Post by Tom M on Dec 5, 2023 17:55:35 GMT
After the events of It Had To Be This Way, written collaboratively with Jaz and Harry with help from Ian
Very kindly compiled by Jaz
Keros drags a mud and vine-covered headstone, the bottom half still with the occasional earthworm squirming on it, into the Gossamer Threads Tea Rooms. Raine and Rae trail in behind him, the latter quickly casting prestidigitation on the dirty part of the headstone as it reaches the floor of the establishment out of anxiousness.
“Good morning. Do you have any private rooms available?”
The staff member manning the till opens his mouth in protest at what the customers just dragged in, but he quickly shuts up when he recognises Keros and Rae’s faces. “The Serious Business Room is available,” he says, grumbling as he writes on the booking ledger.
An hour passes as Keros, Rae, and Raine wait in the private room. All the tea and food they had ordered are finished by now. But just before reaching a time for concern, the door opens and a breathless Jaezred slips inside.
“Apologies for my tardiness. Did something happen?”
Keros rolls his eyes, “Probably nothing. Did we mention that an elf named Retrieval tried to take my shield a while ago and then turned into birds? Well, we saw them again. Rae thinks we need to talk to you about it.”
Rae gives him The Look and then looks at Jaezred. “Retrieval returned, along with one of their siblings, Annihilation. A Pit Fiend. And they are claiming more and more worrying connections to Keros.”
“A pit fiend? Are you alright, then?” Jaezred’s gaze studies each of the people in the room as he leans forward on the table, and when he finds only acid burn marks, he looks puzzled. “Where did this encounter happen?”
Keros averts his eyes from The Look. “Var'Hashatt. A village that used to be near Nrav’Garat. South of Zot Goran.”
“Used to? I take it the village did not survive the pit fiend’s visit.”
“The villagers were all dead when we arrived. Some kind of cult to a big stinking blob in a well. The fiend seemed intent on removing evidence of what had happened.”
Jaezred blinks a few times. “Sorry, roll back. Big stinking blob?”
Keros’s eyes light up as Jaezred focuses on this part of the story. “I don’t know how else to describe it. Big… stinking, green, full of bones… Got bigger when it ate people?” He turns to Rae and Raine. “Am I missing anything?”
Rae nods along with the description, but gives Keros another look of we’ll get back to that bit later before carrying on. “Pretty much spot on. A large acidic ooze. Very powerful. Not your typical gelatinous cube. I hit it with one of the strongest spells in my book and it took it like nothing. If it wasn’t for Annihilation showing up, we may not have made it out as well off as we did.”
“Was it green? Found inside another creature?”
“Green, yes, and initially was inside the villagers. The big one came out of the well in the centre of town. And I think there was a hole at the bottom of the well it came through,” Rae says. “Do you think you know what this is?”
“A hole… Let me guess, one inch in diameter?” Jaezred sighs. “You just had the pleasure of meeting Something Corrupt. We’ve been wondering where It had gone. What’s the damage? How many did It kill?”
“An entire village, as far as we could tell. We understand it was corrupt, but does it have a name?” Keros asks.
“Straj. I suppose we got lucky the last time, if it could wipe out an entire village like that.” Cursing under his breath, Jaezred summons his tome of witchcraft and begins furiously scribbling something. “Its name — we do not know. Not for any of Them. We’ve been calling them Somethings.” He pauses when he finishes writing, lifting his quill pen from the page and staring down at the book, as if waiting for something. In the meantime, he peers up at Keros, Rae, and Raine again. “How does the pit fiend fit into this again?”
“Dropped out of the sky and killed it. If we had known that that ooze had some kind of significance, we could have asked more useful questions as it seemed to know things,” Keros muses.
“It also claimed to be ‘Pactsworn and Oathbound’ just as Retrieval did. And claimed to know the previous owner of Keros’s shield. The whole reason we were in the village was trying to find the shield’s origin,” Rae adds.
“Killed… the Something?” Jaezred sounds sceptical as he resumes writing in the tome. “I’m not sure if that which does not have life could be killed. But I suppose we can tentatively consider it neutralised for now. So the pit fiend came to retrieve the shield along with Retrieval, and was forced to fight Something Corrupt?”
“Other way around, from what they said. Kept saying ‘you’re not supposed to be here’ to me in particular,” says Keros.
“The Thousand Words seem to only do what they are. Retrieval came for the shield. Annihilation came to destroy the village,” says Rae.
