Chapter Twenty-Four: Now Is A Time For Reflection, Introspection, And Great Personal Growth. You Hate It And Want It To Stop Immediately.
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
You shake your head with a soft sigh. "No, no. I'm sure you wouldn't."
"Beg your pardon?" Amina replies, and damn is she ever good at sounding like she doesn't know exactly what you mean.
"You already know exactly what's best and anything I say will only modify it slightly if at all and I'm just..." you grind the heel of your palm against your eyes, as if you could grind the vibrant electric blue right out of them and make this disguise you used to be so quietly proud of actually do its fucking job. "Sick of it. The runaround. Thinking I understand when I don't because nobody will tell me."
You half-turn to face Amina properly, one hand lingering on the window frame. "I need those personal days and I need them right now. I just need to take care of something at the Adventurer's Guild and then I'm needed back at the es-" you sigh as you catch yourself in that stupid, useless, rote like "-at my lair."
"Of course, sir. Shall I arrange transportation?"
"No, no I... need the walk."
The walk doesn't calm you at all. It wasn't really supposed to. You go in your Lord Elding disguise and every step of the way you're staring at people, studying their faces as they pass, as they look at you and quickly look away when they notice you noticing. Men, women, children, from the tallest orc to the most diminutive dwarf, hell you even find yourself scrutinising the stationary constructs like their gemstone eyes will betray any sort of hidden truth. How many of them know? Is it just the upper echelons, a kind of secret-open-secret? Or is it just like Takara said? Are you the entire city's pet dragon, allowed to live in his own little fantasy bubble out of convenience? Thought so defanged that your rivals, your own secretary, would knowingly cross you? It was supposed to mean something dammit and now you're...
You wanted to think 'just like them' but that's not true either. Your whole world thinks you're a joke, some kind of cruel twist on the king's new clothes where everyone was humouring him out of amusement rather than fear. You're a rich, scaly jester and even then the first part of that has been repeatedly in jeopardy the past week. You cannot even put into words how much you want to go home to your freshly-renovated spire and sleep, possibly for three days straight, you'll see how you feel.
The Adventurer's Guild is a grand old hunting-lodge-type affair, situated right on the wharf with its own personal dock for ease of accessing the Beyond. There's usually a fairly steady trickle of people coming to and fro, no end of fans willing to hang around the attached open-air restaurant hoping to catch some higher-profile pioneers taking a load off before or fresh off some expedition or another. Others hanging around the claim boards to speculate on finds, whether for fun or for some cold hard cash on the side. You're the sort that gambles for keeps, officially - as such the front desk lets you in immediately and before you know it you're off to one of the VIP rooms, reclining in a plush leather chair with a roaring fire beside you. No taxidermy kills thankfully, those are a bit tacky these days.
"Lovely to see you again, Lord Elding!" One half of the proprietors enters and takes a seat opposite you - Ilyana al-Mullaqati, took the place over with her husband Uptil two years ago and you've seen plenty of her since. You don't quite recall what got them out of the game on a fieldwork level, something about a hydra, you never asked and they never told. She's small and lean like a whipcord, the archer type back in the day and you doubt she's let it all go to rust, twin blonde braids framing a face that still hasn't lost its deep explorer's tan. "All well?"
You try to dial down the look you shoot her from 'filthy' to 'neutral'. "Mm," you say diplomatically. She seems to get the hint and hands you your personal ledger, leaving you to sit back and crack the spine.
It's well-kept as ever, claims that may be of interest to you based on your previous dealings recorded neatly within the pages and progressively crossed off as more interested buyers finally take precedence over waiting and hoping you'll foot the bill. It's a system so simple it's almost prehistoric, but when it works it works - the Beyond only re-seeds itself once it's no longer observed, and the easiest way to keep it observed is to just leave a person or three there. Certainly more cost-effective than Abzu's setup. Trained survivalists like a guild adventurer can keep a particularly juicy claim locked down for months or more, the proverbial guardian at the gates. Sometimes literally, when the claim includes a first-civilisation ruin. Those in the 'biz' usually call claims 'dungeons' for whatever reason.
