Aquatic Nightmare

You have got to be fucking with me. You mean to tell me that bastard Nosk got himself help from a royal fucking mermaid? Last I heard, that bastard was on the brink of getting whacked over his debts, and then he comes into port looking smug as all hell while his men tattle their mouths about friendly mermaids. If there is a royal mermaid all the way out here it has got to be a transmogrified one, no other royals would be insane enough to come here of all places. Set the men to high alert, but whatever you do, don't engage any mermaids you see on sight. I would rather not get on the bad side of Mazurian royalty on top of my already mounting problems.
-Governor of Quintillius Landing, to his guard captain

POV second princess Alicia of the kingdom of Dalka

Today was going to be a stressful day.

After reading the full report made by the newly summoned otherworlders makes me realize why my parents have been both distressed and excited recently. It has been roughly a month since the failed assassination of the demon lord, as the mages reported all vital signs on the strange men failing. Had it not been for long range observers and later an informant that came out of the woodworks we would have written them up as just another loss. The mages in charge of long distance observation reported great amounts of panic in the demons gathered at the chapel, and many more wounded than the feared demon lord of legend would have allowed.

We deemed the otherworlders truly valuable due to how close they must have gotten, and went to summon the next batch. The new batch was more easily summoned due to better calibration. There is an issue that there are twenty-eight children and one adult, the adult of the group even turned out to be a pacifist who didn't want them to fight at all. We were again prepared to write off this group as failure until they all showed unusual promise regarding their growth. We go even better news when the informant had brought us evidence that there was a survivor of the original group who managed to remember themselves and their loyalties.

After the strongest members of the group of heroes we have were sent together with some of the royal knights for guidance to rescue the survivor and find out the weakness of the demon lord. From the description of the survivor they did come pretty close to killing the demon lord while also revealing that the first demon lord has died long ago and that this one is simply a far off successor. The report however grows darker from there as it starts describing the demon lord's actual abilities. The scariest of which being a darkness barrier so large it apparently covers a seven-meter radius and is so dense it can actually be used to blind enemies.

It only gets worse from there, as it is revealed that the survivor was turned into a mermaid royal. Who upon breaking out immediately staged a prison break on a place that contains some of the most terrifying monsters in this region for a reason. Yet, from everything in the report, the demonic prison breakout seems to be the least of our worries.

"After which you allowed her to head to the port where captured mermaids were just being offloaded, where she proceeded to go insane and threaten a merchant to release them at knife point." Father is furious.

"Yes, your majesty, I take full responsibility for this."

"I do not want your head, I am not even mad at you. Hell's I am not even mad at the merchant so brazenly asking for remuneration for his losses from the palace. What makes me furious is us finally managing to squeeze a win from the jaws of the demon lord in the form of information that was so preciously guarded from us only for our victory to be soured by the birth of a transmogrified mermaid princess who is currently at large terrorizing merchant vessels while heading northward towards Quintillius landing no doubt to join up with that oversized den of thieves." He almost shouted those last words.

"Y-your majesty?"

"You are dismissed, report back to your captain."

As the man leaves I see my father deflating slightly in his throne, it is not often he shows negative emotion to his subjects in public, but he did always say it exhausts him like nothing else. Thankfully, my mother is here to cheer him up.

"No worries dear Rufus, from what I know from any thieves and bandits is that a high enough bounty keeps them away from civilization. We could just put a bounty on her, and then she can stay on or below that island for as long as she wants." My father perks up at that and lovingly looks at my mother before a messenger knocks on the door. My father reluctantly allows him entry and prepares to continue with his duties.

"Announcing the arrival of the diplomat of the empire, Sir Brannsten." A man with barely contained irritation enters and gives an overly forced greeting.

"Greetings Brannsten, what news do our friends in the empire bring us today?" My father is clearly nervous, as the man is anything but a friend.

"The Empire wishes to show its displeasure with Dalka over her pursuit of the prophecy and without consulting nations with a presence of the church of the goddess." The man is looking as displeased as the empire certainly would be at this point.

