Tyir

The tiefling in front of him calculated as he stood up and placed a hand on the desk he was sitting at. “I’m Tyir, Captain of the Third Arcane Regiment. What is this all about?” he asked.

“Ignoring the elephant in the room for a moment, your men fucked up a summoning circle. The resulting mud elementals nearly sunk a Blue Banner barge and almost killed regiments headed this way. Do better, Captain,” Mavec said.

“Is this true?” Tyir asked of the man who had escorted them over to the tent.

“Yes, sir.”

“Why was it so close to the river?” Tyir asked.

“We ran out of room to make the designated number of summoning circles.”

“Next time, come get me; we can try to negotiate more space. It's not worth casualties before the battles even begun,” Tyir gave a short bow to the group. “By the words almost killed, I assume that there were both no casualties and that I have you to thank for this?” Tyir asked.

“My team handled the threat, and I held the boat together long enough for our giant wolf to push it to shore. It's currently beached along the river, but no one died.” Alvec reported.

“Are we really not going to be talking about how similar these two look?” Illaria asked as she looked between them.

“What is there to discuss? Infernal blood runs strong. We’re probably distantly related.” Alvec said, shrugging.

“Distant, you look like you could be brothers, not third or fourth cousins,” Naya said.

“It is a little unnerving,” Sarbie said from the back of the group.

“I’ll see to it no further issues arise from the summoning circles; you have my word. I’ll double-check every circle myself,” he said, giving a curt bow. “Thank you. Now, is there any other business I can help you with? I’ve got plenty of work to do here.”

“There is,” Alvec said curtly. “But I’d have us discuss it without your men present.”

“A strange request. Would you care to enlighten me as to why I should honor it? No offense, but we look enough alike that I can’t rule out this being some infernal ploy to kill and replace me.”

Alvec laughed.“I forgive you for that. If I were in your shoes, I’d have to entertain that thought as well. Give me a moment; I have my reasons for trying to be as secretive as possible, so I want to give as much information as I can without saying everything.” Alvec mused momentarily, his face twisting as he minced the words in his mind. “Okay,” He said before clasping his hands together. “A dying man we attempted to save gave us a journal and said trust no one, Tyir.”

“Might I see this journal?”

“Once your men have left.” Alvec replied as he began rummaging through his bag.

“Why do they need to leave?” He asked.

“An abundance of caution,” Mavec replied. “If this was worth killing over, wouldn’t you want to keep it as secret as possible?”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Men, disperse. Come check on us in ten minutes.”

“Yes sir,” was called out in a wave as they all exited the tent. As soon as they were gone, Alvec produced the journal and set it in front of him.

“It's encrypted. I’ve tried brute forcing it with skill and magic, but it's proven to be rather hard to crack, making me think it has to be a book cipher.”

Tyir’s lips pursed together with concern. “If you're right, and this works, I need to know what you know.” He said before walking over to a shelf and pulling out a well-worn book, its pages yellowed and tattered from wear and tear. He flipped the two open and began to look it over. “Gods damn it!” he shouted suddenly, slamming the books down on the table.

“Shall we be giving you a moment?” Illaria asked as she stepped forward a bit.

“No, no. I just, I was really hoping it wouldn’t work,” Tyir said, clenching his hands into fists and fighting back tears. “I can’t believe it, you say the man who had this is dead? How? What happened? I know you said you tried to save him, but the whole story, please.”

“We had just left Cellocht's party and were headed towards Sha-Laial when we heard the sound of combat. We rushed in to join. This man was fighting a creature with tripod crab legs, a base with seaweed floating straight up, a glowing orb resting at the center of it, and a scorpion esc tail. Every time we sliced it, it whistled in some strange way,” Naya said.

“Like a kettle, the steam from a kettle.” Mavec supplied.

“During the fight, he was struck by the tail and injected with something. Whatever it was killed him within a minute. When I tried to heal him, he shoved that book into my hand and said Trust no one, Tyir. Which we figured meant to trust no one but you, Tyir.” Alvec added.

“Looking at the two of you side by side, though, I think in his death throes, he may have thought you were Tyir,” Sarbie said.

“A distinct possibility.” Mavec agreed.

“So we’ve been looking for this Tyir fellow everywhere. We were hoping to find you much closer to Cellocht's party.”

“Except that's not the end of the story,” Alvec said, retaking the reigns. “Not a few hours later, we were attacked by more strange creatures. I find it hard to believe that this was a mere coincidence.”

“Creatures we later learned from the journal of another dead man, Vato, the Archwizard Diviner, that these strange creatures were mighty and very dangerous and that they had been around at least since the Anarchy,” Mavec said.

“In light of all of that, I’m at least not convinced that his death was in any way an accident. I suspect that we were attacked for the information stored within this journal, and I’m sure it's why he was killed,” Alvec said.

“So, who was this man anyway?” Mavec asked.

“A friend of mine first and foremost. He was an imperial sentinel.” Tyir informed them.

“So, for the sake of those of us not in the know... what exactly is that?” Naya asked, raising her hand.

“How do I put this simply? Spies who report directly to Ageneon? Is that a simple enough summary?” Mavec asked.

“So it's an important position, got it,” Naya said as she nodded.

“So whatever this says is going to be big. How soon could you be translating it?” Illaria asked as she made eye contact with Tyir.

“Right now, it will be a challenge to get any information from it. We’ve got our hands full preparing for what's going on here. Just about all of the Red and Blue Banners are deployed here, and many of the top brass are on location. Even the eyes of the blue banner are here; LuCol himself has graced the battlefield. Honestly, I’m going to be busy for a while.”

“That's fine; we’ve got our own business to care for here as well. We’re going to reenlist and go after that bastard Crowley ourselves,” Illaria said.

“Make a backup plan in case you don’t make it. We need to be able to decode that.” Tyir nodded at Alvec’s comment.

“I hate to be so pessimistic, but we are heading to war. I bid you all farewell for now, and I hope that you're able to see your goal through to the end,” he said, giving a deep bow.

The group took their exit, leaving the journal behind. It felt strange to Alvec not to be carrying it around anymore, but soon, they would have real solid answers about what they had been dragged into.

“So, really and truly, no relation?” Illaria asked again as they began walking back towards the docks to reenlist.

“Considering his penchant for magic, it wouldn’t be impossible for him to be a cousin. But I can say I don’t have a secret brother,” Alvec continued arguing with the group as they headed toward the recruitment office.