When Fezzik woke the next day, he was initially confused. The room was wrong. The walls were bare, empty, and the wrong kind of wood. Mel wasn’t by his side.

Then he remembered the events of yesterday, and slumped back in his bed. The young man had time, there was no real need to go anywhere before noon. He moped around, eventually dragging his body downstairs for a late breakfast.

The service was prompt, the common area well lit. The fare wasn’t as good here as it was at the Weary Vagrant, however. Another cost to his mistakes. Fezzik ate regardless; his body was still healing, and as such the man was ravenous.

The time before his meeting with Claus was a time to prepare, as much as Fezzik was able without having access to any real funding. Mostly he spent his morning in the library, reading treatises on combat between holy casters.

The results were somewhat interesting, at least. Apparently in most cases, such fights boiled down to the combatants whaling on each other until one grew tired and their divine shield broke. Unfortunately the research was less than helpful. Claus was clearly not a normal divine caster; the man had any number of tricks that most clerics never discovered, and Fezzik only knew a small portion of what Claus had under his belt.

The potential matchup wasn’t looking terribly inviting, though Fezzik was fairly sure he had the grizzled man beat in raw power if nothing else.

Seeing that noon grew near, he left the library and browsed the various shops and open air markets for anything useful. Following a small sign, deep in a back alley, he stumbled upon a strung up awning. A small cloaked figure, in black robes. Small crates and barrels surrounded the creature.

After negotiation, he walked away with one small thing that might end up worthwhile. A conventional explosive, a small fist sized bomb aping the gnomes’ style.

The device was impact activated, and could potentially gain him a single crucial second in a fight. It was also relatively small and easy to disguise; something that Claus might miss, if Fezzik was searched at the door. Assuming wherever they were meeting had a door.

On second thought, maybe meeting clawed handed people in mysterious places was a bad idea, but oh well. He’d already accepted the slip of paper, and, well, he had Nine watching for any foul play. What’s the worst that could happen?

Vexell chuckled at that thought, though Fezzik did not hear it.

Shaking away the thoughts, Fezzik once more referenced the slip of paper. An unnecessary act in truth, he’d checked it so many times that the location was long since memorized. It was located in… not the nicest part of town, admittedly. Not quite a slum, however;

Joseph’s Haven was still a very new settlement, having exploded from a small farming settlement to a logistical hub for the entire area after various resources were discovered nearby. Only really twenty years old, there hadn’t yet been any events that would see people evicted from their homes. Shipping tariffs neatly paid for much of the infrastructure, and adventurers and airship crew spending their pay carried much of the local economy.

This was all to say that the location of Claus’ meeting moreso had a bit of a reputation for dirty dealings, despite the buildings themselves being in fine repair. The local enforcers seemed to know and not care; malaise or subversion, Nine had yet to find out in his investigations.

Fezzik tightened his awareness. The area wasn’t terribly dangerous, but preparedness was a virtue. The roads were slightly dirtier, the paint less shiny. People swerved around each other in the street without acknowledgement, the crowd thinned and the number of individuals carrying weapons grew.

Surprisingly enough, Nine hadn’t commented on the revelation that he had presumably overheard yesterday. Fezzik wasn’t too sure why he hadn’t been confronted about being a Hand; regardless, his guardian’s attention weighed heavily on the new Hand’s shoulders, as he double checked the address and opened a door. Hopefully this wasn’t all a terrible mistake.

This particular building looked like a foreclosed pottery shop. The door was unlocked, and his note said to ring the bell on the counter. Fezzik stepped quietly, shutting the door behind him and locking it with a soft, well oiled click.

Motes of dust hung in the air, illuminated through the blinds that covered the windows. The counter and merchandise were all relatively clean, but the magelights were all covered, and the place did not smell like it was lived in.

The bell on the counter was shiny, polished, and clean enough to stand out in the otherwise maintained but abandoned room. He couldn’t help but remark internally on how shifty this all felt; none of Fezzik’s education had ever included covert operations of any kind.

He hesitated. He was stalling. Fezzik took a deep breath, picked up the tiny hammer, and rang the bell three times. The shrill noise pierced the silence, the bell seeming to reverberate forever in the enclosed space.

Eventually the ringing faded, and just as Fezzik was beginning to shift impatiently, a previously unseen door in the back of the room slid open.

Some kind of magic false wall for observation? Maybe he’d just missed some kind of peephole, or other mundane method of spying; certainly the wisps of magic in the room didn’t reveal anything powerful.