"I did not know we had to ask our neighbors whenever we performed magical experiments, it would be rude of us to ask the same of you, after all." My father tries to lighten the mood a bit, but his efforts do not succeed.

"We know about the failure of the first group of heroes, and your summoning of the second. These brazen attempts to usurp the prophecy and use the church as a shield have not gone unnoticed, we will not ask you to hand over the second group as we must respect the prophecy even at this point but if you will summon a third the Empire WILL decide upon more direct action to ensure the heroes are in more competent hands."

My father swallows, as the threat is not lost on him. Before he can retort, the man continues.

"The Empire's stand on this is endorsed by the theocracy. They were also the only reason the Empire hasn't decided to act yet, as they convinced us of the usefulness of the first group in gathering the information on the nascent demon lord. I will now return to the embassy and inform the Emperor."

The man swiftly turns around and rudely dismisses himself. Such an action could be harshly punished by anyone not carrying around diplomatic immunity or words backed by the empire and apparently the theocracy. Mother is clearly thinking of something else.

"He clearly doesn't like the theocracy having agents in Dalka any more than we do, to so brazenly tell of one hiding in our ranks."

My father looks somberly out of the window before smiling. "Alicia, aren't you forgetting something?" I snap to attention as I realize I was still in the room watching everything happen and try to remember what I could be forgetting.

"Brother Celdium would return today!" I run out of the throne room and towards the exit. Celdium is talking with one of the knights and gets tackled by high velocity princess.

"Alicia! Did you grow bigger? I have got to tell you all about the dungeons I explored with some of the heroes. They grow really quick, and I met a lot of cool people there, mostly dwarves, of course."

"Celdium! I'm so happy you are here! I want to show you how well I did in my studies and..."

"And?"

Right Celdium didn't know about the Bartholm expedition yet and knowing him he is going to do something reckless.

POV Kyla'th Mazurio, Queen of Mazurio

Kyla was having a good day.

She was scared for a week after the assassination attempt while having nightmares of unflinching monsters crawling over her mothers' corpse towards her. She got even more scared for another few days when news reached her of the Dalkans summoning yet another batch of otherworlders. The fear died down however when she heard of the heroes while being more numerous were also less violent and not intending to rush off after her head. She had some people monitor them and their progress. While their growth was impressive, their methods were also more familiar and less traumatic.

The news of the casualties as a result of an undead outbreak was also worrying as undead usually hold no allegiance and the plan for releasing the mermaid princess between the humans could have been in jeopardy. Not to mention the escaped convicts that are unlikely to be easily found. Thankfully, some wolfmen scouts assigned to keep an eye on the expedition came in contact with and confirmed the mermaid princess being with the humans. What had her worried for a while was how it was obvious that the mermaid princess was not a captive, even if incredibly cranky at the time (which did get a chuckle out of her).

After all, she knew that the Dalkans were horrible people, but she needed them to be horrible to a specific mermaid just this once. Her plan came to a climactic conclusion as the scheduled date of the return of the expedition coincided perfectly with a mermaid slaver party and its goods. As predicted, the mermaid princess was stricken with grief and held a human hostage while freeing her people while saying some insane things. Oh well, you can take the insane assassin and put him in a royal mermaid body, but you can't take the insane out of the assassin in the royal mermaid body.

She did get hopeful that the princess was perhaps more forgiving than initially suspected, and they would be able to compromise. Her daydreams were filled with the assassin mermaid princess helping her out with her kingdom and even pushing humanity back across the sea, all the while making many humans into subjects. Her hope was thrown in disarray as a report came in not too long after that instead of moving to rally with mermaid forces, she moved the freed slaves northward towards the pirates at Quintillius Landing while carving a swathe of destruction across the merchants near her path.

All in all, it is still a net positive.

Jahala decides to sour my day by bringing me additional news. "Kyla the empire is moving a diplomatic entourage toward us, they are moving through the kingdom right now."

The empire? We have never been in contact with them and kind of assumed we would also be at war with them like the Dalkans.

Me and my big mouth always have to ruin everything.