I tapped my microphone. “Shelter leaders. Threat appears to have passed. Give us ten minutes to sweep the town to confirm. Meanwhile, I need everyone to do a headcount and make sure everyone assigned to you is present and accounted for.”
Duty done, I was able to let the victory wash over me. I danced a jig, right there on the roof. Several of the people on the street hooted and hollered, others joined in. I hopped down and started grabbing hands and dancing with several of the women in celebration.
“We did it!” Ameiko laughed.
“We’ve done the impossible, and that makes us mighty!” I shouted. Cheers erupted around us. “Alright, everyone, work isn’t done. Begin sweeps in groups of three as planned. Geo, give me a sec and I’ll get you a listing of all unsprung traps. I may have missed a few going off, so there’ll be a few extra, but it’ll be a good place to start. Sheriff Hemlock, after that, I need to speak with you for a moment.”
I got Geo the list and he got to work disarming traps. Then I pulled the Sheriff aside. “Is this about the Vinder girls?” he asked.
Oh, right. I needed to figure out what to do with them. “Indeed,” I said, loud enough for anyone listening to hear. “Let’s talk more privately.” He agreed and we found a place with a little privacy to talk. “Actually, this has nothing to do with them,” I whispered. “We need to do something about them, but this might interest you a bit more.” I handed him the note I’d snagged from Scarnetti’s damaged desk.
He read the note, his face contorting in a mixture of anger and vindication. “I knew it!” he said.
“We have to handle this correctly. After the sweep, once we call for the people to come out, we’ll have everyone assemble in the plaza in front of the cathedral. You have your guards arrest Jubrayl Vhiski. I’ll take Titus Scarnetti into custody. Then we’ll escort them and Jubrayl’s top men to Magnimar for justice. Until then, play this close to the vest.”
He nodded. “So, what do we do with the Vinder girls?”
I sighed. “We need to find out what the hell they were thinking. Then we’ll decide.”
“Sounds good.”
My earpiece crackled. “Kyle,” Aurora said.
“Go ahead.”
“One of the giants is still alive, but unconscious. Should we finish it off?”
“No. I need the closest group to the dragon’s corpse to go collect the cables Paulie used to bring down the dragon and take them to Aurora.”
“We’re on it!” Ameiko answered.
“Aurora, bind the giant when she gets to you. Post a pair of guards with a radio on him. Tell me when he wakes up.”
All in all, the town survived the onslaught with minimal damage. Geo managed to pull up and disable the traps fairly quickly and with little incident. The caltrops in the river would have to be removed by someone with a boat. I whipped up a fairly large magnet to make it easy.
Once we were certain the town was secured, we let everyone out of the shelters and gathered up the leaders and anyone who wanted to learn more at the square. We organized teams to clean up the corpses and repair damage, with a focus on the gate.
Jubrayl Vhiski and his Sczarni friends hadn’t come to the square, so I signaled Sheriff Hemlock to go get them, having Lenn go with them to prevent anyone from trying anything. Then I called up the four nobles who had served the town so I could recognize their efforts. As I shook Mayor Deverin’s hand, I slipped her the note and told her to read it while I addressed the others.
Titus Scarnetti was the last one. As I shook his hand, I looked over my shoulder. “Mayor, with your permission, may I act on what I’ve given you?”
Her face was livid. “Do it.”
“Titus Scarnetti, for conspiracy to commit arson, I hereby place you under arrest. You and your accomplices will be taken to Magnimar to face justice. Any attempt to resist will be met with swift and immediate force, including deadly force if you make it necessary.”
“What is the meaning of this?!”
“You and that bastard Vhiski burned down your competitors’ mills!” the mayor accused. “It’s all here, in your handwriting!”
“Lies and slander! Where did you get that?”
I shrugged. “Some giants were looting your house. I stopped them, of course, but not before they threw some of your stuff on your lawn. I noticed that your big, fancy desk, which was upside down, had a secret drawer, which had broken open as the giants tossed it. I didn’t want that letter getting wet and ruined, so I picked it up. I glanced at it, and since I read really quickly, I absorbed it and realized what you had done.”
“You’ll pay for this!” He swung at me. Aurora brought him down with a swift kick to the back of his knee. She pulled his arm behind his back and kneeled on the small of his back. He groaned in pain.
“I did warn you,” I said as Aurora bound his hands.
The town watch returned a few minutes later with several Sczarni gang members, including Jubrayl Vhiski, in tow. “I can fit seven of them in our wagon,” Sheriff Hemlock said.
“We can take three of yours and Scarnetti,” I said. He looked at me in confusion. “We’re teleporting over to take care of this now.” I planned to take Aurora, Hemlock and Orik, so we only had the room in the hole.
“Even better. Should we have the Vinder girls cool their heels until we get back?”
“Right. Them.” I guess it would be better to deal with them now rather than later. “No, let’s go talk to them. Orik, can you and Lenn help the watch keep an eye on these guys for a few minutes?”
“Got it.”
Aurora, Hemlock and I went to Venn Vinder’s store, where the girls would be waiting with a couple members of the town guard. Mayor Deverin decided to come with us to witness the conversation. Venn was waiting with his daughters when we arrived, so I knew this would prove interesting. Katrine looked embarrassed and ashamed. Shayliss was hiding her mental state pretty well.
“Alright. Let’s start with you,” I said, pointing at Katrine. “What were you thinking? Why were you on that beach?”
“You came to me and told me to meet you there!”
“What.” I rubbed my temple. I could feel a headache coming on. But I’d promised myself I’d be nicer to her. “Okay. When did I come tell you to do this?”
“Right before you spread the alarm to send everyone to the shelters. You told me you wanted me to be somewhere safer than the shelters, so you were going to take me somewhere safer.”
I sighed. “I’m sorry, but I never came to visit you. I was in the air at that time.” At least this time I’d have witnesses. But it troubled me. She didn’t seem like she was lying. She actually believed what she said. “Let’s come back to that. You,” I turned to Shayliss. “Why did you tell Lenn to abandon his post?”
“I was trying to help you,” she said. It was true, to a point. There was more to it, but I wasn’t sure how to continue that line of questioning. More importantly, why did Katrine believe that I had told her to do it? There had to be something I was missing.
