Challenge: Haunted House

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews. I have not been following along as reliably this year as I did in previous years, but I'm still participating! Mostly.)

Prompt: Would I stay in a Haunted House? Why or Why Not?

I would. It's not something I would seek out, but I absolutely, 100% would. About the only reason I wouldn't stay in a haunted house is if I had some reason to believe that an actual, living human being was planning to murder me there. That would probably put me off. 

So yeah, if I needed a place to stay and something was the best available choice except that it was supposed to be haunted, I'd settle in. No problem. If someone offered me a cash reward to camp out overnight in an abandoned sanitarium, I'd probably sign up. I'd take precautions against possible intrusions by living humans, but I wouldn't be worried about the ghosts. (In fact, if you watch a random selection of Urbex -- Urban Exploration -- videos on YouTube, you'll run into several where somebody exploring an "abandoned" building found that it was haunted by people who actually lived there and weren't too keen on random tresspassers with cameras. It's a whole thing.) 

Now for the second half of the prompt. Why? Well, mainly because I exist in this weird liminal space between I don't believe ghosts exist and even if they somehow do, they don't actually seem to be that much of a danger or we'd know more about it by now. After the Victorian Spiritualism craze and decades of ghost-hunters, there'd be some kind of overarching hypothesis, some quanitified collection of events and measurements. But mostly I come back to If ghosts were really a thing, we'd know a lot more about them by now. Like, you want to convince me that they're mysterious and hard to gather data about? Okay, but we know about things that are absolutely wild in terms of being hard to study. We know about the bacteria that live around the edges of volcanic vents so deep in the ocean that there's neither light nor oxygen to speak of. We've found ways to study particles that are incomprehensibly small and even some that only exist in momentary bursts. If ghosts were a real-world phenomenon, surely by now we'd at least be comparing data over competing theories of how they worked.

Vinnie: Those Little Rats

Lithos was gone. The shitty little wizard of a goblin was gone. The damned little rat had fled. Well, he'd fix 'im. Run away from me? It was a good thing that Wish wasn't the only spell he'd prepared. I was gonna use it on Whisper, but fine: I can send a message to Lithos instead. Shitty little wizard... Now you get Vinnie's Malicious Messenger instead of your brother.

He'd enjoyed playing with the kid. Hell, he'd enjoyed playing with all of them. The expressions on their faces when the Senator keeled over? Priceless. They had no idea what had happened. Watching them flail around in the prison trying to figure out how to escape unnoticed using only what he'd offered? Fuckin' hilarious. He hadn't been this entertained in centuries. And then the goblin had gone and given him permission to murder everybody? Fuckin' awesome. 

Not that he needed permission, but that was part of the game. And he could use that. It was gonna be easy. Train him up. Give him a taste of power. Offer him more. And then promote him to a lich under my command. Durest's Bones, the kid was so easy, so fuckin' desperate for anybody to take an interest in him.

The others... Eh, they were good cover. A smokescreen. Nothin' more. And funny as shit to watch. He wouldn't miss the rogue -- a rogue couldn't hurt him, but rogues had other ways of making trouble. Which is why I was gonna send 'im a message. Specially since he took the halfling wit' him. But all right. Three followers. Now just two. And they were supposed to meet with Garm, so it was a good thing he'd charmed the everlovin' fuck out of Garm.

Vinnie eyed his two remaining followers, the dwarven druid and the human bard. He could do this with only them, and they were still useful to have around. If he had to fuck with the goblin mage at a distance instead of close up, he'd do it that way. Yeah, Whisper can get his messenger tomorrow.

Decisions, part one

"Are you all right?" asked Elyssa. "You seem... I don't know, different, this morning."

"Yeah," said Chris, who was feeling surprisingly bright and alert considering how little sleep he'd gotten and the fact that his dreams had been overwhelmed with glimpses of events that he'd never experienced. He closed his throat against saying anything else; he still had to keep his secrets, no matter how much more comfortable he was feeling with them. "I'm good."

"Good," she said. "I'm glad. Any idea what we're doing now?" 

"None," Chris told her. "Antoinette?"

