The next morning arrived agonizingly slowly. Ferra tossed and turned all night, finally managing to catch a few winks near the end. He woke with the morning sun; after some time lazing in bed he began working on dragging his nervous, pain-ridden corpse over to Avalanche’s room for breakfast.

Much of yesterday for Mirana had been spent repairing Grek and Mel’s mental defenses. Then, her evening and half of the night had been consumed by working with Avalanche to make his room as shielded as possible, at least without upsetting the captain.

On the walk over, Ferra had another frustratingly futile discussion with his new patron. “What do you actually want with me, anyways?”

There was a faint sense of surprise across the link, though he was near certain the emotion was faked. Was I not clear enough previously? No need to worry about hidden motivations here, my dear Hand. I’ve simply staked a claim on your soul; it shall keep any other pesky gods away, let me keep a closer eye on the hilarious circumstances of your life, and sundry in a similar vein.

Additionally, like with that deliciously apocryphal friend of yours from yesterday, I may intervene if the story is set to end too early.

By the way, all you need to do is think loudly enough. No speaking is required.

Hmm. The chances he was telling the truth?

If Vexell’s responding chuckle was anything to go by, not very high.

I assure you, thought is plenty sufficient to communicate.

Ferra pursed his lips, weaving around a crewmember as he neared Avalanche’s door. Very funny.

Of course it was, I’m the god of humor!

Ignoring the divine parasite attached to his soul, Ferra knocked on the door hesitantly.

Mirana opened it after several seconds, a rather thunderous frown firmly attached to her face. Clearly, she hadn’t gotten enough sleep last night.

Or perhaps she was still upset about the events of yesterday. Both things coule also be true, he supposed.

“Ferra.”

Somewhat sheepishly, Ferra gave a small wave. “Morning. Everyone else here already?”

There was a pause before she responded. Definitely tired, or at least rather mentally out of it after spending fourteen hours on some impressively complex casting.

“Yes. There’s a tray of food for you on the desk.”

She stepped aside, waving him in. Ferra followed, giving a smile and a nod to the others as he saw them. He received nods in return, though none of the smiles and good cheer that Ferra had become accustomed to from his hopefully still friends. The cramped nature of the small cabin presumably didn’t help matters.

Ferra had received a large room due to his status as an invalid, but Avalanche didn’t sleep and so their room was quite tiny. Grek was rather uncomfortably hunched over in the corner, or so it seemed. Avalanche was standing immobile at the base of the bed; he hadn’t moved since they’d put him there around noon the day prior.

“Hey guys, hope I’m not too late or anything?”

Grek shrugged. “We weren’t waiting for you specifically. The others have been a comfort, after yesterday. I woke early this morning and would not have been able to sleep regardless, so I kept Avalanche’s mind busy while they are immobile.”

Ferra winced as he sat near Mel at the second chair for the desk, biting into the breakfast sandwich he found waiting. “About that. I’d like for all the repair costs to come out of my account. While I’m not entirely sure that the incident was preventable it was, nonetheless, my fault.”

Mirana’s frown deepened. Mel looked somewhat pained, and Grek just shrugged before looking at Avalanche.

The stoneborn was, for once, very easy to read. They weren’t mad, no. Just afraid, and bone tired. “Volunteering your funds is admirable. I’ll have a better idea of the cost once I regain access to my workshop, but much of my equipment does look salvageable. That brings me, however, to the events of yesterday.”

Mirana shut the door as the stoneborn paused. The telltale mental pressure of various substantially powerful fae wards settled over Ferra’s mind. “Youngest among us, stonefriend. What misfortune did you bring upon us this last day?”

The words had an odd intonation to them, in the way Avalanche pronounced it. Some kind of stoneborn social ritual, or something else? Ferra wasn’t sure. He pushed the thought from his mind regardless; time to focus, and tell the truth.

Or at least part of it.

“Right. Ah…” Ferra sipped at his drink nervously.

“I’m sure you’ve all probably figured out or assumed by now that I am in some way at least partially responsible for the events of yesterday, and involved with whatever occurred when the breach closed on the island. While this is true-”

He sipped at his orange juice again, double-checking that his spell was working. It had taken some figuring, with how divine now flowed constantly through his body, but after plenty of practice last night he’d finally gotten it down. Lying might be necessary here, or at least a delicate massaging of the truth. Arcane and fae intent detection were fairly simple to block with holy magic; the spell forms were well known. The only difficulty had been getting them to behave, what with all the excess divine currently swirling inside him.

Ferra dragged himself back from the tangent. “I can’t really tell you anything. I can’t even tell you why I can’t tell you, because you’re all intelligent people and you’d connect the dots anyways. Truths I’m not allowed to say.”