"What's this one?" you ask, tapping the one messily-written entry. Ilyana cranes her neck to read it upside-down.
"Oh, that. That one's up north, above the cloud layer. The Sending we received was a bit garbled by the distance and for the life of us no one could rightly say if our pioneer was saying it was an 'infinite cloud maze' or an 'infinite clown maze'."
You shudder, deeply and viscerally, at the mere prospect of the latter. "No thank you."
"Yeah no one, (no one is willing to risk that one)," Ilyana mutters.
There's the space to write in your own desired 'dig site' as it were based on whatever information you may be privy to that the Guild is not, but you don't bother with that. Only madmen with money to burn roll the dice like that. No you're much more in the mood for a semi-guaranteed return today, so you settle on one marked as the likeliest to contain no-frills treasure. Gold, jewels, any precious metal really, if it's shiny and it's worth more than its weight in scrap you want it. You do all the necessary signatures in their proper places and the funding is figuratively speaking already in Ilyana's pocket.
"We'll get our best on it right away!" Ilyana says cheerily. You don't know how she keeps up that constant energy level - maybe it's just a natural counterbalance to having such a quiet husband. You bump into the man on the way out, speaking with someone about something or other at the front desk. He's an orc from the Sultanate lowlands, more on the orange side than the local silver-blue, pointed canines rather than full-blown tusks but the same pointed ears, bearded in the way that makes you feel like a twelve-year-old growing his very first chin-hair. You can recognise him in profile just from the prominent nose and turban alone. He notices you pass out of the corner of his eye and raises a hand in greeting, flashing you a smile. You nod in kind, politely curling up the corner of your mouth as you push your way through the doors and back out onto the street.
It's strange to finally think about. Adventurers stake their living, their very lives, on being adaptable. By definition the threats they face are impossible to predict, only possible to plan for and hope for the best. Yet day in day out they venture out beyond the edge of the map and return only lightly scathed. They're admired for it. You? You had one disruption in your daily routine and everything's just sort of cascaded from that until you wound up blundering into the painted backdrop you've been living your life in front of and found the entire rest of the theatre crew having a party backstage you weren't invited to. It reminds you of the time you took a chance too far and ate a deer carcass you'd left for just a bit too long rather than go looking for something fresher. It's this dull ache in your gut, pulsing and uncomfortable.
You need that rest and you need it now. You make a beeline straight for the city exit, barely bothering to make it out of sight before shifting back into your true form and winging your way home to the spire. The fly back, now that's halfway relaxing. That's just you, silence, and the wind flowing over your wings. It'd be perfection if there wasn't exercise involved.
Your spire's looking... good, surprised as you are to say that. Your mother was right (loathe as you are to say that), the Plutocracy know what a dragon wants, and they gave you what you didn't know you wanted. Where once there was naught but rough unworked stone there's now a castle-style gatehouse sunk into the side of the spire, empty for now but you're sure they'll be back with a nice proper gate another day. It's big enough that even in your true form you can clomp your way inside with only a little bit of squeezing. Inside you can tell that the contractors wisely left you as much space in your old lair as possible, doing the majority of the expansion work underground. As you scan the space with your keen eye you can pick out plenty of subtle work, almost on the level of detailing, like a half-finished painting that points to one finished piece - the spire as your castle, with this space as your grand treasure vault and throne room. No one that enters can get anywhere else in the spire without having to gaze upon its magnificence. You'd be a lot more pleased if there was more magnificence to gaze upon but you begrudgingly give them points for effort.
You find Jun-ho, Makram, Belial and Issachar all lined up in unnatural single-file to await you. Jun-ho is in bipedal form, Makram is actually standing on the ground, Belial has a bandage on his chest and Issachar is... holding a plate with a loaf of banana bread on it.
"Good... day," you say somewhat suspiciously, voice dynamically loosing bass and reverb as you shrink down to your bipedal form in kind. "Diiiiid I miss something?"
