Finding my Parents in Another World-Chapter 68: Calm after the Storm

Lucerne awoke in a small, but comfortable bed. Her body was sore, especially her left arm which was covered in bandages. She sat up, and looked around bewildered, trying to find out where she was.

What was I....?

The memories came back to her in a flash. The fight against Mayor Rokar. The destruction of the castle. Rocks falling down, burying all of them.

"Lucerne! You are awake!" A familiar voice called out from the door. Lucerne looked over there, seeing Raorka standing at the door and almost burst out in tears of joy.

"Where am I?" She managed to ask.

Raorka smiled at her. "The Temuril General Hospital. It was the only one, but the best one in town, I was assured."

She was safe. And so was Raorka. The floodgates burst open, and without warning Lucerne began to cry, even as a smile formed on her face.

.XX.

It was about an hour later. Lucerne had gotten out of bed, and with Raorka’s help managed to get to the main hall of the hospital.

It has been turned into a makeshift conference room. The four other members of the Temuril Investigation Soceity sat there, along with Lumina, Artemis and two other people.

"How are you doing Lucerne?" General Hoit, the captain of the Mayor’s Guard asked kindly. He was a large, stocky man. Still dressed in armor even though he was inside, the General had a reputation of being a real stickler for the rules.

"Great sir." Lucerne answered warily. She raised a questioning eyebrow at Raorka. Surely the members of the Mayor’s Personal Guard had to be complicit in the events that took place in his own mansion? Raorka kept his eyes forward, just nodding imperceptibly. Lucerne got the impression that he wasn’t too happy with the General being here either.

"I know what you must be thinking, but I assure you that I knew nothing of the events that transpired in the Mayor’s castle." The General said apologetically.

Lucerne didn’t respond but merely nodded in his direction, which seemed to satisfy him for the moment.

The other person was the librarian Mrs Frostbane, Jareth’s grandmother. She didn’t say anything but smiled kindly at Lucerne, a gesture which seemed to her much more genuine than the Mayor’s.

Lucerne smiled back and then, with the help of Raorka, limped over to where her mother was sitting. In a week, Lumina seemed to have aged twenty years. Her face was gaunt and haggard, and her hair was disheveled. However the spark was back in her eyes now, and her expression on seeing Lucerne was filled with joy and hope.

Lucerne hugged her tenderly, as she sat down on the empty chair beside her.

"I thought you had died." Lumina whispered in her ears as she hugged her, her body trembling involuntarily for an instant.

Once Lucerne had sat down, Maris cleared her throat and began, "So now that Lucerne had joined us, she will be able to enlighten us as to exactly what happened in that prison. As I have told you before, General, by the time Rowena and me reached there the entire prison had collapsed under the weight of the castle. It’s a wonder Lucerne and Fiona weren’t crushed under the weight of the-"

"Fiona is alive?" The state of her friend the last time she had seen her hadn’t inspired much confidence in her ability to survive that barrage of rocks.

Maris nodded. "Just barely though. The best healers in this hospital are working on her. But I suspect the deepest wounds on her are mental, rather than physical."

Lucerne clutched her fists into a ball instinctively. The anger she felt at Rokar burned within her like a fire.

"And that bastard? Is he dead?" She asked through gritted teeth.

Maris hesitated, without answering. She exchanged a quick look with Rowena before responding, "We couldn’t confirm his death. There are too many rocks that fell on top of the prison. You and Fiona were on the top part, but there’s a lot more rocks that were there below you two. Most likely he is buried within there, but we cannot recover his body."

"That’s why I am here in fact." General Hoit interjected. "To decide on what to do next."

"What to do next?"

Hoit nodded. "The chain of command in Temuril lies with me until we can hold elections for the next Mayor. But to do that first we need to confirm the Mayo- Rokar’s death."

"Isn’t there anyone with magik that can blow apart those rocks?" Raorka asked hopefully.

"Even if there were, which to my knowledge, there aren’t, then there’s a high chance the Mayor’s corpse would be destroyed along with the blast, leaving us back at square one." Rowena answered calmly.

"What can we do then?" Jareth asked hesitantly. And then everyone turned slowly to his grandmother, Mrs Frostbane.

