Menace to Society (14/4) - Jaezred
Apr 27, 2022 7:31:27 GMT
Ian (Menace), Delilah Daybreaker, and 2 more like this
Post by Jaezred Vandree on Apr 27, 2022 7:31:27 GMT
Content warning: spiders
A burst of black flames. A thick, antique-looking tome fluttering open. The words Imryll Elamaris written in a neat, elegant hand on the top of the right-hand page. Jaezred’s hesitant hand picks up the raven feather quill, hovering the tip of the pen over the blank page. He sits there, on the edge of the four-poster bed in his room at the Flourished Hook, unmoving for several moments.
Delilah advised him to do this — to speak to her — and he suspects she might be right in that this would make both of them feel better. But how to even begin? What should he say?
His hand moves almost on its own accord and absently scribbles a single word on the parchment page:
Hey.
The reply manifests in ink under his single-word greeting, in the same handwriting in which Imryll’s name is written:
(Chuckle.) Hey.
I hope you’ve had a good day? he writes back, feeling rather awkward as he does. There is a slight pause before the next reply.
I did! Satyr jousting is always more fun than you expect it to be. Did you, dear?
A small smile quirks on his lips. Rode a big, strong satyr, did you? Did you win? A pause. My day was interesting.
Hardly, I’m afraid… It’s supposed to be a civilised talk, but several bottles of wine in and the games always begin. Interesting?
Jaezred takes a deep breath.
I had a good dinner. Slow-roasted red dragon wyrmling. Going to bed now — good night.
He thinks of closing the book shut, dismissing it to somewhere out of sight, and burying himself under the covers, suddenly feeling foolish to have even attempted that, but another reply appears on the page before he could. What, roasted dragon and no dessert?
He slowly reopens the tome, peering back at the page with uncertainty unsettling in his stomach. With an ever so slightly quivering hand, he picks the quill back up and writes a line.
Had a drow inquisitor for dessert. He feels the sheer awkwardness heating his cheeks as he quickly adds, Not in that way, though.
A reply comes after a brief pause: That’s a shame, ungarnished that could have been a real treat. Odd choice to follow with, though. Care to explain?
I don’t know, dearest.
Well, I’m afraid I will be needing details, dear, but it’s up to you whether that’s tonight or tomorrow?
Could you come here please? My room at the Hook.
Of course.
Not thirty seconds later, Imryll appears in the suite, standing in front of Jaezred in olive robes. She eyes the man sitting before her — half-dressed in an unbuttoned shirt, hair slightly dishevelled, a half-drunk bottle of brandy in one hand — for a long moment and folds her arms. “I don’t think ‘interesting’ is going to quite cut it this time, dear,” she says.
“Well, you can’t deny it’s an accurate descriptor,” he answers with a slurred voice and a half-hearted shrug. Staring down at the carpet under his bare feet, he pats an empty space on the mattress next to him.
Imryll sits down on the bed as instructed and removes the bottle from his hand as she does. “I think that’s enough of this one for now… So? What happened at dinner?”
“You remember the Lenoirs?” He sighs, his shoulders slumping even further. “They used to own this place, along with most of Port Ffirst.”
A gentle hand is laid on his back and strokes up and down affectionately, comfortingly. “I’m aware of who they are, yes.”
“They invited one of their rivals to dinner tonight. Goes by Menace. He had a…personal vendetta against the brothers, and the ambition to take over their operations. And so he hired me and some others to support him as he planned to make a move against them during the dinner party. But Soros… Soros knew we were coming. He dug into each and every one of us.”
The musicians were assassins in disguise — that was almost painfully obvious. Oldest trick in the book of drow schemes. There was a section of the floor behind them, mostly concealed by a rug, that can be shifted or removed, no doubt serving some other nefarious purpose. But what drew Jaezred’s attention the most were the brothers’ other guests. A knight in full plate armour, a genteel tradesman in fine silks, and a female drow — tall and statuesque, spidery etchings decorating her dull silver breastplate.
