Xzar: "Come Quick! Come Quick!" -He is covered in dirt, standing knee deep in grave, with a shovel in hand, beaming from ear to ear- "I found her! T'was death by graduate thesis, you see!? Get me the cables!*"
*Cables are not for everyone. Consult your doctor to see if cables are right for you. Symptoms may include nausea, dry mouth, vomiting, irritability, insomnia, severe agitation, amnesia, hunger for brains, more cats, and dissociation from normal social groups and behaviors.
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Rebooting the Author
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The stables-smell of horse kept Imoen dreaming of Dreppin and Nessie, at least before a small jolt from the saddle shot her to wakefulness in an anxious and startled flurry. Kidnapped!? No: She was sitting upright upon the horse, and her wrists were not bound, and her armor was all in place; and while, true, she was riding horseback behind a Red Wizard, 'twas not in any sinister fashion.
Edwin glanced back towards her, a motion which suggested she'd made some noise of panic or startlement. Jackal and Coffee were fast asleep upon his shoulder.
{You nodded off like a bored toddler,} he explained tersely. {The culprit, no doubt, being all of that aimless running about, post-consumption of far too many sweets.}
Imoen blinked dumbly at him a moment as she gathered her bearings, and then sagged back into the comfy space between his shoulder blades. It was late evening on their way east towards Gullykin, and overcast clouds had left the world incredibly dark. What little could be seen was in two colors: pitch black, and the dark gray of un-illuminated snow. Edwin shifted a bit in their saddle. Then he reached down and placed a gloved hand over where her arms were wrapped about his middle, giving silent indication that he knew precisely what she'd thought about on first waking, and knew also whose fault that was.
Imoen squeezed him to accept his apology, and then yawned and tried to peer ahead at the darkened shapes of the horses ahead of them. Xzar looked to be riding side-saddle across Aegis' lap and was perhaps engaged in studying his spellbook despite everything being black as pitch. {We haven't stopped yet? For the night?}
{The Wild Elf seems to feel these are actually ideal conditions under which to elude any unsolicited pursuit,} Edwin replied with a little sniff. {Bandits, ex-bandits, assassins or otherwise. As I have a darkvision spell active, I am not inclined to disagree with him.}
Kivan had originally intended to travel with Xan and Branwen, but then Coran had gone and mentioned rumors of an Ogre Magi in Firewine. Afterwards- as Edwin phrased it- no amount of group composition analysis could have swayed the ranger from continuing his 'predictable ogre-themed vendetta against the brigands of the world.' The sub-groups had needed to be rapidly reconfigured to accomodate.
Which was fine by Imoen, because Xan tended to commiserate with Kivan rather than focus on the future, and that was usually fine, except that Kivan had just killed Tazok and resolved his entire purpose for survival and now clearly was having some kind of crisis-of-identity deep down as he tried to figure out whether or not he even still wanted to be alive. Imoen was uniquely qualified as a Bringer of Good Cheer, and Aegis was a totally dependable-emotional-support sort of person, and surely with their powers combined, surely, surely, Kivan at least stood a chance. Fingers crossed! He smiled a bit now and then, anyways, right?
Coffee was preening Jackal now, and the sight of it was absolutely adorables. Who would have supposed an itty-bitty celestial and an itty-bitty devil could have gotten along so well? Though Edwin had once mentioned Jackal was not born a devil. Maybe that would be an interesting educational topic to ask him about on some other day?
{I am surprised you are still seated,} Edwin remarked conversationally, which for him meant that an insult or critique was likely forthcoming. {Peasants know little of horses, and novice riders are not typically so immune from tumbling from saddles.}
{The Red Wizard appears to be affecting ignorance of his thief's openly-mentioned-but-never-actually-thoroughly-discussed non-peasant heritage,} she narrated aloud. {Though a mental picture of juvenile, bald you repeatedly falling off of a horse whilst wondering why it refused to properly respect your obvious superiority does make me giggle.}
He cleared his throat. {You call me ignorant? Hnh. I cannot remember an age at which I did not know how to ride.}
Oh? Imoen blinked to attention, because Edwin wasn't the sort of man anyone could mistake for an 'animal person.' {Who taught you?}
{The 'evil overlord' as I believe The Monkey has branded him.}
What, himself? No serf or slave tutor as a go-between? Huh. There was a lot about Edwin's father that didn't seem to add up a'times but, then, if one only looked at the manically power-obsessed caricature which Edwin initially presented himself as, it was easy to see how quickly one might flatten any Red Wizard (or Zhent) into a stock villainous characters and lose sight of their human elements.
