The World Dragon's Heir

Chapter 662: The Advisors Skills

As the crowd celebrated, the Knights and the Royal Family retreated to the Manor to hold a more private celebration of the end of the tournament.

All of their tents and gear had been packed before the final joust started, as none were expecting to stay in the grounds another night. Some would stay in the Duchy, but now that the event had finished, and they were not out to show off for the crowds, they could request a room at the Manor, or at one of the Inns in town.

With the recent expansions, Wistover Manor’s complex was capable of hosting far more people than even most small castles.

Forty or fifty bedrooms was considered to be substantial for a small castle, but they had built the other buildings around the back gardens and courtyards, so Wistover had proven capable of hosting hundreds of guests in relative comfort.

Perhaps not at the same standard as the Royals were hosted, but even the Manor itself had two dozen guest rooms.

Dave greeted them at the gates, and presented each of the Knights with a handmade gift, a garland of medicinal flowers that was supposed to help healing, but which didn’t require any healing magic to create.

It also smelled fairly similar to Chamomile tea, not a bad combination for the weary.

If actual healing was needed, the garland could be given to a witch coven, who would use most of it to make an actual healing potion. But for now, the Trolls were happy to let everyone rely on the passive effect, while feeling confident that they had not been rude to the guests.

They had even asked Beth to make extra soup for the Knights.

While most of the household was celebrating, Alistair and Lord Blackwell retreated to the study to keep up with their work. They had been studying the pattern of imposters looking for Wistover Duchy, and they believed that they had made some headway in finding the actual culprits behind it.

They had already determined, thanks to Rill’s information, that it was a group in the Burlish Empire that was doing the inquiries. However, they had managed to track down a bit more information through their own networks of informants.

The far west of the continent was largely lawless in general, but it was also largely overrun by monsters.

The mages who had been looking into Wistover were reputed to be part of a cult of Monster Hunters, hardline sorts who believed that the monstrous species should be eliminated from the continent.

How far they wanted to go, and what species they deemed unacceptable were both unclear points at this time, but they had been repeatedly rejected by the nations of the southeast, which were even more human dominated than even Cygnia was.

Not as anti Sorcerer as Dagos, but still nearly all human.

That made the pair of intelligence experts wonder just what was up with this cult.

If they were anti monster, but unacceptable to the human nations, what was it about their doctrine that was causing the issue? None of their agents had been able to tell them that, only vague details gleaned from visitor logs noting that their application to see many influential Nobles had been rejected over the last decade.

That was likely unrelated to their current efforts, but it painted a picture of the situation, and gave some idea of what sort of group they were looking into.

The group that was looking into Wistover also wasn’t a powerful one. They didn’t even hold a whole city, they just had a scattered presence in a few around the same region with a small rural base of operations.

Clearly, they had some impressive infiltration magic, but other than that, they could not be considered a major power.

So, they currently had their people trying to look into the group, and their motivations.

The current line of speculation between the two was that they might actually not care that Dominic was a Wavemates Dragonkin, and they might have actually been looking into the weapons productions of Cygnia without asking about them directly.

If they already knew about the rifles and mortars, then asking about the products that Wistover was selling could have been a leading line of questioning to see if Wistover was selling guns to foreign forces.

For a group that was adamantly anti-monster, getting their hands on magitech weapons that were being widely credited for the victory over the monster sieges both in Cygnia and in Skiple, would be huge.

The problem was that neither of them had managed to get enough clear information yet to know if they were actually after the products that Wistover was selling, for a resale reason, or if they were truly after military power.

Both were possible, both were likely, but only one of the two was likely to be the case.

"I have fresh intelligence on them. It looks like they’re a mix of sorcerers and humans, not a purely human force." Lord Blackwell explained as he looked at the communication device in his hand.

"That is excellent news. It nearly rules out them wanting to kill the Duke for being dragonkin." Alistair replied with a relieved sigh.

"Indeed. The information that I’ve managed to get confirms that they are hardline anti monster, but it appears to be aimed mostly against the Ogre and Goblin Clans. They are apparently known to keep Dire Wolves as hunting companions, so they’re not against working with magical beasts." The aging spymaster added.

"What sort of Cult is this? Could they just be some sort of Ogre hate group? I don’t think that would be controversial enough that others would refuse to work with them. Ogres are pretty universally hated, and Nobody likes Goblins."

Lord Blackwell shrugged. "That part isn’t clear. I don’t have anyone in the towns that they’re operating in, and opening a portal to them would be suspicious, given their rural nature. We will have to wait a few days to get more.

However, we did dig up one more detail. When they visited southern Axbridge, looking to trade for magical scrolls a few years back, their representative was part Troll."

Alistair pinched the bridge of his nose.

"They’re not another loyalist group, are they? Because if we start importing foreign cultists into the Duchy, the King is going to flay us alive."

Lord Blackwell laughed. "I can’t rule it out. But they might just be looking for a trade agreement with the one Nobleman who is definitely not going to turn away a Trollish ambassador."