“Hey,” Fleur said. “Access your memory of talking to Lyrie.”
I closed my eyes for a moment and focused. On her belt. What was that hanging there? “Oh god,” I gasped. “No. Nononono.”
“What is it, Kyle?” Aurora asked, putting her hand on my shoulder.
“Lyrie has a Stalker’s Mask!” Aurora’s eyes widened in surprise.
“A what?” Mayor Deverin asked.
I was nearly hyperventilating at this point, so Aurora answered. “A magic item that lets you masquerade as someone else. Aldern Foxglove, the Skinsaw Man, had one and used it to impersonate Kyle during some of his killings.”
The mayor was a smart cookie. She looked at Katrine and back to Aurora. “Would that let her impregnate someone?”
“I’m not sure. Kyle?”
I focused on the technical problem, trying to come back down to a level where I could function. “Not on its own. It’s just an illusion. She would need something like my hat to bridge the gap by turning herself into a male humanoid before using the mask.”
Katrine blanched at the realization that she’d been seduced and tricked by someone into thinking she had been with me. Shayliss had no reaction. Was she lying about having slept with me after all? Venn, on the other hand, just looked confused.
“So you’re saying that a woman tricked my baby girl and got her pregnant? I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work that way.”
“It does when the other woman is a sadistic wizard.” I gave Aurora a look that said “I told you we should have killed her when we had the chance.”
“So what’s going to happen to my baby girl?”
“Your daughter and her child should be fine, but they’re going to need your support.” I turned back to Katrine. “I’m sorry. She probably used you to get back at me. I won’t take responsibility for what I didn’t do, but I do feel like I should help out. I’m sorry to say that I’m not interested in you like you want, but I’ll see what I can do.” If nothing else, I’d find a way to set up a proper education for her child. It was the least I could do.
She sniffed and nodded. “Do you plan to bring this woman to justice?” Venn asked, his eyes wild.
“No,” I said. “Justice for this would be to make her pay to support the child she fathered. I’m pretty sure she planned it.”
“No? Why not?”
“Because I’m going to kill her,” I said. “Though I might sell some of her magic equipment and give you the money to help take care of the baby.”
Venn actually smiled. “I’m going to hold you to that.” He held out his hand. I took it and we shook hands in agreement.
The mayor agreed to spread the word of what had happened, so we went back and tossed the prisoners in the portable hole and teleported off to Magnimar.
(Margin Note: Hey, when did we get that Portable Hole, anyway?)
(Margin Note: We picked it up weeks ago, Fleur. We’ve had it the whole time.)
(Margin Note: Well, I guess we had to have it, otherwise we never would have been able to teleport everyone a few days ago.)
(Margin Note: Yep. THE WHOLE TIME.)
(Margin Note: Just like mini-moose.)
We took the criminals to a judge that Hemlock trusted. They were shocked at the arrest of the nobleman, but were willing to accept our word and the letter as proof. We were promised that they would be punished for their actions.
Orik then went off to go speak with his leadership, telling us that if we had to leave early, he’d catch up with us in Sandpoint within the next day or so. The rest of us headed to go visit the Lord Mayor and give a report of both the attack on Sandpoint and the situation at the fort.
Lord-Mayor Haldmeer Grobaras was rotund as usual, but he made immediate time to meet with us, so I won’t talk too much about how sweaty and out of breath he was. “I received your missive, but tell me what has transpired.”
We filled him in on the details. “A dragon and nearly a dozen giants, yet no one died in Sandpoint?”
“We had one rather close call,” I said. “But things worked out. That said, there’s a danger I need to warn you about.” We filled him in on what had happened with Lyrie. “So, if I come to you at any point in the future, have your guards immediately disarm and bind my hands. I don’t know that she has any plans to attack you, but it’s better that we take precautions and not need them than need them and not take them.”
“Prudence does seem warranted,” he agreed readily. It was his own ass on the line, after all.
“We’re planning to take the fight to the giants, just as soon as we figure out where they are,” Aurora said. “We’ll probably need some help.”
“It does not seem prudent to send out the city’s forces with so many giant patrols wandering about. Especially since you don’t yet know where they are.”
“One way or another, we’ll find out by tomorrow,” I said. “We have a prisoner and I’ll use magic to get it out of him if I have to.”
“Of course, but I still would rather not commit any additional forces. It would leave the city vulnerable.”
He had a point. “What about the Potent Rainbow Lions?”
He considered it. “I’ll urge the council to free up funds to hire at least a few squads for you. Where shall we send them?” A few squads? Well, it was better than nothing, but it was still a token force. We would have to introduce more tech if we wanted to take on the giants.
“Sandpoint,” I said. “We’ll wait there a few days while we prepare ourselves for combat.”
“Sandpoint it is, then. Godspeed, heroes.”
Aurora, Hemlock and I left the Lord-Mayor’s residence. There were a few things I wanted to take care of in Magnimar before we returned, so we decided to head towards the Voidstrife factor’s office. I swear, it was for legitimate business reasons and had nothing to do with wanting to avoid helping clean up all those giant corpses.
We made our way through the Alabaster District and headed towards the Silver Shore – clear across town. Along the way, we stopped at a magic shop and I grabbed Aurora a ring like my own. It would be almost a week before she no longer had to sleep a full night, but now she had it. I also loved giving Aurora a ring, even if it was mostly from her own funds that I happened to carry for her.
In the Dockway District, we found a large crowd gathering along the main thoroughfare. I didn’t want to take the effort to take another street, so we just tried to make our way around the edge of the crowd, which we realized was gathered around one of those “end is near” doomsayers. Being a town filled with cults – mostly worshipping celestial beings – it wasn’t uncommon.
He was covered in tattered sackcloth robes and was talking about some monster coming to destroy the city. He had seen it in a vision. And he wanted to tell everyone about it. The basic gist was that some kind of serpent would awaken a mighty queen, which would devour the city. You know, basic doomsday stuff.
It probably would have been little more than a minor anecdote, but he spotted me and called out to me. “You! The man in the black! I must speak with you!”
I sighed. “What?”
“You are the only one who can stop the beast and save us!”
I humored him. “And how, precisely, am I supposed to do that?”
“You know of the great being known as the Defender of the Universe! Only he can possibly hope to defeat the vile queen.”
