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Moonlight speared in through the window, the pale glow sliced in half by the dark shadow of the bars that covered the window.  
From this angle Yasha couldn't see the moon, could only see a slice of the star-studded sky. The night was clear and cold enough to show her breath in the shaft of moonlight that fell, however briefly, into her cell.

She wished the weather was not so calm. Storms brought

him

near, his power giving her strength and vitality, but most of all giving her guidance. When

he

called, she had to answer. Without

his

guiding hand… she wasn't always sure what was the right thing to do.

Like now. Should she try to escape her cell? She wasn't sure how. Should she wait, play along, try to escape later when her captors moved her? That seemed like an even worse idea in some ways; if she tried to get away during the day with people around, it wouldn't go without a fight. She didn't want to fight the entire Crownsguard, she didn't want to kill anyone, and if she started down that path she was afraid she'd never be able to stop. Should she just let them take her to whatever final fate they had in mind for her?

She hadn't even committed a crime. Well, no more crime than being a Xhorhassian in a city of the Empire that was at war of them.

She'd only come to this town in the first place because she'd heard tales of the Mighty Nein operating nearby and had hoped to cross paths with them here. As she'd settled into the tavern to wait the owner, who'd been serving tables while it was slow, came to sit down next to her. Avi -- as they'd introduced themselves -- had recognized the style of knotwork on her pouches and patches, and even known the name of the confederation of tribes that Yasha was part of. They'd gotten to talking about it a bit, comparing leatherwork and smithing from the different regions, and at the end of it Avi gave her a drink on the house.

Four days staying at the inn, getting to know the other patrons, and it hadn't been a problem to anyone that she was from Xhorhas. Until the Crownsguard showed up, and then suddenly it was.

(She'd been so proud of herself for making friends.)

Yasha would have gladly told them that she had no allegiance to the Krynn empire, that she knew nothing of the war and wanted nothing to do with it on either side. Somehow she didn't think they'd listen.

Even if she could get out of this cell, where would she go? She had no friends in this town; Avi had made that clear when they'd given Yasha's location up to the Crownsguard without a peep. Yasha felt like she should be angry over that, but mostly she only felt grief. True friends -- friends who wouldn't betray you for a copper -- existed, she knew they did. But they weren't here.

She missed her friends. She missed home, and she missed the storm.

She heaved another sigh and saw the silhouette of one of the guards posted outside the cell twisting around to look at her before turning back to face away. Two guards at the cell door -- one woman, one man -- but there were more further down the hallway, she knew. She could overpower one of them, maybe both -- but first she'd have to get out of these chains.

A shadow passed over the moon.

Yasha looked up at the window, frowning. A cloud? The sky outside still looked clear. Was the weather turning?

From further away down the jail she heard someone call out, though too distant and garbled to make out the words. A few moments later the voice called again, more impatiently this time. The two guards outside the door exchanged an uneasy look.

"Better go find out what he wants," the man grunted, and the woman hesitated, peering into the cell at Yasha. Yasha looked back, stone-faced.

"I'll stay here and watch the crick," the guard assured his fellow; she nodded and moved off down the hallway.

No sooner than she was out of sight but the second guard suddenly jerked around, turning to face further down the corridor, both hands gripping his weapon. "Quiet down!" he called, though neither Yasha nor anyone else had made a noise. "Ey! Settle down there, you, or I'll make you settle down!"

After a few more seconds of -- as far as Yasha could see -- nothing, the guard cursed ferociously and clanked off down the corridor, drawing his sword in the process. "I'll teach you to start shit with me, boy!" he yelled as he went, leaving Yasha to gawk after him. What was

happening?

Then a cat jumped in through the window.

She recognized the brindled orange pattern immediately, even in the dim light, and gasped as the cat turned eerie blue eyes on her. "Frumpkin!" she exclaimed, then lowered her voice down to a whisper. "Caleb? Is that you?!"

The cat meowed once apparently in answer, then stood up and began pacing around her. Frumpkin pawed at her chains, shaking his leg once in distaste, then placed both paws on the last link that fastened to the shackles around her wrist. The blue of its eyes flared briefly white, and the weight of the chains was suddenly lighter.

Without guidance Yasha was not always sure what to do, but this direction seemed clear enough. She stood up quickly -- the noise made her wince, but neither of the guards came back to investigate -- and, bracing her foot against the chain to pin it onto the floor, pulled.

The soft copper links twisted and snapped easily apart, and she was free again.

"Thank you, Frumpkin!" she whispered, elated, before the feeling of foolishness rolled in. The cat meowed again. She lowered her voice. "What should I do? Should I try to get out while the guards are distracted?"

The cat considered her words for a moment, then shook his head

no

in an uncannily non-cat-like fashion. Yasha hesitated, not sure how she was supposed to take cues from a nonverbal animal. "Well, what should I do then? Should I --"

Green light flared behind her accompanied by a

pop

like the sound of someone pulling a lollipop out of her mouth. Yasha jumped a foot straight in the air and came down nearly swinging a fist into Jester's face as she appeared in the cell behind her.

"Hiiii, Yasha!" Jester said in a sing-song voice, grinning as she waved. "Sorry we're late, we only just got into town tonight! Ready to go?"

"More than ready," Yasha said vehemently, overwhelmed with relief at seeing a friendly face. She glanced off down the corridor, where the man who had been posted outside cell was inexplicably banging his sword against the bars of a completely empty cell and yelling imprecations. "The guard -- "

"In his own little world right now," Jester assured her. "Got those nasty chains taken care of, Frumpy? Okay, three-two-one --"

She threw her arms around Yasha's waist and in that burst of strength that always surprised Yasha, yanked her back through the portal. There was a moment of nauseating, twisting movement, and then she stumbled to her feet on a floor of loam in the open air.

The first thing she saw was Nott, crouched on the forest floor with her yellow eyes glowing in the dim light; seated cross-legged beside her was Caleb, his eyes glowing white as he projected his senses through Frumpkin.

"Yasha!" Nott crowed as she sprang to her feet, scampering forward to take Yasha's knees in a hug.

"Everyone is out?" Caleb said rhetorically to the open air, turning his head in not-quite-the-right-direction as Jester's portal winked out behind them. He blinked as his eyes returned to their normal blue, pale and washed out in the moonlight. Caleb snapped his fingers and Frumpkin reappeared on his shoulders. "Good. I'm surprised that worked."

"Why would you be surprised?" Jester said cheerfully. "The plan was super-simple! We didn't even need anyone to fake a heart attack after all."

"A lot would have depended on whether the chains were of a material I could alter," Caleb said. "And if Nott's illusions hadn't distracted the guards, or if there were anti-magic wards on the cell --"

Jester scoffed. "Come on, Caleb, don't be a downer!" she said. "Nott the Best Detective Agency has solved another case!"

Yasha blinked, feeling rather overwhelmed by her sudden change of fortunes. "What case?" she said, confused.

"The mystery of the missing prisoner!" Nott exclaimed as she and Jester exchanged a fistbump.

Caleb sighed wearily. "You did not

solve

the mystery, you have

created

it," he said. "And now I think we really should catch up with the others if we are to be outside of town by dawn --"

"

Cay

leb, creating mysteries is just another part of solving them!" Jester cooed. "If we didn't create mysteries everywhere we went, then other detectives would have nothing to do."

"Nevertheless, I think we should call the others back before Mollymauk's idea of a distraction gets

them

arrested and thrown in prison as well --"

"Oh! More jailbreaking for us to do! See, the cycle of mystery continues!" Nott crowed.

"You came for me?" Yasha said quietly.

The three of them traded looks around, Nott and Jester and Caleb, before Jester turned to face her. "Of course," she said, entirely serious for the first time in the night's escapades. She moved forward impulsively to squeeze Yasha in another hug. Nott joined in, and Yasha felt the light, awkward

pat pat

of Caleb's hand on her shoulder as well.  "We came as soon as we heard you were in trouble Yasha, we wouldn't just leave you behind. You're one of the Mighty Nein, after all!"

"I… of course," Yasha said, her voice barely audible. After a long moment she took a breath and lifted her head, and the others obligingly eased their grasp on her as she stood up straight again.  She felt unsteady, as light as though a weight much greater than that of the chains had been removed from her. "Can we… can we go find the others soon, please?"

"Certainly," Caleb latched onto her suggestion gratefully, and the four of them set off at a quick pace through the shadowed woods. Behind them, shouts of consternation were just beginning to start up in the emptied jail cell.

They moved surely over the uneven terrain, even Caleb, the three of them falling into a protective phalanx around her as they did. Yasha couldn't help but think that if they did run into trouble -- patrolling guards or a wild animal -- she would have the best chance of fighting it than these two squishy casters and the scrawny rogue. But they moved to protect her, all the same.

The sky might be clear, not a cloud in sight, but so long as she had her family Yasha would not be without guidance.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Molly lifted his head and blinked open his eyes, squinting against the stab of light. It wasn't even all that bright -- dull orange torchlight at best -- but his head already hurt so much, an unrelenting throbbing that pulsed in time with his heartbeat, sending purple spots swimming in his vision.

Not only his head. The more he became aware of his body the more he began to regret it -- his neck and shoulders were also killing him, and his legs were numb. Where --

He jerked backwards as full awareness hit him, but didn't get far -- the cold bite of metal on his wrists stopped him before he could move more than a foot. He was slumped, half-sitting on a hard (and cold) stone surface, with his wrists encased in hanging chains that left his elbows at about eye level. The chains were attached -- looped over, they rattled when he tugged at them -- somewhere over his head, some kind of metal framework arching over him, obscuring the view of the dark ceiling overhead...

Oh, Moonweaver.

This was a cage.

The details flooded in along with the adrenaline with a sudden crystal-cold clarity. This was a cage and he was on the floor, chained up, half-naked, with a pounding headache, Molly amended. He still had his pants on, but he was stripped to his chest and his boots were missing. No swords, of course.

He'd had worse awakenings, but he couldn't remember one off the top of his head.

Movement in his peripheral vision resolved to a tall humanoid figure, sandy-haired and with gently pointed ears -- half-elven, if Molly was any judge of such things. He glanced over when he felt Molly looking at him, but quickly averted his gaze and continued on to the other side of the room, where a silver-haired dwarf was working on something held in a clamp.

Molly had a quip all prepared about how he usually preferred for his dates to buy him dinner and a few drinks before getting him half-naked in their sex dungeons, but something about their clothes nagged at him. Not... not clothes, exactly, but the details of their gear. They both wore black armor, hard leather cuirasses with black-painted chain mail cushioning the joints. Where had he seen that style of cuirass before...?

He wracked his brains trying to place it but as the half-elf turned back to face him and walked closer he spotted a patch on his chest: a square of black cloth stitched with nine red dots arranged in a circle. No -- not a circle. A nine-sided shape.

Oh. Oh shit.

The Tomb Takers.

"Zoron, he's awake," the half-elf reported. The dwarf -- Zoron? -- grunted, but did not look away from his work.

Molly wracked his brains, trying to think if he'd ever heard the name Zoron before, and if so what his deal was. For the first time in his new life he regretted not having tried to draw Cree out, to get as many details from her as he could rather than just shoving her away as hard as possible. If only he'd thought to ask, he might have been able to talk his way out of this now.

Only one thing left to do: bullshit. He pushed back his shoulders and gave his head a haughty tilt, trying to project the air that this cage was a fine seat of honor from which he was looking down on his lesser subjects. He arranged his face in a sneer and said. "Well, well. Looks like the old gang has gotten back together. This is a fine way to treat your

leader."

The dwarf glanced his way once, then ignored him again. Not biting. The half-elf's frown deepened and he brought a lantern around as he leaned close to the bars, shining the light on Molly's face.

Keep talking.

"Tell me, what have you been doing in my absence? Hmm?" he asked. "Keeping busy, still trying to get closer to the City?"

"Are you sure about this? He certainly sounds like Lucian to me," the half-elf said, turning back to look at his companion.

"I am sure," the dwarf rumbled. He had a deep baritone voice, rolling with a heavy accent that reminded him of Cree. "I shadowed this one and his little group in town for many hours. It may look like Lucian, it may mouth his words, but it is not him."

Molly was torn between relief and indignation: a part of him was just as glad not to be mistaken for

Lucian,

but who did this guy think he was,

stalking

them? To say nothing of -- "Who are you calling

it?"

he said instead.

The half-elf gave Molly another once-over. "Then what is he?"

As if Molly hadn't sometimes wondered the same thing.

Zoron shrugged. "I don't know for certain. Some wandering ghost perhaps -- Tyffiel might have been able to tell more." He dismissed the question with a wave of his thick fingers. "But whatever spirit took up residence in this body, it must be cleansed so that our lord may return."

What? "What do you mean,

cleansed?"

he demanded. He yanked at the chains on his arms, making the metal of the cage rattle but not give.

The metal bars didn't look that sturdy. Pulling himself up on the chain to hang above the floor, he kicked out with both feet against one of the joints of the framework. Instead of buckling, the metal kicked back with a repulsing shock so nasty it dropped him back to the floor gasping for breath.

The half-elf had fallen back a step, eyeing him warily and reaching for a longsword at his side. "Ignore it," Zoron told him. "The wards will hold it. Come, we must start the ritual to be rid of this interloper."

Oh Moonweaver, oh gods, this couldn't be happening. He'd had nightmares enough of Lucian waking up inside him and clawing his way out without some other assholes holding him down to help him do it. "

May worms eat through your brains!"

he snarled in Infernal, trying to shake them -- but the rebuke slid off the Tomb Takers as though it were oil on waxed cloth. Zoron shook his head as though to clear it, and then both he and his companion took up positions around the cage and began to channel power.

Runes etched into the joins and bars of the metal framework around him were beginning to glow with a lurid dark-red energy, sliding along the bars like a net soaked in blood. Molly reverted to Common in his panic, still fighting against the chains that held his arms. "Lucian is dead! He's gone! I'm -- I'm not an

it,

I'm --"

I'm me, I'm me, I'm --

The door burst open.

Or it might be more accurate to say that the door

burst,

period.

Light flooded in from the hallway beyond, and the sounds of shouting and the clash of steel. But most of it was blocked by the form looming in the doorway, black-topped braids just brushing against the top of the frame, blood on her blade and murder in her eyes.

"Yasha!" Molly cried out, feeling a wave of relief so powerful it nearly undid his joints; if he hadn't already been on his knees he probably would have sunk to them.

The half-elf flinched and fumbled his end of the ritual; the dwarf stayed grimly on task, but without two people feeding power into it the crimson energy began to sputter and slow.

Yasha stalked into the room, shifting to a two-hand grip on her sword as she did so. The half-elf darted over to the corner and began muttering some sort of incantation but Yasha ignored him: she strode directly towards Molly, breaking into a charge for the last few feet, and swept the Magician's Judge in a wide two-handed overhead blow down onto the metal cage.

He flinched and ducked but Yasha's swing was precise; the blade of the sword cut through the bars and continued in a downward arc that passed harmlessly by his shoulder. Metal screamed, twisted and snapped, the runes flared and went out and the net of blood sloughed off onto the floor, inanimate and dead.

Molly caught a glimpse of the frantic melee in the hallway behind Yasha: there were either more of the Tomb Takers out there or they had hired some muscle to guard their base. If so, they didn't hire enough: Jester's lollipop cleaved a path towards the doorway as an enlarged Beau punched one hapless guard clear down the hall. "Thank the Moonweaver you guys made it," Molly said fervently to Yasha. His eyes widened as he spotted Zoron approaching her from behind. "Look out!"

She wrenched her sword out of the twisted ruin of metal and spun around, meeting his blade with her own in a clash of steel. "You are not permitted to interfere!" Zoron snarled, and Molly's eyes widened as a familiar trickle of blood began to drip from the dwarf's upper arm. Shadows swarmed over Yasha's eyes, but she shook her head to clear it and roared in his face with black blood streamed down her face in a gory mask.

The half-elf joined the melee with a shout, driving his blade towards Yasha's back, and for a moment Molly was afraid she would be overwhelmed: but then a crossbow bolt whizzed through the air and buried itself in the attacker's shoulder, making him falter and cry out. As if that had been a signal the rest of the Mighty Nein piled into the room, shedding chaos in every direction.

With that it was all but over. The half-elf broke and fled, vanishing down some secret passage and pursued by Nott and Beau. Zoron fought furiously but was no match for the combined assault of both Yasha and Jester, the Strength Sisters taking it in turns to beat him down. Fjord guarded the door against any attempt at a rally by the hired guards, and Caleb hovered in the background casting spells to enhance the others to new heights of lethality.

Molly tried to work his hands free of the ruin of the cage; his hands were still chained and it took him a minute to get the chain free of the twisted wreck of the bars. No sooner had he dropped back to the basement floor, gasping a little with relief as his shoulders and upper arms eased, than half of the metal contraption lifted up and then was wrenched away.

"Hi Molly!" Jester chirped, beaming down at him while her tail swished in satisfaction. "Are you okay? Are you happy to see us? Wasn't Yasha

soo cool

when she just swung her sword and

bam

fucked up that whole ritual thing? Hey, where's your shirt?"

"Yes, yes, absolutely, and I have no idea," Molly answered as he wriggled out from under the cage and stood on legs as shaky as a one-hour lamb's. "You have

no

idea how glad I am to see you guys."

"We're just glad we got to you in time." Fjord had apparently determined there was no one else left alive out there to come at them, as he came over to Molly and clapped a hand on his shoulder. "We were goin' for more of a stealthy approach, but some of the things Caleb heard from this room sounded like we shouldn't wait any longer. So, here we are."

"Here we are," Molly agreed. "And here's where I'd really rather not be any more if you take my meaning. Can we go?"

"But Molly, we haven't even looted the bodies yet!" Jester protested. "They probably have

all sorts of

cool stuff, like maybe your shirt?"

"If Molly wants to leave, he can leave," Yasha said firmly. Molly shot her a grateful look. "I will go with him. The rest of you can stay and finish up here."

"Yasha darling, you have the best ideas," Molly said. He grabbed her hand and tucked his elbow in hers, partly for effect but mostly to conceal how shaky his legs really were. "Shall we, milady?"

"Of course, my lord," she said gravely, and the two of them headed for the door.

Molly paused for a moment beside the body of Zoron, looking down on the dwarf's death-contorted face. He wasn't sure what he was expecting to feel -- familiarity? Regret? Vindication? -- but there was nothing, only a sort of staticky blankness.

He must have known this man once. They'd been comrades, perhaps friends. For all he knew they'd been lovers (dear Moonweaver, he hoped not.) It set his skin crawling to think that he might someday look at his friends, his family and feel

nothing

for them, the way he felt nothing for the Tomb Takers now.

If the Mighty Nein hadn't arrived in time, if Zoron had been able to complete his ritual -- would he have fought on the side of the Tomb Takers when his friends finally burst in to break them up? The thought made him sick.

"Let's go," he said, turning his back on the body of his one-time acquaintance. He walked out of the smashed-up ruins of the Tomb Takers' hideout and did not look back.
  
For all Jester's enthusiasm they didn't find much of interest in the lair; a small fund of money that the Tomb Takers had used to pay for their mercenaries, a few sets of weapons and armor looted off the bodies. Zoron's sword was of a decent quality -- enchanted with necrotic damage, according to Caleb -- but Molly refused to wield it, it was too small for Yasha, and Fjord had his own uncanny weapon. They agreed to sell it on their return to town, and Molly was just as happy to never see it again.

He sat huddling in the cart as they rattled on down the road, trying to soak up the fresh breeze and dappled sunlight falling through the trees as an antidote to the cloying darkness of the lair, the overpowering smell of blood. He had a blanket wrapped over his shoulders, since the Nein hadn't found his shirt in the ruins of the lair.

Nott and Beau had come back down the tunnel to report, rather sheepishly, that the half-elf had managed to escape. "But we did find your coat, Molly!" Nott had added as consolation. "So you can definitely have that back as soon as we wash it a little bit!"

"That's fine, you can give it back to me now," Molly had said. "I can take care of washing it."

"It's um," Nott shuffled her feet sheepishly. "It's got a bit of blood on it."

"Blood doesn't bother me," Molly pointed out, a little puzzled by her reticence. Blood didn't usually bother Nott, either.

"It's got... a

lot

of blood on it," Nott admitted.

Molly was about to insist again, but paused on reflection of just how much blood there would have to be to make them so reluctant. "Oh."

"Trust me on this, man," Beau said and clapped him on the shoulder. "Let us wash it first."

So he went shirtless on the road, and that surely wasn't going to draw any unwanted attention from authorities or passersby, but honestly Molly was just too grateful to be aboveground and in his own right mind to complain too much.

The others were all being solicitous in their own ways. Jester had given him some of her own personal stash of pastries, Fjord had ridden with him in the wagon and made comfortable conversation, Yasha rode nearby the whole morning, a quiet and stalwart presence.

He couldn't have asked for more from any of them -- not for their speed in coming to get him, nor their kindness afterwards. But it was still hard to shake the gloomy mood that the close brush with his -- with

Lucian's

past left him with.

The bed of the cart wobbled, then settled as Caleb climbed into it, settling down near Molly. The tiefling looked up to see Caleb holding out a traveling mug with a wide heavy base in his direction. "I, ah, brought you something to drink," he mumbled.

Caleb's awkwardness over the smallest social interaction made Molly smile as much as the careful kindness behind the gesture. "Thank you," he said, reaching out to take the mug. "Is it alcoholic? Because I could definitely use something alcoholic right now."

"Somewhat," Caleb admitted, to Molly's surprised. He sipped it: cider spiked with some pretty bad whiskey, warmed to a careful temperature. It was bracing and soothing at once, and he nodded his thanks at Caleb.

The wizard still lingered, and Molly got the feeling he had something more he wanted to say. "Thanks for this," he said, tapping the mug with one nail, and cocked his head inquiringly at Caleb, an open invitation to keep the dialogue going.

"You're welcome." Caleb nodded. He picked at a loose thread on the edge of his gloves, fidgeted uncomfortably on the hard cart bed, cleared his throat. Molly waited patiently.

"Those men in the basement, they seemed to know you," Caleb said abruptly, and Molly's enthusiasm for this conversation took a sharp nosedive. "Or rather to say, they knew the old you."

"Yes, well," Molly said a little more bitterly than they'd intended. "I didn't know

them,

and I didn't want to know, so whatever questions --"

"No, no," Caleb interrupted hastily, and he waved his hands as if to ward off that line of conversation. "What I meant to say was, um. What I meant to say was... they may have known a great deal about Lucian. But they clearly did not know anything about Mollymauk Tealeaf, member of the Mighty Nein, or they would have known what trouble they were about to invite down on their heads."

The little speech was stiff, awkward. It was clearly something he had thought up and rehearsed, not something someone might naturally say in a conversation. But it was so perfectly what Molly needed to hear that he felt a wave of pure relief wash over him, and gave Caleb a heartfelt and blinding smile.

"Thank you, Caleb," he said. "

Thank you."

Caleb flushed a little, apparently discomfited by the raw emotion in Molly's voice, but he scooted a bit closer towards Molly and made a little motion with his arms. "Would it help you to," he started to say, but he hadn't finished before Molly set the mug to the side and flung himself onto Caleb in a grateful hug.

