The Artisans Pride X
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When he had set out to find the last remnants of his earlier research, Qyburn had genuinely not been thinking all that much about the details of that task. His focus had been to ponder what he might be able to recover and how it could be used for his work and other projects in Gogossos, not so much with the details of the retrieval. His specimens would either be there or not, with the most likely cause for the latter being that Ebrose minions had been more competent then anticipated, thus finding and destroying them.
It was not that he didn't believe the Lantern Bearers to be similarly inclined to destroy his work and he even considered them much more likely to find the hidden compartment, but they were still by a far a secondary concern. They had always ignored him, far more concerned with the experiments of others and why would they ransack his laboratories again after the Citadel was trough with them?
Finding them to be stolen by a common thief and catacomb delver came as a surprise, just as finding out that a rather sophisticated network that was peddling arcane items and Far Realm plunder had sprung up in Oldtown. When they had entered that shop, Qyburn would have expected his work to have been sold off to the Citadel or the Golden Shields, bringing the samples out of his reach for the time being, but instead, he was brought here.
A vineyard a stones throw from the Honeywine, owned by a trader that could trace his lineage to some minor noble house near the Dornish Marches. It was in good repair, the smallfolk seemed well fed and content with their lot and neither he nor any of his companions had made out any signs of magic, neither active nor lingering. It was one place of many and as far as a short stop by Osryx in a nearby tavern indicated, the lord of the manor was not known for any eccentricities or weirdness.
So they waited a night longer, making camp for the night at the edge of the forest and doing a few divinations to find out what the secret behind the vineyard was. However, they found none. There were no hidden motives, shadowy cabals or otherworldly influences. No plot by the Deep Ones, Devils, Fey or some other thing. The owner of the place was not secretly a mindeater, lich, Fey, Dragon or Beholder. In fact, he knew the little group was coming to his door and fearing them much more then the other way around, Jorga having tattled on their encounter and leaving the man with the impression that he was about to be robbed.
It left a rather surreal feeling in Qyburns gut, as if all of this was somehow slightly off. As if the little group he had taken to accompany him had skidded into the well worn groves of some kind of tale, not minding that they were as ill a fit for it as you could find. He spent another hour divining just to make sure that the Court of Stars was not involved in this journey, but that too proved to be a false assumption. Maybe it was fate. Maybe it was spill-over from the taint seeping into the Reach that the king was investigating. He could not say and no amount of spells and incense could do so either.
So when the sun rose, Qyburn left for the vineyard, taking only Polyos as his guard along to the audience he knew he would be invited to.
Even though he hadn't been in many so far, he could tell that solar was a bit on the small side. Comfy, not luxurious, and it's shelves filled with books and curiosities that seemed to come from pretty much every port between Oldtown and Asshai. Qyburn had quickly taken to read the spines of the books and run his second sight over the displayed objects instead of waiting patiently on the chairs with Polyos. Said creature had been stoically staring into nothingness ever since they entered the house, giving it's disguised mien the appearance of sleeping with it's eyes open.
The aged scholar instead carefully made an accounting of all the books he found, trying to gauge the man whom he would talk with in a moment. It was not that he was looking for any deep insights, since he had never the social graces to make those, let alone exploit them, but he could see the difference between a man collecting random books to appear learned and a man actually reading books and displaying them like trophies of a successful hunt.
When the door opened for the lord of the house, flanked by two guards, Qyburn tore his gaze away from the shelves and instead looked at the man himself. A bit on the chubby side, with light skin and a beard that was more grey then brown, while his hair was already white as snow. He looked like a pretty ordinary man, except for the chain segments tied with a leather string and worn as a necklace. He bore one of each silver, gold, bronze and lead, marking him clearly as a scholar, though far from being called a Maester by any stretch.
"It is a pleasure meeting you, Wisdom." There was a joviality and boisterousness in the mans voice that didn't truly exist. Even Qyburn could read that much from his face. "What brings an eastern scholar to my doorstep on this day?"
