“Mornin’ Mister Anselm!” Astrid says with a chipper smile. Despite the gravity of the case today, she’s feeling pretty confident they went to the right person for help. Today, she wears a floofy dress of muted blues and reds, accented by golden trim, one that is specially designed to work well with her armor, but at Cantio’s insistence, she decided against the armor. For now. They are suing a mob that wants them dead, after all. This could go any number of ways, but if the mob wants to sell their story, they can’t try anything in the courts of Sol City.

Seeing Vakker, Astrid’s eyes light up in recognition. “It’s been a long time, Mister Vakker! Good ta see ya again, an' thanks fer helpin' us with this mess,” she says. “I s’pose Lady Stormstone is proper fer today, but any other time, just Astrid is fine.” Her eyes cut between Anselm and Vakker, and she immediately sees a somewhat threatening glint in Vakker’s eyes. Now is not the time to bring up the Truth or Dare game. She does it anyway.

“I met Vakker about this time last year. He was there when I got meself adopted by Cantio!” She looks at Vakker, still smiling proudly. “He ain’t lost the dare yet.”

Changing the subject, Astrid motions to the box that she and Blue brought. “Ah, anyway, we’ve got a box a’ stuff we recovered from this group. Figured it could be useful in this case. I dunno if the court has any truth spells or anythin’, but I’m sure ya can pull somethin’ from ‘em if ya ask about any of it. Good mix a’ stuff there.” Sure, these are things Blue decided to snack on, but she promised them replacement snacks for giving these up.

"You know each other?" Anselm glances at Vakker, giving him a bit of a questioning look.

Astrid ends up confirming his question on Vakker's behalf, or perhaps, to his chagrin. The fellblood isn't entirely sure what Astrid means about Vakker having never lost a dare. He doubts she's being literal. Or maybe she is. Honestly, this child is a bit odd so he would believe either option to be true. 

He looks over the contents of the boxes that Astrid and Wolfe brought along. Without having a chance to parse through things beforehand, he's a little concerned about if anything can be used effectively in the case. Though from a quick glance he can spot a few items that match what he managed to decode from the ledger. So long as the mob had a dud for a defense on their end, they should be fine. 

"In regards to there being any lie detection present, it depends. You and Lord Wolfe are nobles of Dragon's Cradle with support from Count Thadda, so they may allocate more intensive resources to this case to make a good impression. Capitol Landing being in Dragon Cradle's debt right now very well may work in our favor."

Honestly, he suspects that they might have a pretty smooth trial. With Vakker being an expert on the ins and outs of Capitol Landing's court system and there being external pressure to keep Dragon's Cradle in good graces. The only hiccup he could possibly see coming up is if the defense uses the court case as a way to draw attention to himself. It wouldn't likely lead to a miss trial if his association with the criminal syndicates in Ash Lands was revealed before the court, however, it would bring some unwanted investigations his way after the fact. Being here is risky, but with any luck all the documents they managed to forge would keep things clean. 

"Miss Stromstone, a name can mean a lot more than you think. You shouldn't go giving permission to speak to you so casually to just anyone, you know. Nobles see even something as small as that as a weakness. At least, the competent ones do, and those are the ones you should be the most wary of." Vakker replied with a smile, but his tone suggested that what he was saying was indeed a serious warning.

Normally, he wouldn't care about a new noble making such a mistake. He would just let them carry on until they were torn apart by high society, but this time he saw some actual potential in a new noble. One that wasn't born into the position, but actually gained it through proving themselves. Why not help a little? And besides, it was in his best interest to help someone who was currently his client.

Vakker smirked when he heard Cantio hadn't lost the dare yet. He recalled the touching moment when she had dared the Fellblood to adopt her and become her father. Evidently, he had actually gone and done it after the ball ended and was still doing so. It was amusing that the daughter was a noble while the father wasn't, and even this Wolfe fellow was a noble and was living with them. How he was related to all of that was still a little vague. The most he'd been able to find out was that the knight and child were best friends, and at one point, he'd heard they might be brother and sister, but there was no record of the man even existing until recently, so that made no sense. He needed to look into that one more once the trial was over.

