Dungeons and Dalliances

When it came to reporting to the Baron, they were sparse on the details, at least the parts relevant to Natalie and her class. They had discussed the dilemma on the return trip to Tarenhelm: the balance to strike between the Baron's need to know what was going on around his city and Natalie's need for secrecy. She didn't want to divulge everything about rousing goddesses and her class's involvement.

They ended up giving him a mostly true report, as far as the practical details went. They had found, fought, and defeated a goblin with golden veins, who was significantly stronger than a goblin ought to be—on par with a level three boss. They suspected similar creatures might be inside the base, and so they had returned to recuperate before tackling the final fight. They suspected all of it had something to do with their aberrant hoarding behavior.

Ultimately, the Baron deserved to be appraised of the threat harassing his city, but only insofar as it didn't reveal too much about their personal situation. The lack of full disclosure didn't feel like it was a huge deal since they would be heading out and clearing the goblin base the very next day.

Tenet, however, would be getting a more detailed report. It was possible Natalie and her team had been assigned to this goblin infestation in the first place because Tenet had already suspected something odd was going on—possibly even the details. Clearly, the waking Passions weren't as isolated a phenomenon as Natalie had assumed. Not only did Elida clearly know about it, but there were also surface monsters running around attuned to Greed.

It seemed unlikely to Natalie—and her team, since this had been a group discussion—that across the entire world, these were the only monsters sponsored by a deity and behaving strangely. It was more than possible that the Passions were working on a far larger scale, even, and that Natalie's position as a paladin and these goblins' imbuement was nearly irrelevant on the global stage. Though they had no way to confirm or deny that. They simply acknowledged the possibility.

Once their meeting with the Baron had concluded, they returned to the Kraken's Hearth to rest and recover for the day.

Liz pulled Natalie aside just after she had finished showering. Closing the door behind her, she studied Natalie with a far more serious expression than she was used to seeing.

"What's up?"

Liz sighed, then walked over and sat on the bed, tucking her hands underneath her thighs. She idly kicked back and forward, still studying her with that uncharacteristic seriousness. It went on for a good several seconds.

"We need to talk."

"Yeah," Natalie said. "I guessed that when you said, 'Nat, we need to talk.'"

 She could've imagined Liz pouting at the friendly sarcasm in a normal circumstance, but the royal kept her serious face. Natalie sobered up, realizing that whatever she wanted to talk about really was important.

"It's about what we learned," Liz said. "And us. As in, our team, and you, and all of it."

"Figured." It'd been the nonstop topic of discussion since leaving the Duskwood.

"But specifically about me," she continued. "Or rather, my family."

"The Beaumons?"

Liz bit her lip. She seemed to struggle with what to say for a second. "When we were first learning about all of this," she said, "I had thought you'd been given some strange and powerful class, but not something that could shape Valhaur's trajectory as a kingdom. So I was keeping it a secret, because that's what friends do." She shifted uncomfortably around on her bed, seeming mildly distressed as she looked at Natalie. "But it's becoming obvious the scope of this is expanding way past what any of us had assumed."

That was true. From the beginning, Natalie had known that the situation with her class was no minor, irrelevant matter—not with the Bestower's involvement and the strange comments she'd made. Yet her entanglement with unknowable forces like the Dungeon and slumbering goddesses was escalating at a pace she struggled to come to terms with.

And Natalie wasn't stupid; she could see where Liz was going.

"You want to tell your family."

"I have an obligation to tell my family," Liz corrected. "To my parents, the King, and Valhaur and its people. I think I've already put it off for too long. But now that it's leaking into the outside world, with monsters imbued by the Passions attacking cities, killing people, I can't keep hiding it." The distraught expression grew. "But I also have an obligation to a friend, who entrusted me with her secrets."

Natalie sat on the bed and considered. She'd seen this coming. How could she not? It was exactly as Liz said: the scope of this matter had grown too large for something like Natalie's embarrassment to stop them from sharing it with the appropriate authorities.

In fact, the biggest reason she wanted to keep a low profile now was for Malice's sake. While having to explain her class and what she knew of it to a man like the literal king of Valhaur would be mortifying, ultimately, she wasn't in danger of him, besides maybe in becoming a pawn, and a quick departure from normalcy. But revealing Malice might end up with her in a lab somewhere, to be studied and questioned. Likely without much concern for Malice herself.

Liz kept speaking, either because she was nervous and couldn't stand the brief silence, or she mistook Natalie's contemplation for displeasure.

"I'm not saying I'm going to go behind your back and tell my parents everything I know," Liz said. "Since it's still your secret." She tittered nervously. "But I am gonna try really, really hard to convince you that that's what you should do."

It wasn't hard to see that the conflict in her loyalties was tearing her up; it had probably been why she'd been so quiet on the way back home. Natalie had just thought she'd been thinking things over. And she had, just not in the way she'd assumed.

Natalie briefly wondered whether if she insisted on not telling the Beaumons, if Liz would anyway. Logically speaking, Natalie could hardly blame the girl for not taking her royal duties lightly, but the idea also left a sour taste in her mouth, however logical it would be.

By how dismayed the poor girl looked, though, it was obvious it wasn't an easy choice—but also that she was considering the eventuality.

"Okay," Natalie said.

"Okay?"

"You think it's a good idea?"

Liz perked up, sensing that maybe there was an amicable solution to her dilemma, that this didn't have to end in the worst-case scenario. She nodded rapidly, her black hair bouncing with the eager motion.

"I do. And I'm not just saying that. Here's my reasoning why."