{-Casrane-}
“So,” Myr said in a casual tone that more lended to curiosity, “what’s in the box? And what does it do?”
They’d gone back to the inn, as the best possible place to rest and determine exactly what they were going to do. Kaerio hadn’t spoken a word since they left Iris’s house—no matter how many times Myr asked the same exact two questions.
“He hasn’t answered you any of the other times,” Llewel pointed out with a sigh, “I doubt he’s going to change his mind now. Give him a break.”
“He can’t just get something we’ve spent all day working towards to get, then tell us we can’t know what it is!”
“He obviously doesn’t want to talk about—”
“Alright, if you’re that desperate, I’ll tell you.” Kaerio had a weak smile, more than he’d had before. He opened the box—slightly, so that only the three of them could see its contents—to reveal four identical charms. “As long as the stories are true, these were artifacts from Emmyth’s time. They’re said to give whoever wears them the ability to breathe underwater.”
Myr may have been partially satisfied, but Llewel was not. “As long as the stories are true?” he repeated with a frown.
“This… is more or less its second time being out in the open,” Kaerio admitted. He closed the box again and put it in a place others were less likely to see it. “No one’s exactly tried testing it, for one pretty obvious reason and a bit more specific one… but to go into that more specific reason, a story is kind of needed to understand it…”
Casrane—and Llewel, too, from the looks of it—was about to offer that he didn’t need to tell them, if he didn’t want to. But Kaerio gave a quick glance at their surroundings, took a deep breath, and began explaining it.
“It’s… been five years, at this point—since there was news of something. Rumors were spreading about the Rune Reactivation Project needing something, but just as quickly as they started, they stopped. We—though at that point, it was more like Iris, Hadar, and Gouzla—prepared for one of their plans, thinking that they had something now that would help them. Eventually we figured out that they still didn’t have it. They’d lost it at sea, thanks to a particularly bad storm that passed through.
“We couldn’t rest after hearing that, though. They planned to recover it. But it was definitely far too deep to swim down to, and the right tools for diving like that hadn’t been perfected yet. They didn’t want to take their chances on possibly-faulty equipment; they needed all the people they could get for their real goals. We didn’t want to take the risk, either, but we knew that it was better to get whatever they wanted than to hope that they couldn’t find it. We heard about something that might help from someone who turned out to be a part of the Rune Reactivation Project—they knew we’d go and look for it. We were a lot more active, and a lot more ‘meddlesome,’ back then. This mysterious something? What was in that box: ancient trinkets that are said to allow the wearer to breathe underwater.”
He grew more nervous, even a bit regretful, as he looked around the inn one more time. “Hadar had volunteered himself to get it. Iris had Mae to look after and Gouzla needed to keep up public appearances—plus, Hadar was no stranger to that kind of thing. It… definitely didn’t go well. The Rune Reactivation Project practically just waited for him to do all the work. But only half of their original plan had worked. The trinkets were safely brought to Gouzla… even if Hadar hadn’t returned. Whatever little band of troublemakers we’d formed, it collapsed at that point. The Rune Reactivation Project found another way to get what they wanted, and they achieved their goal of getting us out of the way. Knowing that it was safe, Gouzla gave the trinkets to Iris, and I’m almost certain that was the last time the two of them talked before today. Now that things are getting worse, there’s no one left to stand up. Gouzla fell into line the moment it started to become a real threat to him. Iris needed to be there for Mae. I can’t just sit and watch, though. I’m not going to let the sacrifices of my friends and family mean nothing. That’s why I’m helping the three of you.”
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“Is… that also why you didn’t seem to want to be around Iris..?” Myr dared to ask. “You seemed to be alright around Gouzla, but not her…”
“Yeah, that’s… pretty much the reason,” Kaerio responded with a solemn nod. “I used to be pretty close to both of them. I’d stayed over a lot back then but, now, thinking about what happened to him… I guess the short version of it is that I know she won’t like what I decided to do, and maybe not knowing at all would bring her more peace.”
Casrane, for a moment, debated if she really wanted to say anything. But, eventually, she remarked, “That’s probably just made her more worried. Keeping friends and family in the dark about important situations doesn’t end well… no matter how much it might hurt to talk about it.”
“Maybe you’re right, maybe not,” he mumbled. “I assume you’ve got some kind of personal experience behind the advice, though, so I think you can understand that that’s a lot easier said than done.” He stood up, his words again becoming not-quite-his-own. “I think we can start heading around town again. There’s some smaller things we can do for the people around here that shouldn’t draw the attention of the Rune Reactivation Project. I’ll wait by the entrance of the inn—just let me know when you’re ready to go. It might take us a while to do all of them.”
With the warning made, Kaerio walked away. Casrane—more out of actual knowledge of what was going to happen, not because of the subtle prompting—pulled up the menu to check the time.
“Do you need to go?” Llewel promoted. She usually left after doing that, so it was honestly a reasonable assumption.
She shook her head. “I just know that Kaerio is right. I’m just making sure that we can do all of it without being interrupted by something else.” She gave them both a soft smile. “I don’t have anything I have to do for a little while longer.”
With that decided, she got up and walked towards the door with a kind of false confidence. She didn’t know if she did it for the twins’ sake, one of her ways of reassuring them, or because she hadn’t yet let the true reason behind Kaerio’s warning sink in. If the twins thought anything special of it, they didn't say it. They just gave each other a glance before trailing behind her.
“We’re ready,” Casrane announced as soon as she was close enough to Kaerio.
He grinned. “Then let’s get going.” He was the first to leave the inn, holding the door open for the other three. “I think we should start at the outskirts of the city first. There’s a much lower chance that we’re going to run into someone unfavorable.”
They walked in silence, towards whatever place Kaerio was showing them, kindly excusing themselves from whatever other people decided to walk up to them. It was during that walk that Casrane prepared herself for what was coming, as now she felt the need to acknowledge it.
It happened a lot sooner than she was expecting.
A person few players would’ve thought to remember pushed their way through the crowd. “Hey, you there! Wait a minute. I’ve seen you three before in Anthalas!”