<div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">The Map</div><div class="spoiler_body">(https://i.imgur.com/MbPOQaw.png)</div></div><br/>It is rare to get a personal request to meet with a Queen for work. If you're a citizen, it's not a request, really. If you're not, then it's likely that anyone that could reliably claim the title should have dozens of skilled retainers. Still, the wingfolk messengers had official liveries and good descriptions enough to deliver their letters. The work was a bit unspecified, but called sensitive. The pay generous especially if you accepted the offers of transport to Dagentak. Ships of that quality don't come cheap.<br/><br/>Even if you didn't, the pay was still good and the window to arrive was generous enough that it could almost tempt people half the world away.<br/><br/>Anyone that arrived early had the pleasure of residing in the palace and being treated as well as an important dignitary or other visitor that would expect. The only downsides are that it is a slightly uncertain wait to see if most of the summons getting answers becomes all, and therefore an early start to this sensitive mission, and the hum. It vanishes quickly after entering the stone of the castle, but it happens every time you enter and feels bone deep each time it happens. Apparently the staff and nobility also feel it, but there's competitions of status to not react to the feeling.<br/><br/>Other than that it's a fairly calm and uninteresting wait to be met, as the capitol city is quite calm. The most entertaining unusual thing is seeing three groups of the senior but still itenerant soldiers deciding to have a competition and see who can capture their chosen outlaw first. It's made entertaining by the sheer amount of swaggering, boasting, boozing, and merriment that spilled outwards of the twelve. It was made unusual by the oaths that they swore to Farou, Ratis, and Anitriman seem to have gotten some kind of small answer from the gods, which sent the groups out to do their missions with great haste.<br/><br/>Of course, eventually the deadline hits, and everyone that is there is given a last day to make any preparations they may need. The courtiers don't know the mission, but they were told to impress upon everyone that leaving immediately after the scheduled meeting, which will take place about an hour after the Queen's court lets out for the night. So when everyone gets secretively ushered in during a sudden break because of the extreme heat, it comes as a little surprise.<br/><br/>Upon being admitted as a group to see the queen, two things strike you. One, the hum that vanished earlier is back and it's fading in and out like a heart beat instead of just happening and fading away. Two, the throne room and its anterior chamber-ish assembly are not made of stones like the rest of the place you've been allowed in. It is all deep crystal studded with precious stones. A few glow, the quartzes, the rubies, and the few diamonds.<br/><br/>It likely has to do with those same types being embedded in the queen's chest and arms, which are on full display as Queen Sedos I has hurried ahead of her servants and formal court attire to sit on the crystal throne and address the group. Tall and thin, finely featured, Sedos would likely strike a very serious and regal picture if her wet hair weren't half down in her face and if steam wasn't still coming off her body.<br/><br/>It looks faintly ridiculous when the servants eventually do catch up and begin to dry the queen, who doesn't stop mid-explanation, or even pause much.<br/><br/>The job she offers is easily summarized from her somewhat energetic explanation. Travel from Dagentak Castle to Greyhill, the personal lands of her cousin Sebile, and from there to the Seal of the Blighted Earth. If her cousin has been properly doing the job assigned to her, then the group will get instructions around the worst of the seal's outer obstacles upon presenting a sealed letter and find the inside well kept and matching the design that she has some servants stop their duties to make copies of a royal scroll. Whatever you find, return with a report to be rewarded. There is something of a time limit, which is why she's saying to go to Greyhill instead of avoiding the place entirely.<br/><br/>And because there is still some time, she stops to allow any extra questions to be asked.