Vinnie: Watching the Reunion

Vinnie floated quietly at the edge of the tunnel as Amergin and Archibald turned to embrace their two wayward siblings with shouting and laughter. 

He was... was he sad? This wasn't anger, and it wasn't the greasy satisfaction he'd felt at having tricked them into letting him do something truly horrible. Yeah, sure. Sadness. Me. That'll be the day. But it was... good. Good to see them back together, even if the rogue was still missing. Even if he could only watch this reunion from the outside, it felt right. For this one moment, after centuries of solitary study, Vinnie wished he could have that sort of companionship, that unmistakable sense of belonging. 

He'd never realized that he missed it.

He didn't begrudge Whisper or James for taking the opportunity to leave; he'd pranked them pretty badly. Lithos, though... Lithos' unexpected flight had hurt him. It felt like a betrayal, and it didn't matter at all that Vinnie knew he'd betrayed the goblin first. The kid was supposed to stick with him. That was how he'd set it all up: they'd hate him, but they'd rely on him because they had to. They'd keep him around.

Yeah, but that was just for fun. Just to prove I could do it, make these would-be Good Guys help me, even knowing what I did to them, even knowing that I was looking for powerful souls to eat and that I absolutely will eat them. It wasn't supposed to affect him; he wasn't supposed to get attached to them. 

And I ain't. I'm just usin' them to keep me out of sight. Which meant he couldn't blast Lithos on the spot; he didn't care if the kid had left, or if he came back. Nope, not at all. He'd just sit here, feeling all satisfied that his plan was working. 

It still felt like sadness.

Terror Povos: An Unexpected Arrival

The wagons were rolling slowly along, drawn through the deep roads by the under-oxen. Lithos had read that the under-oxen were not so different from those found overhill, just better adapted to heat and damp and able to see in the dark. They were slower than horses, but far stronger and more reliable. 

Lithos himself was stretched out on the roof of Schist Splitvein's wagon, near the front of the caravan, half-dozing and wondering just what the hell had happened for him to end up here. It wasn't like he didn't remember, it was just that the whole thing seemed unreal... 

Oh shit, he thought. Vinnie. Vinnie must have cast Wish, that nearly-ultimate magic. He must have erased the events in the prison, rearranged things so that all those deaths had never happened. Except the Warden. He would have kept the warden's soul. Even so, it meant that the demilich had made good on his side of the deal. It meant that Lithos owed him. 

Shit. Fuck. Damn it. He considered rolling over and just going back to sleep, but...

You can't ignore a debt, his mother's voice said firmly. You have to do the right thing by others, and hope that they do right by you. Was skipping out on Vinnie the right thing? Or did doing the right thing mean going back and paying his debt by helping Vinnie take those souls like he'd agreed to do? He was two cycles out now, and traveling with traders. It could take twice that to get back to where they'd parted, and longer to track down where the demilich had taken his brothers. 

And then he'd have to deal with Vinnie, who'd sent a ghoul to try to kill him. If Vinnie blasted him on the spot... Then I guess my problems are over. He could risk that. He could risk it in order to pay his debt and then try to make things right. Even if making things right ultimately meant going up against Vinnie, which was spider-fucking suicide. 

T'would be an honorable death, said his father's voice in his head. Far better than fleein' tae the goblin tribes and tryin' tae find a place there. 

Lithos? called a soft voice, cutting into his half-dozing considerations. 

He rolled over, trying to tangle himself further in his blankets. His siblings, in their good-hearted way,  made fun of him for it; but he found it comforting. Only this time, it didn't work; the blankets caught on something, refused to turn with him. 

"Lithos?" asked the voice again, and this time he realized he was hearing it. 

He jerked fully awake, twisting out of the blankets like an escape artist, and brought a hand up. 

James caught it. "Brother," he said. 

The air fled Lithos' lungs. He drew it back in with a terrible effort, then asked: "What are you doing here?"

"Whisper sent me back," said James. "Said it wasn't safe, after we finished off the ghoul. He said if you'd run you'd have gone this way, and then here you were on the caravan."

"Whisper," said Lithos. Then: "Is he here?"

James shook his head. "Gone. Really gone." She looked stricken. "Like, he-said-we-wouldn't-see-him-again gone."

Lithos considered that for a long, long time. "He was always going to leave us someday, wasn't he?" 

"I hoped not," James admitted. "But yeah, he was." 

"Did he want you to go into hiding with me?" Lithos asked. "Because I've been thinking I should go back to Amergin and Archibald... and Vinnie."

"He just said I should stay with you," said James. "But that's Whisper. He worries over us, but he's always been happiest taking care of himself. I think we should go back."

"Then we'll do it, Brother," Lithos said quietly. He reached for the blanket and began folding it over so he could roll it up. "You have no idea what a relief this is."