On noticing everyone’s attention on her, Mrs Frostbane gave a chuckle. "And here I was wondering why you invited me to this meeting."

"You are the only living person in Temuril who has experience with this sort of thing." General Hoit said.

"No!" Mrs Frostbane’s voice was sharp. "Not this sort of thing no. Gyukio was a beloved and kind individual, not the sort of monster Rokar turned out to be."

"Still," the General continued insistently, "you must admit it is very similar to this situation."

"To the extent that both Mayors have died without a way to confirm their demise, yes. Nothing else."

"Who is Gyukio?" Raorka asked confused. Lucerne shared his confusion. Even though she was a resident of Temuril, she had never heard the name.

Mrs Frostbane sighed. "Gyukio was our Mayor when I was a child. An excellent, and kind person. However also very proud, and confident in his abilities, and sometimes exceedingly stupid. He was convinced that the dragon in the woods was a threat to the safety of Temuril. Thus he rode out one day to slay Old Gotuj. Predictably he never returned."

"But his death couldn’t be confirmed." General Hoit added in, looking meaningfully at Mrs Frostbane.

She sighed again. "Fine, fine! I just didn’t want the name of my childhood hero associated with.....that. But yes, we have a precedent in this case. A new Mayor can be elected, on the condition that the previous Mayor’s residence be completely destroyed. A condition we have already, unwittingly, met though."

General Hoit nodded. "Then that settles it. We will have a new election in two months. Until then I will be a placeholder Mayor." There was a gleam of excitement in his eyes though, and Lucerne knew that this guy wouldn’t be satisfied at just being a placeholder, he would run in the actual election as well.

And these two months were the best campaign he could have asked for.

"But why do we have to destroy the old Mayor’s residence?" Raorka asked in confusion.

"Because," Mrs Frostbane became grave again, "because that is the precedent set in the previous incident. Mayor Gyukio’s castle was demolished by his successor, much to my chagrin of course."

Raorka still didn’t look convinced by this explanation, and Lucerne was about to explain further, when Artemis chimed in, "You are new to town Raorka so maybe you don’t know, but Temuril is a town that runs on precedent. Whenever a major incident occurs, then the townspeople look at whether this incident has happened in the last, and if it had what was done there. They then follow the same guidebook. A new decision needs to be taken only if there is no precedent."

"Yes, like the cracking of the Dome." General Hoit said pointedly, looking at the elf. It was clear that he harbored similar suspicions regarding her as did most of the town. At one time Lucerne would have agreed with him, but now after fighting the Mayor, she felt quite sad for Artemis.

"What happened to the Demon?" She asked, suddenly remembering the other monster in the castle.

There was a sharp intake of breath as she said those words. Finally it was Raorka who explained what happened, starting with the Demon discovering her, his fight with her that brought down the Castle, the three on one of him, Drisnen and Jareth against the Demon, the intervention of Artemis, and finally the Emperor Knight.

"Vermillion was here?!" Lucerne asked in shock.

"You know her?" Raorka asked somewhat surprised.

"Of course! She is the newest Emperor Knight, and is already making quite the wave in the Capital from what I hear." Lucerne was effusive. Vermillion was her idol, what she dreamed of becoming one day.

Raorka shrugged. "She was here on another mission, she caught the Demon’s Magik and came to slay her instead."

"Another mission?"

"Yes to protect the Mayor of Odania." This time it was General Hoit who answered. "And because of her being sidetracked here, she was too late to save the Mayor. Fermi Ja was assassinated by Chianti Hunters before she could reach there." 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

"Surely she will not be reprimanded for that by the King? She saved our town." Lucerne protested indignantly.

General Hoit shrugged. "The Ja family enjoyed a good relationship with the Crown. Of course the town of Temuril owes a debt of blood to Emperor Knight Vermillion. It won’t be an exaggeration to say that we wouldn’t be sitting here now if not for her. But I don’t think the Crown would see it the same way. For them it would be like her saving some random town over their friend."

Everyone got quiet after that statement. A heavy pall of gloom fell over them. General Hoit was right, but it was sobering to realized just how insignificant Temuril really was to the King.