Hesitating again. Taking another moment to collect himself, Fezzik reluctantly proceeded down the hallway. The door closed silently behind him, again without any visible mechanism.

It was just a few steps into a surprisingly well furnished hidden parlor. The walls had richly colored wood braces and patterned yellow wallpaper; a number of paintings, mainly famous historical figures, hung from the walls.

Tea and biscuits lay out and waiting, Claus already seated in what looked to be a velvet armchair next to a short table. He grabbed the teapot with his fleshy hand, and gestured at the empty seat. “Ferra, glad you could make it! Would you like some tea? Any sugar, or honey?”

He sat uncertainly, waving away the offer. “Just unadulterated tea is fine, I appreciate the offer.”

Claus raised an eyebrow at the word choice, but poured without comment. He gripped the saucer delicately with his crystal hand, passing it to Fezzik. “It should be the perfect temperature, if my esteemed colleague timed things correctly.”

With a start, Fezzik noticed the uniformed man standing in the corner. A steward, or Steward? The latter were exceedingly rare, but the events of the last few weeks taught him to dismiss nothing as impossible.

His mysterious trainer noticed the uncertain gaze. “Oh, don’t mind him. Nothing special, at least magically. Just an exceptionally competent man, who knows how to stand at the ready unobtrusively.”

“Hmm.”

Claus grinned. “That makes ten words out of you this conversation thus far, if a grunt can indeed count. Let me reassure you I mean no ill will, relax!”

He paused for a moment to consider how many words had been spoken. Had Claus intentionally counted them all? Fezzik pushed the thought aside for now. While not a relaxing platitude on its own, the man did nonetheless have a point; time to make an active effort to untense his shoulders, or so Fezzik thought. “So, why did you summ- err, bring me here?”

Summon would be poor word choice; wouldn’t want to establish Claus as his superior, if indeed this was a social confrontation in the first place.

The grin quivered, but Fezzik was unsure if that was intentional imperfection or genuine emotion. Claus gestured at his unusual limb. “Well as I’m sure you’re aware, I possess some measure of interest in unusual magic. Hands are rare as hens’ teeth, and I’d like to take the opportunity to study you, if I may.”

Fezzik frowned. “I thought you were just an adventurer who’d picked up a few tricks? Your whole bearing and speech just seem different than before, and your outfit rather clashes with this room.”

Claus sighed. “You are correct, of course. Some dirty laundry needs to be aired, if you are to trust me at all. I am not just a simple adventurer. After I retired, a certain agency picked me up for my connections, and skillful judgment of character. We engage in a bit of corporate under the table trading, here, and in return I spend much of my pay on fiddling with the divine in my spare time.”

He paused. “Apologies if my differences are startling. I elected to not change clothing, so as to avoid disconcerting you further. Much of what you know about me isn’t quite true, or at least truth framed quite conveniently. It wasn’t all lies, though; I genuinely enjoy helping those with different or missing limbs learn to live and defend themselves for example.”

“Hmm.” Fezzik sipped at the tea. Green, warm and rather soothing. Just as a precaution, he flared divine internally momentarily. It wouldn’t do to fall prey to poison, after all.

Though really, it was seeming like Claus was probably a resourceful enough individual to come up with a poison capable of downing a god’s Hand, divine protection or no.

Fezzik kept that thought to himself, instead choosing to launch another questioning barb. “Corporate trading, you say? What kind?”

Claus shifted, waving a hand dismissively. “Corporate secrets, mostly. Obtained legally, I assure you. There is nothing wrong with studying an opponent’s product and selling that understanding out to others. I keep an eye on the markets too, of course. The people in charge enjoy having an ear to the stone on any potential disruptions in the supply of arcanite and such.”

“Is Joseph’s Haven really that important to keep an eye on?”

“Oh yes, yes. Certain companies have significant investments in the area. It might not be much to look at now, but the Haven of ten years on could be heavily impacted by any kind of current major event. Like that infernal breach I hear you took care of. Nice job on dealing with that so quickly, by the way.”

He leaned in, eyes glinting with what Ferra thought was unguarded curiosity. “Is that when your god chose you?”

Fezzik frowned uncertainly. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable talking about that yet.” A pause, then a vague handwave at the room. “Why’d you bring me here, anyway? What about being a Hand prompted you to invite me, and how’d you even know?”

Claus just nodded, moving easily along with the change of topic. “Well my boy, when you’ve dabbled in studying the divine as long as I have, you pick up a few tricks. Even the worst of the Scarred don’t have as much divine roiling inside them as you do, and you’re clearly not dead.”