Yeah, Vinnie might kill them. But Lithos didn't think so. He didn't pretend to understand what a centuries-old demilich might want or how he might think, but the patterns were there. Vinnie hadn't killed them when they'd first pulled him out of the pile of skulls. He could have, but he didn't. He'd traveled with them, and he hadn't killed any of them then, either. He'd gotten them imprisoned, but he'd neither abandoned them nor destroyed them. Vinnie might not care about them, exactly, but he'd... taken a liking to them. Maybe only the kind of liking that a child has for an interesting toy, but... maybe not? Lithos wasn't sure.

It's worth the risk, he decided.

Terror Povos: Trade Caravan

Lithos had just stretched back out on his bedroll when an older dwarf came over from where the trade caravan was lining up nearby. The passage was too narrow for them to full circle the wagons, but still wide enough that they could park them in a row and leave room for another caravan to pass by. This was a deep dwarf, comfortable in the heat, and wearing a sword and leather armor; his hair and beard were black and neatly braided. "Dark said I should come and talk to you," he said as he drew near.

"As you wish," Lithos said politely, and sat up.

"Belrab's Balls," exclaimed the older dwarf, looking Lithos over. "It's true. You look like a goblin, but you talk like a dwarf born. You were cursed into this shape?"

"Something," Lithos said. "I'm not entirely sure how it happened."

"So one of the temples could likely cure you." 

Lithos shrugged. "If I could afford it." 

"Well, I can't pay you," the dwarf said, "but you'd be more than welcome to travel with us. Be good to have a wizard along. Safety in numbers, and all that."

"I might bring my own trouble with me." Lithos admitted. He didn't think he'd be endangering these people by camping beside them. Traveling with them might be another matter.

"Dark mentioned that." The older dwarf motioned towards the fallen ghoul, which lay stinking some distance off. "She also said you could handle it."

Lithos didn't like the idea. Yes, he'd be safer traveling with the caravan, but that was selfish if his presence was going to put them in greater danger -- and so much of that depended on Vinnie. It had been the better part of a week before the ghoul had arrived, though; the demilich obviously wasn't in any hurry to murder him. And Lithos didn't see any way he could turn the offer down without coming off as even more suspicious than he probably seemed already.

"Then yes, I'd be glad to travel with you," Lithos told him. "Granite Forgefire." 

"Schist Splitvein," the dwarf replied. "Merchant, fighter, and caravan guide. It's a pleasure."

Terror Povos: A bit of lighthearted assassination

Lithos was sleeping deeply, and dreaming of the Shattered Golem when something crossed the boundary of his Alarm spell and jerked him unwillingly awake. It was warm here in the deeper tunnels, and he was sleeping on top of his bedroll, so when he snapped upright he came all the way to his feet. 

There was ghoul creeping up on him. 

It hesitated for a bare second, facing him; then he saw it lower its body and prepare to charge. He reacted by reflex, the words and gestures automatic, and a fiery orange ray leapt from his extended hand to the center of its chest. He was lucky; the ray hit, and burned the thing badly enough that it collapsed before it could really lunge at him. 

For a moment he just stood there, shaking. Then he tossed a tiny ball of acid at it, and then another. It didn't move. With a sigh, he walked over to it, and started searching the body the way Whisper had taught him to. 

Even so, he almost missed it. It was pinned to the back of the cloth vest that was the ghoul's only clothing, and Lithos had been checking pockets and likely places for jewelry: ears, neck, fingers. It was a sheet of parchment, folded over and neatly pinned to the cloth. 

He unfolded it.

You gonna run out on me? it said. You gonna back outta our bargain after I went and made things right for you? You think you can just leave? Here. Have a ghoul. Consider it a test. You're still alive, you're readin this, then you passed. Keep your eyes open, though. This one? Won't be the last. You're still a shitty wizard, and you know it. I coulda made you great, kid. So let's see if you can fucking hang.

It wasn't signed, but then it didn't need to be. Vinnie. Lithos shook his head. The thrice-damned demilich was still going to have his fun. Well... fine. He would deal with that, or else he'd die and be condemned to serve as Vinnie's undead thrall. He could think of a couple of possible ways out, but he also knew that Vinnie had almost certainly anticipated them. 

"Ho there, friend," said a gruff voice, and Lithos turned to look. 

A dwarf was standing some thirty feet away, studying him curiously but keeping her distance.

"Yes?" Lithos answered cautiously, in the same dwarvish that the woman had used to address him. 

"Ah... is it safe to camp here?" She was one of the hill-dwarves, beardless, and doubtless too warm in her armor, for all that it was leather covered in metal spikes. "We're a small caravan, and ill-prepared to fend off a swarm of undead."

