Such an ending came in the form of the princess's arrival.
Not the one with whom this party was for, but the younger princess. The one that Oriana had ended up 'meeting' in the hall.
The young lady slowly moved into the room and reached her father before Oriana had even noticed her. A brief flicker of panic came over her, thinking that maybe the Princess had been able to see her in the hallway. But before long, the king was ushering her away.
From his face, it looked like he was telling her that she could not be there. As a young lady, not yet an adult, she could not attend such functions. There would be a more private affair after the debutant ball, in which she would be able to celebrate her sister becoming an adult.
But it seems her efforts to escape her room, now successful, were still in vain.
---
As the food was eaten and more people felt gassy, the numbers in the room shifted. For the most part, it stayed the same, with people leaving to use the facilities and others returning once they felt better.
Where they then proceeded to pick up more of the lovely food, indulging in the high-class cuisine of the Royal Castle.
Oriana was a little disappointed that none of the nobles had commented on the change of some of the foods in the dishes. She had hoped that with their so-called refined palates, they would be able to discern that they were eating rat, rather than Orc or venison or whatever it was supposed to be.
Granted, there was no menu, so you were not told what you were eating. It was all just there for you to take. So, no one ate a piece and figured there was some sort of substitution.
This could mean that the refined palette isn't all it's cracked up to be.
While she wondered about all this, out of the corner of her eye, Oriana saw the king standing by one of the entryways, two guards at the sides of the double doors.
Opening it up, what proceeded was pretty much a procession of several mages walking into the ballroom.
That perked Oriana up a little.
"Do not be alarmed. These are mages from within the Royal Castle and the Mages Academy. I figured that, as a bit of extra entertainment, I would have them show off some of the amazing magic that they have been learning, where they have been trying complex magic and combinations, to create never-before-seen spells. Please enjoy."
At that, the King stood back by the wall, and the rest of his family followed suit, along with several guards standing nearby.
A part of Oriana thought this was just the next part of the entertainment. The dancing had died down, and it was soon time to leave, so this was the climax to the show.
But something was off about it.
Looking around the room, she noticed that by the four other doors, additional guards were present. Could this all just be safety in case something odd happens with the magic show?
Something wasn't right. So, just in case, she started moving towards the back, getting closer to one of the exits.
Everyone turned to watch the mages as they lined up and raised their staffs. But, in place of the awesome magic show the king had promised, all they got was the tips of the staffs shining as they waved them around.
And before long, they finished swirling it around and held their staves at their sides again.
"That's it?", Oriana thought to herself.
It was.
And it was enough.
"Oh my. You really scared me there. Where did you just come from?"
It took a few moments for Oriana to comprehend what had happened.
A few moments to realise that the voice that had spoken…was right by her side.
From a woman who was looking directly into her face.
"…"
Turning back towards the mages, she could see them all looking at her as well.
Her invisibility had been cancelled, and she hadn't even realised. The mages 'flashy' presentation had just been a ruse to cover up whatever spell they did use to bring her out of her invisibility.
Looking down at her hands briefly, still not truly believing it, she saw the pale white skin that she had chosen for Lady Orifake. Which meant that the spell's target was only her invisibility. Not any other sort of illusions.
Oriana knew she was screwed. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. And there was every chance she was not making it out of here.
Especially when she tried to cast her invisibility spell again and came up empty.
"How-,"
"Unsure why you cannot cast your invisibility spell again. Well, upon learning from my daughter that she had sensed someone earlier today who seemed to be invisible, I had the mages set up ritual circles around to dis-"
And she was gone.
Well, not gone, more like she started to run.
No way was she going to stand around during the king's pointless victory speech while the mages and guards prepared for her.
Turning towards one of the nearest doorways, she cast an illusion, straight up towards the ceiling. She needed something that would distract and hopefully scare the nobles into causing problems for the guards.
So, she went with a rather dark and dangerous-looking spell.
As an illusion, it did nothing. But when you see someone cast a spell that creates a massive swirling vortex of darkness and fire, well, it makes you want to run away screaming.
Which is exactly what happened.
Nobles headed towards the exits, pushing past other nobles and barging into the guards. For a few of the doors, they managed to get past just enough to open them up and barge their way through.
Just what Oriana needed.
The King remained where he was, watching over the whole scene. The mages started to advance into the ballroom.
Having the numbers to be wide enough to span the width of the room, they were easily able to slowly push forward, hoping to corner Oriana.
It would be some time before they covered the length of the room, which was a saving grace for Oriana. But it did mean that it wouldn't be long before they got past two of the doors, making it impossible for Oriana to use either of them.
That's not to say she wouldn't try. Or at least make it look like she would try.
---
In amongst the crowd of Nobles, they were too busy panicking to realise that they were very close to the actual perpetrator of this mess. Which, thankfully, allowed her an advantage.
She would have to apologise to Lady Eleanor if this caused any problem for her, but she was running out of options.
So, using an illusion, she took on the guise of her lovely dancing partner and moved with the crowd. But not before sending illusionary clones of herself towards the other doors in the room.
The illusions moved through the nobles and got to the doors, where they then proceeded to …make themselves known before the guards.
"Here, she's over here," one of them shouted as they headed towards the fake one.
"No, she's here."
It was just enough of a distraction for the nobles heading for the same door that she was, to be able to push past the guards that were busy trying to see Oriana on the other side of the room.
