The eternal night magicked over Roshona sometimes made it difficult to calculate the time of day or night for the M9. Unless you were Caleb, that is. His internal body clock was never wrong. It was early morning, 6:47 to be precise.
He felt rested, but not in a good way. He dreamed all night and now he was sitting on the edge of his bed at the Xhorhouse contemplating what to do next. He couldn’t fix Essek. Only Jester or Caduceus could do that. That rankled him in a way he couldn’t quite describe. He was proud of his friends and hopeful for Essek. But deep down, he knew he couldn’t do anything but wait.
It was driving him insane.
There was a soft knock on his bedroom door a moment before it clicked open revealing Veth’s concerned face.
“Caleb?” she called quietly. “Are you awake?”
“Yes, yes, I am, Veth,” he said, waving her inside. “Come in.”
Slowly, Veth closed the door behind her and made her way over to sit on the bed next to the wizard. She didn’t say anything at first, just looked at him with her bright, observant eyes. Eventually, she sighed and placed a motherly hand on Caleb’s thigh.
“We’re all worried about him, Caleb,” she said gently. “We’ll fix him, don’t worry.”
Caleb sighed heavily, allowing his shoulders to droop knowing his old friend would not hold it against him. “Oh, I have no doubt of that,” he said, smiling wanly in her direction. “It is not us I doubt.”
Shifting so she sat cross-legged on his bed, Veth leaned down and looked at Caleb’s face. “Then what is it that’s bothering you?” she asked.
How to put it to words. Biting his lip, Caleb shook his head slightly. “It is… nothing specific,” he admitted. “More nebulous, I suppose. It just…. Doesn’t make sense to me.”
“What doesn’t?”
He gestured vaguely. “This whole thing. It doesn’t…” With a sigh, he tried again. “Why would someone try to kill the Bright Queen so soon after the treaty was signed? What could they gain from that?” he asked. “And why would the Bright Queen and Den Thelyss keep the details of what happened a secret? Feeblemind is a powerful spell, but Essek is… There has to be something more to this. Something we’re missing.”
“Not necessarily,” Veth said, mildly scolding. “You and I both know that sometimes even the best of us make mistakes. No one is perfect or infallible. We know what Essek did. I’d hardly say he was anywhere near infallible.”
“That is true,” Calen admitted with a sigh. “I suppose there are just questions surrounding this mess that I feel need to be answered before we go through with this.”
Veth considered his words quietly for a moment. “You want to wait to heal him then?” she asked, her voice low and non-judgmental.
“No. Yes. Ack, I don’t know.” He dropped his head into his hands and groaned in frustration. Her felt Veth rub his back comfortingly and let himself breathe and think. “I cannot get him out of my head, Veth,” he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. “The look in his eyes when he saw us and knew us to be friends, the fear of his own family, his cries when we left him there alone…”
The comforting hand squeezed his shoulder. “I think we both know why he was afraid of his family-”
“Do we though?” Caleb asked, lifting his head to look at her. “Do we really know? Or are we assuming we know? It wasn’t just his family, either. He ran from the Bright Queen-”
“If I knew I was a-” She darted her eyes around the room before leaning close and whispering, “-a traitor, I’d run away too.”
“And yet he trusted us,” Caleb countered. “No one else knows what he’s done.”
“Do we know that for sure?” Veth pressed. “Do we? You have to admit, it would make sense why Essek has been locked away and none of the Luxon clerics have been told or allowed to heal him. As long as he’s Feebleminded, Essek is kept under lock and key and incapable of even thinking of escaping. It’s…” She pursed her lips in reluctant praise. “It’s certainly effective for keeping a traitor from escaping.”
“Then why not just lock him in the Dungeon of Penance?” Caleb asked, spreading his hands in exasperation. “If they know, then why not treat him like a traitor?”
“Do you think Essek would understand why he was imprisoned in the state he’s in?” Veth asked, lifting an eyebrow.
Caleb’s mouth worked for a moment before he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “No. No, he wouldn’t.”