Caleb hugged back, one hand coming up to pat awkwardly at Molly's shoulder. If he was still stiff and hesitant in Molly's arms he didn't feel the need to mention it. And if Molly was still shaking, just a little bit, Caleb didn't mention it either.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Green canopy slid overhead, dappled with yellow light, as Nott made her way through the undergrowth. It was getting towards sundown - she'd have to head back to camp soon if she didn't want to stay out all night, but she hadn't caught anything yet.The Mighty Nein were headed towards a town called Nunford to the north, but it was still far enough ahead on the road that they'd decided against trying to push on tonight. Unfortunately when they went to put together dinner they'd found their rations running low -- they hadn't been able to replenish their food stocks in a while and they were all heartily bored of bread and cheese. Some fresh meat would be a relief and stretch their rations further, and of all of them she was probably the most proficient hunter.Which was still not very proficient, to be honest; she liked cities and towns better than wilderness. But Caleb had always been hopeless at foraging, Jester wouldn't even know where to begin, and Molly and Fjord were too loud and flashy in the bush to have a hope of surprising anything. Nott didn't think it would be too much trouble: find a deer, sneak up on it, shoot it with her crossbow. How hard could it be?A rustling in the bush made her freeze, crossbow swinging around, just as a hare bounded across the deer path. Her reflexes took over and the bolt sprang from her crossbow, hitting the animal solidly in the chest. It let out an animal scream, scrambled a few more steps, then slowed to a halt as it bled out rapidly."Yes!" Nott cheered, letting go of the crossbow with one hand to victory-pump the air. "Bullseye!"She trotted over to fetch the hare, considering as she did whether she should just go back with this; the hare was almost as tall as she was, after all. How would she even fetch a deer back to camp, if she found one? She hadn't thought this through.She reached for the animal and then paused, hand outstretched as something caught her attention. Further off along the deer path, something shiny glinted, like a piece of metal or glass somehow catching the fading sunlight and reflecting it back.Nott frowned, leaving the hare behind for a moment as she walked further forward along the path. She pulled out her wire and turned it over in her fingers, ready to send a message back to the others with what she found. She took a step forward, not particularly paying attention to where she put her feet, not bothering to check for traps. After all, why would there be a trap just sitting out in the middle of a forest?Her foot came down and something moved under her heel, making her stumble. There was a snap and a clash of metal as painful jaws clamped down on her foot; but that pain was dwarfed into insignificance an instant later as a terrific bolt of electricity shot through her body. She spasmed, arms and legs jerking, and the message wire flew off into the bush as the copper metal suddenly heated red-hot in her hand. The pain was so sudden and so great it almost didn't hurt at all, overloading her senses and shutting down her consciousness.   She wasn't out for long -- a few minutes maybe -- but when she next stirred and opened her eyes, she was surrounded by three strangers standing over her. When she tried to move she found that her hands and feet had been tied with heavy cord, and tied together so that she couldn't move more than a few inches in any direction. Her crossbow was missing, and her knives, and -- actually, she realized as she took inventory, everything  was missing, leaving her down to her bandages and underthings. "Who --" she croaked, making what felt like a titanic effort to sit up. She still hurt all over and her face and hands were tingling with numbness. Burn marks spread in a feathery pattern up the skin of her leg, which still throbbed with a bone-deep ache. "Who's there!?"The strangers ignored her. As she squinted her vision into focus, she realized they were intent on a pile of stuff on the ground that the taller of the two men was going through -- her stuff,  she realized with a shock, recognizing her crossbow, flask, and most of her buckle collection in the pile.The tall man didn't even look over at her, instead pulling her mask out of the pile and holding it up. "How much do you think this will sell for?" he asked his companion, a short blond woman in white, rose and gold robes."I don't know," the woman said, sounding weary. "Probably not much, it's already broken. Maybe five copper?"The tall man sneered. "Worthless piece of trash," he grumbled but he put it in his bag anyway, much to Nott's outrage. "This shitty loot isn't even worth the encumbrance.""Then give it back maybe??" Nott demanded. They turned to look at her, seeming astonished to hear her speak. "The goblin's awake," reported the third man, an elf in black armor who was leaning up against a tree in a pose of studied boredom, picking his nails with the point of a dagger. "So can we question it already and get on with things?""Shut up," snapped the tallest figure, a towering man dressed in plate armor and with a visor over his head. He had a shield strapped to one arm, a sword in the other hand, and several more weapons poked out from over his shoulder where they were strapped to his back.  "We've been out here for hours looking for this stupid goblin village and we've only found one  goblin --"The third figure cleared her throat. She was short and stout -- a dwarf, Nott identified after a moment's uncertainty -- with blond hair pulled up in a top-bun and crystal-blue eyes. "Mayhaps this one can lead us to the others?" she suggested."It'd better," the elf said darkly."Uh, what do you guys want?" Nott said nervously.It seemed plain to her that she had walked into an ambush, but these guys didn't look or talk like common bandits. Parked on the side of the clearing where the road ran into mud was a cart, smaller and plainer than the Mighty Nein's cart but piled to the brim with what looked like boxes and tools and weapons and piles of cloth. There was no horse in sight to pull the cart, which was confusing, but hardly Nott's biggest concern right now.The dwarf woman wore neatly pressed robes with the symbol of Pelor emblazoned on the tabard and carried a long staff topped with a crystal. The elf's clothing was neatly tailored, blackened leather armor etched with acid patterns, and -- she recoiled when she realized that his belt was a chain of tiny skulls . Aside from the dagger in his hand he had what looked like a dozen more sheaths strapped to every part of his body, far more than anyone could practically need. The other man -- with the visor down on his helmet she couldn't tell his race, but he was built like a burly human -- wore a more hodgepodge mix of gear, including a motley assortment of weapons and a plate chestpiece on top of  a leather cuirass. They all looked tired, fed up, hungry, and not in the least bit friendly.The cleric was the first to speak. "We are wandering adventurers, tasked by the City Council of Nunford to seek out a goblin village in the area near here," she said. "These foul creatures have been staging raids on the poor farmers and their helpless livestock for months now. Mayhaps thou canst tell us where to find them?""Uh, sorry, no," said Nott, this being the first she'd even heard that there was any goblin activity in the region. "I'm, umm, I'm not from around here, so I'm not - I'm not affiliated with these guys and I don't know where they are --"Both of the men let out groans of disgust. "It's lying," the man in plate said. The it  hit Nott's ears like blows, and she flinched a little at each one. "This is bullshit. We still haven't found the lair!""I bet I can get the truth out of it..." The black-dressed elf looked altogether too pleased with the prospect, an unholy look of glee on his face as he pulled out yet another knife from his belt.Nott shrank away. "For fuck's sake , Dave, we can't just go around torturing people!" the cleric snapped.The rogue -- Dave, apparently? -- blinked, his expression clouding with confusion. "Why not?" he said.The cleric folded her arms across her chest, staff balanced in the crook of her elbow. "Because Pelor disapproves of wanton cruelty," she said primly. "Tis distasteful in the dawn lord's eyes to--""But it's for, like, the greater good right?" the burly man piped in. "So it's fine. Besides, it's only a goblin,  there's no need to get your panties in a twist, Kris. " "My name is Krysathelia," the cleric snapped, this apparently being a sore point between them. "It's really not that damn hard to remember!""I wanna torture it for information," the rogue said stubbornly, and the cleric put her palm to her face with a sigh.The expression on the elf's face frightened her, and Nott wished her flask weren't out of reach in the pile of looted goods. Symbol of Pelor or not, these people weren't safe -- or at least she thought, hating every moment of it, not safe for her. Nott ran down the list of her potential options. They were depressingly scant. Most of her good stuff was still back at the campsite, since she hadn't expected to need flasks of acid and scrolls of meteor when hunting deer. (Maybe that was for the best; if it wasn't here these assholes couldn't steal it.) All her weapons and tools were over in the pile. No fleece, no tarts, no wire. She couldn't run with her feet bound, and couldn't hide when she was out in the open with the three of them staring at her like this.She was down to her wits (pretty good,  she thought) and her charm (not so good, she admitted) to talk her way out of this."L-look," she said, interrupting their argument before the cleric could get exasperated enough to give in. "Tell you what, if you untie me, I can totally  show you where that goblin village is! Just follow me, and I'll lead you right to it." Or rather, she thought privately, she could lead them right back to the clearing where the Mighty Nein had set up camp. They must be missing her by now, yes? They probably were getting ready for a search party right now, yes! She could lead these three right into an ambush of her own, yes! She looked up at her captors and put on her best, biggest, most ingratiating smile."But thou said earlier thou didn't know where it was," the cleric said suspiciously."Oh well, I - I had forgotten!" Nott exclaimed. "But thinking about it just now, I just remembered! I can totally take you there, you can kill all the goblins and loot their stuff, haha, they've got lots of gold and valuable items you can take!"The three adventurers looked at each other, trading suspicious scowls. "It's lying," the elf announced, and Nott cursed -- not for the first time -- her own terrible skills at deception. "It's just going to lead us into a trap.""No, I'm not!" Nott said desperately, even though she totally was. "Look -- look, you're a cleric, right? I know someone who's a cleric, and she has a spell that will make people tell the truth. Why don't you cast that on me now, and then you'll know  that I'm telling the truth when I say I'm not hiding the location of the goblin lair from you!"The cleric looked momentarily thoughtful, but the two men immediately shot down the idea. "No way! And waste a spell slot?" the fighter scoffed. "You might need that later to do something important. Like heal us." The rogue sighed theatrically. "Just let me torture it for information already, okay?""Well, I don't know what to say then!" Nott exclaimed, trying to quell the shaking, trying to hold back the frightened tears. "First you wanted me to lead you to the goblin village, now you don't want me to do that! What do you want?" "This is taking too long," the rogue said impatiently. "We've been out here all day and have jack squat to show for it. Let's just kill it and take the head back to the city council for a reward. There's still a reward for goblin heads, right?"Nott froze, hardly daring to breathe. "But it's only 5g per head!" the fighter whined. "That's not even worth the trip!""We cannot abandon our quest," the cleric insisted. "We have a duty to protect these townsfolk from the goblin menace forthwith.""She's right you know," Nott piped up from the background, but was ignored.The rogue's face lit up with glee in a way that Nott was already learning to dread. "Can I make a hat out of the goblin's head?" he said. "What?"  the cleric exclaimed."You know, after we kill it, I wanna take its head and wear it for a hat!" the rogue exclaimed. He pointed at the fighter. "Bob, you can take its leg and use it as a club! That way, the goblins will learn to fear us when we charge into their encampments decked with the body parts of their own kind!""Are you kidding me? My longsword is enchanted for extra damage, I'm not gonna swap that out for a fucking dismembered goblin leg. This quest sucks. Oh!" The fighter banged his fist down on his open palm in a clang of sheet metal. "I've got an idea! So, the city council will pay us 5g a head for goblin heads, right? And we've already got a female goblin. So if we can capture a male goblin, and get them together, then we'll have a self-replicating source of income..."The cleric groaned loudly and buried her head in her hands. "What the fuck is wrong with you two?!" she cried.As petty and inane as their squabbling was, Nott didn't feel much like laughing. The way they kept talking over her as though she wasn't there, as though she were just a thing  to argue over, that they would take everything she owned and then whine that it wasn't worth enough and then they would kill her just because they were bored -- it made her want to shrink away and disappear, to melt into the ground, to close her eyes and open them and be anywhere but here.The sun was sinking, the last of the sunbeams angled in under the canopy to spill a bright golden patch against the trees opposite. In the spray of sunlight Nott watched a familiar-looking bird swoop into the clearing and alight on the branch of a tree. It gripped the branches with its claws and turned to look at her, to look at the circle of three adventurers arguing over the pile of Nott's belongings, and the bird's eyes glowed white.Nott smiled. The cold grip of fear eased from around her throat and she felt lighter, almost dizzy, as though she'd just taken a big gulp of alcohol and could do anything."You know," she said, breaking into the continuing argument among her captors. "If you don't want any more information from me, it really would be better if you just let me go. Things could get pretty bad for you if you don't.""Shut up," the fighter said with annoyance, while the rogue turned an ugly sneer in her direction. "Oh yeah?" he said. "And what are you gonna do about it?""Me?" Nott said. " I'm not going to do anything." A flare of light from beyond the trees was the only warning, and there was no time to react before an enormous fireball exploded on the cart, engulfing it immediately in flames."But my friends  are gonna fuck you up," Nott added.The satisfaction of the line was a little lost since none of her captors were listening; they were scrambling, shouting, drawing weapons and readying spells as the Mighty Nein came out of the woods, Caleb in the lead.Her heart was in her throat as she watched him; Caleb normally hung back in fights and for good reason, since he was so easy to hit and so fragile. Not this time, though. He advanced on Nott's captors with a grim, furious expression that frightened her in a completely different way from everything else that had happened today.The rest of the Mighty Nein piled on: Fjord swinging the Sword of Fathoms, Beau charging in to get up in the face of the man in black, two of Jester directing a swarm of tiny hamster-unicorns. Mollymauk followed in their wake, spotted Nott and hurried over to her: with a dextrous swirl he managed to divest himself of his coat and drape it over her shoulders."Try not to get too much blood on it this time," he said with a wink before dashing off into the fray."You could have at least cut the ropes!" Nott shrieked after him, then sighed and began squirming her hands and feet against her bonds now that she was no longer under constant surveillance.By the time she'd managed to work her feet out of the cords -- people always underestimated how flexible goblin ankles were -- the fight was clearly in the Mighty Nein's control. Beau managed to keep the rogue locked down almost single-handedly, matching him speed for speed and interrupting and stunning every time he tried to attack. Fjord and Jester combined to beat down the fighter, dents and cracks appearing in his plate armor as they hammered away from him, absorbing or dodging any of his return blows. The cleric was hardly even a threat, too focused on trying to heal her teammates to attack; once blinded by Mollymauk, they were pretty much on their own without her spells.Caleb for once didn't even try to enhance or support his teammates, focusing instead on scorching rays of flame or even nastier spells that Nott hardly ever saw him use. Vicious, corrosive acid hissed as it ate through the fighter's plate and smoked through the leather below; poison seized through the veins of the rogue; the cleric cried out in fear and reflexively tried to flee from Caleb's spell before running facefirst into Molly's chest. He seemed to be going out of his way to make his enemies suffer as much as possible, and Nott was torn between being worried by his viciousness and being proud. At last Beau managed to force the rogue to drop his last weapon, and it was done. The three adventurers were herded into a circle surrounded by the rest of the Mighty Nein, bloodied and exhausted and relieved of their weapons. Then Molly did come back over to her and cut the rest of the cords. "There we are, free as a bird," he said and patted her shoulder comfortingly. "Anything broken? Need Jester?""No, nothing broken," Nott said, then glanced down at her leg where the feathery burn marks from the lightning trap still marked her skin. "It's just a..."Molly followed her eyes down and a deep frown took over his face. "I'll get Jester," he announced and took off once more. Beau, Caleb and Fjord kept a steely-eyed watch over their captives as Mollymauk darted first to Jester, then over to the pile of Nott's belongings which had been kicked and scattered around in the fight.Jester came over and exclaimed loudly over Nott's injuries, cooing sympathetically as she cast a healing spell. The magic made Nott feel better and stronger at once, and so did her clothes, which she scrambled into gratefully as Molly brought them back. She stood up as Jester's magic faded and stamped experimentally, only a low throb remaining of the burn. "Thank you, Jester," she said and the cleric beamed."You're welcome!" she chirped. "Anything else you need? Would you like to hit them a few times?""No but he, um, that guy in plate armor took a bunch of my stuff in his bags," Nott said, and Molly quickly fetched the fighter's pack and dumped it out at Nott's feet for her to pick her prizes. Her searching fingers soon found her platinum flask and pulled it out, immediately uncapping it and guzzling down a long drink of whiskey."This is bullshit," the fighter was complaining, insensible to how precarious their situation had become. "This is complete bullshit. Nobody told us we were going to be fighting against high-level casters or I would have totally changed my build.""You're all fucking cheaters," the rogue added on bitterly. "Ganging up on us like this. You outnumbered us. If our bard hadn't been out today, we totally would have kicked all your asses.""Let's be realistic," the cleric put in, sounding the most resigned out of all of them. "If Serafina were here, she would have just tried to seduce the goblin."Grumbles of agreement and groans of complaint from the other two wafted through the air, and they tamped down on their muttering when Jester pranced up and struck a pose in front of them."So!" Jester said, poised brightly with one hand on her hip and the other gripping the hilt of her axe. "You've all been bad, very bad, and I hope you've learned your lessons! Now, I think you owe my friend an apology!""Why?" the fighter asked, annoyed. "It's just a stupid goblin."The cleric added in, "I live by Pelor's commands, and we have broken none of his laws this day!""I told you we should have killed it," the rogue muttered in a surly voice.The murderous expression on Caleb's face deepened until Nott felt genuinely worried that someone would burst into flames any second. Beau and Fjord, normally the ones who added as checks on his worse impulses, looked like they wouldn't especially mind some murder right now.She had to say something. "Caleb, don't kill them," she said, her mouth dry. "They - they were just doing a job. They had a job to kill some goblins. And I mean, that's understandable, right?"Her pronouncement caused a wave of consternation among the captives. "What? Why would he kill us?!" the fighter yelped."But we surrendered!" the cleric protested, looking horrified."You actually didn't, we just beat you," Beau observed from the sidelines."It would be dishonorable to strike down a helpless opponent --" the cleric started to say, but Caleb interrupted."It has been," Caleb said in a voice that was eerily distant, monotone and soft but not at all hard to hear, "many years since I was an honorable man.""Yes, but," Nott swallowed. "But they were doing a job for the city council of Nunford. We're going there next, aren't we? We don't... we don't want to do something that might get us in trouble before we get there.""That's true enough," Fjord said equitably. "Seems to me that we can let bygones be bygones... if  they apologize."The combined gaze of the Mighty Nein fell upon the three adventurers, who squirmed at the combined expectation and menace. With a gulp, the cleric of Pelor was the first to open her mouth. "I apologize, in Pelor's name, for any actions that may have been... unseemly," she said in a quavering voice.Her companions were less conciliatory. "Fuck that!" the fighter protested. "I'm not apologizing for a stupid goblin!"The elf shot Nott an evil glare. "I'm gonna rip its intestines out and make --" he started, but he didn't get the chance to finish. Caleb put a hand on each of the men's shoulders and pressed down. Shadow flared around his fingers, and the rogue and the fighter both screamed in agony as Caleb's magic coursed through them, ripping their life-force away. Nott watched in slightly horrified fascination. She'd never seen Caleb use this particular spell before, not like this.Caleb's grip eased. "I will not say it again," he said, his voice still in that eerie monotone. "Apologize to my friend." "We're sorry!" the rogue babbled, tears in his eyes. It seemed it was a lot more fun to talk about torturing others like it was a game, than to be on the receiving end of pain."Yeah yeah yeah -- we're sorry, whatever!" the fighter mumbled in turn.Caleb took a deep inhalation through his nose and held it. "Good," he said finally, and closed his eyes. When he opened it again, they were shining with an eerie arcane light. "Now."He walked around to the front of the bedraggled little party and looked them over, up and down, head to toe with his new altered vision. Then he snapped his fingers and pointed at a spot on the ground in front of them. "Your staff," he said, gesturing to the cleric. "Put it in the middle, there. And you, fighter man, your sword. And your chestpiece. And you, all in black -- I'll have your rings as well."Slowly over the course of the next ten minutes, the three adventurers divested themselves of every piece of gear or equipment they owned that was enchanted. For the cleric, this was mostly just her staff and a few pieces of jewelry; for the fighter, it was almost every piece of gear he was wearing, leaving him standing in the forest in little more than his underwear. The three of them kept up a steady stream of bitter complaints as this progressed, but didn't dare defy Caleb again."Enough," Caleb said when it seemed at last he was satisfied, when every possible magical item had been put on the stack. He blinked again and his eyes returned to their normal blue, gem-hard and pitiless. He shifted his stance, feet shoulder-apart and hands outstretched, thumbs just touching each other with the fingers spread.Fire roared forward from his hands -- enchanted fire that caught and burned without regard to what stood in its way. Nott's erstwhile captors cried out -- in surprise, dismay, and outrage -- as their pile of possessions burned to worthless slag in front of their eyes.Caleb glared at the three of them over the fire, his face a frightening mask distorted by smoke and underlit by flames. "Now go," he growled. "Do not try to follow us, do not try to circle back again later to get payback, do not try to rouse the authorities against us, do not have any thoughts of vengeance in your head at all. Because the next time we come face to face, the next time I burn your belongings, you will be wearing them."For the first time since Nott had encountered them the three adventurers were left speechless, completely and utterly cowed by Caleb's speech. When Mollymauk finally untied them and Fjord directed them to go they went without protest, trudging away through the forest with slumped postures and hanging heads.She had to admit, it felt good.(Though that didn't stop the rogue from trying to pickpocket Mollymauk on his way past. Molly caught the hand halfway to his pocket, bent the middle finger back to an anatomically impossible angle, and sped him on his way with a tirade of Infernal that left him bleeding from the eyes and ears.)

By mutual agreement they decided to set up careful watch at the campsite that night, just in case the humiliated threesome decided to ignore Caleb's warnings and try for revenge. They would douse all the lights before sleeping, set Caleb's alarm spell and keep double watches.Nott herself was excused from watch duty even though her night vision was some of the best of the party's. She found herself in the best seat of the camp, close to the fire but upwind of it, wrapped in a blanket with a plate of hot food in her lap and a hot toddy in her hands. (Jester had mixed it for her, Nott thought she could probably have brewed a better one, but there was something nice about not having to do things for herself.)Caleb came over and sat down next to her, with a plate of his own which he set aside (and probably immediately forgot about.) They sat together for a bit, watching the others move around the camp, Nott feeling her muscles slowly unwind by increments as the heat, the comfort, and the alcohol all had a chance to sink in."How are you doing?" he said at last."Fine," Nott ventured, eyeing him cautiously. Caleb had been a little scary in the fight against the adventuring party. Not that she had been scared of  him; of course not, he was her boy, and she knew he'd never hurt her.  But she didn't often see him wear that face, the grim and cruel expression that she suspected from what he'd told her had been learned in his time back at the Academy. As satisfying as it had been to see her tormentors cringe in fear... she didn't really like that look on Caleb's face."It is okay if you are not. Those arschlochs  did not hurt you too badly, did they?" Caleb wanted to know. "I don't mean physically from the shock trap, I know Jester helped to heal you of that. But in any other ways...""No, no," Nott assured him. "They, um, they spent most of the time arguing over what they were going to do with me, and they said some -- some very horrible things, but they didn't get around to actually doing  anything before the rest of you showed up.""Good," Caleb said. He still had that dark look in his eyes, the glint that promised burning fire and vengeance. "Good.""Man, those guys were a bunch of assholes,"  Beau said, making Nott jump as she plopped down on a log on the other side of the fire. "I mean, I know that we  can be assholes sometimes, but. Like. These guys were on a whole nother level of assholery.""Yep," Fjord agreed. "I just hope that if we ever get that  bad, there'll be someone who puts us in our  place before something like this happens to us.""The cleric wasn't so bad," Nott said, although her voice sounded weak even in her own ears. "I mean she, um. She argued with the others against torturing me at least, and... and...""Don't feel that you have to defend them," Caleb said, his voice quiet but taut with some powerful emotion. "I have been dissuaded from killing them all. I will not be tracking them down to exact any further punishment, regardless of what you tell me. So do not feel the need to make excuses for them to protect them from me."Nott felt some tension ease in her, felt suddenly ten pounds lighter at the relief of no longer having to defend her captors. She didn't -- she didn't  want them dead, didn't want her friends to murder people just for being ignorant and callous and stupid. And yet -- and yet...It wasn't even the cruelty of the three adventurers that had frightened her so, that left her feeling so wretched and sick. It was how casual  they had been about it, that the idea of behaving with decency and compassion simply had never occurred to them because there was nothing about her that would inspire it. It was knowing that they could have done whatever they wanted to her, strip her of all her belongings or torture her or worse, and that the rest of the world wouldn't even have cared. It was that they could do all that to her and still, as the cleric of Pelor insisted, not broken any laws, because laws didn't exist to protect things like her.She laid her head on Caleb's chest and let the tears leak out, forced out by the pressure of the events of the day grinding against the horrible, everpresent, underlying suspicion that they had been right."I was scared, Caleb," she said faintly, her voice barely crossing the distance to reach his ears.His arms tightened around her. "I know," he said at last. "You should not have to put up with... these things. Against people who are cruel and thoughtless and think with their fists if they think at all. I cannot say that you will not have to deal with such people the future either. But at least, I can promise you, you will not have to face them alone.""You'll be there?" she whispered."I will," he promised."Not just him, either," Beau added, leaning in from her side of the fire. "I mean, who knows what's gonna happen in the future. But we're not going to let any assholes get on your case so long as we're around to stop it. Right?""Of course right!" Jester cheered. Fjord nodded, and Molly smiled, and Nott sank back down, feeling choked up but no longer from fear.She didn't doubt them. They'd proven themselves time and time again that they defend one another, and her, even from trouble she maybe sometimes kind of brought on herself. Of course, their protection would last only as long as they stayed together; but who knew? Maybe by the time they all went their separate ways in the future... things would have changed. Maybe she wouldn't look like this any longer, maybe she'd get strong enough that nobody else could hurt her ever again. Maybe by the time the time came that they parted, she wouldn't need defending any more.Until then, she had friends to help her. Nott settled down to sleep, feeling warm and safer than she had in years."Thank you," she mumbled. She fell asleep to the feeling of Caleb's hand, stroking the hair away from her face.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Caleb didn't enjoy getting the chance to say I told you so  mostly because he was a bitter, broken, paranoid mess of a man whose predictions usually ran a gamut between dire and catastrophic. There wasn't much satisfaction in being proven right when what you were proven right about was terrible.They'd been in Zadash for three days and Jester had been pestering him to get cleaned up since the first night. She'd ranged her arguments from the smell making it unpleasant to stay in an inn together (not an inn room, an entire inn, which he thought was rather rude,) that he'd need to clean up to get into the nicer parts of town to buy books, or that he'd attract more attention walking around town covered in three weeks of trail dust than he would if he just got a bath already.Her arguments were relentless, with occasional agreement voiced by the rest of the Mighty Nein; but he didn't have  to let himself be moved by them. He'd let her persuade him, let her pester him into a bath and a shave and a laundering of clothes, and he'd stepped out on the streets of Zadash clean-shaven and clean-faced and looking entirely like a respectable citizen, and he had no one to blame for that but himself.It shouldn't have been a problem. The odds of running into anyone who used to know him -- anyone who'd known Bren -- were astronomical, especially this far south. It was a big city and the pool of people who would know him on sight was just not that broad. It would have taken an extraordinarily bad stroke of luck to just happen to cross paths with one of them on the street.But then, as the old saying went, if it weren't for bad luck we'd have no luck at all. He stepped out under the awning of the little corner bookshop he'd been browsing, brown cloth striped with bright orange flapping in the breeze; the store had been small enough to reach three walls at once if you held your arms out straight, he hadn't expected to find much there that was useful. But sometimes it was not about useful, sometimes it was about the pleasure of browsing the shelves and enjoying the feel of crackling paper and worn leader binding under your hands.It was a good day. He'd found a book of fairy tales that he thought the tieflings might enjoy -- Molly for the lurid adventure and Jester for the tales of a trickster not unlike her own patron. Another book seemed to be a handwritten diary of a country noblewoman with a detailed attention to gardening, that he thought Yasha or maybe Caduceus might like. The two books tucked under his arm he reached into his pocket and pulled out the little copper wire, rolling it across his knuckles as he raised it to his lips."Nott? I'm done browsing, I'm going to return to the inn. Are you still with Jester?" he said, and waited for her response.As Nott's distracted response came crackling back across the wire an uneasy feeling began to creep across the back of his neck, where Frumpkin nestled across his shoulders. He glanced around; nothing overtly seemed to be wrong, but years on the road had taught him to pay attention to his instincts. He let the wire fall away from his lips and tucked his hand into his pocket, slouching slightly into his scarf as he turned casually to scan the street.He was being watched.The uneasy feeling turned into a chill that coursed down the back of his neck to trace his spine. Two men, one tall and the other wide, had paused at the corner of the cross street and were staring in his direction. It had been their regard that had alerted him, their faces and gazes trained squarely on him. As he watched out of the corner of his eye, the tall one leaned down and spoke to his companion, neither of them taking their eyes off him.
Shit.
What had he been thinking, walking the streets of the Empire's second-biggest city bare-faced as though he had nothing to hide? Caleb turned a little too quickly away from the pair and began to walk away, making for a nearby corner.As he walked he took his wire back out of his pocket and spoke into it in hushed, clipped tones. "Nott? I'm being followed. I don't know yet who they are, but I'm going to try to shake them. Meet me back at the Invulnerable Vagrant; I don't want to lead them back to the inn if I can help it."Then he was at the corner and rounding it into the alley, and he had to drop the Message spell in order to cast another: Disguise Self. A few agonizing seconds of muttering and motions over himself and his hair changed was enough to give him another look: shorter, paunchier, dark skin, grey hair that wisped in a fringe around a bald head. His coat took on the appearance of a priest's robe of dark grey, completely changing his silhouette. There.At the end of it his hand hovered, reluctant, before snapping Frumpkin away. An orange cat in a public square was just too distinctive, it would draw suspicion immediately. Once he was somewhere safe he could bring Frumpkin safely back.The spell finished before his pursuers rounded the corner and he left himself sag with relief. The layout of the alleyway left him with a dilemma: behind him led back to the marketplace, but forward wound away into the residential part of the city. He would stick out there as a stranger, one unfamiliar with the streets and unknown to the residents. No, it was better to rely on the disguise to throw off pursuit, double back and lose himself in the crowd.He turned around and approached the alley from a different angle just as the two men rounded the corner, their stances tense and businesslike. This close up he could make out their uniforms and the sight of them made his stomach crawl: he knew that insignia, he knew those colors. He might not know what they were called, but he'd seen them every day for ten years at the asylum.Caleb avoided their eyes but was careful not to shy too obviously away from their presence, instead giving them a short nod as he casually crossed their box. He was past them now, it was working, the way to the street was clear ahead of him...Only to feel a shock of cold wash over him, starting at the crown of his head and running down him like a rivulet running down over rocks. He whirled around to stare at the two men in shock, hands already going to his coat -- his disguise was gone, shredded apart in the wake of the dispel."I told you, it is  him," Wide said to his companion, jerking his blocky chin at Caleb. "It's been years but I'd know that ginger mop of hair anywhere. Master Ikithon's little runaway.""Gentlemen," he said, sliding his hand into the pockets of his coat to touch his component pouch. He knew without needing to look where everything was, what's in each pocket, and his fingertips touched the adder's tongue as he willed the magic past his lips onto the men in front of him. "This is all a misunderstanding. I suggest that we go our separate ways and not trouble one another again."The spell swirled up between them and Wide blinked as he rocked back on his heels -- but his companion's hand moved in a short, jerky negation, and the words of a counterspell tripped over Caleb's suggestion  and shattered it into nothing."Don't talk to him," Tall said, keeping his eyes trained on Caleb as he reached into his pockets and fumbled something out. A piece of iron, and Caleb's stomach went cold. "Just get him down. Use the orb. We want him nice and quiet for the trip back to Rexxentrum.""I'll go with you both to the Hells first," Caleb snarled, and the fight was on.Tall's hands spun out towards him with a Hold Person but Caleb managed to counter it before the spell took hold. He made one more attempt to flee, casting the spell that would speed his steps beyond any mortal catching -- but the other guard snapped his own incantation and vanished, reappearing on the other end of the street, blocking Caleb's escape and pinning him between the two of them.It was a hectic fight, the snap and curdle of spells sizzling through the air and landing and ricocheting back, snapping away to writhe on the cobblestones like severed lengths of burning wire. He was holding his own against them -- so far --  but he couldn't get away, and he couldn't possibly take them both out before one of them pinned him down. He needed to retreat, to lose himself in the city and call for help, to get reinforcements in a fight he could not hope to win on his own.Caleb reached for his molasses. If he could get one of them with slow, he might be able to get past them without exposing his back to their attacks. He had the molasses in his fingers, incantation on his lips, when Tall reached into his pack and pulled out --The sight was so strange it took him a moment to parse what he was seeing. It was a glowing orb of greenish light, a containment sphere he realized, and swimming around the inside of it like a fish in a bowl was a strange, skeletal little creature. Red skin seemed to stretch directly across bones, pulsing with the rhythm of an unnatural heartbeat. Red webbing extended between the fingers of its appendages like the fins of a fish, and a duck-like bill opened on sharp teeth under a pair of eyes that stared at him with uncanny intelligence.He recognized the creature and his thoughts flooded with horror even before he felt the strange dissonant whispering creep across his mind. "No!" he cried and tried to back up, tried to get out of its range but --Already he was losing the words. Patches and empty holes appeared in his mind as the aberration invaded his mind, consuming his thoughts. He couldn't -- couldn't finish the cast, couldn't string the words together, and for a horrifying moment he couldn't even remember why he was fighting in the first place.His hesitation was all the opening his opponents needed. Tall tackled him to the ground, light bursting in his vision as his head hit the cobblestone. Caleb struggled, trying to get out from under the man and away from the thing  in his mind -- in his thoughts --"Hold him still," Wide grunted as he closed in on them, hands pawing at a pouch in his belt. "Right, just like that --"He pulled out a small crystal ball and Caleb's eyes lingered on it, fascinated and horrified, and he knew that spell he knew it what was it -- The glass ball hit his forehead, smashed with a painful shattering of glass, and the spell took hold and --  Words fail. Numbers fail. Thoughts fail.It all goes away, drains out the bottom of his mind and the empty space fills up with clouds. It used to be so clear and now it's not. It's all gone bad and he doesn't understand.He remembers this.This happened before. He was in a place like this before. There were men like this before. There were walls, metal rods, glowing runes that burned like fire, men and women in white clothes stained red. He remembers.It's not the same. He's in a different place now, wide open, full of buildings and people and chaos. It's not the same. Before, he hurt, he was full of pain, it filled up everything and left nothing left over for any other feeling. But this time -- this time, this time...He's angry. They did this to him. They did this to him.  They made  everything bad and wrong, and he won't forgive them for it. He won't let them get away with it. When they come to take his arms and move him, take him away, take him back to the white walls place, this time he fights.He used to fight better. Fire and ice and bright sparks. Now he has none of that, but he doesn't let that stop him. He throws himself on them and fights, breaks away from their hands and fights. He hits them with his hands and when they grab his hands and hold them, he hits them with his feet and his head and anything else he can reach. He won't forgive them for this, he won't.They hit back. They hit him with hands and with things and with magic. They can make him hurt, but they can't make him stop being angry. They put straps on his hands to hold them together, and another in his mouth to keep him from making noise.  His arms and legs are heavy and wrong, his insides hurt, but the rage never stops and neither does he.He won't forgive them.There's another they  that lies behind them, a vast towering figure he can only vaguely remember, someone bigger and worse than them. But he can't remember this man well enough to remember why he should be afraid, so he's angry at him too.The men want him to walk. He doesn't want to walk. When they try to pull his arms he fights them. They stop trying for a while and argue with each other for a long time. At last they take much longer straps and wrap them around his arms. Like this they can pull him and he has to move, but they are never close enough for him to fight.He still doesn't want to go. He digs in his heels, drags his weight and every step is a battle. They are on the streets and people are looking at them. It used to be that people looking at him made him afraid, but not now. He's too angry to be afraid.They stop again because the men in blue have come. They're arguing with the wrong men and he thinks that the men in blue want to take him away. He doesn't want to go with the blue men either, but they would be better than the wrong men.The argument gets louder, their voices are as angry as he feels and the man in blue is holding onto the arm of one of the wrong men. The wrong men have to take something out of their clothes to make him let go. They show him the shiny thing and the men in blue shrink down. They let go and back away and don't fight any more.Everyone is staring at them now as they pull him past. People on the street shrink away from the wrong men.He looks in the crowd and he doesn't see his people. Blue, green, purple, all the colors that he knows and loves aren't here. He has to get away from this place, from these men, if he's going to get back to his people.So he fights. He fights every step of the way to the cold place, a big place of stone and metal rods. This isn't the old place. It's black, not white, and the men and women in the white clothes aren't here. It's not the old place but it's a bad place all the same, and he doesn't stop trying to get away from it until at last one of the men puts his hands on him and makes him sleep.  When he wakes he can't remember yesterday. He can't remember where he is. Who he is. Why.But he knows the men trying to make him move are the wrong people. He wants to get back to his right people but he can't find them. He tries to go looking for him but they stop him, so he fights them again. They hit him again and again with things and with magic until he stops fighting, but he won't forget.There are more men today, men wearing metal and men wearing the same clothes. There are horses, but not for him. They put the long straps on him to make him walk between the horses. It makes him tired, but the horses are stronger than him, and he can't slow them down just by digging in his heels.They're walking on the road now. The sun is high up and it's hot. It makes him hot, it makes him hurt and it makes him tired, but he can't go to sleep. The horses won't let him stop walking and anyway he has to be watchful. If there's a chance to fight he has to take it. He hasn't forgotten that these men are wrong, that he hates them and he doesn't want to be with them. If they come too close, if they slip up, he'll tear their head off.Something happens.A scream rips through the air and there's blood. He can't see where it came from. There's a noise and a flash in the corner of his eye and then the horse is screaming too, on the ground and flailing its legs while the men shout and start to run.It's so loud. Everything is full of motion and crashing metal and he can't understand what's happening but the horse on one side is down in the road and rolling on top of the man on it, and the long strap on that side is trailing loose now.He moves to the other side and there's no strap to yank him back. There's still a strap on the other side going to the man still on his horse. He barrels into the man and grabs his leg, holding on tight when the man tries to hit him, and with all his strength he bears down and pulls the man off the horse.Confusion. Noise, shouting, hurt. Something big hits him and he pushes away from it. He rolls away and sits up, scoots away, and the horse is stepping on the man now and there's screaming, there's red stains on the horse's legs and the man isn't getting up.
Good.
No one is holding on to him now. He gets to his feet and looks around. Everyone is running around, everyone is hitting with their hands or their things, but he knows what he wants to see. He's looking for his people. He's looking for a color he knows, a face he trusts, he needs he needs he needs --Green. He sees green.He runs. His legs are heavy and his feet don't step right, his hands are still held together and it's hard to stand up. But he sees her  and he knows he has to get to her. Small and green. She's on the side of the road and her hands are so fast on the thing she's holding that her hands are a blur. He just has to get to her and everything will be all right.He runs across the road and stumbles when he reaches the edge of the road, she turns to face him and her yellow eyes are so big, her mouth is opening on a cry as she sees him. He can't understand her. It doesn't matter.He falls to his knees in front of her and throws his arms around her, and everything's all right.She's saying something. He can't understand, but she's tugging at his arm and pulling him away. He's so tired, it's so hard to move. She calls out and another man appears beside them but it's okay, this is one of the right people, he's purple and red and when the right man takes his arms and pulls him up he's so gentle. The man puts an arm around his shoulders and walks him a little way away, turning him away from the road, and it's all right.He lets it happen. Everything is all right. He's found his people and everything will be all right now.Gradually the noise and shouting and movement stops. Footsteps come near him and he blinks open his eyes to see a blue lady standing over him, her face blurry and hard to see. But he remembers this, he thinks. He remembers this from before, he was in a place and he felt like this, and the kind lady with the gentle hands put her hands on him and took the clouds away.Just like then she reaches down to him, she puts her hands on him and all the hurting goes away.He closes his eyes and it's dark.  By common agreement they took the party off-road for the next few days, avoiding towns and roads in hopes of avoiding any pursuit from the Crownsguard or worse, Imperial troops investigating the destruction of their convoy. The only contact they had with civilization was to send a few people into towns to get supplies -- none of Caleb's captors had survived to report their faces, they were confident, nor had time to get a report off before dying. So long as they didn't bring Caleb himself anywhere he could be seen, they should be safe.Jester and Caduceus between them managed to get the spell off Caleb on the second day, thank the gods beyond the Gate. It was extremely weird and more than a little distressing to see Caleb like that, wordless and guileless and following Nott around like a duckling. Feeblemind,  Beau had called it, and it hurt to watch their brilliant wizard so emptied out like that.Now he was back to himself and that was painful in its own way, the way he had just shut down and withdrawn into himself the moment his mind was restored to him. He'd lasted long enough to stammer out a stilted, utterly unnecessary thanks to each of them for their help, then retreated from the rest of them to hide in the cart with only Nott for company.And he'd earned that, Molly knew, if hiding away until he could rebuild his composure was what he needed then Molly could give him all the time he needed for that. But a part of him still remembered the way Caleb had pressed up against him, when Nott had handed Caleb over to him and told him to get her boy somewhere safe. The way his eyes closed as he relaxed against Molly's shoulder. Utterly trusting.Caleb emerged around nightfall as the rest of them were eating their dinner around the campfire. He had resummoned Frumpkin in the interim and held the cat in front of him like a shield as he settled down Nott disappeared for thirty seconds and reappeared with a plate absolutely piled with food which she slid in front of Caleb, ignoring his appalled look and protests at the size of it. "You need to eat  Caleb, those fucking guards didn't feed you," she insisted.The atmosphere was awkward for the next several minutes, as everyone exchanged glances around the fire and Caleb seemed to be doing his best to reinvent the invisibility spell without use of magic. He seemed, not just shaken and exhausted, but... ashamed? Fjord sighed and put down his own dinner in order to face Caleb and lean forward over his hands."Caleb," Fjord said, the concern rich in his voice. "You know that none of us are mad at you, right? We've all been in tough spots and needed help before. You, me, Jester and Yasha, Molly and Nott too. We help each other because that's what friends do.""I know," Caleb said, but he didn't sound very convinced, and Molly added his own voice."Nobody's going to make fun of you. Right?" A quelling glower at Beau who looked outraged at the suggestion that she would, and Jester who shrugged unrepentantly before nodding. "You were under a spell. A pretty shitty spell, by the sound of it. Nobody's going to judge you.""Ah... right," Caleb muttered, still staring down into his plate. "I understand that, I am just sorry... that I caused you all such trouble. That I let myself be taken so easily. More than anything I am sorry that you had to see... see me like that.""What the fuck are you talking about, Caleb?" Beau demanded. "You did great!"Caleb stared at her in astonishment. "How do you mean, 'great?' " he said slowly."You fought like a tiger against those assholes!" Nott enthuses. "It was a huge scene, everybody on the street saw it.""There was no shortage of witnesses to tell us which way you'd gone, once we went looking," Fjord took over the narrative. "The local Crownsguard wasn't too happy about some 'special troops from the Capital' muscling in on their jurisdiction, either. Gossiped like a pair of grandmas.""Once we knew who took you and which way you were going, we were able to get ahead of them on the road and set up an ambush," Caduceus added. "If you'd gone quietly, like they wanted? We might not have found you in time.""So like I said," Beau maintained, "you did great, Caleb. We're all proud of you.""Super proud!" Jester chirped, and "Like a tiger!"  Nott emphasized with a growl and hand held out in the shape of a claw.Heads nodded around the fire as Caleb slowly turned to look from one to the other of them. At the end of the circuit he ducked down into his collar again and focused fiercely on the food in front of him; but Molly was able to make out a tiny smile on his face.Socially awkward and prickly and still not without damage he might be but he was still their Caleb, and Molly was glad to have him back.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

