A Doppelganger's Suspicions
As with every other time she saw the tavern, Bonnie thought the Elfstone was a strange name for it. The Yawning Portal, where she worked as a barmaid, had a name that made sense. Anyone wondering as to its source would understand the moment they entered the taproom and saw the big, gaping, well of a hole at the center. But the Elfstone?
The walls of the building were of mortared stone, true, but it was the four ancient oak trees growing in the walls at each of the four corners that drew the eye. And once you got inside the name still didn't make any sense. It wasn't built around a big boulder or rocky spur. Instead, more trees grew in the taproom. The place should be named the Elftree or rather the Elftrees.
Bonnie smiled to herself, realizing she'd just talked herself into an even more ridiculous name. Elfstone was as good a name as any other she supposed.
She pushed these thoughts aside and disciplined her mind to take on the persona of the form she'd taken - no longer thinking of herself as Bonnie the Barmaid of the Yawning Portal, but as the half-elf Rowan Moonsmile, up to a year ago residing in Waterdeep but now a traveling spendthrift merchant whose trips were financed by her adopted mother.
The familiar earthy smell of the interior of the Elfstone hit her as she pulled open the sturdy, iron banded hardwood door and entered. If it were evening the tavern would be filled with elven and half-elven clientele drinking Evereskan clearwater, moonwine, and elverquisst while dancing light spells of floating, blue motes of illumination bathed the place in a soft glow and gentle harp, pipe, flute, and choral music played.
But it was morning and sunlight streamed in from pulled back open roof shutters instead. The angle of the sun at this hour left most of the tap room in shadow and the twitter of birdsong from the top branches filtered down to the empty tables amidst the twisting tree trunks. The few staff on hand looked up from watering the flower beds at the base of the trees or sweeping up fallen leaves off the floor to see who had entered.
From the abilities passed on through her doppelgänger heritage, the same heritage that gave her shape changing abilities, she could read their surface thoughts. They accepted her presence immediately. And why wouldn't they? Rowan Moonsmile was once a regular, if now infrequent and sporadic visitor to the tavern, particularly during quiet times when no food or drink was being served. She would be here to see her adoptive mother, they thought. And as her mother was a part owner of the tavern they returned to their sweeping and watering and let Rowan do as she pleased.
She headed upstairs, trading silent nods with the male moon elf who descended. He also gave her little thought. Blending in seamlessly was all about choosing the right identity, her mentor had taught her. The majority of the staff here were moon elves and the patrons were mostly full-blooded elves of wood, moon, and sun variety. Considering this, it might be tempting to choose a fully accepted and welcome elf form rather than just a tolerated half-breed.
Yet the half-elf form had benefits. An adopted one raised among humans could be forgiven, for example, for lack of fluency in Elvish. Or for ignorance of common customs and traditions. Or for not fully knowing the storied lineage of their elf parent. Or for not knowing who their elf parent was at all. The form provided flexibility and made it less likely to be caught in a lie - which was ultimately much more important than welcome acceptance.
Still, there were times when she regretted the silent indifference of the staff here. Rowan Moonsmile was ever ready to deliver stories of profitless scrimshaw trading in the Frozenfar north to sell her recent long absences. But no one ever asked! All that research, planning, and even practice for having just the right distant look and smile as she described the harsh beauty of Auril the Frostmaiden's snowy kiss on a mountainous landscape - wasted.
She reached the top of the stair and walked partway down the hall to an office door. The female half-elf seated behind the oak desk gave a welcoming smile at her entry. Streaks of silvery gray ran through her dark blue hair and wrinkles around the eyes and mouth of otherwise flawless sapphire skin showed the weight of years gnawed away at the longevity of even one of elven heritage.
These signs were merely the veneer of aging of course.
Nylaersyn Floshin, Rowan's mentor, as a fey'ri, had demon ancestry mixed with her elven blood instead of human. She would still be in the prime of life long after necessity demanded she allow her half-elf alias, Tymaara Moonsmile, to 'die' and be 'buried' with a new primary persona assumed.
"Merry met my daughter," she who was and was not Tymaara said in Elvish. "I'm glad your business has brought you back to Waterdeep so soon after your last visit."
Rowan instinctively tried to read the surface thoughts of her mentor and found them guarded away and locked tight from probing. No surprise there. This was the individual who had joined the Unseen, an organization primarily consisting of doppelgängers, under the pretense of being one herself.
And she'd pulled it off.