“Then perhaps this is the fate they’ve chosen for him,” Veth said. “As long as he’s cursed like this, they can brush it all under the rug and avoid the embarrassment of admitting the third most powerful person in the Dynasty betrayed them. It’s convenient if nothing else.”
It may be convenient, but it didn’t sit right with Caleb. Aside from the fact they were only guessing here. Be that as it may, this was not a fate Caleb would have ever wished to befall Essek.
“He’s a member of the Mighty Nein, Veth,” Caleb whispered. “We don’t leave our own behind.”
She opened her mouth to say something, then thought better of it. Instead, she just nodded silently. Caleb knew Veth wasn’t overly fond of Essek after his betrayal. But he also remembered Veth offering Essek a place in the Mighty Nein. That offer was never given lightly, nor was it retracted. Essek may not go adventuring with the Mighty Nein, but he was just as much a member of this family as Veth and Caleb were.
The Mighty Nein never gave up and never left their friends behind.
Essek made a mistake. A big one. But he was hardly the only one of the Mighty Nein to do so. He without sin, cast the first stone. That basically ruled out the entirety of the Mighty Nein.
Besides, Caleb now knew without a shadow of a doubt how much Essek truly cared for the Mighty Nein. He wished it hadn’t happened this way, but it did. He couldn’t change it. But he and his friends could fix it.
And a good way to start was to get Essek out of that place, even if it was just for a little while. It was early yet and Caleb still had some tricks up his sleeve. He could teleport to Essek, but he wouldn’t be able to teleport back. It would be a one-way trip. He’d have to sneak the rest of the way. The fact remained, he had to get Essek out of there. Even if it was just for the day while Jester and Caduceus got the materials for-
Jester.
“Jester!” he cried, bolting from his bed and racing out of his room. “Jester!”
“Down here!” came the reply from downstairs.
Caleb nearly tripped over his own feet as he ran down the hall and down the stairs to the kitchen where Jester and Caduceus were cooking breakfast.
“Jester, I need you to send a message to the Bright Queen,” he said, his words tumbling over each other in his rush. “Tell her we know about Essek and we can heal him, but that it would be easier if we kept him here with us in the Xhorhouse. It would keep him out of sight, out of trouble, and we can heal him.”
The blue Tiefling blinked, then she burst into a smile, her tail swishing side-to-side excitedly. “I can do that. Oh, but we have to get the diamonds, though,” she realized, her tail slowing its excited movement.
“He’ll be here when you get back,” Caleb said. “I promise.”
Her smile immediately returned and she gave Caleb a thumbs-up. “Could you-”
“Ja, I’ll count for you,” the wizard said, a smile working its way onto his face.
He held up all ten fingers and waited while Jester thought through her message before activating her Sending. Jester licked her lips for a moment, before nodding and starting to speak.
“Good morning,” she trilled happily, watching Caleb lower two fingers accordingly. “We heard about Essek.” Three more fingers went down. “We can fix him.” Four fingers. “Could he stay at the Xhorhouse with us? He’ll be hidden that way.” Caleb waggled the last two fingers and Jester thought quickly, tail swishing. “That okay?” she asked.
Caleb flashed her a smile and two thumbs up encouragingly.
Jester grinned as her eyes focused on the middle space and she tilted her head, no doubt listening to the Bright Queen’s reply.
“Thank you!” Jester said suddenly, clasping her hands together gratefully.
Startled at the second message, Caleb hastily raised eight fingers to help her keep track once more.
“But I thought the assassin was dead,” she continued. “Is he not?”
What? Caleb blinked, lowering ten fingers. Listening to one-sided conversations was odd.
“Are you okay? Can we talk to him too?” Jester asked. When she hesitated, Caleb waggled his four remaining fingers. Her eyes flickered as she thought quickly. “We’ll be very discrete.”
“What’s this about being discrete?” Beau asked, strolling into the kitchen with a staggering Fjord at her heels.
Caleb pressed a finger to his lips and pointed to Jester. Beau nodded in understanding, crossed her arms, and waited. Veth slipped in beside Caleb and helped Caduceus set the table with plates of food for when they were ready. Fjord immediately sat down and served himself much to Caduceus’ amusement.