“Hmm.” Grek crossed his arms. “That doesn’t speak well for your chances of staying on the team.”

Mirana nodded, her eyes tightening; anger, consternation? He couldn’t say.

Ferra physically recoiled, almost dropping his glass. “Th- that’s an option?”

Grek’s frown grew. “Come now, Ferra. Your naivete is rather endearing generally speaking, but surely you cannot think that causing violations of the mind, indirectly or otherwise, would have no consequences? Especially if you refuse to explain the why.”

“I- uh-”

Mel waved a hand between the two, grabbing their attention. “Come now Grek, surely you don’t mean that? He wasn’t here when it happened the first time, and no harm was done now.”

Mirana’s arms went crossed as well. “You weren’t with us then, either. You can’t even imagine it, can you? To commit a crime and want to do it? To-” she broke off, stopping the tirade before it truly began.

She took a number of calming breaths. “Sorry, I can’t be impartial right now.” Mirana waved at Ferra. “Please, continue. At least tell us what you can.”

He nodded in gratitude. “I will do my best to satisfy you all without giving away knowledge that is not mine to share. Let me first start by saying that I am not an agent of an outer entity, hell, a foreign nation, or any other kind of malicious organization or individual. I’m just… me.”

Grek raised an eyebrow. “All of which could be a lie, of course. The new nature of your body- and isn’t that an interesting little mystery- inherently precludes using truth divination on you.”

Ferra winced. “I- yeah, that’s true. I can’t even pull the energy back into the well anymore. It doesn’t behave correctly, and my body seems to require it to live, now. That’s one of the things I’m not allowed to explain, by the way.”

Avalanche rumbled. “So you know what has happened to your body? You’re not a follower of Vitae, are you?”

He was somewhat shocked by the question. The Goddess of Life was fairly well known for two things. Firstly for having a mutated form of the divine light all gods bestowed upon their followers. Secondly, for having followers- cultists, really- that were supremely cruel. “No, of course not! In any case I don’t know the exact what or why, but I am aware of the general cuase. I’d say it’s a benefit, but so far it has directly led to all of us, or at least me, almost dying.”

Mel piped up. “The link?”

His blood froze at the seemingly innocuous statement. Ferra signed quickly in adventurer hand code, a pidgin language that everyone here, including Nine unfortunately, was familiar with. Stop. DANGER.

The room collectively blinked, jumping to alertness. Green eyes flashed in a corner, narrowed in thought. Mirana stiffened, turning slowly towards the corner. The eyes vanished.

At the same time, Mel’s eyes widened. Surely she should know not to imply she remembered anything from the fight? Presumably she’d assumed that Mirana’s dedicated effort towards warding a room would have kept Nine out. It wasn’t the worst logic given her knowledge of the situation, but with how sensitive of a trigger Nine was on, Ferra would never have voluntarily entered such a room in the first place anyways.

As casually as he could, Ferra’s next sip of juice caused the shadow detection amulet to slip out of his shirt, the gem framed within pulsing a panicked drumbeat.

Mel’s eyes flicked to it for a moment, before looking away and relaxing somewhat, or at least forcing herself to. Message received.

Grek followed suit in relaxing a moment later, though Mirana continued to frown and tap a finger to her cheek, deep in thought.

Ferra forced a nervous laugh; really, it sounded more like the coughing of a doomed man. “Right, moving on.” It took a moment for him to collect his thoughts.

“There is an entity that has been… guarding me since before we met.” He pointedly raised his voice, resisting the urge to glare at a corner. “I rather hope this doesn’t break the bounds of disclosure, seeing as you’ve all been attacked and deserve to know at least vaguely what happened.”

Ferra paused, tensed for a knife, metaphorical or otherwise, to plunge into his back. When no such event manifested, he took it as tacit permission from Nine to continue.

“Right. Seeing as we’re all still alive after that sentence, allow me to continue. This entity is rather zealous at its task, and also trusts no one. When the events of a week ago occurred, the tracking bond it had attached to me snapped. The result? Well, let’s just say it was quite unhappy.”

He gestured at the ring. “I do have this second method for it to determine my state of health, but it would seem that this ring burned out down there in the chasm. So all it saw was nothing if the ring was out of range, or imminent mortal peril and then the ring going dark.” Ferra paused for another sip.

“Mind if I see it?” Mirana held a hand out.

Ferra shook his head. “Probably best if you don’t. You’re a fae practitioner, it’s a fae item that could potentially be used to track the entity. I’d rather not push things any further than I already am.”