"As long as you don't outright lie, any detection spells they might use won't be a problem. As your legal representation, I will be doing most of the talking anyways. Those lie detection spells aren't as foolproof as you might be lead to believe by the way the courts talk about them. They're more of a scare tactic than anything."

“Lucky fer me, I don’t care much about what the noble folk think,” Astrid says with a certain amount of nonchalance. “I’ll leave that grown up stuff fer when I’m a grown up meself, but if ya wanna use formalities, that’s rightly fine with me.” It isn’t that she means to disrespect Vakker or disregard his warning, it’s more that she just genuinely doesn’t care about what the other nobles think because her opinion of them is already pretty low, and why should she waste time and energy sucking up to people that don’t care about her more than they care about how she presents herself?

That being said, Count Thadda has been a relatively reliable member of the nobility for Astrid and Blue both. He’s one of the few nobles outside of close personal friends that Astrid holds any regard for, and she nods in agreement with Anselm. “I’m hopin’ thin’s are smooth,” she says. “Don’t have much ta lie about, really, but uh…” Astrid glances at Blue then looks at Vakker and drops her voice. “One a’ the times we ran into this bounty hunter was in a Red Rogue warehouse. So… Not sure how ta spin that if it gets brought up. I don’t think we did anythin’ else that’d put us on the court’s bad side here. Figured I’d bring it up just in case.” 

Now, Astrid has done plenty to get on the court’s bad side in Sol City but just as much to do things to get on its good side. She’s gotten into more than one fight in the streets (one of which resulted in her being brought into custody alongside Vikram), participated in Red Rogue activities in the way of robbing Cantio’s parents, and she was directly involved in damaged to the Temple of the Sun as part of the Fighter’s Guild (even if that was to try to solve a problem). On the other hand, she’s done plenty of work to help the city including rescuing people during a massive earthquake, and she even voted to help Capitol Landing because ultimately she cares more about helping people than she does about scorning the nobility. This could honestly go either way, but she figures that the court, even if bribed or involved with the illegal auctions of the mob, will not want to be seen as directly assisting them in a public way like this.

Looking at Blue for a moment before Vakker again, Astrid says, “We’ll keep our mouths shut unless ya say otherwise. Most a’ what we know is all in the information we gave Mister Anselm.”

Within a few minutes, the group is called into the courtroom, which means that many eyes are on them, and Astrid doesn’t like it one bit. On the opposing stand? The Pale Lady and her representatives. Despite recognizing the two hooligans entering the court, she keeps a straight face and pays them little mind. Better not to give away any association at all. Her goal in all of this? Plausible deniability, the same that she’s always maintained in the face of authority in the city. If they're lucky, Ceena won't be around at all, especially if she was just a hired goon or someone with a shared enemy for Astrid and Blue as the mob's leader. If they're lucky, that was just a relationship out of convenience and nothing more. Bringing down that source of income will hopefully get this bounty hunter off their backs.

Standing on a chair at the Pale Lady’s side is her defense attorney, a resting-bitch-faced gnome with thinning hair on the top of his head and a pair of spectacles perched precariously on his hooked nose.

The room is decently full which is a bit of a surprise, but perhaps that is due to just how many people have an interest in the outcome of a case between people of high social status. That or hearing a literal child is pressing attempted murder charges against an adult is just too wild to believe without witnessing it one’s self.

“All rise, Judge Ayred Farroris presiding,” booms the voice of the burly court officer standing to the side of the stands.

As the court stands at attention, a wizened sun elf enters the room before taking a seat at her place overlooking the entire room.

“You may be seated,” she says as she folds her hands and rests them on the desktop. "This court is gathered today to cast judgment over the case of Stormstone and Wolfe v. Ardoe. Lady Stormstone and Lord Wolfe have brought forth accusations of theft and trade of remains, falsification of documents, and attempted murder via a third party. The duty of this court is to assess the validity of the accusations put forth by the prosecution and consider the evidence and accounts presented by both the prosecution and the defense.”

