It had been five weeks since that first island. They’d scouted eight islands in the time since, enough of the cluster that the job was considered done. All that remained was to report the findings.

The hold was full with various goodies, looted from creatures or straight from the walls. They’d even discovered a further three creatures with divine properties that made them useful for enchanting, which was a pleasant surprise.

The cleric’s training had continued, of course; Ferra found, in recent days, that there were considerably fewer bruises and his limbs shook substantially less after training.

Grek had been rather smug about that, pointing out how his training methods had ‘clear results’ and were ‘indisputable.’

Bah.

They were a few minutes out from Joseph’s Haven, Ferra and Mel currently engaged in a practice duel. He ducked under the first fireball, slapping her arm aside with the flat of his blade so that the second would shoot off to the side. When he reversed the direction and tried to go for a swing at her side, a small detonation twisted his blade such that it skittered down, along the armor she wore.

She leapt back in a gout of fire, giving ground to his onslaught. As he charged forward, determined to stick inside her range like a leech, twelve small bolts of flame spun up around her, launching out at varying angles.

The war cleric swatted one out of the air with his divine enchanted blade, but the others impacted the shielding divine he erected around himself. Ferra was unhurt, but sent tumbling backwards.

He rolled to his feet, summoning a javelin made wholly of divine in his free hand and hurling it at Mel. In the same motion he leaned forward and conjured holy beneath his feet, catapulting himself up and ahead while Mel was occupied.

She slapped the javelin away with the side of a hand, the other reaching up towards him. Mid air, Ferra slapped himself to the side with a cube of softly glowing energy, narrowly avoiding the tendrils of flame she attacked with.

Then the air was filled with fire as Mel stopped holding back, and quickly he found himself entangled in more limbs of heatless flame and completely unable to move.

“You’re getting closer!” Mel called up to Ferra as she lowered him to the deck.

He shook his head as he landed on his feet, wiping the sweat from his brow. “Not enough of a close quarters advantage to win decisively, and if you get range I just lose. If I could pressure you better from a distance maybe, but as it is now all I can really do is delay.”

She gave him a mixed slap and pat on the shoulder. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, you’ve only been with us for a month and a half now. You’ve already closed the gap massively, faster than I expected.”

“Ah, well.” Ferra paused as he struggled with a strap of the plate armor they’d given him. Mel saw and moved to help, which he shot her a grateful glance for. “At least I’ve gotten really hard to kill.”

She grinned. “Oh one suggestion I do have for you; if you slap down a wall behind me then I can’t very well back away. You should make more use out of your ability to remote summon. Most clerics can’t do that.”

He nodded and gave her a thumbs up, before turning to see the Haven grow larger in the distance. “Looks like we should go get the last few things squared up before docking.”

Mel gave a small sigh. “Yeah, probably. I bet Grek’s got a small list of things for me, made entirely in the last fifteen minutes.”

The following time was a flurry of activity as they got ready to make landfall. Bags packed, equipment stowed, paperwork gathered, a number of inflatable crash protectors hung over the side facing the dock as they slipped into the dock.

They didn’t even have to speak to the harbormaster. Mirana had sent a message ahead including their cargo and rough time of arrival, and a pair of dockworkers were already waiting with ropes to help pull the ship into port.

Docking was a smooth process, and before long they were passing through the main archway and into the central plaza of Joseph’s Haven. The walk to the guild hall was quick, and in a short few minutes they were delivering Grek’s written report to the front desk, while Mel loudly narrated the team’s encounter with a wyrm to the rapt audience.

The lady at the desk finished with her paperwork, and turned to them with a smile. “Well done. You’ll find the pay has been wired to your team account, and probation status removed. May I inquire into your plans for the future?”

Grek hummed, a deep, vibrating sound that rattled the floorboards slightly as he thought. “I would like to find a tutor for Ferra here. Is there anyone in the region experienced with divine artificing or velocity summoning?”

“Let me check the books. A moment, please.” With a bow the desk attendant stood, heading into the back room.

The orc pulled out his notebook, browsing through it and humming an unfamiliar tune in the back of his throat. Ferra nudged him with an elbow after a couple seconds. “If it’s good with you, I think I’m gonna go get myself a lunch from Tyra.”