She dropped to a seat on the edge of the bed, still visibly quite unhappy. “Hmm.”

He continued, undeterred. “When we drew close enough to the Haven, it manifested through a link to one of you. Upon seeing me alive but without the bond, it determined I must be an impostor of some kind. We were immediately attacked with no concern for being revealed, or tact of any kind. You were all quickly disabled, and I was moments from being dissected before I managed to de-escalate.”

Ferra sighed. “Memory wiping of the event was an unconditional term for us all making it out intact, unfortunately.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

He gave Avalanche a regretful glance. “None of this had to happen if the entity was a bit less rash and a little more trusting. Avalanche, I’m sorry about your equipment.”

The stoneborn inclined their head. “The apology is accepted. However, it is quite evident that you have more problems than were ever let on. Troubles that, it seems, put us all in grave danger. Troubles that are, by the account of your own story, still quite present, unstable, and significantly more dangerous than we are.”

“I-” he let out another unhappy sigh. “Yeah…”

Grek shifted uneasily. “I do like you, Ferra. You’ve been a good friend or so I thought, but it sounds like you’ve been lying to us from the beginning. It sounds like you are somewhat familiar with this entity, that it’s not a new situation. You already knew it was capable of mind altering, yeah?”

“Yeah, I did. It didn’t seem a real risk, however. The chasm was unforeseen” Within the safety of his mind, Ferra unhappily finished the sentence with ‘I’ve been trying to find a way to safely tell you,’ though he said nothing out loud. With Nine present in the room, that might be enough to set him off.

Ferra’s emotions tended to spin between fear, anger, and exhaustion by this point in his life. Trying to guess what was and was not safe to say, what might finally cause Nine to connect the dots. It was absolutely draining.

“That’s something you should have told us beforehand, at least indirectly. If such a risk did exist, and it evidently does, well, we aren’t really the team for you.”

The fierce motivation Grek was usually possessed with was gone from his eyes now, Ferra saw. The orc paused, gathering himself before speaking again. Pain filled them instead. Pain, fear, and doubt of the self. “It took years for me to be confident that I was still myself, after last time. Now it’s happened again, and all I have to go off of is you and that elf from the strike team saying I’m still me.”

He took a shuddering gasp. “If we’d known, we could have made stronger defenses in advance, or at least turned you away.”

Ferra nervously sipped his juice again; he didn’t like where this conversation seemed to be going, though the conclusion he was seeing wasn’t an unfair one. “The first option would simply have seen you all killed, or disabled the same way Avalanche was. His defenses were too strong for a more finessed approach, so the entity just shattered his entire array physically.”

Mirana nodded firmly. “And so you should never have joined our team.”

Vexell’s Hand reeled back as if struck. “I-”

“You still haven’t told us even a quarter of the truth, yeah?” She challenged. “Platitudes and evasiveness, with no solution in sight. Is your name even Ferra?”

“No, it’s not. But that’s-” Fezzik cut himself off before saying ‘unrelated.’ It was such a lie that the truth surely would have seeped past the divine swirling inside him. Not like Nine’s whole reason for following him was the source of his real name, or anything!

Mirana gave him a sad look, as if the cut-off word explained everything. Grek overrode whatever she was about to say. “Do you have anything else you are able to share, or is that it?”

Fezzik ran through his memories, looking for anything else he could say. Finding nothing, he simply gave a shake of the head

“In that case, I would appreciate it if you would wait outside for a few moments while we discussed things as a team.”

Words could not describe how much that last sentence struck like a knife through Fezzik’s heart. Discuss things as a team. Without him. Numbly he stood, leaving the room. The feeling of cotton in his ears faded as Fezzik closed the door behind him, now beyond the bounds of Mirana’s wards.

The dejected man leaned against the wall, sliding down until he was sitting on the floor with his knees up to his chin. It was all Fezzik could do to hold back the tears. The team had become his home, these last two months. They’d taken in a relatively aimless vagrant, trained him, accepted him, befriended him.

They hadn’t pressed when Fezzik had avoided talking about his past from before he was a traveler. After the events of a week ago they’d all taken turns visiting him while he was injured, preventing him from dwelling on the pain.

And now they might be kicking him out. Another home, ruined because of who he was. Who his father was. The tears welled up, threatening to become a flood.

But he couldn’t cry, not yet. If Fezzik started he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop, and the man still needed to face the music shortly; the team’s decision had yet to be made.

The next few minutes passed so terribly slowly, the sands of time catching in the neck of the hourglass. Fezzik awaited with dread the answer that he knew within his heart would come through that door.