Lithos looked at the fallen ghoul and shook his head. "You'll be safe enough," he said. "This was a gift from an old friend, and directed at me."

"Some gift," she said. "I thought I was going to watch it murder you, but you took it down neatly. If it's not too rude to ask, what's a goblin doing this far into Silverkeep?"

The lie sprang fully-formed into his head. "I'm not a goblin," he said. "I'm a dwarf. I just woke up this way one morning. Wild magic, cursed ground, I'm not sure."

She blinked slowly. Then, "Miscast spell?" she asked. 

"...Possibly," he admitted. 

"You have a name, dwarf?" 

"Granite Forgefire." He hesitated, then said: "Don't ask. My parents had very particular ideas. I go by Grant."

The dwarf nodded. "All right, Grant. I'm Darkwater Underspring. Do you mind if we camp with you?" 

Lithos thought about that. He didn't think Vinnie would attack him again any time soon; the demilich was immortal and would want to draw out the suspense. So it was probably safe for them, and wouldn't make much difference to him. "Not at all," he said.

Terror Povos: A Letter Home

Dear Marduk & Tara, 

I would address you as my parents, but I fear that I have lost the right. I have made a very, very bad mistake -- but one which, owing to recent events, never actually happened. One of the others can explain the details, if they choose to. I cannot bring myself to explain it, and I am sorry for that; I do not feel that I can return until I have figured out how to undo an event that never happened. 

I want you both to know that I am safe, and on my way to try to build a new life, and that I remain grateful for all that you have given me. 

~Lithos

Terror Povos: The Flight of Lithos

Lithos walked stoically into the darkness. Amergin and Archibald were still with Vinnie, still going to meet with Gorm, but he just couldn't. Not after... everything. 

He hadn't ever wanted to be the villain. He didn't want to now. He didn't know how to think of himself as the kind of person who would tell a demilich to go and murder a century of prisoners and guards just so that he and his family could finally get out of that damned prison. That wasn't who he was. 

Or at least, that wasn't who he was supposed to be. 

They'd tried so hard, too. The disease, the sick guards... it was supposed to be a bloodless escape. But Vinnie, who was supposed to be their contact on the inside, had withheld all but the smallest and most useless sorts of magical help, and since the sleep gas only affected certain areas there was no way out without fighting -- and killing. Their carefully-engineered escape had turned into a prison riot, and then a battle between them and the most powerful of the guards, and then between them and the warden, who was a ridiculously strong fighter for someone who should have been a useless administrator. Then, when the warden finally fallen, they still had to find out a way to get out past the rioting prisoners and the guards who manned the ballistae at the gate.

That was when Lithos had snapped, when he'd suggested to Vinnie the Demilich that he go use the Gas lever. They'd been framed and sent to this ridiculous prison; Vinnie -- and Gorm -- had set them up so there was no way to escape without killing people and further tarnishing their names. If there was no way to avoid becoming villains, Lithos had reasoned, they might as well just get on with it. 

And he had. 

And in the aftermath of all that death? Vinnie had taunted them with the knowledge that he'd been the one to murder the senator and get them sentenced to prison. He'd called Lithos a shitty wizard, and even though Lithos knew that he was young and inexperienced and nowhere near the level of mastery he aspired to... it still hurt. Not because Vinnie was right -- he was, but it was a stupid complaint to level at somebody who hadn't had the time to put in the work to be any better -- but because Vinnie was the only one in his life who'd ever really tried to build him up as a wizard. That accursed skull was the only one who'd ever tried to make Lithos feel better about being a wizard instead of a fighter, a goblin instead of a dwarf.

And the whole thing had been bullshit. He'd just been stringing Lithos along, and Lithos -- being an idiot -- had eaten it up. 

Vengeful? Defeated? Remorseful? Lost? Ashamed and furious at the same time? Lithos didn't know. All he knew was that Whisper and James had left in the night, vanished, and that he couldn't stay either. Not after all that. Master Windborne would repudiate him, and rightly so, if he knew that his student still lived. His parents would be heartbroken. His brothers and sisters... he'd driven them off, and made everything so much worse for them. 

No, there was nothing left for him back there. A new place, a new name... He'd watched Whisper and James leave, but he'd made no attempt to join them. Whisper's judgement hurt, and hurt more -- he thought -- for being correct. He was a fallen thing, a broken thing, a traitor to everything his parents had taught them. He didn't deserve to live, but he was going to do it anyway. Unless Whisper comes after me, or Vinnie does. If Whisper tries to kill me, in all fairness I'll just have to let him. If Vinnie tries to kill me... I won't be able to stop him. 

He knew, though, that Vinnie wouldn't come after him. He wasn't that important. He never had been. 

So he kept walking, not bothering to cover his trail, pack heavy upon his back.