They didn't go back to Zadash. They didn't go on to the next town on the road either; there was no telling what kind of patrols might be out looking for them now. They ended up three days to the east tucked away in an inn that wasn't even part of a town, just a stop on the road for trade caravans to rest and refuel. There were no caravans going through right then which was good, because the less people who saw them the better.

It had been a week since the ambush on the high road north of Zadash where they'd retrieved Caleb from the group of armed thugs that had grabbed him, and five days since Caduceus and Jester had managed to restore his mind, and he was not bouncing back.

It wasn't that Molly expected Caleb to just go on like nothing had happened. Getting snatched like that could shake your whole world, make you doubt every moment that you could ever really be safe. It took time and support to regain that trust in the world again. But Caleb was alternating between jumping skittishly at every shadow and long, silent periods where he seemed sunk in impenetrable gloom and not even the presence of Frumpkin could comfort him.

The first opportunity he'd gotten after being rescued, he'd gone out into the woods and gotten himself absolutely filthy. No one said anything. Molly knew that Jester felt terrible for having been the one in Zadash to convince Caleb to wash his face in the first place, although they'd all (minus Nott) added their voices in support. If getting himself unrecognizably dirty was what it took for him to feel safe, then that was just what he'd have to do.

But it didn't seem to make him feel appreciably better, and no one was certain what

would.

They'd each taken time in their own ways to reassure Caleb that they would help protect him, and he didn't argue with any of them but Molly could see that he didn't believe a one.

(A quiet word to Fjord had taken Caleb off watch schedules for the duration. Molly, at least, was not at all sure if they left him on a watch shift by himself that he would still be there in the morning.)

Returning to civilization was usually a relief, at least for the prospect of a roof overhead and hot water and regular food. But the presence of walls and other people didn't seem to reassure Caleb; they actually seemed to make him

worse.

When they handed out rooms he'd picked the one furthest from the stairs with a window looking out the side of the building, disappeared into the room and not come out for a day and a half.

Molly mounted the stairs, drink in hand. 'Hot drinks and sympathy' was becoming their go-to response to people getting abducted, abused and otherwise terrified, and it probably wasn't the best way to approach problems, but fuck if Molly knew any better way.

He knocked on the door, paused and waited. No response, but there were voices inside -- Caleb and Beau. Caleb's voice was raised in distress, and Molly couldn't just -- fuck, he couldn't just walk away from a friend in pain like that.

He turned the knob and went in.

Beau met his entrance with a scowl and glare. Caleb didn't even seem to notice him. He was pacing in a tight, frenzied circuit around the room, one of his anxious phases rather than gloomy ones. Beau, Molly noticed, was standing with her arms crossed and feet planted in front of the window. As if to block Caleb from making a dive for it?

"Hey," Beau said. "Was two years not long enough for you to learn how to knock?"

"I did knock. I thought I'd come check on you guys," Molly said. He glanced over at Caleb, but the man still didn't look up from whatever spiral had hold of him. "How... is he?"

"Shitty. As you can see. Now go away," Beau said, making a shooing motion with her hands, and Molly scowled. He did

not

appreciate being dismissed like that.

"I would have thought you'd want someone to come tag you out," Molly said challengingly. Beau wasn't a touchy-feely sort of person at the best of times. Which these weren't.

She made a frustrated gestured with her hands. "Believe me, there's nothing I'd like better to dump this off on someone,

anyone

more qualified, but there are things -- hey." All at once Caleb stopped pacing and collapsed against the edge of the bed, hands clutching at ginger hair. "Hey, hey, Caleb. Relax. It's just Molly. Nobody's here."

"Not yet," Caleb said, his voice shaking. "But they'll be here soon, they're

coming,

he's found me, they, they will have told him everything, he

knows

Beauregard he

found me

I have to

go

..."

What?

Molly went tense, fight or flight response activated.

He

who? Go

where?

All his watch-shift paranoias from earlier seemed justified, if Caleb really was thinking about just

taking off.

"Hey. Hey," Beauregard said. She abandoned her post in front of the window in order to crouch down in front of Caleb, putting herself in the wizard's line of sight. "Breathe, okay? He's not here. No one's going to take you anywhere. You're safe. Breathe."

Molly didn't intend the noise that escaped him, but it was enough to draw Beau's attention to him, if not Caleb's. She glared up and flapped her hand at him. "Shoo," she hissed. "Go boil some water or something."

"What the fuck good is boiling water going to do?" Molly demanded.

"Nothing, but it's what people say to get men to butt out of shit that isn't their business, isn't it?" she said.

"Excuse me, but if

something

is coming after us -- him --

us,

then it very much

is

the party's business," Molly hissed back. "If

he

tells me to go, then I'll go, but until then I don't jump when you say frog, Beauregard."

She looked like she might bite back, but Caleb at last took a deep breath and spoke, "I have to go. I have to leave tonight. To keep you all safe, I - I should have gone already."

"No way," Beau said firmly, returning all her attention to the wizard. "You're not going fucking anywhere, do you hear me Widogast? Look, this isn't great, but let's slow down a moment and think this through."

Caleb shook his head. He was hyperventilating, Molly could see it from here. "I can't --"

"Sure you can." Beau snapped her fingers in front of Caleb's eyes, her voice sharp, and for a moment he tracked her. "Come on,

think with me.

What does this look like from that asshole's perspective? Starting at the beginning. I mean, the beginning of you getting away from him, at the asylum."

Asylum?

Molly wondered. What the

shit

was this? More importantly, how had Beau found out when Caleb hadn't opened up to anyone else, excepting maybe Nott?

"I k-killed the guard... and took the necklace... that would stop him from finding me," Caleb said hestitantly, and then his breath began to speed up again. "But he

found

me, he found me anyway and I..."

"Whoa," Beau said, holding out hand palm out in his face. "Okay okay. Stop there.  So, five years ago or whatever, you woke up in the asylum, you killed the guy, you took the necklace, and you left."

Caleb gave a short, jerky nod. "

Ja."

"So from his perspective, you disappeared off the face of Exandria for the next however many years," Beau continued. "But even before this he knew you weren't dead."

"He, he knew, but he would have no reason to care until..." Caleb faltered, and Beau cut firmly across him.

"I don't think we know what he does or doesn't care about, Caleb," she said seriously. "Let's think. So, two days ago you run into these guys on the street. Were they tracking you?"

Caleb stopped for a moment, but at least this time he seemed to be seriously thinking, not just panicking. "I don't, I don't think so. They seemed as surprised to see me as I was to see them."

"Okay." Beau gave him a nod. "So it was just chance. Just shitty, shitty luck, but it doesn't mean he was tracking you."

"But now he knows and..." Caleb began to repeat the same obsessive mantra as before.

"What does he know?" Beau demanded. "Seriously, what does he know now that he didn't before? You were alone on the street, right? None of us were with you."

Headshake. "N-no."

"And then we ambushed them and killed the crap out of 'em," a small fierce smile touched Beau's face at the memory. "And they didn't have time to report back. Right?"

Caleb hesitated, then nodded. "Right."

"So, from his perspective you disappeared out of the asylum five years ago, popped back up on the street in Zadash, then mysteriously disappeared again," Beau concluded. "What's changed?"

"But you... we..." Caleb fumbled for words. "The Mighty Nein isn't exactly. Subtle. He'll have heard about the name and..."

"He didn't know you were traveling with us. And he still doesn't," Beau interrupted. "Right? Those guys, you didn't tell them about us, did you?"

"No. We did not exactly have long conversations." Caleb sounded bitter as wormwood. "They... they might have scanned my mind, but... there was not much there for them to read at the time."

"Okay." Beau winced, but forged gamely onwards. "That sucks, but it's kind of a silver lining, isn't it? Because that means Trent still doesn't know about us."

It was a perfectly normal, unexceptional man's name, and Molly didn't know why dropping it in the middle of the conversation should make the room suddenly seem so much colder.

Trent who?

"And maybe he's heard from other sources that there's some gang of assholes calling themselves the Mighty Nein, but there's nothing to connect that with

you,"

Beau continued. "So he can't track you through us. And you got the necklace back, so he can't track you that way either. So really, what's changed? You're no more exposed now than you were before."

Caleb actually seemed to be considering this, face un-pinching from its expression of stark terror as he reached up to fidget with his necklace. Molly'd seen it before of course, in the bathhouse, but this was the first he'd heard it did anything special. He ought to have guessed; nothing Caleb wore was decorative.

Encouraged by Caleb's reaction, Beau went on talking. "And now you've got friends," she said bracingly. "People who will watch your back. If his goons try to snatch you, we'll protect you. And if he shows up in person, we'll kick his ass."

That jolted Caleb back into panic mode again. "No... no you don't understand, you can't fight him -- he's too powerful, h-he -- you can't, you can't --"

"We can and will, Caleb, that's what it means to have friends," Beau said, her voice becoming edged.

"No, you

can't!"

Caleb burst out, his hands clutching at his bandage-wrapped forearms. "He will burn you to ashes, he will, he will -- he will run us all down and wrap us in our own guts if we do not run!"

"That's not going to happen, dammit -- are you even

listening

to me, we're not going to

run,

we're not going to just let --"

Up till now Molly had been hanging back, awful realization piling on awful realization with nothing apparent that he could do about any of it -- but he thought he knew both Caleb and Beau well enough to see where this conversation was headed towards collision. Beau was stuck on insisting their willingness to fight for Caleb to prove their loyalty, but Caleb was so panicked by the thought that he would do anything to avoid that fight. In his frenzied state Caleb couldn't back down, and Beau wouldn't.

So he decided to offer another way out.

"Okay," he said, making both Beau and Caleb jump with his sudden presence in the conversation. "Let's do it."

"Huh?" Beau wrinkled her nose at him, and Caleb looked just as baffled. "

Was?"

"I don't know all the details behind whatever you're afraid of," he raised a hand placatingly towards Caleb, "and I don't think I want to know. But one thing a carnival knows is how to get out of town when you're no longer wanted. If we have to leave, we'll leave. We were thinking about going back to Nicodranas anyway, weren't we? Why not leave now?"

"I... I can't ask you all to..." Caleb stammered, but his expression had gone wistful and hungry, as though he were seeing a meal he desperately wanted but knew he wasn't permitted to eat.

Beau rolled her eyes. "Yes you can, dude," she said. "That's what I've been saying  for the last hour, you can ask us for stuff."

"Clearly you weren't listening," Molly told him mock-severely. "We're going anyway, this just means we're going

now

rather than later.

"Jester wants to see her mother again. Fjord's been pining for the sea. Caduceus has never even seen the ocean, can you

believe

that?" He flung his arms out dramatically. Of course, neither had Molly -- that he could remember, anyway. "This must be rectified! We'll go, and anyone looking for you can eat our dust."

Caleb sat quiet for a long moment, only the faintest of twitches on his face and in his fingers betraying his internal struggle. Molly waited with the most patience he could muster, knowing that any more pushing would just flounder him further. At last Caleb blinked, his hands relaxed, and he looked down to address his knees as he muttered, "Okay."

Beau slapped the floor, blew out her breath and announced, "All right, finally an actual

plan! Of! Action!"

She jumped to her feet in one fluid motion, closed fist tapping at her hip in an expression of nervous energy. "I'll go let the others know, okay?"

"Thanks," she muttered to Molly as she scooted past him, and Molly gave her a nod of acknowledgement.

The door swung shut behind her, leaving Molly and Caleb alone in the inn room. Caleb refused to meet his eyes -- well, that wasn't unusual for him, at least -- but at least he wasn't staring into nothing or pacing a hole in the floor.

Molly sat down on the edge of the bed, not so close as to impinge on Caleb's bubble of personal space but close enough that a quiet voice would reach him. "Look," he started to say. "Listen, Caleb..."

"I am sorry for all of this," Caleb muttered, sounding absolutely wretched.

"Don't be," Molly sighed, and put on his gentlest voice. "I get the feeling listening to you and Beau that there's a lot I don't know. I just want you to understand, I don't

need

to know. Not if you want to keep it to yourself."

He turned to look directly at Caleb, wanting his sincerity to be out there, whether Caleb was able to accept it or not. "But whatever happened in your past, whoever's after you, it doesn't change who you are now. And who you are now is a friend I'd fight for without hesitation."

Caleb shuddered. "You don't... you don't know what you are saying," he managed at last.

"I do," Molly said firmly. He reached over and put his hand over Caleb's, gave it a comforting squeeze and released it with a pat. "Second starts, remember Mister Caleb? That's what we're all about."

He went back downstairs to join the others.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