“I’ll, uh, keep that in mind,” I said.
“Good! Remember, the Defender is the only one who can pierce her thick scales. The greatest weapons man can make will not do as much.”
“Okay, that’s fine. Now, I’m gonna go ahead and just go somewhere a little less crazy, mmkay?” There was no way he meant what I thought he meant. But you know what? I’ve seen weirder things. And if he was right, then I would need to prepare. And if he was wrong, then it wouldn’t be a total loss either, if I played my cards right.
We passed a number of stalls selling various wares as we continued past the docks. One of them caught my eye. The owner was selling various minerals and gems. I browsed the wares, quickly finding what I was looking for. I got several of the items extremely cheap, since the people of Golarion hadn’t yet learned what value they had.
We met with my factor, who had made it back to Magnimar safely. “Milord, I am pleased to report that you were correct about the ambush. It seems that the Potent Rainbow Lions sent several squads as requested and managed to surprise the ambush, killing half a dozen giants in the process. Others managed to escape, and the Lions pursued until it was clear that they had been eluded.”
“Do they pose any further danger to the people in the area?” Aurora asked.
“Yes, unfortunately. But the city has sent some of its own troops to patrol the surrounding areas. It is hoped that this will be enough to keep them at bay.”
“It should work for now,” I said. “So, tell me, what does the mineral market look like at the moment?”
“Some are cheaper than usual, others more expensive. If you tell me what you need, I can be more specific.”
I pulled out the minerals I’d purchased. “I need these, and some others. In large quantities. Can it be done?”
“How large are we talking?”
“A warehouse completely filled with the materials.”
His eyes grew wide. “We can do that, milord, but it would cut into profits greatly. May I ask what you need them for?”
“Hedging my bets. If we actually need them, then they’ll be instrumental in saving the city. If not, I can teach you how to turn them into something that will make a great profit.”
He smiled almost reflexively at the word “profit”. He considered for a moment. “Of course, milord. I will see to it. Though I am curious as to what value this in particular has.” He held up the piece of bauxite I’d collected.
“That is perhaps the most important piece of the puzzle. Trapped within is a metal my people call aluminum. It is complex to extract, but if you know how, not so difficult. I can make an alloy with it and several other metals that will be as strong and as light as mithral, but cheaper by far. Of course, it requires some mithral in the mix, so we can’t bypass it altogether, but it will be necessary for something I may need to build.”
It was an alloy described in the technology guide. It was described as being used in shuttle or fighter hulls. There was enough information that I was pretty sure I could replicate it, but they never named it. Of course, that meant I was free – no, OBLIGATED! – to name it myself. I considered calling it Tritanium, Trinium or something else from sci-fi, but opted to go with Mithracite, since I’d already started calling the material I’d made of magic Magicite.
“Of course. If you give me a list of the ratios you need of these, I will fill a warehouse with what you need.”
“Excellent. There is one other task I need completed.” I pulled out a round of OCP-L. “I need you to make me roughly one hundred thousand of these.”
He gave me a dubious look. “What for?”
“If we can’t deal with the stone giant threat the way we’re planning, I’m going to have to convince the city to buy a lot of guns. Those guns will need ammunition. They need to be exact. Don’t deviate on size or shape. And they need to be made of steel or iron.”
“And what if you do manage to deal with the threat?”
“Then I’ll just have to figure out another buyer. I’ll come up with something.”
“Of course. Anything else I can assist with?”
“We’re gonna need a couple wagons and horses to pull them. Get in touch with the Potent Rainbow Lions and send them with the units they send to Sandpoint. Also, I need another horse to ride. My last one got blown up.” I sighed. Requiescat in pace, Fluttershy.
“As you wish, milord. I won’t claim to understand any of that, but I’m sure it’ll make money somehow.”
We stopped at “O’Halloran’s”, a tavern run by the Voidstrife cartel and serving traditional Irish dishes from recipes – as well as several bastardized American versions – I’d provided several years back. There was an “O’Halloran’s” in four major cities, including Magnimar and Absalom, with plans to open in several other cities. I didn’t need to eat, but Aurora and Hemlock did. I had a shot of whiskey and a cup of tea, while Hemlock had a bowl of coddle and Aurora ate the most expensive thing on the menu, a bacon cheeseburger, served medium rare.
Look. No one on Golarion needs to know that a cheeseburger isn’t traditional Irish food. I won’t tell if you won’t. And hey, I resisted the urge to put tacos on the menu. Give me some credit here.
We returned to Sandpoint to find that cleanup was going well. Most of the giant corpses had been piled and burned and all the traps had been disassembled, aside from the caltrops in the river. Not to say that problems didn’t remain.
“You cannot repair those!” Paulie shouted as he stood out in front of the town hall. “They are monuments to my glory!”
“I have an order to patch the holes,” a tradesman was saying.
“What’s going on here?” I asked, against my better judgment.
“The mayor has ordered me to repair this damage, but this man won’t let me.”
“It’s a monument to my glorious deeds!” Paulie exclaimed.
“What is?”
“These holes where I anchored the cable that helped bring down the dragon.”
“The holes are a monument to your glory?”
“Yes.”
“So, they’re… glory holes?” Fleur lost her mind with laughter. I managed to keep a straight face.
“YES! EXACTLY! You cannot fill in my glory holes!”
I could feel the corner of my mouth twitching. “Look, I agree with you. But in ten years, most people will forget what they mean. What if I instead use some magic to make a statue or something?”
He considered it. “That would be an acceptable compromise.” He clapped the craftsman on the shoulder. “Okay, my good man. You may proceed with your work. I will protest no longer, though it pains me to see you fill my glory holes.”
I managed to make it just out of sight before I collapsed to the floor, convulsing with laughter.
A bit later, someone came to let me know that the giant prisoner had finally woken up, so Aurora and I headed over to the large, walled pen where we were keeping the giant. The pen was usually used for farmers bringing in livestock to sell, but it had been repurposed for this.
I tried befriending it, that didn’t work. So I tried the whole “Punisher torch thingy” since it had worked for me before. The giant was too stupid to understand the concepts, so it failed too. I thought I was going to have to take a day and prepare magic to get the information out of him after I’d slept, but Paulie came and found me. Apparently, on hearing that I was having trouble with the prisoner, his personality had flipped again.
