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[1/9?]
<Yes,> you reply firmly. <You will not be killed by a gryphon, and locating one should not prove problematic. Given the limited risks associated with doing so, we should take the Prince at his word.>
<Logic accepted,> Rane answers in turn, albeit somewhat reluctantly. It was obvious that he still viewed that sidequest as a waste of time, but too bad. You were patient, and you were the one in charge. He’d just have to put up with it.
<Be advised, I will be deploying stealth drones from orbit,> you add, almost as an afterthought. It was unlikely to matter to Rane’s mission, but if it somehow did, you’d rather not have to explain it in a hurry. <The Knight-Warden has made a claim that I wish to investigate in further detail.>
<I take it your investigation will involve the von Eisenbergs?> He was talking now, aloud, although you suspect neither of you were actually listening to what he was saying to the Prince.
<It will.>
<Be cautious. Casting suspicion on his political enemies could be an attempt to use you to weaken them, or to prevent you from forming a friendly relationship with them,> he notes. Of that, you had no doubt. Marcus wasn’t exactly subtle in trying to recruit your aid, but it was worth investigating the von Eisenbergs anyway, given the nature of the claims he was making. Even if there was a slim chance that he was telling the truth, and that they held world-ending power in their grasp, it’d be worth the effort to investigate that threat and then remove it. Aside from Marcus’ words, you didn’t have much reason to distrust the von Eisenbergs on a personal level, but as a rule you didn’t really like it when random people held world-ending power. That was for you, and select military and political officials.
You leave Rane to the boring but necessary work of keeping the Prince entertained - although given Rane’s conversational prowess, you suspect that ‘occupied’ would be more accurate than ‘entertained’ - while you begin drafting deployment orders. High over the planet, the two ships hang in a highly inclined low orbit, sweeping across continents and oceans. This wasn’t a thoughtless choice. Their current orbit gave you the opportunity to map and scan the planet up close, and while previously the point was to map the geography so that you could more easily plan major construction projects, now it serves the dual purpose of scanning for anything that would raise suspicion.
