Extra 19: Confrontation of the Heartbroken
Slowly, Retlafeh walked down the spiral staircase that served as the defining feature of the mansion, circling one massive pillar which had open candles nestled in holes at its center. These lights, unnaturally bright, casted Retlafeh’s shadow on the wall, enlarging his presence on the stairwell and bringing even greater nervousness to the man.
Getting past the walls was the hard part, but getting caught here was far more unpredictable. At any moment, a resident could come rushing around the corner to investigate the fire and happen upon its true culprit, taking a leisurely jaunt down the center of the entire building. He needed to get down quickly and find where Taresh lived.
Retlafeh wasn’t foolish enough to believe that Taresh would be anywhere near the top floors, while he doubted the Earliag had broken their promise, they would still treat the man as badly as they could get away with. Knowing Taresh, it wasn't likely they could get away with much. So what Retlafeh needed to do was go downwards, down to the rooms underneath the building.
Every mansion of worth had some place for its slaves and servants to live, some place out of the way and hidden from guest eyes. The problem was the entries to these places were always inconspicuous or tucked away, and every mansion hid them via a different method.
The former slave crept down one of the halls, finding it full of nothing but glass doors.
“That could be a problem”.
It was one thing if a door was merely hidden, but if it looked identical to every other door, then there would be no way to know but to check.
Quickly, he ducked around another hallway, finding much the same dilemma. The man started to panic, he had come all this way but now he was just sitting like a cactus, waiting for someone to come and find him lost as he was.
He went out into the main area again and prepared to hope that another hall was his answer, before he was forced to duck behind a pillar to avoid a resident's gaze. He found that the resident in question was a young woman, dressed well but inconspicuously. What really caught his eye though, was her skin colour, as it was dark but distinctly different from that of an Orshraka. In all likelihood, she was from the jungles to the south, a place he had only heard rumours about.
There was no chance that anyone but an Earliag could be in a place of importance in a house like this, which meant that the girl had to be some variety of servant.
“If I could follow her back to where she came from, I could find the entrance to the underground.” Retlafeh schemed.
Of course, while this idea was well and good, there was no way that the girl would go back to her quarters after she saw the fire, he had to make her go back, somehow, without revealing himself. He really wished he learned more spells while he had the chance.
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The woman began to move toward one of the windows, Retlafeh had to act fast.
Quickly he went and blew out the central candles which were responsible for keeping the room well lit, throwing the room into a dimmer shade. Only a few candles which he could not get to were available and unlike the center ones, they were not of the bright variety, put up more for ambiance than intended use.
The girl was waried by this, taking a step back and calling to see if anyone was there. Under his breath, just loud enough to be heard in the silence, Retlafeh chuckled in the darkness, a stark contrast to how he was actually feeling.
He had always heard that the people of the jungles were rather superstitious, he was glad to see that one particular factoid was correct. As his final master stroke, he wove the first two runes of his fire spell in the dark, leaving the spell deliberately unfinished.
This proved to be the final straw, as two glowing runes mimicked evil red eyes in the dark, causing the girl to turn tail and sprint back down the hall. Retlafeh only just managed to see her duck down a door to the left, which, after waiting a moment to see if she was actually gone, he followed down. Predictably, the door led to a set of wide stairs that in turn opened up to the final floor.
This place was significantly more humble than the home above, set in dark wood rather than harsh stone. In spite of this, its quality and robustness was admirable and the upkeep put into it even more so. Instead of narrow halls, this floor took the form of one large common area, with rooms that split off from it. Luckily for him, there didn't seem to be anyone out and about, each servant likely savouring the last few minutes of sleep they could get till the sun demanded they work once again.
Retlafeh wouldn't have long though, he needed to find Taresh and get out. Luckily for the former slave, above each door had been written their residents, and of course, the one door that had soft candlelight shimmering underneath belonged to Retlafeh’s once partner.
The man had done it, he had made it all the way down without being caught, gone through peril and stress to ensure the safety of the group and the direction of his god.
And now all he had to do was open the door. That was it. Open the door.
And he couldn't
.
He had his hand around the handle, but no matter what he did, he couldn't make himself. He was fifty three for Orsha’s sake, he hadn't seen Taresh in over twenty years, none of this should have been an issue.
But ultimately, Retlafeh never needed to make the decision, as at that moment the door yanked open and he came face to face with the man he had just been dreading to meet. For a full ten seconds, neither of the two men moved a muscle. All of a sudden, a firm hand grasped around Retlafeh’s shoulder and pulled him inside, slamming the door shut behind the both of them.
As would be expected, Taresh had changed a great deal since the last time Retlafeh had seen him, time having proved ever changing even to one as steadfast as Taresh. Retlafeh’s memories told him of a young man in the prime of his life, strict, intelligent and brutally efficient in everything he did. Not even the stress and dirt of their escape had proven to ever remove the air of strict ordered intelligence he possessed in his very nature.
Now looking at the man in front of him, time had proven to do what stress could not. In all respects, Taresh was the same, the same straight gait, the same ordered, obsessive cleanliness to everything he did. But time and experience had proven to wear down the edges, where once he looked at everything with a matter of fact steadfastness, now there was a softness in his gaze, a light acknowledgement that perhaps a little wiggle room in the reality of the world would afford better results. Every ideal and trait could be improved upon, and true to his nature, Taresh seemed to have done just that.
His clothing reflected this nature, a form of plain coloured suit of a design utterly unfamiliar to Retlafeh, a geometrical form carried through to his immaculate hair and grooming. Doubtless, he had found this design in one of the many books of fashion the former-slave spied upon the shelves of Taresh’s little room.
And while matters of fashion had always been of chief interest to the younger man, the many works of literature his abode possessed showed that he was never afraid to branch out in his studies. Language, maths, magic, divinities and the mundane sciences all featured equal numbers in the collection, among many other things of which Retlafeh had no concept of.
In any other room, with any other person, these books may have just been for decoration, but Retlafeh knew full well that his once partner had read every one. He wondered how the other man managed to get so many books under his arrangement with the Earliag, but most likely he managed to get it because of that arrangement.
It all made Retlafeh a little inadequate, a little unequal, he strived to be mature and to help wherever he could, but how could he ever live up to this, how could he ever match this… perfection.
Retlafeh tore himself out of his head, he had something to do, and he needed to do it. He gathered his nerves and began the conversation that would define so much of his future.