She sat still in her chair, not touching any of the sumptuous food and drink being served on the grand banquet table, though a certain impatience quietly broiled beneath her steely demeanour. She paid no attention to the lanky high elven youth clinging onto Menace’s arm — likely thought him unworthy of any. And thus Jaezred was so very grateful for his clever disguise.
“Inquisitor Xanaphia, is it?” said Menace casually. “I have business ties with House T’sylan in Xarribia, the exchange of goods and the like. I wonder if your ladyship perchance comes from there?”
Xanaphia turns to meet his overly friendly smile with an arctic stare. “I have come here to hunt apostates.”
Jaezred pulls out a crumpled page, torn out from a book, from the back pocket of his trousers and hands it over to Imryll. Soros had written the drow mage’s name in large, flowing letters and brief notes underneath it: Lolthian apostate — fears former compatriots. Arrogance exploitable. Gourmand —poison? In thrall to one of the witchlings.
“Somehow, he managed to find a drow inquisitor hunting down apostates and convinced her to come to his dinner party,” he explains, gazing off into middle distance. “Xanaphia Nasadra. One of the last of her house. She knew me by name.”
“Lenoir. Where is the apostate? You said he was going to be here!” Xanaphia demanded, her grip on her death lance tightening. But Soros, bleeding from several wounds and facing down a big dragonborn warrior with a bigger greatsword, had no time for this.
“Use your head, Inquisitor. There is only one elf in this room.”
Xanaphia’s stern gaze landed on the high elf who had teleported behind a pillar. She began to utter a spell, but it died on her lips promptly, negated by a well-practised counterspell.
Jaezred threw off his hat of disguise, and his form shifted from that of a high elven youth to his usual drow self. Her eyes widened and behind them, a dark and hateful fire was ignited.
“Vandree!” she hissed.
“Come on, priestess, let’s dance!”
Imryll tuts. “Reduced to ‘one of the witchlings’… I clearly need to show my face around here a bit more. This is hardly surprising, of course. It’s only prudent to scope out potential enemies.”
“Naturally. I just…” He takes a deep breath and lets out another, deeper sigh. “She travelled all the way here to hunt me down. For that is what I am known as now in Menzoberranzan — an apostate. A fucking stain upon the family name,” he spits out bitterly.
“I understand that must be upsetting dear but, again, it’s hardly surprising. You know how they think, you yourself used to think the same way. They are blind to the ways of the world outside their Underdark. And they fear what you have become without them, so much so they try and fail to send someone after you. You are not a stain, dear, just something beyond their reckoning.”
A portal tore open in the air between him and Menace, and when Jaezred saw where it led to, it took all the courage and force of will within him to not panic and stand his ground. Trees, dead creatures, and structures from distant worlds suspended in massive, thick webs in all directions against a black sky lit solely by eight bright red stars — the Demonweb Pits. Small, demonic spiders came flying on silken threads out of the portal towards the two of them, crawling and biting into their skin and covering their bodies in webs. Jaezred looked past the tear at the inquisitor standing across the room from him and saw the sneer that had formed upon her lips.
“How far you have fallen. Stay put, I will return you to your mistress.”
There was a time when he would have fallen to knees before her, accepting whatever cruel punishment she would choose for him, taking every lash of the whip as if it were succour, grovelling for clemency from death. And some tiny part of his mind was screaming at him to do just that.
But that Jaezred Vandree was no longer.
He leans down and lays his head against Imryll’s bosom, where it is held with her hand cradling his face. “And what if they send someone after you to hurt me? What do I do then?”
“Oh, my sweet fool…” she coos, stroking his hair. “You enjoy the show! It will take much more than the petty games they play in Menzoberranzan to stop me. You forget I stand with our dear Queen. Many have tried to send people after me to hurt her already.”
He makes a noise of affirmation, feeling more assured now.
He ripped some webbing that had stuck to his shoulder with spiders crawling upon it and cast it aside. “How far I have fallen?” he shouted. The rage, the anger, the prideful fury — borne out of 250 years of oppression and abuse — grew with each moment he looked at the priestess. Black flames sparked into life at his feet. “You will see how far I have fallen!”