Jester giggled at Fjord, before her smile suddenly slipped and her tail slowed to a stop. Her brows furrowed in consternation as she listened to the Bright Queen’s reply. Whatever it was, it didn’t look pleasant.
“What?” Jester gasped, looking up at Caleb in surprise. The wizard hesitantly lifted nine fingers, his blue eyes studying his friend’s expression in concern. “Why would they target Essek?”
Caleb swallowed thickly, lowering five fingers as he did so.
“Do we need to watch out for something? Is there-” She paused, her mouth forming a perfect ‘oh’ as her eyes grew large and round, no longer paying attention to Caleb’s fingers. “That’s why you’re hiding him. You’re protecting him.”
Jester did not speak for several moments so Caleb lowered his hands and waited patiently. Jester’s tail had stopped moving entirely and lay limply on the floor, curled protectively around her feet. After a minute, she looked up at Caleb and her eyes sparkled with worry.
“It was the Cerberus Assembly,” she said. “They weren’t after the Bright Queen. They were after Essek. The Scourger’s dead but they couldn’t get enough information out of them so they don’t know why Essek was targeted. But…” Her tail tucked closer to her ankles and she fiddled with her dress. “Well,” she added softly, “we know.”
Yes. They did know. And it was exactly what Caleb feared. Essek was a loose end and the Cerberus Assembly abhorred loose ends. They wouldn’t bat an eye over eliminating an ally, former or current, if it served their purposes. Masking the attack as a public assault on the Bright Queen would have diverted attention away from the true target. Essek was the Shadowhand of Xhorhaus, one of the most powerful people in the Kryn Dynasty and the person in charge of the secretive Lens spy network. Even if the Dynasty did discover he was the target, which they apparently did, it would still seem like an attempt to eliminate a significant threat to the Empire and nothing else.
Except the Cerberus Assembly was mentioned.
“They moved sooner than I thought they would,” Beau muttered, taking her seat at the table.
“Ja,” Caleb murmured, “they did.”
Worse, they succeeded.
Or, mostly succeeded. Essek wasn’t dead, just Enfeebled. Granted, this made the powerful mage much easier to kill, but it also gave the Mighty Nein a chance to fix him before the next attempt could take place.
And it would. Caleb knew it would. He had enough experience to know that not only would the next attempt happen again, it would be a permanent fix. He could only imagine the reason it hadn’t happened yet, was because of the Bright Queen and Den Thelyss’ protective measures.
Lady Deirta’s cold attitude made so much sense now. She didn’t know who had harmed her son and didn’t trust anyone to not harm Essek again. She was a mother. Cruel as it may appear, locking Essek away in Den Thelyss and controlling access to him made it more difficult to hurt him.
It was effective, but it couldn’t work forever. Essek needed to be healed and get back to his duties as the Shadowhand. Whoever the Bright Queen had as Essek’s replacement was undoubtedly good, but nowhere near as good as Essek had been. They needed to get this done quickly.
“I’ll go to Den Thelyss and get Essek,” he said. “I can teleport him back here to be sure we aren’t followed. Fjord, could you keep an eye out for any attempts at Scrying?”
The half-orc nodded seriously. “You didn’t need to ask,” he said.
“Jester and I will split up and get as many diamonds as we can,” Caduceus said, his serene smile dampened at the grim news. “Between the two of us, I think we can find what we need. If we’re lucky, we could have the spell ready to cast by tonight.”
“We will be lucky,” Jester said fiercely. “The Traveler loves us.”
Despite his dark thoughts, a smile still wormed its way onto Caleb’s face.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Bright Queen's three Sending replies in order:
1) “I see. That can be arranged. His expertise is sorely missed. The assassin has been… less than forthcoming. I will speak to Den Thelyss.”
2) “I’m afraid that’s not possible. The Scourger is beyond our reach now. The Lens believes the true target may’ve been the Shadowhand and not myself.”
3) “Correct. Until we know more about this ‘Cerberus Assembly’ and why they targeted Essek, we don’t know who to trust or if they’ll try again.”