All he got as acknowledgement was an absent grunt. Taking that for the dismissal it was, Ferra waved to the others on his way out. Mel waved back, and Mirana gave a nod; they were busy catching up with the other teams, he’d leave them to it and eat alone. It would be his first meal alone in quite some time, and Ferra found himself somewhat looking forward to the idea. He hadn’t yet sat down over a meal and reflected on the experiences of the last month and a half as a whole.

As he crossed the threshold of Tyra’s place, the Weary Vagrant, he saw her notice him and look up, face brightening into a smile. “Ferra, you’re back! I assume the team is safe?”

Somewhat sheepishly ignoring the patrons who looked up with curiosity at the ebullient welcome, he waved at her with a smile of his own as he claimed one of the smaller wall tables. “Fit as a fiddle and happy to be back on land. Good payout, too. A bowl of your finest soup, please!”

“Coming right up!”

Within moments a hot bowl of soup lay before him, steam wafting off. He ate the first spoonful with a smile; they’d replenished their stores of fresh foods quite well while traveling, but certain things had run quite low in the last week on the way back to Haven. “This is wonderful, much appreciated!”

“Of course!” Tyra beamed at him. “Only the best for my adventuring friends, what you do is admirable.”

A choked “Urk!” in the background cut Ferra’s response off, as he saw a green haired man suddenly jerk to a standing position and stumble his way up the stairs. What was-

A pair of green eyes flashed at him from the shadows. Ah.

He responded to Tyra after what he hoped was a pause short enough that she wouldn’t notice. “Is it? The empire seems to take a dim stance on the practice.”

“Bah.” She waved a hand dismissively. “I’m sure in the long run using mobilized strike teams to replace adventurers might be cheaper, but it’s sure as hell nowhere as romantic, and of course many people aren’t happy about their ever more centralized authority.”

“Mmm.” Ferra finished the last of the soup in a hurry, practically having inhaled the wonderful meal. “I suppose that’s fair. If you’ll excuse me and I’m sorry to run, I have some affairs to attend to now that I’m back from traveling. I appreciate the hospitality!”

“Sure thing!” With another smile, Tyra drifted off to attend to other customers. As Ferra headed up the stairs to his room in the back, he noticed a cloaked figure in one of the corners, with a flash of what he was sure was red hair.

It struck a chord of memory, for some reason, but Ferra shook it off as he moved to attend to much more pressing matters.

When he knocked on the door to his room he heard no screaming, as he knew would be the case. When Nine opened it and gestured inside Ferra saw the green haired man, tied with ropes of shadow and gagged, frantically trying to writhe out of his bindings.

Ferra stepped in, closing the door behind himself. Immediately a feeling like cotton in his ears asserted itself, a clear sign that they were under a silencing ward. Nine’s work, certainly.

He studied the bound man in silence, noting the eyes wide with terror. A professional, this one was not. Ferra inclined his head towards Nine. “What’d this poor sap do to piss you off?”

The response was flat and emotionless, as Nine was himself. “Warlock. He was in the middle of trying to hit you with some kind of curse when I turned the spell against him, choking him with it and puppeting him here.”

Ferra cocked an eyebrow. “Uh huh. A genius plan, that. Trying to curse a cleric with infernal magic. Are you stupid or just poorly informed?” He leaned forwards, yanking the man’s gag down so he could speak.

“Gods preserve me!” the man babbled, “I wasn’t trying to hurt you, I swear! It just would have made you drowsy!”

“And what made you think that was a good idea?”

“Fezzik. Fezzik Menstappen. There’s an underworld bounty out for him, alive. You look like him. And-” the man nodded towards Nine, as much as he could while bound. “That monster there has certainly confirmed it, in my mind.”

Fezzik sighed, and inclined his head. The man had gotten one thing right, at least. “I assume you were working alone, yeah?” Green Hair frantically nodded. Fezzik glanced towards Nine, who inclined his head.

The poor bastard was telling the truth, then. Fezzik sighed again. “I don’t suppose you can think of any particular reason we should let you live?”

“I-” the man started, paused, swallowed, then continued speaking. “I’m not the only one who suspects. There’s more. Rumors are already swirling around you now that you’re back. Getting rid of me wouldn’t stop that.”

“True, true.” He put the gag back over the man’s mouth. Fezzik rubbed at the stubble on his chin, turning to Nine. “I suppose the government does already have laws in place for dealing with warlocks. Wipe his memory of the last half hour. Drop him off at the local United temple, discreetly. They’ll deal with him. We’ll talk more about this apparent issue tonight.”

