Traveler Day Five

It was the next day when Bartido heard about the 'Beast'.

Apparently, among the several deaths that had occurred the previous night — numbers ranged from seven to eighteen, depending on who he asked — most of them were obviously done by a large animal of some kind, rather than one of the many ways humans could and did kill each other. Bartido wasn't sure precisely how the people talking at the tables in the inn knew all of that, but he did know that the one person among them who had found one of the bodies was loathe to talk about it.

As the roads remained closed, Bartido once again sought to have a meeting with the magistrate, though he was stonewalled in much the same way that he had been previously. He sat in the office for a while with… what seemed to be the exact same people he had sat with a few days previously. He only spent an hour or so on that fruitless endeavor before he gave into a want to go wander about the town despite the danger.

And when he did, who did he spy but the one and only Lillet Blan, Mage Consul? "Lillet!"

To Bartido's secret delight, the blonde turned to look at him immediately. Her eyebrows climbed up her forehead as she recognized him. She turned back to the two men that she had been talking to, and then came toward Bartido. "Bartido Ballentyne. I thought you would have been well home by now."

"That was the plan," Bartido said, feeling the grin grow on his face. "But you know how it is. People just can't let us go."

To her credit, Lillet's face didn't budge. "You got caught in town when the magistrate closed the roads, didn't you?"

Bartido shrugged in response. He wasn't about to admit it aloud, but Lillet could easily figure him out.

"I see," Lillet said. She studied him for a moment, and then continued. "But you had no need to be here this long, did you?"

As long as she didn't say that anywhere near Sal… "I like this town. I didn't realize this wasn't the time to stick around for an extra day or two."

Lillet smiled ruefully at him, enjoying his joke for a moment before her look returned to a more neutral setting. "Do you know anyone in town?"

Ah, the danger question. It was best if, at the very least, she couldn't prove certain things about his buddy in Sallah, but Lillet would be able to tell if he lied to her. So… "Well, when you're here often enough, you start to get to know pretty much everyone."

Lillet studied him again, though this time a little more subtly. Not so subtly that Bartido didn't catch the searching look for a moment, though. "Hmm," she finally voiced noncommittally. "You wouldn't know anything about this 'Beast' that I've heard about?"

"No more than anyone else you might be asking, and probably less than them," Bartido said. "I'd like to know as little as possible."

Lillet nodded. "I'll see if I can get an exception for you to leave, since I know that you're an Alchemist, and it seems we have mostly Sorcery going on here."

"I'd greatly appreciate it," Bartido said.

"And we need to talk when you get back."

"Oh?"

"Don't worry about it now; I imagine we'll find an opportunity back in the capital."

Bartido bowed his head slightly. "Good luck with the investigation."

"Thank you." She walked away.

The Mage Consul was involved with investigating the killings. If there was any way that the reason for his confinement in the town could get more worrying, that was it. Immediately after he was sure that Lillet was back heavily in conversation with the two men — probably guards — Bartido got out of sight and headed to Grot's house once again.

He hurried to the same alleyway that he had used his homunculus from the previous day, and redrew the rune and had a new homunculus cast Clairvoyance on the inside of the house.

This time, Grot was home. He looked up — it was possible, after all, to know when there was a Clairvoyance active — and scowled. Bartido, however, sighed in relief. At the very least, his cousin was still alive.

"BAR-TI-DO!"

And mad at him. Situation normal.

"Nice to know that you're home!" Bartido called back as he destroyed the remains of the Labratory rune.

There was a beat of silence. "BAR-TI-DO!"

By this point, Bartido had hopped up onto the porch. "It is nice to hear your voice today." In a rather ridiculous stroke of luck, the door was wrenched open right as Bartido reached it and he just strolled right on by his cousin into the house.

"Go home," Grot growled. "You need to not get caught up in all of this."

"Funny, that's what I was thinking about you," Bartido said, stepping around a pile of clothes and flopping onto the patchy couch. "You know, the whole reason why I'm here."

"I don't remember inviting you in," Grot said. It was obvious that he was clamping down on his usual reaction and bluster. "Now's not a good time."