For a doppelgänger, deception was as natural as breathing, but Nylaersyn Floshin was deception incarnate. The door to the office swung shut behind Rowan and with it, she knew, the wards against eavesdropping settled into place as well.
"Stop trying to read my mind," Nylaersyn said. "Lock that door and sit down."
"Just trying to read if that smile to see me is genuine," Rowan said as she did as her mentor asked.
Her tone was jesting, but she had to admit a kernel of truth lay somewhere inside the statement. When one was raised amid a web of lies and false identities, the desire for something real and true was a hunger. She sank into one of the chairs in front of the desk.
"Practice your Elvish. Who can say what identity you might need to take on," Nylaersyn said. "And of course, I am glad to see you. I'd like to see you every day. Working with me. Not off play acting at being a barmaid so you can 'have time away to live a life'."
Her mentor pitched the tone of her voice on the last part with the shrillness of a hysterical teen. But Rowan had not been hysterical or a teen when she'd uttered that statement. She remembered actually being very calm. It was Nylaersyn herself, normally the soul of cold pragmatic reason, who had been a bit hysterically angry during that argument. A sign of just how heated things had gotten that night.
"Before you get on me again about living as a barmaid," the barmaid said, switching languages as ordered. "I want to remind you who worked as a waitress for years and years here. In this very tavern."
"We've been over this before and that was different," her mentor said, waving a dismissive hand. "I was spying on the elves for the Dlardrageths. The Elfstone was a good listening post."
"Yet here you still are," Rowan said. "Over century after the defeat of the Dlardrageths."
"I bought into the place," Nylaersyn said, shrugging. "As an investment. And it's been a good one."
"Maybe I'll buy into the Yawning Portal someday," the doppelganger offered.
"Have you at least learned the secret to Durnan's longevity?" her mentor asked. "He should be dead. Yet the years pass, and he doesn't even try to pretend he is aging. Very bold or very stupid. What sort of inhuman is he?"
"I actually have learned something of his goals and motivations," Rowan said. "One thing dominates his surface thoughts."
The gold fleck in Nylaersyn blue eyes seemed to glitter with interest and she leaned slightly forward in anticipation. Secrets were her business and passion.
"Which is the perfection of brewing his particular recipe of Shadowdark Ale," the doppelganger finished.
Rowan smiled in response to her mentor's scowl.
"I never said I learned useful information," she said.
Nylaersyn raised a single finger.
"This is the amount of people who know my secret and are still alive," she said. "It is about to become none."
The stare was so cold and hard that the doppelganger felt a little shiver of fear run down her spine despite the half smile her mentor wore to soften the look. No matter what her form, big or small, young or old, male or female, Nylaersyn really could communicate her displeasure with a glance. There was an edge to her, even when she was joking.
"I actually do have intelligence to report," Rowan said.
Time to get down to business. Her mentor sensed this as well and assumed a listening posture, elbows on the desk and fingers steepled.
The doppelganger told the story Aleina and Jhelnae had related on their last game night, highlighting their encounter with the flame conjuring shapeshifter who had chased them into the Jade Dancer.
"A rogue shapeshifter?" Nylaersyn asked.
She looked right at Rowan, but also through her with a faraway gaze indicating the question was merely thinking aloud and not meant to be answered. Lost in thought, a few moments passed before her mentor spoke again.
"Dangerous," she said. The steepled fingers became tight fists of tension laid on the table. "If the Purge taught us anything it is that overreach by one of us is a threat to all of us. This shapeshifter will have to be found and either brought into the fold or dealt with."
The Purge - such an innocuous sounding name for the upheaval it represented in Rowan's life. Before it she'd been Dylea Manthar, cherished noble daughter of House Manthar whose mother had tragically disappeared soon after the birth of herself and her fraternal twin. Then doppelgangers had been discovered in positions of influence. Some sort of spy ring known as the Unseen. Those who could discover such creatures by magical means were used to root them out.
That was when she'd discovered her real identity.
Her family had mutely watched as she and her brother, Ithnil, were hauled off - sobbing, screeching, pleading and reaching out to so called loved ones - only to find increasingly horrified then hardening gazes in return. Prison had come next, and death would have surely followed had not one Nylaersyn Floshin rescued them.
"Let me handle it for you," she who was currently Rowan but born as Dylea said.
Her mentor's gold-flecked eyes widened in surprise.
"You?" she asked.
Other questions lay in the tone of that one word, the primary one being - are you done with this nonsense of Bonnie the Barmaid and ready to come back?