Nine nodded. “Understood.”

The matter dealt with for now, Ferra picked up a number of items before heading back out. He hadn’t lied to Tyra about having business, after all. It was a relatively short walk deeper into the island, the more important and richer buildings being built further from the drop-off to forever that ringed the island.

Before too long he’d managed to locate the Church United’s city temple, though to his dismay he discovered it was really more a small and horribly incomplete shrine. Growing pains as the town grew rapidly, he supposed.

Ferra did manage to get directions from a particularly helpful passerby; Followers of Pripta, the God of Masks, actually had their own dedicated shrine elsewhere in the city, paid for by a number of anonymous concerned citizens. In this age of ever growing connectedness, he could entirely understand the appeal.

The exterior of the building was entirely nondescript. Were it not for the garish masks mounted below the awning, he might not have known. Ferra entered without knocking, finding the interior completely without light of any kind.

A voice spoke out from the darkness, flat and emotionless. “Seeker, stomp once if you require Face and Voice.”

Ferra stomped in reply, wincing at the noise in the relative quiet. Moments later a mask found its way into his hands, which he wore without hesitation. It was hard to detect the magic within with his sight, but Ferra was rather sure that this mask was actually an example of a witched enchantment. It tasted like… obscurity? Interesting.

The voice spoke again, with the same complete lack of emotion. “Avoid using magic, have you any. It risks disrupting the Act.” Moments later, before Ferra could respond, the lights flicked on. A surprisingly well furbished waiting room was revealed, a masked, bald figure entirely garbed in white robes standing before him.

When he looked at his own arms he found the details were indistinct, blurry. He was wearing a vermillion green scaled cape, then a white dress uniform, then a black suit, then a farmer’s overalls. Each flicker was a moment in a thousand, there and gone so fast he might as well have imagined it.

His musings were again interrupted by the robed figure. “Are you familiar with our ways?”

Ferra nodded mutely.

“Then you know to avoid any personal information. Things you do not tell me are things that cannot hurt you, the Act cannot protect you from yourself. Us Speakers bear no ill will towards you, but if you seek counseling regarding a crime, we are obligated to report should the Empire come looking.”

He nodded again.

“Come with me.” The person gestured towards one of the doors on the far wall, walking quickly and holding the door open for him. When Ferra entered he found a pair of chairs, a small side table, and a tray containing a pitcher of water and two glasses.

They waved at the glasses. “As long as you remain touching the mask, the Act will continue. You may drink freely, should you get thirsty.”

Ferra simply nodded again; it was not yet time to speak. He claimed the seat closer to the door as the Speaker entered, closing the door and sitting opposite him. They waited for him to finish drinking, before beginning to speak. “Seeker. What brings you before me today?”

“Secrets.” His voice seemed odd to himself, distorted and muffled.

A nod from the Speaker, as if the revelation was completely expected. “Not uncommon, though often overblown. Great ones, or small ones?”

“Great.”

The Speaker continued. “And why does this great secret trouble you?”

“It would cause trouble, both to be known and not known.”

“A great secret, one that troubles simply by existing regardless of whether it is known or not.” The Speaker nodded gently, speaking mostly to themselves. “And this trouble, death or danger, does it apply to anyone that knows or might know the secret?”

He nodded.

“Troublesome indeed,” they mused, sitting utterly still. “No simple matter of donning or doffing a mask, this. What guidance, exactly, do you seek?”

“Any, really. By telling friends I break a promise and place them in danger, but by not telling them they aren’t aware of the danger and was I ever really their friend in the first place?”

“Hmm.” The Speaker grunted. “First, remember that masks are part of life. To keep a secret from a friend is no great sin, we keep a thousand inconsequential ones each day through forgetfulness and apathy. My toe currently itches, yet you have no inclination nor desire to know this secret, nor would you be displeased by learning later that it had been withheld. The problem here lies in the danger, in that by telling or not telling you affect the course of the lives of your friends.”

Ferra nodded, the flash of green eyes coming to mind in the privacy of his thoughts. “I have reason to believe that divulging the secret would result in immediate consequences for everyone involved.”

“And is there a way to safely inform those who should know? This sounds like a mask you should not wear for long, lest it shatter and you with it.”