He winked. “I’ve heard tales about the process of becoming a Hand. I’ve never gotten to study a Hand up close but it’s said that the transformation is… thorough. It was immediately apparent to me something had happened to you. The only two explanations would be an incredibly powerful active blessing, or Handhood. One seemed significantly more likely, rare as the event is, and your reaction all but confirmed it.”

The clawed man waved his fleshy hand around the room, mimicking Fezzik. “As far as why I never invited you here prior? Well then you were just a student, and none of what I taught was terribly secret. Now, however? I’ve invited you here as a potential employee, and hopefully a future research subject.”

“Hmm.” Fezzik tapped his chin. This whole thing really was incredibly shady. ‘Retired adventurer’ who supposedly scopes out company recruits, trades in corporate gossip, studies the divine ‘on the side,’ and has a foreclosed shop with a false back wall.

The man clearly wanted him to offer trust, enter some kind of working relationship, even; yet despite that desire, Claus spoke very broadly and gave no details. No company name, nothing useable that Fezzik could fact check.

Secrets upon secrets. Was this the bottom, or did it go deeper? A second opinion from Nine would be welcome; unfortunately, he couldn’t very well wave the man over and ask for his truthreading advice while in the dragon’s den, right in front of Claus.

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The man across the table acted earnestly genuine, but then, he’d seemed genuine before. Even now with Fezzik looking for lies, he still saw none. Draw things out, give Nine more time to get a solid read?

The new Hand looked up from his internal deliberations. “What kind of research?”

“Oh, nothing big or invasive. Just some magical measurements, some physical ones. Recording your body’s passive activity, recording any changes that occur while you are actively drawing on the divine. Stuff like that.”

“And this will… make you a better caster?”

Claus’ eyes glinted again with some undefinable emotion. “Is that all you think of me? Where’s your heart, your soul?”

He waved a hand, conjuring a small shower of multicolored sparkling golden shards. “Think of the artistry, the knowledge! While admittedly yes this will make me a better caster, the real goal is the uplifting of society to greater heights! Bridges of light to cross gaps, unpredicted medical benefits, better treatments for mageburn. There’s so much to learn here!”

The short rant left Claus breathless, as he eyed Fezzik expectantly.

The visitor simply raised an eyebrow. “Well you certainly don’t go small with your dreams, eh?”

Claus’ eyes only twinkled in response.

“Suppose I agree with this.” Fezzik crossed his legs, leaning back in the chair. “What’s in it for me?”

Claus rubbed his palms together. “A number of things my good man, a number of things. More detailed training and more of it, if you still wish to plumb the depths of divine magic. Healthy pay. Connections for enchanting supplies; a little bird told me you had an interest in learning? I can’t quite move the islands themselves to grant all that you desire, but I am nonetheless rather well connected. Name your price.”

That honestly sounded pretty good to Fezzik; surely the man couldn’t be trusted, though? And yet refusing could be dangerous. Best to play along, until Nine could give a report in private about anything he might have discovered.

It was somewhat embarrassing, however. Claus said to name a price, and yet Fezzik had quite literally no idea what any kind of reasonable income was. Time for confident bluster.

The Hand of Vexell drained the last of his now mostly cold tea, setting the cup down with a loud clink.

“Right. I think, despite the deception, I would like to work with you. I’m willing to bet you have eyes in the guild and know what my income was with the Fists. I want twice that monthly, paid in weekly installments.”

Good, ok, money is out of the way. What comes next? Ah!

“For every hour you wish to study me, I want two hours of training. No more than twenty a week. For enchanting supplies, I want them at cost of acquisition, billed out of the aforementioned income. I assume you can arrange a tutor?”

Claus blinked, startled at the barrage of words and Fezzik’s sudden amiability. “Yes, I do believe that can be arranged. Give me until noon tomorrow. Some funds need to be shifted, and I’ll have my steward here whip up a contract.”

He stopped mid sip, as if remembering something. “Ah, you will need to inform me of your prior income. I don’t have eyes in the guild of course, that privilege is reserved only for the emperor’s administration.”

It was Fezzik’s turn to blink in surprise. The demands were, in his opinion, utterly ludicrous. He’d expected Claus to haggle significantly. Had he done it wrong? Was there something he was forgetting? Was the ability to study him really worth that much? Maybe just Claus desired it even more than he’d realized.