“I can get the information you want,” he said, his voice once more sounding like he’d been gargling rocks. He was hanging upside down from the eave above me. “Just give me fifteen minutes with the prisoner.”
“You won’t kill him, will you?”
“I will be careful.”
I don’t like actual torture, but lives were at stake. And while I don’t believe that it gets results, it wouldn’t hurt my chances of getting the info with magic. “Okay, sure.”
One of the town guards said that he needed to oversee the interrogation, which was fine. He’d done the same for my attempts, so it wasn’t a big deal. Right before going in, Paulie stopped. “I need to borrow your little knife.”
I pulled out my small folding knife. “This one?”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I need.” I really didn’t want to know.
For about twelve minutes, there wasn’t a sound from the other side of the wall. Nothing. It was really eerie. Then suddenly, the giant began screaming. “Make it stop! I can’t take it anymore! Please, I’ll tell you anything! Just make him stop!”
Paulie opened the pen door. “He’s all yours.” He handed me back my knife and looked back at the giant. “Don’t make me come back here.” The giant whimpered.
Aurora and I exchanged a concerned look and went in. “Okay, so now that we have that established, it’s time to ask you a few questions. Let’s start with the basics. Tell me what you can about Mokmurian.”
“He is our lord. He will grant us great riches. When his armies march down from the Storval Plateau, he will take everything from you.”
“I see. And how does he command your loyalty? Is he the largest, most powerful giant?” I wanted to know if it was possible we were dealing with an idiotic meathead.
“He is a child of the stones, but he commands the magic of the Ancient Lords. He can turn flesh to immobile stone and his skin to armor like granite. And I’ve even heard that he can cause the very stones of the earth to quicken and pull those who stand atop them into a tomb below the earth. And that is just the barest tip of his power. You have no chances against him.”
“You mentioned Ancient Lords. What can you tell me about them?”
“They are gone now, but our elders tell us that they once ruled this land. They enslaved our ancestors and forced them to build the monuments that grace the land even today. Some of us believe that he is an ancient lord risen from the grave to rebuild his empire.”
That sounded a lot like the Runelords. But, as far as I knew, none of them were giants. “Tell me more about your forces. How many does Mokmurian command? And when does he plan to attack?”
“Seven tribes, numbering in the dozens each, follow the great Mokmurian. He also enjoys the support of conscripts from among the lesser races. Ogres, hill giants, ettins, trolls and even a few lamias recognize his strength. He will lead them down to reap your puny race like wheat soon, maybe by the end of the month. Already his scouts map your lands.”
That was a lot of giants. I made some quick calculations and realized I would need to make some much bigger weapons to make this assault viable. “Okay, then, if I want to show him how weak the powers of the ancient lords really are, where would I find him?”
“Ha! I would love to watch your death when you try. If that’s where you wish to go, then find Mokmurian in Jorgenfist, his stronghold in the Valley of the Black Tower in the Iron Peaks, east of the Storval Stairs. He dwells deep below Jorgenfist, in hidden places only he is allowed to go.”
That was almost everything. “What was your mission here? Why did you attack Sandpoint?”
“We were to take those filled with greed as prisoners, as well as what wealth we could gather. Lord Teraktinus was also here on a special mission to take a stone from the building you call Old Light. He didn’t say why, but our people have the ability to coax secrets from stones. Perhaps the stones there knew something Lord Mokmurian needed.”
I couldn’t think of anything further. “Thank you for your time.” We all went outside.
“What do we do with him now?” the guard asked.
“Confirm with Sheriff Hemlock, but I believe he is guilty of attempted murder. Just do me a favor and if you execute him, try to make it quick and relatively painless.”
“Of course, milord.”
“Also, I have to ask. What exactly did Paulie do?”
The man suddenly went full thousand yard stare, like a homeless veteran suddenly recalling ‘Nam. “He just sat there, staring at the giant. For what seemed like forever, he just stared, not breaking eye contact.”
What? “Then, what was the knife for?”
“He pulled out a hunk of cheese and kept cutting slices off and eating them.” That didn’t sound bad, but the way the man said it made me decide not to press it.
Later that afternoon, we joined Paulie and several regular patrons of the Hagfish in mourning the two casualties of the battle, Fluttershy and the hagfish, Norah. It was a tasteful, if slightly drunken, ceremony.
That evening, the town threw one hell of a party. Even done at the last minute, it rivaled the festival we attended when we had first arrived. Part of me spent much of the night waiting for goblins to show up. They served dragon four different ways, which was a pity. I kept having to turn down meals because I refuse to eat anything that intelligent.
“I have one rule when it comes to eating meat,” I told Ameiko. “I never eat any species capable of calculus. Doesn’t matter that they haven’t discovered it, but dragons are certainly capable. So I don’t eat them.”
“I guess that’s fair,” she said after I’d explained calculus to her. “What about drinks? Can I interest you in some kind of beverage?”
“Well,” I said, thinking about it. Then it hit and I sang my answer, once more relying on my mental collection of other people’s songs as a shortcut. “‘When we raise our flagon to another dead dragon, there’s just one drink we need.’”
“And what’s that?”
“Nord MEAD!”
She and Aurora laughed at my lighthearted singing. “Mead I have. I think there are two or three kegs in the cellar.”
“I’ll buy every one of them. Tap those things and let’s all get drinking!” A number of the townsfolk cheered.
We partied for hours, with most of the town joining in. A local bard did some great performances until he was too drunk to sing, so we all took over and sang a number of drinking songs. I knew a few songs that fit the bill.
There was also dancing. Through the night, I took a turn on the dance floor with a great number of women, including the town’s mayor, who was pretty spry for a middle aged woman. I even danced with Katrine Vinder, who had timidly asked. I think she still felt embarrassed and a bit ashamed over what had happened to her. I couldn’t think of any reason not to, so I went ahead and we danced to a faster number that Ameiko herself performed. Strangely, Shayliss didn’t make an appearance at the party. Probably off sulking, I told myself.
There was talking. Ameiko and Mayor Deverin told us that they had commissioned new windows for the repaired town hall, which had been damaged by the dragon’s impact. The glassworks would be working with an artist from Magnimar to make a bunch of windows depicting the morning’s battle. That was pretty cool, but I asked that they make sure to emphasize that the real victory was that no one died, aside from a horse, a fish and a bunch of giants.