He meets her at the bar, skin bluish-white under the purple lights and hair ashy-pale; the only splash of color on her is her eyes which burn gold bright as a lamp flame. They made eye contact across a crowded room and something clicks and it seems so right to go over to her and ask her name -- Anserinae -- that he doesn't even feel the magic slithering in and taking hold.It seems to make perfect sense to agree to go with her back to her place, and to not tell any of his companions where he's going. It makes perfect sense to ignore the tickle in the back of his mind on the walk over as they try to contact him. It makes perfect sense, when they reach the door to her mausoleum-like home, to put aside his swords at the door and continue on upstairs unarmed. It makes perfect sense to strip off his coat and his shirt and set them aside, and to sit down in the chair where she points him.It's only when she says --"Now, take that collar and fasten it around your neck, be a dear,"-- that the charm she had him under comes crashing down and he jolts back to awareness of where he is and what he's doing and oh gods what is he doing. "Oh fuck me running," he says, which is probably a mistake; he blurts it out instead of running, or getting in the first shot. But it was probably a hopeless case anyway: she barks out a word that makes the room ring like a bell and bloom with light, sending him staggering back into the chair he'd started to get up from. Before he can recover from the stun the chair suddenly comes alive and engulfs him, straps and chains slithering up from wherever they'd been hidden to wrap around his arms and legs.He struggles anyway out of sheer bloody panic, but he has no leverage and the magic animating them is too strong. The straps pull him flat against the back of the chair, hands bound tightly to the arms of the chair and legs firmly tied to the floor. The gold-eyed woman is still in front of him, smiling, hands flickering with magic as she looks him over with all the satisfaction of a cat strolling up to a sprung mousetrap.The room they're in is barren and undecorated, no carpets or tapestries softening the hard outlines of the walls. There are no windows -- none that he can see from this angle, at least -- and the walls are thick stone, too thick for a message or a finding spell to get through.The two of them are the only people in the room. There are a few other humanoid figures up and walking around, but there's something about the way they move, something missing  that tells Molly subliminally that they aren't alive. Two hulking suits of armor flank the doorway but turn their heads to track their mistress as she moves and two more human-sized mannequins move around in the very corners of his vision, doing something that he can't clearly see."What do you want from me?!" Molly demands, trying to wrestle his panic down far enough to not hyperventilate.The woman sneers at him. "And just what do you think you have that I'd want, devil boy?" she says. She leans in and her hand drifts up to cup his jaw, one fingernail tracing along the path of a single drop of blood from where he bit his lip.  "Your blood, of course."Molly swallows. "Are you with the Tomb Takers?" Oh gods, if this is Lucian's past coming back to bite him in the ass again... She pulls back, her ethereal features wrinkling slightly with disdain as she wipes her hand off on a sleeve. "Who?""Wait, but -- if you aren't with them, then how did you find me?" Molly says, confused.The sneer returns. "I have no interest in your cultish cabal of gravediggers, boy," she says, then leans in again, tilting her head to the side like a bird considering an interesting thing from new angles. "But you... you present a rare opportunity. Usually, you blood hunters run around in little packs, impossible to separate out from the herd. Imagine my luck when I spotted you, out all alone."Molly breathes again. "So you're not with them... but you took me because of my blood?" he tries to parse this."Yes." She tisks,  making a moue of exaggerated pity. "You've done such a terrible, terrible thing to yourself, devil boy. But in that contamination comes power. I've been trying for so long to study your kind... and now I have a subject to provide me with all the samples I need."The relief at not being kidnapped by any of Lucian's old comrades is rapidly draining off. Molly tries his best to compose himself. The others, they saw him go missing, right? He distinctly remembers hearing Nott's Message in his head on the walk over, when he was too deep under her spell to respond. So they'll know something is wrong, right? And come looking? Unless of course they decide that he was just out looking for a quick fuck after all, and decided to ignore them just to be an ass, and should be left to his just fate until morning.Oh Moonweaver, he hopes they don't leave him here.He has to delay, buy some time. Bad guys love to talk, don't they? "You can't just kidnap people!" he protests. "The Crownsguard will come looking!""Looking? For me?"  She throws her head back and laughs and her laugh is full of the sound of bells, deep ominous iron bells like Jester tolling the dead. "I am a respected citizen in this town! All anyone who cares to come looking will know is that Arcanist Anserinae is entertaining a handsome guest in her quarters... at length. And you?" That sneer again, an expression that he's beginning to think she wears by default. "A worthless, vagrant, drifter trickborn? I very much doubt that anyone will even notice you're gone, let alone care."And that stings a bit, it does; Molly's never quite gotten over the fact that after his first death, apparently nobody cared enough to come looking for him or even to give his corpse a better burial than a hasty, shallow pit in the woods. Too often... there are too many people who are just forgotten and cast aside, and he's tried so hard not to be one of them. If he can't be loved and respected, at the very least, he can be memorable. One of the mannequin-people has puttered up with a tray outstretched, and he can't see everything on it but he can see the light glinting off metal and glass jars. He tries again to engage her, keep her talking. "Look -- these powers -- I can tell you everything I know..." He trails off when she only smiles, the smile still sharper and colder than the sharp metal she twirls in her fingers."Oh you will," she says with a casual indifference that sends a chill down his spine. "I have no doubt you'll tell me all about it, at tedious length, given enough time. But let's get you settled in the lab, and we'll start with the first few samples. Now. This will sting a bit. Try not to scream too much..."The straps on the chair tighten by themselves, forcing his head back and exposing his neck. He can only watch out of the bottom of his eyes as she leans in, cold metal a shock on his skin, and her eyes are so bright and mesmerizing they grow to fill his entire field of vision. The first needles bite into his flesh, the first blood begins to flow, and he can't see or think about anything except her eyes.Until --Until over her shoulder, where there was nothing but dreary blank grey wall before, suddenly begins to shift and stretch and move. Molly can only watch, paralyzed, as the grey stone surges and bulges into the shape of... a face, then a silhouette, the shape of a tall man with long ears and a wide nose.Caduceus Clay leans out of the wall as casually as though he's leaning through a window, his back half still encased in the stone, and says:"Hello," he says, and Anserinae jumps like a scalded cat and whirls around to face him. "Have you heard the good news about the Wildmother?""What?" she screeches, groping for something on the tray as she begins to back away. Molly's seen Caleb holding his diamond in the casting position often enough to recognize the menacing glint in her hand as she holds it out between them with a shaking hand. "How did you get in here?!""Through the wall," Caduceus explains helpfully.Her burning golden eyes narrow as she backs up further, putting a good twenty feet between herself and the intruder, ready to cast the moment he tries to cross the space. "And what are you supposed to be?" she says suspiciously.Caduceus blinks at her, his eyelashes slow and tranquil across his high cheekbones. "A distraction," he replies honestly."What?!"The room bursts into flame.Heat blasts across Molly's face as half the room -- the other  half, thank all the gods in their exile -- flashes up into a solid wall of fire. Even from where he sits he can feel the heat of it beating across his face, and he's never been so glad for tiefling fire resistance as right now.From the other side of the wall of flame he hears Anserinae's furious scream, and past that, a familiar voice shouting:
"Mighty Nein, fuck shit up!"
Everything after that devolves into a cacaphony of crashing and shouting, metal grinding on metal and stone, the chanting of casters and the furious screaming of their enemy. The chair that he's bound to has stopped moving -- presumably, as Anserinae loses control of the spell that was animating it -- but it's stopped moving with him still tied to it, blast it all. Molly writhes against his bonds, futilely trying to free just one arm so he can move, but he doesn't have enough freedom of movement to get anywhere."Hello," Caduceus says equably as he fetches up beside Molly's chair."What are you doing here?!" Molly demands. It's a painfully obvious question, but he's panicking okay? He's allowed a little leeway."This is a rescue!" Caduceus tells him with a smile, then pauses. "Just so we're on the same page here, this is the sort of situation that you want to be rescued from, right? I just mean, I don't want to jump to any conclusions, but you are  here in the private chambers of this beautiful woman without your shirt, tied to a chair, so...""Yes! Yes, this is an entirely rescue-appropriate situation!" Molly yelps. "Just in case the profuse bleeding  wasn't an indication, this is me making it clear!""Well, you know. Some people are into some pretty far out stuff," Caduceus says. "I didn't want to be judgy, Beau's been telling me I need to work on being less judgy."Caduceus reaches out and taps his fingers against Molly's collarbone, magic glowing from his fingertips, and the rush of blood slows to a trickle as the holes in his neck and chest heal over. The firbolg then, finally gets around to working on the straps that bind him to the chair, but it seems to be slow going. "Hm.""Not to criticize the rescue that I am very grateful for, don't get me wrong, but can't you go any faster?" Molly asks in a tight voice. The sounds of combat from the other side of the firewall haven't slackened. Though he supposes the fact that the wall is still there is a good sign; if Caleb is over there still channeling it, then the fight can't be going too  badly. "The others might need our help! Or your help at least, I'm going to be fuck-all help to anyone like this."Caduceus shakes his head. "Our friends can handle it," he tells Molly with an unshakeable faith. "I was just supposed to get to you, distract the wizard, then stay with you and heal you if you needed it and get you to safety. Speaking of which..."He leans back a bit, a perturbed frown on his face as he considers the bindings. "There don't seem to be any actual, uh, knots or buckles on these," he admits. "I don't actually see how to get them off.""Cut them?" Molly suggests in a tight voice.Caduceus shrugs. "I don't really have anything on me that will do the job. Unless your swords are around here somewhere?"Molly shakes his head as much as the restraints will let him. "They're downstairs, by the door. Unless one of the others grabbed them on the way up, or she had her servants hide them somewhere."Caduceus stops to pin Molly with a pitying, judgmental gaze. "You let her separate you from your weapons?" he says."I was bespelled!"  Molly protests in his defense. "It's not my fault!""Fair enough," Caduceus says. "All right, I'm not making much progress on this. Let's take this outside."" How?"  Molly yelps, then emits a far too undignified noise when Caduceus stoops slightly and picks Molly up, chair and all. "No no no no! Terrible idea!"The wall of fire bisecting the room wavers, flares, then goes out; for the first time Molly has a full view of the rest of the battlefield. The firewall is gone, though anything caught in its wake that could catch alight has done so, continuing to fill the room with smoke and heat.The Mighty Nein are locked in battle against half a dozen of the automata he'd seen earlier, including the two huge sets of armor and several more smaller, featureless mannequins as well as Anserinae herself. The woman looks frightful, blood and singe marks coating her face as well as long bloody slashes in her flowing robe, but she's still on her feet and Caleb is down,  over against the opposite wall.Her burning-gold eyes meet his across the battlefield and flare to new heights of rage. "You! You brought them here!" she screeches, her beautiful bell-like voice distorted with hatred. "You tainted piece of filth, I'll see you dead before I let you go!""Whoops," Caduceus says from behind him. "Time to go."He shifts Molly -- still strapped into the chair -- into one arm and flings the other out towards the wall, magic following the path of his hand. The stone of the wall wavers like a pond that's had a stone dropped in it, and an opening appears in the middle of the distortion and begins to widen rapidly as the edges pull back from the opening.The last he sees of the mansion as Caduceus carries him out through the hole in the wall is flames licking up the walls, and the last he hears of the battle is Anserinae's furious screaming.  "So she wasn't with the Tomb Takers after all?" Jester wants to know, when they finally regroup.They've gone to ground in a seedy tavern on the far end of town, far enough away that the smoke from the arcanist's burning mansion isn't even visible from here. For a change they managed to make it out before any of the local zolezzo could see them, and Anserinae is thoroughly, decidedly dead -- so they should be safe enough here for the night.A night's rest and some attention from the clerics should be all they need; none of them were badly hurt. Caleb was the worst off, leaving Molly with his heart in his mouth the whole journey here, but thanks to magic he's almost good as new, and upstairs sleeping off the rest.They stopped in an alleyway a few blocks away from the mansion to catch up with the rest of the Nein, and Nott was able to provide a helpful dagger to slice through the restraints and help him wriggle free. Yasha, ever a considerate provider of brute violence solutions, had taken her sword and made thorough wreckage of the thing before leaving it in splinters in the alley behind them. Fjord had picked up his swords from the door, and Jester had his coat, but his shirt had apparently gone up in smoke with the rest of the mansion.At this point Molly is considering just wearing the coat au naturale,  considering how much trouble he has holding onto shirts. But that sounds like a problem for Tomorrow Molly, one way or another.Molly shakes his head. "She didn't even recognize the name," he says. "Honestly I get the idea that there weren't all that many of the Tomb Takers in the first place, and they mostly stay pretty out of sight. The odds that I'm just going to run into them in the street are pretty low, I think.""You did twice though," Jester points out cheerfully, and Molly hides his grimace in another drink.They're all gathered in the taproom for a settling drink before bed, minus Caleb and Nott who already went on upstairs to sleep. Molly is nursing a mug of strong rum in his hands -- a local specialty, he's told -- and trying to recover his nerves. The rest of them are good enough at playing natural -- Beau and Fjord having an arm wrestling contest, Yasha and Caduceus bent over her book of flowers comparing notes -- that he's almost able to relax back into it.A selfish part of him, though, can't help but wish that his favorite wizard was down here. He probably wouldn't be drinking, almost certainly wouldn't be talking, but he would be here,  and Molly would feel a little better knowing that of all the magical forces unnatural and uncanny that were out there, he had the strongest and most knowledgeable of them at his side."On the other hand, if she wasn't  with the Tomb Takers, then that means you have two entirely different sets of people hunting you for entirely unrelated reasons," Beau points out helpfully, then jumps and glares at Fjord. "Ow, what the fuck dude?!""Not really helping, Beau," Fjord says, barely moving his lips.Molly sighs. "No, the unpleasant one has a point," he agrees. "I don't -- I don't want to know what all that bastard,"  not wanting to name Lucian out loud, especially not in public, "was up to. But it does mean we're -- I'm  kind of flying blind here, not knowing what else might be waiting in the wings for me.""Whatever it is, we'll deal with it," Fjord says firmly, and Caduceus and Jester nod confidently. "I don't plan to let any shady blood hunters or unscrupulous arcanists steal my roommate away. I've gotten pretty fond of him, in fact."Molly's face warms, and heats further with Jester's cheerful "Me too!" and Beau's unconvincing show of casualness as she nods."Careful, any more of this and I might start to get a swelled head," he says jokingly, and accepts the good-natured laughter and jeers that it's too late for that. He pulls the coat around him a little closer and takes another drink from the mug. Nothing's really been resolved, he knows. The Tomb Takers are still out there, and he's still got powers floating around in his blood he knows nothing about.But that's all problems for Tomorrow Molly. And whatever new trials tomorrow brings, he knows he won't face them alone.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The floorboard creaked in the same old familiar spot when Fjord stepped through the door. The place looked the same as it ever had: low-hanging ceiling crusted with soot and salt, long low benches stacked up along the wall, the bar topped by a sheet of green brass. There was no wall behind the bar, a straight view right into the other half of the building where the crates and kegs were stored, right through the half-open back door that overlooked the blue of the harbor beyond. There was a kitchen -- technically -- but you would have to be a hungry man indeed to brave the food served on these plates.On a few notable occasions he'd been that hungry; he'd spent more evenings than he could count in this place across his career as a sailor. The pub didn't even have a name or a sign out front -- it didn't need one. If you worked in the harbor at Port Damali, you knew where to go.There were a few other patrons in the bar tonight; a dragonborn man sitting over by the wall, hunched protectively over his tankard, and a dark-skinned human woman with her face planted on the table next to her own. Fjord stepped up to the bar and raised his fingers in the familiar old signal, and the halfling barkeep nodded in understanding and went to pour him a mug of beer from the tap.They were only going to be in Port Damali one more night, not nearly time enough for Fjord to catch up on all his own haunts: but he came back to the pub every time he came through the city, just for old time's sake. He didn't recognize the halfling wiping down glasses behind the bar, but perhaps it didn't matter. The beer was always the same."Haven't seen you around here before, fellow," the bartender said. His hair was black on the top of his head but grey and white everywhere else: beard, mustache, sideburns, ears, and arms. He had a round gut under a stained bar apron, and round glassy-looking eyes. "But you have a sailor's walk.""Haven't been around here in a while," Fjord shrugged. "But I spent most of my life on the sea, one way or another.""You on one of those out there?" The bartender nodded through the open back door towards the ships bobbing in the bay.Fjord shook his head. "Not at the moment. I've fallen in with a different kind of crew." He couldn't help but smile a bit at the thought. As much as he sometimes needed a break, he was still powerfully fond of them. "One I couldn't imagine running with in the old days.""Life takes us on unforeseen paths sometimes, my friend," the bartender said. "But I have no doubt you'll make your way back to the sea again 'fore long."Fjord nodded. The bartender fiddled with his cups again for a moment, then slid another mug across the bar to Fjord. "Here," he said. "On the house.""Mighty kind of you," Fjord said, and took a pull. The beer was warm, foaming, and with the tang of salt that everything this close to the harbor acquired eventually. Fjord sighed as he set it back down. It wasn't good beer, but he hadn't come here to get good beer. He came to... pay his respects, he supposed.It had been in this pub that he'd drunk his first glass as one of Vandren's crew, in this pub he'd passed away many evenings in port waiting for the tide to rise. Drinking, playing games, voice joining with the others on the chorus lines of the sea shanties, only ever once taking the melodic line himself. Picking fights, sometimes, or having fights picked with him, by members of other crews who didn't care much for half-orcs. Some of the memories were bad, some good, but they were all his.To his surprise, he found his eyes stinging with tears more than the saltwater breeze. He was getting old if two drinks could make him this maudlin, he thought, and decided that two was enough for the night."Time I should be getting back," he mumbled, and his voice sounded strange in his ears, heavy and distorted. That wasn't Vandren's voice... was it?Fjord stood up and the pub around him dipped and swayed dangerously, like the rigging in a high storm. But he wasn't on the ship, he was on land, so why... why...He took a step forward, felt his knees buckle under his own weight. A flash of understanding seared its way across his brain, but there was no chance of doing anything about it but to follow it into the dark. Fjord woke up to a pounding headache, a parched-dry throat with a foul taste in his mouth, and a heavy weight on his ankles. He jerked a little on waking, as though landing from a great height, and heard the clinking of chains dragging along the floor in each direction.He sat up, blinking and squeezing away the spots swimming in his vision. His hands were bound together, trying to move his feet dragged against a resistance on either side. He was in darkness, darkness too complete -- he ought  to be able to see in the dark but there was nothing but blackness all around. A huff of breath rebounded back on him, stinking of dust and mildew, and as he shook his head slightly he realized that the darkness was a shrouding cloth over his head and shoulders.Chained at the ankles, a sack on his head, the subtle roll of the floor beneath him that spoke of a ship docked at the pier...The pieces all slotted in together, and Fjord muttered a string of the vilest profanity he'd ever had a chance to learn.Someone off to his right snorted in response, and the chain tugged at his ankle as the other body shifted. "You got that one right," said a hoarse female voice. To his left, he heard only a wordless growl that shifted halfway through to a groan.The halfling at the bar. Not the usual bartender. His suspicious remarks, the strange taste of the beer. Drugged, he'd been drugged, and hauled off along with every other able-bodied sailor who made the mistake of passing out along the harbor that evening.He'd been press-ganged.  There was plenty of time to think in the darkness. Time to curse himself for his carelessness in getting into this situation; to try and fail to pinpoint the ship's location within the harbor from sound alone; to be glad at least that he was the only one captured and this point and no one else had gotten dragged in along with him; to curse his carelessness some more because he was never really done with that, and to review his options.They weren't looking great. Unlike Lorenzo and the Iron Shepherds, these people didn't seem to have guessed that he was a caster; his hands still had some freedom of movement and he wasn't gagged. He could still cast, if he could think of something that would be useful.This would have been a great time for one of Nott and Caleb's Message spells, or Jester's Sending, to contact the others and let them know where he was. If he knew where he was, which he didn't, aside from "on one of the ships."One thing he always had to hand, just a heartbeat away, was his sword; he could summon it to him with a thought. Problem was, doing so would immediately tip off to his captors what he was and what he could do, and unless he could cut through the chains in one or two goes he'd be no closer to freedom.Most of his other spells weren't too useful unless he wanted to fight his way out, being more of the chaos and mayhem variety than any kind of utility. In most of the fights that they got themselves into, mayhem was what the situation called for but... he didn't want to butcher his way out of this. Even if he made it a lot of innocent people were sure to be hurt in the process."They plan to take us out for an airin' at some point?" he said aloud, trying to keep his voice steady. He could teleport out of these chains and off to the docks, if only he'd been up on the deck, if only he could see. Another rustle and tugging of the chains as the body on the bench next to him shifted. "Probably not for a while," his female seatmate dashed his hopes. "They'll wait till we're well out to see before they bring us up on deck, to keep any of us new recruits from trying something stupid. Then they'll give us the tour, try to scare us into line with stories of hangings and floggings, and put us to work." She paused, then said in a gentler tone of voice "This your first time?"Fjord grunted. It wasn't, actually. He'd been pressed before, had even on one occasion been part of the gang doing the pressing, hauling sodden drunken sailors up the gangplanks to let them sleep it off in the brigs. But that had been his old life, back when he had nothing more to worry about than himself and the wind and the tides and his next meal and finding a dry place to sleep.Life at sea was never easy but life in the service of the marines was especially brutish and nasty, with poor (if any) pay, cruel discipline, terrible food and the constant specter of maiming or hideous death in a ship battle. There was a reason press gangs existed, why it was necessary to essentially kidnap sailors against their will and remand them to ships. It wasn't even illegal, technically. Technically. A good sailor was a valuable commodity, and given their druthers tended to gravitate towards the better-paying ships of the merchant fleet rather than the harder, harsher, and more dangerous work of the merchant marines. But they were always needed, and with tensions ratcheting up with the Empire and Xhorhas and with pirates growing ever-bolder in their raids on the shipping lanes, the Port Authority had apparently decided to stop taking 'no' for an answer.But he had other concerns, now. Other people to care about, other obligations to meet. He couldn't afford  to be sidetracked like this.Once they were out to sea his chances of escape or rescue went down to nearly nothing. He couldn't teleport all the way from the open ocean, and his friends would have no way to find him -- or get to him -- or catch up to him. They'd have to put into port eventually, sure... but there'd be no way of knowing where the others would be by then. Anything could happen between now and then, especially without him there to look after them. Especially without them here to watch his back.The sounds of the ship around him had never really ceased -- the creaking of lumber and sail, footsteps and voices overhead as the crew went about their duties, the more distant hubbub of the harbor. But now the tenor of the sounds changed, new voices joining the hoarse sailor's voices as footsteps sounded on the ladder leading down to the hold. A slam of a hatch, a shift in the air currents, and heavy tread on the floorboards came his way."Up with you," said a rough, unfamiliar voice. Two large hands grabbed him, pinning his hands tightly while another set of hands set key to the locks of his chains. Any hope he might have felt swiftly died however, when the chains were swiftly refastened around his wrists and ankles. He could manage a shuffle, with the two (guards?) flanking him, and made his way slowly and painstakingly up to the deck."Male, half-orc, black hair, green coloring with variation," a bored-sounding voice recited as he leveled out on the deck, harsh breezes tugging at his clothing. "Is this the one you're looking for?"Another voice -- new, but with a familiar tang to it he couldn't quite place, answered, "The description we got says facial scars, one on the lip and one on the right eye. Take off that hood."The cloth was roughly pulled away and Fjord blinked rapidly, squinting against the bright light and trying to clear his vision. He was on the deck of an unfamiliar ship, surrounded by rough-looking sailors; two burly deckhands flanked him, one keeping hold of his shoulder while the other held a loop of the chains, and a little further away stood the source of the voice, an old and weathered human man. Opposite him stood --Fjord's eyes widened as he took in a man and a woman in the uniforms of the zolezzo, Port Damali's municipal enforcement. Grey armor with dark blue quilting, trimmed in lighter blue, the emblem of the anchor picked out on their helmets. The man held a piece of paper in his hand which he glanced down at, comparing something written there against the history written on Fjord's face."That's him," he said. "We'll take him from here.""What? No!" Fjord started to protest, tensing against his chains. "You have no grounds, you have no jurisdiction --""Shut up," one of the desk hands growled at him and Fjord choked off his stream of arguments, though not for the yank on the chains. It only just occurred to him that the local lock-up would be considerably easier to escape from than a ship on the open water, and would give the others better opportunity to find him. Better to play along, wait for a better opportunity -- assuming they didn't have orders to execute him on the spot."Man's got a point though," the weathered sailor -- the bosun, if Fjord read him right -- said to the zolezzo. "Once a man's in the service of the city anchor, your landlubbers don't have jurisdiction on them. What better place for a criminal to work off his penance than in the scouring of the open sea?""That may be, but somehow I doubt you want this criminal mixed in among your crew," the zolezzo replied. There was something about his voice, about the way he turned a phrase --Fjord glanced at the zolezzo's hands, at the way the paper rolled in his fingers, and it clicked. That was Caleb,  Caleb's voice without his usual Zemnian accent, wearing the face and seeming of one of the municipal guards. And that meant the other -- his eyes shot to the woman and under the bulky armor he recognized the silhouette and stance of Beau. Jester had evidently been at work with her disguise kit; he hardly recognized her with her skin so pale.If Caleb and Beau were here the others couldn't be far. Fjord tried not to let his relief too obviously show; it wouldn't do to look happy at the prospect of being hauled off to jail."Depends on what the crime is," the bosun shot back, and Fjord knew he would be a hard sell. Thieves, murderers and rapists were not all that uncommon to find among a sailing crew; only the captain could decide to discharge them, and were often willing to overlook a lot to maintain a trained and able seaman. "What's he wanted for?"The pushback seemed to surprise Caleb, however, who hesitated for almost a beat too long before coming back with, "Worship of a forbidden god.""This ain't the Empire." The bosun spat over the side of the boat and turned back to the zolezzo with a sneer. "There ain't no laws in Damali against worshippin' as you please so long as you do it in private.""There are when the god in question is a dark god demanding human sacrifice to call storms on the sea," Caleb returned in a soft and deadly voice.A chill fell over the deck, and yet Fjord broke out in a sweat. Caleb, what are you doing?  he wanted to demand."Dark magic?" one of the sailors blurted out. The deckhands on either side of Fjord shifted uneasily, leaning away from him as much as possible. "Best thing to do is just string him up from the rigging now, then.""No, the Port Authority wants this one alive," Caleb said quickly. "He may have information that will lead us to others of his cabal."The bosun's eyes narrowed on Caleb. "And how do you even know he is one of these dark worshippers, eh?""His description matches that of a half-orc who used dark magic in a mutiny on The Mist , which was lost two months ago," Caleb replied. "But there is a more sure way of telling. Look at his right hand."Roughly but reluctantly, the deckhand jerked Fjord's arms forward, forced his fingers to uncurl, revealing the long ugly scar on the palm of his right hand. Instinctively Fjord's eyes checked for the matching scar on Caleb's hand, but of course it wasn't visible under the illusion."Members of this cult slash themselves on the right palm, shedding blood to gain the favor of their dark master," Caleb said.The bosun frowned, looking over Fjord's hand, then back over at the zolezzo. Caleb kept a cool expression, but Beau was beginning to fidget. Hold it together,  he willed them silently."Let's see your warrant," the bosun demanded abruptly. Fjord tensed, but Caleb's expression didn't change as he pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket and handed it over for inspection. The bosun frowned stormily down at the paper, and Fjord wondered whether he'd spotted some flaw, or if he just wasn't good at reading.The moment stretched out, each second ticking by as the hot sun beat down on them from above. Even if Caleb and Beau's warrant was impeccable, even if his story held up, the law and precedent were on the ship's side here: they didn't have  to give up any sailor for any reason. At the same time, if Caleb and Beau pushed their story too far, they might be convinced to stage an execution on the spot.It looked like a mighty hard drop from that yardarm."What's all this, then?" a new voice called. A figure emerged from a doorway under the forecastle, clad in boots and hose and doing up a fine shirt. The half-elven man glanced at the crowd, then turned back to the bosun. "What are the bluebeards doing on my ship, Dea?"With a glower at the zolezzo, the bosun reluctantly answered, "They're here to take one of the new recruits off, Captain. They say he's a wanted man, known for mutiny and blasphemy.""Well, the better to be rid of him," the captain said easily. He flipped a hand towards Fjord and the two blue-clad humans. "Off with you, then. It's not worth getting into a scuffle over one impounded criminal.""But, Captain," the bosun protested. "We can't just let the bluebeards walk all over us this way! Are we going to let every jumped up city jay come on our ship and tell us what we can or can't --"The half-elf narrowed his eyes at the bosun, who cut himself off abruptly. "Only one person has any say on who stays or goes on this ship, Dea," he said. "And that's me. If I say he goes, then he's gone.""Yes, Captain," the bosun muttered, defeated.The captain stared him down for a moment more, then nodded towards the zolezzo with an affable smile. "Well, take your man and be gone," he said briskly."Ya, we will... do that," Caleb said, the accent beginning to creep in around the edges the only indicator of his fraying nerves. The deckhands backed off as the two humans came forward, putting a hand on each of Fjord's upper arms to steer him towards the gangplank."Thanks a lot," Fjord muttered once they were off the ship and the clamor of the harbor ensured they wouldn't be overheard. "Mutiny? Black magic? Thanks for ensuring I can never work in this town again. Or even show my face here, for that matter.""Would you rather we just left you there?" Beau demanded, speaking up for the first time as her hand tightened on his arm. "Because we can take you back if you liked it there better.""My apologies, Fjord," Caleb said. "It had to be something serious enough for him to let you go. If they're at the point of pressing men, they must be desperate enough not to pass up most kinds of criminals.""Besides," Beau added callously, "It's all pretty much true."And that, well, he couldn't argue with that. "Yeah, you're right," he said. "Thanks, though. I mean that sincerely.""No problem," Beau said, but he could tell she was pleased. "C'mon, let's blow this joint."They made their way across the chaos of piers and ramps that filled the harbor. Caleb and Beau kept up the illusions and kept their hands on Fjord just in case any eyes were on them. A paddywagon was parked up at the end of the road overlooking the boat where Fjord very nearly resumed his career as a sailor, and despite his blue-and-grey disguise Fjord could easily pick out by the shape that the driver was Caduceus.Caleb and Beau manhandled Fjord into the back of the wagon then went around to sit up front. In the back cab, concealed from any watching eyes, waited the rest of the Mighty Nein: Molly, Nott, and Jester."Fjord!" Jester grabbed Fjord in a tight clinch as soon as he stepped inside, and he gasped a little as his ribs protested the pressure. A little to his surprise Molly joined in as well; Nott was still clutching her crossbow, peering out through the illusion-covered windows at the ship below."You know, there's still time for us to pull off Fluffernutter," Nott said, and as his eyes adjusted Fjord noticed the keg of powder on the floor next to her. "Teach them a lesson.""No," he said firmly. "There's no need, and that would attract far too much attention. If you wanna feel useful," he sighed and held out his hands, chains still clanking from them. "Help me get these off?"With some grumbling Nott laid down the crossbow and pulled out her lockpicks, working at the manacles. There was a jolt that threw them all slightly as the wagon started up, but she recovered after a short stumble and the locks clicked open."So you guys were the second wave in case things went sour with the zolezzo disguise?" Fjord asked. "Good thinking.""It was Caleb's idea," Nott said proudly. "I stole a uniform for Beau to wear since she couldn't change herself with magic.""And I did Beau's disguise and forged the warrant! Although I wanted to storm onto the ship and beat them all up," Jester said sulkily. "They had no right to take you, Fjord!""I would have been more than happy to impersonate a cop, but Caleb decided that he and Beau had the best chance of passing as authorities," Molly added. "Still, we stayed nearby just in case. You know, you never know when you'll need to set something on fire and jump out a window.""Caleb said we could implement Fluffernutter over his dead body," Nott said. "Though I think that was a joke. I definitely wouldn't have waited for him to be dead. He also said we absolutely needed to get you back, Fjord, because he didn't want to be in charge of us for a moment longer than he had to be, and I know that was definitely a joke because you are definitely not in charge."Fjord shook his head, smiling. The rest of the Nein were as chaotic and exhausting as ever, but all the same, he was glad to be back among them.The wagon took a sharp turn, climbing up the switchback to get up into the city proper from the harbor district, and Fjord peered out over the harbor for one last look at the ship that had pressed him.And barked out a laugh. Somehow in the time she'd been waiting in the wagon, without anyone in the harbor having noticed, Jester had managed to get close enough to the stern of the ship to paint it with a broad, boldly drawn portrait of a dickbutt."I missed you," he said, and hugged Jester and Molly again. "All of you."  They dropped off Fjord, Nott and the wagon on the outskirts of town, where they could stay out of sight, while the others went back to the inn to collect their things so they could move on. Nott was always at some risk if she was seen by too many people, always at risk from the law just by existing, and today Fjord found him empathizing with her more than usual."What were you doing in that place, anyway?" Nott wanted to know.Fjord didn't answer right away, letting the words roll around his mind first. He wasn't sure how to answer. He wasn't sure he knew  the answer. What had he been seeking, when he went back to the old pub? Looking for Vandren against all the odds, or some trace of Sabien's trail? Looking for his old crewmates, some faces he once knew? There hadn't been anyone from his old life still there, and he honestly should have expected that. Harbors weren't places that people lived, not for any long period of time. They were places where you dropped anchor for a while, and moved on.What had he been looking for? Old memories? New answers? Had he been chasing the past, some hint of familiarity in a new life where he all too often felt painfully out of his depth? But he didn't fit here anymore, that much had been made clear. This was no longer his life, and Port Damali was no longer his home. Not any more."Just sayin' goodbye, I guess," he said. For once Nott didn't fight him on it, just nodded in what looked like real understanding, her eyes looking somewhere far away."I can understand that, I guess," she said, and pulled her flask out of her coat. Took an absent swig, then seemed to come back to herself. She looked up at him. "You ready to go?" she said."Yeah," he said, and he thought it was true.He left Port Damali with his new crew, steps firm on the land road. He was ready. Whatever came next, he was ready.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Beau let the door fall behind her with a crunch. She took a long moment to stretch in every direction, arching her back and popping her shoulders as she went up on tiptoes, enjoying being out in the free air. The sky overhead was a rich and vivid blue as the day slanted down towards evening, the building walls a dark brown wood painted gold with late afternoon sunlight. One more night in Linbrook and then they'd be off, driving up the Glory Run Road to their next disaster.But until then she planned to make the most of their last night in town. The tavern they were staying at was a nice place but a little on the tame side, with most of the other customers being gnarled old locals and pilgrims coming back from the local temple. One drink had exhausted about all the entertainment the place had to offer."Headin' out on the town?" a voice drawled from behind her. Beau glanced over her shoulder to see Fjord peering out the door of the tavern and gave him a nod and thumbs-up."Yeah, I'm off to find better drinks and better fights," she said, and mimed a punch-kick combo in the air in illustration. Fjord shook his head."With all the trouble we get into on a regular basis, I can't see why you'd need to look  for a fight," he said.She smirked. "Gotta keep my hand in Fjordy," she said. "If you don't keep your reflexes trained, you'll flinch --" another air-punch in illustration -- "when it comes at ya.""Can't argue with that logic," Fjord said. "Sure you don't want anyone to come with you? Watch your drinks, hold your flower?""Nah, I'll be fine. Just gonna blow off some steam."He still looked doubtful. "It's just, given how much trouble we seem to get into -- given how many of us have gotten attacked or snatched in the last few months, it doesn't feel right to split up the party." "Fjord," she said with a roll of her eyes. "You do realize Linbrook is smack dab in the dullest part of the Empire. All farmland with no dark woods for critters to lurk in, not enough trade to attract bandits, and they don't have a sewer system big enough to breed giant spiders. There are no  monsters here. It'll be fine."Fjord sighed. "Try to be back by morning. At the very least I'll have Nott or Jester check in on ya --""When did you turn into such a mother hen, dude?" Beau said with a little laugh.He grinned, rubbing the back of his head. "Well, they say I'm near on middle-age for half-orcs," he said. "Guess being around all of you youngsters just brings out the dad in me."And just like that, it wasn't funny anymore. She stepped up to him, scowl on her face as she got in his personal space. "Let's get one thing straight, okay," she said. "I'm not Molly. I'm not friggin' two.  I'm a grown woman and I didn't even listen to my actual dad, let alone some random fucko who thinks he can take the place of one."Fjord blinked at her, looking stunned, and she saw his jaw work as several retorts rose to his lips and were swallowed away. Finally he raised his hands, palm out, and leaned back away from her. "Okay," he said. "Clearly you were right about needing to blow off some steam.""Yeah, funny that, when I say things  I actually mean them, " Beau said. She backed out of Fjord's space and turned her back, popping her shoulder one more time to try to chase the unwanted agitated itch out of her joints.She marched off down the street, doing her best to keep her temper under control. Tangling with Fjord only left her with more unchanneled energy seething under her skin as words and arguments chased around in her head, should-have-said-shouldn't-have-said-should-have-said on endless repeat.She walked past two more taverns and kept on going, too agitated to think of sitting still just yet. Was there even anything in boring, peaceful, stick-in-the-mud Linbrook worth fighting?Beau took a right down a side street that was almost completely vacant at this hour, a row of unmanned shop stalls along the left side and a large cart parked at the end of the alley. A man stepped out from behind the cart and turned in her direction, striding purposefully towards her."Hey," the man called. She slowed a bit, her steps becoming less loose, more controlled as the guy stepped into her path. She eyed him warily as she came to a halt, shifting subtly into a fighting stance. Was this guy trying to make trouble, and if so, what kind? He was a big man, tan lines marking him as a man who spent most of his time in the weather, arms burly and hands thick with callouses. Farmer, laborer, fighter? She didn't see a weapon.  "Are you Beauregard Lionett?"Tension shot up her spine and neck right to the top of her head, causing her to stiffen up like a taut wire. Nobody in this town should know that. Hell, most of the rest of the Mighty Nein didn't even know her last name. "And who wants to know?" she snarled back in response."Not me," the man replied with a snorting laugh and a shit-eating grin. "I get paid more the less I know."Beau was so intent on him that she didn't see the second man behind her until he already threw, yanking herself around to face him just in time to catch the mess of chains and metal nearly to the face. Instinctively she moved her arms up to block, but the -- weapon? -- didn't bounce off to the ground.Instead it clung like a limpet, gears and joints screeching as the contraption unfolded itself. Broad metal rings opened from around the core and arched for an instant like a spider's legs before they struck. "Hey!" Beau tried to push away, to squirm out of its grasp but it came at her from every direction. It was on her, it was around  her, the metal bands wrapping her up like a mummy.For a moment more she resisted, throwing all her strength against its uncanny steel embrace. Strained her shoulders, kicked her legs, tendons cording and sweat breaking out on her neck as she struggled.But she was no Yasha to shatter chains with her bare hands. It was too strong for her, and she toppled to the ground with an unceremonious crash, unable to even catch herself on her hands. "Motherfuck!" she shouted indistinctly, then spat blood from where she'd bitten through her lip on the impact. "What the hell?""Good shot," said the first man, sounding smug enough that Beau wanted to punch him just on principle."Like fish in a barrel," said the second man with a grunt as he crouched beside her. The voice sent a shock of familiarity through her, but she couldn't place it immediately. "Markus, you get the cart up and ready, I'll get her in it."Beau wriggled and attempted to kick, but the iron cage that held her was too rigid for her to even bend at the hips or knees. She could get only a sideways view of the silhouette that stooped over her until rough hands grabbed her and hauled her upwards. Curly hair, one dark eye and one that was light and glazed over from a scar that scythed across that half of his face. Where had she seen that scar before, where did she know that voice...?"All right, let's get her back to Kamordah," said the second man, the one who'd thrown the cage at her from behind. The name triggered a cascade of associations and she realized with a shock where she'd seen this man before: his name was Eale and he'd worked as a hauler for her family's business. They'd never spoken, never had any kind of a relationship, but she knew him and he had to know who she was. Which meant --"Is my father behind this?" Beau demanded, fright uncurling cold in her stomach as the pieces began to sink in."Yeah," said the first man, the one who'd been called Markus. "He wants you home real urgent-like. Told us to use any means necessary  to get you there." He grinned, a nasty expression that made Beau's skin itch for a bath."What? Why?" Beau thrashed and kicked, fruitlessly, as Eale hauled her along as stoically as one of the wine barrels. "That motherfucker disowned me! Told me not to bother coming back! Why does he suddenly want me home so bad?!""Don't know," Eale said, and her stomach lurched as he tossed her up into the bed of the cart with an easy, practiced heave. "Didn't ask."Markus stooped over her, ugly face blocking out the sun behind him. "Maybe you should have read some of those letters he sent you, then you'd know," the man said. He reached down with a wad and a strip of clothed and stuffed it in her mouth, ignoring her outraged protests, fixing the strap behind her head. "But it's not our business why the boss wants something done. We just get it done."He reached up over her head and pulled some kind of cover over the back of the cart. The cover slammed shut, leaving her in darkness illuminated only by little pinpricks of sunlight leaking through the slats and joints of the cover overhead.Beau screamed her fury, screamed insults and imprecations that were absorbed by the gag, but her kidnappers paid no heed. The cart rocked and dipped sickeningly as the two men climbed aboard it, and then with a lurch of motion they were off.  