Honestly, Rebecca was truly hopeless at this sort of thing. Even after Wayne had explained it once, she only half understood, but one thing she did grasp. her ancestor didn't seem to hold the current High King, Denethor II, in particularly high regard.
"Hostility would be too strong a word, but wariness is absolutely necessary," Wayne replied casually to Rebecca's question. He glanced at Amber standing nearby but spoke openly anyway. "Second Dynasty, don't forget, this is the 'Second Dynasty.' For a royal house whose claim to the throne was never entirely legitimate, House Seawright can be viewed as the descendants of founding heroes... but also as relics of the previous regime. Even if we have no such intentions, Denethor II, as king, can't help but harbor these concerns. And his concerns dictate my caution."
"So you're looking to make trouble for His Majesty?" Rebecca asked, blinking.
"No, I don't actually want to make trouble for him," Wayne shrugged. "I'm just stirring things up."
Rebecca: "Huh?!"
Wayne really couldn't explain this to Rebecca, so he changed the subject. "Never mind, it's not important. Let's get back to what we were discussing. Amber..."
Amber raised both hands preemptively. "I know, I know, go stand watch outside, right? Sigh, the life of a workhorse..."
"No," Wayne raised an eyebrow. "I mean you can stay. Of course, if you're bored, you could also go back to your room and rest. Tonight's been quite the ordeal, you must be tired?"
Amber stared at him in disbelief. "What, sudden attack of kindness?"
Then she shook her head and scooted right up to the desk. "No way I'm leaving. I want to see what you two are up to... Seriously, is this actually about dividing up the inheritance?"
Wayne shook his head, ignoring the half-elf, and placed the platinum disc back on the table.
"You said earlier that this is a key," Rebecca remembered where they'd left off. "Don't tell me it's our family's secret treasure?"
Amber's ears immediately perked up. She made an exaggerated show of looking around casually, fooling absolutely no one.
Wayne smiled. "It is a treasure, in a sense. It's a hidden vault in the Southern Marches. But it was originally prepared for the Kingdom of Andraste. Of course, by today's standards it probably wouldn't count as an enormous fortune, but for the pioneering expedition that had just fled to these lands, it was half the army's assets."
Rebecca's eyes went wide.
"It was originally meant as an insurance policy for the Kingdom of Andraste. After all, in those days, no one knew what the next day would bring," Wayne smiled, and revealed the true purpose of this trip to the capital. "Back then, the pioneering expedition was fleeing northward from the Gondor Wasteland. As we moved, we kept absorbing and gathering survivors from the ruins, collecting resources along the way. The column grew larger, more unwieldy, more conspicuous. When we were crossing the Black Mountains, an army of Others that had wandered out of the wasteland picked up our trail. The army was covering the civilians as we moved through mountain terrain, naturally we couldn't outpace creatures that never slept. A terrible battle followed. The losses were severe. During the post-battle damage assessment, Charles and I realized something. those monsters wouldn't give up. If we continued dragging all our supplies over the mountains, the entire column would die on the road. So the two of us made a decision... We left behind the portion of supplies that was most severely slowing us down, hiding them deep inside an abandoned frontier fortress. We placed powerful seals on the vault, then the column traveled light and continued north. The rest of the history you already know, the expedition gained a foothold in the north and established a new kingdom center between the Holy Spirit Plains and the northern mountains. Charles the First piled earth into walls in the Sunspear region. But those supplies in the south... just lay there quietly."
Rebecca asked curiously. "Why didn't you go back for them?"
"Initially because the situation was too unstable and the cost too high," Wayne explained. "The contamination was still spreading. At one point, the monsters even pushed the corrupted zone to the north side of the Black Mountains, which meant the place where we'd left the supplies was now inside the polluted territory. Sending a team into that kind of environment to retrieve goods would have been unwise. More importantly, we found abundant resources in the mountains north of the kingdom, and the Holy Spirit Plains began producing a steady stream of wealth. It wouldn't be long before these new riches exceeded what we'd left in the south. Between the two factors, the vault in the southern mountains was gradually forgotten."
Rebecca looked at the platinum disc in Wayne's hand. "But it sounds like it wasn't completely forgotten..."
