Co-written by the amazing Delilah Daybreaker ,
Jaezred Vandree ,
Lykksie and Wixspartan
It is the next day. Delilah and Jaezred wait for the others to arrive, their two shadow companions playing in the dark corners of the room silently passing the time, whilst their respective keepers wait in the darker parts of the room — Jaezred leaning against a wall with hands resting on his cane, Delilah somewhere off to the side of the fireplace. Neither have said much since arriving, both deep in their own thoughts, but the companionable silence is poised, ready for whatever storm may come from this meeting.
Cai and Silvia arrive together, looking around the room that at first glance could appear empty. Then the slight form of Delilah steps forward, giving a nod for a greeting.
“I am glad you came, Silvia,” she says to the young woman. Then she turns her attention to the priest beside her. “We have not met but I know of you from Veridian. I am Delilah.”
He gives a polite smile, not fake but reserved slightly.
“Father Cai Okt’anys of the church of Ilmater.” He turns to Jaezred and looks at him with way less hostility than he did last time.
“Lord Vandree. Thank you for looking after her.”
The man in the shadows says nothing, but one corner of his lips quirks upward slightly, as if almost smiling with mild amusement.
Silvia looks down and mumbles, “…Yeah, happy to be here.”
Delilah raises a quizzical eyebrow, but gestures to the table where an offering of tea and scones, not made by the drow lord, sit on a tiered display. “Please tuck in to anything you may like and make yourselves comfortable. We are waiting for-”
Veridian knocks on the door and enters, interrupting her speech with perfect timing. The mage gives a little start of surprise to see Cai but is happy nonetheless. He walks straight up to him, kissing him on the cheek and quietly says, “I’m sorry I haven’t been around today but I’ve been locked up in the library all day, are you good?”
Cai nods but doesn’t really say anything, just looking around the room in a sort of mild anticipation and concern, keeping a hand on Silvia’s shoulder.
Veridian nods back in understanding and then proceeds to greet everyone else in the room. Delilah he greets with the usual friendliness, Silvia gets a slight neutral hello and a simple, “Vandree,” in a slightly colder tone to Jaezred. He does not respond, though the small almost-smile on his face now grows into a full smirk.
Oziah walks in last, closes the door and sits down next to it. She isn’t wearing armour but she is carrying her sword. She kicks her feet up on a free chair and pulls out an apple, casually polishing it against her cloak. Silvia just nods at her, assuming this is Oziah and not some other frightening woman with an attitude and a sword.
Oziah locks the door and looks at Delilah. “Take it away, love.”
Veridian struggles to hide a smile at Oziah’s posturing in front of the door. Oziah makes direct eye contact and bites into the apple.
“We three-” Delilah starts, pointing to Silvia, Veridian and then herself, “-have a common thread that links us together. For Silvia, it is in the form of a pact-bonded patron. For Veridian, it is a spellbook of great power, which he stole. For me… it is in the title of father.” She smirks at the intrigued expression on Veridian’s face.
“I only recently found this out myself,” she says to him nonchalantly before continuing. “The shadow dragon known as Kurtz is in trouble, no thanks to certain choices made by at least one of us three in the past.” Delilah holds up a hand to forestall any interruptions. “My goal in this moment is not to turn on you Veridian, nor is it to steal the ‘Apocrypha of Alchemical Alterations’. Neither is it my intention to keep Silvia in the dark about something that is as much of a concern to her as it is to me. No, my intention, for now, is to know where you all stand, to know what your intentions are, and to ask if you would be willing to help me.”
“As you should know Delilah you will always have my help whenever you ask for it.” Veridian gives a small nod to Delilah. She inclines her head in return. “However I must say that this is no longer where I will be putting my time and energy. Matters relating to my own father have come up, as you well know, that have made me reprotise things, this dragon is not something that I have any plans or intentions for, for the foreseeable future. That being said, should you require my assistance, I will provide all the arcane power I can call forth.”
Veridian seems to be finished then realises something. “Actually on second thought, if your plan is to help the dragon and not kill it or remove its power or something along those lines, then chances are I would not be as willing to help.”