Their magus was waiting at the edge of one of the training areas, the one set with fake buildings and other obstacles. She'd seen them coming, and stopped to wait. "No idea," she said. "Magus Frummelt said he wanted us to try another approach to training, but he didn't explain." 

The magus at the edge of the training area wasn't Frummelt, but Chris still recognized him; it was agent Spencer, the one with the aggressively square face who'd brought him to Frummelt after Julius Thornblade had been killed. For all that he'd looked cold and authoritative then, he looked friendly enough now. 

"Magus Gillespie," he acknowledged. "Magus Frummelt wants you and your people to practice working at as a team. For this scenario, a child from one of the families has been kidnapped by by a group of rogue magi and their unregistered outsiders. They're still in the Mundus, but they have access to a portal."

Antoinette glanced at Chris, who asked: "Do we know how many magi and how many outsiders?"

"For this, you do: three magi, and three outsiders. The information you have suggests that they aren't close with each other, but they're united in their desire to  take the child and use him as bait. They want the head of the house to come so they can ambush him; you have to get there before that happens."

Antoinette turned her head the other way and looked at Elyssa, who swallowed and said: "That sounds like we're operating with prejudice. Are we allowed to kill them? Do we need to keep any of them for questioning?"

Agent Spencer smiled approvingly. "The child's survival is your top priority, but the Ministry would be appreciative if you could keep at least one of the magi alive for the truthspeakers. We've put some enchantments in place to prevent -- but mark -- things that would have been serious injuries, so you can treat this as if the threat were real." He hesitated. "We're not using an actual child, obviously, but the doll representing the hostage has been similarly enchanted. We'll know if it's 'injured'."

"How much time do we have?" asked Antoinette. 

"You don't know for sure, but... some. Enough to approach strategically. You'll be uninterrupted until the head of the house decides to come, or sends agents of his own. Hypothetically. The rogues might decide to dispose of the hostage, but not before that happens. Is all of that clear?"

Antoinette glanced at Chris, and then at Elyssa. "Do we know where they are?" she asked.  

"Somewhere in the training quad," agent Spencer told her. "Good luck."

State of the Unio-- um, Me. Or the Blog.

Whuf. So we're a little off-schedule here. Dark Armor hasn't been updated in weeks, the Thursday D&D posting have been erratic because the games have had scheduling issues, our DM is moving to Boston in just a little bit, I'm two weeks into a new job, and Firstborn is heading off to college in less than a month. 

I am 25000% out of my head. 

The job change is good: better pay, nice people to work with, a much more focused scope, and a lot less bullshit. They actually promote internally. The only real downside is the commute, which isn't a big difference in time but does cost more in gas and tollway extortion. I'm digging into some things that are very familiar -- user roles, workflows, and like that -- and some things that really aren't -- utility billing, permits, and suchlike. 

So far, nobody from the former job has called me to ask for help about the stuff I handled previously, but then I was very careful about who I gave the new cell phone number to. 

Dark Armor will likely be back as soon as I can get the rest of my shit together and put myself back in that headspace. It'll keep its place on Fridays. 

D&D will likely continue, just online, and the high schoolers should hopefully have picked back up by the time this posts; they're due to interact with the orcs who oversee the dinosaur herds. Following the collapse of the campaign that I was playing in, one of the other players is running a series of sessions in Disgraceland: the island that was taken over by his sorcerer-turned-vampire in the last campaign. I'm not sure about posting the notes from that campaign here; I'm playing Olen Mosk, a half-fiend Bard with an emphasis on Bluff and Oratory, and the other players are the priest of a sex cult and a halfling druid who's a literal trash panda. I'm also considering DMing something for one particular Discord server that I'm on; I'm just not sure how much headspace I have for that. 

I'm very sad about our DM moving to Boston; that's going to seriously curtail my social life here in Texas. This is not to say that I disagree with the decision; I can absolutely understand why they'd want to.

Firstborn heading off to college... if we're being honest, I have absolutely no idea how I feel about this. I'm distracted, of course, but I think I'm also in denial; I'll probably figure out how I feel about it when I finally get around to reacting to it, which might be a while. I will, however, say without reservation that I am incredibly proud of the child (even if I shouldn't really be calling him a child anymore; he's old enough to get drafted). It's time to give him room to make his own mistakes. Maybe past time, given that he spent his Freshman year of high school on Covid lockdown. 

