Ike and Nerinai parted ways on the staircase, her disappearing back into the shadows and Ike braving himself for what came next.
From the steps and that cornered door to the second floor, he heard a single phrase repeated over and over in his head. I suck, this is a terrible plan. I suck, this is a terrible plan. I suck- so on and so forth because he couldn’t imagine coming up with something worse to say or do in this situation. A few steps before the balcony he felt his throat catch, and had to wait for the knot forming there to settle back in his gut.
Below, Martial and his Arcani were in their usual spot. Sitting around the table speaking in low voices about nothing Ike would ever know or care to. Somehow they managed to sneak around the Palace and spar in between long periods of lounging. Like cats, he supposed.
“Martial!” he called over the balcony, projecting his voice as best as he could. “Martial, I was wondering, if ah, you wanted a drink?”
He looked up to the Guardian. Ike couldn’t see their faces from here, but he could hear the amusement in the man's voice.
“Of course my dear boy!” he called back. Ike watched the trio of them rise from their seats grumbling to each other, and the first part of the plan was done.
Ike hated plans. Really, there was nothing worse in life than sitting around a table with a bunch of halfhearted geniuses talking about the greatest way to slay some epic beast on the horizon, or the most efficient shit shoveling paths for the city to clean up. In either scenario the plan had a million little fallacies and blind spots, and even without those mistakes there was always Ike. On one hand he would hate to exclude himself- ‘what a diva’ they would say- and on the other he knew that no matter how hard he tried he would fall short of meeting even the simplest of goals. It was a talent.
And of course this time, all the blame was Ike’s to carry. He had a little theory that by setting amazing goals for himself, he would at least manage the bare minimum before it all came crashing down on him and Nerinai.
He met them at the top of the foyer double stairs, nervously wringing his hands inside each other. “Hello, hi, welcome- the bar is over there. I think.”
They followed him, all a bit wary of the nervous Guardian who clearly knew something they didn’t.
The room was just about the way Ike left it when he tripped out yesterday morning. The butler was calmly standing behind the bar cleaning out a glass that hadn’t been used, smiling wide and supposedly glad to see the plethora of customers to serve. Ike basically sidestepped the Arcani so everyone was forced to make introductions.
“Ah, welcome, welcome all!” The butler was clearly unaffected by Ike’s rushed exit, a relief. This plan almost entirely hinged on that crook.
“Is this the butler from the entrance?” asked Donnahais.
“Yes, sir,” obliged Victoria, then Augustus: “Apparently he’s in every room at once.”
Ike looked back, “What?” But the soldier twins just shrugged at him.
What followed was something of a blur for Ike, who had to manage bringing in the three warriors for a social event and introducing all of them to the overly pleasant butler. He made a point of introducing himself to all of them in turn, inquiring about their order and the success of recent missions.
“Interested in the Order, are you?” asked Donnahais. His voice carried the sort of irony that begged you to say something stupid so he could pounce on it like a lion of dialogues. “Perhaps one day I will entertain you with a plethora of our stories. For now I must tend to the Guardian.”
The butler nodded, “Of course, of course,” and then retreated to fetch drinks from the bar.
That left Ike alone with the three warriors. They basically settled themselves into the cluster of plush chairs in the darkest corner of the room so Ike was happily obliged to join them there. Took some of the pressure of his impromptu meeting. Made the next step so much closer, teetering off the edge of the old man's tongue and ready to jump in the air like a curse-
“So, dear boy, I am quite curious as to why we have come to meet.” Of course he was curious. That part he planned for, right?
Still, he found himself nervous to continue. He squirmed in the ugly brown chairs and was just ready to open his mouth to speak when the click of a lighter brought him out of focus again. Martial Donnahais lit a pipe, and curling smoke started to drift up in the air. Right then, looking into the curls of smoke hitting the ceiling, the low light of the sconces, the barmans somehow familiar presence behind his crooked arm of the bar let him settle down. This was exactly as he had planned.
“Well, I guess there is no way around it. I was bored. You know, the Raveness can be a little,” he paused, gesturing with his hand and with the other lifting up his leg over the other. “Stubborn. Hates sharing the glory.”
Donnahis giggled regally, which was a good thing. “Ah. It appears that perhaps the shaman and I aren’t so different after all, yes. See I’m something of a proud man myself, can never let the undue credit be thrown around for the properties sake. It’s just never been in my bones.”
Though the Martial spoke with such bravado you could forget the greed, his guards bristled. Apparently they’d been the undue credit too many times to count.
“Yeah… She’s like that.”
“But- aha! You, guardian, have most certainly come to the right man for a friendly discussion to occupy the mind. It’s a skill becoming of any good general. In warfare, you’re often disposed to sitting back in camps and talking over mindless hours with others of rank on silly matters just to pass the time between necessary logistics. It’s, ah, unavoidable. Leaves a man very predisposed to stories and the like.”
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“I can see.”
“Yes, yes. Though I wouldn’t want to bore you. You were a muckraker before this, yes?” He pretended to struggle with the word, swirling it around like foreign dirt. “I’m certain you’ve seen as much combat as my knights here. Certainly. What I’m more interested in, if you indulge my curiosities, is your thoughts on the shamans.”
Ah, fuck. Here was the one topic Ike had hoped wouldn’t come up, mostly because it was the easiest to catch himself on the hook between being a good guardian and being a good distraction. Thankfully the butler came and distributed something brown and thick to them each, a warm distraction.
“Well-” he said, sipped, then continued: “I don’t know, how much I know, don’t think I could really give a whole opinion you know? Seems a bit unfair.”
“Nonsense! You were practically built by the likes of them, I am certain. No man lives in the heart of a cult and has no opinion on the shamans.”