The claim of not having eyes also seemed somewhat doubtful, what with all the knowledge that Claus had already displayed. Was the offhanded mention due to him forgetting to pretend he didn’t, or a simple truth he merely almost failed to clarify?

Argh, three months of a noble’s education were simply not enough to prepare him for underground business dealings with shifty amputees!

“Well?” Claus leaned in with interest on his face, setting his now empty cup down beside Fezzik’s.

Fezzik started at the reminder. “Ah, yes, of course. That’s acceptable.”

The businessman’s smile returned as he stood, hand extended. “Then it’s a deal!”

Fezzik stood also, hesitantly returning the shake. “I suppose it is.”

Claus broke off after a moment of staring directly into his eyes. He backed away, gesturing at the door with a hand. “Now it’s been a pleasure talking with you, but I have a fair number of meetings to get to, and you’ve just dumped a sizable workload in my lap. If you’ll oblige me, Simon will see you out.”

Fezzik nodded, narrowly avoiding jumping as he noticed Simon apparently standing directly behind him. If that man wasn’t a Steward, Fezzik would- well he didn’t have a hat, and he didn’t really feel like eating anything repulsive, but at the very least he would revel in paranoid vindication.

He paused just before the hallway. A single last trick, a test he’d just thought of. “One last question.”

Claus looked up from a notepad, curiosity on his face.

“Calling Hands and Hands both Hands is somewhat confusing. How do people differentiate between emperor’s hands and gods’ hands?”

There was the slightest of pauses, Claus’ eyebrows beginning to furrow; his expression changed to a grin and a chuckle so quickly that it left Fezzik wondering if he’d imagined things. “Well, the gods were here first, after all. If you’re on the scholarly side of opinion, we refer to the emperor’s hands collectively as the Grasp.”

Not Elbows, then. Hmm. It was a point in Claus’ favor, that he hadn’t used the same term that the Steward had offered up yesterday.

Regardless, it was time to go. Fezzik wasn’t quite sure what was humorous about the name, but he simply nodded and allowed himself to be subtly pressured out of the room by the man’s assistant. Within moments the young lad was out the hallway and on the street, butler closing the door behind him with nary a whisper.

Fezzik looked around. The street was as empty as before, seemingly unchanged at all during the short meeting.

But where to now? His schedule was obscenely empty, and the man felt more listless than he ever had since before Emperor Grier had first informally recognized him as a descendant. At least after the banishment and throughout his travels, Fezzik had possessed a clear goal, that of reaching this island for a fresh start.

If Claus was truthful, then his money problems would solve themselves shortly. Join a new adventuring group? It was still too early for that Fezzik felt, and any new group would have the same issues with disclosure that he’d had with the Fists.

He also was still hoping that Mel would come through and he could rejoin the Fists; people that he continued to consider friends, even if the feeling might no longer be mutual. Only time would tell if she could pull through. Perhaps it was an idle hope, grasping at a future that was not to be.

Ultimately, the decision was made for him. A rumble of the tummy had Fezzik realizing that ruminating over the future and the present over a meal sounded like a much better idea than standing here thinking in a street, so he headed back to his housing.

Naturally, the world had other plans for him. He nodded at a couple people when walking through the downstairs, and found an unwelcome surprise waiting for him. Belatedly, Fezzik realized that his original intention with Claus, advice about the Steward’s offer, had not, in fact, happened, for obvious reasons. This was relevant, of course, due to the present awaiting him.

There it lay. He halted in surprise in the doorway, staring at the scroll that had somehow moved from its original location. It was now sitting on his pillow, glowing softly.

“Oh, joy.”

Apparently ‘read at your leisure’ actually meant ‘read now, and answer, please.’

Meal plans interrupted, he sat down at the desk. Might as well give it a read, though Fezzik was fairly sure already that his answer would be no. The nobles desperately desired to overthrow the Menstappens’ generational authoritarianism, and his father’s ‘indiscretion’ was a chink in the armor of inheritance.

While he wasn’t necessarily pleased with his father’s action, Fezzik had a hard time picturing anything that the Fencers, Bazaar, or any other noble faction could offer that would justify the cost to the nation. Even a successful coup would rock the country, and a failed one could be devastating to millions.

He trusted his father’s dedication to establishing a stable legacy more than he did the grasping claws of those just below him on the social ladder.

Ah, but enough delay.

Fezzik rolled open the scroll.