Nnh. But...
But it was difficult to make any allowances whatsoever for a person so evil that they would do to a mother and son what Homen Odesseiron had done. Forgiving Edwin for everything wrong with Edwin was a lot easier if one could blame sixty or seventy percent of it on Thay/Homen and note that the conjurer had at least avoided damning himself since arriving on this side of the world. It gave Imoen more to work with than, say, Aegis, who somehow managed to cope with the fact that Xzar was completely insane and a very obviously evil necromancer who ate people.
{My da taught me how to ride, too,} Imoen remembered she was having a conversation. {Random thing to have in common.}
Edwin didn't say anything immediately, which was probably a symptom of his tongue behaving itself whilst he enumerated through the six million different ways their equine educations had most certainly possessed nothing in common with one another. She took the excuse to give him another happy squeeze of positive reinforecement.
{Have I mentioned yet how happy I am you're back?}
{Only seventy or eighty times,} a Red Wizard tried to mutter irritably, but instead most-likely preened. {Who or what is a 'Dreppin?'}
Imoen snorted/giggled (snortled?), realizing she must have been mumbling about cows in her sleep. {He's the stable boy at Candlekeep.}
Edwin's voice took on a slight edge. {I see.}
{Eh? Ha! Don't worry. By the frequency at which we found Phlydia's books had gone missing in the hay loft, he was totally spoken-for. Besides, you dress well and smell like nutmeg.}
Hehe: Back to preening as he straightened his silks. {Among countless other differences, I should hope.}
{Oh of course, Dreppin's really sweet.}
He shook his head back and forth. {You know, Monkey, sometimes talking to you is like pulling teeth.}
{Mm, yeesss,} Imoen purred into her Fiery Draconic Peacock, a wide and contented smile stretching across her face as she closed her eyes to rest a bit more. {I'm sure it is.}
...
For being a twenty-one-year-old Myrkulite cleric, Tinesife Espinosa of Amn was a remarkably innocent-mannered and studious creature whose hobbies apparently included becoming a living encyclopedia on underdark staple foods.
So now I'm chasing an evil cleric through the dark to reassure him that his social skills are not too piteous to stand present company. Oi. Gorion rubbed at his brow and then paused in startlement: he had but ducked through another hole in the wall, only to find himself in a library whose shelves towered thirty feet in height and whose halls were filled to the brim with well-manicured plants. All this... this is his garden? He's kept himself busy down here, that's for certain.
Something crackled and snapped itself up into a vertical position, and Gorion spun about to the relaization he was standing scarcely three meters away from gargantuan, toothy, spine-covered Violet Fungus.
Violet Fungi usually stood no higher than a man's waist and hadn't the intelligence the gods had given even unto worms, and yet rare was the subterranean adventurer who bore neither scar nor horror story from meeting one. They recognized living flesh by sound and smell, and one swat from one of their barb-lined tentacles would set skin and muscle to swift decay. This specimen was twice as tall and broad as any orc, and its tentacle pads were each about four feet in height.
"Krah nin!" the wizard spat, for he had exhausted his spell reserves that day and had but small, quick cantrips with which to defend himself. If he could buy himself just a moment of time-! Ice spat out from his palms, slicing through roiling purple tentacles and an undulating dome. The fungi's tentacles slashed out blindly towards him with all the speed of whips and the momentum of tree-trunks. They hit the walls on his left, sending dust and debris through the air, and he barely threw himself to the ground before one reversed its momentum and took off his head. "Tallix! Malspaan!" He threw up a small divine shield of Oghma's parchment, just instants before a tentacle tore off the whole front of himself.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?" The booming voice was not Tallix's; Tinesife had returned and was shouting louder than his mouse-like demeanor had suggested was possible. More relevant to the present situation was the fact that Tinesife was directly within the mushroom's striking range. "What is WRONG with you!? Why would you DO this!?"
Gorion scrambled backwards, but no more giant violet tentacle attacks were forthcoming. He had a few seconds to assess that the Violet might have belonged to Tinesife and that therefore it had been likely desensitized to his scent via some alchemical means. But that was before Tinesife turned to the giant organism and began petting its trunk with both hands as if pleading with it.