He had an answer ready, having already considered the problem. “I have reason to believe that I could inform one of them, at least, and include the reasons behind why it’s so hard to tell them.”

The Speaker inclined their head. “A good start, and one that might serve to protect those other friendships should the mask break early. One piece of advice I may definitively give is thus: your reasons are clear, and clearly important. Fret not over whether you may be a true friend or no, at least not over the circumstances of this secret you bear. If they are true friends to you and you to them, this is but an easily polished away mark on the surface of the mask; assuming the secret itself should cause no problems, of course. Walk with confidence, plan to tell the one when you safely can, but above all don’t risk lives for the sake of a secret. People are worth more than truth, in the end, if they are truly in danger from the knowledge.”

Ferra inclined his head. “The advice is much appreciated.”

The Speaker gave a smooth half bow in return, gesturing with one arm. “Any time, penitents are always welcome in the house of Pripta.”

Before too long Ferra took his leave, a donation added to the bowl in the front room and now considerably more confident in what he planned to do. Now he just had to figure out how to trick a Hand of the Emperor, one whose only task was to keep an eye on him in particular.

He even had some ideas, or at least the beginnings of one. Some preparation was needed, first. Ferra went from store to store, spending a not insignificant amount of money on various useful pieces of adventuring gear.

Inactive, single use protections from various elements, scent removing potions, a witching charm that would protect the wearer from a small amount of divine bleed when casting. That last one had him particularly excited, but the real prize was a combination fae and witching amulet that prevented most Shadow based techniques in a radius around the user as well as helping to conceal them in more mundane ways.

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That was what Nine’s trick was, after all. Shadow magic is poorly understood and hardly a category of magic, but all of Nine’s compatriots, himself included, seem innately able to use it to teleport around and meld into darkness. Ferra wasn’t terribly sure how the Emperor’s Hands were made, but it certainly wasn’t a natural process. They were too alien and abnormally powerful for that, their powers too consistent between individuals.

In any case, this amulet combined with the first half of his plan should do nicely. The price tag made him wince, but the payout from the previous mission was good, and this task was more important than money. Now he just had to find an excuse to spar with Mel, which should be easy enough.

It wasn’t until midafternoon that Ferra managed to finagle a spar. The night prior had involved a good deal of partying and carousing, and this morning was time spent in the library. For a given value of morning, at least; he’d woken quite late, having gone to bed long after the sun did. They went through a couple light matches, gradually warming up, when Ferra called for a time out.

She jogged up to him, unclasping her flaming helmet and shaking her hair loose. “What’s up?”

“I was thinking, before getting into the heavier practice, well.” Ferra cursed himself internally. Now is not the time to stumble over words! “I wanted to experiment more with different ways of combining our magic.”

Mel’s expectant grin faded somewhat from her eyes as she studied him for a moment. “…alright.” A pause. “You good?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Ferra trailed off. The cleric wasn’t sure if the flash of green in the corner was real or imagined. “Just some things I’ve been thinking about, don’t worry about me I’m fine.” He forced a smile. “Just follow my lead with the shapes, there’s something I want to try!”

They moved through a number of different shapes and sizes, practicing for better coordination and measuring how quickly things such as barriers could be conjured.

“It really is astonishing, how much stronger the combined material is.”

Mel rapped a knuckle against the wall they’d just made, an act that made hardly any sound. “It has to do with how the sorcery integrates, I think. It’s like a weave, or strands, spread throughout the divine construct. Helps distribute loads dealt to the object, rather than something that’s solid until it shatters like glass.”

“Mmm. Well if nothing else the extra rigidity combined with the heat of them will make them even more effective battlefield control, if we can get the timing and coordination down. Anyways, there was one last shape I wanted to try.”

As he spoke Ferra pulled deep, conjuring a half dome around them, anchored on the floor. With a somewhat bemused smile, Mel followed along. As soon as the last of her magic slithered into the structure of the arms’ width dome that surrounded them, the smile Ferra had plastered on his face slipped off. He pulled yesterday’s amulet from a belt pouch, quickly slipping it on around his neck and activating it in a single motion.

