Post by Jaezred Vandree on Aug 29, 2021 10:27:48 GMT
Dusk
In his room at The Four Fair Winds, Lord Jaezred Vandree put down a half-drunk glass of whiskey on the windowsill. He silently gazed out the panelled windows onto the darkened streets of Daring Heights for a long time, contemplating how to best approach the situation he was about to create.
Eventually, he drew his wand of the war mage from within his jacket and gently tapped the tip against the mouth of the glass. The sound that rang out allowed him to focus as he casted the sending spell, searching for a connection across the planes to one particular person, amongst the hundred other souls that were known to him.
He took a deep breath before saying his message out loud: “You fey don't care about avenging Sarastra, but you must agree that at least one of the assassins pose a threat to the Feywild, no?”
Imryll Elamaris’s voice sounded small and faint in his head, like trying to hear someone from faraway. Perhaps, though I'd imagine some would be aiming to avenge her somehow, somewhere...but do go on…
He casted the spell again. “Come meet me in my room at the Winds. Let’s talk it out.”
How will you ever invite me over once you run out of mysteries?
“Chocolate and bad taste, I suppose?”
That'll do.
She arrived fashionably late, as always. Jaezred had finished two glasses by the time the eladrin spy apparated into the bedroom. As soon as he sensed her presence, he said in a tone of immediacy, “Before you force this information out of me with suggestion, do hear me out. I have worked hard to acquire it and I have not spoken to anyone else from the Feywild about this. Therefore, I think it would be fair to request compensation. I do not ask for much, only gold.”
Imryll seemed to have been caught off-guard by the outburst, but she was quiet as she sat down on a velvet-cushioned chair by a round table, smiling politely.
In the silence that ensued, Jaezred shifted his weight from one foot to another. “Well? What do you say? Do we have a deal?”
“Well, that depends. You're asking for payment on something we don't know about yet. Why don't we start with some context, hmm?”
“Fine.” Still standing stiffly before her, he took another deep breath. “Jack. I know where he was, and I have a faint whiff of what he is planning.”
“Jack? I take it you mean Sarastra's little pet?”
“Her former slave, yes. The mad modron.”
“Well...that is interesting…” she said with a thoughtful expression on her face, which promptly turned into something more serious. “Are you sure you want this to go through me? We have such a...refined relationship so far.”
“What do you mean? Why wouldn’t I want this to go through you, of all people?”
“Just checking.” She flashed him a wicked smile. “Perhaps you would want to strike some sort of a deal? I hear Xantha is always looking for a new underling to abuse...But okay. If it really is gold you want, we can do business first. Just how valuable do you think this would be to Nicnevin?”
That smile was pushing him a little further on the edge. The fingers on his right hand drummed against the side of his leg, counterspell ready at their tips. “As valuable as two hundred gold pieces.”
The witch cocked an eyebrow and nodded. “Okay then. Deal,” she answered, relishing that last word.
Almost involuntarily, Jaezred let out a sigh of relief. His tensed-up muscles relaxed, and he took a seat on the chair next to hers.
“So?”
“I should tell it from the very beginning,” he started slowly. “For a while now, the Dawnlands has been repeatedly plagued by a certain pesky lich bard, so Aurelia Archleson decided to be proactive this time and nip the problem in the bud before it could arise again. She discovered the lich bard had a mentor, a necromancer-bard, who was hiding out in the plane of Mechanus. From information given to her through anonymous channels, she got the exact location, the exact gear upon which this necromancer-bard was operating.”
“A necromancer...bard?”
“It's exactly as stupid as it sounds,” he deadpanned, pushing out of his mind the memory of how the bardic magic compelled them all to sing. “To cut a long story short, we went there and found out about the necromancer-bard's project: to revive a dead Primus — a god in essence — to use as a weapon of conquest. However, as we were fighting her, something sneaked in and stole a device from within the body of the dead Primus, whilst the necromancer was distracted. Something with very long, metallic tentacles. Aurelia said this can only be one person — Jack. Furthermore, she suspects that it was none other than Jack who fed her this intelligence about the necromancer-bard in the first place. He intended us to be a distraction for his heist.”
Imryll looked genuinely surprised at the revelation. “Well! Looks like Sarastra’s mad pet is smarter than he was given credit for! This is very interesting...Anything else? You mentioned a potential plan?”
“Truth be told, I don't have any concrete evidence of a scheme in the works. Though I can tell you that, as a drow, I know a revenge plot when I smell one.” He smiled a little. “The device he stole is something called a ‘containment seal’. Not even the archmage understands the exact mechanisms of it. Apparently a very complex subject. All we know is that it’s something used to contain magical power.”
“Hmm...a shame, but not surprising. It's not everyday you manage to pilfer parts from a dead deity. And the name is a little leading there, so no big surprises…” A smile crept back onto her lips. “Do tell me though, why do you suppose it's a revenge plot? Sarastra enslaved him and she is already dead.”
“Because you have to admit, everyone in the Feywild was complicit in his imprisonment and torture. And think about it — why would he have gone through that much trouble if it isn't for some grandiose scheme to get back at everyone who ever laughed at him?”
“Well, a queen will do as she will, who are the mere minions beneath her to question her ways? Let alone those not within her own court. Jack was already thoroughly in his trap by the time I learned of him. But, suppose that is the case, what else do you think this is? Why go to all this trouble when he could have simply...gone back to Mechanus himself? There is no doubt an endless supply of resources he could muster there, no?”
