Albert resisted the urge to glare at the Lady of the City and instead said, "Very well, I accept. I am sure that I can rely on the Exalted among us to best a great Dragon-God known for being a formidable foe." Albert was not trying to be sarcastic, but it came out anyway; then again, they were being sent on a [i]suicide mission[/i] in the first place. "When will we depart? I would hate to keep you away from your responsibilities to your people." [i]Your enslaved and coerced people, whom I would gladly free if given the chance.[/i] Giving a bow that hid his expression, the boy would then say, "Who knows? We may come back to Guixiang with tales of success."

Covertly using the heightened powers and abilities to parse the Lady's words for evidence of her true agenda, Albert found out that 1.) [i]The Lady was actually sincere[/i] when she said that she wanted Adamant's attacks to stop, and 2.) that Adamant and she had a history and the former was a jerkwad himself. This was a problem because before he had parsed the Lady's words, he had been under the impression that Adamant was attacking out of moral objections to The Lady's works in Guixiang. Now he saw that this was merely a fight between two despots for more power; he had to kill both, even if the rest of the party objected or tried to call the Wyld Hunt on him.

That said, he had to apologize to The Lady of the City for doubting her; that ought to be all right, yes? Clearing his throat, he would say, his sarcasm now replaced with mildness, "I do however ask for forgiveness in momentarily - momentarily - doubting your motivations; the sincerity of a personage such as you should not have been questioned by anyone, especially in such circumstances."