The sound and smell of leaves blown on a gust of wind filled the air inside the dome, the walls tinting green. The already scarce shadows retreated further, Mel’s stance tensing as she reacted. “Ferra, what’s going-”

“Shh.” The whisper was quiet and urgent, Ferra noting with a portion of his mind that the gem at the center of the amulet was already pulsing with warnings of attempted intrusion. “I’ve been lying to you all my name is Fezzik Menstappen the illegitimate bastard son of Emperor Grier. When they sent me away they sent a Hand of the Emperor with me, protector and warden both, no one can know my identity he’ll make anyone who figures it out forget or disappear.”

The words came out in a rush, leaving him gasping for breath. Mel was bewildered, though he could see her well trained mind was already swirling with the implications. “Fezzik? What-”

“You can’t tell the others either assume he’s always watching and if he learns you know he’ll erase your mind or erase you. Sorry for lying to you all this time if you want to kick me out I’ll understand.”

The amulet was pulsing faster now, already nearing collapse.

Ferra could see, close as he was, when the certainty began to crystallize in her. He bowed his head, ready for the rejection. “I can’t apologize enough for the danger I’ve brought you and the rest of the Nova Fists, I should just-”

A finger to his lips stopped him mid sentence. She raised his head. “Ferra, you are a Nova Fist. We’re not abandoning you, and we’re not kicking you out. If nothing else Grek would hate to see his training go to waste, the lout.” Mel smiled, speaking quickly but with passion. “We’ll help you through this.”

His chest was growing warm as the flashing in the gem shortened down to heartbeat intervals, and then faster. “Not much time now.”

“That’s fine, we’ll find time to talk later. For now we just need to go back to training and keep up appearances-”

Ferra paled as she spoke. “Oh gods.”

She took a step back. “Yeah?”

He spoke quickly, almost tripping over his words. “I spent so much time trying to find a secure method to speak to you that I failed to consider that the dome itself is hard to explain. I don’t have an excuse ready, we’re going to d-”

As the amulet began cracking and then broke, its light fading out, Ferra’s burgeoning hyperventilation was interrupted by Mel stepping forward confidently and calmly, drawing him in for a kiss. It was a moment stretching into forever, panic and self loathing and surprise mixed together into a brew that tipped Ferra’s head over and let his brain spill out as a hopeless mess.

When she finally stepped back leaving him gasping for breath, Mel’s eyes flicked down at the broken amulet for a single moment. In the heartbeat after her eyes were meeting his again, a confident smirk on her face. Ferra ignored the flash of green in the shadows at her feet, mentally clinging to the façade she’d given him.

“We’ll continue all that tonight, yeah? When we’ve got a little more privacy.” Mel winked, as if she hadn’t just been burdened with rather significant revelations.

“Y-yeah.” He matched his will to hers, pulling down the dome around them.

“For now we should finish our fight though, eh?” Mel glanced around at the sparsely furnished earthen floored training room. “This isn’t really the time or place for those kind of… exertions.”

Some part of Ferra’s staggered mind latched onto exasperation at Mel’s talent with the use of innuendos- as a coded message, really?- but the rest was just fervently grateful for the out she’d provided.

He took a moment to compose himself, a number of deep breaths before meeting her with a smile. “Indeed, I think I’d like that.”

There was no pretending in the spar afterwards, just technique, and Ferra gratefully let his mind be lost in the act of attack and defending. Eventually his wildly beating heart calmed, and he thought, and planned.

It was later that evening, Ferra having retired to his room, when Nine manifested. One moment he was gone and the next he was there over Ferra’s right shoulder, casting a shadow onto the desk he was writing at.

“Why do you have that?” The voice was as flat as usual, though with possibly the slightest hint of disapproval attached. It was all the young man could do to avoid jumping.

“Hmm?” Ferra twisted in his seat to meet the eyes of his warden. Or would have, if they’d not been glued to the cracked amulet lying on the desk before him.

“That amulet.”

Ferra avoided a nervous gulp. “Ah.” He forced a smile.

Nine waited for an answer, silently and implacably. No tapping of the foot, no drumming of the fingers, no blinking. Ferra wasn’t even sure if the monster in the guise of a man breathed.

The cleric frowned. “Is it really too much to ask for the occasional bout of privacy?”

There was a long silence as Nine shifted his gaze from the amulet to meet Ferra’s eyes. “Yes.”

Nine’s mouth stayed open, so Ferra waited for what was presumably the rest of the sentence.

“I can’t protect you if you are beyond my sight. The heated one might have tried to kill you.”