"N-no, not at all!" Jun-ho says quickly. "Just the contractors coming through! There's even a wine cellar now! For all the wine Makram brought you and everything. They brought it all down there."
"Mm. I was starting to wonder where I would keep all that." You glance at Belial. "Are you alright? What happened?"
"Oh, this? Nothing, it's not as bad as it looks," Belial replies. "Or sounded at the time. I was uh... scratching my chest while walking and I tripped. Claws slipped. I've got hypersensitive skin for obvious reasons so... yeah."
You make to move on, but catch yourself at the last second when something clicks. "So that means when...?"
He waves his hand. "No no, no it's really alright sometimes, especially when I'm ready for it. It's just that if I get caught off-guard I can, hah I can be a real baby about pain."
"He'll be fine, I fixed him up good as new," Issachar joins in. He lifts up the plate. "I was just coming by to give you this when I saw the renovations. It really is starting to look good, isn't it? Another day or two and you'll have a real palace on your hands."
Your eyes slowly narrow to slits. "Why are you all being so eager and nice to me?" you ask suspiciously. "And Makram why haven't you said anything insulting or crass yet?"
"I'm not always on," Markam says snidely. "Sometimes I sleep."
Belial scoffs. "I've seen your dreams, that doesn't count."
"Now don't you start-!"
You take advantage of the commotion to push through between Makram and Belial, double-timing it across your cavern as the argument turns to suddenly-too-anxious questions about why you feel such an overpowering need to check your hoard when there's certainly nothing wrong with it no need to alarm yourself no siree. You do a complete circuit of it, eyes flicking to and fro as you scan every gem, every coin, every crown and pearl, mentally comparing it to the crisp and perfect image in your memory of how you left it.
You stop at the end of your revolution. You slowly drop to your knees and leeeeeean in close, one eye shut and the other peering intently at a single seemingly-unimportant emerald, identical to all the others if you're just a mortal. You think you can actually hear the others sweating behind you, still hoping against hope that you can't tell something was touched.
"This gem is in the wrong place," you say softly. "It's been swapped with the one six inches up and to the right." You slowly straighten up and turn to face them, still standing in that unnatural straight line as if awaiting a firing squad. "Who touched my hoard?"
"It's a long story," Issachar says. "You see-"
"Afoxpersoncameindisguisedasyouandsaidtheymetyouandbeatusallupthenblewupyourtreasurepiletofindthemagicmapandleftandissacharcameintohelpusputitallbacktogetheragainhopingyouwouldn'tnoticewhilewefiguredoutwhattodo," Jun-ho blurts out at blinding speed.
"And now it's a short story," Makram comments.
"Andleftanoteforyou," Jun-ho adds explosively. He glances at the other three. "(I'm sorry I don't like lying.)"
You don't quite know how you feel yet. Emotionally speaking you're balanced on a knife's edge, just waiting for a good hard knock to tip you over one side or the other. The only thing is, you're not quite sure what side means what. You silently hold out your hand, beckoning for the note, and after a moment's hesitation Makram hands it over. You stretch it out between your talons - it looks to be repurposed from the same paper Takara used for their talismans, written with the same brush in the same deft hand.
'Heya! It's yours truly, the terrible Takara! I'm sure you're horribly upset right now, but I'd just like to remind you that I even kept to the spirit of that oath I swore to you rather than just the letter. I didn't take so much as a tin penny from your hoard with me, just the map - and hey, fair's fair, right? I helped save your House, and if what you said about this map is true you just helped me save my love life. And from the size of the tussle I got into trying to grab it, you've already got boyfriends to spare, ya hog.
Don't try and find me, or you'll find out this cute foxie's got claws and fangs just as sharp as yours when it's cornered. Lots of love~
Takara'
The note ends with a cutesy, stylised painting of Takara's fox-eared head blowing you a kiss. You set your lips in a perfectly straight line, jaw clenched, as you stare down at that little ink reproduction of the energetic trickster burglar that both saved your finances and ruined the sanctity of your hoard, again, all within the same twelve-hour period. Slowly, deliberately, you roll it up into a nice neat little scroll and pinch it between two talontips.