"Just look at this! Look at her! Her annulus veil is positively trembling with stress, all the way down to the tips of the brachiations, and you've left no less than six visible lacerations! Can you not see the magenta!? The pigment?! The damage! Why!? What!? YOU!" He flailed his arms about, whirling on Gorion with a vindictive and spiteful expression, and shouted: "WORDS!" because apparently the exact ones which he truly needed in that moment had failed him- unsurprising, given his isolation.
Gorion gaped at him for a moment, and at the giant and previously-presumed-to-be-wholly-unintelligent-fungus which had sagged towards the cleric. It had even wrapped one of its tentacles harmlessly about where Tinesife stood, in what really did look like it might be an embrace. Well, words had not failed him quite so much as they had the cleric: "Pardon, I believe I may have been ill-advised towards the propensity of fungi for exhibiting intelligence."
Tinesife had puffed up all fierce, disheveled and angry-looking; with a sprig of some herb or another having gotten caught up in his hair along the way. But Gorion's logical reply looked to deflate him a little. "Well, well now you know," he reprimanded Gorion sternly, and then turned about. "Oh my poor, poor little one," he cooed to the giant mushroom, who also seemed quite happy to think of itself as 'little' despite all evidence to the contrary, "did this self-centered, inconsiderate, reprovable tomb-raider hurt you...? Mmmm? Let me see, let me see... Daddy will make it better...!"
Tallix gained Gorion's side, and offered him a boost up to standing. "Whelp," she cleared her throat. "Ye think ye might want ta give mushroom-boy a moment to ah... calm down and collect his thoughts?"
Gorion took a long look at where an unusually pleasant purple mushroom appeared to be the animal companion of a bizarrely nurturing but asocial, garden-obsessed, and bookish cleric of the dead. Then he shook his head, looked down to Tallix Snapdragon, and nodded. "Yes. I suppose that sounds like an almost-sane course of action. Far batter than par, really. Do we happen to have any more tea?"
...
To say that Yeslick Orothair and Branwen of the Isle had taken a liking to one another was to say that stone had a liking for earth, Khalid thought. They were so very two-of-a-kind that Xan surely would have grown jealous, if only elves were the sort of folk to recall dwarves even bred, much less occasionally suffered from romantic inclinations. As it was, no extraordinarily-anxious-enchanters wasted even a single drop of their precious emotional energy wondering if they'd just encountered 'competition.'
Which actually was probably for the best, Khalid mused. Because Xan had needed a little more security in the day-to-day!
So it was that dwarf and human ambled along side-by-side, sharing stories of war and glorious battle with one another and escalating embellishments to grandiose heights, all while an elf walked tucked under his lover's arm, occasionally lost in divinations and otherwise actually seeming to be enjoying himself, the company, and the weather.
Before sending them out, Aegis had instructed them all to keep an eye open for stray horses and other beasts of burden as they left Beregost. According to Kivan, two large corrals of raided animals had escaped from the flaming bandit camp, and had likely been driven far apart by smoke. Draft horses, ponies, and oxen had had formed the region's agricultural backbone; without them, there was no swift transportation and little food, such that now even a lost pig would fetch a tidy little sum in refugee-swamped Beregost. Much more valuable to the group would be a suite of bandit warhorses: horses like the ones Aegis now road east towards Gullykin.
The party had only rounded up enough hooves to mount one of their three subdivisions. With that in mind, it had been easy to see that Aegis—being both their leader and the target of several previous assassination attempts—needed the protection with overland mobility could afford her. So while this meant that Xzar and Edwin were both enjoying the luxury of speedy transportation whilst near everyone else was walking, horse-distribution strategies had raised no complaints from Xan, despite the fact that he looked to have set himself in a feud with both other wizards.
No, Xan looked happy for the time being. Everyone looked rather happy. In fact the only unhappy person in their group was poor Jaheira.
"Damn Kivan and his demons," she muttered so that only Khalid might hear. "It ought to have been him guiding this group towards the 'archaeology site' or whatever it is, and we who traveled East with the girls."
"I-if your feet are h-hurting you that badly, my dear," Khalid cleared his throat and smiled teasingly, "might you try s-summoning a steed of y-your own?"
She levied a stare at him for daring to intentionally misinterpret her ire. He smiled back innocently until a little smirk broke through on her face. Still, it seemed she was convinced of the need to remain displeased on the whole of the matter: "They have no proper healer, and we now have two."
"They do have two wizards," he proffered, because most adventuring parties suffered for lack of even one.