There is the smallest tilt to Delilah’s head as one sharply sculpted brow lifts ever so slightly. Father Cai takes a single step back from Veridian’s side and regards him silently, initial shock giving way to disappointment and distaste.
Pretty much everyone in the room can tell that Veridian is relatively unphased by most of this. Silvia sighs and looks at him.
“Right so you’re willing to kill it or immobilise it or whatever but you’re not willing to just give him the book that you stole back? Noble.” She shakes her head. “Him, I mean, apologies not knowing your patron for a while causes you to get used to referring to them as ‘it’ or ‘the thing that owns me.’”
“I didn’t say I was unwilling to help if that is the path that you all choose, but it is not something I could go along with so easily. None of you saw what he was doing to the Angelbark whilst he had the book, how he was twisting the forest unnaturally, how he was using wyverns to blanket the forest in fire or the heads he had mounted on spikes lining the way to his camp-”
Cai shakes his head, unable to stay quiet.
“No one here is proclaiming this being’s innocence, Veridian.” He takes another step back from Veridian and moves around Silvia to stand on her other side, away from him. “But this is a mess you had a hand in making, and now you are simply washing your hands of it?”
Veridian looks at Cai calmly with a small amount of sadness there. “No, I will not simply wash my hands of this and leave it to others. You of all people should know that finding my father is the reason I came to Kantas and I can’t put this before that. However if there is a way to end this all with little to no casualties and if that does mean that I must give up the book then so be it, but I’m simply informing you all of what I saw last time he had the book. That is all.”
Cai looks at him, saying nothing. After a long moment something in his face seems to harden, and he turns to Delilah.
“Miss Delilah. We do not know much of each other, but I am a cleric of Ilmater. My faith teaches me to help lessen the suffering of others wherever I may find it. In my years I have also become somewhat of a planar expert, and I am familiar with demonology and the ways of fiends. If there is anything I can help you with, I will. And if I can help you, Silvia.” He squeezes the shoulder under his hand. “Please know that I will not leave your side.”
She looks at her feet before muttering again, “Father if I may. You’re the kindest, calmest man I’ve met since coming to this continent, please don’t charge into this fight on my behalf, or anyone’s. I understand that this is important, more important than I know, but it’s not worth fighting demons and waging wars over, not when we can sit and talk.”
He nods and finally takes a seat next to Silvia.
“Nonetheless, I offer it. But please, go ahead. As you say, this is not my fight.” He quirks his eyebrow ever so slightly at her. “Yet.”
Delilah glances over to Oziah and the two share a look, before the Pale Daughter addresses Father Cai.
“Kurtz has run afoul of some fiends as a matter of fact, so your assistance would be helpful if only so I can better understand what enemy he faces. But we can address that in a moment.” She turns to the young warlock. “There’s something I’d like to know if you would be willing to tell me, Silvia.”
She perks up slightly.
“I’ll do what I can but I’m rapidly running out of knowledge you don’t already have, Miss Delilah.”
“There are still many things about this situation I do not know, or understand,” she counters gently. Delilah hesitates, clearly wanting to choose the right words. “Like when you were telling me about your pact; you mentioned how it had affected
you, even calling it something akin to a ‘curse’. But now you don’t. Instead you say Kurtz ‘owns you’. What did he say to you when you two spoke?”
“Did I tell you how I made this pact? If not, I assumed you heard from Lord Jaezred.”
Delilah nods. “Jaezred has told me the gist of it. But I would like to hear any details from you. Better to get information from the source than secondhand,” she says with an encouraging wink.
“Fine, but this doesn’t leave this room understood?”
Delilah gives a short, sharp nod.
“Seven years ago I was in the guard, rural Sword Coast, we were attacked and none of us knew anything about fighting. So here we are, dying in the heat of my first ever combat, or at least I thought I was going to die, when everything froze and I saw… the snake. It offered me my life, the life of my friends, the power to save them and to save others in exchange for my service. What was I supposed to do but accept? Since then, nothing, nothing but tormented jeering from imps and a tendency to slaughter and inflict pain if I did not concentrate and hone my mind every night, every morning, every second of every day. I even used to wear manacles before sleep, I still do sometimes when the voice in the back of my head gets too loud.”