Keros thinks for a second, “Rae, what’s that spell you do when you speak into my head with twenty words or whatever?”
“Sending. Why?” They tilt their head to one side.
“If they know what that Something was… could you just ask them? I don’t know how this works,” Keros ventures, his voice reflecting his complete lack of understanding of what he’s talking about.
Rae raises an eyebrow, then thinks for a moment before looking to Jaezred. “Any chance that you know of ill consequences from sending to a pit fiend?”
“None aside from having to speak to a pit fiend… Besides, you are safe here in a private room.” He makes a gesture at the walls around them. “Anti-divination wards.”
Rae nods, trusting the feeling of security in Gossamer Threads. They open up their spellbook and move their fingers across the inscriptions of the sending spell, hoping to reach Annihilation. “We met in Var’Hashatt. We also want to destroy the ooze and its kin. What are their true names? We can aid each other.”
They wait a minute, and then another. There is no answer. They’re not sure whether the message has even reached its destination. They furrow their brow in frustration before looking up at the others. “Nothing. I don’t think it’s in the mood for helping us out.”
Jaezred had been staring intently at Rae as they casted the spell. “Hmph,” is all he says to the lack of reply. “Did Annihilation say why he came to kill the Something or why he had to destroy the evidence?”
“No. Just some cryptic nonsense about it is not ‘supposed’ to be there,” answers Keros. “I did most of the talking and a poor job of it apparently. We had no idea that the creature had some kind of wider significance at the time or I might have asked better questions. Jaezred, what is it you know about it?”
“He’s right about that.” Jaezred pulls up a chair to sit in, his gaze seeming distant and pensive. “The Somethings are aspects of existence. Corruption, loneliness, violence, darkness, various phobias. They were not supposed to have been agitated in this way, to be so active in their wreaking of misery and destruction. It was but a collection of unfortunate misfortunes.”
“Huh… so they are each… a word?”
“Well, I believe they possess no conception of language as we do. It would be more accurate to describe them as horrors made manifest. I know this sounds no less cryptic than what the pit fiend told you, but such is the nature of trying to explain existence in measly mortal-words. Like describing colour to a blind man.” Jaezred thumbs through the pages of his tome slowly. “I can tell you two things of certainty. First: each Something is different and solitary, and they seem to burrow in and out of the places unlucky enough to receive their visit; you’d know one was there if you see an inch-wide hole in the ground. Second: we know Something Buried is currently somewhere near Vorsthold, causing such trouble for the local illithids that the illithids’ movements are spooking the Vorstborn. Little did the dwarves know that they’re in the path of something even more dangerous than a mind flayer colony.”
“Currently, as if it arrived recently? So we should be keeping an eye on Vorsthold, then… What do we know about Something Buried? Anything?” Rae looks to Jaezred, resting their head on their hands with fingers linked, deep in thought.
“It’s as it says on the tin. It likes to bury creatures and objects in earth, representing the fear of being buried alive. When the walls close in on you, when piles and piles of earth are pouring in from nowhere, swallowing everything up — you know it’s there. We think it takes the form of a neothelid.”
Rae winces at the thought. “That’s really not good. Is there anything we can do to halt its emergence? Draw it away from Vorsthold at all?”
Keros adds, “Is this something we can’t just, you know, kill?”
“I wish it was that simple. We’ve been trying to look into ways of pacifying Something Buried. Nothing feels feasible so far.” Jaezred pauses to sigh again, waving his tome away into the aether. “Anyway, the corollary here is that the Thousand Words seem to belong to a small but persistently annoying group of people — those who take it upon themselves to maintain ‘balance’ in the universe. Or some nebulous concept like that. Which brings us back to: how are they connected to you?”
He looks at the headstone leaning against the wall and frowns when he notices the specks of dirt it had shed onto the carpet.
Keros opens his mouth to change the subject back, catches a glance from Rae, and rolls his eyes. He walks over to the headstone. “So this pit fiend kept saying I smell like one of their number called ‘Devotion’. He then pointed us at the graveyard, where we found… this.”
With a grunt of effort Keros hefts the headstone onto the table, which creaks for a second, and then collapses into a pile of splintered wood. He silently stares at it for a short while. “Yeah that’s on me. Sorry. But you can still read it.”
“That’s coming out of your wallet.”
“Fair.”
Jaezred squints at the thing that just wrecked his precious oak table. “Hyppolite… Pactsworn. Oathbound. A foremother you never knew, I take it?”