"One assignment only for now," Rowan said.
Nylaersyn shook her head.
"There are no one time assignments," she said. "You know this. You either embrace this life fully or you don't. It's too dangerous otherwise."
"There is more I haven't told you yet," the doppelganger said.
She went into the tale about the dryad requesting the halfling, Dasher Snobeedle, to ask about the eldest Cassalanter boy and then his later encounter with a flame haired female half-elf. Even her mentor's mask of equanimity broke with a little start of surprise as she heard the name.
"Jolene?" she asked. "The name was Jolene?"
It was a persona her sibling had favored for seduction, the name, the flame red hair, the half-elf ancestry, it all fit.
"Actually," Rowan said. "The halfling who spoke with Dasher said it was either Jolene, Joelle, Joenna or something similar. He could not remember, but something along those lines."
"Your brother died in the Mistshore fire," her mentor said, brow wrinkling in thought.
Brother was not the right term as all three of them - Ithnil, Nylaersyn, and Rowan were able to assume either gender on a whim. But they used such language for the sake of convenience. The doppelganger had also believed her sibling was dead, it was the prime reason she'd felt she needed some time away to 'live a life'. After hearing the stories of Aleina, Jhelnae, and Fargas, however, she wondered.
"It has to be a coincidence," her mentor said, still obviously working it through for herself. "Why would he hide from us if he survived the fire?"
"Think about it," Rowan said. "The Mistshore fire happens, and we assume he is dead. A short time later the missing Cassalanter heir returns. He just walks out of a nearby forest years after disappearing in the Ardeep. He's taken in and made heir again. Then that heir is sent off to faraway relatives for his education. In essence, disappearing once more."
"Nine hells!" Nylaersyn cursed. "He was always whining about the birthright stolen from him no matter how many times I told him to forget it! You think he used the guide of the missing son to infiltrate and then took the place of the father?"
Before their discovery as doppelgangers, Ithnil had been the heir to House Manthar. How fitting, her brother would think, that he instead became the head of an even greater house in the Cassalanters.
Her mentor's eyes narrowed.
"That would break all the rules I put in place to prevent another Purge," she said, cold rage in her voice. "No more murder and identity assumption. Because when the bodies are found, and some are always found eventually, those with the power to detect us come looking. We build up aliases slowly over time. And a noble is the worst possible offense. I'll have his head!"
But as quickly as her fury came, it abated.
"No," she said, slowly shaking her head. "It does not fit. Ithnil was smart. He would have known the returning Cassalanter heir would be magically examined. Even if he had a plan to thwart that, he could not then spread the story that the son was sent off to some faraway land without the mother's consent. And he can't play two roles at once. There are other problems as well. How and why would a dryad be involved? This shapeshifter could conjure flame. How would your brother learn that sort of magic in less than a year? You heard a name and a description of a red head and conjured the rest with wishful thinking. I too wish he were still alive. But he died in that fire."
"You're probably right," Rowan sighed "But I need to see for myself."
Unbidden, she felt a small part of herself hoping her mentor was right and her sibling was dead. Because if he were alive, it meant he'd willingly put through a year of grief and suffering for some selfish goal of his own. And that small part of her knew that would be just like him.
"A noble house is always a dangerous target," Nylaersyn said. "A rogue shape changer adds to that danger. It is difficult for us to hide our presence from each other."
She tapped her temple in indication of thought reading abilities. What came naturally to a doppelganger, her mentor accomplished with magic.
"And you are out of practice," she finished.
"Some of the lower-level servants favor the Jade Jug at the end of the day," the doppelganger said, remembering her time mingling among them, probing their thoughts and striking up conversations. "Lord and Lady Cassalanter are in Amphail, doing whatever nobles do on a country retreat. They aren't expected back for a couple of days. If one of them is the shape shifter, this is a good opportunity to have a look around with little risk of discovery."
"So, you've already scouted them," her mentor said. "Were you even going to tell me what you planned?"
"I'm here, aren't I?" Rowan said.
But I am not asking for permission, she couldn't help thinking.
Nylaersyn might have picked it up, because she pursed her lips, but also nodded.
"What is the play?" she asked.
"The nanny is an older tiefling," the doppelganger said. "I have not probed her mind, but the lower servants have indicated she finds it hard to keep up with the young twins and has hired a young woman to help.
"Difficult to learn anything with two brats pulling on your skirt all day," her mentor said.
"The children's favorite game," Rowan said. "One they play frequently with the young woman is hide and seek."
