Of Lingering Flames and Vengeance Laid to Rest
Twenty-Eighth Day of the Tenth Month 293 AC
You briefly consider asking for any other knowledge 'that is no secret' which she might be of a mind to share. However that is too much of a delicate dance to play with a foe, as the Muse has admitted herself to be. Better to leave the door to a shift in allegiance ajar, be it even a finger's breadth than risk it slamming shut by some misstep upon oaths you know nothing of.
"This has been a pleasant conversation, my lady, but I fear that given your current position your presence in Lys, or indeed anywhere else within my realm, would cause
complications on both our parts." Though the words are an obvious threat, you deliver them with courtesy, something that seems to be appreciated to judge from the slight lightening of the Fey Lady's expression.
"Mayhap she is simply glad you will let her leave here alive," Varys hisses in your mind.
"I would have done so in any case," you reply simply.
"Breaking promises, much less parley, is a poor habit to be getting into. Nothing about the current circumstances makes it seem even remotely worth considering." Once you might have refrained from adding the last part, but you remember well the deed that led to Bloodraven losing his power as Hand and his honor in the eyes of his fellow lords to break the back of the Blackfyre Rebellion. Hopefully you shall never stand where he was then, but should the day come you would choose as he did.
The Fey Lady nods as she rises gracefully from her seat and the Sprites begin their dance again. "I cannot wish you farewell, King of Men, though I can say at least that I wish our next meeting will be as courteous as this," she proclaims.
Motes of light dance faster and faster in complex patterns until they blur together in a single fiery radiance. For the briefest moment you glimpse a corridor of flame-kissed obsidian and molten gold through a arch of light.
More than an error, surely, that you should see the halls of Ymeri, you think, considerably more at ease with your choice to let the envoy leave in peace.
"What are you still doing here?" Ser Richard growls, looking up at a single Flame-Sprite still hanging in the air amid the fading of her fellows' passage.
"I choose to remain and my lady graciously allowed it," the tiny Fey replies boldly.
"As simple as that, was it?" you ask, having learned again of late if it was even necessary that small size does not necessarily mark weakness in the deathless Fey. "Are you not bound to the same power she is?"
"I am as far beneath the Queen's gaze as a grain of sand is beneath the eye of the tallest of peaks," the Sprite replies. "But I do not ask that you take my word for it. Divine my future and search my thoughts if you will, I have nothing to hide."
Though taken momentarily aback by the quick offer to reveal her thoughts, you are certainly not inclined to refuse.
You feel complete sincerity, and no desire to betray you, but you feel other things as well.
Curiosity... trepidation... ambition...
Though of course never told in so many words, the tiny Fey perceives herself as a messenger, though her erstwhile lady may have more to say to you in the days and months to come, though also the simple relief to be away from the perils of Ymeri's court where the smaller and weaker members are so easily burned at the whim of the greater.
For the sake of certainty you seek out Vee and ask of Yss' belt if the Sprite might be an unwitting pawn in the plans of the Lady of Cinders... Thankfully you find that she is not.
Gained 1 Flame-Spawned Sprite
***
Twenty-Ninth Day of the Tenth Month 293 AC
It is about an hour past midnight when Glyra half-leaps, half-floats through your window with news from Lys, the best news you could have had. She had not only found the killers, but they had been dealt with between Malarys, Rina, and the Harbinger. It seems that a company made up of kith and kin of those who had suffered from Fey bargains, who had taken to calling themselves 'the Unbroken', decided that the only way to pay back their sorrows was in blood and death. You would have expected such an attempt to end in nothing but death and indeed it had... the first few times.
"There was this
Tombstone Fairy that kept bringing them all back every time and sending them after her enemies," Glyra explains, going on to account how the macabre Fey commanded the dead first by means of soul-bound shrouds, then by subtler manipulations until they thought it something akin to an avenging angel, a patron of their cause. "'Course a lot of 'em burned out from all the raisings, but there was always more with a taste for blood and vengeance." Anger briefly flares in Glyra's leaf-green eyes, followed by a spark of dark humor and a smile that would not have looked out of place on her when you had first met her at Sweetsprings. "The Harbinger just sort of stood there ignoring the corpse-raiser's magic for a bit, then it squished him good and proper."
Gained Tombstone Fairy Corpse (CR 9; 15 HD)
"And what happened to the rest of these foolish would-be avengers?" you ask, relieved that the matter had been solved so quickly.
"Taken in by the Lawmen," Glyra shrugs, obviously not interested enough to pay much attention to that part of the events.
What do you do next?
[] Write in
OOC: There we go, I rolled the murders in the background since I know you guys were getting bored of Lys, and in any case the ones assigned to the job were more than up to the task of what was effectively just a loose end to the greater Dewchaser plot.