She shakes her head, trying to clear her mind.
“Not what you wanted to know, sorry.”
The masked woman’s eyes are a mix of intrigue and something else — empathy perhaps.
“That certainly paints a clearer picture of before your meeting,” Delilah says. She casts a look at Jaezred, who shrugs, before looking back at Silvia. “But what about the meeting itself? What did Kurtz say to you?”
“He apologised, for leaving me alone, for leaving me confused and terrified for so long. He also made vague allusions to not actually having known about the imps - sorry, quasits- and banished them from my presence. Then he talked about giving me a ‘gift’ and well, he gave me this:”
She pulls her dagger carefully from her sheath and shows its black blade to the room. Oziah makes an appreciative noise from the back, whilst Delilah marvels at its beautiful design, almost like a dragon’s fang.
“Bribery or gifts I don’t know but it feels… Nice to finally be appreciated, although I know there is an implication of me now returning this favour…”
“That is a beautiful gift,” Delilah admits. She can almost see the power and guile of her father in the sharpness of its edge. Her dark eyes lift up to Silvia as she says, “Power always comes with a price though. I don’t suppose he mentioned how you were to return the favour?”
“Information from that man over there,” she says, pointing the dagger at Veridian.
Delilah gracefully spins on her feet to face the mage, a smirk lifting her lips under her mask. “Ah yes. The book thief.” She chuckles. “That answers my question though. Thank you, Silvia.”
Veridian chuckles in return. “If that’s the nickname that everyone seems set on giving me then so be it.” He then turns to Silvia with a genuine smile. “I’m an open book, pardon the pun, ask what questions you would like of me.”
“What do you want with the book? Why do you still hold onto it if you don’t intend to use it?”
“It’s… It’s a really cool book to be honest. It lets me do a couple of neat little tricks, nothing crazy but they come in handy every so often and it took days to transfer my spells over to this and is now kind of my main spellbook, I am attuned to it and everything. Plus it would be a pain in the arse to have to copy it all back to a new book.”
Cai looks at Veridian as if he’s grown a second head.
“Oh well, in that case,” he says quietly in disbelief, almost to himself. Silvia scowls.
“Out of respect to your boyfriend who has rapidly become my second favourite person on this continent, no offence to the rest of you, and out of some sense of self preservation, I’m not going to carve your eyes out but I am sorely tempted, Pentaghast. ‘Days of copying spells’ oh no how terrible. Seven fucking years, Veridian!”
Behind her, Oziah’s feet hit the floor as she braces for confrontation. Silvia stops, realising her company, and begins to look less furious and more panicked, slowly backing away from where she had started moving towards the wizard and tries to hide behind nothing. Cai reaches out and gently grabs her arm, guiding her back to her seat. She grips his hand in return with her other free hand.
“Everything is alright, Silvia. Please, have a seat. While I am most grateful for the display of affection, let us just sit down and breathe.”
She takes her seat again, and Veridian looks at Silvia in complete confusion.
“Why does that sound like you are blaming me for the seven years you’ve had this pact? I only acquired this book like 4 months ago, did I not tell you that or am I missing something?”
She looks at Cai nervously, scared to speak again but realises she has to reply.
“I don’t blame you for the pact, no. What I blame you for is this ridiculous sense of superiority you have. It’s a book, Veridian. I understand it is a powerful book but I would appreciate it if you’d stop and think about how it feels for others. For me it has been seven years of complex feelings and sleepless nights that I’m only now just learning the reason for. For Delilah… I have no idea how much harder it must be. But no, it would take you several days to copy spells. It’s ludicrous, Mr. Pentaghast, ludicrous. This is our lives. Whether we made poor choices or not, I would ask you to show a modicum of respect.”
“What makes you think that I’m not thinking about how this will affect you or others? If handing over the book would cure you of this pact or at the very least start the process of making up for the past seven years, do you really think I wouldn’t hand over the book? Do you think that if I knew that it could make Delilah’s life easier I wouldn’t hand over the book instantly to help? Do you truly see that great of a character flaw in me?”
Cai rubs his free hand over his face and sighs.
“Veridian, they think that because of what you yourself are saying. Because of how you are acting. I do not think these things of you, but then you say things that are so strange and harsh.”