"Gives you free reign of the house and a reason to be caught looking in on places you have no reason being," Nylaersyn said. "It isn't the worst idea."
Having been trained by her, Rowan understood this was actually high approval for the plan.
"How are you dealing with the nanny's assistant?" her mentor asked.
The question was a reminder of the rule - no murder and identity assumption.
"She is going to get very ill at the Jade Jug tonight," the doppelganger answered. "Too ill to go into work tomorrow. But not to worry, a new friend she has made will care for her through her sickness tonight and will also offer to take over her duties tomorrow. And with the help of suggestion magic, the nanny's assistant will accept."
"Your note for a meeting now makes sense," her mentor said. "I'm the one providing the scroll for this magic, aren't I?"
"Can't really afford one on a barmaid's wages and tips, can I?" Rowan said. "I'll need another to ensure the nanny accepts me as a replacement for the day."
"Of course you will," Nylaersyn sighed. "Anything else the spy network you refuse to work for can provide?"
"Any intel on the Cassalanters?" the doppelganger asked.
"I've no eyes inside," her mentor said. "But over the years we have gathered copies of plans for almost every noble villa through contacts at the carpenters and masons guilds. I will hide a copy of the layout of the villa for your study at the City of the Dead drop location along with the scrolls."
Rowan felt growing excitement. Knowing the layout of the villa would be very useful. She had not realized how much she missed this. There was nothing like the challenge and anticipation of an infiltration to get the blood pumping.
"Thank you," she said.
"Another thing," Nylaersyn said. "You learned all this as Bonnie the Barmaid? Are this aasimar and drow the most blathering, open-mouthed drunks in all of Waterdeep?"
"They told the story to a friend," the doppelganger said. "At an intimate gathering."
With trepidation, Rowan told of her relationship to Surash and her subsequent one with his companions.
"All that is good intel gathering tactics," her mentor said, voice having a warning tone. "If that is all that it is."
"It is," the doppelganger said. "Just an information gathering tactic."
"There are no friends," Nylaersyn said. "No lovers. Only family. Say it."
Rowan hesitated before answering, feeling conflicting emotions on the matter.
"Say it," her mentor repeated.
"There are no friends," the doppelganger said. "No lovers. Only family."
"And that family now only consists of you and me," Nylaersyn said. "Everyone else is just a mark. Whether useful to us, or not. If these marks in your life compromise you, I'll kill them myself, for your own good."
A shudder of fear ran through Rowan knowing her mentor spoke in earnest and with full capability.
"The best of us are empathic," her mentor said, voice gentle. "Able to mimic emotions to the point they feel real. But you don't need me to tell you that once you are revealed for what you are, all those shared good feelings account for nothing. Every one of them fears us and will betray us."
The doppelganger remembered the at first bewildered and then horrified reactions of the Manthar household during the purge and nodded. Even her father hadn't stepped forward in the defense of his children.
"Even among my kind it was the same," Nylaersyn said. "Most fey'ri could only change between their demonic and sun elf Dlardrageths found me useful of course. But they never ceased to fear, mistrust, and hold in contempt such a changeable and adaptable creature as myself."
Rowan had heard all this before of course, but it never ceased to bring about the same response.
There are no friends. No lovers. Only family. The rest are all marks.
The thought affirmed itself in her mind and the doppelganger suspected once again her mentor read it, because she nodded and seemed satisfied.
"For some reason I have a bad feeling about this Cassalanter business," Nylaersyn said. "Be careful."
"I will," Rowan said. "And if it all goes to the Nine Hells don't worry. I won't run back here and bring it all back to you."
The doppelganger owed her mentor that much at least. But the disguised fey'ri's gaze hardened at that.
"If it all goes to the Nine Hells to me is precisely where you will run," she said. "Contingency plans for and aliases are already in place for both of us. We will have to abandon everything here but won't restart with nothing."
Rowan felt the emotional control she'd been trained with crack and her eyes well with tears. Her hands reached out seemingly all on their own. Surprisingly, rather than rebuke her for losing control, Nylaersyn's hands snaked out in return. They clasped across the desktop.
"There is only family," her mentor said. "All else can be replaced with effort."
I know what you are all thinking. What? A new POV character?
One of the problems is that it is really hard to reveal the motivations by the Cassalanters as villains. I've seen posts complaining about this on Reddit where people choose them, because they have a compelling back story, but they are like, "But the characters are never going to know unless I have them monologue!"
So I'm trying to use an NPC to tie it all together for the reader...