They thought the other guards were taking care of it, and with the influx of Nobles pushing against them, it was pretty hard for them to keep them at bay.
The mages in the ballroom sped up upon hearing what the guard said, but even then, they were professionals and didn't all just flood to the same corner. They continued to move in a line, to ensure that it wasn't some sort of trap.
On Oriana's end, she had managed to just make it past the door, along with other Nobles, when she heard the guard from before call out.
"It-it's not her. It's an illusion."
Other guards in the room soon called out, but their voices were drowned out by the screaming from the rest of the crowd.
The guards by the door she had just gone through quickly barged through the nobles, not caring about social status at the moment, and started pulling and turning the nobles towards themselves.
Thankfully, Oriana was a little way in front, so they had not managed to reach her yet, and as far as she was concerned, making it through the door should get her in the clear.
At least it would have, if the whole castle wasn't looking for her.
Once you made it past the door, there were a bunch of knights all standing in the hallway, keeping the nobles back.
"Ah shi-"
"Wait!"
And what made it worse was that one of the knights had looked in her direction and called out, readying his weapon as he did.
"How did he know?" she asked herself.
She had no clue…until she turned to her left and saw an exact copy of herself.
"Ah."
Lady Eleanor was standing right beside her…and with the talk of invisibility and illusions, they were bound to take notice of two people looking exactly the same.
Lady Eleanor turned towards her, shock and surprise on her face as she saw her own.
And so, with that being that, Oriana turned herself back into Lady Orifake, winked and said, "I hope you enjoyed it," before pushing into the crowd, which, as it happened, decided to reverse and head back into the ballroom.
For some reason, knights all brandishing their weapons had that effect on people.
With the crowd now pushing back into the room, behind her, she had a few guards, with the mages a short distance behind them. And in front was a gap forming, where at its end stood several knights.
One woman against a whole castle.
They had the numbers to take her down. Which meant she had to do something about that.
The knights could only watch in surprise as one Oriana turned into two, then three, then four, where she created enough copies of herself to rival the knights in front of her.
It was taxing, leaving her just enough mental capacity to keep them in front and distracting the knights who stood weary.
They saw she had changed to look like someone else, and they may have heard that she could do illusions. But they did not know if that was the extent of her abilities. For all they knew, these were proper clones of her and could pose a threat. So, they slowly advanced.
"Steady men. Be on the lookout for any more tricks."
Oriana had her copies conjure fireballs in their hands to make them look intimidating. Once you got over the strain of making the copies, having them do things hardly made any difference.
But the effect it did have was that it caused the guards to flinch and miss Oriana, the real one, who was crouching behind the copies and reaching the nearby door.
Now, it's likely the knights hadn't worried about this door, because it led to a guest bedroom, and so had only one entrance and exit…but it did have a window.
A window that led to a sheer drop, with the room being on the third floor of the castle.
The copies outside had just started to engage the knights, as Oriana closed the door to the room. Looking around, she quickly moved the nearby chair under the doorknob and pushed the desk in front of it for some added holding power.
Outside, the copies were quickly cut down, vanishing as the swords passed through them, surprising the knights as they looked around for her.
"She's gone", "Vanished, how?" and "You idiot, the bedroom."
This was quickly followed by someone smashing against the door.
"Okay. Well, the only way out of this is the window. Great."
Opening it up, she looked out. Then down…and regretted it.
She never knew she had a fear of heights. You learn something new every day. It's just a shame she had to learn it right as she was about to step out onto a thin amount of brickwork above a massive drop.
Just below the window was a brick lip, small enough for her to get a purchase on, although having to tiptoe on to do so.
"This is horrible, this is horrible." She kept that mantra in her head as she did this.
She shimmied along, not really sure where she was going. She just needed to get to another part of the castle without falling.
Crash!.
The sound of the door from the bedroom breaking startled her, almost causing her to lose her grip. But thankfully, she managed to keep it.
"She's out here."
"What?" one of the knights said, as he poked his head around. "Well, well, where do you think you're going?"
She knew it was rhetorical, but she couldn't help herself.
"Oh, just out for some air. It's quite fresh this high up."
How she managed to respond while also being terrified of the height she was at, she had no idea.
"Well, that's quite brave of you. But, you had best come back, or we will have to make you."
"Not quite sure how you're going to be able to make me from inside that room."
The smirk on his face said it all.
"Julien, do the thing."
The knight pulled himself back in, and another replaced him. This one was holding a bow.
Oriana truly was shocked. How was this making her come back? This was killing her, wasn't it?
The knight pulled back on the bow string, took aim, and then fired.
Realising this might be the end, being taken out by someone named Julien with an arrow, was not how she wanted to go.
So, she jumped.
---
Not off the building, she just jumped to the side, hoping she would be able to catch herself, while also being able to dodge the arrow.
If she had been thinking straight, she might have been able to use an illusion to make herself look like she was in another location, just a short distance from where she actually was. It might have been enough for the shot to be off.
But with the fear, she was not thinking clearly.
And the jump she made did help, but not completely.
The arrow missed its target. But it did manage to wing her, slicing through the side of her leg as she came down from the jump.
The arrow continued along its path, where it suddenly became taut. The reason being that this was a rope arrow, and that Julien's 'thing' was to pierce her leg and then pull her back.
With it missing, he now had to reel it back in, which was great for Oriana.
Or it would have been if the hit from the arrow, and her jump, hadn't caused her to slip off the lip of the brickwork and fall from the castle.