Fanilly hesitated. It was clear some among their number did not immediately buy the girl's... lacking explanation. But at the same time... things here simply didn't add up, did they? The manner in which the door had been broken down, to start with. Why would attackers come from the same direction as the capital? Why would there not be a single sign of anyone who died on the walls? But then why was this girl even here, killing someone dressed in Thaln's colors... then relaxing in the face of the Iron Rose Knights?

Nothing made sense. It went against all of Fanilly's instincts, and to be frank part of her wanted to simply draw her sword and attempt to force the girl to surrender, or kill her if she resisted... but she held back.

There was too much unanswered, too much that simply didn't make sense.

"Haaah, my teeth? What, is this how snakes flirt? Comparing fangs?" the girl cocked her head to one side, then casually buried the tip of her spear in the dirt, yet another action that spoke of shocking naivete or unwavering confidence. Shedding one of her gloves, she hooked her finger into the corner of her mouth and pulled, revealing...

Certainly, her canines seemed a little pointed, but not to the extent that would be expected of a vampire. Perhaps more tellingly, she seemed to suffer no ill effects from standing beneath the sun.

"That doesn't address any of the other questions, and all we have is your word," Fanilly swiftly said, a cold tone in her voice as she regarded the girl, "Who are you, and what happened here?"

The blue-haired girl released the corner of her mouth.

"My name? Alette," she said, tugging her spear out of the dirt and draping it over her shoulders, "Alette the Shark."

She grinned.

Alette the Shark... Fanilly thought that sounded somewhat familiar, but she couldn't remember the specifics. Mercenaries from the North? Particularly well-known ones, though Fanilly knew little of their reputation.

Those perhaps more well-informed would know of Alette the Shark and her band of deadly mercenaries, a bloodthirsty girl possessed of impressive agility and a spear that seemed to(metaphorically) fed upon the life of its victims.

Jarde's search would turn up something rather unusual. The body he investigated, one that had likely been killed by Alette's spear, judging by the wound to the neck, bore a tattoo depicting a red-eyed boar with golden tusks on the upper left shoulder. And another body would share the same tattoo, nearby. In fact, all the freshest corpses bore the same tattoo.

Any with experience with mercenaries would recognize the symbol as the mark of the Golden Boars, another band of mercenaries known for taking rather unsavory jobs. While they would sometimes shed their purple-and-gold colors to move without being noticed, the boar tattoo served to 'brand them as a Golden Boar for life'. By the reputation of the Golden Boars' leadership, this seemed as much to unite the men as it also served to identify anyone who fled from battle or betrayed them, marking them for lethal retribution.

But there was more then that.

The oldest corpses had been killed in far more uniform fashion... some seemingly by their own weapons, judging by the blood. Equally as grimly, some of the bodies seemed to have been killed by the dead soldier laying right beside them.

It was a pattern that held true for all of the oldest bodies. After the initial shock of the sight of so many dead, anyone who investigated would find it far more obvious many of them had been stripped of their gear as well, leaving them in their underclothes.

"When we got here, Bors smashed the doors open 'cause it was obvious something was wrong," Alette answered, cocking her head towards the smashed gate, "Came across some bastards stripping the dead, so we dealt with them. A [i]lot[/i] of dead though. It's worse inside."

Fanilly was struggling to understand. If the guards in the fort were already dead... what killed them? Had it been the 'bastards' Alette mentioned? But why didn't there appear to be any sign of a siege?

"... Search... search the bodies, everyone," the blonde knight-captain ordered, "But ensure someone is keeping an eye on Alette at all times, and do not let your guard down."

"You still think I'm lying, standing here in front of you alone?" Alette responded, cocking her head to one side, "Yeeesh, not so trusting, huh, cute stuff?"

Fanilly glared at the spear-wielding girl, who simply grinned.

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