The Dark of the Night (22/11/23) - Rae

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“Rae! Haven’t spoken to you in a while. How are we doing?”

Rae looks up at the sound of Jaezred’s voice and swiftly shuts the battered and worn spellbook they were flicking through. Seated on a bench in Portal Plaza, they seemed to have caught the eye of the drow lord going out for an early evening stroll with his dog, a large hound with fur of shadow and glowing red eyes, standing behind him without collar or leash.

They smile at Jaezred and step up towards him. “Jaezred! Very well, thank you. You’re right, I suppose it has been some time. Perhaps because I haven’t been out of the city much, not a lot to report.” They chuckle a little to themselves. “Are you well?”

“I am, thanks for asking. Got yourself a new spellbook, I see?”

“Oh, yes. Taken from the late Antonia Warborn after our victory.” Rae looks around a little sheepishly, then gets closer and lowers their voice just a tad. “It’s Kyra Stuurm’s personal diary and spellbook. Which I know sounds bad, but I’ve been able to learn plenty of new spells and not worry about bothering the other wizards to copy from them. More tools in the belt, really.” They pat the book with a slightly nervous smile, somewhat afraid of Jaezred’s reaction.

“It’s Kyra Stuurm’s…? And you got it off Antonia’s body?” He bends down to get a better look at the book, and then back to Rae. “You didn’t mention it in the last briefing. What have you learned from reading it? Any juicy secrets?”

“Well, I hadn’t given it a good look through at that time. I honestly almost forgot about it a little, there was a lot else going on at the time. But there’s plenty of juicy stuff. Her time under the Archmage Nikolaus Morwing, her subsequent move to politics after feeling she was ‘under-appreciated’ and ‘not taken seriously’. Classic apprentice wizard ego.” Rae winks before carrying on. “She’s got some sprawled notes on her political allies and enemies, strategies and whatnot, quite useful actually. But what I’m really interested by is her theories on the Weave.” They flick through the pages and ramble with a nerdy fervour for knowledge.

Jaezred peers curiously at the writing on the pages as he bounces a red rubber ball between his hands. “Go on…”

“Her theory was that the Weave, if visualised, might look something like a humanoid brain. The way it connects to all things, the strands and threads representative of synapses and veins. I thought the theory interesting, but I didn’t want to base everything off of her ramblings, so I took to cross referencing some of these ideas in texts at Daring Academy. I was able to find similar ideas in some texts here and there. Discussing if that were true, is the Weave sentient? Perhaps inert currently? Does it have thoughts? An agenda? It’s wild stuff.” The pages of the spellbook show sketched diagrams with notes chicken-scratch scrawled along the sides.

“Well, some say that the goddess Mystra is the Weave. It’s a fringe theory, but not without merit. You see, when Mystra was killed in 1385 — this was before you were born, I presume — the Weave collapsed at the same time. It’s very interesting indeed. So…” Jaezred leans in with a smirk. “What are you hiding from me, Rae?”

Rae gets flushed cheeks and looks around. “Hiding? Why do you think I’m hiding? I just did so much sharing!”

Their reaction only serves to widen his grin. “And yet, there’s something you’re keeping from me… Come on. Out with it.”

“I promise you I’m not! I guess I just…” Rae shuts the book and rubs their forehead. “I was just a bit nervous sharing this with you. I know I’ve been on a bit of thin ice from the situation with the ring, and this is something I grabbed from when I was wearing it and it’s linked to a woman who nearly brought K’ul Goran to ruin… I just, think there’s really interesting and useful things in here. And I didn’t want you to think I was making another mistake.”

The grin on Jaezred’s face fades as he comes to terms with how Rae views themselves in his eyes. His mouth opens and closes a couple of times but he appears to be at a loss for what to say. “I… Er…”

Rae looks down to the floor when an immediate response doesn’t arrive, further embarrassment flooding their face.

