Full Immersion [for what it's worth]

> Get there already.

With a few slightly more violent bumps, the carriage comes to a halt. "Ah, it seems we are here," says the lady. The bodyguard, a woman with hooved feet and horns and wearing light armor over too much of the rest of her body to tell much else, comes to Miss Rigsby's side to help her get out. Jarod decides to just hop out his side on his own.

Outside is the front door of a grand stone castle, very ancient-looking. People of all sorts seem to be among both the guards and the guests; many of the latter are in more elaborate or fancy-looking clothes than Jarod's host.

The bodyguard stays with the carriage. Following the woman in, he says, "I feel..sort of underdressed."
"Oh, don't worry too much. You are not presently involved in political posturing, so nobody really cares how you look, least of all the queen. She wears very practical clothing most of the time herself, actually. Quite sensible."
Through the doors is a large hallway with various large banners hung along the way. Most of them look like standard family crests, but every once in a while is a curious nearly all-black banner with a rather simple symbol in one solid color, such as a green Ω. At the end is another pair of big doors, with a fully-armored knight standing before each.

"Lady Rigsby. Good to see you," says one of them.
"Her Majesty is expecting you and your guest," says the other, apparently a woman, "but..she was contacted by an important ally unexpectedly." She sounds slightly disappointed.
"She said it shouldn't take long," says the first again, in a more hopeful tone. "You may wait in the royal court if you wish."
"Of course," says the lady, nodding. "Thank you."

The knights open up the doors and the pair of visitors step through. The royal court has two large thrones across from the door, and a lot of chairs at varying heights all along the side of the carpet leading up to the thrones. Behind the larger of the two thrones is another curious banner, all black except for a blue symbol that looks like a circle with a diagonal line through it. "Those platforms," says Jennifer, "are actually built to go up and down at the command of a device somewhere back in the royal chambers. Each one is reserved for a member of the royal court. You'd be surprised just how happy the queen can make a person by raising their chair a third of an inch."
She starts off toward one particular chair. "Did..was that something the old king built?" asks Jarod.
"Of course," responds Miss Rigsby over her shoulder, "Our current ruler would never spend all the time and money required to build something this silly." She takes a seat. "Hmm...I think you can hear her voice from here, if you listen carefully."

There is a moment of silence before Jarod notices that Miss Rigsby's ears are pointed in a certain direction, and that his own can actually do that, too. He tries to listen as hard as he can, and they slowly turn toward the direction of a female voice somewhere deeper in the castle.
"Okay, let's go over this again. The law here is stupid. If I declare a law alone, which I had to to make trespassing on your land illegal at all, then people can't be punished for not following it unless they know about it. I made sure that all of my citizens know about it, but those two who wrecked your skeletons are not my citizens, so there's a pretty good chance they don't know about it. Whenever my people find them, I can't legally do anything except warn them not to go back. And I will do that, okay? I'm sorry they broke some of your skeletons, but at least they only ran away from the experiment, right?"
"..."
"Exactly! And there is no way you're actually worried about running out of intact bodies."
"..."
"Look, why don't you just start putting up some signs? Like, carve into the trees on the east border 'No Trespassing, violators will either by used as experiments or arrested. Or both.'"
"Well--"
"Yeah--"
".......Okay! Okay. Yeah, yeah. I can get some people on it. I'm sure there's some bums around the capital city that'll want the pay. Just, you know, don't chase them off, it'll start a bunch of awful rumors and then nobody will want to do it anymore. It'll get more and more expensive, people will start asking questions, et cetera et cetera."
"..."
"I'll give them a badge or something, okay? Look, I'm keeping someone waiting, I'll get back to you about this later, alright? Great."

After a little longer, a small door off to one side opens and a young woman steps through. She has gray skin, as advertised; very long, straight black hair; and is wearing a fairly simple, long gown in black and dark blue. She isn't wearing a crown at the moment, but the way that Miss Rigsby stands up and bows when she enters the room makes it rather obvious that this is indeed the queen.

She gives Jarod a friendly wave. "Hi there."
Jarod notices something that prevents him from immediately responding. Namely, a very particular trait that has long since been encoded in his mind as something to fear and run from at first opportunity. It's the girl's sclera; they're bright yellow instead of white.

>