The flames roared and rose to envelop him in a sphere. When they dispersed, Jaezred stood now with a giant white spider’s body from below the waist, long, black fangs dripping with venom extending out from his jaw. The motes of starlight on the shadowy crown of stars above his head had turned from silver to blood-red.
“Sacrilege!” she cried. The drider answered with a loud, menacing hiss.
He scaled up the wall behind him, then crawled upside-down on the ceiling towards her. The musician-assassins shot their poisoned bolts into his side, yet he paid them no mind.
Xanaphia levelled her death lance forward, but being so preoccupied with the drider, she failed to notice Delilah coming up beside her. The half-elf struck two sharp, precise blows, and she wheezed out a cry that quickly faltered away as every muscle in her body locked into place. She could only stare as the starlight-crowned monster dropped to the floor on his long, arachnid legs before her. Eyes of crimson hate focused on their frozen prey. He opened his misshapen jaw and spoke in a horrible voice.
“I AM THE SON OF THE SPIDER QUEEN, THE LORD OF DRIDERS, AND I WILL RETURN YOU TO YOUR MISTRESS!”
An index finger pointed, a thin, green beam, and Xanaphia’s purple skin discoloured into grey and began to flake and fall away, just before her entire body exploded into dust.
The remains of the drow inquisitor settled on the carpet, scattering and getting lost between the fibres.
Jaezred sits back up to touch his forehead against Imryll’s. He closes his eyes and his voice comes out as an intense whisper as he strokes her cheek.
“I killed the inquisitor. She called me an apostate, said how far you have fallen. Something inside me…just…snapped. I turned into the monster and I disintegrated her. She will not be the last. But I will kill them all. For you and for us, my love.”
“And I will be here, waiting to hear all about it, my love.” She pulls back to kiss him on the forehead before resting hers against his again and looking into his eyes. “Next time, at least bring some of the roasted dragon, though.”
He shrugs nonchalantly. “It is severely overrated, if you ask me.”
A few days later, Jaezred asked Imryll to accompany him on a ride around New Town in his sleek, black phaeton. She made sure to put on the widest-brimmed hat she could find (he called it ridiculous, she reminded him it’s pronounced “fabulous”), which mystically managed to stay on her head as He’lylbreia pulled the high-flyer on the streets of Port Ffirst at 13 miles/hour. Velkyn the unseen servant sat in the back with a chilled bottle of wine and two glasses in their invisible hands.
The carriage stops in front of an empty, two-storey shop building on Silk Street, its door half-heartedly sealed with a rusty chain. Jaezred gets off the red leather seat and offers a hand to his lover. “Here we are.”
She regards the shopfront with a slightly bemused expression as she takes his hand and steps off the phaeton. “And what is here, exactly?”
Jaezred unwinds the length of chain from around the door handle and pushes it open. Sunlight streamed into the interior of the shop for what must be the first time in many months, showing oblong white walls with the paint threatening to chip off, boarded-up windows, a dusty winding staircase in the corner of the room, and some remaining, sparse bits of furniture bolted to the wood floor, covered by white sheets. He takes his top hat off as he steps inside.
“Menace has seized all the assets that once belonged to the Lenoirs and promised me that someday, this will belong to me. I was thinking I could turn it into a tea rooms, a mill of rumours and information in the Dawnlands, if I can draw in the right kind of clientele,” he explains, turning around to look at her. “In short, an asset for the court.”
“Aha! You never did finish telling me what happened at dinner. So this Menace to the Lenoirs now holds their stake in the Dawnlands, I see…”
“Indeed he does. Soros is now shark excrement and Voros is currently living his new life as a decorative statue in Menace’s study. The king is dead, long live the king.”
Imryll walks around the room, lifting the odd sheet to inspect the furniture beneath and appraising the space in general, making little hmm sounds as she goes, as if taking mental notes. “And what is he expecting in return for all…this?”
“Nothing. He is glad for this little port town to have another amenity. I have promised him special privileges but I made it clear that the establishment will not be involved in the power struggles of the plutocrats here, and he seems to be fine with that.”