In return, Qyburn bowed slightly, his mind still slightly occupied by the silver link. That was a detail his divinations had not caught, but it was a decent enough explanation for the many ways this could turn sour, if the man was one of Embrose's creatures. "The pleasure is mine, my Lord, though given your precautions, I take it that you have already been informed about the unfortunate event in Oldtown."
The man seemed to struggle with himself for a moment, but then motioned for Qyburn to take a seat anyway. "Indeed. I have been patronizing Jorga's shop for a while, so he felt it prudent to warn me about the altercation. Though the tale seemed a bit fanciful, I still took some precautions." His gaze turned to the unliving creature sitting on the other chair, looking for something that the former Maester did not know.
"A mere misunderstanding, I assure you. It is scholarly interest that drives me here, not a desire to cause harm or steel another mans possessions." Which was, technically, the truth. Not that he would balk at taking back what was his by having Osryx carry it out through the walls, but it would be vastly less complicated if the man just gave them up willingly. So he took a pouch full of coin from his robe and dropped it on the table without much ceremony. "I would offer you twice what you paid for the items, if you are inclined to sell them."
"Well, now, these are rather rare and exclusive things..." The argument had the feeling of a well worn routine when spoken by the trader, but it was easy to tell his heart was not in it. There was some unease creeping into his voice as he spoke on. "Word is that some vile necromancer defiled the bodies of the living and the dead to make these things, so you will certainly understand that I will not part with them that easily. They are hardly... normal goods..."
Qyburn had to fight to keep an impassive face when he understood what was driving the mans nervousness. "You examined them, didn't you? You've seen something you would rather not remember."
At first, it looked as if he would be denying it, but then the man grew quiet, forlornly staring at the bag of money, not out of desire for it, but just so that his eyes had something to cling to. "You see, I had never much time for scholarly pursuits, what with the family business to tend to. But I did study on my own over the years and when the changes came, I wanted to learn more about magic on my own. With the teaching of Higher Mysteries all but non-existent, we had to improvise to earn our links."
When he trailed off, Qyburn waited for a while for him to resume, only speaking up when it was clear he wouldn't. "What did you do with these samples?"
"Me? Nothing. I got headaches just from looking too closely at the things, and when we used a soothsaying ritual to see what would happen if we were to open the jars or do something else to the contents, it was always the worst of omens. Thorwyn though..." Again he trailed off, though this time he suddenly waved one of his guards to leave the room in the pause.
The former maester just sat there, quietly listening and inwardly grinning about what he learned. If the seal were intact, then the samples should all still be in perfect condition. It had taken much of his meager funds to make these jars ward against divination and decay of the contents, but it seemed to have paid off. Most likely, the traders divinations were predicting the Illithid to claim what was theirs, had they broken the wards on the samples by opening their containers.
"It doesn't matter," the trader proclaimed with an air of defeat. "We failed and paid the price. I couldn't bring myself to destroy these things, for I still feel that they should be studied. Maybe you will have more success then we did."
As if on cue, the guard entered the room again and with him two servants carrying a small wooden chest with two heavy locks. The trader took the gold without another word, placing two keys in it's stead. Without delay, Qyburn took them and opened it, carefully lifting the jars within from their bed of straw and cloth.
Slices of human brains, within them the bulbous growths of an ongoing ceremorphosis, carefully cut apart in thin layers to reveal the forming organs within. A few black tumors, the first attempts at the cyst that sat in Qyburns chest to this day and which had been the base of Polyos physical form. It was all in order. All just as he had left it. With shaking hands he took the largest container and lifted it up, much to the disgust of all onlookers. Two sunken, purple eyes starred back at him from the frozen mien of a Mindflayer, it's long tentacles floating around it like a twisted halo.
"You have done a great service to the natural sciences today, my Lord," Qyburn whispered into the quiet room, a rare grin firmly on his lips.
AN: And this concludes Qyburn and companies merry adventure in the Reach.