He takes a deep breath and looks around the room, from Delilah to Silvia, glancing over Jaezred holding back laughter, paying no mind to Oziah, and then returns his gaze to Veridian, almost pleading.
“If you are willing to give up the book, then I am sure Miss Delilah and Miss Silvia would be most grateful. Are you willing?”
“Pardon me,” says Jaezred suddenly. “Before we make any big decisions, could you elaborate further on what this book does, Pentaghast? Specifically on the capabilities that Kurtz used but you yourself have not? And let’s be clear here, copying spells back and forth is a monumental task and we should all take pity on Veridian’s wrist. I’m sure Father Cai, of all people, would appreciate his wrist being able to operate at full capacity. But that aside, this Apocrypha, what is it truly?”
Cai looks decidedly unamused. Veridian looks at Jaezred with a sarcastic grin, very much a ‘you’re so funny’ kind of way. He then looks briefly at the book on his belt.
“What the book allows me to do is change the properties of physical things into that of something of similar value like turning a steel dagger into a silver one or something along those lines, however the power is limited. It does also allow me to change the spells that I prepare each morning at a moment’s notice but again that is limited. What concerns me the most is that the book whispers of being able to do more. These whispers are nothing – I hardly hear them any more – but they allude to the book being able to do much more. I fear that Kurtz knows how or that his innate magic allows him access to greater powers of this book that I cannot.”
“And you are worried that Kurtz will do something – for lack of a better word – evil with this book, yes?” Cai turns from Veridian to Delilah. “If you were to have the book, what would you do with it, Miss Delilah?”
“Hmm. It almost sounds like the book is sentient if it whispers to the one who owns it. That doesn’t mean it’s cursed though…” Delilah turns away in thought, pacing. “As a dragon of considerable age, Kurtz is powerful as he is. He will only continue to get stronger whether I give him the book or not, it’s all a matter of how.” She slowly turns back, eyes passing over all the faces in the room. “I mentioned earlier he had run afoul with some fiends. Essentially, he’s reneged on his deal with the Lord of the Sixth and will need a way to either protect himself from her or… make it so she won’t bother him. For all he has now… it is not enough.”
Cai looks at Delilah a little hesitantly before speaking, his hand still firmly on Silvia’s shoulder.
“And in all of this, where does that leave Silvia? Apologies for speaking out of turn, I realise this man is your father, but do you think he would force her to fight for him? Or something similar?”
She sighs and shakes her head. “I don’t know. But I certainly wouldn’t want to be kept in the dark if I were her. Better to know the enemies coming for you than to be caught unawares.”
As the conversation happens around her and everyone turns to look at the young warlock; suddenly everyone watches as she disappears into the shadows. Cai’s hand remains in the air though, and he can feel a slight tremble.
“Seems like Silvia would rather not get involved,” Delilah observes with a slight amused glint to her dark eyes.
Cai looks at the space where Silvia’s face had been a moment ago, squeezing the shoulder he can still feel under his hand gently. After a moment’s consideration he reaches into a pouch at his side and pulls out a pinch of silver powder. He gestures in the air and utters a short phrase, and when Silvia’s face becomes visible to him again he looks her in the eye, his gaze direct and unflinching.
“My friend, you cannot hide from this. You are not in danger here but you very well may be out there. Face it head on. You cannot outrun this. But you are not alone.” There’s a grim expression on Delilah’s face at Father Cai’s words and a very knowing look in her eyes.
She struggles to look anywhere but her hands in front of her but eventually pulls her gaze up to Father Cai and nods as she phases back out of shadow. He gives her a small smile and an encouraging nod.
“I… I can’t survive in a fight like all of you but if there is anything I can do I will try. Forgive my cowardice but I’m not running into hell just yet, but if whilst you are all down there you need the metaphorical fort kept safe in your absence well… I was a guard, and technically I was never discharged. And who knows, some time and training may provide me with the confidence to follow you into hell, but not yet.”
“If it’s martial training you need, I can certainly help you there,” Delilah offers. “I’ve faced many types of creatures in my time, and some strong mages.” She throws a glance at Jaezred and winks. “Even killed a few.”