And of course, the only Irishman at the whole party managed to get into a drunken fistfight. It wasn’t my idea, and I wasn’t exactly drunk. I don’t like being drunk. In a world where everything is trying to kill you, it’s probably a bad idea to voluntarily take leave of your senses. And a wizard should never get so drunk that they slur their words. Never know when you’ll need a good incantation.
I didn’t know the guy’s name, but I recognized him as a Shayliss supporter from the other day’s brawl. He couldn’t have been a day over nineteen. He stood on a table and denounced me in front of everyone, demanding to know why the people of town had “forgiven my misdeeds”.
He then hopped down and declared his intentions to “settle me personally”. I tried to talk him out of it, and Sheriff Hemlock tried to intervene, but I eventually came to the realization that this wouldn’t end until he’d hit me.
So I offered him the chance. I flung my arms wide open. “Okay, go ahead, give me your best hit. Then, once it’s out of your system, let me buy you a drink and let’s talk this out.” He swung once, then again, and again once more. Aurora moved to take him down, but I waved her off. “Okay, I guess if that’s what you want.” I tapped my magical cuffs, turning my long coat into a light vest that wouldn’t get in the way of a fistfight.
Now, I’m not a fighter, not truly. Any one of the people I travel with could lay me out pretty easily. But this was just a drunk idiot farmer or something. And I’d been practicing a bit with Aurora. Add in my height – and thus, reach – and the fact that I’ve stared down death a number of times, and you’ll find that this callow youth was out of his league.
I had knocked him out after three decent punches. Hemlock had a couple of his people throw him in a cell to sleep off his drunkenness and the party resumed.
Ameiko came over to check my injuries. She didn’t like what she saw, so she cast a few healing spells on me. I had forgotten that she was a bard. I guess they’re not all bad.
“Come on,” she said, satisfied that I had healed. “Let’s go have another drink.”
She handed me the mug closest to where I had been sitting earlier. I looked at it quickly. “This isn’t mine,” I said.
“Oh?”
“I made a mark on bottom of the handle.”
She handed me the other mug and took hers back. We each took a long drink, then she set her mug down and walked dangerously close to me, then pressing herself against me. “You know,” she said, running a finger down my chest seductively. “You’ve danced with all the other girls, but you haven’t invited me out to take a turn on the dance floor.”
Fleur just stood with her mouth agape for a moment. “MUSIC!” she shouted, though no one else could hear her. “SOMEONE PLAY SOME MUSIC!”
And music there was. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to dance with someone who both had formal dance training and the youth to make the most of it. “Someone play the Csárdás!” I shouted for the hell of it. No one would know what I was talking about, but someone did start up something with a nice tempo and we wowed onlookers.
After the end of the song, we ended with Ameiko dipped backwards and thunderous applause. I pulled her up and she whispered in my ear. “I’m going to leave the party now. Come up to my room in fifteen minutes.” Her voice was dripping with the kind of raw, animal sexuality that you just can’t ignore.
Thanks to the whole thing with the Vinder sisters, I had decided that it wasn’t worth it to sleep with anyone in this town anymore, but this wasn’t just anyone. This was Ameiko Kaijutsu. I had been trying to get in her pants since we’d first come to town, and I wasn’t going to miss the chance now.
They say that you can tell a lot about how good someone will be in bed by how well they dance. Ameiko had been perhaps my best ever dance partner, and while I will not confirm nor deny just how good the night was, I will say that the old wisdom has some basis in fact.
I ended up sleeping in the next morning, waking somewhere around seven or eight in the morning when Ameiko woke with a groan. “Morning, sunshine,” I said to her.
She looked at me and blinked a few times. “Kyle? What happened?”
That startled me. “You don’t remember?”
“My head hurts too much to remember. How much did I drink last night?”
I started to panic a little. Had she been too drunk? She only seemed a bit tipsy, no worse off than me. My mind quickly raced through the images of her drinking. I didn’t think she could have had more than three or four drinks over the course of the whole night.
“I didn’t think you had that much. Are you one of those really functional drunks?”
“No more than usual. I need a moment.” She sat on the edge of the bed and held her head in her hands and concentrated. “It’s starting to come back to me, bits and pieces.”
I wanted to scream. I never would have slept with her if I’d realized how far gone she was. “Do you need some Alchemist’s Kindness?” I was referring to a popular concoction for hangovers mixed up by alchemists in every major city.
“That might help.”
I went over to my coat and pulled out my bag, which I had shrunk and stuffed into a non-magical pocket. Inside, I pulled out a little vial and a skin of water. I poured the water into a cup and tossed a couple tablets from the vial in as well before handing her the cup. She took down the medicine in two gulps and returned the cup. I went ahead and prepared some for myself.
Relief is extremely quick with that stuff. “Wow,” she said, gaping at me. “WOW.”
“What?”
“I’m starting to remember and now I realize exactly why I’m so sore. Do you do that kind of thing with every woman?”
I grinned despite how horrible I still felt. “Most women aren’t limber enough.”
“I’ll bet.” She continued to focus, remembering her night. “No, I wasn’t too drunk. I can recall everything now. But something did come over me, something I’ve never felt before. You never use magic to seduce women, do you?”
“Not beyond using it to impress them, no.”
“I think someone used magic on me. I suddenly found myself overcome with lust for you. Gods, it was so intense!” Her face flushed and other parts of her body immediately showed signs of arousal.
“Really? That does sound like magic. Give me a moment.” I pulled out my spellbook and prepared a spell. I then cast it, causing my eyes to glow a pale blue and allowing me to instantly see magical auras. There was a faint but recognizable one permeating her entire body. “This almost looks like you drank a love potion, but it’s much stronger than anything I’ve ever seen in any of my classes. I’ve never heard of one that could last a whole night. Give me a moment. I have a spell that can remove its effects from you.”
She grabbed my arm and pulled me onto the bed, causing me to drop my spellbook on the floor. “I don’t think I can wait a moment. Sorry,” she apologized, her voice filled with urgency.
We were already nude and she’s a lot stronger than she looks, so it wasn’t too hard for her to do what she wanted. Well, it was hard enough, but it wasn’t difficult. You know what I mean. And it’s also not like I was really fighting. Not all of me wanted to stop her.