Dear Fezzik Kaztroegh von Menstappen,

We of the eighth house reach out in sympathy over your harsh mistreatment by the current steward of these lands. To acknowledge one’s nobility and then strip it away so shortly after is a cruel miscarriage of justice.

It is in the spirit of friendship and righteousness that we wish to reach out to you about this topic. This is but one in a long string of failures by our current tyrant, and many in certain circles are displeased. If you are so inclined, we wish to enter a working relationship to install you upon the throne.

Something something blah blah blah-

Fezzik cut off reading it with a snort. He couldn’t tell if the research this ‘eighth house’ had done on him was insultingly lackadaisical or surprisingly thorough. If nothing else, they had at least tried appealing to his sense of adventure? He also wasn’t sure if eighth house was simply a pseudonym for this particular letter, or a generally known term in the underworld for a certain family. They had access to a Steward and countermeasures against the Emperor’s Hands, which if nothing else immediately put them in the upper echelons of Vale society.

And really, trying to bribe him with the throne? How many times in stories did a small kid get used as a figurehead for a puppet state? What, did they think he was nine, or something? Ridiculous. He had no allies in the capital, no leverage, nothing to prevent them from tying him up with as much bureaucratic and other rope as needed.

There was a small displacement of air behind him, Fezzik resisting the urge to stiffen as the Steward manifested. There was a moment of silence before the man spoke.

“Well?”

Fezzik held the grin off his face as he turned, passing the letter back to the Steward. “While I am grateful for the offer, I’m afraid I must decline. The throne holds no interest for me.”

The Steward’s eyes narrowed imperceptibly, studying him for a moment trapped in time.

In the blink of an eye it was gone, the man’s posture going from impossibly straight to even more perfect, he spun to the side on a heel. “Unfortunate. In that case, I will relay your response to my employers. Fare well.”

And with that, the man was gone.

Fezzik let out a sigh of relief. He allowed himself a breather to calm down, before deciding that now was as good as any for his next flirt with death. “Nine, you there?”

The monster manifested before him as promptly as ever, green eyes hard and emotionless, voice flat and inhuman. “Yes?”

“Have you noticed anything… odd recently?”

A pause. Fezzik resisted the urge to hold his breath.

“Yes. That man you talked to today.”

Fezzik stiffened. “Yeah?”

“I could not read his mind. It was clouded with gold.”

Vexell’s hand relaxed a hair. Did he really not notice the Steward? Fezzik couldn’t imagine why Nine wouldn’t mention it, if he had.

“Clouded like me?”

Nine frowned at the allusion to Fezzik’s remade body. Nine paused for an uncomfortably long time, Fezzik internally berating himself at calling attention to the change. Vexell had done… something, to Nine, and it seemed persistent, but he wasn’t sure how resistant the alteration was to disturbances.

He felt a prickling at the edges of his mind.

At last, Nine spoke. “No. Less inherently inimical. Blessing, spell, or born mutation. Though if it’s a spell, I cannot guess at how he created such a thorough blocker.”

Fezzik frowned. “Thank you. Anything else suspicious about him?”

Nine shook his head slightly. “No. I detected no foul magics in the vicinity of his office, the butler’s intentions were focused around serving the man, no warning smells or feelings or a hint of anything from the spirits. Just an unusual inability to scan his mind and intent.”

“Hmm. Well that’s all for now, I guess. Thanks for-”

Nine vanished when he blinked.

Well, that’s that, then.

Heart rate entirely too fast to be healthy, Fezzik wondered if now it might be possible to actually eat a meal in peace, and think. The answer, it seemed, was yes. He did wonder, though, as he ate.

Didn’t that red haired man look awfully familiar?

-----

The Steward was perched atop one of the better protected local temples. The wards couldn’t stop him, and they served as extra protection for a call as sensitive as this.

The small golden cup flashed once, twice, thrice. Connection made.

“Well?”

The voice on the other end was smooth and melodious. Women and men, even those who usually didn’t swing that way, often found themselves drawn in and destroyed by him; a demise orchestrated by velvet, rippling tones. A voice of quicksand.

The Steward was unaffected. His training ensured as much, after all.

“The offer was refused.”

A pause.

“Displeasing.”

The tone had changed, an edge of danger like saw toothed knives coating the voice and seeping into the Steward’s mind. He shivered, slightly. That voice never heralded good tidings for his Lord’s current object of interest, or anyone nearby.

“Begin the alternate plan. And remember, my dear.”

A voice cupping his cheek like the delicate hand of a lover and the kiss of a deadly viper.

“You will succeed in this, yes?”