"We're all really sorry," says Jun-ho. "We tried our best to stop it, we really did. We only hid it because we knew you'd be upset."
" 'Upset'?" you repeat. "No no. I am far from upset right now. D'you want to know what I am right now? It's-"
A portal opens in mid-air and Abzu leaps through, landing crouched with a wand in each fist, the magical weapons raised over their be-hatted head like clubs. They can't scream a warcry but they've done the best they can, affixing an [AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA] sign to the front of their hat in preparation for their heroic rescue.
(( art by @Camellia ))
They freeze mid-motion as they catch sight of the situation they just barged into. Slowly, slowly, they straighten up and lower the wands, glancing at the lineup of men to one side and you just about to make a dramatic point to the other.
[I may have been a little late] they sign, eyes turning to white '>>'s of awkwardness. A moment later they snatch the warcry sign off their hat and throw it away.
"What, were you in the shower?" Makram needles.
[Yes!]
"I- ugh, nevermind."
"Abzu, hi, nice to see you again," you say flatly.
[Hello Eldingar! Your place looks nice!]
"Yes, thank you Abzu. As I was saying," you pick up the thread, wagging the rolled-up note like your own wand to emphasise the point. "I am not upset. What I am is completely unsurprised, because honestly? This is just about typical for how the past week's been. It's like everywhere I look I find out that all this time, people have been thinking I'm just some easily-fooled idiot they can dance around to their heart's content because they know me and they know how I work."
You pause. Everyone seems to be listening to you with bated breath. Waiting for you to shout. To scream. To cry and blubber and complain and get so worked up that you become utterly useless. To run off to your gold and hunker down and wait for the bad feelings to pass, maybe take off and go eat them away instead. Everything that you always do and have been doing for a hundred years.
"So I'm not going to get angry," you say. "Fuck it. Fuck it, right? You saw that note, Takara's expecting me to come chasing after them because I'm a dragon and I'm me and I should already be tearing off out that door roaring my head off. But I won't. They have the map now?" You shrug, hands slapping against your scaly thighs as they fall. "Fuck it. They're welcome to whatever it shows them, I've got the five of you already and five places left to check, three of which haven't been moving around the past few days. I don't need it."
"Is this the real Eldingar I see before me, or another shapeshifter?" Makram asks.
"Fuck off," you snap, jabbing a talon at him.
"I stand corrected; it really is you, my beautiful baby-blue prince," he replies laconically.
"Then what will you do instead?" Issachar asks. "Bearing in mind that they-" he indicates Jun-ho, Makram and Belial with an inclination of his head "-won't be eager to do anything strenuous in the near future."
[ ] Check the abandoned mansion in the forest you remember being on the map.
[ ] Check the island off the Republic coast you remember being on the map.
[ ] Check Söfnun again which you remember being on the map.
[ ] Check the vague area you remember that one roaming spot near the border being last and try to work from there.
[ ] Check vague area you remember that one roaming spot in the Plutocracy being last and try to work from there.
[ ] Leave it alone for now and try to relax. Take someone out on a date-type thing.
[ ] Forget the whole thing and just have a housewarming party right here, all six of you. You won't be able to pay attention to one of them in particular.
And then there's the question of who you do what with, especially considering that the map was still attuned to you when Takara took it so any spot you pursue from memory could bring you into conflict either accidentally or on purpose.
[ ] Makram. Too worn out from fighting Takara to follow you to a map-spot.
[ ] Jun-ho. Too worn out from fighting Takara to follow you to a map-spot.
[ ] Belial. Not so much 'too worn out' from fighting Takara as pretty much useless in a fight given his sensitivity.
[ ] Abzu. Friendly and quite the powerful wizard, even if the muteness is a bit of an impediment there. You're unsure how they'll do in public. Available to pursue a map-spot.