She was visibly enjoying this back-and-forth, as if it was some sort of game to her — the peeling back of a mystery, layer by layer. And not least due to the stoic, business-like demeanour Jaezred was currently assuming.
“I don’t have the answers to that. I am not an expert on Mechanus or modrons, nor on twisted minds. The necromancer-bard thought if she had a Primus under her control, the modrons would follow her into battle as well.”
“A bold goal, trying to control a god. But you don’t need to be an expert to read more into this. I’m no such expert, on Primus at least, but I can make an educated guess on the information provided — for instance, I’d wager, whatever the Fool is up to, it isn't trying to control Primus. If it was, why not attempt it then and there, instead stealing away with some mysterious trinket? But before we go too far down that rabbit hole, you mentioned a potential location?”
“Well, only his last known location — the gear the dead Primus was on. But as I understand it, Jack is an unusual sort of modron, a hexadron, is it? It would not be impossible to track him down from there.”
“No, but as he has proven, he is...squirrely. Still, it is something Nicnevin might want to look into. What about this necro-bard, what happened there?”
“Dead.”
“Again?”
“She never was. But now she is. By my hand.”
“You almost sound proud of that,” she observed with a smirk.
He smirked back. “I’m allowed to be, aren’t I?”
“I suppose. Would you be able to give directions to this gear?”
“Aurelia Archleson can.”
“That’s less helpful...Anything else worth knowing from this little endeavour?”
“That is all.”
“Hmm, okay. Well, a deal is a deal…”
Imryll reached beneath her robes to procure a large ruby, polished smooth into a perfectly round orb. “That should cover our agreement...and this”—she produced another identical one with a similar flair—“should cover the rest.”
She was smiling as she handed both gems to Jaezred, but he stared back at her with wariness in his eyes. “Imryll…” he said cautiously. “I don't work for you. I did this simply to take advantage of a lucrative opportunity. And that is the end of it.”
“And I never suggested anything but that…”
He held out the surplus ruby to her. “Whatever this implies, I don’t want it. We’ve talked about this. I can’t.”
“Can't what? You wanted to trade information for payment, no? No strings attached. But you’ve provided me with two useful pieces of information here, and the deal was two hundred gold for one. Normally, I would let you sit with the deal you made.”
“Two pieces of information?”
“Yes!” she exclaimed almost gleefully. “One for Jack and whatever game he is playing...the other for your dear Aurelia. Being fed information and playing into Jack's plan can be a costly mistake to make, especially for someone in her position. You should probably tell her to be more careful in the future about how and where she gets her information from...would be a terrible thing for someone to take advantage of.”
He did not respond to that. As much as he admired Aurelia, he did not care enough to. Instead, he uttered an incantation and casted detect magic on the rubies. Nothing — they were both mundane, or as mundane as perfectly spherical gems could be, anyway.
“Really now, I am a girl of my word! You think I would spy on you when I could just as easily play with you instead?”
Jaezred’s eyes darted between her and the rubies, uncertain, before settling dejectedly on the reward in his hands. He felt a knot tying up in his chest as he urged himself to speak his mind. But the words were lost before they could form in his mouth.
She must have noticed the sadness in his downcast stare, because the mischievous smile on her face faded and gave way for a sorrowful look. “Jaezred...I’m not trying to trick you here.”
He blinked and looked up again. “I...no. It’s…” He sighed. “I don’t trust anyone. It’s how I was raised. But I want to trust you. But at the same time, I feel as if I can't. That makes me feel...bad...and I don't understand why.”
The dark elf scoffed and turned his head away. “Why am I even saying this? You'll only laugh at me.”
“Try me…”
There was a long pause before he spoke again. “I thought about what you said to me a few days ago, at the patisserie. There is truth in it, I have to admit. However, I can sense that you would, in some way, benefit from me feeling disconnected from drow society. In other words, it was an act of manipulation. Now, I'm no stranger to that, and I have done similar things myself, but…”
As the words trailed off, he reminisced about the times when he deceived and used the people he called "friends" for his own gain, and vice versa. It was normal. So why was the thought of Imryll doing it to him so upsetting?
Imryll appeared to be thinking. “Hmm, well, I can’t say there might not be, yet you are still tied to drow society and are already useful. But”—she paused, looking troubled—“that isn't why I entertain your requests and calls, Lord Jaezred. There are any number of disillusioned and fear-ridden drow I could prey on, if that were my real aim. That, you know, is true as well. This was not manipulation, Jaezred, only me trying to be fair.” She let out a sigh. “My business is information, and you know that, otherwise you wouldn’t have come to me with this. If you feel bad about it, then you don't have to take the pay. As far as I'm concerned, our business is done...I'd really much rather we do something more fun.”
She leaned closer and placed a hand on top of his. “You can trust me, Jaezred…”
He gazed into her green eyes and, once again, found himself lost. “I don't even know why I want to trust you,” he confessed. “I shouldn't care about this. I just...I don't understand what I'm feeling. Perhaps I'm tired.”
Imryll touched his face with an endeared look. “I'm sure you can work it out,” she said, before closing the distance between them to kiss him.
Thank you once again to Anthony for roleplaying Imryll.