A Dangerous Game

[Ceidon]

Closed to BlackandBlueEyes“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Ceidon Lore exclaimed to the vault keeper, throwing his brown adventurer’s hat to the ground. “The gem was so unassuming. No one could have known it was a key!” A sharp tug on Ceidon’s sleeve made the scholar realize he probably said too much. The source of the tug was his new assistant, initiate Dalton Desmond. When Ceidon turned to face Dalton, he saw the entire treasury cleanup crew was facing the trio with puzzled looks on their faces. “Oh shit…” Ceidon whispered before pretending to shovel once more.

Ceidon, newly minted as Chief of Procurement for the Order of the Golden Dawn, and initiate Dalton had been dispatched to war torn Eiskalt to obtain the “Milithe” a topaz stone that Ceidon believed could be the key to opening the fabled Tomb of Eyl the Bold in Berevar. Eyl’s tomb was said to house the source of his great power: an ancient iron sword imbued with a fragment of the Tap. Ceidon’s preliminary research indicated the stone was originally passed down to Eyl’s kin for several generations until it disappeared from records. The young scholar almost gave up on the search until he made a revelation while investigating another artifact. Seventy five years ago, Berevar sent a delegation to King Fulgore Icebreaker to recognize his claim over the small icy island. The ledger Ceidon viewed from the King’s merchant was unremarkable save for one abnormality. A single topaz stone was amongst the items listed. What peaked Ceidon’s interest was that when topaz is given as a gift, it was usually given in pounds, not a single stone. Could this oddly gifted single stone be the long lost Milithe? While it wasn’t exactly the most solid lead, Ceidon had made bigger discoveries with less.

The two Order members stood in the center of the ransacked ruins of the treasury vault in Tyranta with shovels in their hands. In order to gain access to the area with little trouble, Ceidon and Dalton had assumed the roles of laborers hired by Ashla Icebreaker to clean rubble from the treasury. After a brief moment of tension, their fellow laborers lost interest in Ceidon's scene and went back to work. Eventually, Dalton leaned into the adventurer and asked, “Do you really think we can trust him?”

“Erm, yeah,” Ceidon replied. When the duo arrived, Ceidon immediately sought out the vault keeper in hopes of greasing him into letting the Order members view the treasury ledger and search the rubble. The keeper was readily identifiable: an aging man with an unkempt white beard barking orders to everyone. Much to Ceidon’s surprise, the old man required no greasing or really any prompting to reveal the desired information. After vaguely describing the stone, the keeper immediately recognized it, and more importantly, knew exactly where it was. The keeper went on a five minute tirade about how one looter, a beautiful young female, spent hours combing through the vault with the man held hostage by plants. Ultimately, she only took one thing, the topaz stone. Ceidon realized now that his earlier outburst may simply have been in response to the keeper’s own passion. “He seems pretty serious about his job.”

“So you’re sure it was her?” Ceidon asked. He stopped shoveling and turned back to the keeper.

He nodded then said, “The Plague Queen.”

“Shit…” Dalton said, looking to Ceidon. “What are we going to do, master?”

“I don’t know,” Ceidon replied, looking to the sky through a blasted out hole in the roof. A cold gust of wind passed through the vault, sending a chill down his spine. The Order was no stranger to difficult missions. Since Ceidon became a member, he alone defeated the dragon spirit of Kyo the Ninja, broke the Falchion of Darkness, locked away the spirit of Zolton Rodan, and helped Alma Waterstone purify the Red Forest of Pode's influence, but he had never crossed paths with someone as dangerous as the Plague Queen, Madison Freebird.

“I’ll think of something…” he mumbled.

**

Two months later, a blank invitation was sent by raven to the Order of the Crimson Hand. It read:


[BLANK]

You and a guest are cordially invited to a join us in celebrating the 85th birthday of Grand Duke Raymond of Jadet on [DATE]. Cocktails and hors d'oeuvres will be served. Formal attire is required.

This invitation serves as your ticket to the gala. Weapons will be checked at the door and anti-magic apparatuses will be installed.