There’s a quiet clearing of a throat from the back of the room as Oziah swallows her last bite of apple.
“No one deserves to be bound in servitude. It’s a principle of mine. I’ll teach you.” Her voice is surly and almost dismissive but the undercurrent of conviction is hard to hide.
“Which does beg the question,” Delilah starts, drawing Silvia’s attention, “do you want to be free of Kurtz?”
Silvia frowns for a second and then slumps back and sighs heavily.
“I… I have already been given the choice to leave, to break my pact, to never hear from him again but… I don’t know, I’m worried if I do I will lose the only part of myself I have left after all this time. Perhaps… perhaps this is simply who I am, the fang of Kurtz. I can’t forsake who I am to chase a meaningless life as a person I never had the chance to be.”
Behind her Oziah lets out an exasperated sigh and sits back, pulling out another apple. Jaezred arches a brow.
Veridian looks around the room before settling on Silvia. “No one can ever be defined by one thing, Slivia. We are all complex and ever changing. Look around the room at the people you are with – none of us are just one thing, and you are no different. Breaking your pact with Kurtz would only leave you powerless or meaningless if you decide to let it. As I said at our last talk, a knife is a knife. The skill you have to use is yours and yours alone and can’t be taken away.”
Cai looks at Veridian with a small smile but Silvia simply rolls her eyes.
“You don’t get it, you never will Veridian. You chose to be a wizard, learn your spells, just as I chose to have my pact, although it was barely a choice… But you also chose to have a life outside of that, to travel around, go on adventures, the likes. I didn’t, I was forced out of my old life, forced to travel town to town where just my eyes and my attitude meant I could never stay. You have no idea who I am except for my pact, and that is how I am to the world. This is who I am, Veridian, and I cannot lose it now.”
Veridian stares back at Silvia in anger but mostly with pain in his eyes, something boiling up from old memories. Clearly wanting to say something he looks at Cai and the anger and the pain seem to fade, and he gazes into the middle of the room.
Soft as vapour and quiet as shadows, it is Delilah who steps forward, coming right up to Silvia, her dark eyes glinting with steel.
“Being judged on the ‘gifts’ you have is nothing new to me however, and being thought you were born to be a traitor made worse by a mother who was one is something I have fought against all my life. Did that stop me from proving all those who thought otherwise wrong? No. I made the gifts they judged me for, my Shadows, my boon – the thing that makes me deadliest of all and that no one else has. You define how your life is when you stop feeling pity for yourself.”
Her words are not harsh, but they are full of conviction, practicality, and candour. The pale half-elf peers up unflinching as she holds Silvia’s gaze, both a challenge and an offering, an opportunity to see a choice rather than a fate. Silvia stares back, matching the conviction with her darkened eyes.
“My gift is my pact, and I will use it to prove them wrong, but I am nothing without it. I will prove I deserve to be treated with respect, that I can hold my own but I cannot do so without my power. I have spent so long trying to use my power to help people, to stop myself from doing harm and helping those who may need it, this is who I have had to become and I won’t stop now.”
Delilah grins. “Good. Keep going and you will discover all of the things you are capable of.”
“This is all very touching,” Jaezred speaks up again. “But I digress. I’d like to make a suggestion — I can cast identify on the Apocrypha to learn more about it. I may not uncover anything more, because as you said, Pentaghast, you’re already attuned to it, but I believe it is worth a try.”
Delilah steps back from Silvia, Beastie materialising at her feet from her shadow as she looks at Veridian, her eyes questioning, though she speaks to Jaezred. “That’s a great idea. It certainly would be helpful.”
Veridian looks to both Delilah and Jaezred, thinking but clearly doubtful. “I’m not sure if a lesser spell like that could uncover any of the deeper secrets of this book, but as you say it is worth a try at the very least. I have a feeling this might require something more intensive to figure it out.”
He looks to Jaezred to see if he is ready to do this now.
The drow steps out of the darkness towards Veridian and extends a palm out to him. “I promise I won’t play hot potato with it,” he says, a mischievous glint in his crimson eyes.
Veridian hands the book over to Jaezred.