They drove nonstop through the night as far as Beau could tell: she didn't have Caleb's uncanny knack for telling time, but certainly the jolting of the cart had never let up even as the light faded to nothing and the cold started to creep in.Her anger kept her warm at least, that and the constant struggle against her bonds. The iron bands wrapped around her were unyielding, but she'd managed to work the gag loose at least. Her mouth felt fuzzy, her tongue and cheeks withered from the fabric wicking moisture out of them, but at least she could talk. And yell, and she planned to use it.The cart slowed, then stopped, and Beau's heart began to pound as she heard what she'd been waiting for: voices from someone other than those two assholes. She wasn't completely sure of how far they'd traveled or in what direction, but if they were anywhere on the Empire's highways, then they were going to have to pass through checkpoints.The iron bands still wouldn't let her move much, but she was able to rock up a few inches and then slam down against the wooden floor of the cart bed. "Hey!" she yelled at the top of her voice, rusty and croaking but still plenty loud. "Hey, get me out of here! These fuckers are trying to snatch me!"More voices from outside: she heard the sound of Eale cursing but beyond that, the blessed voice of a stranger. Cold and authoritative: "Sir, you're going to need to put down the reins and step off your cart," the voice said, and Beau could have cheered. For possibly the first time in her life, she was actually happy  to attract the attention of a guard.Then came Markus' voice, smooth and calm. "No need for that," he said. "This is perfectly legitimate business."The crownsguard again, cold and suspicious: "Are you going to try to convince me that you abducted this young lady with her own permission?""Not her permission, but her father's," Markus said smoothly. "I have a contract with a house in Kamordah to return this young prodigal to her family. Signed off by the Mayor of Kamordah himself. She ran away from home without permission, you see.""Eloped, did she?" A rustle of paperwork, and the Crownsguard's voice changed tone, lost some of its official coldness. "Trouble with a young man?""No, I didn't! There's no young man!" Beau yelled, and slammed the floor again in frustration. Why were these assholes still talking  and not getting her out of this fucking cart?"I didn't ask for the details. There, I've been perfectly honest and up front with you, officers." Markus' voice was still pleasant, still smooth as honey. "My client is a well-respected man, a pillar of the community in Kamordah, and he would be very grateful  if you did not make any attempt to interfere in his family affairs."There was another pause, then another rustle, this one accompanied by the ching  of metal as, presumably, coins changed hands."I see," the crownsguard said at last. "Well, a daughter is her father's charge, after all. If you have his permission, then I can't say it's the Crown's business to interfere with whatever he chooses to do. Carry on, gentlemen."The cart started up again, and Beau screamed in outrage as she slammed fruitlessly against the floor of the cart. "You motherfuckers!" she shouted. "When I get out of these chains, I'm going to break your fucking legs! Do you hear me, asswipe? I'm gonna break every bone in your body!"The cart rattled on heedless of Beau's ranting. She kept it going for a good long time, hoping that... what? She could get someone's attention? If the fucking Crownsguard wouldn't interfere, who would? For one of her kidnappers to stop the cart and come back there, try to gag her again, beat her unconscious? For the Mighty Nein to magically sense that she was in trouble from a dozen miles away and swoop in to the rescue? For any reaction, anything, anything at all.No one came. Not her kidnappers, not her friends, not helpful bystanders, no one. Eventually her voice gave out, throat going hoarse, as the rage that had sustained her flickered and died.In the wake of anger came misery. Her throat was scraped raw, her head throbbed with pain, every muscle in her body was cramping from enforced binding. She was still furious, furious,  but after a certain point anger didn't help.Why was her father doing this? Because it was him, she knew it was him. Her mother might have gone along with it -- assuming he hadn't gone behind her back to arrange things  with his trusted thugs -- but she could smell her father's style all over this shitshow.After all the years they'd spent tearing at each other, getting that letter at the monastery, the one who told her not to bother coming home -- it had hurt, but at least there had been a relief in it too. Like cutting off a rotting limb, the cold numbness of an amputation. At least it had been over between them, over forever.But it wasn't over. Now that rotting hand had reached out of her past and grabbed her again, dragging her down into all new depths of humiliation and pain and rage. That he would do this to her and even worse, that everyone else would go along with it. That despite all the traveling and learning and growing and fighting she'd done -- saving towns, engaging in conspiracies, breaking up slaving rings  for fuck's sake -- still to the rest of the world she was nothing more than her father's daughter. Her father's property .At least there were some people on the face of the goddamn planet who see her as herself first, as Beau  first and not just as another interchangeable apprentice or juvenile delinquent or as a failure of a child. She had teammates, she had friends for the first time in her life and whatever happened, she knew they wouldn't give up on her.Probably not, anyway.Fuck.Had they even realized she was gone yet? Did they even care? Would they come looking for her, or would they just write her off as a loss and be a little relieved for it?  As little as she'd ever like to admit it, sometimes Beau had to wonder whattinthehell she  brought to the table for this team. She wasn't a wizard or a cleric, she didn't have healing or scrying or magic tricks, apparently she was so weak that it only took one fucking magic item to take her down.Would chasing after her be worth the trouble? She didn't even know. Maybe they'd be secretly glad she was gone. Maybe they'd be relieved to have break from her, she could be such an asshole sometimes, Gods knew that she sometimes wished she could have a break from herself.And if she lay there for a while with her face pressed against the splintery floor of the cart, chest quaking against the unmoving iron bands while tears spread in a damp puddle across the wooden beams from her face, at least there was nobody there to see her lose it.Then she heard it. A crackling rustle like someone ripping open a paper envelope or unrolling a scroll of parchment, but in her head , a sourceless noise that came from nowhere. Then a familiar voice in her ear, bright and jovial and altogether incongruous with the setting. "Hi Beau! It's Jester! We're just checking on you because you didn't come back last night, so let us know that you aren't kidnapped or -- "And the relief that hit her was so overwhelming that she was nearly undone. Help was here. Well, not  here , but they'd thrown her a line and she just had to grab hold of it and follow along."Jester," she started to say, and her voice cracked and she had to swallow a few sobs before she could continue. "I, I'm in trouble, fuck, some guys grabbed me --" They didn't need to know all the sordid details, think Beau, what could she tell them that would help them find her? "I think -- I'm in a cart, I can't see out, but I think we're going --"There was a snap  and a fizzle in her mind in the middle of her saying the word 'north,' and she froze as the memory of the spell's limitations crashed down on her with stunning force. Shit. Fuck! She only had twenty-five words and Jester could only cast the spell once per day, she'd known that, she'd  known  it. She'd been so desperate for help that she'd replied without taking time to think , to count out her words and think about what the others would need to know. She only got one chance and she blew it because she couldn't keep the traitorous stammer out of her voice, because she couldn't fucking control her fucking  language even when her fucking  life depended on it!In frustration she raised her head a few inches -- the absolute limit of her range of motion -- and smashed it back down against the floor. Then again, and again, until the stars swimming in her vision and the ringing in her ears forced her to stop. It hurt, but it was still better to hurt than to do nothing at all.  At long last the cart finally rattled to a stop. Even kidnapping thugs needed rest and pee breaks, she supposed. The cover over her little crate rattled and was flung back and Beau squinted up against the sudden brightness of the sky. It was hard to guess the time; the clouds overhead were hazy and diffuse enough not to give away the position of the sun. But she thought it might have been midday -- Jester and the others would have been looking for her sometime in the morning, and the growling of her stomach against her spine reminded her that she hadn't eaten anything since dinner last night.Eale leaned over her, a canteen of water gripped in a meaty hand while his other arm closed around the metal cage encircling her, hauling her upright. Her head spun as it changed elevations, and the smell of something metallic and rancid seemed to come and go from her nostrils."Thirsty, girl?" He thrust the canteen in her face, water sloshing a bit over the lip. "Come on, drink up."Beau narrowed her eyes at him. Okay, yeah, was she supposed to believe that this wasn't  a trick, that the water wasn't  drugged to shit? "I don't want your fuckin' water," she growled.Eale scowled. "Oh yes you do," he said, and pushed it forward again, trying to strongarm her forward with his other arm. "Open your filthy mouth --"He moved in just close enough to range and Beau struck, headbutting him with all the leverage she could manage. It connected; she saw him reel backwards, clutching at his nose, even as she fell painfully back into the cart. Over the ringing in her ears she heard Markus laughing. "I said, " Beau snarled, "I don't want any of your fucking water!"Eale straightened up, dabbing against his nose; a slight trickle of blood leaked from it, but she hadn't managed to break it. He scowled at her. "Last time I try to do you a favor, little bitch," he huffed.He jerked the canteen forward, splashing water into her face and eyes that trickled down her neck and soaked into her hair, then stalked off.   Back in the cart, back on the road. Beau lay in the bed of the cart in a puddle of mud, her hair slowly drying against her neck. It had been long enough for her cooling temper to simmer, long enough to begin to regret spurning the offer of water. She hadn't drunk anything since the previous night either.At least it meant she didn't have to piss, but the next time she was offered water she might have to take it. She could go hungry for as long as it took for the Mighty Nein to catch up, but water? She'd be useless after only a day or two with no water."Markus, we're gonna have to do something," she heard Eale say, over the creaking of the wagon wheels and the clop of the horse's hooves. "The Bands will be up by nightfall and it's still two more days to Kamordah. How are we gonna keep her from attacking us or making a break for it as soon as they're off?"At least he took her that seriously, Beau thought. You bet your ass  she wasn't just going to wait around for the Mighty Nein to catch up if she could help it. Once they were within arm's reach of her without these fucking bands, they were dog meat."We'll put her in the vault," Markus replied, sounding unconcerned.Eale, when he answered, only sounded more worried than before. He dropped his voice to the point where Beau had to strain to hear it, call on all her training to pick it out from the background hubbub. "Are you sure? Her father wanted her back in one piece.""She will be," Markus said. "No marks, no scars, what's the problem?""If you say so," Eale said, sounding unconvinced. Beau felt a chill go down her spine that had nothing to do with the evaporating water.  The sun was almost down by the time they stopped again, shooting red rays between the trunks of the tree lining the crest of the western ridge. Beau's stomach growled embarrassingly as they hauled her up out of the trunk of the cart, and to cover the noise she kept up a steady stream of cussing as they manhandled her around the wagon.  She might as well have kept her silence; they ignored her, tossing her unceremoniously aside like a cord of wood as they busied themselves with something that let out a great clanging of metal.Just before the last of the sun fell behind the horizon, the two kidnappers grabbed her again and hauled her back onto the wagon. Instead of the flat wooden cart bed there was now a looming metal box, like a smaller version of an outhouse with a few grill markings cut into one side. Markus pulled the door of the box open with a creak while Eale bundled her into it, then slammed the door closed with the finality of a prison cell.Not minutes after the door clanged shut, the metal bands that had been wrapped around her body suddenly began to move again. They shriveled like cobwebs in a flame, rigid metal turning flimsy and corroded as the bands dropped off her. She wriggled back out of them the best she could in the small space, throwing them off her limbs with a vengeance and stamping on them as they slithered to the floor.At the end of it the bands dropped to the floor like cut lengths of rope, slithering towards each other like sightless snakes to wrap up in a tight ball again. Beau kicked it to the furthest corner of the box, then stomped on it one more time for good measure, but that didn't accomplish anything more than hurting her foot. Worth it, she thought viciously. Fucking  things.Limbs free at last, Beau turned her attention to her new prison, filled with the restless need to move  after a full day restrained. She punched the wall of the box she was in, kicked it, then slammed both feet into it in a powerful roundhouse kick, but whatever this cage was it was solid.  Her hardest kick barely made a dent"Keep trying girl, I think I saw a speck of paint move that time!" Markus called derisively from outside, and both of them laughed."Fuck you and the wagon you rode in on!" Beau shouted, but neither of them replied.Neither of them spoke to her at all that night, in fact. True to his word Eale didn't try to offer her water again, and neither he nor Markus seemed to care to offer her food. They spoke only to each other, moving around whatever camp they had set for the night, and before long all conversation died to silence. Did they have a campfire going? Was one of them on watch? Beau had no way of knowing.The night deepened and the metal walls of the box grew steadily colder. Beau sat and shivered, rubbing her arms and legs and wishing she had taken her coat with her yesterday. Not that she thought she could have slept in the cramped confines of the cage anyway, but she at least could have been a little more comfortable without the metal walls leeching heat directly from her skin."Now would be a good time, guys," she muttered to the darkness, too low for either of her captors outside to hear. " Any time would be a good time."But nothing happened.   By the next morning, Beau found herself wishing for the deep cold of the night back. Almost as soon as dawn broke the rays of the sun began beating down on the metal walls and roof of her box, warming the air within. By the time her captors broke camp and got on the road it was already uncomfortably hot, and it just got hotter.Her throbbing thirst was all-consuming now, and her thoughts kept circling back and back again to the canteen of water she'd spurned the day before. She'd take it now, she thought. She wouldn't even call him names. But she wouldn't give them the satisfaction of hearing her beg.Beau couldn't recall being so thirsty in all her life. It went beyond her mouth and throat to her stomach, gripping her guts in a deep, churning nausea. She was sweating uncontrollably in the oven of the inside of the box; she could feel the liquid running down her back and her limbs and it was doing nothing to cool her down since the air inside the box was already infused with water. It wasn't helping anything but she couldn't stop.Her arms and legs ached. Moving them ached, sitting still ached. She ended up leaning against the back wall since it was the only one not actively in the path of the sun's rays, which meant it was only uncomfortably hot to touch, not searingly hot.  Come midday, unless they changed direction, she'd have to pick a new wall.Was it noon yet? "Caleb, what time is it?" she muttered, and wondered why he didn't answer. Stupid wizard, always offering his opinion when it wasn't wanted but never around when you needed him. When she  needed him."You're raving, unpleasant one," she thought she heard Molly's voice say, a swirl of dazzling color in the other half of the cage... no, there was  no other half of the cage. Molly wasn't there."Shut up," she hissed back. She wanted to say something about how at least tieflings had fire resistance, but she couldn't put the words in order. It was so hot, it was so hot. It hurt so much.At one point she heard Jester's voice in her head, bright and bubbly and cool as running water. She was saying something about two roads, asking some kind of question? But no, Jester wasn't here. Nobody was here."Love you, Jess," Beau muttered. The words came through thick mud, every syllable an effort. Every word counted, she remembered that much. You only got so many. "Wish... you were here."She lost track of time. Noon or midnight, she didn't know. The metal under her skin alternated between burning hot and freezing cold, and she couldn't tell which or why. Her head pounded in time with her thudding heartbeat, stars and waves swimming in her vision.At least she had stopped sweating. Sweating was bad, right? No marks, no problem,  Markus had said and she thought she understood what he meant, now. She couldn't stand to think of facing her parents in this state, couldn't form solid enough thoughts of how that meeting would turn out, but she never wanted them to see her so weak.  She didn't want this. She didn't want it.The wagon went over a particularly nasty jolt and the nausea surged; Beau doubled over, heaving onto the floor of the cage, but nothing came up except a thin stream of bile. She stared at the small trickle as it stretched slowly on its way to the floor.Another jolt rocked the wagon and Beau lost her balance, shoulder slamming into the wall. "Watch where you're going!" she yelled to the drivers up front, although it came out as a feeble croak in her current state.She was thrown again as the wagon slewed to the side and slowed to a crawl, and Beau began to realize that this was not mere potholes. Over the screeching and creaking of the axle came the sound of more horses on the road behind them, footsteps and distant shouts.Then: "Oh, hells, it's the freakshow!" Markus exclaimed, voice bright with annoyance and fear. "Eale, get this thing moving again, I'll hold them off!"Beau sat up, adrenaline surging in her veins and blowing away some of the dizzy fugue that had overtaken her. She hadn't imagined Jester's voice earlier, all of it, it was real! Her friends -- the others -- they really came!She might have burst into tears again at the thought if she'd had any water left in her to cry with.Over the noise outside she could barely hear the thwip thwip  of arrows streaming by, or perhaps crossbow bolts. The wagon lumbered clumsily forward for a few more yards until something struck the axle with such impact as to send it lurching to the side, wood cracking and metal screeching as it ground to a halt.Then: a soft whoomp,  a crackle, and a bloom of heat started to grow from somewhere forward on the cart. The sound of her kidnappers shouting in consternation as they scrambled away from the wagon would have been a welcome one, if she herself were not still trapped on it.She couldn't see the light of the fire but she could hear it, and she could feel it; the back wall of the metal box was heating quickly now, making the earlier burning heat feel mild in comparison. Beau scrambled as far away from it as she could and banged on the still-locked door. "Hey!" she yelled. "Caleb, watch it! I'm in here!!"Something struck the cage -- not the cart, but the metal box itself -- with enough force to rock it on its axis. Beau pulled back -- not that she had far to go -- just as an immense steel point punctured the door of the cage. For a moment daylight shone through the crack before it was swallowed up by billowing smoke.The blade cut downward with enormous racket, cutting across the reinforced iron hinges, and then a calloused hand gripped the upper edge of the door and ripped downwards, tearing it off to hang forlornly by the latch.Yasha stood at the foot of the cart, sword in one hand and iron door in the other, backlit by smoke and flame. Her face was streaked with soot and kohl smeared by the sweat dripping from her brow, and one hand dripped blood from the knuckles. The rage in her eyes, however, put the dull orange of the firelight to shame: Beau could have found her way in a dark cavern by how brightly the fury shone in those eyes."Yash," Beau rasped, her voice hoarse and feeble the face of all this brimming strength. "I..."Words failed. Yasha dropped the door casually to one side and reached into the simmering heat of the box to pull Beau into her arms. Her hands glowed so brightly for a moment Beau had to shut her eyes, feeling the holy magic wash over her. She lifted her out of the ruins of the cage as easily as if she were Frumpkin, and Beau's head went foggy and light as the suffocating heat of the cage was replaced by free air for the first time all day.She faded out for a time, feeling as if her entire body were evaporating away into the light, cool air around her. No restraints, no gag, no cage -- she was out. She came back to herself to the feeling of cool soft turf against her back, blades of glass tickling the back of her neck annoyingly. Water was pouring over her head -- not in her face this time, but soaking her hair and cooling her neck and chest. Soft hands, fur-lined, tilted her head back and dropped her jaw to tip a potion into her mouth. Beau swallowed on reflex, but it didn't seem to do anything to cut into the haze.The hands withdrew, and she realized another set of hands was holding her shoulders, propping her up. From somewhere far overhead she heard the slow sonorous voice of Caduceus Clay. "She's not injured, but she's deeply depleted," the cleric said regretfully. "I can't do anything for that.""I can," said another voice, tinged even in those few words with a Zemni accent. Beau tried to stir herself, if only to give him shit about fireballing the cart while she was still in it, but she didn't have the strength.From above her came a dry snap  like something breaking and all of a sudden she did have strength, she felt it hit her and course through her in a rush of cold, tingling energy. She gasped and shot upright, vigor flowing through her limbs as her eyes flew open. The terrible fugue was vanished as though it had never been; she was still hungry, thirsty and tired, but she could move and see and think again.Bending over her were Caleb and Caduceus, staring down at her from varying heights with identical expressions of concern. Caleb was holding something in his fingers that still flickered with the remains of actinic blue energy -- his lucky stone, now shattered. Behind them she could still see a column of smoke lit by an ugly orange light, the remains of the wagon still smoldering. What remained of the cart after Yasha's sword and Caleb's magic were through with it, at least, with a few of Nott's bolts sticking stubby out of the side."Welcome back," Caduceus said.Beau struggled to sit up. Caleb gave her shoulders a little boost as she stood, kept a guiding hand on her shoulder until she shrugged him away. He still followed after her, fingers trailing.A little further away a pair of bodies had been dumped unceremoniously on the ground, being watched over by a steely-eyed Yasha and a ferocious-looking Nott. Yasha turned to look at her as she approached, but Nott kept her gaze and crossbow trained on the bodies."Are they dead?" Beau said, though she could guess. There would be no need to keep guard over a pair of corpses, after all."No," Yasha said, then amended, "Not yet. Do you want us to change that?"Beau thought about it.With faltering steps she crossed the distance and stared down at them. They were both bruised and battered, Eale with a circle-shaped burn across his face and neck and shoulder, Markus still mostly unmarked and unbruised under the layer of dirt.She gestured at Markus, turning to look over her shoulder at Caduceus. "Wake him up," she said.Caduceus' pink eyebrows rose in surprise. "Are you sure?" he said."Wake him up," Beau repeated.Caleb glanced between her and the unconscious man and seemed to come to some conclusion. "Ah, ja, I think Beau has some questions for these men," he said. "I will help as I can. Mister Clay, you do not need to be involved."The cleric looked like he was doing some serious judging of them all behind his placid demeanor, but he bent over the man and his hands flared green for a moment. Spell completed, Caduceus retreated to a safe distance to watch. Yasha watched from the other side, silent and unmoving, just in case.There was a groan as Markus stirred. He pushed himself clumsily up on his hands, then stilled as Nott jabbed her crossbow nearly into his face. "No funny business," she hissed."Aw, fuck," Markus groused. He slumped back against the ground and glared up at them sullenly.Caleb leaned in and smiled brightly, an expression that just looked so wrong  on his normally stoic face. "Hallo my new friend," he said genially. "You are in a very tough spot here, I'm afraid. You have made some very not nice people very, very angry at you. I recommend that you cooperate with us as best as you possibly can, and I will try to ensure -- ""It was just business," Markus insisted. "Nothing personal. Nothing to make a big deal about."Caleb stared at the man for several very long heartbeats, until the man began to fidget uneasily. Beau had to admit, he was very good at what he did, even if what he was doing wasn't what Beau was doing. "Very well," Caleb said in a tone of voice that managed to convey a world of regretful resignation in those words. He leaned back and glanced over at her. "Beau?"She stepped forward to stand in front of Markus, pressing her right fist against her left palm as she cracked her knuckles. "I've got a friend who always says that you shouldn't make threats," she said. "That you should just say what you're gonna do.""What the fu --" Markus said, but that was as far as he got before Beau's fist lashed out and struck him in the face. He went reeling back and this time, Beau thought with satisfaction, she did  break the nose. "Fuckin' bitch!" he swore from behind his clutching hands."I don't know why it is that people have so much trouble believing that I mean what I say," Beau said. "But I remember I told you that when I got out of that box, I was going to break every bone in your body."Silence reigned for one heartbeat, then two, then three. Markus' eyes widened, and his body lurched as he made one desperate attempt to run.He didn't get five feet. Beau caught his flailing hand in her hand and jerked it back, yanking his arm behind him in a wrist-lock. It was a trick Beau had learned her first day at the Cobalt Soul Reserve, an arm-hold that if applied properly would lock a man's joints all the way up to the shoulder and leave him at her mercy. Her teachers at the Soul had also taught what not  to do once the arm-hold was applied; because from that position, if you pushed the wrong way, you ran the risk of breaking your victim's elbow.She pushed  now, and his arm snapped like a twig.She worked her way upwards from there, ignoring Markus' screams as the man thrashed ineffectively and babbled feebly, curses alternating with pleas for mercy. One arm broken, she switched to the other and repeated the trick. Flurry of blows against his ribs, feeling them crack under her knuckles like popcorn. A sharp elbow down as he doubled over, and he screamed louder as his collarbone shattered. A knee smashed to his face muffled the scream at the source, shattering the bone of his jaw and leaving his face a bloody ruin in her wake.She saw Caleb draw up short, saw Caduceus start forward in concern until Yasha stuck out a hand to hold him back, heard Nott's shrill confused voice as she demanded to know what was happening, but the voices of all her friends combined into a distant blur as she hit him again and again and again,  forty-eight hours of humiliation and torture and pain being returned now, with interest. With vengeance.He toppled to the ground and for a moment she stood, harsh breathing scraping against the inside of her lungs as she watched him thrash and flail on the ground. Then she cracked her head to one side and stepped forward.Every bone, she'd said. She wasn't done yet.When at last it was over Beau leaned over double, supporting her hands against her own knees as she caught her breath back. Caleb's magic trick had dispelled her fatigue, but she'd still lost a fair amount of endurance to the trials of the last few days. Once she thought she could talk without wheezing she reached down and grabbed Markus' shoulder, flipping him over onto his back.A part of her wanted to keep going even now, with her enemy lying crumpled and weeping in pain in front of her. Wanted to crack his skull with a blow of her staff, wanted to drive her heel through his face to the back of his head, wanted to snap his neck or bust up his guts to let him die slow  but she didn't, she didn't, because Caleb and Clay and Yasha and Nott were all watching her and while she didn't think they would stop her --They wouldn't stop her. And that was why she had to stop herself."So you tell my father that I said this," she said, leaning right down into Markus' face. He gurgled and blood spilled out between his teeth; whether he'd been trying to talk or to spit in her eye, she didn't know. Or care. "Tell him his daughter says that if he ever tries to force me back home against my will, if he ever messes with me or my friends like this again, then I am  gonna come home. And when I get there I'm gonna burn the place to the ground. You got me? To the fucking  ground."She dropped him back into the dirt and walked away. Behind her she could hear the sound of the burning cart crumbling in on itself, the sound of Markus weeping and groaning.After a few steps, her friends fell in beside her. Caleb coughed softly. "You ah," he said. "You are not going to ask him any questions?"Beau shook her head, eyes fixed straight forward. "I don't need to hear anything he has to say," she said.Silence fell between them. The battle site at the side of the road fell away behind them. Yasha and Nott turned a few times to look back, but Beau did not.The increasingly awkward silence was broken at last by Nott, nudging up to Beau's side. "I have a dagger," she informed Beau, as if this was some kind of revelation. "If you'd like to stab him you can borrow it?""No," Beau said."Or I could stab him if you want," Nott offered."No.""Or I could," Yasha spoke up unexpectedly, and that made Beau's stride hitch a bit."N... thanks, but it's okay," she sighed, changing in the middle of the word. "I want him to take this message back to his employer .""I didn't say I was going to kill him," Nott grumbled. "Just stab him a little. I know lots of nonfatal ways to stab people."Beau snorted. "Thanks, but no thanks," she said."We should get back to the horses," Caduceus said at last, the first thing he'd said since casting the healing spell on Markus. Typically, it didn't seem like he was going to say anything about it. "Catch up with the others at the meeting point."Beau looked around with a frown, only now registering the absence of the others. "Oh yeah, where are Jester and Fjord and Molly?" she said. "I thought -- I thought I heard Jester's voice earlier...""She tried to contact you this morning," Caleb said. "We were at a fork at the roads going to Kamordah, and did not know which one you were on. Jester was hoping you could provide us with the information, but she reported you were delirious and could not answer. So we split up so as to cover both roads, and agreed to meet tonight at a predetermined point.""Oh," Beau said. Only now did it occur to her to think about how the last few days must have looked from the Nein's point of view: not even realizing that anything was wrong for half a day after she was kidnapped, not until Jester's first Sending. Then racing along the road to try to catch up, on scanty information and less planning, going helter-skelter down the road to try to reach her in time.She sighed. "Dammit, Fjord is never gonna let me live this down," she grumbled. "He told  me we had to be careful, since we had a habit of getting kidnapped and shit. I just didn't think that karma would, you know, be that immediate." Caleb chuckled a little, but it quickly died. "Ah, if Fjord is anything like me, he will take no joy in getting to say 'I told you so,' " he said. "I am certain he will just be glad that you are all right."Beau wasn't so sure, but she didn't argue the point. As they went further down the road, she stepped in a little closer to Caleb and lowered her voice. "You," she said, then swallowed and looked away when he looked back. "So uh... you broke your magic rock thing for me.""Ja," Caleb said. "The stored magic, once released, carries a very potent charge that can heal most --""Thank you," Beau interrupted. Left unchecked Caleb could babble about magic for hours, and while she didn't wanna be rude, she had something important to say."Ja, well..." Caleb avoided her eyes, fidgeting uncomfortably. "You helped me, when I was too far gone to make sense any more. It was only right that I do the same for you. Now we are even."Beau thought about calling Caleb out for that, the implicit assumption that everything had to be a transaction or a exchange of favors or services, and driving the point home to him -- again -- that she did things for him because she was his friend and not because she expected a return.This one time, she decided, she'd let it go."Still, that was a pretty cool and useful thing you had going, that rock," she said instead. "It's a shame to lose it.""It is all right. I can make another one," Caleb assured her with just a little too much bravado, like he was trying to convince himself as much as her. "All it takes is an ordinary pebble and some time, I could make a new one every day if need be."Beau laughed. "All right, you're awesome, no need to fuckin flex on the rest of us."He smiled. She sobered. "But really, man," she said. "Thanks."He gave her a serious nod. "Of course, Beauregard," he said.She let the distance fall open between them and the others moved up, sensing that the serious moment was passed. "How are you doing, Beau?" Caduceus asked. "Are you feeling all right?""I'm fine," Beau said. "Caleb's magic stone thingie fixed me all the way up."Caduceus gave her one of his solemn, way-too-piercing looks. "That wasn't quite the type of all right I meant," he said. "You just went through quite an ordeal."She started to brush him off, but then rethought it. Caduceus had helped her too, even if he hadn't literally broken open one of his weapons to do it. She owed him, at the very least, an honest answer.Which was what? The last two days had sucked. A lot. She had a feeling it was going to be tough to try to sleep with so much as a blanket pinning her down for the next while. The throbbing hurt of what her father, what her own family  had tried to do to her hadn't gone away just because she'd been rescued.But... she had another family, didn't she? One who was there right when she needed them, just how she needed them. She glanced around at shabby Caleb, stringy Nott, silent Yasha and solemn Caduceus. Fjord and Jester and Molly too, though they were not here this moment, had all done their best to save her and make this rescue possible."Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I think I'll be all right."Caduceus studied her for a moment with an unreadable expression, then nodded.A little nettled by his silent judginess (hadn't they talked  about him being less judgy?) she said, "Look, I'm fine. You know that when I say something I mean it, right?""I know," Caduceus said. "I trust you to know what's best for you, Beau."And that... wow. After what had happened on the road back there, that level of affirmation was not  what she had expected to receive. "Thanks," she said, and looked around at the others. "Yeah. That helps."She strode on down the road with her head held high and did not look behind her. She didn't need to; she knew her friends had her back.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Humming filled the room and echoed against the wooden beams overhead, steam drifting in lavender clouds above the basins sunk into the floor. Molly sat on an upturned bucket and pulled a brush through his hair, eyeing the bath with an anticipation that was almost sweeter than the reward.Crossmeet didn't have much going for it; it was situated along the Imperial Highway in a stretch of rocky lands too poor for most farming. Mostly it served as a way-stop along the roads for caravans or troops heading along the highway between Zadash and the capital. When traffic was high the population of travelers probably outstripped the permanent residents of the town. There was one such caravan in town at the same time as them -- he'd seen their haulers and guards around town -- but they were far from straining the town's capacity yet.That meant that for a town that barely registered on a map of the local countryside, Crossmeet had a surprisingly mature hospitality industry. Inns and restaurants, supply and repair stores, and not one, not two, but four bath-houses competed for the attention and coin of weary travelers. And Molly was determined to visit every one. On his first trip to the baths the first night he'd been accompanied by the Mighty Nein, and the second trip he'd had Fjord and Jester and Yasha; but even Jester had declined to come along to the third one, claiming that her skin was going to shrivel off from too much hot water.For Molly, it wasn't so much that he needed yet another bath as that he was determined to try out every pleasure and experience that life threw in his path, no matter how remote. What even was the point of a life as an adventurer if it didn't take you to exciting exotic places, and fill your pockets with the coin to spend on everything and anything once you got there? The Wildmother's Tubs charged half again as much as the bigger bathhouses and justified the expense by claiming that their baths were magical, the water drawn from a spring blessed by the Wildmother to soothe the body and calm the mind.It was probably bullshit, but so what? If you believed that the magic was real and believing made your experience better, then what did truth have to do with it?Hair finally done, jewelry stashed in the locker, Molly got up from the bucket and began to strip out of the last of his clothes. He'd left his coat, shoes and swords in the antechamber -- he wasn't quite yet at the level of Yasha, who took her weapon with her to the bath -- and now he stripped out of his shirt and began to shimmy out of his colorful pants.The door to the bathing room creaked, and Molly glanced up as another person entered the bathing chamber. It was a tall, rangy man with close-cropped greying hair, and his face bore a deep frown that seemed out of place with the dreamy atmosphere of the bathhouse.Not just his expression was out of place. Molly's eyes dropped over the man's silhouette, skimming for the relevant details -- he was still wearing his shoes. And his belt. And he had a knife stuck in his belt the length of Molly's forearm.Before he could react to this a footstep sounded from the hallway and another man emerged from behind the first. Like the first man he was burly, greying, and had the look of a farmer, and like the first man he was still fully dressed. This one didn't carry a knife, but there was a very solid-looking baton gripped in his hands that with enough power behind the swing could really  fuck up your day.Molly was beginning to get the idea that these men weren't here to enjoy the soothing blessings of the Wildmother."That's him," the first man said abruptly, and Molly's heart plummeted into his stomach."You sure?" the second one said, squinting at him. "He hasn't got the rest of that traveling circus around him this time.""You know what," Molly remarked to the air around him. "It's getting a bit crowded in here, don't you think? I think I'll just --"He moved before either of them were ready for him. He flung his shirt into the face of the knife-carrier, causing him to swear and grope at the cloth that tangled in his face, momentarily blinding him. He evaded the shout and grab of the second man and had made it to the door --Only to rock to a halt as he came nose to point with a rusty, ill-kept sword. An elven man with dark skin, thinning brown hair and the most flat, murderous expression he'd seen in, well. Couldn't recall exactly, but with this group, it had been at least days.The sword thrust into his face, nicking just a scratch on his cheek, and Molly followed the silent prompt and backed up back into the washroom, raising his hands in surrender as he went. "Well," Molly said, summoning up his best and most charming bullshit smile. "How can I be of service to you gentlemen?"The charm wasn't sticking, if the way their scowls intensified was any indicator. Molly tried not to sweat as the grey-haired man leaned in close, knife still gripped in his hand, and hissed "Let's take a walk."The thought of deep woods and shallow graves flashed through his mind and was gone in a searing instant. Stall. He had to stall. "What, with me like this?" he said, gesturing at his shirtless, shoeless state. "Won't people stare? Rumors might spread, you know. You may want to think about your reputations in this town."The grey-haired man met his eyes, peeled off the shirt Molly had thrown at his face, and drove his jagged knife into it. Molly flinched as a long ragged hole was torn in the fabric, and the frayed pieces fluttered to the floor."Walk," the elf hissed, jabbing him in the side with the point of his sword, and Molly really did not like how stabby he was being with that sword. He lifted his hands a bit higher in a placating gesture, turned towards the entrance, and slowly began to walk.He kept his pace as slow as he could without moving his new kidnappers to violence, although the impatient shifting and scowling warned him that he was cutting it pretty fine. His captors kept pace with him, a kind of murderous honor guard, and he just really hoped that the four of them made enough of an interesting sight that rumors would spread back to the Nein. Quickly.The three men led him down a little side-street and past several more buildings, out into the area reserved for visiting caravans. This one was empty at the moment, isolated and forlorn, and depressingly out of earshot (or screaming distance) from anyone back in the town who might hear and come to investigate."All right," Molly said as the little parade came to a stop, turning to face his captors with his head tipped back and his fists on his hips in a (rather forlorn) attempt to project confidence and calm. When you had no aces up your sleeve (or sleeves, for that matter, at the moment) it was time to start bluffing like crazy. "What is all this about? Are you with Lucian's old gang?""We're not with anyone's gang," grey-hair said, looking insulted.Molly remembered Beau's oh-so-helpful suggestion that not only the Tomb Takers but the rest of the blood hunter order might be after him as well. "Don't tell me this is one of those tedious faction rivalries. Which order are you with? Ghosthunter? Profane soul?" He tilted his head towards the shorter of the two humans whose sideburns outweighed the hair still on his head. "I could see you for a Lycan, you've got a bit of the fur thing going --"Sideburns interrupted him with a snarl. "You've got a lot of nerve pretending like you don't know exactly who we are," he snapped.Molly's ability to bullshit briefly deserted him. "Uhhhh -- of course, I haven't --" he attempted to stall, attempted to fish for cues.Fortunately, his captors seemed to tire of the guessing game too. "Fanfoss," the grey-haired one said. "Remember? Last Brussendar? You and you damned circus swept through town and cleaned us out of every penny before you left." "Oh,"  Molly said, because now  he remembered, and oh boy, of all the places and faces and names to lose track of, this one was a doozy. He'd thought  the countryside around Crossford looked familiar. He'd never been to this town exactly but he had passed through the region before -- over a year ago, while he was still traveling with the Fletching and Moondrop Traveling Carnival.Fanfoss had been a little farming village even more secluded and rustic than this one, and Gustav had stayed in town only three nights and given only two performances before rolling up the tents and moving on to better prospects. But three nights had been enough for Molly to get bored and decide that this isolated little town was the perfect place to polish up his tale-telling skills.A day of drinking in the town's only pub and charming the locals was enough to win their trust -- enough for him to confide in them that he was actually a traveling agent of the Crown transporting a cargo of precious, rare goods.  A little bit of pestering and persuasion on the part of the locals had convinced him to tell the truth about his cargo: magical, enchanted apples harvested from the Pelor-blessed Sun Tree of Whitestone, all the way from the exotic shores of Tal'Dorei, that granted the lucky recipient a magical flush of youth and health. Such a rare treat was bound for the nobles at court -- of course -- but he might  be persuaded to part with just a few of them, to a few select lucky buyers for the low low price of one gold apiece...Molly had left Fanfoss on the third day with seventeen extra gold in his pocket and lighter about the same number of plump honeycrisp apples, each one carefully waxed with golden glitter.And yes, if he cast his mind back to the event -- drinking in the dark pub with only a few fading beams of afternoon sunlight finding their way through the cloudy windows -- he thought he remembered the faces of these two humans among his eager customers. Brothers, maybe? He had a good memory for faces and names, if not for much else. Yannus and Xavier, was it?They hadn't had the weapons and the murderous glares back then, of course.Molly's head was spinning, stunned by the sudden reversal of his assumptions. "So just so we're clear," he said. "You're not  members of the Tomb Takers, or the Order of Ghostslayers, arcanists from the capital, or in any other way whatsoever related to my sordid and largely occluded past?"The two brothers exchanged glances. The grey-haired one - Xavier - finally answered, "No.""No uncanny conspiracies, midnight summonings, parademonic possessions, or unholy resurrections?" Molly pressed, just to be absolutely sure."No," Yannus of the bushy sideburns said."Just good old-fashioned, honest country folks out for a bit of revenge over a perfectly ordinary carnie who scammed you?" Molly asked.The elf glanced between his two companions, then back at Molly, and ventured "Yes?"Molly closed his eyes in fervent relief, clasping his hands together in front of him as he sent up a truly sincere prayer. "Oh thank the gods." "Don't thank them too hard just yet," the stabby elf reminded him. "You still have a score to settle with us .""Oh. Yes. Right." Molly tried to refocus on the situation at hand. "Fanfoss. The carnival. The apples. You're upset?""We should've known you were a fraud as soon as you rolled in with that circus of freaks, but you had a way of being so convincing,  didn't you?" Yannus sneered. "How'd you do it, huh? Did you use some of them devil's tricks to pull the wool over our eyes?"Molly wasn't really sure how to break it to them that it hadn't... been that difficult. "No, honestly, just your everyday fast-talking tale-spinning. Look, gentlemen --" He took a breath and talked fast. "I'll admit to stretching the truth some, but we all had fun that day in the tavern, didn't we? Dreaming of faraway places, enjoying the fantasy of eternal youth. It was all just a game, wasn't it? None of you really  thought you'd find actual apples of immortality being sold by a traveling circus, right?""Branny did," Xavier said distantly. Molly wracked his brain for a face to go with the name, but came up blank. "He saved his apple for months, locked up in his house in the safest vault he owned...""Sounds like he placed a lot of value in it then?" Molly said hopefully.Xavier glowered at him unpleasantly. "Yeah, until his old mum died of the brain-wasting that winter," he said. "Fed her every bit of that apple, he did. Up till the end he was still sure its magic was going to save her.""Oh," Molly said hollowly. He closed his eyes.He felt like he'd swallowed a block of ice, the coldness in his stomach and quick-sinking realization that these people were really pissed .  That he'd seriously fucked up this time."So we think you got a debt to pay, devil man, and we're gonna take it out of your hide," Yannus said. He started swinging the baton around, smacking into a nearby post with a heavy thump .Molly backed up, but didn't get far before the cold tip of a rusty sword pierced the skin of his back. He swallowed, looking around, calculating the odds. Not good. He could blind one, but the other two would be on him in an instant. He was beginning to worry less about how do I get out of this without killing anyone  and more about how do I get out of this alive.  "I could just give you back your money?" he tried.
"It ain't about the money!" Xavier said adamantly. "You owe us satisfaction . When we're done with you, you aren't gonna sell another load of bullshit with that pretty tongue of yours to anyone ever again."He stepped forward towards Molly, running his thumb against the edge of the nasty-looking knife. Molly stared from one weapon to another and tried desperately to come up with some plan, any plan." 'Scuse me," called a familiar voice in a blessedly welcome drawl. "Sorry to interrupt,  but that's our friend you're menacing."You know what Molly loved about Fjord? It was how tall  he was. He loomed over everyone in the group except Yasha and while he wasn't as bulky as his full-orc cousins, he had thick strapping muscles from years of hard work at sea and hard travel that lent him an imposing presence. Beside him, even the taller of the humans seemed to shrink.Fjord was flanked by Beau and Caleb -- already the odds swung back to their favor, and Molly breathed a sigh of relief. And where Caleb went, Nott was sure to follow -- he caught a glimpse of her peeking out from behind Fjord's legs, trailing the other three, crossbow in hand."Where the fuck did you come from?" the elf demanded, and Molly had been wondering the same thing."It's a small town, rumors travel fast," Beau said, cracking her knuckles casually. "News of a half-naked purple tiefling taking a walk in the woods with three burly haulers was kinda all over by noon.""See, I told  you to worry about your reputations," Molly said, somewhat giddy with relief."This ain't none of your business!" Xavier glared at the Mighty Nein, gripping his weapons more tightly. "We got a score to settle with this snake-oil trickborn."At the epithet he saw Fjord's face darken, saw him take a step forward and lower his hand to what Molly recognized as his sword-summoning gesture. Molly hastily stepped forward, putting himself between the three villagers and the Mighty Nein, arms outstretched. "Wait, don't kill them!" he exclaimed."You're in no position to make demands," the elf said hotly."Who was talking to you?" Molly said, and turned towards Fjord. "Seriously though, don't kill them. This is all a misunderstanding.""Did I say I was gonna?" Fjord said indignantly. Behind Fjord, he saw Nott slowly, reluctantly take her finger off the trigger, remove the bolt from her crossbow's groove and switch it out for a smaller, slimmer one.Molly gave a sheepish smile. "I just wanted to get that in before we got started," he said. "People who tangle with us kind of, well, they tend to end up dead.""We don't kill that  many people," Fjord objected.The words hung in the air for a moment as everyone turned to look at him."What?" Fjord said defensively."You're joking, right?" Caleb said."Remember that time on the ship that we accidentally pirated?"  Nott said."Honestly I'm surprised we didn't have to kill anyone on the way over here," Beau said."Are you friends with this grifter? Do you know what he did?" Xavier demanded, pointing at Molly with the knife. Molly had to lean back a little for the point not to graze his all-too-unarmored skin. "This piece of shit swindled half our hometown out of their hard-earned money, selling fake magic apples!""Really? And you believed him?" Beau looked over at Molly. "How much did they go for?""One gold each," Molly admitted.Fjord didn't take a step forward, but as his expression darkened he seemed to take up more room, causing the three villagers to shuffle nervously back. "One gold," Fjord repeated. "And y'all thought this was enough of a thing to beat an unarmed man to death over?"More nervous shuffling. Caleb gave a quiet cough. "For ones who grew up in a small farming village such as theirs may be, even one gold is no small amount," he said. "Still, I am certain that we can resolve this matter peacefully."With that last word he twisted his hand slightly and a flame suddenly appeared in his palm, illuminating his features from below. He simply looked at the three villagers -- uttering no further threat -- but the presence of the flame was warning enough. Behind him Beau unshipped her staff and fell into a stance, Nott cranked back the arm of her crossbow, and Fjord completed the gesture to call his sword to his hand dripping with uncanny seawater.The three villagers shrank back in dismay and Molly beamed, dizzy with relief. "By all means," he said, regaining some of his customary chutzpah now that he wasn't in imminent danger of being beaten to death. "If you're unsatisfied with my product, I would be more than happy to provide a refund."In the end Molly paid them six gold each -- more than five times what he'd cheated them from in the first place, and more than the sum total he'd taken out of their village -- and confiscated their weapons. And hoped that would be enough.

