Page 1931

((The Mon/Wen/Fri Double -- page 2 of 2))
The King motioned to the charred book from earlier, which he had since laid on the conference table. "In Irina's journal, she describes her father's version of events regarding Lobo. According to her, Lobo became much more 'persuadable' after Charles showed him... something. The chunk of text where Irina presumably named and provided details about the object in question was unfortunately burned off."

Of course it was, Hector thought. "So... to sum up... this is secondhand information that is in dispute by other, firsthand information. And it's been partially burned, too, so this secondhand information isn't even complete."

A beat passed as the King looked at him. "Yes, that about covers it."

Hector gave a chuckling nod. "Great."

"You can see why most of our historians do not put much credence into this theory."

"Yes, Your Highness. Yes, I can."

"I acknowledge that it is not ideal."

Hector held back a sigh, but not because he found the King's story exasperating. Rather, if he was being one hundred percent honest with himself, he already kinda believed it. He just wished that he didn't.

As little as three months ago, he probably would've been far more skeptical of a story like this, but after his experiences in the Undercrust--particularly in Himmekel--this flimsy, barely-making-any-sense tale from the King was actually ringing somewhat true to Hector's ears.

The idea of a magical artifact holding such power... sadly, that sounded perfectly reasonable now.

Agh.

Somehow, Hector felt like this was spoiling the entire tale of Atreya's independence for him. The notion that Bosliat Palace in all its splendor had wowed Ambassador Lobo so greatly that it changed the course of history? That had been such a beautiful and surprising thing to learn about. In retrospect, Hector loved it.

And now it was ruined by some kind of dark magic mind fuckery.

Goddammit.