“You know how father told you not to save me if I die by my own stupidity, yeah?”

Another long pause. “…yes.”

Ferra gave the most confident nod he could. “I trust the Nova Fists with my life. Can you just like add them to the list of ‘my own stupidity’ and focus on other threats?”

“No.” The response was flat and immediate.

Ferra hid a wince. “Ok so what if-”

“Why do you have that amulet?” As he spoke, Nine’s rigid gaze returned to the object of discussion.

Ferra narrowly avoided another gulp. “I wanted some alone time with a pretty woman, Nine!” He burst out, acting but also genuinely annoyed by the other man. “What business of yours is my private life? Can’t you just stand guard from outside like when I use the bathroom?”

“No.”

It took a moment for his brain to come to the only conclusion, aghast. “Gods, do you watch me use the bathroom, too?”

“Of course. Your safety is paramount.” If Nine hadn’t been so placid he might have been nonplussed, but as it was the man’s voice never wavered from tonelessness.

“That-” Ferra paused, reoriented himself. “Ok, new rule. No watching me use the restroom, and no watching me when I’m with a woman. Knowing you’d be watching me while I’m in a brothel or something just sends shivers down my spine.”

Nine canted his head to the side. “But you are often with women. How can I guard you if I cannot watch you when out in public?”

“I-” He shook his head. “No, it's a figure of speech. Ah, intimate carnal relations with a woman, does that ring a bell?”

“Ah.” Nine was silent for a time, presumably thinking. “But then how will I protect you?”

Not daring to hope this would actually work, Ferra proposed the idea he’d thought of earlier. “What if I buy a linked pair of rings or some other item, something that I could activate at will that would signal to you that I’m in danger?”

The ensuing silence was the longest by far, one that was driving Ferra mad as he tried to avoid giving any tells of his nerves. Eventually Nine shifted, giving the slightest of nods. “That may be acceptable. I will have final word on whatever you might end up picking.”

As if the conversation was finished, Nine vanished from vision when Ferra blinked. He couldn’t let himself relax, of course. The other man was always watching. Ferra took several minutes to ground himself after the confrontation, before checking the time. It wasn’t quite yet time to gather for dinner, so he scurried down to the market to look for something that fulfilled Nine’s criteria.

He ran from booth to shop to stall, fruitlessly looking for a pair of items that might work. Eventually, well aware of the time trickling out of the hourglass, he took to asking random passersby and store owners for advice.

The older woman at the outdoor booth, cheeks sagging, gave a broad, toothy smile. “A newlywed looking for romantic gifts, eh? Should have led with that, there’s no shame in it. I’ve got exactly what you want!”

Ignoring his spluttered protestations, she reached into a pocket sewn into her robe. The hand went deeper and deeper, until her body was rather contorted and she was up to her shoulder inside the pocket.

Ferra raised an eyebrow at the sight. Spatial magic?

With an impressive amount of struggling, searching, coughing, and flying spittle that Ferra blinked away from his eyes, she eventually withdrew the arm. In her hand was a pair of offensively pink rings.

“Tada!”

It wasn’t just that they were vividly pink; as he leaned closer, Ferra saw that the rings were covered in sparkly sequins and glitter, with lipstick markings and little hearts. He eyed the old witch dubiously. “In the most polite way possible, is this marketed towards eight year old girls?”

She let out a cackle that turned into a hacking cough. “I bet you wouldn’t believe me if I said I made it just for you!” The old lady let out a wheeze and slapped one knee.

The other eyebrow joined the first. “…no, I suppose I wouldn’t.” Before he could continue speaking, a younger woman walked up behind them. She was the spitting image of the elderly one, if perhaps sixty years lesser in age.

“Grams, are you harassing the customers again?”

The old crone’s eyes widened with innocence as she cackled again, spittle flying everywhere. “Me? Trick someone? Never! You wound me, daughter of mine!” She turned away for a moment, and when she was again facing the others, Ferra saw the rings had changed. They were now unadorned and a much darker, smoky color, like some burnt metal that absorbed the light around them.

“Is this better, m’dear?” She batted what remained of her eyelashes at the cleric.

Undeterred by the woman’s obvious attempts to unbalance him, Ferra just sighed. “Price, and what are the effects?”