As if summoned by his thoughts, the door opened. Fezzik shot to his feet, and Mel was kind enough to not comment on the dejected feelings he wore upon his face. She gestured him inside, saying nothing.

Numbly he reclaimed his prior seat, noting the resigned expressions of the others. The silence didn’t last long after Mel closed the door behind him, and the wards sealed the team inside once more.

Grek sighed. “I really hate to do this, but in light of recent events, the risky, uncontrollable nature of the entity following you, and the still unknown nature of what happened to you in the chasm, we’re going to have to part ways.”

The tears welled up, unbidden, undesired, barely held in check. Grek continued.

“There are no hard feelings, but how can we trust a teammate to have our back when their very presence means we might get instantly killed for learning the wrong thing?”

Mel looked like she wanted to speak but held her tongue as Grek finished delivering the verdict. “We’ll go our separate ways. Your remaining pay plus severance will be delivered to your account with the guild within a day of arrival. Any questions you may have will have answers found within the contract the guild drew up for you on the first day.”

“I see.” Fezzik looked to the others. Avalanche was unreadable as always, Mirana’s face was firm but sad. Mel just gave him a helpless shrug. Aware of the strongly implied dismissal, he just had one last thing to address.

“If I’m leaving, I’d like to leave some of my equipment with Mel.”

Grek shrugged. “Of course.”

Both amulets he’d used to first speak to her about Nine came off, and were placed on the table. A couple other items as well, simply to muddy the trail in case Nine was paying attention. He gave her a meaningful nod, with a glance towards the shadow detection amulet. She said nothing, just giving him a tiny nod back.

It was better than nothing.

“For what it’s worth, I am sorry with how things went, and never meant harm upon any of you.” Not waiting for a response, with nary a goodbye or glance backward, Fezzik left. The pain had gotten worse, after so much time spent in a fae infused area. Time to return to his room, and rest.

He still wasn’t sure of the full implications sprouting from the changes to his body. Or if he was still himself; that one wasn’t worth worrying about, it was well known that such concerns led only to madness.

The dam holding the tears back broke, then, as the door to his room closed behind him. Fezzik, not Ferra, cried for awhile. Nine interrupted him partway through to give a report on assimilating the local crime rings on Joseph’s Haven.

He couldn’t find it in him to care, but luckily Nine seemed to not notice he wasn’t paying attention. Soon enough the crying stopped, after Nine had left. Fezzik distracted himself with practicing magic; the alterations to his body had demolished his fine control.

Eventually hunger grabbed a hold of him, Fezzik’s stomach dragging him out to the dining hall for a late lunch. He was relieved to find none of the others were there.

Shortly after he had returned to his room, there was a knock on his door. “Who is it?”

“It’s Mel.”

There was a long pause as he collected himself somewhat, sitting up straighter in the seat and moving the bottle of liquor to a less obvious location. “Come in.”

Mel glanced around as she stepped inside, before focusing on him. “Wow, you look terrible.”

He sniffed. “I feel terrible.”

She winced. “I did vote against evicting you, but without… knowing the details-” Mel eyed the corner apprehensively for a moment. “I couldn’t be very convincing.”

She plopped down on the end of his bed. “I’ll try talking with them again, later. We’ll see what happens.”

“If-” he hesitated. “If I am gone for good. Are we still a thing?”

Her face fell into a frown. “I guess that’s another promise I can’t really keep, is it? I don’t see anything serious working if I’m off with the team traveling for weeks on end.”

She shifted uncomfortably. “But hey, you can call on me if we’re in town and you need help, yeah? Even if the others don’t want to get involved.”

That was less than the answer Fezzik had been hoping for, but about what he’d expected. She wouldn’t leave the team like this and he wouldn’t want her to. His problem to deal with, his problem to fix.

“Yeah, makes sense.”

An uneasy silence filled the air. Mel fiddled with a strand of hair.

“We’ll be arriving around noon tomorrow.”

“Yeah.”

She tried to poke and prod him about various subjects, but after being subjected to non answers and a complete lack of enthusiasm, Mel quickly took her leave.

Fezzik spent the rest of the day practicing, regaining control over mind and body, as well as running over what he could have said or done differently. There didn’t seem to be much, beyond just moving faster in general towards telling them.

The night passed fitfully, and the next morning passed as slowly as the first. He largely stayed in his room, keeping out of the way of others, especially the Fists.

The ship docked around midmorning, and Fezzik was not unhappy to see it go. It had been a nice pleasure yacht, a ride paid for by the island as thanks for the assistance. Despite the amenities however, the ship had felt suffocating by the end.