She nods, giving the place another look around. “I see… Well. there is one problem I foresee, at least, dear.” As she turns back to face him, he sees her trademark smirk back in place. “Your people skills really will need some work or no one will want to come in here!”
“If they’re good enough to seduce you, they’re good enough for everyone else!” he says, then pulls her by the waist to peck a kiss on her cheek.
The eladrin feigns being offended but laughs all the same. “Well, if nothing else, it’s about time this quaint, little harbour town had something a bit more refined.”
“Indubitably.” Jaezred lays a palm against the plain wall. Velkyn uncorks the bottle and starts pouring wine for them both. “This could be a nice parlour area on the ground floor, and there are smaller, more private rooms upstairs. There, we could put anti-divination wards and permanent silence zones in the walls and then the right sort of people will come to us. As for food and refreshments — well, just leave it to me. But I will need someone to run the day-to-day operations here.”
“Yes, I dare say you might. Even the Lenoirs had their front man… Anyone in mind?”
“No. I’ll have to ask Her Majesty later, I suppose, and entreat her for some funding too…”
“Perhaps, though I think local faces would help with integration as well.”
Velkyn hands them each a glass of wine. “I think we’ll make something good here,” Jaezred says, raising his glass to her with a smile.
“A bit of decoration, some more of those singing flowers from your friend, and a bit of legwork to get the word out… Yes, I think you might be right.” Her smile is bright as she toasts him with a soft clink of the glasses.
He sips the wine, savouring the taste of the beginning of a new chapter in life, then plants a light kiss on her lips. “I’m going for a cruise down the River Styx next week. May not come back, blah blah blah, you know the drill. Care to join me for a calm, beachside seafood dinner first, though? And after that, I know a quiet spot on the beach that no one goes to…”
“Oh, it’s lovely there this time of year! You will love the oppression that wafts off the water, I’m sure,” she quips, cupping his face with a hand and smiling happily. “Seafood sounds lovely, dear… And I’m sure it will be anything but quiet once we are there.”
He chuckles and pulls her in for a deeper kiss. Two glasses of wine later, the gentleman spy strides out of the shop with her in his arms, ready for a pleasant evening together in a new Port Ffirst.
Co-written with the magnificent Anthony.
A burst of black flames. A thick, antique-looking tome fluttering open. The words Imryll Elamaris written in a neat, elegant hand on the top of the right-hand page. Jaezred’s hesitant hand picks up the raven feather quill, hovering the tip of the pen over the blank page. He sits there, on the edge of the four-poster bed in his room at the Flourished Hook, unmoving for several moments.
Delilah advised him to do this — to speak to her — and he suspects she might be right in that this would make both of them feel better. But how to even begin? What should he say?
His hand moves almost on its own accord and absently scribbles a single word on the parchment page:
Hey.
The reply manifests in ink under his single-word greeting, in the same handwriting in which Imryll’s name is written:
(Chuckle.) Hey.
I hope you’ve had a good day? he writes back, feeling rather awkward as he does. There is a slight pause before the next reply.
I did! Satyr jousting is always more fun than you expect it to be. Did you, dear?
A small smile quirks on his lips. Rode a big, strong satyr, did you? Did you win? A pause. My day was interesting.
Hardly, I’m afraid… It’s supposed to be a civilised talk, but several bottles of wine in and the games always begin. Interesting?
Jaezred takes a deep breath.
I had a good dinner. Slow-roasted red dragon wyrmling. Going to bed now — good night.
He thinks of closing the book shut, dismissing it to somewhere out of sight, and burying himself under the covers, suddenly feeling foolish to have even attempted that, but another reply appears on the page before he could. What, roasted dragon and no dessert?
He slowly reopens the tome, peering back at the page with uncertainty unsettling in his stomach. With an ever so slightly quivering hand, he picks the quill back up and writes a line.
Had a drow inquisitor for dessert. He feels the sheer awkwardness heating his cheeks as he quickly adds, Not in that way, though.
A reply comes after a brief pause: That’s a shame, ungarnished that could have been a real treat. Odd choice to follow with, though. Care to explain?
I don’t know, dearest.