“It’s certainly possible, but there’s no need to waste any more time on my self-indulgence, not after I risked everyone’s lives and broke your table.” Keros gestures to the rune of Zariel above Hyppolite’s name. “That is the real concern here. If this group is connected to the Vanguard, that is what we should be worried about.”
“That makes no sense. Why would a Cult of Zariel be concerned with the Something Corrupt?”
“If there’s one thing we can learn from my nation’s history, it is that Zariel is prepared to do long-term plans.”
“But what is the Thousand Words’ current connection to K’ul Goran except, well, you? If you’re truly concerned that they’ve got something to do with the Vanguard, then you’ve got to start by investigating your family history.”
“I doubt that the situation hinges on one washed-up soldier, Jaezred, but maybe an ancestor might be more important.” Keros sighs deeply. “I have to talk to my father, don’t I?”
Jaezred crosses his legs and rests his hands on his knee. “There is no way to avoid this, son. You’ve got to face your history.”
“Don’t call me son.” Keros glances at Rae. “It makes this weird.”
Jaezred’s cheeks go red and he sputters out something incomprehensible.
Keros lifts a stack of dusty ledger books and puts them awkwardly on the pile of muddy stone and handcrafted firewood. “We also have these to go through. Looking forward to that.”
“Here, give me one,” the drow lord says, extending a hand. “Let’s go through them together.”
Keros smiles. “Thanks, I really appreciate it.”
The ledgers from Var’Hashatt are not particularly thrilling reading material. They consist of a harvest ledger that tracks the village crop yield for many decades and a births and deaths register that is essentially a long list of names of villagers having born and died, and when. The register appears to be a stand-in for a village chronicle, reaching back for centuries, and has been lovingly maintained by generations of now-forgotten mayors of Var’Hashatt. It is here that they make a discovery.
The name Pactsworn appears exactly twice in the book. The earlier entry, several generations ago, marks the birth of Aias Pactsworn. This name is familiar to Keros — it is the family progenitor his father Yurii mentioned on his better days, who had ventured into the then untamed East to build a farmstead and build the family’s fortune; in later years, Yurii focused more on the perceived shame of the Pactsworns not being able to trace their line back to one of those noble lines engraved on the Menhir of Ancestors, where Keros swore his solemn oath on the night before the Battle of Zot Goran.
The second mention of a Pactsworn happens several years later: Hyppolite Pactsworn is listed as having died. There is no entry of her birth in the village. No record of who her partner — Aias’s father — was.
After a bit of back and forth discussion, Keros manages to sound hopeful. “So we need the records at Zokros and, in theory, there’s no need to speak to Yurii. That would make things easier.”
“Do you dread speaking to your father that much?” Jaezred asks. “I understand more than you think, I’d tried to kill mine several times — unsuccessfully, alas. But surely this is important enough to set aside animosity for one conversation? What happened between the two of you?”
Keros grits his teeth. “I know I’m not the only one with family problems in this room. I sometimes wonder if that’s why… Never mind. Anyway, he told me that if I joined the Legion, I was never to return.” He looks at Rae. “He’s a bitter old man and he wouldn’t like you at all, but I suppose you’d have something to thank him for. The Legion put it to good use, but that’s not where I learned how to take punishment and keep standing. In any case, after all these years, I don’t think he’d even accept my apology.”
Rae looks up at Keros, having considered their words in silence for a considerable amount of time before answering. “Darling. I will not make you do anything you’re uncomfortable with. The choice has to come from you first. We will look into the records in Zokros first and see what comes of it. But I know you, Keros, and I know the thing you want least is for other people to get hurt. It is one of your most noble qualities. And we need to solve this for more than just your sake. Retrieval will be back, and potentially nine-hundred and ninety nine others. We’ve met two of them and they’ve both been incredibly powerful individuals. They could’ve hurt our Crow. They could’ve hurt Raine. And those two aren’t the only friends of yours that will want to help. We have a lot of friends that will put a lot of effort into helping you, it’s your responsibility to put all of your effort into this too. But I promise you I will help you out at every step.”
Keros closes his eyes for a second. “You’re right, this isn’t just about me. I need to do whatever it takes.” He smiles warmly at the gesture of support and reaches out to squeeze Rae’s hand gently. “We need to do whatever it takes. But not right away. With all these acid burns, I would not want to be walking straight into another fight, if it’s all the same to you. Have we earned some time off?”
Jaezred stands up, drops the thick harvest ledger onto the headstone, and rebuttons his jacket. “Go home. Rest. Recuperate. Strategise. And get that rock out of here.”