My navel-gazing posts are  usually kind of mixed news, but actually I'm feeling pretty positive about this one; it's just that there's a lot going on. I hope the rest of you are on a more positive trajectory as well.

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.

A Dream, A Nightmare, A Transformation, part four

In his current mood, Chris didn't even mind Grundus' company. The older wolf walked with him as he changed course towards the dormitory and made his way to his room. They stopped at the door, and Grundus asked: "You aren't an elder, are you?"

Chris shook his head. "Nope. I'm every bit the daft youth I pretend to be."

Grundus shook his head in return. "No, you're not. I still don't know what you are, but maybe it doesn't matter. You protected Elyssa somehow, didn't you?" 

Chris sighed. "I'm just another wolf, Grundus. A little stronger, a little faster, a little tougher... that doesn't make me better. Did you really think I was an elder playing at being a new recruit?"

Grundus studied him for a long moment. "No," he said at last. "I haven't ruled it out completely, but... no, I don't see it. An elder would have pulled us in as allies, to cover for him. You..."

"...Don't like people?"

"For whatever reason, you're a fucking lone wolf," said Grundus. "That's not a condemnation, it's just an acknowledgement. You don't work with others and you don't want to, except when you do. I honestly didn't think you'd make it through the program, but you're loyal to the people you're working with. You and Antoinette -- and now Elyssa -- have managed some amazing things."

"Whereas you want the wolves here to be a single, united community." Chris kept his voice wry, but it suddenly made sense why Grundus had been so focused on him. He was going against the program. 

"Close enough," Grundus affirmed. "But you know what? When somebody asks you for help, you answer. I'll take that."

"Allies, then," said Chris, looking for the word to describe what he thought Grundus was asking for now. 

"Yeah," the older wolf answered. "That'll do."

"All right," he answered. "But not until after I sleep."

A Dream, A Nightmare, A Transformation, part three

He made it back to the compound with ten minutes to spare, then spent five minutes dithering before he walked back through the wards. The magus in the gatehouse glanced at him as he went past, scribbled something on a ledger, and went back to looking at his phone. 

It was finished. The heart of the fallen god was fully absorbed, his original self transformed beyond anything he could have hoped to achieve by devouring the essences of others. He would never be truly human again. 

Possibly he should have regretted that, but he couldn't find any trace of loss or guilt in himself. He'd known what he was doing -- and what he was risking -- when he first moved to devour the resurrected Heart. Even absorbed, it had been... uncontrollable. He could reason with it, bargain with it, ask for its help, call it up to burn out a vampire elder and its nest of progeny, but he couldn't simply assume its power and use it as his own the way he did with everything else. 

Not until now. 

In one way, it was a relief. The nameless god who had been Vengeance and Reconciliation was finally at rest, and its power was fully under his control. He no longer needed to fear its imperatives giving him, giving them, away. In another, it was... a sacrifice. A small death. He could never go back to being what he'd been before the Incident at Pettibone. 

He wouldn't miss his humanity; he'd never felt all that human to begin with. Some of that, he knew, was teenage melodrama; and some was just the inevitable result of being the talented working-class kid at the school for the sons and daughters of the rich and powerful. Some of it might even have come from accidentally absorbing the essence of the speartongue in his youth, and growing up with the knowledge of that second self. 

"Chris?" asked Grundus. 

Chris stopped, turned. He was halfway across the campus, in the open space between the buildings, on his way to... the gym, apparently, he thought. He shook his head and tried to focus. "Grundus."

"I wasn't sure it was you, at first," said the older wolf. "Were you... were you actually smiling?"

Chris offered his most unsettling grin. "I do that sometimes."

"Not around me, you don't." Grundus took a step back. "If rumors are true, you've had a long day. Maybe you should sleep?"

Chris started to argue, stopped, blinked, and then said, "Perhaps you're right, Uncle. Running through the hills helped, but..." He yawned, and then found that it took an effort of will not to yawn again. "I should sleep now."

"Uncle, is it?" Grundus grumbled. "All right, come on. I'll see you back to your room."

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. 