Well, I’m afraid I will be needing details, dear, but it’s up to you whether that’s tonight or tomorrow?
Could you come here please? My room at the Hook.
Of course.
Not thirty seconds later, Imryll appears in the suite, standing in front of Jaezred in olive robes. She eyes the man sitting before her — half-dressed in an unbuttoned shirt, hair slightly dishevelled, a half-drunk bottle of brandy in one hand — for a long moment and folds her arms. “I don’t think ‘interesting’ is going to quite cut it this time, dear,” she says.
“Well, you can’t deny it’s an accurate descriptor,” he answers with a slurred voice and a half-hearted shrug. Staring down at the carpet under his bare feet, he pats an empty space on the mattress next to him.
Imryll sits down on the bed as instructed and removes the bottle from his hand as she does. “I think that’s enough of this one for now… So? What happened at dinner?”
“You remember the Lenoirs?” He sighs, his shoulders slumping even further. “They used to own this place, along with most of Port Ffirst.”
A gentle hand is laid on his back and strokes up and down affectionately, comfortingly. “I’m aware of who they are, yes.”
“They invited one of their rivals to dinner tonight. Goes by Menace. He had a…personal vendetta against the brothers, and the ambition to take over their operations. And so he hired me and some others to support him as he planned to make a move against them during the dinner party. But Soros… Soros knew we were coming. He dug into each and every one of us.”
The musicians were assassins in disguise — that was almost painfully obvious. Oldest trick in the book of drow schemes. There was a section of the floor behind them, mostly concealed by a rug, that can be shifted or removed, no doubt serving some other nefarious purpose. But what drew Jaezred’s attention the most were the brothers’ other guests. A knight in full plate armour, a genteel tradesman in fine silks, and a female drow — tall and statuesque, spidery etchings decorating her dull silver breastplate.
She sat still in her chair, not touching any of the sumptuous food and drink being served on the grand banquet table, though a certain impatience quietly broiled beneath her steely demeanour. She paid no attention to the lanky high elven youth clinging onto Menace’s arm — likely thought him unworthy of any. And thus Jaezred was so very grateful for his clever disguise.
“Inquisitor Xanaphia, is it?” said Menace casually. “I have business ties with House T’sylan in Xarribia, the exchange of goods and the like. I wonder if your ladyship perchance comes from there?”
Xanaphia turns to meet his overly friendly smile with an arctic stare. “I have come here to hunt apostates.”
Jaezred pulls out a crumpled page, torn out from a book, from the back pocket of his trousers and hands it over to Imryll. Soros had written the drow mage’s name in large, flowing letters and brief notes underneath it: Lolthian apostate — fears former compatriots. Arrogance exploitable. Gourmand —
“Somehow, he managed to find a drow inquisitor hunting down apostates and convinced her to come to his dinner party,” he explains, gazing off into middle distance. “Xanaphia Nasadra. One of the last of her house. She knew me by name.”
“Lenoir. Where is the apostate? You said he was going to be here!” Xanaphia demanded, her grip on her death lance tightening. But Soros, bleeding from several wounds and facing down a big dragonborn warrior with a bigger greatsword, had no time for this.
“Use your head, Inquisitor. There is only one elf in this room.”
Xanaphia’s stern gaze landed on the high elf who had teleported behind a pillar. She began to utter a spell, but it died on her lips promptly, negated by a well-practised counterspell.
Jaezred threw off his hat of disguise, and his form shifted from that of a high elven youth to his usual drow self. Her eyes widened and behind them, a dark and hateful fire was ignited.
“Vandree!” she hissed.
“Come on, priestess, let’s dance!”
Imryll tuts. “Reduced to ‘one of the witchlings’… I clearly need to show my face around here a bit more. This is hardly surprising, of course. It’s only prudent to scope out potential enemies.”
“Naturally. I just…” He takes a deep breath and lets out another, deeper sigh. “She travelled all the way here to hunt me down. For that is what I am known as now in Menzoberranzan — an apostate. A fucking stain upon the family name,” he spits out bitterly.