On the back it said: Ceidon Lore (50,000 GP dead or alive)

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

The only sounds that could be heard down the stone halls of the Seventh Sanctum were the footsteps of myself and my ever-present companion, Hyperion. The plant horror clad in dark, hooded Fallieni robes was my finest creation ever since I made a deal with a demon to gain libraries of knowledge regarding the mad sciences, as some are inclined to call them. A hyper-advanced, engineered parasite that took over its host's body and mind and replaced flesh with vines created a perfect counterpart to myself.

It--no, she; for I felt that Hype truly was a living being no different from you and I--was incredibly intelligent and fiercely loyal, if not a bit acerbic and sassy at times... She was a godsend in the lab and in the field, and lately found additional purpose as my emotional rock.

I still have nightmares about... well, I'd rather not think about it right now. Suffice to say, she did not deserve the fate that she got, the fate that I unwittingly doomed her to by dragging her away from her family in Corone and shutting her up in this frozen hellhole of a country. It's been eating away at my heart every waking moment. But, Hype had been there for me in my darkest time these past couple of months since that incident with a vine-woven hand ready to pull me back from the edge when I was ready to jump.

For that, I was thankful. I counted myself lucky that I was able to pry an innocent, empathic soul from the grubby mitts of the Tiefling to be her host.

The horror currently had her arms full with various documents, the gold-trimmed purple fabric of her hood bouncing softly with each fluid step. “I have here a stack of reports that may be of interest to you,” she said in her tinny voice. “Spending accounts from the Blades, a few requests for additional arms and armor for the companies' next excursions, reports from the Hands of Secrets about various things happening around the world, two contracts for the Shadows to execute...”

“And how goes everything in the laboratory?”

She automatically knew what I was referring to. While I had to split my duties between keeping the Crimson Hand in line and my personal projects elsewhere, Hype was able to dedicate far more time to the latter. “Everything is proceeding according to plan. We'll be ready for transport and field testing within two weeks.”

I arched an eyebrow at her. “Two weeks? Can't they move any faster than that?”

“As it turns out, tearing such intense, fragile essences out of the uncooperative dead is turning out to be more difficult than you could have predicted,” she replied. Hype was right, of course. As easy as it was to extract the corruption that the Forgotten One Podë left on my soul, working with the corpses I brought home from Raiaera were starting to become a real hassle. Turns out that, when someone passes away, their body becomes locked in some ways against various forms of magic. It makes for pulling out certain choice bits a little bit more difficult when the subject is, by their very nature, unable to cooperate with you.

I clicked my tongue and began thinking of ways we could possibly work around this latest setback when my companion ruffled through a few papers and produced an envelope. “Oh, and this came for you via carrier raven this morning.”

I took the faded manila envelope from her and stopped by a nearby window to get a better look at it. Sunlight poured in through the dusty glass, revealing nothing on the envelope but my name scribbled by a hand that could've stood to be just a bit neater. I flipped it over in my briar-knit hands and cracked the wax seal, pulling out the paper it held inside.

“What is it,” Hyperion asked me inquisitively.

My eyes briefly scanned the page. “It's... an invitation,” I replied flatly.

“Really? Who would invite you to anything?”

I shot her a sour look. If her face wasn't designed after a funeral mask, I would've bet anything that she'd be smirking. She leaned in closer, trying to get a good look at the invitation. “What's it to? Who's it from?”

I wrinkled the edge of the paper a bit as I scanned it for more information. “Some old bastard's birthday ball in Corone. As for who sent it, it doesn't say on here or on the envelope or--” I turned the invite over in my hands, noting that it actually written on the back of a wanted poster for a man by the name of Ceidon Lore, who apparently had a nice-sized bounty on his head. No picture; just a name, a reward, and a few vague details scribbled down that would justify the latter.

Hype looked up at me. “So, I understand that this is more of an invitation for business rather than pleasure?”

I pursed my lips. Unless Grand Duke Raymond's attendants just sent out invitations on whatever paper they had handy, this suddenly appeared to be the case.

“Will you be attending?”

“I don't have anything to lose, I guess,” I replied. I pointed to a line written down on the paper. “Says myself plus one. You want to come with?”

“Just in case things get a little out of hand?”

I smiled. “Things are guaranteed to get out of hand, Hype. I'm going to be there, after all. Wouldn't be my luck for everything to go right.”

My companion nodded. “I'll begin travel preparations immediately, then.”