"Exactly. Pioneers don't forget where they've hidden their treasures. Though that fortune would become increasingly insignificant over time, it was still a memento of that epic journey. And we'd already anticipated that the Tide would eventually recede naturally, and future generations would be able to safely retrieve everything. So Charles and I made a pact. Our two Houses would each safeguard this secret. We would pass the story of the southern treasure down through the generations. Both Seawright and Martell heirs would know about it, and if the day came when the Tide receded and the kingdom needed those assets, we'd go retrieve them. Just imagine, an ancient secret passed down through centuries, a vault shared between the royal family and a founding noble house, a treasure hidden in the mountains, requiring a special token to open. Charles, that hopeless weirdo, thought it would be really cool."
Amber looked Wayne up and down.
"You two made this decision while drunk again, didn't you?"
Wayne: "...More or less."
Rebecca stared blankly at her ancestor for a long time before saying. "But I'm a Seawright heir, and I've never heard this story..."
"This kind of verbal transmission is always prone to problems," Wayne sighed. "The death back then was rather sudden. Didn't get the chance to tell the next generation..."
Rebecca: "..."
"But it seems Charles's side managed to pass the secret down to his descendants quite well," Wayne coughed twice to break the awkwardness, then held up the platinum disc. "I came here specifically to confirm whether this key was still in place. Since it is, that means the Andraste royal family hasn't touched that cache in the past seven hundred years. Charles knew this secret. His properly descended heirs knew it too. But, the illegitimate son didn't."
In Andraste years 635 to 636, a civil war knwon as the Mistfall Uprising shattered the royal line of succession. The High King died without heirs. His siblings all perished in the fighting. In the end, only the Northern Grand Duke remained, propping up a supposed illegitimate child found among the common folk, whose authenticity no one could verify, and placing him on the throne...
Even if the illegitimate son was genuine, he couldn't possibly have known about the southern vault.
"Those things..." Rebecca's eyes gleamed as she looked at the "key," but then she frowned. "But can we really just use them? They're..."
Wayne shot his N-plus-one-times-great-granddaughter a look.
"Of course we can. You're a Seawright descendant, show some confidence. I helped Charles bury those things personally. Other than Charles himself, is there anyone in this world more entitled to that inheritance than me? I refuse to believe Charles could pull off the same coffin trick I did..."
Rebecca thought for a moment, then suddenly seized Amber's arm with an iron grip. "Whatever you do, do NOT go dig up the royal tomb!"
Amber: "...What?"
Then the half-elf jolted with sudden alarm, staring at Wayne with wide, nervous eyes.
"Wait! I... I've heard all this top-secret stuff... You're not actually planning to use this chance to kill me and silence a witness, are you?"
Wayne genuinely wanted to flatten her against the wall with his sword at this point. "If I wanted to silence you, would I have waited until now?"
Amber's anxiety didn't decrease one bit. "But you two are discussing all this classified stuff in front of an outsider..."
"First, I trust you reasonably well at this point. Second, I know you're actually a clever person," Wayne waved the disc. "The only bold idea you might come up with is stealing this disc. But it can only be activated by Martell or Seawright blood, and whether the Martell bloodline even truly survives is debatable at this point. So clearly, if you want to profit from this, your only option is..."
Amber stepped forward, chest out, chin high, voice ringing with solemn righteousness.
"Serving a founding hero is the greatest honor imaginable! I, Amber, shall devote myself body and soul to loyal service, when something this epic is at stake, who talks about money? Then I really won't discuss payment with you... Of course, if you insist on discussing payment, I won't stop you."
Wayne had never before witnessed someone be this simultaneously shameless and righteous...
In the second half of that night, no more visitors came to disturb them.
The row of mousetraps and nails Wayne had lined up on the study windowsill went entirely unused.
Though admittedly, such things wouldn't have been much use against shadow-walking rogues who didn't play by the rules of physics anyway...
The next day, well-rested and refreshed, Wayne's party arrived at the Silver Keep.
The same inner-court official from the day before handled the reception, and Denethor II had replicated the previous day's grand welcoming ceremony in full, putting on a thoroughly impressive show.
This time, the Silver Keep also dispatched two mounted herald squads, riding along the two main roads around the royal quarter, clearing the way and broadcasting via amplification magic.
"The Founding Grand Duke of Andraste, Gwayne Seawright, is about to enter the Silver Keep."
It seemed Crown Prince Edmund had conveyed Wayne's wishes to his father quite effectively. Denethor II was putting on a full display for the public eye.
As for what the Shadow Guard had reported upon returning, that would be easy enough to judge once Wayne saw Denethor II's expression.
After checking his appearance and attire one final time, confirming that the Pioneer's Sword hung prominently at his waist, Wayne strode into the Silver Keep with his head held high.