Re: FILL Actions Speak Louder Than Words (Part 4/?)
He felt rested, but not in a good way. He dreamed all night and now he was sitting on the edge of his bed at the Xhorhouse contemplating what to do next. He couldn’t fix Essek. Only Jester or Caduceus could do that. That rankled him in a way he couldn’t quite describe. He was proud of his friends and hopeful for Essek. But deep down, he knew he couldn’t do anything but wait.
It was driving him insane.
There was a soft knock on his bedroom door a moment before it clicked open revealing Veth’s concerned face.
“Caleb?” she called quietly. “Are you awake?”
“Yes, yes, I am, Veth,” he said, waving her inside. “Come in.”
Slowly, Veth closed the door behind her and made her way over to sit on the bed next to the wizard. She didn’t say anything at first, just looked at him with her bright, observant eyes. Eventually, she sighed and placed a motherly hand on Caleb’s thigh.
“We’re all worried about him, Caleb,” she said gently. “We’ll fix him, don’t worry.”
Caleb sighed heavily, allowing his shoulders to droop knowing his old friend would not hold it against him. “Oh, I have no doubt of that,” he said, smiling wanly in her direction. “It is not us I doubt.”
Shifting so she sat cross-legged on his bed, Veth leaned down and looked at Caleb’s face. “Then what is it that’s bothering you?” she asked.
How to put it to words. Biting his lip, Caleb shook his head slightly. “It is… nothing specific,” he admitted. “More nebulous, I suppose. It just…. Doesn’t make sense to me.”
“What doesn’t?”
He gestured vaguely. “This whole thing. It doesn’t…” With a sigh, he tried again. “Why would someone try to kill the Bright Queen so soon after the treaty was signed? What could they gain from that?” he asked. “And why would the Bright Queen and Den Thelyss keep the details of what happened a secret? Feeblemind is a powerful spell, but Essek is… There has to be something more to this. Something we’re missing.”
“Not necessarily,” Veth said, mildly scolding. “You and I both know that sometimes even the best of us make mistakes. No one is perfect or infallible. We know what Essek did. I’d hardly say he was anywhere near infallible.”
“That is true,” Calen admitted with a sigh. “I suppose there are just questions surrounding this mess that I feel need to be answered before we go through with this.”
Veth considered his words quietly for a moment. “You want to wait to heal him then?” she asked, her voice low and non-judgmental.
“No. Yes. Ack, I don’t know.” He dropped his head into his hands and groaned in frustration. Her felt Veth rub his back comfortingly and let himself breathe and think. “I cannot get him out of my head, Veth,” he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. “The look in his eyes when he saw us and knew us to be friends, the fear of his own family, his cries when we left him there alone…”
The comforting hand squeezed his shoulder. “I think we both know why he was afraid of his family-”
“Do we though?” Caleb asked, lifting his head to look at her. “Do we really know? Or are we assuming we know? It wasn’t just his family, either. He ran from the Bright Queen-”
“If I knew I was a-” She darted her eyes around the room before leaning close and whispering, “-a traitor, I’d run away too.”
“And yet he trusted us,” Caleb countered. “No one else knows what he’s done.”
“Do we know that for sure?” Veth pressed. “Do we? You have to admit, it would make sense why Essek has been locked away and none of the Luxon clerics have been told or allowed to heal him. As long as he’s Feebleminded, Essek is kept under lock and key and incapable of even thinking of escaping. It’s…” She pursed her lips in reluctant praise. “It’s certainly effective for keeping a traitor from escaping.”
“Then why not just lock him in the Dungeon of Penance?” Caleb asked, spreading his hands in exasperation. “If they know, then why not treat him like a traitor?”
“Do you think Essek would understand why he was imprisoned in the state he’s in?” Veth asked, lifting an eyebrow.
Caleb’s mouth worked for a moment before he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “No. No, he wouldn’t.”