Jaezred glances awkwardly at He’lylbreia, who is sitting on the ground in front of them with their tongue lolling out, and then down at the rubber ball in his hand. He holds the ball up. “Hey. Would you like to play catch with us?”

Rae looks up at the request, and a small smile crosses their face. “I would like that, yes.”

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On the green just beyond Castle Gate, Jaezred takes off his jacket and rolls up his sleeves. He takes up a position 30 feet away from Rae whilst He’lylbreia runs excited laps around both of them, and then hurls the red ball at Rae.

“So, I hear Keros has gone off to K’ul Goran for a job. How come you aren’t there with him?”

Rae has similarly removed their large coat, wearing their simple short sleeved shirt with a waistcoat undone. They catch the ball with relative ease, softening the landing by bringing it to the chest before moving into a good underhand to send it gliding back.

“An opportunity came up in Kundar that I wanted to check out. I was there recently on a personal favour for a friend and noticed it was a bit different out there. You know they’ve really locked it down for us if we wanna get in?”

Jaezred catches Rae’s throw with one hand, and with the momentum, chucks the ball in He’lylbreia’s direction. They run back a short distance and then jump into the air to snatch the ball between their jaws.

“Yes, I’ve heard,” he calls back to Rae. “They’ve got their own adventurers’ guild now, extorting visiting Dawnlands adventurers at the teleportation point. Greedy bastards. I’m surprised there’s a new job from over there — what was it?”

He’lylbreia trots to Rae with the ball in their mouth and their tail wagging happily. Rae smiles, scratching the top of He’lylbreia’s head with one hand and taking the ball with the other. They throw the ball overhand to send the shadow spirit running and look at Jaezred.

“People and their precious valuables are going missing, and the K.A.G. are doing nothing about it. We looked into it, the cause was these… semi-mechanical creatures I had encountered in Kundar before. And the kicker is, we tracked the point of origin of the creatures to the sewers underneath K.A.G. headquarters.”

“Ah, so Matthias Prideborn is up to something again… I’m not surprised he’s the one behind the adventurers’ guild, too.”

He’lylbreia gives the ball to Jaezred this time, and they are rewarded with lots of scritches. “Did you follow them to the sewers?” he asks before pitching the ball in a curving arc at Rae again.

Rae reaches for the ball with one hand rather than two, but it just manages to slip from their grasp and they have to run a couple of steps to grab it. They walk back to their spot once they have retrieved it and give a gentle underarm throw back.

“Not in, we just used a combination of scrying and some divine creature location to pinpoint where they were, found where it was from above ground and decided we didn’t want to draw outright attention just yet.”

“I see…” The ball lands in Jaezred’s joined palms and he holds onto it for a moment as he thinks. “What do you think they’re doing down there?”

“Tough to say. The mechanical creatures seem unified, controlled by a bigger one. Hive mind-type situation. But I can’t pin if that hive mind is controlled by Prideborn or if he simply let them loose. As far as I’ve seen, they consume precious materials naturally, that’s just what they do. But kidnapping civilians seems outside of their usual wheelhouse.” Rae ponders for a moment, furrowing their brow. “What I’m seeing with what I have so far, is Prideborn kicking Dawnlanders out of Kundar, making them reliant on their own league of adventurers, but controlling those adventurers enough so that they don’t thwart whatever he is doing. But the end goal of kidnapping people is… unclear right now.”

“Well, you see, those mechanical creatures are capable of impersonating people almost perfectly. With a single drop of blood, they could even take on the memories of the victim. Caused quite a bit of headache last summer when they managed to impersonate the Daring ambassador to Kundar. So perhaps there’s a pattern to the kidnappings that is not yet obvious to us.”

He’lylbreia sprints in between Jaezred and Rae and barks at their master. Having been reminded of what they came here to do, he tosses the ball at the shadow hound, which they then bring over to Rae.