“I understand that must be upsetting dear but, again, it’s hardly surprising. You know how they think, you yourself used to think the same way. They are blind to the ways of the world outside their Underdark. And they fear what you have become without them, so much so they try and fail to send someone after you. You are not a stain, dear, just something beyond their reckoning.”
A portal tore open in the air between him and Menace, and when Jaezred saw where it led to, it took all the courage and force of will within him to not panic and stand his ground. Trees, dead creatures, and structures from distant worlds suspended in massive, thick webs in all directions against a black sky lit solely by eight bright red stars — the Demonweb Pits. Small, demonic spiders came flying on silken threads out of the portal towards the two of them, crawling and biting into their skin and covering their bodies in webs. Jaezred looked past the tear at the inquisitor standing across the room from him and saw the sneer that had formed upon her lips.
“How far you have fallen. Stay put, I will return you to your mistress.”
There was a time when he would have fallen to knees before her, accepting whatever cruel punishment she would choose for him, taking every lash of the whip as if it were succour, grovelling for clemency from death. And some tiny part of his mind was screaming at him to do just that.
But that Jaezred Vandree was no longer.
He leans down and lays his head against Imryll’s bosom, where it is held with her hand cradling his face. “And what if they send someone after you to hurt me? What do I do then?”
“Oh, my sweet fool…” she coos, stroking his hair. “You enjoy the show! It will take much more than the petty games they play in Menzoberranzan to stop me. You forget I stand with our dear Queen. Many have tried to send people after me to hurt her already.”
He makes a noise of affirmation, feeling more assured now.
He ripped some webbing that had stuck to his shoulder with spiders crawling upon it and cast it aside. “How far I have fallen?” he shouted. The rage, the anger, the prideful fury — borne out of 250 years of oppression and abuse — grew with each moment he looked at the priestess. Black flames sparked into life at his feet. “You will see how far I have fallen!”
The flames roared and rose to envelop him in a sphere. When they dispersed, Jaezred stood now with a giant white spider’s body from below the waist, long, black fangs dripping with venom extending out from his jaw. The motes of starlight on the shadowy crown of stars above his head had turned from silver to blood-red.
“Sacrilege!” she cried. The drider answered with a loud, menacing hiss.
He scaled up the wall behind him, then crawled upside-down on the ceiling towards her. The musician-assassins shot their poisoned bolts into his side, yet he paid them no mind.
Xanaphia levelled her death lance forward, but being so preoccupied with the drider, she failed to notice Delilah coming up beside her. The half-elf struck two sharp, precise blows, and she wheezed out a cry that quickly faltered away as every muscle in her body locked into place. She could only stare as the starlight-crowned monster dropped to the floor on his long, arachnid legs before her. Eyes of crimson hate focused on their frozen prey. He opened his misshapen jaw and spoke in a horrible voice.
“I AM THE SON OF THE SPIDER QUEEN, THE LORD OF DRIDERS, AND I WILL RETURN YOU TO YOUR MISTRESS!”
An index finger pointed, a thin, green beam, and Xanaphia’s purple skin discoloured into grey and began to flake and fall away, just before her entire body exploded into dust.
The remains of the drow inquisitor settled on the carpet, scattering and getting lost between the fibres.
Jaezred sits back up to touch his forehead against Imryll’s. He closes his eyes and his voice comes out as an intense whisper as he strokes her cheek.
“I killed the inquisitor. She called me an apostate, said how far you have fallen. Something inside me…just…snapped. I turned into the monster and I disintegrated her. She will not be the last. But I will kill them all. For you and for us, my love.”
“And I will be here, waiting to hear all about it, my love.” She pulls back to kiss him on the forehead before resting hers against his again and looking into his eyes. “Next time, at least bring some of the roasted dragon, though.”
He shrugs nonchalantly. “It is severely overrated, if you ask me.”
🕸️🕷️🕸️
A few days later, Jaezred asked Imryll to accompany him on a ride around New Town in his sleek, black phaeton. She made sure to put on the widest-brimmed hat she could find (he called it ridiculous, she reminded him it’s pronounced “fabulous”), which mystically managed to stay on her head as He’lylbreia pulled the high-flyer on the streets of Port Ffirst at 13 miles/hour. Velkyn the unseen servant sat in the back with a chilled bottle of wine and two glasses in their invisible hands.