"Precisely my point: a Zhent and a Thayvian, both of reprehensible moral character and need a stern eye on them at all times," she muttered gloomily. "Not to mention Kivan himself, whose suicidal tendencies might try to abscond with his sanity at any moment and wander off to go give Xzar's a run for its money.
Khalid was just about to concur, when her last statement left him grimacing at its severe callousness. Still, "Th-that n-necromancer is a gh-ghastly horror," he agreed aloud. "Of the s-sort I've never seen. I knew what we were d-dealing with in r-regards to s-sell swords like Montaron, o-or Kagain. B-but you know, I see G-gorion in Aegis every day. I trust her insight. I do."
"Hnh. I'm unsure what I see, short of recklessness."
Khalid glanced at her in surprise and then reached over and felt her forehead with the back of his hand. She scowled at him in confusion. He smiled helplessly and said: "It is very unlike you to be 'unsure,' Jaheira!"
She couldn't help but smile. He cleared his throat and tried to push the topic back on track:
"A-and, about E-Edwin. Th-the Red Wizard grew up among t-tyrants. If he is th-the heir of a province, h-he and Imoen h-have to part ways. B-but life has its meetings and partings... we all leave marks on one another, good and bad."
She gave a bitter toss of her head, despite the fact that she had been the first among them to pardon Edwin. "How unfortunate then we live in a world where good marks fade swiftly and scars last."
Khalid frowned and bristled slightly. He looked quickly away, and tried to gather his thoughts, but everything came in a sharp rush of breath and a rapid heartbeat: "That isn't true." He shook his head, because it wasn't. "I am more than the sum of my scars."
Jaheira looked to him. "Oh, Khalid, I didn't mean..."
He shook his head and made a gesture to stop her. "It is good for Kivan to be traveling with young vivacious people," he asserted. "He needs it. Aegis isn't the only person in the world who needs to be saved from something, and she has the ability to commandeer allies where other people would find only enemies. Not everyone is so lucky. Some of us need other people. Need good marks to blot out the scars."
His wife slipped her hand silently into his own. He realized he was shaking, and took a quivering breath to steady himself.
"I-I'm sorry," he blundered through a rattled apology. "O-only... Only it's almost that time o-of year again, and n-now that we know Aegis i-is... I cannot help b-but... dwell o-on..."
"Hush. Hush. I'm sorry." Jaheira squeezed his fingers, and walked shoulder-to-shoulder with him for support.
...
It had taken some scant three hours of travel for Ajantis to realize that, despite being appointed the 'leader' of his sub-party, all genuine control rested entirely with Viconia. Indeed, it was a wonder he'd ever expected any differently; but on close examination, it was the means by which she held control that most bemused him. Her sexuality seemed to have garnered her some bizarre sort of alpha-female dominance status over the entire party, man and woman all included. Of course Coran was happy to indulge her in almost any respect, but Viconia was also keeping both Eldoth and Shar-Teel in line, even with regards to one another.
How exactly did that logic pan out? Viconia was sexually desirable, and therefore Shar-Teel and Eldoth ought to avoid confrontation with her, and so ought not to bicker where it might annoy her? T'was a sort of madness that merited further observation, to be sure.
But yes, in between the barbed retorts, languid put-downs, backhanded complements, and sensuous glances, Viconia had her whole party wrapped about her finger.
Which was a terrible state of affairs, given that Viconia had all the emotional stability of a hyperactive fae, and was given to ridiculous, petty displays of immature anger and derision at a moment's notice. No, as invaluable a teacher and friend as he considered her, Viconia deVir was still not Ajantis's ideal solid foundation on which to build a stable adventuring troupe.
Hmm.
Meanwhile, by the sixth hour, Eldoth-the-Scald had cleverly teased Viconia into two separate 'droll' conversations, both of which he then terminated sort of abruptly on a high note that he might wander off and pamper himself. Was this... flirting? Coran watched and bantered with Eldoth, which Ajantis might initially have presumed meant nothing risque was afoot, except that Coran seemed to find all competent competition delightful rather than threatening or insulting as would have been normal for a man, and so was utterly useless in gauging whether a coup-de-etat of Primary Consort was in the works.
Of course Shar-Teel was taking every opportunity to make obscene gestures at Eldoth, but only when she thought everyone-but-Viconia was looking, and strangely the warioress was rather quiet. (She also looked to be pointedly avoiding Ajantis, which the paladin could not decide how to feel about: Good? Bad? Helm above, all of this was absurd.)