“Prideborn is a fool,” the drow continues. “He’s already won. He could have a monopoly on Kundar’s adventurer job market for a decade, maybe more, but shutting out Dawnlanders isn’t enough for him. This is the venom of revenge.”

Rae holds the ball in their hand while they listen, rolling it back and forth as they consider Jaezred’s words. “What does Prideborn want revenge for, exactly?”

“I don’t know. No one has been able to tell me. But it seems a bloody enough reason that it was worth burning Kundar over.”

Rae frowns as they throw the ball back to Jaezred overarm with a surprising bit of strength. “Everywhere seems to have someone with delusions of power and a lack of care for their people. I’ll do what I can to find out Prideborn’s reason for revenge. And hopefully a way to stop these cruelties at the same time.”

Jaezred shields his face with a raised arm and the ball bounces off it, rolling into a patch of tall grass. He’lylbreia runs to fetch it. “I’ll tell you what I’ve told the others: you should speak to Matthias’s Prideborn brothers, Thomas and Ambrose. They did not seem to share Matthias’s hatred towards Dawnlanders, which makes me suspect that they do not approve of his plans. If they had not yet been replaced, that is.”

Rae manages a chuckle. “And they always have a sibling you can side with against them. Well, I appreciate the info as always. Anything else I should know about these goings on?”

“Adventurers brought two of these demonic constructs to Daring last time,” he replies as he tosses the ball to Rae. “They’re in the Council’s custody, I know not what’s happened to them since. You should ask. The way to identify these creatures is having someone with a special nose”—he taps the side of his nose and winks—“like a paladin or some such. Their fiendish auras are masked by Nystuul’s magic aura, but it can be penetrated.”

Rae manages the one handed catch this time, smiles a little, and tosses the ball from one hand to the other. “Okay, got it. I’ll ask Keros to come with me next time. It would be good to have him there.”

Smiling reservedly, Jaezred slips his hands into his pockets and walks leisurely towards Rae. “It looks like the Dawnlands is facing yet another threat. We’ll need all the help we can get. Are you looking further into Stuurm’s theories?”

Rae looks up with a glint of hope returning to their eyes. “I would like to. I think it’s something that has major potential for some powerful practical application.”

“You would be right, because I believe it was her deeper understanding of the Weave that enabled her to cast that massive ritual spell before Keros killed her.” Jaezred clears his throat before continuing. “Look, I think it’s great that you’re researching this and I believe this book is better in your hands than in anyone else’s. But never forget this, Rae: power is a burden. Far too many mages — but especially wizards — have been blinded by its lure and, to borrow your own words, fall into delusion and abandon their care for others. Eventually, they take on more than they can handle and are crushed by the weight of their own power. Do you understand me, Rae? Whatever you learn from this book, I encourage you to tell me and Keros about it; and for Keros’s sake, do explain it in plain Common to him.”

“Of course! Firstly, Keros is already in the loop. The finer details he may not understand, but he does understand the potential in it, and my belief in it. And yes, I promise. The intent of this research is not power for my own personal gain. It is to be put to good use. By you, me, and Keros. A tool in the tool belt.”

Jaezred nods. “I know you want to prove yourself, but you do not need to. Not to me, anyway. Just be careful. And… I would rather you be open with me than fear my judgement.” He glances off into the sunset as if trying to hide the blush on his cheeks. “Now, shall we go find dinner? It’s getting a bit chilly out here.”

Rae smiles brightly. “I promise, I’ll be careful. It’s like I said back when we were getting into it with K’ul Goran. We’re working together on this. We’re a team.” They nod as they listen and put on their own coat. “Food sounds good.” They return the ball to him with one last gentle underarm throw.

Jaezred catches the ball with one hand and smiles back. As the three of them walk back into Daring Heights together, he pats Rae’s back and gives their shoulder an affirming squeeze, whilst his free hand tosses the ball up and down.

“Oh, and that was some good throwing there, kiddo.”