Half an hour later, she lay next to me, out of breath. “Please hurry and prepare that spell. Before I lose control and force myself on you again.” I just nodded. It’s not like I really objected to it, aside from feeling guilty because she was in an altered state, not that I’d had much choice in the matter.
A minute later, I broke the enchantment and relief seemed to wash over her. “Thank you. And I’m sorry for that.”
“Don’t be. I’m the one who should be sorry. I should have known something was wrong. I should have –“
She stopped me with a finger on my lips. “Let’s just call this one of those mistakes people sometimes make. No one’s at fault here and it’s not as though it was unpleasant for either of us. I really should go get some contraceptive herbs, but beyond that, no harm was done.”
I nodded. “Better safe than sorry, though I did take something to keep from getting you pregnant last night right before I came over.”
“Good, but I’ll get some herbs later this morning all the same. For now, I guess the real question is how I ended up drinking the potion in the first place.”
That was indeed a good question. “If it behaves like the weaker kind of potion I’ve heard of the reaction would have been nearly instantaneous after drinking it. When did you first notice it?”
“Right before we danced.”
I thought about it for a moment. “That means it was when we had that drink after the fight.”
“Right! And remember, we almost got our cups mixed up. Do you think someone had meant it for you?”
“It’s possible,” Fleur said. “But who do you think would have… Oh wow. Look back at our memory of right before we drank. What do you see?”
I focused and scanned the memory. It took me a moment, but I saw what Fleur meant: Red hair peeking out from behind a nearby chair. “Shayliss,” I said flatly.
“You’re kidding.” Ameiko somehow didn’t seem all that surprised.
“Nope. She was waiting right there, where she could pop up right after I drank it in order to be the first person I saw, which is how those things work. She must have mixed up the cups as well.”
Ameiko then asked possibly the most important question. “Where do you think she got the potion?”
I cursed. “It must have come from Lyrie.”
“That can’t be good.”
“No, it really can’t. I’m gonna go wake up Aurora and then pay Miss Vinder a visit. Would you get Sheriff Hemlock for me and ask him to meet me at the Venn’s store?”
“Of course. But before you go…” She grabbed me and pulled me close, then gave me a lingering kiss on the cheek and a pat on the backside. “Just to make sure you know that there are no hard feelings. You’re a good friend.”
Yeah, I guess there was no reason to keep being hard on myself. There was no way I could have known and she didn’t blame me. So screw it. I’d just be happy I got laid.
I went to our suite and knocked on Aurora’s door. She was already awake, so I let her know what was going on and headed downstairs. It was within seconds of reaching the ground floor that I realized that it was going to be one of those days.
Lenn had several of the women from the brothel in Ameiko’s kitchen. They were making pancakes. But they weren’t normal pancakes. If they were, it would have been fine. No, they were making pancakes using alchemy.
I didn’t even know Lenn knew how to perform alchemy. But apparently he had figured it out from the recipe the gnome – who I still suspected was Gribbletoo, champion of Gozreh – had given him. I watched for a minute while I waited for Aurora. They had the technique and formula down. I was pretty impressed.
Aurora came down, the fox that had become a fixture at the Rusty Dragon since we’d rescued it riding on her shoulder. She was just as shocked as I was at the sight of Lenn and his friends making breakfast, a term I use loosely because I certainly wasn’t going to eat it.
The fox, on the other hand, was interested in the eggs they were making. He jumped off Aurora’s shoulder and onto the counter, grabbing an omelet. “Give that back!” Lenn roared, scaring the fox. He darted under the stairs, out of Lenn’s reach, omelet still in his mouth.
Aurora got between Lenn and the stairs, not wanting him to traumatize the poor animal again. Eventually Lenn calmed and relented, proving even his animalistic rage could not stand against Disney Princess Aurora. “I’ll keep him out of the kitchen while you’re working,” she promised the big guy. She moved to coax the animal out from under its hiding place, but I stopped her.
“Let me talk to it. I know its language.”
“FOXES DON’T TALK!” Lenn said loudly.
“That’s where you’re wrong. Back home, we have learned the languages of all the animals. We even made a song to teach them to children.”
“I WANT TO HEAR IT!”
Well, if he insisted…
“Dog goes “woof”
Cat goes “meow”
Bird goes “tweet”
And mouse goes “squeek”
Cow goes “moo”
Frog goes “croak”
And the elephant goes “toot”
Ducks say “quack”
And fish go “blub”
And the seal goes “ow ow ow”
But there’s one sound
That no one knows
What does the fox say?”
I knelt down and looked at the fox before continuing.
“”Ring-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!
Gering-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!
Gering-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!”
What the fox say?
“Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow!
Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow!
Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow!”
What the fox say?
“Hatee-hatee-hatee-ho!
Hatee-hatee-hatee-ho!
Hatee-hatee-hatee-ho!””
Aurora was laughing so hard I was afraid she’d pee herself, yet simultaneously making no sound. That had been my goal, since she had seemed a bit out of it that morning. But despite the fact that I was just being silly, the fox still cautiously came out, leaping to Aurora’s arms immediately. The look of amazement on Lenn’s face was priceless.
“I WANT TO LEARN TO TALK TO FOXES!”
I patted him on his shoulder. “Just have to practice, big guy,” I said with a completely straight face. Aurora was wiping tears from her eyes from laughing, though Lenn had his back to her and didn’t see it.
“Can you imagine if he actually figured it out somehow?” Fleur asked me.
“It wouldn’t be the most impossible thing we’ve ever seen him do,” I replied. “Not by a long shot.”
Aurora and I made our way to the square where the festival had happened. I cast several spells, giving myself permanent arcane sight at the cost of self injury, which I then healed with almost all of the remaining charges on my wand. Using that sight, I sought out the mug Ameiko had drunk from.
Sure enough, I found it where we’d left it. There were still traces of the potion on the inside of the mug, so I carefully picked it up using gloves, careful not to smudge any fingerprints. I didn’t think I would have to use that kind of technique to prove anything, but I was prepared to do so anyway. I concentrated and turned off the arcane sight, stopping the glowing in my eyes. I was confident I could resume it at will if I needed it in the future with no need to recast the spell.