[ ] Issachar. Still pretending he's just some friendly neighbour but you know damn well there's some secret shit in there that'll invariably come out if you make him tag along somewhere. Available to pursue a map-spot.
"Beg your pardon?" Amina replies, and damn is she ever good at sounding like she doesn't know exactly what you mean.
"You already know exactly what's best and anything I say will only modify it slightly if at all and I'm just..." you grind the heel of your palm against your eyes, as if you could grind the vibrant electric blue right out of them and make this disguise you used to be so quietly proud of actually do its fucking job. "Sick of it. The runaround. Thinking I understand when I don't because nobody will tell me."
You half-turn to face Amina properly, one hand lingering on the window frame. "I need those personal days and I need them right now. I just need to take care of something at the Adventurer's Guild and then I'm needed back at the es-" you sigh as you catch yourself in that stupid, useless, rote like "-at my lair."
"Of course, sir. Shall I arrange transportation?"
"No, no I... need the walk."
The walk doesn't calm you at all. It wasn't really supposed to. You go in your Lord Elding disguise and every step of the way you're staring at people, studying their faces as they pass, as they look at you and quickly look away when they notice you noticing. Men, women, children, from the tallest orc to the most diminutive dwarf, hell you even find yourself scrutinising the stationary constructs like their gemstone eyes will betray any sort of hidden truth. How many of them know? Is it just the upper echelons, a kind of secret-open-secret? Or is it just like Takara said? Are you the entire city's pet dragon, allowed to live in his own little fantasy bubble out of convenience? Thought so defanged that your rivals, your own secretary, would knowingly cross you? It was supposed to mean something dammit and now you're...
You wanted to think 'just like them' but that's not true either. Your whole world thinks you're a joke, some kind of cruel twist on the king's new clothes where everyone was humouring him out of amusement rather than fear. You're a rich, scaly jester and even then the first part of that has been repeatedly in jeopardy the past week. You cannot even put into words how much you want to go home to your freshly-renovated spire and sleep, possibly for three days straight, you'll see how you feel.
The Adventurer's Guild is a grand old hunting-lodge-type affair, situated right on the wharf with its own personal dock for ease of accessing the Beyond. There's usually a fairly steady trickle of people coming to and fro, no end of fans willing to hang around the attached open-air restaurant hoping to catch some higher-profile pioneers taking a load off before or fresh off some expedition or another. Others hanging around the claim boards to speculate on finds, whether for fun or for some cold hard cash on the side. You're the sort that gambles for keeps, officially - as such the front desk lets you in immediately and before you know it you're off to one of the VIP rooms, reclining in a plush leather chair with a roaring fire beside you. No taxidermy kills thankfully, those are a bit tacky these days.
"Lovely to see you again, Lord Elding!" One half of the proprietors enters and takes a seat opposite you - Ilyana al-Mullaqati, took the place over with her husband Uptil two years ago and you've seen plenty of her since. You don't quite recall what got them out of the game on a fieldwork level, something about a hydra, you never asked and they never told. She's small and lean like a whipcord, the archer type back in the day and you doubt she's let it all go to rust, twin blonde braids framing a face that still hasn't lost its deep explorer's tan. "All well?"
You try to dial down the look you shoot her from 'filthy' to 'neutral'. "Mm," you say diplomatically. She seems to get the hint and hands you your personal ledger, leaving you to sit back and crack the spine.
It's well-kept as ever, claims that may be of interest to you based on your previous dealings recorded neatly within the pages and progressively crossed off as more interested buyers finally take precedence over waiting and hoping you'll foot the bill. It's a system so simple it's almost prehistoric, but when it works it works - the Beyond only re-seeds itself once it's no longer observed, and the easiest way to keep it observed is to just leave a person or three there. Certainly more cost-effective than Abzu's setup. Trained survivalists like a guild adventurer can keep a particularly juicy claim locked down for months or more, the proverbial guardian at the gates. Sometimes literally, when the claim includes a first-civilisation ruin. Those in the 'biz' usually call claims 'dungeons' for whatever reason.