That toothy grin returned to her face, and she wagged a finger. “No more than you can afford, and exactly what you need.” She froze mid sentence, stiffening. For a heartbeat her eyes rolled back in their sockets, meeting the flash of green that Ferra saw underneath the eaves of a nearby house before rolling back to meet the cleric’s.

“None of that young man, what I do is my own business!” The tone was light, though with an undercurrent of tension. She snapped her fingers and the stall began to fold into itself, packing down into a small cube she pocketed. She waved to the rings that Ferra found were now in his hand. “Good luck and fair sailing! Now shoo, and take your hound with you!”

In a blink, she and her granddaughter were gone, before Ferra had a chance to pay. He blinked, dumbfounded, beginning to hurry back to the inn. “I do believe,” he muttered under his breath knowing Nine would hear, “I just encountered someone quite dangerous.”

When his door closed behind him and Nine manifested, the man was thoroughly in agreement. “Absolutely. As soon as I tried monitoring her she not only noticed the probe immediately but also deflected it, shrouded her presence, and froze my mind long enough to run.”

“She did what to your mind?”

“I’m not entirely sure myself, to be honest. Whatever learning she has with witching and fae magic far exceeds my experience in the matter. All I know is that one moment I attempted to probe, and in the blink of an eye life had moved on, and she was gone.”

Ferra looked at the rings in his hand like they might spontaneously combust. “So… not someone we want to anger.”

“Quite.”

“Here’s hoping this was a gift given in good faith, then.”

“It does seem unwise to refuse what she has given.”

“I don’t suppose you could examine them first, before I put one on?”

“It will take some time for me to be certain it’s safe. Go, be with your team. I will watch dinner remotely, for now.”

Ferra tried to put the matter from his mind, heading downstairs to enjoy a meal with his friends. The only thought he put to the issue was making contact early on with Mel, separate from the others. “After dinner, yeah? I might have something good.”

He saw worry flash across her eyes for a second before she sent a smile and a wink his way. “Absolutely!”

Dinner passed quickly, and soon enough Ferra was stumbling back up the stairs with the rest of the team. He wasn’t nearly as drunk as it may have appeared, being cautious during dinner to avoid overdoing it. He waved Mel off at the door, promising to see her in a bit, before slipping into his room. Nine was ready and waiting, a sight that had Ferra sobering up quickly. He noted the emperor’s hound was already wearing one of the rings. “So?”

“A relatively simple yet superbly made little enchantment, as far as I can tell. The ring resizes to fit what wears it, and if you turn a ring inside out the paired member will shine and put off heat. The same occurs with distress from either wearer. I’m no witch, but I’m rather certain the effect works even several days apart by airship. It’s exactly what you wanted.”

Ferra blinked, taken aback by the longest string of uninterrupted words that he’d ever heard Nine say. “That’s… good?”

“Good, and worrying. If that woman shows up again I will need to call in a team.”

The cleric filed that little tidbit away for later, to be addressed when he could do something about it. “Right. So… I’m gonna put mine on now? And freshen up a bit, then head to Mel’s room to finish what was started earlier today. And you’re gonna guard outside rather than watch or listen in on what happens inside, yeah? Both the bathroom and my time with Mel, that is.”

A long moment of silence, before Nine gave a sharp nod. “Affirmative. This is an acceptable modification to my bounds of operation.”

“Right, good th-” Before Ferra could get the words out, Nine had vanished. He was getting rather sick of people doing that to him, in all honesty. Shaking the annoyance off, he suppressed the mounting excitement that this whole scheme might actually work. He got ready quickly, grabbing a pair of amulets to go alongside the ring before heading to Mel’s room. It was with hesitance written on his face and in his step that Ferra gave a faint knock on the door.

The voice was faint, muffled by the wood separating them. “Come in!”

Heart hammering in his chest, Ferra opened the door. He flicked a hand in irritation at the flash of green in the corner of the room, giving an internal sigh of relief when they moved out into the hallway. Ring on his finger and amulets clutched tightly, the young man stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

Her room looked much like his, though of course considerably more lived in. Tyra ran her inn more like a boarding house, curating long term customers, so it made sense. Wooden furniture and walls, though Mel possessed considerably more candles. A stick of incense was burning on the dresser, curls of smoke wafting towards the ceiling. A pair of plants in the windowsill, with some kind of pipe device mounted above them. Water, for when she was traveling? In the corner of the room was a bookshelf with a comfortable plush armchair, and an end table holding a magelight and a book with a bookmark partway through it. The highlight and richest part of the room was the bed that Mel currently lay on. Luxurious red and orange blankets, with a number of massive pillows. Unlike Ferra’s bed, hers glimmered to his arcane senses; she must have bought an enchanted one and brought it up here.