“Then perhaps this is the fate they’ve chosen for him,” Veth said. “As long as he’s cursed like this, they can brush it all under the rug and avoid the embarrassment of admitting the third most powerful person in the Dynasty betrayed them. It’s convenient if nothing else.”
It may be convenient, but it didn’t sit right with Caleb. Aside from the fact they were only guessing here. Be that as it may, this was not a fate Caleb would have ever wished to befall Essek.
“He’s a member of the Mighty Nein, Veth,” Caleb whispered. “We don’t leave our own behind.”
She opened her mouth to say something, then thought better of it. Instead, she just nodded silently. Caleb knew Veth wasn’t overly fond of Essek after his betrayal. But he also remembered Veth offering Essek a place in the Mighty Nein. That offer was never given lightly, nor was it retracted. Essek may not go adventuring with the Mighty Nein, but he was just as much a member of this family as Veth and Caleb were.
The Mighty Nein never gave up and never left their friends behind.
Essek made a mistake. A big one. But he was hardly the only one of the Mighty Nein to do so. He without sin, cast the first stone. That basically ruled out the entirety of the Mighty Nein.
Besides, Caleb now knew without a shadow of a doubt how much Essek truly cared for the Mighty Nein. He wished it hadn’t happened this way, but it did. He couldn’t change it. But he and his friends could fix it.
And a good way to start was to get Essek out of that place, even if it was just for a little while. It was early yet and Caleb still had some tricks up his sleeve. He could teleport to Essek, but he wouldn’t be able to teleport back. It would be a one-way trip. He’d have to sneak the rest of the way. The fact remained, he had to get Essek out of there. Even if it was just for the day while Jester and Caduceus got the materials for-
Jester.
“Jester!” he cried, bolting from his bed and racing out of his room. “Jester!”
“Down here!” came the reply from downstairs.
Caleb nearly tripped over his own feet as he ran down the hall and down the stairs to the kitchen where Jester and Caduceus were cooking breakfast.
“Jester, I need you to send a message to the Bright Queen,” he said, his words tumbling over each other in his rush. “Tell her we know about Essek and we can heal him, but that it would be easier if we kept him here with us in the Xhorhouse. It would keep him out of sight, out of trouble, and we can heal him.”
The blue Tiefling blinked, then she burst into a smile, her tail swishing side-to-side excitedly. “I can do that. Oh, but we have to get the diamonds, though,” she realized, her tail slowing its excited movement.
“He’ll be here when you get back,” Caleb said. “I promise.”
Her smile immediately returned and she gave Caleb a thumbs-up. “Could you-”
“Ja, I’ll count for you,” the wizard said, a smile working its way onto his face.
He held up all ten fingers and waited while Jester thought through her message before activating her Sending. Jester licked her lips for a moment, before nodding and starting to speak.
“Good morning,” she trilled happily, watching Caleb lower two fingers accordingly. “We heard about Essek.” Three more fingers went down. “We can fix him.” Four fingers. “Could he stay at the Xhorhouse with us? He’ll be hidden that way.” Caleb waggled the last two fingers and Jester thought quickly, tail swishing. “That okay?” she asked.
Caleb flashed her a smile and two thumbs up encouragingly.
Jester grinned as her eyes focused on the middle space and she tilted her head, no doubt listening to the Bright Queen’s reply.
“Thank you!” Jester said suddenly, clasping her hands together gratefully.
Startled at the second message, Caleb hastily raised eight fingers to help her keep track once more.
“But I thought the assassin was dead,” she continued. “Is he not?”
What? Caleb blinked, lowering ten fingers. Listening to one-sided conversations was odd.
“Are you okay? Can we talk to him too?” Jester asked. When she hesitated, Caleb waggled his four remaining fingers. Her eyes flickered as she thought quickly. “We’ll be very discrete.”
“What’s this about being discrete?” Beau asked, strolling into the kitchen with a staggering Fjord at her heels.
Caleb pressed a finger to his lips and pointed to Jester. Beau nodded in understanding, crossed her arms, and waited. Veth slipped in beside Caleb and helped Caduceus set the table with plates of food for when they were ready. Fjord immediately sat down and served himself much to Caduceus’ amusement.
