The First Legendary Beast Master

Rescuers swarmed toward the site of the blast, everyone eager to help, and that meant someone needed to organize them.

The Palace Guards were not in any position to organize a rescue effort at that moment, with their minds focused on the location of their members assigned to this wing. So, the duty fell to the Crown Prince, as the ranking Royal in the area.

"Everyone, take the far stairs down two levels and start near the library. Check for damage and work your way up.

We have reason to believe that the Library itself, as well as the new training ground near it, are intact.

If you find anyone wounded, please take them to a safe location. We will have healers stationed on top of the rubble, as well as on the outer perimeter of the damaged area.

If you have secondary healing skills and are not assigned to the perimeter, please join a rescue team to perform emergency medical assistance. Nobody is to work alone. Buddy up and go in groups of at least two.

If you find a survivor, someone will need to stabilize the area, while the other determines the best way to extract them without further injury." He announced.

Many of the dragons had rushed out before he was finished speaking. They had heard it all before, though not in the context of an attack on the Palace. However, the nation did suffer from occasional natural disasters, and any of the older dragons had seen at least a few earthquakes and likely a tsunami or volcanic eruption as well.

Karl gestured to a spot on the pile of stone. "If we start there, we should be closest to where the ladies are. I can still sense Cara's position, and while the palace did collapse, she appears to be fine.

If we find her, we should find the others quickly enough, and then we might get some answers about what happened."

The others took him at his word, as a link through the system was bound to be more accurate than their guess about where everyone might have been at the time of the blast, or where they had ended up if they were displaced by the breaking of the Illusionary Domain.

However, given the nature of the work, Lukas still called over a dozen guards to help clear the area, moving the stone onto stable spots that had been checked, or down into the courtyard below.

Everything would need to be rebuilt and renovated anyhow, so there was no real harm in piling stones on the hedge gardens, as long as they didn't shatter the fountains.

Those were antiques from the time of the Palace's building, and it would be a tragedy to lose them to careless construction work.

"How many floors were above us?" Karl asked, unfamiliar with the palace layout.

"Just two. You were near the top, and that portion of the rubble used to be your patio. There are already teams there, as it's the source of the blast, but it won't be fast. They're more focused on determining the cause and finding signs of the culprit, as they're not expecting to find survivors that close to the blast." Lukas explained.

He had a point. Most of the massive stone blocks that made up the palace walls had been reduced to gravel and dust. The blast hadn't spared anything.

The workers quickly moved the stone to the side, digging toward the location that Karl had informed them should find the Princess. It was an organized team effort that had him highly impressed with their professionalism.

At least until he heard them talking.

"We had better find Rue alive, man. I mean, she's a bit of a dork, but if the King finds out that someone managed to assassinate her, nobody who was on shift today will be spared." One of them whispered.

"Not just the ones on duty today. Anyone who had interacted with them will be under investigation. How the hell would someone manage to pull this off without alerting the guards?" His coworker replied.

The two dragons sighed as they carefully relocated the stone, and then froze as they heard a cry for help.

"Your Highness, I hear a voice. Off to the north, it sounds like it is some distance away, and on this level." A guard called from the bottom of the hole.

"Go find them. Just be careful with the unstable stone." Prince Lukas agreed.

Then, the ground rumbled under their feet, as if confirming his warning.

But it was not a collapse. They had stopped one stone away from the collapsed floor above the room that Cara and the others were in, and the badger had run out of patience.

"I hear them too. I think it's one of the maids we had on duty. Help me get these two out of the rubble and I will dig." She insisted.

"Madam, the stone is a relic. Please don't dig holes in it if at all possible." The guard replied.

"You're worried about the stone? I can get to the survivor I like ten seconds, we were just waiting for you, so we could leave without causing a collapse." Cara complained.

"We will ensure that the survivors are rescued in a timely manner without causing additional damage to the structure. This wing of the Palace is already unstable, and we are concerned that any more damage will cause lower levels to collapse as the stone shifts, and that could damage the Library's contents, or trap the people who are currently evacuating from the new training area."

Cara sighed as she helped Mildred up, and then grabbed Rue in her arms and flew out of the destroyed room.

"Fine, do it your way. But if she starts sounding like she's desperate, I will come and take her anyhow." Cara warned.

"Understood, Miss."

Rue made a mental note of Cara's tone. It might be that she was strong, but when she spoke, people listened and obeyed. That was something that she needed to learn as well.

The sooner she could master it, the sooner she could start getting revenge. Not just for her childhood, but for the people lost in the attack today.