The gnome furrows his whitening brows at the prosecution before he clears his throat. “Excuse me, Judge Farroris. Before we begin, may I inquire as to why the prosecution has two attorneys present?”

“Despite Lady Stormstone’s noble title, she is a child thus her guardian is here to represent her.”

"I believe the court was provided with all relevant documents,” Anselm chimes in.

The judge nods. “Yes, Mr. Von Lumen, the provided documents have been verified."

The gnome’s scowl deepens and there’s a skeptical look from the Pale Lady despite her best efforts to remain neutral. Anselm keeps the smugness from seeping into his pleasant smile.

The judge proceeds to explain to the court all the responsibilities, procedures, and structure of the case. Once all the pre-amble is accounted for, the prosecution is invited to present their first round of evidence against the accused.

Vakker stepped forward, standing before the judge's podium. He gave a short respectful bow to the judge and then turned to face the jury with a hand outstretched toward them.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. There has been a malicious organization operating beneath your very feet. An organization made up of assassins, thieves, and illegal drug peddlers, using the sewers as their base of operations to kill, steal, and poison the inhabitants of this city." Vakker announced, waving his hand toward the defendant's table.

Be dramatic. Get the jury's undivided attention and let them know just how serious this is. Paint them as guilty in everyone's minds before they have a chance to say otherwise. Vakker then motioned toward Blue and Astrid.

"We only now know about this organization because of these two brave individuals who stumbled upon such an operation accidentally while in the process of performing a job as members of the Mage's Guild to recover missing property."

Members of the Mage's Guild, quite the upstanding citizens. Doing a good deed. Make them heroes.

"They found the hidden base of the organization. According to documents they managed to recover in their escape, they were holding an auction filled with stolen and illegal goods, some of which they did their best to recover. These recovered stolen and illegal goods have been submitted as evidence, along with the testimony of the Mage's Guild stating the safe return of their stolen property, which had been part of this auction, and a book recording the goods that they had been planning to sell that night written in code."

Vakker had to be careful with his words not to tell a lie, but he managed it. Not all of the goods they'd taken from the auction had been submitted as evidence, he knew, but that didn't matter as long as he didn't specify that. The lie detection never went off. Even with some of it missing, the defendants would have quite the time trying to weasel out of the pile of evidence they'd been buried under. And it wasn't as if they could say some of the goods they'd had taken from them weren't in the evidence. That'd just be admitting it was theirs. Keeping a few recovered goods would be a slap on the wrist for the pair of nobles.

"Following this event, Lord Wolfe and Lady Astrid were assaulted by a hired assassin while traveling through Thorock to see Dorvaan Baan on noble business." He continued.

Noble business. Well, that wasn't a lie. Apologizing to some noble you offended really was noble business. Annoying and insincere, but still noble business.

This courtly stuff is really official and specific, Astrid thinks, following suit of everyone in the room when they rise and sit for the judge. Hopefully, this isn’t boring, otherwise she would actually have to give that jerk Bann props for letting them settle things with a trial by combat, which was, for the record, very funny.

Any prim and properness that Astrid has manifested falls away into confusion when Anselm is addressed as “Mister Von Lumen.” What. Her head cranes slowly to look at Anselm, an arguably not-red Fellblood who commands more presence than Cantio at any given moment. Astrid looks nothing like Anselm. Then again, Astrid vaguely recalls Cantio’s parents not both being red Fellbloods. Maybe Fellblood genealogy is different enough to make this convincing.

Astrid decides not to question it for now because Anselm is helping them and the reasoning makes a lot of sense. But if Anselm is going to be her da, then he’s going to be her da. Astrid quickly takes his hand, with no warning, and gives an affirmative, solid nod. “Aye, this is me da!” She decides not to ask about the resemblance. Or how the “provided documents” have been “verified.”