After arrival Fezzik hurried, beating the Fists to Tyra’s boarding house. He gave her a quick hello, before packing up his meager belongings. It would be best to live elsewhere for now, or so he felt.

They swung by before heading over to pick up a new contract, and Mel waited for him to come down the stairs. She handed him a- small by adventurer standards- pile of marks, enough for several months of housing.

“I know you don’t really keep money on you, and I know Avalanche’s repairs will suck up most of what you have stored. Don’t want you going hungry while you figure out what to do next.”

She hesitated. “Don’t give up just yet. They don’t plan to look for a new member in the immediate future, so there’s still a chance.”

He gave her a tentative hug which she returned, before bidding farewell for now. Within a couple hours he was set up at a new house, cheaper but not nearly as nice as Tyra’s.

With no plans for the immediate future, he revisited the house of Pripta. There was no way to tell if the Speaker was the same; an irrelevant curiosity, really, as the question ceased to matter for the high priests such as these. They were all the same, body and soul, at least while the mask was worn.

Her advice wasn’t terribly helpful, largely due to how vague he had to be in asking. It essentially just reinforced what he had already known. He hadn’t moved fast enough to tell his friends, and events had conspired to take the choice from him. All that remained were the consequences, and repairing burned bridges if possible.

He bumped past a red haired man on the way to the pub that Claus frequented, letting out a muttered apology. There were still a large number of hours left in the day, and Fezzik hoped Claus might have some insights into his new condition.

The man, it would seem, did. Fezzik had asked him to take a look at an arm, and Claus’ easy expression had immediately gone from bemused to intensely focused. Fezzik heard Vexell let out a little giggle in the recesses of his mind.

They were still in the bar, and so Claus leaned in to whisper. “You’re a god’s Hand, now?”

Fezzik froze. “How-?” He braced for divine intervention; Claus had obviously figured it out. Surprisingly, however, nothing happened. After a second or so he relaxed slightly. Was he spared from retribution due to not knowing a body scan would be immediately obvious? Was it because Claus knew nothing of the events of the chasm, and so this knowledge didn’t count as part of ‘what happened here’ or something? Maybe it was just because there was no punishment. The god hadn’t specified one, just made it impossible to tell people.

Whatever the case, Vexell was bullshit, and Fezzik was thoroughly sick of him already.

“Yeah, I suppose I am.”

The man pulled back, troubled. “I need a more secure location for us to talk properly.”

He scribbled on a small piece of paper. “Keep this somewhere safe. Meet me there at noon tomorrow.”

-----

Naturally, the shoes didn’t stop falling. When he came back to his room there was a man standing there, and it wasn’t Nine. Fezzik froze in the doorway, noting his ice blue eyes. A Steward? What in the name of Philea were one of them doing all the way up here?

The man reached forward, pulling him inside blindingly quick and yanking the door shut behind him.

“Fezzik Menstappen. My Master has been hoping to speak with you.”

Fezzik blinked dumbly for a moment. Then his blood froze. This was where he died. Some random Steward showing up, and then both people in the room immediately being executed by Nine.

He braced for a knife, but nothing came. The Steward spoke again, a voice that was considerably more human and alive than Nine’s. “Have no fear. My Master has long since acquired a number of countermeasures against the Elbows of the Emperor. While I speak to you, we are both beyond his notice.”

Fezzik could hardly suppress a snort of amusement, as dire as the situation was. Elbows, really? It wasn’t a terrible way to make distinction between holy paladins and the emperor’s servants, to be fair. There weren’t enough Hands of the Emperor for the Church to ever make a big stink about their chosen name.

He shook the thoughts away, collecting himself. “What, ah, what might this message be?”

The Steward simply handed him a scroll. “You may read it at your leisure, though I suggest not opening the scroll until you are ready. It will dissolve shortly afterwards. Do not fear, it is under the same suppression effect as I am. Nine will not notice. The scroll dissolving will signal me. Have a reply ready by the time I return. Don’t take too long, however, as your reply is eagerly anticipated.”

Fezzik blinked, and the man was gone.

Apparently, people disappearing without properly saying goodbye was going to continue to be a theme in his life, possibly even more prevalent than ever.

Wonderful.

He spent the rest of his day wandering the island, seeing what else there was to see and practicing magic. Said practice was much more relaxing, when one didn’t have to worry about a slip in control causing your insides to crystallize.

Fezzik sat on the letter for the time being. Claus might have insight that could be useful, though asking without giving even more info away would be difficult.

He lay down to sleep that night, if not at peace than at least no longer moping. It seemed he didn’t need to worry about finding something to do, after all. The nobles had found him. Life was about to get a little more… exciting.