"Anyhow I like this better than being poked at by wizards or weird blood hunter freaks," Molly said  as they headed back to town, making for the Wildmother's Tubs where Molly had left the rest of his gear."You are a weird blood hunter freak," Nott reminded him.Molly rolled his eyes. "Yes, well, I didn't ask to be one, now did I? This is better, having people after me for me  instead of him. Or even just for being, you know, horns and such. It's sort of like... being loved for yourself, you know?""Yeah except instead of love it's more... hate," Nott said.Molly dismissed that with a flick of his fingers. "Details. At least I know why these guys came after me, instead of just having to wonder." A wondering that kept him up at night, sometimes."It's probably best if you stick with the rest of the group for the rest of our time here," Fjord remarked. Nott had tracked the downtrodden would-be toughs as they trudged back to their caravan with a steely eye, but none of them seemed inclined to make further trouble. Still, you never knew, and there was always the possibility that they might get additional backup and come around for another try."I'm sure they've been sufficiently terrorized that they wouldn't dream of trying anything more," Molly said with a laugh."They tried once, didn't they?" Beau said. "Seriously man, you sure as hell are a magnet for trouble, aren't you? This is, like, the third time we've had to un-kidnap you.""The other times weren't my idea!" Molly protested. Paused. "Not that this one was, either. But it's not like I go around asking for people to nab me!""Maybe we should just put a tracking ankle bracelet on you," Nott said. "There must be some kind of spell that does that, right Caleb? I'm sure there is!""Uh, ja , I will, I will research," Caleb said uncertainly. "In the meantime -- please, Mollymauk, do not wander away. We would hate to lose you again." He looked at Molly with earnest, worried blue eyes that melted the rest of Molly's defenses."If you say so," Molly yielded.Truth be told he was shaken enough by his close call that it would be no trouble to stay close to the others tonight. As relieved as he was that Lucian's past wasn't rearing its dark head again, the ugly encounter had rattled him -- and not only for the thought of how much blood and broken teeth he might have left on the heather if not for the timely arrival of the Nein.He had completely forgotten about Fanfoss and the golden apples until the angry villagers had reminded him. It hadn't been the only time that he'd pulled a trick like that either. Whether that was convincing a farmer that a pastured cow was the reincarnated soul of his dead mother or convincing an entire town that he was a long-lost heir to a royal family, there was always a new colorful story for each new town. Sometimes he collected money in the process, usually not, but it hadn't been about the money; it had been about fun , something to keep him away from boredom, and more than that just to see if he could. It had been a long journey from crawling out of the grave as a mute amnesiac to becoming the fast-talking, sword-spinning barker for the Moondrop. He'd had no one to practice on except the other members of the carnival -- one and all immune to his persuasion -- and the folks in the towns they'd passed through. They were going to be gone in a week after all, so why not? What were the odds that he'd ever see any of these people again, let alone have to face up to the consequences?
Almost perfect, apparently. Almost.
But the towns didn't stop existing just because he left them behind, and the people didn't stop being hurt just because he wasn't there to see it, and Molly was having to reconsider whether he'd really left as much magic and fun and wonder in his wake as he liked to think.His thoughts kept circling back to Branny, the man who'd held out hope up until the end that the magic apples would be able to save his mother. It wasn't that he felt responsible for the poor woman's death or anything like that -- not unless the apples had convinced Branny not to try some other treatment that might have really helped, Gods, what a horrible thought. It was just the quenching realization that sometimes hope didn't help. That sometimes the death of hope was even worse than not having any in the first place. That sometimes, comforting lies weren't better."You guys..." Molly said hesitantly. "Do... any of you think that maybe they had the right idea? I mean, I did cheat them out of their hard-earned money after all...""I don't think it's really a big deal," Nott said. "I mean. You know I get the Itch. You guys never -- well, mostly never..."She trailed off. Caleb shared a look with her, then gave a nod of agreement. "Nott and I have had to run cons many times in order to get enough to eat, before we met with you lot," he said. "So I do not think I have any room to judge." You did that to survive, though,  Molly thought. Not just for fun. Fjord shrugged. "Can't say I approve exactly, but sometimes honesty isn't always the best policy. Hopefully they learned a lesson from this to be smarter in the future."Beau gave a nod. "Normally I'm, like, big critic of your bullshit Molly, but uhh honestly? Given some of the stuff I've gotten up to in the past just to fuck with people, I really can't say I'm any better." She reached out and gripped his shoulder, and even when she was trying to be encouraging she had a way of making it painful. "Don't worry, man, we have your back. No judgment from us."That wasn't the problem, though. It wasn't their  judgment he was preoccupied with. There didn't seem to be any point in pressing the issue, though, so he let it go.  Molly sat tailor-style beside his bed, back to the room's rather feeble lantern as he mended his shirt. At some point he really ought get a spare one, he thought; somehow he kept going through them at such a rate that he was never able to hold onto one long enough.A knock at the door was followed by Caleb peeking around the doorjamb, Frumpkin draped over his neck. "Ah, hallo," he said. "May I come in?""By all means," Molly said, gesturing to the abundance of seating options. Bed, other bed, or floor. Ah, the wonders of civilization.Caleb picked the bed opposite Molly, and as he did so held out a tankard. "I thought you could use this," he said, offering it to Molly. "It has become somewhat of our custom when one of us gets kidnapped or captured or otherwise tumbled about."Molly stuck the needle in the pincushion long enough to reach up and take the drink. "Thank you," he said, giving it a sip. Mulled wine, he estimated, a bit sweet for his taste but definitely heady and delicious. "Though I'd rather not have it happen often enough to become a tradition.""Ja, well," Caleb said, and gave a vague wave that seemed to encompass life, the universe, their peculiar choice in occupation and their incredible extremes of luck both good and bad, all in one wordless gesture. Molly sipped the drink and set it aside with a contented sigh, then picked up the needle and went back to his work.Caleb watched him for a while, petting Frumpkin absently, before he spoke. "You know that nobody is angry at you, right?" he said, and leave it to Caleb to assume that Molly was hiding in his room for such a reason. It was what he would have done, after all. "We are with you, and with you against anyone else who comes seeking revenge for, for anything that may have happened before now."Molly sighed. "Look, I really appreciate that everyone is trying to reassure and support me, I really do," he said. "But that's not the problem I'm having right now.""Then what is the problem?" Caleb asked reasonably."The problem is..." Molly raked a hand through his hair, restless and itchy. "I hurt people. I didn't mean to, but I did."Caleb vented a short, bitter-sounding laugh. "Mollymauk, on the scale of shitty things to do to people, 'selling them fake apples for one gold' is so low on the list it... hardly even registers.""Maybe. Maybe I just never thought I'd live long enough to come face to face with the consequences."  He sighed, letting his hand drop to his lap. "I thought I was making the world a better place for those people. Instead I made it worse. It's... not a nice feeling, knowing that."Caleb sobered, meeting Molly's eyes with a solemn, sad weight to his own gaze. "I understand that," he said, and Molly got the feeling somehow that he really did. "But the important thing is that you did not mean to cause harm. That, that is the difference between being a good person and a bad one. You are still a good person."He said it with such a solemn weight of judgment that Molly, contrary bastard that he was, found himself wanting to spit. "So fucking what?" Molly snapped, the restlessness bubbling out of him in words he couldn't contain. He'd been stewing over it all afternoon, and now it all came pouring out. "What does it even mean to be a 'good' person? Where does that stop? Does it mean that because you're good, everything you think and do must be good too, and anyone who disagrees with you or opposes you must be bad? If you're 'good' does that mean that any pain you cause in others isn't real, or must be their own fault somehow? If you're 'bad' does that mean that anyone can do anything they like to you because you deserve it? That's bullshit!" He struck his thigh with a closed fist, then winced as he extracted the sewing needle from the ball of his thumb. Caleb was staring at him, apparently so shocked by Molly's tirade that his hands had lost their grip on Frumpkin, who fell to the floor with a disgruntled yowl. Molly felt a little foolish, but forged on nevertheless. "I don't give a crap about being 'good,' Caleb, and I don't care about what people deserve . I just want..."Molly let his head tip back to stare at the ceiling as though it would have the answers there written in words of fire. Caleb, mercifully, stayed silent and let him chase his own thoughts. What did  he want, anyway? For the world to be fair? For himself to be always right, beloved by all people in the world? Did he actually care about the opinions of all the people in the world, or just a few? Or just one?"I just want to make the world a better place, however I can," he said at last. The words felt limping, inadequate, but they were the only words that fit. "I just want to make people happy.""Well... I admit that sounds like being a good person to me, but..." Caleb said slowly. "I don't have a lot of experience so I cannot say. But, one thing I can say is that I do think you make the world a better place, Mollymauk Tealeaf. And I think that you make the people around you better, too. At least ... you do that for me."Molly glanced up at Caleb and summoned a smile. It was wan and thin, but somehow it felt more real than most of his dazzling performer's grins. "Thanks, Caleb," he said. "I'm glad."They sat together comfortably for a while, Caleb seemingly focused on Frumpkin in his lap, but Molly knew from experience that he was attending to Molly at the same time. Watching without being watched. "I really need to work on being more like you," he remarked.Caleb blinked up at him, eyes wide and startled. " Was? Why?" he said, apparently shocked enough by the idea to lapse into his native tongue.Molly shrugged. "Back when I was in the circus, when I was running cons on small town rubes... it wasn't like you and Nott, you know. We weren't hungry, I didn't have to do it to survive. It was just for fun. Just because I could," he said bitterly. "I was enjoying being clever, being more clever than anyone around me. I thought that it was all right to dupe them and take from them because I was clever and they were slow. What's the difference between that and deciding that it's okay to hurt people or beat them up because I'm strong and they're weak?"Caleb gave the barest hint of a nod. "I used to think like that too," he said quietly."But you don't any more. That's what I like about you, Mister Caleb," Molly said, smiling. "You're the smartest one in this group by a mile, but you don't lord it over the rest of us, even though you absolutely could."Caleb shifting uncomfortably, avoiding his gaze, and Molly smelled a deflection coming. "...I am not really," he said at last, and yep, there it was. "Nott, Nott is --""Great in her own way, but stop trying to change the subject," Molly interrupted."And what is the subject?""We were talking about how much I admire you." Molly's smile widened. "And how much I'd like to be more like you."He was really hoping for a smile in return, maybe one of the wizard's famous blushes, but he hadn't counted on bouncing off the barrier of Caleb's self-esteem issues. With a flat expression and a deadened voice Caleb said, "There is nothing about me that is to be admired, and certainly nothing that anyone should want to be like.""See, you don't get to decide that! If I want to admire you, I will, whether I have your permission or not!" Molly shot back. Then he quietened. "What I keep coming back to is that I didn't think , before. I do that a lot, I mostly live in the moment, because I don't know where I came from and I've no idea where I'm going. But that thoughtlessness results in people getting hurt. I can't just ignore that.""Thoughtlessness... isn't the only way for people to get hurt," Caleb mumbled. "Sometimes thinking too much can do that too.""All the same I think I should try it out. See how it goes," Molly said. He gave Caleb's foot a nudge, surprising the wizard with the point of contact across the space between them. "And you know what, maybe you could stand to be a little more impulsive sometime, too. It's a balancing thing, and I do know about balance."Caleb was silent for a long moment -- nerve-wracking, but still better than an instant rejection would have been. At last he gave the tiniest smile. "Maybe someday," he allowed."Someday soon, I hope. I'd like to be there to see it happen." Now that he'd gotten his frustrations and fears off his chest, Molly felt his usual good humor and mischief starting to return, and with it the irresistible urge to tease the solemn wizard. "Dance in the rain! Impulse-buy a flamingo! Dip somebody and kiss them! Whatever your heart desires, just, anything."Caleb shook his head, smiling. "If it happens..." he allowed. "You will have a front-row seat.""I'll hold you to that, Mister Caleb."

