’t understand why Grizz didn’t simply kill him with his daggers, but all that mattered was that they didn’t attract any unnecessary attention towards themselves.

Grizz dragged the unconscious body towards the nearest hallway, far away from the line of sight of Orou and the guards that would peer into the room. With a spring in his step, he arrived next to the door and composed himself, slowly opening it. Just as expected, the two guards were right next to the door, looking straight at Grizz and Orou. Grizz didn’t even look at them, his expression not changing in the slightest. The two guards looked at each other but they weren’t planning on taking any immediate action. Grizz’s facade didn’t drop even after arriving at the main gate. Grizz pushed it open with his hand and completely ignoring the guard that was standing next to him, he walked into the streets of Edum.

Orou wasn’t able to keep as much composure as Grizz, so ignoring what Grizz was doing, Orou blatantly stared at the guard. He didn’t seem to be bothered as much by Grizz leaving than he was by Orou staring at him. Orou heaved a sigh of relief in his mind, the king’s shaman must have not spread the alarm for them to pass through as successfully as they have. Orou stopped staring at the guard before the guard did something that Orou would regret and he rejoined Grizz, who was grinning from ear to ear, looking into his backpack and counting his spoils. “If I can find someone who’s willing to take these off of my hand, I wouldn’t have to worry about crystals for the rest of my life. There’s also the papers we’ve got, which could potentially be worth a fortune and of course, your greater spirit.”

Immediately following his burst of happiness was paranoia. Grizz started ducking into various shady alleys and dashing after turning the corner. Orou didn’t mind it as much, though he wasn’t sure why Grizz was doing what he was. He kept doing this all the way until they arrived back at the small little shop they were living in. Grizz started unpacking his backpack and organizing the various trinkets he stole, categorizing them by value, weight and how big they were. He placed the black cube and the documents on the table, to which Orou responded by using his tail to drag the cube to himself.

Using his spirit vision, Orou tried to see if he could sense any sign of the spirit, but it seemed like it never existed in the first place. He fumbled with it for an hour with no success before in anger using his tail to smash the cube before him. The rest of the building trembled, but the cube before him was fine. Moments later, Grizz came running towards him, wondering what kind of mischief Orou was up to again. Orou pushed the cube towards Grizz, awaiting for Grizz to do anything. As expected, Grizz picked up the cube before him and started fiddling with it, trying to twist and bend it, using his finger to push at specific spots and even using some of his thieves tools in order to uncover the secret of the cube, all to no avail.

Just as Orou was contemplating whether or not to simply cast beam of light onto the cube, Grizz spoke out: “We’ll go outside tomorrow and see if I can find someone who would be able to open this thing. I also have a few matters of my own to attend to, such as tracking down Mar about the schematics and finding people who would be willing to buy the jewelry. Anyhow, enough of this cube, let’s go and look at the documents we took, if they were in the shaman’s room and he decided to make them invisible, they must be quite important,” Grizz tossed the cube on the floor and went next to the table, picking up the few pieces of documents there were.

Before he started reading, he was quite excited but as he read further and further, his expression became more serious. He took several minutes to read over what was said in the documents and as he put them down, he heavily sighed and pressed his hand against his head. Orou slithered next to him and flickered his tongue, wanting to know what’s wrong. Grizz looked at Orou for a moment before replying: “This is more serious than I thought, the king’s shaman is working with the revolutionaries.”