Damien’s story went on for so long that they invited him and Alison to their room, since standing in the middle of a corridor was a bit awkward, even if the halls of the fortress were relatively empty.
"I have plenty more stories from the time when I was training her, but I think we should stop here for now."
"I still don’t get one thing." Isara frowned. "Nickolas approved your stay here and Alison’s training himself – how come he didn’t recognise her during the tournament?"
"Well for one he never actually met Ally before the tournament, but I think the main reason is that he forgot kids grow up – in his mind my student was still a little girl, not a young woman."
"That feels like a weird thing to forget."
"Centuries of life change your perspective a little." Damien shrugged. "Decades start feeling like years, years like months – it’s not that hard to loose track of time, especially when majority of the people around you also stopped aging."
"As much as I value the philosophical discussion on the perception of time I think it’s time we go." Alison interjected. "You need to get out of that armour and I need to find Maya before the banquet."
"True enough." He nodded. "I appreciate your hospitality my friends, we’ll meet again on the banquet."
The two of them said their goodbyes and left the room.
"Why is Alison’s personality so strict if she was raised by Damien? They’re like polar opposites" Calen commented.
"I think that when your parental figure has such a strong personality you either become exactly like them or strive to be the complete opposite." Elira answered.
"Alison’s stiffness aside, I want to point out that something is missing from this room" Isara stated and looked at Calen.
In response he looked around the space but nothing came to his mind, so he looked at Isara quizzically.
"Your dragon?" She raised an unimpressed eyebrow.
It was a bit embarrassing that he forgot Auren was supposed to be waiting here for them.
"Do you think something happened to him?" Cassian questioned.
"I don’t think so, Sylara would have told us immediately – or contacted me in the dreams for that matter." Calen shook his head. "They probably just moved him to make taking care of him easier."
"We can ask her at the banquet." Isara suggested. "Speaking of which, we don’t have any festive clothes – again. It was kind of a non-issue for the festival, but now apparently even the knights are dressing in something more appropriate."
"This one will be private, it’s not that bad – but we can go shop for something tomorrow just in case Sylara wants to throw another one."
"Good idea, for now let’s just leave alm the things we don’t need here and go."
The ’banquet’ turned out to be just a slightly bigger supper; it was held in the chamber where Sylara had meetings with her advisors, all of whom were currently present.
Just like Calen predicted it was a rather private gathering – only the leadership of Mountainfall, the delegation, their group... and Maya.
The most interesting part of the entire affair was the fact that they got to see all the knights completely out of their armour for the very first time.
Apparently the Order actually had a formal uniform – a military coat in royal blue and silver, colours that were indeed used by the knights in the Sun Kingdom.
"I want to thank you all for coming to inform us about the changes in the Order." Sylara bowed her head to the delegation. "If it’s not too much, I’d like to hear what exactly happened."
Damien nodded and launched into a lengthy explanation of the situation, not sparing any details; Greg and Alfred chimed in from time to time to correct him or add something, but otherwise everyone listened in silence.
"...so as a result we’re short ten members of the round table." Damien summarised. "Which brings me to the second reason of our visit, inviting all of you to the selection tournament."
"We’ll gladly attend." Sylara assured him with a smile. "But I must say that the sudden disappearance of seven skilled knights worries me a little – are you sure you didn’t see anything unusual?"
"I mean we were a bit busy fighting Arthur, but I haven’t noticed anything. They were there before the fight and went missing after." Damien shrugged. "Nickolas thinks that whoever took them was the same entity which gave Arthur the sword."
"I think you should still be on the lookout for them, I have a bad feeling about this whole suppressed Blight business."
"If even one of them had a scale in the armour we could’ve tracked them, but unfortunately we fought inside the fortress and they had no need for them. It might take quite some time to locate them through regular means, but I can assure you that we’ll be working on it."
"Good." Sylara turned to Calen’s group. "I’m sure you already noticed Auren wasn’t in your room, yes we moved him, no he hasn’t woken up yet – but he did grow quite a lot. I think we might have overloaded him with elemental power during the ritual and he will need a lot of time to readjust."
"I understand." Calen said. "What about Kaerith, has he woken up?"
"His changes were even more dramatic, his body might take months to readjust, years even – difficult to say due to the elves’ longevity."
"Are you saying he might not wake up until the invasion is over?"
"In the worst case scenario, yes." Sykara nodded reluctantly. "I must reiterate that it’s just guess though, he might as well wake up any moment now – elven biology isn’t something I currently understand, and I haven’t had the time to properly study him."
"... could the lack of anchor be hindering his recovery?"
"It’s very much possible, but we can’t do anything about it unless we find a way to manipulate his soul directly."
"If a Guardian can’t do it then I doubt anyone else can."
"Correction, I can’t do it – I have no idea about the other two. Tharion probably can’t do it either, but the Queen... she might be able to."
"Well that’s not too good since we’re still four temples away from meeting her..."