We met up with Sheriff Hemlock and explained the situation before knocking on the door. Venn opened the door, looking annoyed. “What is it now?”
“Sorry to bother you Venn, but there’s evidence that your youngest got involved in some mischief last night.”
“And what evidence do you have?”
“I’d prefer to give her a chance to respond to the accusation before we discuss evidence.”
“Fine. Come inside.”
We presented the charges against Shayliss, and she denied them, naturally. I explained the evidence. She continued to deny, as I expected. So I played a bit of hardball. “The truth is, I think you’re a pawn. I just want the person pulling the strings. Tell us the truth now, or I will be forced to use either technology or magic to prove your involvement. If you make me do that, any talk of leniency is off the table. I will press charges and require that you receive the full punishment under the law.”
“You’re lying,” she accused.
“Where I come from, we have a technique that allows us to determine if someone touched something. It wouldn’t take all that long, but it would waste a spell that I wanted to use for other things today in order to make the supplies I need. And if you were smart enough to pour in the potion without touching the mug, I could just pop over to Magnimar, grab a priest of Abadar and we could see about using some of his spells to compel you to tell the truth. So why protect someone else? Your own skin’s on the line.”
“I would never betray a friend.”
Now we were getting somewhere. “A friend? What makes this person your friend?”
“She’s the only one who sees the truth.”
I had her. “And what is the truth, exactly.”
“You belong with me! All the other girls are just distractions! You and I are meant to be together! I won’t let any of those harlots stand between me and my destiny! So what if I used a magic potion to try to ensorcell you? It’s for your own good!”
Venn looked pissed at his daughter. “Just what in the name of the gods is wrong with you?! Your mother and I raised you better than this?”
“You and mother have been blind! I’ve been running around with men behind your back for over a year. You think I’m still ‘mommy and daddy’s little angel’? Just how stupid can you be?!”
Venn slapped her across the face. “You little whore!” Hemlock stepped between them and prevented further escalation.
I cleared my throat. “We’re getting off topic here. Shayliss, I need you to tell me where you got the potion.”
“I. WILL. NOT.”
That was about enough of that. “One moment. I’m going to prepare a spell.” I had learned a spell that would allow me to dominate the mind of another and force them to do what I commanded. It was strictly meant for use in infiltration and interrogation, but even then I’m loathe to cast it. I hate taking away anyone’s free will. That was more Lyrie’s style…
Wait.
I concentrated, reactivating my arcane sight. I looked right at Shayliss. “What are you doing?” She demanded.
“Saving your ass, apparently.” My hunch had been correct. She was under a very subtle mind altering spell. She would view the one who had cast it as her dearest friend. Everything she had done had been under her own free will, but this mitigated it a bit, sort of like turning murder in the first to murder in the second.
I prepared a different spell than I had originally planned. A few moments later, I dispelled the charm. She blinked a few times. “What happened? I feel so strange.”
“You were under a spell that made you view the caster as a friend. While it doesn’t absolve you of responsibility for your actions, it does mitigate it a bit. So tell me. Who put you up to this?”
“A woman named Lyrie.”
“And did she tell you why she wanted you to do it?”
“She just said that the party was a chance to finally get what I wanted. She said she was just trying to help me.”
A thought occurred. “And what did she say to get you to go do what you did during the battle?”
“She said that you needed my help. That everyone was out of position and not responding. She said that you would appreciate what I had done and would thank me.”
“I see. Okay. Sheriff, check with Ameiko and see if she wants to press any charges. If not, I think we can leave Miss Vinder to whatever punishment her parents decide on.”
“As long as it doesn’t turn violent, I can accept that. You good with that, Venn?”
He looked at Shayliss. “First thing tomorrow, if the roads are safe, we’re taking you to see a matchmaker in Magnimar. If she can’t find someone who can accept you and your wanton ways within a week, then you’ll be entering a convent.”
“Ooh, that’s harsh,” Fleur commented.
Perhaps a bit too harsh. “When you get to Magnimar, see the Voidstrife factor. I’ll give you a note instructing him to find the best matchmaker in town.”
We left, Hemlock bidding his farewell. We strolled through town for several minutes before Aurora spoke. “That was a little weird.”
“I know, right? Do you think we were too hard on her?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I just wish we had gotten something useful on Lyrie. With that Stalker’s Mask, she’s going to be incredibly dangerous.”
Aurora stopped suddenly. “T-That…may not be a problem anymore.” She sounded embarrassed and maybe even a little ashamed.
I felt my blood run cold. “What do you mean?”
She reached into her belt pouch and pulled out a small, folded object. “I wasn’t sure how to bring this up, but I managed to take Lyrie’s mask from her.”
I was going to kill Lyrie. I was going to kill her in the most painful way possible. Would I drown her in a lake? Would I feed her to a snake? Would I hit her with an axe? Put arsenic in her favorite snacks? No matter what I did, my rage had gone positively Seussian.
“What happened?”
“She came to our rooms last night, looking like you. I think she was trying to do to me what she had to Katrine.”
If I was a bit stronger, my clenched fingers would have ripped through my palm. I managed to keep my voice calm. “What happened?”
“I had changed for bed, and when she realized it wasn’t working, she tried to attack me.” She looked away from me. “She tore the nightgown you gave me.” Her voice was soft, barely above a whisper. I put my hand on her shoulder. “I managed to fight her off. I broke her nose. But, Kyle, I’m sorry. I haven’t been scared like that since I killed the nobleman who wanted to force me to marry him.”
I pulled her to me. She seemed a bit nervous at first, but buried her face in my chest. “It’s okay. We’re going to kill her together. I’ll have Lenn prepare us a picnic and we can make an afternoon of spreading her ashes to the four winds.”
She wrapped her arms around me, under my coat. “Can we have chicken?”
“That depends. Is chicken sausage and pancakes okay?” She laughed and hugged me tighter. “So, what you’re telling me is that I should still consider it impossible to get in your pants, eh?”
She laughed again. “That is probably a good idea.”
“Damn.” I kissed her softly on the top of the head. “I do have two questions.”
“Hm?”
“How did you know it wasn’t me? I mean, what made you try to pull off a mask you couldn’t see?”
“She said some things that you wouldn’t have. Also, she didn’t smell right. What’s the other question?”