The carriage stops in front of an empty, two-storey shop building on Silk Street, its door half-heartedly sealed with a rusty chain. Jaezred gets off the red leather seat and offers a hand to his lover. “Here we are.”
She regards the shopfront with a slightly bemused expression as she takes his hand and steps off the phaeton. “And what is here, exactly?”
Jaezred unwinds the length of chain from around the door handle and pushes it open. Sunlight streamed into the interior of the shop for what must be the first time in many months, showing oblong white walls with the paint threatening to chip off, boarded-up windows, a dusty winding staircase in the corner of the room, and some remaining, sparse bits of furniture bolted to the wood floor, covered by white sheets. He takes his top hat off as he steps inside.
“Menace has seized all the assets that once belonged to the Lenoirs and promised me that someday, this will belong to me. I was thinking I could turn it into a tea rooms, a mill of rumours and information in the Dawnlands, if I can draw in the right kind of clientele,” he explains, turning around to look at her. “In short, an asset for the court.”
“Aha! You never did finish telling me what happened at dinner. So this Menace to the Lenoirs now holds their stake in the Dawnlands, I see…”
“Indeed he does. Soros is now shark excrement and Voros is currently living his new life as a decorative statue in Menace’s study. The king is dead, long live the king.”
Imryll walks around the room, lifting the odd sheet to inspect the furniture beneath and appraising the space in general, making little hmm sounds as she goes, as if taking mental notes. “And what is he expecting in return for all…this?”
“Nothing. He is glad for this little port town to have another amenity. I have promised him special privileges but I made it clear that the establishment will not be involved in the power struggles of the plutocrats here, and he seems to be fine with that.”
She nods, giving the place another look around. “I see… Well. there is one problem I foresee, at least, dear.” As she turns back to face him, he sees her trademark smirk back in place. “Your people skills really will need some work or no one will want to come in here!”
“If they’re good enough to seduce you, they’re good enough for everyone else!” he says, then pulls her by the waist to peck a kiss on her cheek.
The eladrin feigns being offended but laughs all the same. “Well, if nothing else, it’s about time this quaint, little harbour town had something a bit more refined.”
“Indubitably.” Jaezred lays a palm against the plain wall. Velkyn uncorks the bottle and starts pouring wine for them both. “This could be a nice parlour area on the ground floor, and there are smaller, more private rooms upstairs. There, we could put anti-divination wards and permanent silence zones in the walls and then the right sort of people will come to us. As for food and refreshments — well, just leave it to me. But I will need someone to run the day-to-day operations here.”
“Yes, I dare say you might. Even the Lenoirs had their front man… Anyone in mind?”
“No. I’ll have to ask Her Majesty later, I suppose, and entreat her for some funding too…”
“Perhaps, though I think local faces would help with integration as well.”
Velkyn hands them each a glass of wine. “I think we’ll make something good here,” Jaezred says, raising his glass to her with a smile.
“A bit of decoration, some more of those singing flowers from your friend, and a bit of legwork to get the word out… Yes, I think you might be right.” Her smile is bright as she toasts him with a soft clink of the glasses.
He sips the wine, savouring the taste of the beginning of a new chapter in life, then plants a light kiss on her lips. “I’m going for a cruise down the River Styx next week. May not come back, blah blah blah, you know the drill. Care to join me for a calm, beachside seafood dinner first, though? And after that, I know a quiet spot on the beach that no one goes to…”
“Oh, it’s lovely there this time of year! You will love the oppression that wafts off the water, I’m sure,” she quips, cupping his face with a hand and smiling happily. “Seafood sounds lovely, dear… And I’m sure it will be anything but quiet once we are there.”
He chuckles and pulls her in for a deeper kiss. Two glasses of wine later, the gentleman spy strides out of the shop with her in his arms, ready for a pleasant evening together in a new Port Ffirst.
Co-written with the magnificent Anthony.