Jaezred takes the heavy leather tome, feeling its literal and metaphorical weight in his hands, and sits down by a desk. He places the Apocrypha on the table in an oddly reverent manner and puts a pearl on the centre of its cover. He waves a hand and there is a burst of black flames in front of him, and another black leather-bound book appears, this one slightly smaller and less thick than the Apocrypha, held aloft by whispering wisps of shadows above the desk. The book flutters open to a certain page, which he begins to read aloud in a quiet chant — some archaic form of Elvish, almost incomprehensible to modern speakers, perhaps dating back to the ancient schism.
Minutes pass, and Jaezred’s chanting ceases. His face is the picture of stillness before he lets out a sigh. “Indeed, nothing new. The spell revealed only surface-level information about this tome. It is clearly a wizard’s spellbook too, so I cannot think of ways how Kurtz’s shadow sorcery could unlock its greater secrets, if indeed they exist. Perhaps… Miss Delilah, could you come here for a second?”
Silently, she steps up next to the drow lord, a curious look in her eyes. “What can I help with?”
“Maybe it reacts differently to someone shadow-touched,” he explains as he removes the pearl from the Apocrypha’s cover. “Could you pick up the tome for me, see if anything happens?”
The Pale Daughter nods and reaches forward to take the magical tome, Beastie leaping up to the table to watch. The moment Delilah’s hands close over it she feels the thrum of its power, it’s fascinating dark leather cover shifting and changing under her fingers in mesmerising swirls. Yet nothing appears to happen. Casting a glance between the two mages, she tentatively opens the book. The scent of sweet bread wafts up assailing her nose, making her blink in surprise, recalling memories long buried and forgotten. Pushing them aside, Delilah focuses on the neat and precise script – possibly Veridian’s – next to another bolder yet elegant hand – her father’s she presumes. Quiet whispers begin to rise from it’s pages like vapour, similar to the ones she heard when they visited the Obsidian City, just out of earshot and too quiet to understand. Beastie’s ears turn flat and their shadow fur stands on end.
Delilah flips another page and gets another puff of the sweet bread scent rising up to her face. “I hear the whispers you mentioned Veridian but I cannot understand them – possibly because I’m not attuned to it.” She looks at Jaezred and shakes her head. “It’s a powerful tome, even I can tell that, but I don’t think anything special is happening because I am touching it.”
She carefully closes the tome and reverently puts it back on the table. Delilah’s hand lingers on the cover for a moment and her dark brow furrows in quiet contemplation, before she pulls her hand back and addresses the others.
“Does anyone else have any other magic that would help us get answers?” Delilah asks, eyes skipping over from Jaezred to Viridian before landing on Father Cai. “Would you have anything, Father Okt’anys?”
He nods. “Yes, I know a spell or two that might be of use here. I would have to dust off some old tomes – I haven’t used them in a while – but I would gladly cast them in the morning.”
“I can try another spell as well, but I’d need to hunt down a scroll and copy it to my own tome first,” Jaezred adds. “Really hard work, you know, copying spells.”
Delilah bites the inside of her cheek to stop her grin. Cai makes a carefully neutral face at the comment and soldiers on.
“I believe I can cast a spell called Divination and another called Legend Lore. I could also try to commune with Ilmater himself but I hesitate to do so unless absolutely necessary.” He turns to Delilah. “We can save that for when all other resources have been exhausted, if that is alright with you?”
“It is,” she nods. “As things stand, I am in no particular rush to make rash decisions at the moment.” She stops and gives a humourless chuckle. “Running towards the strongest enemy without care for my life or limbs is no longer part of my repertoire.”
There’s a quiet snort from the back of the room. Father Cai raises an eyebrow but doesn’t pull on the thread. Instead he looks around the room again, at the strange collection of individuals now bound together.
“So that is it for now, I take it? We meet back here in the morning and continue the investigations?”
There are nods and murmurs of assent from all in the room. Delilah passes the spellbook back to Veridian with a soft murmur of thanks. Then Oziah stands up, unlocks the door, and they all begin to depart with the promise of returning tomorrow.
Cai gets to his feet alongside Silva, pausing for only a short moment. He looks at Veridian with confusion and hurt, confliction written clearly across his face, before turning and walking out.