“How much longer should we hug before it starts to look weird?”
She laughed again. “Maybe a bit longer?”
“Works for me.”
After that, I knew I needed to get some work done. Regardless of what was going on, we were going to need some equipment to assault Jorgenfist. Thankfully, the giants had brought plenty of materials for me to work with, and Lyrie’s mask was also available for breaking down. I also began instituting greater operational security. No one but Aurora and I knew what I was making, and we wouldn’t discuss that outside of my magical workshop, which was protected against scrying and other methods of spying available to our enemies.
That evening, the five of us joined the town’s nobles and Sheriff Hemlock for dinner at the mayor’s house. We discussed plans for the town’s security going forward while dining on herbed chicken, which Aurora was happy to see. I had a little so as not to be rude, and it was fairly tasty.
During the walk back, I noticed that something was wrong with Geo. He was walking kinda funny. It was like his pants suddenly fit poorly. It almost reminded me of times I’d tried to keep wearing the same clothes after a shape change into Fleur. But Geo looked the same from the waist up. If he had changed, it was only his bottom half. But that would be far too weird…
Crap. This was Geo I was talking about. It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing he’d done. And he’d borrowed my notes. But what was the purpose? You know what? I didn’t want to know. Let Geo do all the weird self-experiments he wants. Just keep me out of it.
Aurora turned in early and the rest of us had one more drink with Ameiko and Shalelu before bed. And, of course, the day’s weirdness wasn’t done. “Ameiko! Look out!” I shouted upon noticing that her hand had somehow unconsciously drifted into a fire.
She looked at the fire and pulled her hand back reflexively. She examined the hand, finding it wasn’t injured. “I didn’t feel a thing!”
“Maybe it’s not a very hot fire?” Geo suggested. He stuck his hand in the fire and held it there. “It’s pleasantly warm,” he commented, fascinated.
“I WANNA TRY!” Lenn said, sticking his hand in there. “IT’S NOT HOT!”
There are two kinds of people in the world. The first is those who will believe you if you tell them the fire is – or isn’t – hot. The second is the kind of person who will stick their hand in the fire to check it for themselves. We are all apparently the latter. One by one, we all did it. And one by one, we all found it lacking the heat to injure.
All except me. I confidently stuck my hand right in the flame and – with a curse – immediately pulled it right back out. “There’s nothing wrong with the fire!” I said as I poured cold water on my hand. “Whatever’s going on is something to do with you.”
We tried it out like scientists, testing with numerous different flames. Normal fires were fine, but when I raised the heat on a flame by using a bellows Geo borrowed from the nearby blacksmith, suddenly they found the fire too hot to bear.
Meanwhile, we tried to figure out what it was that was different about me from the others, and eventually it hit me. I hadn’t eaten any of the dragon. The flesh of a red dragon was rumored to have some kind of magical property, but this was a bit unexpected. If that was the case, then the whole town would be affected. We would need to make sure we informed everyone, and more importantly, informed everyone that it might not be permanent. But that was a topic for the morning. For now, I was tired and ready for sleep.
So it was that I headed up to the suite I shared with Aurora over an hour later than I had intended. I entered the suite and re-locked the door behind me, then set a magical alarm. I then walked over to the door to Aurora’s room, knocked lightly and opened the door.
Aurora’s hand shot to the dagger she had on the table next to her. “It’s me!” I said, in English. “Don’t stab me, bro!”
She relaxed and set down the knife. “Sorry. Just making sure.” Her hand was shaking a bit, but I don’t think it was fear. I think she was still angry at Lyrie.
“Don’t worry about it. Honestly, I probably would have panicked and thrown the knife.” I sat down on the edge of the bed. “Mind if I join you?”
“You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll be fine, if you want to go spend the night with Ameiko or someone. Don’t hold back to protect me.”
I scoffed. “Protect you?! You think I think I can protect you? I wanted to stay here because I thought you could protect me!” In the dark room, I could still see that she was staring at me. “What? You think I should set up some land mines or something?”
She laughed. “So, you’re not here because you want to protect me?”
“No more than normal. What I mean is that two of us together can protect ourselves better than one of us, so that’s always a factor, but would it surprise you if I just wanted to be near you?”
“I guess not.”
“I’ve been considering it for a while,” I said. “I think I’m done sleeping around. Hell, I kinda wish I had skipped last night.”
“Why? Is it not fun anymore?”
“Incredibly fun. But, truth be told, at some point, the fun became secondary. It’s more just a way to forget my troubles. It should be more than that. So I think I’m done having sex until I can do so with someone I actually love.”
“I guess that makes sense. And you’re absolutely sure you’re not here because you pity me?”
“Pity you? Hell no. I’m here because I sleep better in the same chaste bed as you as I do in a bed where I’ve exhausted myself in the arms of a pair of naughty young women. I mean, I think I’ll be fine by myself if you want me to go to my room, but I would certainly rather sleep in here if you’re okay with it.”
“In that case, go ahead and change for bed and join me,” she said warmly. “You’re not the only one who sleeps better with a good friend to share a bed with.” That was good enough for me. I stripped down to my underpants and climbed into bed. “Turn your back to me,” she said. She scooted up behind me and wrapped her arm around me.
If she wanted to be the big spoon, I wasn’t going to argue. But there was something unusual I noticed as she pressed herself against my back. “Um, Aurora?”
“Yes, Kyle?”
“Are you not wearing a nightgown?”
“No,” she said. I could hear the blush in her voice and could absolutely feel more than that against my back. “You… never fixed it for me.”
Oh, crap. I had forgotten. I tried to sit up so I could go do that immediately. “It’ll just take a second,” I said.
She pulled me back down. “No, stay here. Your back is so warm.” She almost purred the last sentence.
I activated my arcane sight and took a quick look at her face. It really was her and she wasn’t under some kind of enchantment. I settled back into position and within moments I could hear the soft sound of her rhythmic breathing, telling me she had fallen asleep.
I have never been so confused to be lying in bed with a half-naked woman. I reached down and gently felt her hip. She wasn’t wearing underwear. Let me amend that: I’ve never been so confused to be in bed with a fully naked woman.
But, as I fell asleep enveloped in the sweet scent of lilacs, I realized that I could get used to it.
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