"Of course it isn't. That's the point. We should both retreat. I would have if I could have. But if we were both to try to get out, I imagine we could make it without too much trouble."

"Then why haven't you left?" He was growling again.

"It's an international incident if I'm harmed here," Bartido pointed out. "As much as they should, I don't think they'd care much more about you than the rest of the people dying. How many was it today?"

"Get out of my house, Bartido. Before I make you."

"Oh? Now we're falling back on threats? I would have thought familial—" But he was cut off by a knock on the door.

Grot groaned and clutched at his head. "Why won't anyone LEAVE ME ALONE?!"

"Your door is unlocked," a cultured voice said.

Bartido's head snapped toward the door and spotted the very last person he wanted to see smiling in the doorway. His immaculately groomed figure was framed in the open doorway for a moment. Then Mr. Bonarda stepped into the room, clicking his walking cane on the hardwood.

Grot collapsed into the one chair in the room, refusing to reveal his face from behind his hands.

Bonarda and Bartido's eyes met and while last time it had felt like he had been studied, this time he felt like his soul was being weighed.

There was only one person that ever gave him that feeling, and all of the little feelings and moments of deja vu that he had experienced around the man suddenly clicked into place. All of them said that this man was like one particular person in Bartido's past: Advocat, the devil. Mephistopheles, if Lillet was to be believed. And she could be, if Bartido were honest with himself.

And that changed everything.

"Shouldn't you wait to be invited in?" Bartido asked as flippantly as he dared.

"Mr. Greenham and I had an appointment," Bonarda said.

Bartido raised his eyebrows. He didn't bother to glance at his cousin, since he knew that the man wasn't going to contradict the newcomer; it would require him to uncover his face in order to be heard. And it gave him an excuse to retreat and gather his thoughts. "Well, then. You know where to find me if you change your mind," he said ostensibly to his cousin, but he wasn't about to take his eyes off of Bonarda. He rose and stepped around the devil-like man, keeping him in his sights for as long as he could without making himself look weird.

He didn't shut the door — even in retreat, he couldn't do that to his cousin — but he couldn't think of anything else he could do beyond actively challenging the man of being a… well, that wasn't a good idea without some sort of plan. And that was why he was retreating, right?

It took him a good ten minutes of pacing around the main street before he felt like his heartbeat returned to a normal rate.

Right as he felt like he wouldn't be startling anyone with the sound of his thumping heart, he spotted Gertrude in front of the Glamour magic shop talking in low tones with the other woman who was the same age. Bartido leaned against the fence around the — he guessed it was a garden of some kind, but it looked more like a mud pit at the moment — and waited for the conversation to end before he walked to and fell into step by Gertrude as she was heading back to the inn.

She glanced at him, but seemingly decided that there was nothing that she wanted to say, snarky or otherwise. Which suited Bartido's mood just fine. He didn't particularly want to snap at her; she didn't deserve that even if she would have snapped at him without a second thought.

They had walked most of the way to the inn before Gertrude broke the silence. "Just want to enjoy the silence this time?"

"Had a bit of a scare," Bartido replied frankly. "I apologize if that means that you won't get the witty repartee that you were expecting."

Gertrude gave him a disbelieving look, but she didn't say anything. She merely shrugged and continued to walk beside him on the way to the inn.

When they got to the front door of the establishment, she turned to him just as he was opening the door for her. "If you're going to be around tomorrow, there's going to be more that will 'give you a scare'. Be on your guard if you're anywhere near Sallah tomorrow." She then turned and walked toward the door that Bartido had long ago learned was to her room.

"Is that a threat?" he called after her.

She stopped cold and turned around to face him. "Believe this or not, I do enjoy the witty repartee. You are good at it." She turned back around. "It was not a threat. I'd prefer you survive tomorrow." She strode back toward the room, and Bartido was lost in his thoughts long after the door had shut behind her. Somehow, even hours later while laying in bed, he still thought that Gertrude was someone that he trusted. And that the combination of her warning and the feeling he got from Bonarda was a bad thing.

Time to blow through a blockade.

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