Very kindly compiled by Jaz
Keros drags a mud and vine-covered headstone, the bottom half still with the occasional earthworm squirming on it, into the Gossamer Threads Tea Rooms. Raine and Rae trail in behind him, the latter quickly casting prestidigitation on the dirty part of the headstone as it reaches the floor of the establishment out of anxiousness.
“Good morning. Do you have any private rooms available?”
The staff member manning the till opens his mouth in protest at what the customers just dragged in, but he quickly shuts up when he recognises Keros and Rae’s faces. “The Serious Business Room is available,” he says, grumbling as he writes on the booking ledger.
An hour passes as Keros, Rae, and Raine wait in the private room. All the tea and food they had ordered are finished by now. But just before reaching a time for concern, the door opens and a breathless Jaezred slips inside.
“Apologies for my tardiness. Did something happen?”
Keros rolls his eyes, “Probably nothing. Did we mention that an elf named Retrieval tried to take my shield a while ago and then turned into birds? Well, we saw them again. Rae thinks we need to talk to you about it.”
Rae gives him The Look and then looks at Jaezred. “Retrieval returned, along with one of their siblings, Annihilation. A Pit Fiend. And they are claiming more and more worrying connections to Keros.”
“A pit fiend? Are you alright, then?” Jaezred’s gaze studies each of the people in the room as he leans forward on the table, and when he finds only acid burn marks, he looks puzzled. “Where did this encounter happen?”
Keros averts his eyes from The Look. “Var'Hashatt. A village that used to be near Nrav’Garat. South of Zot Goran.”
“Used to? I take it the village did not survive the pit fiend’s visit.”
“The villagers were all dead when we arrived. Some kind of cult to a big stinking blob in a well. The fiend seemed intent on removing evidence of what had happened.”
Jaezred blinks a few times. “Sorry, roll back. Big stinking blob?”
Keros’s eyes light up as Jaezred focuses on this part of the story. “I don’t know how else to describe it. Big… stinking, green, full of bones… Got bigger when it ate people?” He turns to Rae and Raine. “Am I missing anything?”
Rae nods along with the description, but gives Keros another look of we’ll get back to that bit later before carrying on. “Pretty much spot on. A large acidic ooze. Very powerful. Not your typical gelatinous cube. I hit it with one of the strongest spells in my book and it took it like nothing. If it wasn’t for Annihilation showing up, we may not have made it out as well off as we did.”
“Was it green? Found inside another creature?”
“Green, yes, and initially was inside the villagers. The big one came out of the well in the centre of town. And I think there was a hole at the bottom of the well it came through,” Rae says. “Do you think you know what this is?”
“A hole… Let me guess, one inch in diameter?” Jaezred sighs. “You just had the pleasure of meeting Something Corrupt. We’ve been wondering where It had gone. What’s the damage? How many did It kill?”
“An entire village, as far as we could tell. We understand it was corrupt, but does it have a name?” Keros asks.
“Straj. I suppose we got lucky the last time, if it could wipe out an entire village like that.” Cursing under his breath, Jaezred summons his tome of witchcraft and begins furiously scribbling something. “Its name — we do not know. Not for any of Them. We’ve been calling them Somethings.” He pauses when he finishes writing, lifting his quill pen from the page and staring down at the book, as if waiting for something. In the meantime, he peers up at Keros, Rae, and Raine again. “How does the pit fiend fit into this again?”
“Dropped out of the sky and killed it. If we had known that that ooze had some kind of significance, we could have asked more useful questions as it seemed to know things,” Keros muses.
“It also claimed to be ‘Pactsworn and Oathbound’ just as Retrieval did. And claimed to know the previous owner of Keros’s shield. The whole reason we were in the village was trying to find the shield’s origin,” Rae adds.
“Killed… the Something?” Jaezred sounds sceptical as he resumes writing in the tome. “I’m not sure if that which does not have life could be killed. But I suppose we can tentatively consider it neutralised for now. So the pit fiend came to retrieve the shield along with Retrieval, and was forced to fight Something Corrupt?”
“Other way around, from what they said. Kept saying ‘you’re not supposed to be here’ to me in particular,” says Keros.
“The Thousand Words seem to only do what they are. Retrieval came for the shield. Annihilation came to destroy the village,” says Rae.
Keros thinks for a second, “Rae, what’s that spell you do when you speak into my head with twenty words or whatever?”