"What's this one?" you ask, tapping the one messily-written entry. Ilyana cranes her neck to read it upside-down.
"Oh, that. That one's up north, above the cloud layer. The Sending we received was a bit garbled by the distance and for the life of us no one could rightly say if our pioneer was saying it was an 'infinite cloud maze' or an 'infinite clown maze'."
You shudder, deeply and viscerally, at the mere prospect of the latter. "No thank you."
"Yeah no one, (no one is willing to risk that one)," Ilyana mutters.
There's the space to write in your own desired 'dig site' as it were based on whatever information you may be privy to that the Guild is not, but you don't bother with that. Only madmen with money to burn roll the dice like that. No you're much more in the mood for a semi-guaranteed return today, so you settle on one marked as the likeliest to contain no-frills treasure. Gold, jewels, any precious metal really, if it's shiny and it's worth more than its weight in scrap you want it. You do all the necessary signatures in their proper places and the funding is figuratively speaking already in Ilyana's pocket.
"We'll get our best on it right away!" Ilyana says cheerily. You don't know how she keeps up that constant energy level - maybe it's just a natural counterbalance to having such a quiet husband. You bump into the man on the way out, speaking with someone about something or other at the front desk. He's an orc from the Sultanate lowlands, more on the orange side than the local silver-blue, pointed canines rather than full-blown tusks but the same pointed ears, bearded in the way that makes you feel like a twelve-year-old growing his very first chin-hair. You can recognise him in profile just from the prominent nose and turban alone. He notices you pass out of the corner of his eye and raises a hand in greeting, flashing you a smile. You nod in kind, politely curling up the corner of your mouth as you push your way through the doors and back out onto the street.
It's strange to finally think about. Adventurers stake their living, their very lives, on being adaptable. By definition the threats they face are impossible to predict, only possible to plan for and hope for the best. Yet day in day out they venture out beyond the edge of the map and return only lightly scathed. They're admired for it. You? You had one disruption in your daily routine and everything's just sort of cascaded from that until you wound up blundering into the painted backdrop you've been living your life in front of and found the entire rest of the theatre crew having a party backstage you weren't invited to. It reminds you of the time you took a chance too far and ate a deer carcass you'd left for just a bit too long rather than go looking for something fresher. It's this dull ache in your gut, pulsing and uncomfortable.
You need that rest and you need it now. You make a beeline straight for the city exit, barely bothering to make it out of sight before shifting back into your true form and winging your way home to the spire. The fly back, now that's halfway relaxing. That's just you, silence, and the wind flowing over your wings. It'd be perfection if there wasn't exercise involved.
Your spire's looking... good, surprised as you are to say that. Your mother was right (loathe as you are to say that), the Plutocracy know what a dragon wants, and they gave you what you didn't know you wanted. Where once there was naught but rough unworked stone there's now a castle-style gatehouse sunk into the side of the spire, empty for now but you're sure they'll be back with a nice proper gate another day. It's big enough that even in your true form you can clomp your way inside with only a little bit of squeezing. Inside you can tell that the contractors wisely left you as much space in your old lair as possible, doing the majority of the expansion work underground. As you scan the space with your keen eye you can pick out plenty of subtle work, almost on the level of detailing, like a half-finished painting that points to one finished piece - the spire as your castle, with this space as your grand treasure vault and throne room. No one that enters can get anywhere else in the spire without having to gaze upon its magnificence. You'd be a lot more pleased if there was more magnificence to gaze upon but you begrudgingly give them points for effort.
You find Jun-ho, Makram, Belial and Issachar all lined up in unnatural single-file to await you. Jun-ho is in bipedal form, Makram is actually standing on the ground, Belial has a bandage on his chest and Issachar is... holding a plate with a loaf of banana bread on it.
"Good... day," you say somewhat suspiciously, voice dynamically loosing bass and reverb as you shrink down to your bipedal form in kind. "Diiiiid I miss something?"
"N-no, not at all!" Jun-ho says quickly. "Just the contractors coming through! There's even a wine cellar now! For all the wine Makram brought you and everything. They brought it all down there."