After a full ten hours, Ajantis began suspecting Eldoth had laid a bet with someone in which he'd claimed he could replace Coran as Viconia's chosen sexual partner for the evening. It wasn't that Eldoth had tipped him off by laying it on too thick, trying too hard, or even seeming particularly interested in the drow, no. No, in fact, if Ajantis had been asked to demonstrate why he thought any sexual tension was building, he would have been left dumbly stumbling for words. His only real evidence of anything was that Viconia had started up a conversation with Eldoth about Eldoth's homeland, and the only way that could possibly be true (Bless her, but Viconia just didn't care about other people's mundane lives like that) was if some sort of seduction was in action and it was actually working.
That... or Viconia wanted everyone to think it was working so as to retain her dominance over the party.
Watcher in Heaven, is this how dishonest people have to think all the time? So many suppositions and inferences and guesses and jumps and maybes and opposites, just to create 'power' through obfuscation? This is like an abstract nightmare about a convoluted sailor's knot. It is the absolute definition of ridiculous. Bards are nightmares. Uhg. Sharrans are nightmares.
He rubbed his forehead to try and get rid of all of this unnecessary thinking that the 'cleverness' of his traveling partners mandated.
...
When they finally stopped for the evening and set up camp, Ajantis and Coran found some common ground in that realizing that they had both convened in the same place to build a camp fire and cook food. It earned Coran points in Ajantis' esteem, at least. They assembled their provisions and settled upon a meal without having to speak
"Don't look now," Coran whispered conspiratorially while they worked, "but I think we are traveling with two adorably vain freeloaders."
Ajantis blinked at him in startlement. Despite Coran's hovering about Viconia, Ajantis hadn't yet had many conversations with him. He didn't really know Coran.
But anyway, the elf winked and tilted his head towards where Eldoth and Viconia were debating something; the former was sitting and strumming his harp, and the latter was very pointedly inspecting her nails. To Ajantis, it looked like some bizarre sort of contest, in which two 'manipulative persons' one-upped one another in an effort to decide who could get away with less work done. He wondered if he ought to call Viconia out on it before it escalated, but then decided it was best not to undermine her in what was clearly a war of giants over an invisible and make-believe prize-of-lies which he could scarcely comprehend but which was indirectly keeping Shar-Teel and Eldoth civil with one another.
A man had to look to the small victories, sometimes.
"He isn't bringing out the best in her," Ajantis eventually decided.
Coran laughed, blew on a budding ember, and then leaned back and gave Ajantis a companionable pat on the shoulder. "I find it odd you tolerate me! For a holy man, you're not half bad." Ajantis grunted. "How old are you?"
"Eighteen."
"That, only? And you are up north here by yourself?" the elf's face actually sobered a bit. "Your mentor must trust in your ability a great deal."
Ajantis shook his head and looked back to the meal he was preparing. "Not exactly. A knight or squire had to come to Baldur's Gate, just as someone else had to go further north to Neverwinter, or east towards Iraeiabor or south to Tethyr; each to try and locate the epicenter of this mounting iron crisis. But now that I have actually found a real lead and sent messages back, my mentor has asked me if I felt I could see this part of the investigation through to the end."
Coran raised a brow. "Alone?"
Ajantis smiled thinly. "With war threatening, more than one paladin from Amn might be viewed with suspicion." Coran frowned. In another age, Ajantis would have innocently added on his primary concern: That nobles were summoning men to every corner of Amn for protection, and that he'd sensed Keldorn Firecam needed him to do this. In another age, he would have conversed honestly and openly about the thinness of the Radiant Heart forces at present, with a complete and total stranger. Ajantis sensed no darkness emanating from Coran, but perhaps reticence was a virtue at times, and one he ought to practice.
"Do you actually feel capable?" Coran asked slowly. "I mean, hmm, that's a lot of pressure on a young hawk who has only begun to stretch his wings."
Ajantis looked back up to where Viconia was now braiding her hair and admiring herself in a small silver mirror. "I am surrounded by capable people," he answered. And in that moment he realized he ought to keep Viconia securely atop of the party. Leadership, he'd just concluded, could still be achieved even when one had no direct control. Here, his greatest contribution would be just in dissuading Viconia from pitting Shar-Teel and Eldoth against one another for the amusement of it all. And if something compromised party stability later on, something unforseen, he'd act as was most prudent then.
After all: At least no hysterical enchanters, unfortunately violent rangers, or any eastern wizards were with them. That was something to be glad for.
...
Xzar: "Now just where did I put those jars of dopamine and serotonin?"