Jester giggled at Fjord, before her smile suddenly slipped and her tail slowed to a stop. Her brows furrowed in consternation as she listened to the Bright Queen’s reply. Whatever it was, it didn’t look pleasant.
“What?” Jester gasped, looking up at Caleb in surprise. The wizard hesitantly lifted nine fingers, his blue eyes studying his friend’s expression in concern. “Why would they target Essek?”
Caleb swallowed thickly, lowering five fingers as he did so.
“Do we need to watch out for something? Is there-” She paused, her mouth forming a perfect ‘oh’ as her eyes grew large and round, no longer paying attention to Caleb’s fingers. “That’s why you’re hiding him. You’re protecting him.”
Jester did not speak for several moments so Caleb lowered his hands and waited patiently. Jester’s tail had stopped moving entirely and lay limply on the floor, curled protectively around her feet. After a minute, she looked up at Caleb and her eyes sparkled with worry.
“It was the Cerberus Assembly,” she said. “They weren’t after the Bright Queen. They were after Essek. The Scourger’s dead but they couldn’t get enough information out of them so they don’t know why Essek was targeted. But…” Her tail tucked closer to her ankles and she fiddled with her dress. “Well,” she added softly, “we know.”
Yes. They did know. And it was exactly what Caleb feared. Essek was a loose end and the Cerberus Assembly abhorred loose ends. They wouldn’t bat an eye over eliminating an ally, former or current, if it served their purposes. Masking the attack as a public assault on the Bright Queen would have diverted attention away from the true target. Essek was the Shadowhand of Xhorhaus, one of the most powerful people in the Kryn Dynasty and the person in charge of the secretive Lens spy network. Even if the Dynasty did discover he was the target, which they apparently did, it would still seem like an attempt to eliminate a significant threat to the Empire and nothing else.
Except the Cerberus Assembly was mentioned.
“They moved sooner than I thought they would,” Beau muttered, taking her seat at the table.
“Ja,” Caleb murmured, “they did.”
Worse, they succeeded.
Or, mostly succeeded. Essek wasn’t dead, just Enfeebled. Granted, this made the powerful mage much easier to kill, but it also gave the Mighty Nein a chance to fix him before the next attempt could take place.
And it would. Caleb knew it would. He had enough experience to know that not only would the next attempt happen again, it would be a permanent fix. He could only imagine the reason it hadn’t happened yet, was because of the Bright Queen and Den Thelyss’ protective measures.
Lady Deirta’s cold attitude made so much sense now. She didn’t know who had harmed her son and didn’t trust anyone to not harm Essek again. She was a mother. Cruel as it may appear, locking Essek away in Den Thelyss and controlling access to him made it more difficult to hurt him.
It was effective, but it couldn’t work forever. Essek needed to be healed and get back to his duties as the Shadowhand. Whoever the Bright Queen had as Essek’s replacement was undoubtedly good, but nowhere near as good as Essek had been. They needed to get this done quickly.
“I’ll go to Den Thelyss and get Essek,” he said. “I can teleport him back here to be sure we aren’t followed. Fjord, could you keep an eye out for any attempts at Scrying?”
The half-orc nodded seriously. “You didn’t need to ask,” he said.
“Jester and I will split up and get as many diamonds as we can,” Caduceus said, his serene smile dampened at the grim news. “Between the two of us, I think we can find what we need. If we’re lucky, we could have the spell ready to cast by tonight.”
“We will be lucky,” Jester said fiercely. “The Traveler loves us.”
Despite his dark thoughts, a smile still wormed its way onto Caleb’s face.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bright Queen's three Sending replies in order:
1) “I see. That can be arranged. His expertise is sorely missed. The assassin has been… less than forthcoming. I will speak to Den Thelyss.”
2) “I’m afraid that’s not possible. The Scourger is beyond our reach now. The Lens believes the true target may’ve been the Shadowhand and not myself.”
3) “Correct. Until we know more about this ‘Cerberus Assembly’ and why they targeted Essek, we don’t know who to trust or if they’ll try again.”