"Mm. I was starting to wonder where I would keep all that." You glance at Belial. "Are you alright? What happened?"
"Oh, this? Nothing, it's not as bad as it looks," Belial replies. "Or sounded at the time. I was uh... scratching my chest while walking and I tripped. Claws slipped. I've got hypersensitive skin for obvious reasons so... yeah."
You make to move on, but catch yourself at the last second when something clicks. "So that means when...?"
He waves his hand. "No no, no it's really alright sometimes, especially when I'm ready for it. It's just that if I get caught off-guard I can, hah I can be a real baby about pain."
"He'll be fine, I fixed him up good as new," Issachar joins in. He lifts up the plate. "I was just coming by to give you this when I saw the renovations. It really is starting to look good, isn't it? Another day or two and you'll have a real palace on your hands."
Your eyes slowly narrow to slits. "Why are you all being so eager and nice to me?" you ask suspiciously. "And Makram why haven't you said anything insulting or crass yet?"
"I'm not always on," Markam says snidely. "Sometimes I sleep."
Belial scoffs. "I've seen your dreams, that doesn't count."
"Now don't you start-!"
You take advantage of the commotion to push through between Makram and Belial, double-timing it across your cavern as the argument turns to suddenly-too-anxious questions about why you feel such an overpowering need to check your hoard when there's certainly nothing wrong with it no need to alarm yourself no siree. You do a complete circuit of it, eyes flicking to and fro as you scan every gem, every coin, every crown and pearl, mentally comparing it to the crisp and perfect image in your memory of how you left it.
You stop at the end of your revolution. You slowly drop to your knees and leeeeeean in close, one eye shut and the other peering intently at a single seemingly-unimportant emerald, identical to all the others if you're just a mortal. You think you can actually hear the others sweating behind you, still hoping against hope that you can't tell something was touched.
"This gem is in the wrong place," you say softly. "It's been swapped with the one six inches up and to the right." You slowly straighten up and turn to face them, still standing in that unnatural straight line as if awaiting a firing squad. "Who touched my hoard?"
"It's a long story," Issachar says. "You see-"
"Afoxpersoncameindisguisedasyouandsaidtheymetyouandbeatusallupthenblewupyourtreasurepiletofindthemagicmapandleftandissacharcameintohelpusputitallbacktogetheragainhopingyouwouldn'tnoticewhilewefiguredoutwhattodo," Jun-ho blurts out at blinding speed.
"And now it's a short story," Makram comments.
"Andleftanoteforyou," Jun-ho adds explosively. He glances at the other three. "(I'm sorry I don't like lying.)"
You don't quite know how you feel yet. Emotionally speaking you're balanced on a knife's edge, just waiting for a good hard knock to tip you over one side or the other. The only thing is, you're not quite sure what side means what. You silently hold out your hand, beckoning for the note, and after a moment's hesitation Makram hands it over. You stretch it out between your talons - it looks to be repurposed from the same paper Takara used for their talismans, written with the same brush in the same deft hand.
'Heya! It's yours truly, the terrible Takara! I'm sure you're horribly upset right now, but I'd just like to remind you that I even kept to the spirit of that oath I swore to you rather than just the letter. I didn't take so much as a tin penny from your hoard with me, just the map - and hey, fair's fair, right? I helped save your House, and if what you said about this map is true you just helped me save my love life. And from the size of the tussle I got into trying to grab it, you've already got boyfriends to spare, ya hog.
Don't try and find me, or you'll find out this cute foxie's got claws and fangs just as sharp as yours when it's cornered. Lots of love~
Takara'
The note ends with a cutesy, stylised painting of Takara's fox-eared head blowing you a kiss. You set your lips in a perfectly straight line, jaw clenched, as you stare down at that little ink reproduction of the energetic trickster burglar that both saved your finances and ruined the sanctity of your hoard, again, all within the same twelve-hour period. Slowly, deliberately, you roll it up into a nice neat little scroll and pinch it between two talontips.