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

In the wake of Molly's third kidnapping episode, nobody thought much of Nott's offhand comment at the time. He had to endure a substantial amount of ribbing from his teammates and even worse, an injunction from Fjord that he was no longer allowed to go anywhere alone. Caduceus helped them work out a "buddy system" for all of them that Beau spent the longest complaining about. Molly would have minded it less if it meant he could have spent more of that time paired up with Caleb, but since he already had his own everlasting buddy system going with Nott that was probably a lost cause.

Two weeks, three towns, one library and four rummage stalls later, Caleb announced at the table that he'd worked out a way to affix a tracking device to Molly.

"What, already?" Fjord said with surprise. "Thought you said you'd have to research to see if there was such a spell."

"No, I already knew that the spell existed," Caleb said. "I just had to research how to cast it myself. But I have found it now."

"That was quick work, Caleb!" Nott praised him, and Caleb gave her a shy smile that made Molly's heart jump.

Caleb cleared his throat. "It is actually a form of inscription, a variation on a well known rune called a Rune of Location," he said. "The structure of the spell is such that you take two objects which are paired, and inscribe the rune onto them, and cast the initial spell. Then wherever the runes go, even if they are parted from each other in space, they are still linked.

"Anytime the caster, well, that is me, re-casts the spell upon one object, then I will know the direction and distance of the other object. A sheet of lead does block the spell, but hopefully that will not become a problem. I found the instructions for crafting the rune in a book in the library two towns ago, and I was looking for a pair of suitable objects. I found them at the flea market earlier today, here."

He pulled his find out of his pockets and showed it to the group, a pair of flat silvery pendants on cheap-looking chains. Molly's eyebrows flew up to his hairline. "Heart necklaces, Caleb, really?" he said teasingly. "I had no idea you felt that way!"

"Is there something that you want to tell us, Caleb?" Nott said knowingly, giving Molly a narrow glance.

"Ohhh, Caleb, you should have told us!" Jester exclaimed. "Or at least told me! Do you

liiiike

Molly?!"

Caleb flushed a deep red, free hand flailing in the air in frantic negation. "It was

all they had!"

he protested. "I needed two items that were the same, that had a flat surface on which to inscribe the rune, and which could be easily worn and carried. These necklaces just happened to fit those requirements, that is all."

Molly laughed, though he felt just a tiny twinge of disappointment. "Well, I appreciate that you found something that compliments my aesthetic," he said. "I have an image to uphold, you know."

"Fuck dude, you sure do," Beau grumbled, and Yasha nodded agreement.

Nott offered, "I have some acids that you could use to engrave the metal? If you like."

Caleb gave her a nod. "Thank you, Nott, that would be very helpful," he said.

"Hang on," Beau interjected, leaning forward. "If you can inscribe this rune on anything, why not just inscribe it directly on Molly? That way he couldn't

lose

it."

Molly flipped Beau a lazy bird, reflex with no particular heat behind it. "I don't lose

that

many things," he said.

Before Beau could launch into the full list of things Molly had lost or misplaced in the past few months -- with receipts, no doubt, knowing her -- Jester piped up. "Yeah! I could do the tattoo for Molly, it would be fun!"

Yasha nodeed, looking thoughtful. "And that way, we'd still be able to find you no matter what, even if they took all your things."

Molly smiled at her, reaching out to pat her hand. He couldn't help but be sorry at all the stress he was giving her -- at this rate, he could probably turn her black hair white again within a few years -- but it still warmed him to be reminded how much she cared.

"It's not a bad idea, to be honest. If you don't have an objection, Molly," Fjord added.

Molly sat up and spread his arms wide, sleeves rolled up to display his intricate sleeve art. "Does this look like I object to getting a tattoo?" he said, and got a few of the laughs he was fishing for. He smiled and leaned back, dropping his arms. "Don't be ridiculous. I'm fine with all manner of ink, but I admit I've never gotten a magic runic tattoo before. It'll be fun."

What he didn't say, although it hovered around the base of his tongue, was that he liked the idea of having

Caleb's

magic on him as a tattoo even better than he liked the idea of a magical tattoo in general. Oh, sure, it might be Jester who actually drew and inked it, but the magic would still be Caleb's. A little part of the wizard to take with him wherever he went, watching over him, protecting him, as close as touch.

His hopes were dashed in the next moment, though, by Caleb himself. The wizard was shaking his head, mouth turning down as he said "Oh, no, no, that would not work. I mean, the spell cannot, um, it would not work."

Jester looked as disappointed as Molly felt. "Are you suuuure?" she said. "We could just try it, couldn't we? I really want to try!"

Beau added, "You gotta admit, it would be really cool if it worked."

"However cool it might be, it is not possible," Caleb said firmly. Molly squinted at him, trying to figure out his reaction, but as usual the man was difficult to read. Still, he seemed more agitated than the question should warrant. Why would something as simple as this upset him?

"Boo," Jester said, pouting, then brightened. "But, Molly, I could give you a tattoo anyway! Are there other runes that do cool things? I bet we could find out!"

The conversation broke down from there, the rest of the Mighty Nein giving (or shouting) suggestions about what kind of magical tattoos Molly could get, and Caleb was able to drop out of it for a time, only voicing his opinion when the others pestered him for information about different spells.

Molly had his own questions, but they would keep until the two of them were alone.

---

Later that evening Caleb disappeared into his and Nott's room to engrave and enchant the pendants. Everyone else left him to it, not wanting to disrupt the wizard's concentration, but Molly waited until the coast was clear to go up after him. He knocked, just so that he didn't startle a man with a vial of acid in his hands, but didn't wait for an invitation before he opened the door and went in.

Caleb sat hunched over the desk he was using as a workbench, some of Nott's tools in his hand and the pendants laid out in front of him. His eyes flicked up to Molly, then back to his work. "I am, um, almost done," he mumbled.

"Take your time," Molly said.

Caleb said nothing else and Molly went over and flopped down on the bed. One leg drawn up, hands behind his head, the picture of casual comfort.

"What you said, earlier," Molly said finally. "About the spell not working as a tattoo. Why doesn't it? Is it poisonous or something?"

Caleb looked at the ground, at his hands, at anything other than Molly's face, but in the end he took a deep breath and seemed to come to some decision. "Actually, I was not being entirely truthful," he said. "It is, it is possible to modify the spell so that it can be inscribed directly on, um, a living person or an animal."

"But you don't want to?" Molly rolled up on his side, regarding Caleb thoughtfully. "Why not?"

Caleb didn't answer right away, so Molly added, "You seemed very set against it. I just wondered why. Yasha's right, it

would

be better to have something that no one could take off of me."

"Because

you

could not take it off of you," Caleb said, quiet but firm. "And because there may come a time, in the future, where you no longer wish to be found by me. Circumstances change, or, or people change, and they change their minds."

That was not entirely what Molly had been expecting and a short nervous chuckle burst from his throat. "Darling, I can't

imagine

any situation where I wouldn't want to be found by you," he said. And, honestly, he couldn't. It might not have always been like this -- during the early days of their partnership, he'd had his suspicions and doubts about Caleb -- but now, now he would trust Caleb with his location anytime. With his life, pretty much, anytime.

"I can," Caleb said with a stark, hollow echo ringing under his voice. He fidgeted as he spoke, rubbing the back of his neck nervously, still avoiding Molly's eyes. "Things can change, don't you see? You and I may not always... be who we are to each other, right now."

Molly was going to say that changes didn't frighten him, but something about Caleb's body language was nagging at him. "I'm counting on it, really," he said absently. "But not all changes are bad..."

"It would be very difficult mitigate the effects of the spell then, you would, you would have no other option but to get a ward against location and wear it constantly," Caleb said, and his hand fell a bit to pluck nervously at the edge of his collar.

Then it clicked. Molly was pretty good at reading body language, at memorizing tells, and he recognized that this was not a usual nervous gesture for Caleb. With Fjord it would fit; Fjord tended to be open and expansive in his body language, taking up space, but Caleb tended to be closed off and focus all his responses inwards. He would rub at his arms or pick his hands when he was nervous, maybe even clutch at his chest, but Molly had never seen him touch the back of his neck before.

Which meant it was not nervousness driving the gesture but something else. Something about the prospect of a magical locating tattoo that made his neck itch, specifically. Something about how

sure

Caleb was, how familiar he was with the difficulty that would be involved in escaping from the spell, once it was marked onto you, that made him never want to mark it on any other person.

"Besides," Caleb said, and he seemed to gain confidence as a new argument struck him. "What if I were to lose the focus on my end, or if it were to be stolen? It is possible, and then your location would be in unknown hands. Perhaps unfriendly hands. You would definitely want to be able to get rid of your own, then."

"You know what, you're right," Molly said, playing it off as though it were this argument that had convinced him and not Caleb's reaction. "All right then, we'll do it your way."

The smile he got from Caleb at that made it worth it.

He was quiet for a while and Caleb went back to his work, carefully burning thin, precise lines into the metal surface. At last he was done and put the acid aside, brushing off specks of residue and laying the two pendants carefully down against the cloth backdrop.

He reached for a small pouch he had set aside on the edge of the desk and Molly craned his neck with curiosity, watching as Caleb pulled components from the pouch. A vial of what looked to him like water but was probably a lot more expensive, a dull powder with a sharp and acrid spell that drifted over to Molly's nose even halfway across the room.

Molly watched as Caleb carefully manipulated the components and the pendants, murmuring to himself and making precise gestures in the air above them. It ought to have looked silly, and on anyone else perhaps it might have, but he managed to imbue the steps with such expertise and certainty that Molly found

incredibly

attractive.

"Thanks for looking out for me, Caleb," Molly spoke again when it looked like Caleb was between steps, pausing for a short rest before repeating the enchantment with the second pendant. Caleb started slightly, looked up blinking as though he'd forgotten about Molly's presence. He looked up and met Molly's eyes, and Molly smiled at him.

Caleb dropped his gaze, and was that a pink flush to his cheeks? Adorable. "It was... a spell like this is very simple," he muttered. "It was no trouble."

"Not just the spell, although that means a lot too. I mean with..." Molly sighed, digging around for the right words to express what he meant. He could talk a mile a minute when he was doing a patter, but this was something else, something serious. "Look, there are a lot of things in the world I've never experienced. I'm not ashamed of it, but it's a fact. Lots of shit I've never tried that I want to try, but I also know perfectly well that there's lots of bad shit I'd be just as happy to avoid. If I know to avoid it."

Caleb didn't say anything, so Molly continued. "We all know that

you've

seen some shit," he said, and watched Caleb stiffen. "And I'm not going to press you on the specifics, but the fact that you want to look out for me and make sure that I'm not... hurt, in the ways that you've been hurt... it means a lot to me, Caleb, it really does. It means a lot to me that you care."

The words hung in the air for a long moment and Molly waited patiently. At last Caleb seemed to decide that Molly was not going to say anything more, and went back to his work. "You have a good heart, Mollymauk Tealeaf," he muttered into the pendant in his hands. "It does not bear thinking about to see that damaged at the hands of untrustworthy assholes."

Molly nodded. "I'll try to bear that in mind," he said solemnly. "And make sure that I only associate with

trustworthy

assholes."

That won a snort from Caleb, a twitch of his lips, and Molly smiled in victory. Caleb completed his work, one more pass over the pendant he held, and the metal face of the silver heart flashed with bright white light. The other pendant, still lying on the desk, flashed at the same time; then both lights dimmed, leaving only the faintest glow to the rune etched onto the side.

With great solemnity Caleb got up and came over to where Molly was sprawled on the bed. "Here you are," he said. "You will need to keep this with you, even if you are captured, so that I can find you. You may want to keep it somewhere out of sight, like in a pocket..."

"Nah, what's the point in having bling if you don't display it?" Molly took the pendant and looped it around his neck, enjoying the feeling of cool metal and the weight against his skin. He rubbed his fingers over the face of the pendant and it felt smooth, no roughness to the etched line, with just the faintest pleasant buzz of magic against his fingers. It seemed he would get to carry a piece of Caleb's magic with him, after all.

That decided it. He dropped the pendant and reached up to unhook his other necklace, the heart-shaped periapt which had saved his life against Lorenzo and the Iron Shepherds, and more than once since then. "But you know, this one kind of gets in the way. Tell you what, Mister Caleb; you gave me a heart, so it's only fair that I give you one of mine."

He held out the necklace. Caleb stared at him, eyes gone wide with shock. He made no move to take it.

Molly waited. Patiently. He'd wait all night if that's what it took, hand outstretched.

At last Caleb moved, lifting his chin slightly. Molly saw him swallow. "We just discussed this," he said unsteadily. "That you should not give... your heart..."

"To anyone except assholes that I trust unconditionally," Molly finished for him. He smiled at Caleb. Did not retract his offer. "But I want

you

to have it."

Even if you don't return it,

he thought silently,

the offer still stands.

More silence. More waiting. At last Caleb broke the gaze, reaching up to take the necklace from his hand. "This is a mistake," he muttered, which Molly would find more insulting if he thought Caleb was talking to him.

Their hands brushed as the periapt changed hands, and Molly felt a flash of energy jump to his fingers from Caleb's, as bright and warm as the spell he'd cast a moment ago. Caleb moved to fasten the periapt around his own neck, and Molly spotted the way his fingers shook as he did so.

"Well!" Molly said, swinging his feet onto the floor and clapping his hands together. "Thanks for the present and the spell, Mister Caleb. I think I'm going to show off my new bling to all our friends downstairs."

"Ah... all right," Caleb muttered.

"You should come with me," Molly said. A challenge, and invitation.

Caleb hesitated, but in the end, he did not take the step. "Maybe later," he said, and Molly supposed that was fair enough.

"Time for this later," he echoed, and Caleb smiled and nodded.

Molly went down the stairs with a light heart.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Jester blinked and blinked again, seeing only a blur of pink and navy in front of her. Her head was nodding against her chest, her body swayed back and forth and each motion jolted and skewed the whole world. Dizzy, she was so dizzy that every movement of her head sent the world swooping around her, and it took her a long moment to realize that she was... moving?

Carriage, her mind and memory supplied. She was in a carriage, like the one she'd bought in Nicodranas right after she'd had to leave home.

But didn't that carriage get lost by the road?

Memory was slow to catch up against the background of dizziness, confusion and swooping motion. She didn't recognize where she was and she didn't know how she'd come to be here, and while she wasn't scared yet, it wasn't a comfortable feeling.

Jester tipped her head back and squeezed her eyes shut, opening them again and forcing them to focus. Fluttering columns of pale blue resolved themselves into curtains hanging from the ceiling, shivering against the windows of the coach with each little jolt and breeze. She was in a small room -- from the way the walls curved she got the feeling that there was more to the carriage past the wall in front of her -- with padded benches sunk into the walls and only a little, narrow door leading forward. Her shoes were gone, and her bare feet sank an inch into the plush carpet on the floor. Automatically Jester reached for the Traveler's symbol, clutching at her hip where the carved door-and-road figurine should hang. Her fingers met empty air.

She moved and came up short with a clink. Breath caught in her chest as she looked down, eyes widening as they took in the silvery chain that led from a staple on the floor in front of her, leading through cuffs around her ankles, up across her lap --

more

cuffs around her wrists, why? -- and up her chest to her throat.

To a collar. Around her throat.

And

now

came the scared.

She tugged and pulled against the chains, bracing her feet against the flooring and putting all her considerable strength into it; but although the cuffs bit painfully into the skin around her wrists and necks, the staple did not budge and the chains did not part.

She was still tugging at the chains when the little door in front of her opened, the wood catching and sticking in the doorframe, and a man stepped through.

He wore knee-high boots, red-tinted leather armor with a long coat thrown over the top of it. At his hip was an embossed leather belt with a fancy-looking holster on one side; she recognized the stock and handle of a firearm resting on his hip. His face was covered with pale beige scales, a long elongated muzzle with sharp teeth peeking over the lip and hard red eyes glinting like garnet above. Wheat-colored hair swept back from his hairline, cheeks and jaw, well-brushed and neatly tied.

"Ah, Ms. Lavorre," the dragonborn said and his voice held the same drawl and twang as Fjord's, the accent of a native of Port Damali. "I see you're awake. How are you feeling? Comfortable, I hope? I do want you to be comfortable."

Jester stared at him, wide-eyed. "Who are you?" she demanded, ignoring his questions. "I don't know you."

He chuckled. "I wouldn't expect you to," he said. "But I know

you,

Genevive Lavorre... or rather, you prefer to be called Jester, don't you? The best-kept secret of the Ruby of the Sea."

A chill ran down her spine, her muscles stiffening with tension -- and anger. "How do you know that name?" she said.

"Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Job." Another chuckle. "You've probably never heard of me, but I've got quite the reputation in certain circles. I excel in finding... apprehending... and returning persons of interest. You, Ms. Lavorre, are a person of

great

interest to some very well-connected people."

"Where are my friends?" Jester said. "What did you do to them?"

"Nothing. Yet." He shook his head. "We took great care to make as little fuss as possible in your removal, and it's unlikely they've even realized yet that you are not where they left you. Even if they do, there should be nothing pointing them in our direction. For your friends' sake, let's hope they don't guess lucky. I bear no grudge against the Mighty Nein, but if they try to interfere with my mission, well, then we'll have to take steps to stop them."

"What

mission?"

Jester said.

Job smiled at her, his mouth full of crocodile teeth. "Ms. Lavorre, you may not realize this, but your mother is

highly

sought after in the circles of the rich and famous of Nicodranas."

"I

know that." Jester tossed her head. "My mama is the best, and most beautiful woman in the Menagerie Coast!"

"There are many who would agree." Job's smile widened. "And there are many, many men who seek after her. Not all of them can be so lucky as to gain her attention or her favor. Some of them even, hmm, took a few too many liberties -- got a little

too

demanding -- and found themselves banished from her presence. These are men who are

very

powerful, Ms. Lavorre... men who are accustomed to getting what they want."

The chill down her spine spread outwards, all her stomach and chest being gripped in its cold. "What does that have to do with me?" she said, trying to keep her voice from shaking with the chill. "Are you going to use me against my mama? Hold me for ransom?"

Job shrugged. "It will depend on who is the highest bidder," he said. "Personally, I think it's unlikely that the Ruby would have enough liquid resources to outbid my clients. My clients are

very

wealthy men, and see little enough difference between the most beautiful woman on the Menagerie Coast... or her daughter. A next-best substitute, let's call it; even better, one who won't have the

option

of telling them

no."

Fear and disgust rolled in her stomach, but anger forced its way to the top. "Kiss my ass!" she yelled, but he only smiled smugly.
"I don't sample the merchandise," he replied, leaving her sputtering. "Now, there's a water closet in the corner there, and of course we will bring dinner and breakfast. If there's anything else you need, let us know."

She glared at him. "Your head in a basket?" she said, false-sweet.

Her venom had no more effect on him than her anger had, rolling like water off his scales. "Your safety and comfort is my first priority, Ms. Lavorre," he said soothingly. "It's a long ride to Nicodranas, so I'll let you get up and move around a bit."

He leaned in and she tensed, every muscle going taut, as he pulled out a small silver key and took her forearm. He unlocked her wrists, then her ankles as she rubbed at the marks on her wrists that the cuffs had left.

But he put the key away and stepped back without unlocking the collar around her neck. "Hey!" she said, hooking her fingers under it to pull it away from her skin. "Aren't you going to take this off?"

His eyes gleamed, and he never stopped smiling. "Hmm, no, I think you should start getting used to that one," he said. "After all, you'll be wearing it for a long time."
 
She tried to kick him. He dodged easily, laughing all the while at her pitiful attempts at resistance. "
None of that, now," he chided her, like she was an unruly child. "I think you need a little nap, Ms Lavorre."

Job leaned in close and Jester had to push down the fear, take hold of the anger to stay straight-backed and glaring as he got closer. He let out a little

heh

as though her defiance amused him, as though everything she was amused him, before he opened his mouth and breathed in her face.

The smell was awful, but also weird - Jester had plenty of experience with bad breath, but this was like nothing else. It was almost -- chemical, like one of Nott's experiments, and it triggered a flash of recognition. She'd smelled this once before, stepping out the door into the alley, before everything went black --

Jester tried to pull back, to hold her breath, but there was no space and no chance. The world faded away, and she slumped down on the padded seat as sight and sound dwindled to a faraway pinpoint of light.
   
The carriage continued all throughout that day and the next, and Jester found her world narrowed down to the tiny carriage room. It was weird; the fabric was plush and comfortable, the decorations dainty, if not for the

manacles and chains

it would be the most luxurious setting she'd been in since the Pillow Trove. The luxury of the setting was a discordant dissonance with the fate they were taking to -- it left everything feeling dreamy, unreal. She kept thinking:

this can't be happening.

She kept waking up and thinking she was back in her room in the Lavish Chateau, that she'd never left home at all, that she'd never, never, never. Jester wasn't sure which was worse: the moving carriage taking her to an unknown fate or the thought of staying sealed in that little room for the rest of her life, never seeing the outdoors, never stepping out from under the roof, trapped in a silken coffin until she faded away and was forgotten.

She was rarely left alone. A succession of strangers rotated in and out of the cabin, keeping an eye on her, though they rarely talked and she never learned their names. The first few times she tried to jump them, counting on her own strength in a close-in tussle; but anytime she fought Job came in and sent her back to sleep, and she hated it so much that she stopped trying after the first day.

An elven woman with ash-grey hair and a pale, almost lambent gaze that was distinctly predatory. A grizzled gnomish man who spent the entire time buried in a book and seeming to ignore her. An enormous bald woman with blue-tinted skin, who seemed to drip lichen off her armor in an unsettling cadence. A thick, hairy half-orc man whose expression held none of the warmth or friendliness that Fjord's did, even as his tusks and green-tinted skin made her ache for her friends.

Even when they stopped for the night she stayed locked inside, although craning through the slits in the curtains to see the camp outside she could see a number of figures large and small moving around a campfire. Could see the flash of silver wire strung around the campfire by tiny, nimble hands, could see the hulking form of a sentry on duty. Jester recognized a camp well-guarded, and knew that a night attack would not be easy. This was a competent, well-equipped group and with each hour that passed she became more and more uneasy about the odds that her friends would face when they tried to rescue her.

Because they were going to try to rescue her, definitely. Right?

They came once before, she told herself. Even if she couldn't contact them to tell them that she needed help or where she was. Not with Message, not even with Sending, she didn't have a wire and she didn't have her holy symbol and she couldn't cast

anything,

it was wretchedly awful. She couldn't even crumble pieces of bread and drop them out the window to make a trail, the chain didn't give her enough room to get that close to the windows and there was always one of them in there watching her. She couldn't do anything, anything at all.

But that didn't matter because they were going to come find her! They still had Nott to solve the mysterious case of her disappearance, they'd find the trail somehow, she knew it. They came once before and she could wait and be patient and ready for them to come save her. At the very least this wasn't as horrible as the Iron Shepherds had been, as Lorenzo had been, as the iron cages in the caravan or the stone cells under the sour nest.

(She tried not to think, not

yet.

Tried not to think about Job's

clients.

She'd faced down so many monsters -- ankhegs and crocodiles, merrows and gnolls, quasits and even demons and she wasn't afraid of

any

of them, but the monsters that walked around looking like people were the worst of any kind.)

They'd come. She knew it, she did. The Traveler would bring them to her.

They'd come.

By the third day she would have been climbing the walls if the chain had been long enough to let her, jittery and impatient. The daylight was waning under the cover of incoming clouds and the air had a heavy, before-the-rain smell.  
Jester was nervous, angry, tetchy, cramped, and above all

bored.

None of her books had ever warned her that being the damsel-in-distress would be this

boring.

The gnome was in with her, buried in his book and steadily ignoring her presence. She stared at him, idly mentally drawing oozing pus-filled sores over every inch of exposed skin and wishing for her magic paints that could have let her really  apply them to him. The way he hunched into his book kind of reminded her of Caleb, if Caleb had been a gnome, and ugly, and also evil.

Traveler, she missed  him, him and all the rest of them.

"Arnwick," one of the others called from further forward -- Jester couldn't tell which one by the voice. "Boss wants you up here."

"I'm on cargo duty," the gnome called back, tetchy. He flipped another page.