“I-I-I don’t really-”
“Oh, come now!” Donnahais' face screwed up. He pointed his drink at the guardian, and said, “Let us be totally honest. This is a promise of the most honorable, to be honest over a drink. An oath among soldiers. I assure you that no matter what you say I will hold to you neither as an insult or approval.”
Ike wasn’t sure he understood, but he thought he could trust the man. Something in the way he spoke felt honest.
“Well… I don’t hate them. Shamans are, you know, they kind of, protect everything? Without shamans we’d be dead.”
“No doubt,”
“But they’re not perfect. Just people. Like anyone, I guess.”
Ike pressed his lips into a line, then ruffled his hair in the brief pause. The Martial picked up after him with a callous calm.
“People, normal people like you and me, are not privy to such powers as they. No, no I cannot believe the shamans are such normal people. The black ichor is proof enough. The history of their kind backs me even further. Let it never be forgotten that the shamans were once witches, and witches who brought blight on the earth in the chase of power!”
“Yeah.”
“Their defense of the survivors is a penance- not a grace! They do this thing and that should be the utter minimum for all shamans. Now there’s been a great debate on this topic, though I’m certain the facts are muddy either way, but many say the magic is genetic. Some even go so far as to say the magic in its whole is the cause of this curse we must suffer, the demon births of witch-hags who defect from the settlements- tell me what you think of that.”
“Sounds like horseshit.”
He barked out a laugh, nodding his wrinkly head in turn. “Well, at least you have an opinion. Yes, it's not the most credible, but I think it holds weight in the moral sense. The shamans are a blocker to our evolution as a society, you see, in the way that they encourage the average man to sit back and let the magic do the work. We could be raising swords to purify the world, but we sit back in contentment.”
Then, surprisingly, the twin Victoria pitched in her own voice. “That’s why I became a knight. Far too many of our peers were content to sit in ivory towers and watch the world, but I thought that was silly. Plus, there's much more fun in killing the blight than playing politics.”
“Agreed,” mumbled her brother. Though just from the way the two of them sat, Ike had his doubts about their position to those ‘ivory towers’. He wouldn’t be very surprised if after a long hunt of letting others do the work, they retired in golden palaces safe away from the blight and, most importantly, poverty.
“Well. I guess that’s why we’re here, isn’t it? Nothing more sword raising than killing the problem at its source- the real source,” said Ike, to which the others hesitated.
The silence was the kind that carried a sort of weight, a hesitance for somebody in the room to reveal a heavy weight onto the scales of conversation.
“I have my own ideas of that,” said the Martial, looking conspiratorial to the guardian. “Man’s strength lay in steel, not black ichor. What if the Arcani could end this whole blight business the proper way- by cutting a hole into hell. Think about it, picture it if you will: Thousands of Arcani warriors marching in unison. A decisive battle over hell itself, where the might of humanity is proven in the destruction of everything that has plagued us so long. No more shadow of blight locking us into isolated towns and villages. We would be free, finally, and the Raveness, well…”
He made a dismissive gesture with his hand, which Ike only ignored out of respect for his oath on honesty.
Ike didn't know what to say then. He was thoroughly stuck on holding his tongue and not screwing up this entire plan, or worse, getting himself skewered on a runic sword. This was the part of the plan he didn’t know how to handle: waiting for Nerinai. She could be down there for hours searching for the key. She might not even find it. Ike was basically a cripple in a blightfield.
Then, as if sent by a magical godfairy from a kids book, the butler stepped into the cluster of chairs and bent down next to Ike’s chair.
“Sir,” he began in the low voice of a request, “Would you mind assisting me behind the counter? I do hope this is not too forward but I have heard of a special muckraker recipe that you absolutely must entrust to me.”
Bullshit. The best thing to come out of a muckraker hovel was piss in a can, which was just a step above muckraker alcohol. The butler was playing his tune though and he basically jumped out of his chair at the opportunity.
“Course!” He said, then followed the older man to the bar speaking in a low and jovial voice about nothing at all to throw off the others.
The Arcani got to a quiet conversation of their own that, from the other side of the room, looked pleasant enough. Ike still caught the occasional glance his way though. They were suspicious, and he was doing the same thing.
“So you mix in two cups of absinthe?”
“Yep. Tastes like shit.”
“Most wise, most wise.”
While Ike carefully throughout the very complicated and horrible method for cooking alcohol with just damp bark and mud on hand, the butler mixed something totally different. He lost track of all the drinks poured into the shiny metal shaker but it was a lot. And when he got a whiff of the stuff he nearly fell back on his ass.
“A gift for the martial,” he remarked, then set out to pour glasses for the trio in the chairs.
Ike had never seen a plan come together so perfectly. For once, the random element saved his ass. He couldn’t put into words how lucky he’d just gotten, watching the Arcani each down a shot glass of the odd mix and quickly drift off to giggling sleep. The butler bought time. Of course, when they woke up, Ike would be right there next to them. Until then all he had to do was wait.
The butler returned to the bar, carrying a smile of triumph. He nodded behind Ike, and down at a trapdoor on the floor. Oh, right. Ike had almost forgotten the butlers' attempt to get him behind the bar. Now there he was.
He looked back to the butler expecting a bludgeon or splash of sleep juice, but there was just a smile and a nod. Then another nod. He just kept nodding down to the trap door, raising his eyebrows, lips sealed shut.
“What?” Ike asked.
The butler responded with a jovial sigh and grabbed a glass to start cleaning.
Had Ike been a smart man, maybe he’d have seen a trap. Maybe he could decipher the old man's clues and figure out exactly what he was saying and why he couldn’t actually say it. Ike, however, was just Ike, and more prone to curiosity than rational sense.
He pried up the door and took a shaky wooden ladder into darkness.