Then Mel herself, wearing a shimmering silken chemise of pale yellow and laying down in a pose on her bed. She saw him looking, and gestured with a hand and a smile. “Like what you see?”

Ferra looked down at the ring, and gave a little nod to himself. He activated the first amulet, and a feeling like cotton stuffed in one’s ear descended on them both. He activated the second amulet which sent out a pulse of fae energy, smelling faintly of tree sap. The gem nestled within stayed dormant. No sources of fae or shadow were within the room, Nine included. Good.

He looked up and greeted her smile with his own, moving towards the armchair. “He’s outside, and can’t hear. We’re alone right now.”

Mel’s lazy smile stiffened and her eyes sharpened as she quickly sat up, leaning against the wall by her bed. “Good, we’ve got some things to talk about.”

“So.”

“...so.”

A pause, before Mel spoke. “Firstly, how much danger are we in? The impression I got from our previous conversation was ‘quite a lot,’ to judge by the way you were about to die of panic. I know the general rumors about the Emperor’s Hands, but no specifics.”

“Without giving details, because that’s a whole different kettle of I’m-not-allowed-to-talk-about, optimistically? A Hand is about on par with a dragon. I think even if the whole team was prepared, it’d work out to something like a loss in six seconds. Certainly they can solo an imperial strike team.

“But yeah, Nine will either wipe the memories of or kill anyone who learns, and if it’s revealed that I myself told them, well. I don’t know if I’d get killed or just taken elsewhere.”

He could see the revelation shook her somewhat, though she tried to hide it. “That’s… considerably worse than I feared. I’d heard rumors, of course, but…” her voice trailed off.

“And even if we were to win, it would just call the rest of the empire down on us. Best to avoid agitating that nest of hornets entirely, I think.”

“Mmm. Ok so let me run you through what I got already, from what you said earlier and my own thoughts. You’re Fezzik, a secret bastard son of Emperor Grier, who they sent away to live in obscurity rather than kill. A Hand was sent with you, both for your safety and to maintain the secret, the underworld is after you for various reasons, several noble houses are after your for various reasons, and you’re feeling terrible about all this because telling us or not, you put us in danger, and you’re lying to us.”

Ferra let out a big sigh. “That sounds about right, yeah.” He got up from the chair, moving to kowtow on the floor. “I’m so sorry, if there’s anything I can do to make it up-”

Mel leapt from the bed, pulling him to his knees and encompassing the cleric in a crushing hug. “None of that, now. You’re one of us, after all. Just got a bit of… particularly violent baggage in your past. We don’t kneel to each other.”

The young man let out a shuddering gasp, almost a sob. “...right. Thanks again, you guys are just- so great, I can’t- I wouldn’t- I wouldn’t want to be adventuring with anyone else.” He returned the hug with a single tentative arm, leaning on her shoulder. They stayed like that for a long moment, Ferra struggling to hold back tears as the growing fears of the last month came crashing down on him. Eventually, guiltily, he pulled back from the hug.

“Sorry to ruin the moment,” he spoke in a tone that still sounded quite sad and timid. “It’s just,” he waved down at his knees. “My knees are getting quite sore.”

She laughed that wonderful, tinkling laugh of hers, chimes of pure joy filling the room. She leapt up onto the bed, patting the spot next to her. “Well, there’s plenty of space up here!”

With a smile he joined her, and they continued to talk for over an hour. Plans for circumvention, plans for evasion, plans to let the rest of the team know with minimal risk. By the end of it all, Ferra had a genuine smile on his face, fears greatly assuaged; voiced and weakened, made toothless for now at the very least. “I suppose this has already been longer than we really should have risked. He might begin to suspect.”

Mel gave a hesitant grin, gesturing at the bed below them and biting her lip. “Why don’t we give him a show then, hmm? Give your alibi a bit of muscle, if you’re feeling up to it.”

He agreed after a pause, with a frantic nod that brought the grin to her whole face and saw the sorcerer light up with enthusiasm. There wasn’t much talking between them after that, though neither of the pair minded.