“Sending. Why?” They tilt their head to one side.
“If they know what that Something was… could you just ask them? I don’t know how this works,” Keros ventures, his voice reflecting his complete lack of understanding of what he’s talking about.
Rae raises an eyebrow, then thinks for a moment before looking to Jaezred. “Any chance that you know of ill consequences from sending to a pit fiend?”
“None aside from having to speak to a pit fiend… Besides, you are safe here in a private room.” He makes a gesture at the walls around them. “Anti-divination wards.”
Rae nods, trusting the feeling of security in Gossamer Threads. They open up their spellbook and move their fingers across the inscriptions of the sending spell, hoping to reach Annihilation. “We met in Var’Hashatt. We also want to destroy the ooze and its kin. What are their true names? We can aid each other.”
They wait a minute, and then another. There is no answer. They’re not sure whether the message has even reached its destination. They furrow their brow in frustration before looking up at the others. “Nothing. I don’t think it’s in the mood for helping us out.”
Jaezred had been staring intently at Rae as they casted the spell. “Hmph,” is all he says to the lack of reply. “Did Annihilation say why he came to kill the Something or why he had to destroy the evidence?”
“No. Just some cryptic nonsense about it is not ‘supposed’ to be there,” answers Keros. “I did most of the talking and a poor job of it apparently. We had no idea that the creature had some kind of wider significance at the time or I might have asked better questions. Jaezred, what is it you know about it?”
“He’s right about that.” Jaezred pulls up a chair to sit in, his gaze seeming distant and pensive. “The Somethings are aspects of existence. Corruption, loneliness, violence, darkness, various phobias. They were not supposed to have been agitated in this way, to be so active in their wreaking of misery and destruction. It was but a collection of unfortunate misfortunes.”
“Huh… so they are each… a word?”
“Well, I believe they possess no conception of language as we do. It would be more accurate to describe them as horrors made manifest. I know this sounds no less cryptic than what the pit fiend told you, but such is the nature of trying to explain existence in measly mortal-words. Like describing colour to a blind man.” Jaezred thumbs through the pages of his tome slowly. “I can tell you two things of certainty. First: each Something is different and solitary, and they seem to burrow in and out of the places unlucky enough to receive their visit; you’d know one was there if you see an inch-wide hole in the ground. Second: we know Something Buried is currently somewhere near Vorsthold, causing such trouble for the local illithids that the illithids’ movements are spooking the Vorstborn. Little did the dwarves know that they’re in the path of something even more dangerous than a mind flayer colony.”
“Currently, as if it arrived recently? So we should be keeping an eye on Vorsthold, then… What do we know about Something Buried? Anything?” Rae looks to Jaezred, resting their head on their hands with fingers linked, deep in thought.
“It’s as it says on the tin. It likes to bury creatures and objects in earth, representing the fear of being buried alive. When the walls close in on you, when piles and piles of earth are pouring in from nowhere, swallowing everything up — you know it’s there. We think it takes the form of a neothelid.”
Rae winces at the thought. “That’s really not good. Is there anything we can do to halt its emergence? Draw it away from Vorsthold at all?”
Keros adds, “Is this something we can’t just, you know, kill?”
“I wish it was that simple. We’ve been trying to look into ways of pacifying Something Buried. Nothing feels feasible so far.” Jaezred pauses to sigh again, waving his tome away into the aether. “Anyway, the corollary here is that the Thousand Words seem to belong to a small but persistently annoying group of people — those who take it upon themselves to maintain ‘balance’ in the universe. Or some nebulous concept like that. Which brings us back to: how are they connected to you?”
He looks at the headstone leaning against the wall and frowns when he notices the specks of dirt it had shed onto the carpet.
Keros opens his mouth to change the subject back, catches a glance from Rae, and rolls his eyes. He walks over to the headstone. “So this pit fiend kept saying I smell like one of their number called ‘Devotion’. He then pointed us at the graveyard, where we found… this.”
With a grunt of effort Keros hefts the headstone onto the table, which creaks for a second, and then collapses into a pile of splintered wood. He silently stares at it for a short while. “Yeah that’s on me. Sorry. But you can still read it.”
“That’s coming out of your wallet.”
“Fair.”
Jaezred squints at the thing that just wrecked his precious oak table. “Hyppolite… Pactsworn. Oathbound. A foremother you never knew, I take it?”
