Vendril: The Unwanted Recruit

"Take me with you," said Teleian. "I can help." 

The Silver fox shook his head. Even in the light of mid-morning, even to elvish eyes, his face was still shadowed by his cowl. Teleian wasn't entirely sure how he could even see; surely the hood that shadowed his face and reduced it to nothing more than a voice behind a mask, perhaps the faintest gleam of his eyes, surely that interfered with his peripheral vision, at least. 

But it never seemed to. 

"Why not?" he asked, and his voice was suddenly too plaintive, too desperate, too much. 

The Fox went very still, one hand hidden by his cloak and one hand on the edge of a wagon. Then he said, softly, "Because I don't want my mistakes to get anyone else killed."

Teleian's mind went blank, and he answered before he had a chance to think: "You don't make mistakes! You're the Silver Fox! You've been making a mockery of the guard and the archons for months now!"

The Fox brought his head up, met Teleian's eyes. "Everything I did, everything that brought me here, was a mistake. Everything I thought we accomplished, everyone I thought we saved, I was wrong. We were tricked, all the way down the line, and I never caught on until it was far too late and the only option left was to run." His voice was soft, breathy, but less threatening than it had been when he'd been giving orders and sorting things out in the darkness of the elf-ghetto of Solstar. That sense of unspoken menace had been replaced by a tone of doubt and regret.

Teleian hesitated, choosing his words carefully. "Do you think I don't know how that feels?" he asked, finally. "And knowing how it feels, do you think I can set that aside and just move on?"

"...It would be better if you could," said the Fox. "Stay here in Duendewood. Find a good wife. Raise fat babies."

"And wake in the night knowing that I helped King Elfsbane's Archons root out the resistance?"

The Boar, still in his pig-shaped metal helm, wandered over and stopped beside the the Fox. "There's a question?" His voice was deep, guttural, his words thick and accented. Teleian still wasn't sure whether the boar was male or female, but he definitely presented male. 

"He lets you help him," said Teleian, trying to make it sound like a reasoned argument instead of someone whining. 

"I once punched a warhorse unconscious because I didn't like the way it was looking at me," said the Boar. "What would you bring to the struggle?"

The Hawk and the Owl had been working on other things, but now they drifted over and suddenly Teleian felt like he was on trial. "I can use a sword, or a bow," he said. 

"Who can't?" asked the Hawk, with a chuckle. None of them had removed their masks, but the Hawk was definitely an elvish woman; she didn't bother with a cowl, just her hawk-shaped mask and feathered cloak. And she was right; he wasn't offering the sorts of skills that would be any use to a group like this. He wasn't showing them how he could help with the struggle. 

"I know people," he said. "I know my way around Solstar, and the ghetto in particular. I could get information, spy on things without looking out of place. And I'm fast and quiet -- enough to get myself and Tennira in and out of the human armory without being caught."

The Fox glanced at the others. The Boar stood unmoving, but after a moment he(?) rumbled, "That's not nothing."

"Can you disguise yourself?" asked the Fox. "Move unnoticed through a crowd?" 

"No," Teleian admitted, "but I can learn."

The Owl moved away from the others, circled around behind him. Teleian resisted the urge to flinch, and forced himself to stay still. 

"If you had to kill someone, what would you use?" asked a soft, sexless voice that was uncomfortably close to his left shoulder. He didn't know there was a dagger back there as well, but he could imagine it all too vividly. 

"Anything I had available, of course," he answered quietly, and forced his shoulders to relax. 

"Keep him," said the whisper behind him. 

The Fox glanced from Teleian to the Owl standing behind him, then to the Hawk and the Boar. He couldn't read their expressions through their masks, but apparently the Fox could. "What would we call you?" he asked. 

Teleian considered. He wasn't a great warrior. He wasn't a mighty mage, or divinely-inspired cleric. His talents, such as they were, ran to avoiding notice and knowing when to run. "The Mouse?" 

The Fox twitched, then twitched twice more before Teleian realized that he was quietly laughing. "Very well," he said. "I've no idea what sort of mask we'll find for that, for you, but it will be done. Just remember that this isn't an adventure; it's a job. And your primary duty is to stay alive and unnoticed."

Teleian nodded, trying not to show his relief. "I understand."

Vendril doesn't think of himself as a leader, but apparently he's just acquired the Leadership feat. The Boar is a half-orc, some kind of melee combatant, who thinks that wearing a pig-shaped helmet is ironic. The Hawk is an elf wizard, and the owl is a half-elf cleric with Trickery and probably Travel as domains.