"We're all really sorry," says Jun-ho. "We tried our best to stop it, we really did. We only hid it because we knew you'd be upset."
" 'Upset'?" you repeat. "No no. I am far from upset right now. D'you want to know what I am right now? It's-"
A portal opens in mid-air and Abzu leaps through, landing crouched with a wand in each fist, the magical weapons raised over their be-hatted head like clubs. They can't scream a warcry but they've done the best they can, affixing an [AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA] sign to the front of their hat in preparation for their heroic rescue.
(( art by @Camellia ))
They freeze mid-motion as they catch sight of the situation they just barged into. Slowly, slowly, they straighten up and lower the wands, glancing at the lineup of men to one side and you just about to make a dramatic point to the other.
[I may have been a little late] they sign, eyes turning to white '>>'s of awkwardness. A moment later they snatch the warcry sign off their hat and throw it away.
"What, were you in the shower?" Makram needles.
[Yes!]
"I- ugh, nevermind."
"Abzu, hi, nice to see you again," you say flatly.
[Hello Eldingar! Your place looks nice!]
"Yes, thank you Abzu. As I was saying," you pick up the thread, wagging the rolled-up note like your own wand to emphasise the point. "I am not upset. What I am is completely unsurprised, because honestly? This is just about typical for how the past week's been. It's like everywhere I look I find out that all this time, people have been thinking I'm just some easily-fooled idiot they can dance around to their heart's content because they know me and they know how I work."
You pause. Everyone seems to be listening to you with bated breath. Waiting for you to shout. To scream. To cry and blubber and complain and get so worked up that you become utterly useless. To run off to your gold and hunker down and wait for the bad feelings to pass, maybe take off and go eat them away instead. Everything that you always do and have been doing for a hundred years.
"So I'm not going to get angry," you say. "Fuck it. Fuck it, right? You saw that note, Takara's expecting me to come chasing after them because I'm a dragon and I'm me and I should already be tearing off out that door roaring my head off. But I won't. They have the map now?" You shrug, hands slapping against your scaly thighs as they fall. "Fuck it. They're welcome to whatever it shows them, I've got the five of you already and five places left to check, three of which haven't been moving around the past few days. I don't need it."
"Is this the real Eldingar I see before me, or another shapeshifter?" Makram asks.
"Fuck off," you snap, jabbing a talon at him.
"I stand corrected; it really is you, my beautiful baby-blue prince," he replies laconically.
"Then what will you do instead?" Issachar asks. "Bearing in mind that they-" he indicates Jun-ho, Makram and Belial with an inclination of his head "-won't be eager to do anything strenuous in the near future."
[ ] Check the abandoned mansion in the forest you remember being on the map.
[ ] Check the island off the Republic coast you remember being on the map.
[ ] Check Söfnun again which you remember being on the map.
[ ] Check the vague area you remember that one roaming spot near the border being last and try to work from there.
[ ] Check vague area you remember that one roaming spot in the Plutocracy being last and try to work from there.
[ ] Leave it alone for now and try to relax. Take someone out on a date-type thing.
[ ] Forget the whole thing and just have a housewarming party right here, all six of you. You won't be able to pay attention to one of them in particular.
And then there's the question of who you do what with, especially considering that the map was still attuned to you when Takara took it so any spot you pursue from memory could bring you into conflict either accidentally or on purpose.
[ ] Makram. Too worn out from fighting Takara to follow you to a map-spot.
[ ] Jun-ho. Too worn out from fighting Takara to follow you to a map-spot.
[ ] Belial. Not so much 'too worn out' from fighting Takara as pretty much useless in a fight given his sensitivity.
[ ] Abzu. Friendly and quite the powerful wizard, even if the muteness is a bit of an impediment there. You're unsure how they'll do in public. Available to pursue a map-spot.
[ ] Issachar. Still pretending he's just some friendly neighbour but you know damn well there's some secret shit in there that'll invariably come out if you make him tag along somewhere. Available to pursue a map-spot.
Last edited:
