The Grapes of Wrath

The home of Root Penrosea, Port Ffirst
7th Marpenoth 1498

Jaezred knocked on the door at sunset, the only time when he was comfortable to sit in the rooftop garden to enjoy tea without needing his goggles of day. As usual, he came bearing his now-famous scones, which, as they have discovered, made an absolutely divine pairing with Root’s exotic, specially-blended tea.

Hot tea and warm scones with a friend in a lush garden against a beautiful seaside sunset. By all accounts, it ought to be a pleasant and relaxing affair, and yet the expression on Jaezred’s face told a different story.

“Have either Aurelia or Jenna gotten back to you about the Collector’s portal?” he asks Root.

The purple tiefling in a fine midnight blue robe softly sighs before replying, “In a way, yes. I recently got a letter saying they have taken the information into consideration. As the portal is no longer active, they have regarded it not as a high-level threat, but to contact them again if there is renewed activity.”

He pauses to take another sip of tea. “It’s perhaps not the answer either of us was wanting to hear, but I suspect they’re rather preoccupied with other things. There always seems to be a lot going on in Kantas, at all times, if all the rumours coming out the adventuring taverns are true. And I’ve been keeping more of an ear out these days because of the Collector, in case they did indeed renew their activities, but nothing has jumped out to me as likely to be their doing.”

Jaezred sighs. “It’s true, they’ve been preoccupied with...certain characters causing trouble here and beyond. But I don’t like this. We have no way back into the Collector’s lair now, no way to find out more or strike out at them. You’re left practically waiting for their next attack.”

A frown furrows across Root’s eyebrows at Jaezred’s statement. “Yes, yes I am. And I still don’t know why they launched these attacks in the first place. I’ve thought long and hard about it, checked my older commission logs and everything, but no one with the name Collector comes up. Perhaps if I could figure it out, I could figure out a way to ensure they leave me, and subsequently Port Ffirst, alone.”

He looks up and across the spread of tea and scones between them. “Unless you have any new theories?” he offers.

Jaezred stares at him as he takes a long sip from his cup.

“We could just ask them to talk.”

Root opens his mouth as if to say something, stops himself, thinks on it and tries to speak again.

“Talk? Like a civil conversation? It would certainly be a direct way of figuring this all out. Yes. But would they even agree to something like that? From what I’ve heard from you and others, they seem much more action first and talk later.”

“There’s only one way to find out.” He sets his tea and saucer down. “Are you ready?”

Root nods his head slightly, the jewelry that hangs off his horns twinkling with the movement. “Yes, let’s do this. I’m ready.”

Jaezred draws his wand from inside his frock coat and stands up, walking to the edge of the roof, facing the orange sun sinking below the horizon. He closes his eyes and focuses his hearing on the whistling autumn breeze, the call of gulls from the beach, the chatter of passers-by from the nearby street as he traces an invisible symbol on the surface of the parapet — casting the sending spell. He searches for a connection across the lands, across the planes, ignoring the hundreds of souls that light up in the darkness behind his eyelids, reaching and reaching for the brightest one, the one he is looking for, and...there it is.

He opens his eyes. “Collector,” he greets them. “You’ve done tit and he’s done tat. You’re at a stalemate and we all know it. Shall we put an end to this foolishness?”

There’s an extended pause, a deafening quiet through the magic that is briefly connecting them, before a voice that Jaezred recognises speaks back in his mind: I am indeed quite bored of this strange back and forth. Is the botanist ready to face me himself? I assume somewhere public.

He throws a glance over his shoulder at Root. “They ask if you’re ready to face them yourself, in public,” he says to the other man.

“Oh okay, okay. Public sounds good. Does public sound good? I’ve not organised conversational events involving hostile parties before.”

“As long as you don’t mind potential civilian casualties, it is ideal.”

He hesitates slightly. “Then perhaps some more adventurers can be brought along to prevent that from happening.”

Jaezred nods. Casting the spell again, he says, “He’s ready. Public it is. And it must be peaceful. I expect you shall bring your illusion anyway.”

There’s a short clipped laugh that can be heard through the spell. Very well, send me a date and time, but make sure it’s somewhere nice. I’ll be peaceful as long as you are, the Collector replies.

He thinks for a moment. “25th day of Uktar. The Grand Market Plaza in Port Ffirst. At sundown.”

Sounds delightful, I do love a good market. I’ll see the botanist, and I assume you, there and then.

“It’s a date,” he says with a smirk.

Lucky me.

Jaezred puts his wand away and turns around to regard Root, who is still sitting at the table. He fixes the tiefling with a long, appraising look before addressing him again. “You heard me just now. 25th of the Rotting, a month and three weeks hence. I’ll send out word, and you must be ready by then.”

Root sets down his cup and saucer that he was gripping tightly with anxiousness at the now-finished conversation. Standing up, he now meets Jaezred’s gaze head on. “Understood. And once again, Jaezred, thank you. Your aid in all this has provided calm in what’s been quite a stormy sea of incidents. I’ll prepare the best way I can, for I assume they agreed to a peaceful talk, but who knows what’ll happen. I just hope this leads to the end of all this chaos.”

“They did.” The drow mage approaches Root with his hands tucked behind his back, maintaining the eye contact between them. “In fact, they agreed to it rather quickly. Eager to be heard, I must assume. Are you certain — absolutely certain — that you don’t know who this is? They refused to refer to you by name, called you ‘the botanist’.”

“Perhaps invading their lair like you did with Varga has had quite the effect on this Collector after all.” Said botanist then looks to the sky as he thinks on it, taking a few moments before he looks back to where Jaezred is before him. “I truly cannot think of who it is. Quite a few people in certain social circles have looked down on my ‘humble work’ and would refer to me as just a botanist rather than by my name. But this sounds more like someone scorned, someone who can’t bear to use my name in anger. The only people I could think that might not be happy with me are those whose commission requests I refused. But I don’t think it would warrant this, and again I found no trace of their moniker in my records.”

Jaezred nods in agreement at his assessment. “Commission requests, you mean like the dog you made for Jacinta Montajay? Do you have records of the people whose requests you’ve refused?”

“Yes, precisely like the one I completed for Jacinta. And I indeed keep records of the refusals too, in case they try to make business with me again.”

“And what would it take for you to turn down a commission?”

“I will refuse someone for many reasons, really. For instance, after investigating the request I have found it impossible to achieve. Or the end result is something quite vicious and nefarious, which I don’t particularly want to bring into the world. Or even that the person is someone I wouldn’t quite trust to pay me fully at the end.”

“Any particular ones that stand out in your mind? Something recent, perhaps? You didn’t recognise the Collector’s face when I showed it to you — maybe it’s someone who only ever wrote to you?”

“Perhaps, or even communicated through a middleman. That does happen sometimes. Hold on, let me get the binder to remind me.”

Root quickly makes his way off the terrace and down the stairs leading to his office and laboratory, soon reemerging with a dense binder in his hands. Setting it down and opening its pages, the level of organisation is quite obvious, with a section clearly labelled “Refusals” that seems to also be alphabetised.

He flicks through some of the pages, pointing out certain clients as he goes. “This one wanted me to create a sentient mushroom forest that they could control — an obvious no. I think they’ve died of old age now anyway. Oh, and this one wanted a magical species of lily to be created for the next day. So many were ridiculous requests...” He hovers over one particular entry for a moment. “This one was very sneaky, their request seemed quite benign at first. But I realised the end result was secretly quite nefarious, so I destroyed the research in the end. Nearly as sneaky as one who tried to steal back their deposit money once.”

Jaezred’s eyes linger on that entry. E. Rigby was noted down as the name of the client, alongside a date — Mirtul 1496. Close to the start of the Amaranthine Games. “Well, this one is an obvious pseudonym. I believe it’s the name of a popular tavern song,” he points out. “Tell me more about their request.”

“Well, quite explosive, to put it bluntly. It seemed they had done their own research before contacting me, knew that combining certain active ingredient production from two separate plants would create a very explosive result. A flower-shaped bomb, basically. They tried to hide this by simply saying they wanted the flower to look a certain way, so I would have to select specific characteristics. Once I realised, I stopped and sent them their money back with an explanation through their middleman. Never heard back though.”

“Dear Goddess,” he murmurs. “I cannot be fully certain but...it does sound a bit like our friend the Collector...” And it sounds like Farstep too, he thinks. “What do you remember about their middleman?”

“Well, I’ve written here that their name was Lucy, no surname, I think they were a halfling? I don’t remember them saying much outside of their duties, very dry conversation.”

“Hm. That doesn’t ring any bells for me. In any case, our best chance at finding the truth shall be this parlay,” Jaezred says, straightening his back. He looks at Root again. “We’ve done all we can today. All that’s left is to prepare.”

“Indeed. There’s no point theorising ourselves into a corner. We should go towards this with an open mind, consider all the possibilities. Tunnel vision can be quite the deadly thing.” Root swiftly shuts the binder and tucks it in under his arm, “Though how does someone prepare for a possibly dangerous parlay in a public market?”

“By hiring the best mercenaries money can buy,” Jaezred answers with a grin. “Scouting the area, bribing the Watch to look the other way — those might also be helpful. But none as much as the former.”

Root gives a small side smile and a nod of acknowledgment. “And I will take your word for it, Jaezred. I really do hope for a positive outcome from all this.”

Later, as Jaezred is about to leave for the Flourished Hook, he turns to the scientist and clasps a firm hand on his shoulder. “A month and three weeks hence, Root Penrosea. Don’t forget.”