“It’s certainly possible, but there’s no need to waste any more time on my self-indulgence, not after I risked everyone’s lives and broke your table.” Keros gestures to the rune of Zariel above Hyppolite’s name. “That is the real concern here. If this group is connected to the Vanguard, that is what we should be worried about.”
“That makes no sense. Why would a Cult of Zariel be concerned with the Something Corrupt?”
“If there’s one thing we can learn from my nation’s history, it is that Zariel is prepared to do long-term plans.”
“But what is the Thousand Words’ current connection to K’ul Goran except, well, you? If you’re truly concerned that they’ve got something to do with the Vanguard, then you’ve got to start by investigating your family history.”
“I doubt that the situation hinges on one washed-up soldier, Jaezred, but maybe an ancestor might be more important.” Keros sighs deeply. “I have to talk to my father, don’t I?”
Jaezred crosses his legs and rests his hands on his knee. “There is no way to avoid this, son. You’ve got to face your history.”
“Don’t call me son.” Keros glances at Rae. “It makes this weird.”
Jaezred’s cheeks go red and he sputters out something incomprehensible.
Keros lifts a stack of dusty ledger books and puts them awkwardly on the pile of muddy stone and handcrafted firewood. “We also have these to go through. Looking forward to that.”
“Here, give me one,” the drow lord says, extending a hand. “Let’s go through them together.”
Keros smiles. “Thanks, I really appreciate it.”
The ledgers from Var’Hashatt are not particularly thrilling reading material. They consist of a harvest ledger that tracks the village crop yield for many decades and a births and deaths register that is essentially a long list of names of villagers having born and died, and when. The register appears to be a stand-in for a village chronicle, reaching back for centuries, and has been lovingly maintained by generations of now-forgotten mayors of Var’Hashatt. It is here that they make a discovery.
The name Pactsworn appears exactly twice in the book. The earlier entry, several generations ago, marks the birth of Aias Pactsworn. This name is familiar to Keros — it is the family progenitor his father Yurii mentioned on his better days, who had ventured into the then untamed East to build a farmstead and build the family’s fortune; in later years, Yurii focused more on the perceived shame of the Pactsworns not being able to trace their line back to one of those noble lines engraved on the Menhir of Ancestors, where Keros swore his solemn oath on the night before the Battle of Zot Goran.
The second mention of a Pactsworn happens several years later: Hyppolite Pactsworn is listed as having died. There is no entry of her birth in the village. No record of who her partner — Aias’s father — was.
After a bit of back and forth discussion, Keros manages to sound hopeful. “So we need the records at Zokros and, in theory, there’s no need to speak to Yurii. That would make things easier.”
“Do you dread speaking to your father that much?” Jaezred asks. “I understand more than you think, I’d tried to kill mine several times — unsuccessfully, alas. But surely this is important enough to set aside animosity for one conversation? What happened between the two of you?”
Keros grits his teeth. “I know I’m not the only one with family problems in this room. I sometimes wonder if that’s why… Never mind. Anyway, he told me that if I joined the Legion, I was never to return.” He looks at Rae. “He’s a bitter old man and he wouldn’t like you at all, but I suppose you’d have something to thank him for. The Legion put it to good use, but that’s not where I learned how to take punishment and keep standing. In any case, after all these years, I don’t think he’d even accept my apology.”
Rae looks up at Keros, having considered their words in silence for a considerable amount of time before answering. “Darling. I will not make you do anything you’re uncomfortable with. The choice has to come from you first. We will look into the records in Zokros first and see what comes of it. But I know you, Keros, and I know the thing you want least is for other people to get hurt. It is one of your most noble qualities. And we need to solve this for more than just your sake. Retrieval will be back, and potentially nine-hundred and ninety nine others. We’ve met two of them and they’ve both been incredibly powerful individuals. They could’ve hurt our Crow. They could’ve hurt Raine. And those two aren’t the only friends of yours that will want to help. We have a lot of friends that will put a lot of effort into helping you, it’s your responsibility to put all of your effort into this too. But I promise you I will help you out at every step.”
Keros closes his eyes for a second. “You’re right, this isn’t just about me. I need to do whatever it takes.” He smiles warmly at the gesture of support and reaches out to squeeze Rae’s hand gently. “We need to do whatever it takes. But not right away. With all these acid burns, I would not want to be walking straight into another fight, if it’s all the same to you. Have we earned some time off?”
Jaezred stands up, drops the thick harvest ledger onto the headstone, and rebuttons his jacket. “Go home. Rest. Recuperate. Strategise. And get that rock out of here.”