It takes a minute for Astrid to realize that the prosecution is her side, so she shoots a smarmy look towards the lady that definitely tried to kill them. This is gonna be good, especially with how good mister Vakker is at talking. And ooooh, is it good. Astrid struggles to stay quiet because she’s pretty sure that cheering on her own lawyer is in bad taste. (Not that she cares… usually.) Play the part. You’re a child very affected by these dastardly bad guys. She puts on an expression that looks completely bewildered and horrified at the things she’s gone through, which, to be fair, she is traumatized by some of the near-death experiences even if she would never admit it.

While Vakker makes their case, Astrid glances over at the gnome whispering to the Pale Lady, who has kept an unreasonably stoic face this entire time. She doesn’t seem to be worried about this child and knight. But she should be.

Once the prosecution’s opening statement is concluded, the judge calls upon the defense. The gnome, tiny as he is, adjusts his paperwork then hops out of his chair to pace around the courtroom while speaking. “Ladies and gentlemen, the accusations brought forth against Miss Ardoe are baseless. While we acknowledge that there are organizations with malintent that operate across Charon, Miss Ardoe has a storied history of working against these organizations, not with them. She actively runs philanthropic events in Sol City each month. Miss Ardoe is a public face amongst the nobility of Charon. To be involved with these illegal trades and parties as accused by the prosecution would be putting not only her reputation at risk but also her well-being. Being involved with this scandal at all has put Miss Ardoe’s reputation on the line, so we are here to defend her case. She runs legitimate businesses with appropriate paperwork and taxes filed with the city, which have been provided to the court and verified. It seems to me that these minor nobles from Dragon’s Cradle have something to gain by tarnishing her source of income. Perhaps they aim to seize her business for their own purposes? Or perhaps this is a prank taken too far by a child? The defense asks the court to consider this throughout the trial today.”

Looking satisfied, the gnome takes his seat. The Pale Lady is unmoving.

Judge Ayred Farroris listens to both Vakker and the gnome’s arguments, as does the jury of their peers. There’s a surprising number of very well dressed sun elves in the jury, actually. Perhaps more than seems believable to be random and impartial given the court’s physical location.

Vakker would be more than familiar with this kind of outcome as many of Sol City’s nobility make a habit out of sticking their noses into any interesting court cases. And the capitol is not above letting a few buy ins and writing them off as ‘charitable donations’ to support the court system. It’s pretty much an open secret that Sol City’s courts are not very fair and impartial, though that doesn’t stop whistleblowers from taking sudden indefinite vacations.

Anselm is equally aware of this corruption running through the veins of the monarchy’s court system. After all, many of those whistleblowers end up on the streets of Darkveil, either from escaping the authorities or from being dumped on Zeinav’s shores. He’s made a habit out of keeping eyes and ears around the docks specifically to find these kinds of displaced individuals. They’re easy to get information out of and any insights to the inner workings of the monarchy is helpful for their own business.

Anselm tilts his head a little to Astrid when she takes his hand, and he gently places his own hand over hers to play up emotionally supporting ‘his’ child. He whispers under his breath, “you are doing well.” The words are less meant as a means of comforting her, and more an encouragement for her to keep up the act.

Glancing about, it’s hard to determine how the opening statements have sat with the jury so far. Typical, many of these folks are just here for the gossip they can spread after the fact, so until something very dramatic is revealed, they likely won’t break their poker faces. This is all just theatre to them.

That said, a trial between a respected businesswoman and a literal child has to at least put some ideas in their minds, especially with the prosecution coming out of the gates swinging.

Vakker has done well so far to set the stage and throw some pretty serious accusations on the table. Pointing out their association with the Mage’s Guild was also a great strategy to add legitimacy to why a child and their companion would even be a target for some malicious crimes in the first place.

Not to be outdone by their opposition, the defense is quick to put the Pale Lady’s credibility at the forefront. It’s a good approach for the most part. The gnome’s argument about this being some sort of business coup probably won’t be taken terribly seriously, but the notion of a child taking a prank so far seems more plausible.

Judge Farroris waves her hand. “Opening statements have concluded. Prosecution, please call your first witness to the stand or present your first piece of evidence.”