"Lock her down and then come up here. It's a team meeting."

The gnome grunted, sounding deeply annoyed, then closed his book and tucked it away in his bag. He produced the silver key and much to Jester's displeasure, fastened the cuffs around her wrists again before heading forward into the carriage. "Don't try anything funny," he told her before he slammed it.

The door crunched shut behind him. Jester realized in a flash that this was the first time she'd been alone (and awake) since her captivity began.

She was still chained up, she still didn't have any weapons or magical supplies, but there was one thing she

could

still do. Anytime, anywhere.

"Traveler," she whispered, loudly but not loud enough to attract attention from her captors. "Traveler, are you there?"

She couldn't cast spells without her holy symbol, but that didn't mean she couldn't

talk

to him. After all, she'd talked to him for years and years at home growing up before she was old enough to understand that he was a god, and to carve the little doorway at his dictation. She didn't need it to talk to the Traveler; he wouldn't be too far away, he would hear her. He

had

to hear her.

"Traveler!" she whispered hoarsely. Waited each excruciating second, her heart in her mouth. Would he hear? Would he come? She'd lost his symbol; would he be

mad?

Would he leave her here, just like before?

"Please..."

The light in the carriage shifted hue -- neither dimmer or brighter, but just faintly tinted green. Jester breathed out, shoulders sagging with relief. "You came!" she whispered.

"I'm here, Jester," he assured her, his voice warm and familiar. He was barely visible - hovering translucent at the corner of her vision -- but he was

here.

He hadn't left. He hadn't abandoned her.

"Oh thank you, thank you," Jester said, nearly crying with relief. "I didn't want to be left alone again. Last time I waited for you but you never came..."

"But I'm here now," he said gently and laid one transparent hand on her head. She bowed her head under his touch, feeling the warmth radiate out from the point of contact. "Don't cry, Jester."

"Okay," Jester said, sniffling a little. She raised her head.

They sat for a moment in silence.

"Sooooo," Jester said at last, lifting her hand to jingle the chains, kick at the staple bolting her to the floor. "Are you, like, gonna

do something

about this? Or what?"

The Traveler broke into soundless laughter, his image fizzing and nearly breaking up with the force of his mirth. "Oh Jester," he said, shaking his head as he settled back down again. "Never change."

"Well are you?" Jester said, emboldened by his response.

The Traveler shook his head, but he was smiling as he did so. "As you know, my power in your world is limited," he said. "That's why I need you, and others like you, to do my work."

"But you're, like, super powerful!" Jester protested.

"Yes, I am," the Traveler agreed without a hint of modesty. "But I need someone in the mortal world to be my hands. If not you, then others."

"But -- " Jester started. She would be more than happy to be his hands, darn it, if he could just give her some power to cast with!

The Traveler cocked his head to the side, as if listening to something that was just outside of her hearing. His smile widened. "And I think those hands should be in position just about... now."

It started like a crack of thunder, like Fjord's step between planes but it only grew louder instead of fading away. The carriage rocked, then jolted, and Jester had to hang onto the edge of the seat as it braked hard. Despite the acceleration it still hit a hard stop at the end, and Jester yelped as her horn barked against the wall hard enough to take a chip out of the painted wood.

From outside she heard a commotion start up: running, shouting, the scrape of steel. Jester's heart leaped as she recognized some of the voices: Beau's shout, Fjord's bellow, Molly's wild laughter.

They came!

"They came!" she exclaimed, hopping up and down and clapping excitedly. "Oh thank you, Traveler, thank you!"

He was gone. His image had faded as soon as the carriage shook with impact, and Jester began to feel the first touch of cold worry touch her warm bubble of elation. Where did he go?

Her friends' voices weren't the only ones she heard, nor the clash of their weapons the only impacts. Jester strained to see out the window: the chain wouldn't quite allow her close enough to pull aside the curtain. She saw Beau and Molly run past almost too quickly to follow, then the silhouette of a hulking greenish-grey boar charging in the opposite direction.

She heard the crack of gunfire, then again, then Job's voice from somewhere close, so

right on top of her

that the hair stood up on the back of her neck. "Arnwick, light them up!" he bellowed.

A creaky voice that Jester barely recognized as belonging to the gnome replied, "You got it, boss!"

And then a

bang

that lit up the sky.

The noise itself wasn't too bad -- it was hardly louder than one of Job's gunshots -- but the flash of actinic white light that accompanied it was incomparable. Even through the curtains, even not looking directly at it Jester was momentarily stunned, her vision filling with green and purple dancing afterimages. Outside from the battlefield she heard one of her friends scream.

As Jester scrubbed her eyes, furiously trying to clear away the dancing spots, the sounds of battle resumed. "What's

happening?"

she demanded of no one, trying one angle and another to try to see out.

"Fools! Kill the one in the dress!" Job yelled from right above her -- he wasn't

in

the carriage with her, she realized, but he must be standing on the roof. Inspired, she tried punching upwards against the carriage ceiling, but she broke through several inches of drop ceiling without making an impact on the actual structure.

She yanked futilely at the chains binding her to the floor, at the cuffs on her wrists, working them until the bite of the metal drew blood, but she was no closer to escaping them than she had been three days ago. She flung herself at the window again, craning her neck desperately, trying to track the action.

Jester couldn't see much, but what she could see looked bad. She saw Fjord hunched over on the ground, not moving, hands clutching at his face. Further away behind him Caleb was still up but firing wildly, casting like he had at the beginning of their journey, missing more often than he hit. Somewhere off to the left she heard Infernal blistering over the battlefield -- Mollymauk having his own share of trouble.

"Beauregard!" Caleb called out and Jester realized the wizard's eyes were shut.

What?

"Where are you?!"

"Little busy!" Beau yelled back from somewhere out of Jester's line of sight, her voice hoarse and breathing strained. Caleb turned towards her, hand fumbling in his coat for components as the other hand came up, patting the air -- tracking her by sound, Jester realized with horror. Because he couldn't

see

.

He was blind. Fjord too, most likely. Two of their long-range fighters hampered, helpless against Job taking potshots at them from the smug safety of the carriage roof.  And the others --

A

thump

sounded from behind her and Jester whirled around, arms raised, only to see Nott forcing open the window opposite to the carriage car and crawl halfway through. "Nott!" Jester cried, only remembering at the last moment to keep her glad shout down to a yell-whisper. "I'm

so glad

to see you!"

"I can't stay," Nott panted, long nimble fingers digging in one of her pockets. "It's bad -- Caleb needs me -- but I got -- this for you -- and

this

--"

Her hand closed around something and she brought it out in a jerky tossing motion, not just one but two objects spinning from her fingers. Jester automatically reached out and caught the first object -- a little silver key -- but missed the second, which tumbled to the floor and landed against her foot.

Nott vanished back out the window as quickly as she'd come in, and Jester crouched down to pick up the second thing Nott had thrown to her.

A blocky, but perfectly recognizable, hand-carved wooden replica of the arching door and vanishing road. The Traveler's holy symbol.

It wasn't hers. Hers had been much finer, delicately carved and beautifully painted. This one was crude and hasty, bare of paint and with the occasional nick and splinter but that didn't matter: the moment Jester's hand closed around it she felt the power of her god coursing through it. It felt heavy as a lump of lead despite being made of wood, heavy with

potential

. A solid knot of power, building up for days without outlet, now ready for her to do...

something.

Jester fumbled for the key, almost lost it in the plush carpets of the carriage car. She unlocked the cuffs from around her wrists, the collar from her neck and flung it aside, kicked her feet free of the chain. She considered going out the same way Nott had, but a window that was large enough to admit a goblin was much too small for her.

Instead she turned to the door. It was closed and locked, but unlike the solid metal staple and chains, this was only flimsy painted wood. A few solid kicks and the door was down, opening the way to a short corridor and the way out.

Jester stepped out onto the battlefield, the rough ground biting into her bare feet. She could tell at a glance that the situation was even more dire than her glimpses through the window had shown. On the far side of the battlefield was a tumbled heap of green armor and pink hair: Caduceus, fallen under the combined concerted assault of all their enemies. It looked like Molly had tried to get to him but had been stopped in his tracks; he writhed furiously in the constricting grasp of tangled, thorny vines as he snarled and spat Infernal at his enemies.

Caleb had been fighting blind when she last saw him but he was not fighting now, lying still by the embankment with a furious Nott standing over him, wielding her crossbow and shortsword in each hand.  Fjord was awake but helpless, crawling blindly over the ground and groping with his free hand. Beau had apparently managed to avoid being blinded, but now faced three enemies alone. They were all battered, bleeding -- Molly choking for air, Beau swaying on her feet with one arm hanging limp, Nott hunched over a spreading stain of blood from her gut.

Over it all Job reigned unchecked over the battlefield, shouting commands to his allies and firing shots wherever he felt like.

That was going to change.

Jester stepped down from the carriage, no weapon but the holy symbol Nott had given her clasped tightly in one hand. "What are you doing, girl? Get back inside!" Job snarled, but she ignored him and walked forward. "Grellik! Get her down," the dragonborn called out to his allies, but she wasn't going to be fast enough.

Jester clutched the holy symbol in her hands and felt it grow warm, almost hot, hotter than it ever had been before. She felt him there, hovering behind her, closer than

ever

before, but she couldn't

reach

him, couldn't close the distance --

"Traveler!" Jester yelled at the top of her voice, and it was a

stupendous

voice; loud enough to bring down the roof, Marion had always chuckled to her.

Today she was going to bring down the sky; bring it down and touch it to the earth. She stretched her hand up towards the sky, holding the symbol in it.

"No!"

someone shouted in the background, but she closed her eyes and tipped her head back. She could feel the Traveler's presence, hovering just behind her, and she knew, she

knew

that he would not deny her what she asked.

"Take my hand!" she yelled, and she felt an impossible grip tighten over hers.

There was a moment of terrible pressure and then --

Her hand

exploded

with power. The holy symbol crumbled to dust, but she didn't feel the least bit of pain. A wave of viridian light boomed outward from her hand, and as it passed over each member of the Nein it wrapped around them like seaweed and sank into their skin.

The gouges on Molly's arms and torso sealed over, the blood washing clean. The bruises on Beau's face vanished and she moved with a new vigor. Nott stood straighter, no longer hunched over her stomach in pain. Fjord jerked his head up, blinking wide eyes as he found his sight restored; Caleb and Caduceus stirred from their places on the ground, Caleb rubbing his eyes and muttering and Caduceus staring at her with breathless amazement.

She smiled at her friends, her amazing friends who had come to save her.

"Fuck them

up,"

Jester said, and the Mighty Nein set to with a vigor.

Their enemies sensed the tide turning against them and scrambled to get back the upper hand. The gnome tried another version of the same flashbang that had blinded them earlier, but Caleb countered it with a curt word. Caduceus crumbled the vines that surrounded with Molly, and he and Beau charged off to take down the goliath woman together. The elven woman went down, choking on two of Nott's crossbow bolts buried in her throat; the shapeshifted druid broke and fled, crashing through the trees on a trail of bloodied hoofprints.

"Fjord!" Jester ran towards him, stumbled over a trench dug into the ground, and grabbed his arm to steady her.

"Jes!" He turned to her immediately, putting his hands on her upper arms as he quickly looked her over. "Are you all right? Did that asshole hurt you?"

"I'm fine, not now!" Jester snapped. She waved her arm wildly up at the top of the carriage. "That's him! Their leader, Job. Up there!

Get him for me!"

Fjord followed her gesture, eyes widening, and his gaze locked on Job. "Roger that," he growled. His hand tightened on the hilt of his sword, bringing the blade around, and with a crackle of energy and a buffet of air he was gone from her side.

He reappeared on the roof in a

crack

beside Job, and had to move fast to parry the dragonborn's rapier as the blade flickered out towards him. For a long, heart-stopping moment they clashed, straining against each other, Job struggling to get his gun to bear at such close range and Fjord to get his sword past the other man's defenses.

Fjord's eyes darkened with rage. No - that was not just rage. Blackness filled his eyes from lid to lid, streamed out of the corners like smoke; for a moment Jester wondered frantically why Molly was maledicting his own party, but

no --

Job was transfixed by his gaze, the color draining from his face and leaving the scales a sickly translucent grey. The gun dropped from his hand as he fumbled, body jerking as he tried to back up only to run up against the carriage roof's rail. He began to scream and struggle, panicking, fighting to get away, but Fjord's hand shot out and grabbed the edge of his coat, dragging him close. "No! No!" Job screamed. "Get away, get away, get --"

His pleas were cut off when Fjord's sword came around and bit through Job's neck with a meaty

thunk.

His body collapsed in place, blood spurting and pouring down the surface of the fancy gilded carriage, while his head sailed off into the underbrush beside the road.

For a moment the tableau hung, shocked, as the bounty hunter's lifeless body tumbled off the roof to land with a squishy thud in the grass. Staring at his corpse, Jester finally felt that she could breathe again.

She looked up at Fjord, blood-spattered and triumphant atop the carriage. The black smoke dissipated as his eyes returned to their normal golden hue; his chest heaved for breath and a wide grin split his face. "How's that?" he called down to her.

"That was nice, um," Jester said. "But I kind of meant

get him for me

in the sense of,

I can't reach him up there, get him down here for me so I can kick his ass?"

The Mighty Nein made camp that night just down the road from the scene of Job's entirely timely end. There'd been some half-hearted discussion of whether they should bring the large and fancy carriage with them, but Jester had not spoken in favor of the motion, and more cautious heads had prevailed against it.

She was sitting now on a padded log in front of the fire, a mug of hot chocolate in her hands, their warmest and softest blankets draped across her shoulder. This was the first time Jester had been on the receiving end of the hot-drinks-and-fussing part of the Mighty Nein's post-kidnapping ritual and honestly, she was milking the hell out of it.

Weirdly she didn't actually feel that upset. There might come a point tomorrow, or further down the road, when the weight of it all hit her -- the abduction, the captivity, the helpless

not-knowing

as she was driven further and further to her fate -- but tonight she couldn't feel much of

anything

except numb and dazed.

The spell she'd cast during the fight today was the biggest spell she'd ever cast,

ever.

She'd been a conduit for a force so much greater than herself, just channeling it for an instant felt like it had hollowed her out inside and now she could float away on the wind like a paper tube. It didn't feel

bad,

it didn't

hurt,

she knew the Traveler would

never

hurt her... but a tiny part of her quailed at the thought that someday, if she kept on traveling and adventuring and getting into bigger and bigger trouble -- someday, she might be called on to cast a spell like that again.

Another, equally tiny part of her couldn't

wait

to try it again.

She was pulled out of her daydreaming by the sound of voices raised from the treeline beyond the edge of the camp. She immediately recognized Fjord's cadence raised in some hot objection, and she put the cocoa carefully --

carefully

balanced on a flat rock so that it would stay safe until she could get back to it. She had shoes again -- a pair of flat sandals Beau had given to her, which felt weird on her feet but were better than being barefoot. Wrapping the blanket over her shoulder she stood up and walked over towards the argument.

As she approached the treeline she recognized the other voice as Caleb's, his Zemnian accent gone sharp with aggravation. She hoped the boys weren't fighting over something silly, like that night in the High Richter's house, and if they started hexing each other she was going to hit their heads together until they stopped.

"We cannot possibly ask her --" Caleb was saying.

Fjord interrupted him. "We can

ask,

we're not going to

force

her to do shit," he said.

Caleb ignored the interruption as though Fjord had not spoken at all. "-- to face this man again, who has done her so much wrong --"

"She deserves to decide for herself!" Fjord insisted hotly, and Jester decided it was time to break up the party.

"What are you guys talking about?" Jester said loudly, stepping out from the trees to join them in the little clearing. Fjord and Caleb looked quickly to her, then away; Fjord rubbed the back of his head, sheepish at having been caught, and Caleb scowled and crossed his arms.

"Do not worry about it, Jester, it is nothing," Caleb said.

She gave him the side-eye. "Um, is there something that you were going to tell me? Or

not

tell me?"

Caleb's arms tightened and his scowl deepend, but he made no further move to block Fjord from speaking. Fjord glanced at him, then looked over at Jester and said, "The -- uh -- we've been talkin' with that elven mage Nott shot up, and found out that her team was hired by some mighty skeevy lords back in Nicodranas who had a grudge against your mom. Thing is, she didn't know which ones. Apparently it was

customer confidentiality,"

his tone spun the words with scorn, "so the only one who actually knew the details was that scaly fucker."

"Right..." Jester said slowly. "But he's, like, super dead."

"He sure is," Fjord said, sounding just a bit proud. Then he coughed. "But that means that if we want to get any answers, we'd have to use that Speak With Dead spell to talk with him. And by we I mean -- you would have to talk to him, 'cause Deuces doesn't have that spell."

"Oh," Jester said unenthusiastically. She frowned, twisting a fold of her dress. "But why do we need to know their names at all?"

"We don't," Caleb said.

"We

might,"

Fjord emphasized.

"These are powerful men, and we do not need to make enemies of any more powerful men," Caleb shot back.

"Seems like they've already made themselves enemies of us," Fjord said stubbornly. "Look, I'm not sayin' that we should go off and hunt 'em down for what they tried to do to you, although it's a

thought.

But seems to me like it would be better to know. Just in case we ever run into them later, or not somehow take on a job from them, or accidentally give them another shot at you. Really rather

not

end up in a position where we're talkin' and makin' nice with some asshole, not realizing that this is the same guy that abused and exploited one of my friends."

Caleb shut his mouth with a

snap,

and looked down to stare at the ground. Jester thought about it.

She didn't really want to do it. She didn't want to touch Job again, or talk to him or interact with him in any way. But Fjord wasn't wrong. There might come a chance for revenge someday, or maybe just a little blackmail to ease their way.

Even if they never did anything else with that list of names -- what about her Mama? If these men were out there with a grudge against her Mama then didn't she deserve to know? How would she protect herself against them if she didn't even know who the bad guys were?

"Let's do it," she said.

Fjord looked startled and a little vindicated. Caleb looked deeply doubtful, but he didn't try to talk her out of it. The three of them headed back to the camp and Fjord went to their stashed gear and retrieved -- somewhat gingerly -- the canvas bag in which they'd stashed Job's head.

He dumped it out at Jester's feet. It rocked over on its side, the tongue lolling out from between the long jaws, and Jester stared down at it, feeling more than a little queasy. They dealt with plenty of corpses -- in all stages of death, undeath, and decay -- in their travels, but it was intensely strange to try to reconcile the soggy chunk of dead flesh at her feet with the memory of the bounty hunter as he'd stood over her, smiling, powerful and smug in his stupid holster and stupid coat.

She took a deep breath and raised her hand. A smaller version of her usual lollipop materialized in the air and she stepped into a batter's pose, feet planted apart, shoulders squared, head high.

She cast the spell, and belted the bounty hunter's corpse with her spiritual weapon. Green light washed over it and the dead mouth groaned, the dead eyes rolled up at her as the magic took hold.

"Little Miss Genevive,"

the severed head crooned, and the long pale tongue swept over the edge of its mouth.

"How good to see y --"

The lollipop belted it again, and it cut off mid-word. Cloudy yellow eyes blinked up at her, dimly astonished, as though even in death it had not occurred to him that he did not have the upper hand over her.

"Hey, asshole!" she called out as the severed head at Job looked up from her feet. "I'm talking now."

~end.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Caduceus blinked, then blinked again, trying to adjust his eyes to the light after being kept in darkness for the last several hours.He seemed to be in a cave. It looked like a large, natural cavern that had been further hollowed out by mortal hands. The ceiling rose to an uneven height further back in the cavern and in a few places broke through to the open air above, letting in long shafts of sunlight into the otherwise dark space.The light fell on scenes of casual, messy chaos and jumbled piles of scrap pushed up against the wall in every irregular nook and cranny. The main space of the cavern was full of men -- mostly human, a few other races, but all male. In the uneven light Caduceus couldn't pick out everything, but he spotted at least ten, maybe more figures moving around in the shadows, and the amount of scattered careless gear seemed to match with that. They looked ill-fed, ill-groomed, and generally careless with their appearance and health, Caduceus thought.Another face intruded on his view of the scene, and Caduceus reared his head back a bit as he examined the man in front of him.Caduceus had a philosophy that when looking at a new person, he always tried to find their best feature, the nicest part about them, and hold it in his mind as he talked to them. But with this man, it was... well, it was a little hard to find one. His beard was nice. There. He had a bushy beard of a most interesting color, red and black hairs mingled together in a scruffy pattern. That was nice.The rest of the man was a little less nice to look at. He was short and portly, a thick neck, skin pocked with blemishes and old scars; a motley assortment of clothes that had been ripped apart and badly put back together and then not washed for a year. The two other men flanking him -- and the three more flanking him -- were all adorned similarly, a few of them wearing rusty chainmail hauberks of boiled leather plates held on with fraying straps.They also had weapons, Caduceus couldn't help but note. Rusty-headed maces, shortswords and clubs, and the man just to his left had an especially nasty-looking knife with all sorts of hooks and points that really didn't seem to serve any purpose that Caduceus could see. He was currently using it to clean under his fingernails which, well, that seemed like a good way to hurt yourself.The red-bearded man stepped forward. He had a limp -- bad old break in the left leg, Caduceus estimated -- which he turned into a swagger as he stepped up into Caduceus' space. "Welcome to our humble home, cow man," he said with a sneer."Hi," Caduceus said. He looked around at them. "I'm Caduceus Clay, nice to meet you all. What are your names?""Er..." The red-bearded man looked a little taken aback. "I'm Brewer. This is Phantom, Bullseye Bob, Welly 'The Ripper' Farrier, Bede the Pillager, Tomlin 'the Menace', Action Newlin, Sly Scotty, Menacing Malcolm, Coughin' Carden, Blackheart Rodger, and Jim."Caduceus nodded to each one as the introductions went on, then returned his attention to Brewer, who seemed to be in charge here. "Can I ask, is it the custom in this region to hit your guests over the head and drag them to your house on the back of a cart with a bag over their heads?"Brewer grinned, and oh dear, his teeth were in horrible condition. He'd be reduced to eating mushes before the decade was out at this rate. "Yeah. Yeah that's a real special tradition for us," Brewer said."Oh, okay," Caduceus said."Me and the boys wanted to extend a little job offer  to ya," Brewer went on. "See, Brewer's Boys don't live what I'd call a safe lifestyle. There's a lot of fightin', a lot of hard living, and what we really need is a man of the gods to look after us and tend to our injuries, like. An' we've been watching you, and we think that you'd be just the man for the job.""Oh, I see," Caduceus said. "That's very flattering honestly, but I already have a group that I travel with. I like them quite a lot, so I'd really rather stay with them and see where that takes me."Brewer grinned his horrible smile, and chuckles went around the band of fighters surrounding them. "Well, see, we planned to give you an offer you couldn't refuse," Brewer said."Okay..." Caduceus said slowly. "And what if I do refuse -- just, hypothetically -- or I decide I want to leave?"Brewer smirked, then jerked his head over towards one side of the cavern. "See that over there?"Caduceus followed his gaze. He seemed to be indicating one of the piles of refuse, a careless heap of rags and old food on top of which reclined a man who hadn't bothered to get up to greet the others. "Yes?" he ventured."That's Footless Jerry. They call him that because he has no feet.""Yes, I can see that that makes sense," Caduceus nodded. Ah, this made sense, they had brought him here to heal one of their injured men, he supposed."Jerry there was the last one to try to run out on Brewer's Boys," one of the other men inserted into the conversation, heavy with menace and implication."Oh," Caduceus said.He thought for a minute while ten pairs of eyes watched him in keen anticipation. After a moment he ventured, "So, was he Footless Jerry before  he tried to leave, or after?""After!" Brewer snapped. "He's Footless Jerry 'cause we cut off his stinkin' feet!" "I see," Caduceus said, although he wasn't entirely certain he did, yet. "Pardon my asking, but is this some kind of sex thing?"Brewer sputtered. "What? No! What?!" he said, while the others made their own variously revolted responses.Caduceus shrugged helplessly. "Apparently some people are into that sort of thing," he said. "A little extreme, but, well, I didn't want to judge.""No! No sex things going on!" Brewer said firmly, then reconsidered. "Except when we get visits from lovely ladies in the towns round here, of course. But they don't tend to stick around for a second visit." He smirked."Okay," Caduceus said.Caduceus was accustomed by now to having pretty much everyone else in a room be smarter than him. He had no illusions about himself on that front. He was sheltered, only Jester among the others having a background that compared, but at least Jester had been able to experience the world through books and stories. He was slow, taking a long time to come to conclusions that others seemed to snap to in a flash.But part of that was that he'd been so out of his depth since leaving his graveyard, surrounded by unfamiliar rules and schemas that everyone else seemed to instantly grasp while he was left floundering for context. He was slow because he was used to life being slow, used to taking his time to make sure he fully understood a situation before he acted or spoke."So, just so that we're all on the same page here and there's no misunderstandings," Caduceus said at last. "I'm being kidnapped?"Brewer grinned. Several people chuckled. "Yep," he said."And held here against my will?""Well, that's up to you, ain't it?" Brewer scratched at his red-black beard. "But gen'rally, yeah.""With the intention of forcing me into servitude for you and your men, without pay or the freedom to leave?""Pretty much." Brewer shrugged."And if I try to leave, you'll stop me by force, up to and including mutilation?""You got it," Brewer agreed with malicious cheer."Okay." Caduceus nodded. "Just wanted to be sure."  The Mighty Nein crept up on the entrance to the bandit's lair. It was partially concealed, enough that it wouldn't be obvious from the nearest road, but once you got close it was obvious. If nothing else, the tracks leading to and from the cave -- including the freshest set, accompanied by the marks of something large being dragged across the ground -- pointed right to the mouth of the cave.Fjord gestured for the rest of the Nein to come in close. "This is it," he said in a hoarse whisper. "The bandits took him in there. They want to use him as their personal healbot, so he's probably still alive, but we don't know what kind of shape he'll be in.""Oh, I hope he's okay," Nott fretted. "I hope they didn't kill him. Oh no! You don't think they tortured him, do you?!""Nobody would do that to Caduceus!" Jester protested. "He's too sweet. Why would anyone want to hurt him?""There are some very bad people in the world," Caleb said grimly. "From what the Lawmaster said, these are among the worse kinds.""There's no point in speculating," Molly said, flipping his sword hilt over and over in his hand in a nervous compulsion. "We'll either be in time or we won't. Fjord, what's the play?""Yasha'll be the first one in," Fjord said, looking over to the tall woman, who nodded solemnly. "Me and Caleb next, and we'll start laying on the hurt on them while Jester and Molly look for Caduceus. Get him safe, give him any healing he needs, then watch the door to make sure nobody gets in or out. I don't mean to let a single one of these jackals get away.""And if things go bad, then me and Beau will do the Triple Decker!" Nott butted in eagerly.Fjord suppressed the urge to cover his eyes. It wouldn't help. "Nott, we talked about this, we aren't doin Triple Decker," he groaned. "Caduceus is in there,  remember?""Aw," Beau said."But I'm sure it will work this time!" Nott protested. "We've got the ball bearings, and these feathers aren't flammable, I'm sure.""No stunts," Fjord said firmly. "We go in fast and hard, get to Deuces and get him out. We don't know what kinda shape he'll be in, so we want to get him clear before we start throwin' around fireballs.""Or demons," Beau said, still disgruntled at the Triple Decker being shot down."Or fire elementals," Fjord shot back. "All right. On my mark. Ready? Go!"The seven of them moved as one, Yasha in the lead. She kicked down the door blocking the entrance in a mighty burst of splinters, then sprang forward with a roar of challenge while the rest of the Nein piled in behind.Caduceus looked up from the stove on which he was frying something, a dishcloth wrapped around his hand to protect it from the heat of the pan. "Oh, hello," he said.Fjord stopped dead and looked around. Caduceus was the only one standing in the bandit lair. In fact, Caduceus was the only thing left alive  in the bandit lair. What Fjord had taken for piles of trash and debris strewn around the cave were, in fact, actually piles of bodies, all in varying states of decomposition. The closest one to him was almost down to the bones already, while the one slumped over by a hole in the broken earth only had a few mushrooms growing out of his back."Ten... eleven... twelve," he heard Caleb mutter under his breath, and the wizard looked over at Caduceus with wide eyes. "That is... you got all of zem?" "You're just in time for lunch," Caduceus said, picking up the pan off the heat to flip it. "I've got an omelette going with fresh mushrooms. Who wants eggs?"Fjord looked around one more time at the gruesome remains of the bandit gang they'd been hunting. Most of the bodies had slumped too far in decay to make out any details, but there was one man collapsed by the entrance whose face with its red-black beard was still mostly intact. He looked, in the final moments of his life... surprised. They'd underestimated Caduceus Clay. "Yeah, okay," Fjord said with a sigh, and put away his sword.