Out of Character:
Wil was still unfamiliar with the layout of Radasanth. As he and the newly formed caravan of strange individuals following him winded their way out of the estate, he wondered if he could even find his way back to his boarding house. Geography was one thing. He had no doubt that he could find his way to Uiria once he left the city, not that he had any genuine intention of going there, not in the present company at least. Within the cities, things changed too much for his records to be of any use. What's more, he had presumed he would be returning hundreds of years later and so he had paid little mind to the layouts of settlements in his studies, figuring their transient nature would see them wiped away by the time he set foot on their paving stones.
He looked over his shoulder at the Makarios and spoke softly to him in Eudaemonian, wondering slightly whether his other companion would begin to find such discourse suspicious, or whether he was truly so interested in technology that he would let it pass.
"Do you know your way through this city? I'm going to take the storage buffer and make a run for it. I presume you can handle yourself with these types if I do," Wil said, attempting to keep his facial expression pleasant and his tone jovial, as if he were just making friendly banter.
"I don't know this district very well, but do what you must," he said. He was still surprisingly obedient to any Eudaemonian he met. Evidently the Makarios' programming was not easily shaken. Within a few minutes, he had gone from selling their technology to the highest bidder to handing it over for free and covering the escape of someone who amounted to a thief. "I can make a distraction. I doubt you would be much help against this man anyway, if what I'm sensing from him is true."
"He does seem unusual. I can't quite place it," Wil answered with a false laugh. He decided that in the conversational show he was putting on for the benefit of non-Eudaemonian listeners, the Makarios had just made a clever joke.
"It's for the best," the ex-vendor answered, his grave tone severely hampering the illusion of pleasant small talk. Resolute almost to the point of being morbid, it would seem the files on Makarios recruits and officers was not all propaganda after all.
By then, the group had reached the checkpoint where they originally entered the estate. The line was still long, as the event had barely gotten underway when Wil et al. had decided to absent themselves. The old wizard that was sealing swords looked over at them crassly.
"Done already? No matter what they're paying you, it's too much," he scoffed as he released the spell on Wilhelm's sword. He said nothing to the Makarios vendor and turned to the nobleman following them. Glancing at his hip, he raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you have a sword before?"
"Surely, I would not need a sword around here," he answered in the same aloof tone he had maintained through the whole endeavor.
"Indeed, your memory must not be what it used to be," Wil added as the group paced off into the main streets of Radasanth. He had no idea what they were talking about, but any excuse to mock the old coot was fine by him. Amusingly, he and the wizard were likely only a few years different in age, though no one would guess from looking at them. Such is the nature of environmental impacts, he thought, before his mind turned to escape routes.
Just outside the upscale district, down a wide thoroughfare, Wil spotted the telltale shingle identifying a tavern. He turned the group toward it and pressed them on with a quick call, "Right this way, fellows. We're off to Uiria, it would seem."
He truly hoped it seemed that way as he added one final note in Eudaemonian to the Makarios with a flippant smile, "Get ready."
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