Terra Povos: The end of the Hole

 So it’s been a while, but we’re still trying to escape from The Hole. That means finding the warden and basically getting the index so we can get our stuff back, and using the lever so the single actual exit will open. 

Lithos, at Whisper’s suggestion, casts Detect Magic and starts going through the storeroom. We go through looking for magic items, and come up with Oil of Slipperiness (+2 on Escape Artist checks) along with some leather harnesses and thirty yards of surgical tubing. Vinnie swoops over and looks at this robe: “I love these things! It’s a robe of bones.” It’s like a robe of useful items, but all the items are uncontrolled skeletons or zombies. Amergin keeps that. 

Small goblin skeleton

Medium human skeleton

Medium human zombie

Medium wolf zombie

We find Whisper’s stuff. Also, the communication pipes are all over the walls, so if people are paying attention they can hear us. Whisper starts swapping out for his original equipment. We continue the hunt. We add an Elixir of Truth, then Dust of Dryness. Then a Hand of the Mage, which Vinnie is also very excited about. Next: a Bead of Force, which we pass off to Whisper. An Elixir of Fire Breath, which Lithos promptly claims. 

Lithos keeps looking, and finds bracers of armor +1. At that point the warden’s door opens and he emerges to swing at James. Lithos hurriedly stuffs them in his bag. James is badly surprised and very nearly goes down. The warden is carrying a magical shield, wearing plate armoir, and swinging a war axe. Baldy sicks his rats on the warden, and they start swarming his armor. Whisper pulls the last of his equipment into place. 

Monster goes to help James. “Hey! I like the tiny one!” He charges the warden and hits him pretty solidly. James disengages and moves back: “Bad touch! Bad touch! No means no!” Cloak of Resistance +1, which Lithos also adds to his inventory. The warden power attacks Monster, and takes him down. The rats do some damage to the warden, however. 

Whisper considers the Bead of Force, and also the possibility of just locking the warden in with the swarm of rats. Whisper commands the horse to charge and attack the warden; it misses. James charges the warden and attacks, but misses. Lithos searches and finds a pearl of power for a second-level spell. The warden cuts at the horse: “Hey! How’d you get this horse!? Ain’t none of you strong enough too– HEY! How’d you smuggle a floating skull in here??? These fucking rats…”

The horse fails to hurt the warden, but it does keep him distracted and covered in rats. Whisper attacks but misses. Monster is just about three seconds from giving a death rattle. Lithos calls back one of his spells, steps to the doorway, and lets loose with a Scorching ray, burning the warden. The warden cuts down our horse. 

Whisper throws the Bead of Force behind the warden, where it explodes, damaging the warden and blocking off the stairs behind him. Monster has been partly revivified, and swings at the warden… and drops his sword. James swings, misses, and takes a step back; Amergin heals him. Lithos goes back to searching and finds a bag of holding type 2. The warden attacks and manages to finish the rat swarm. Then he attacks Monster, who’s still lying on the ground. Monster dies. 

Baldy lifts the pipes and tries to call for more rats. Whisper fires another crossbow shot and misses. James: “Can we talk about this?” 

Warden: “Drop your weapons and lock yourself in the vault!” 

James throws down the cursed mace and retreats to the vault.  Lithos: “How bad is it?”

James: “I’m fine! It’s fine! We’ve almost got him. And his ass looks very fine!” 

Lithos: “Vinnie… Monster Zombies.” He continues searching and finds a Necklace of Fireballs, Type I. 

Vinnie raises a zombie which moves to attack the warden. The warden promptly cuts the zombie down. It is at that moment that warden notices: “Wait! You didn’t actually put your mace down!” He starts towards James. 

Baldy fires off his crossbow again, while playing the pipes and waiting for more rats to arrive. Amergin swings his shilleleagh and misses. Lithos throws a fireball out there and catches the warden; the warden attacks him but misses. Baldy shoots but misses. Whisper moves to flank, then fires a crossbow bolt that goes right through the chainmail at the back of his helmet. The warden screams: “Beardless testicles!” -- a ferocious dwarven curse.

James moves up next to Lithos and swings at the warden, but misses. Lithos backs away and throws another fireball, burning both the warden and Amergin. The warden steps towards Lithos and pulls a potion out; Amergin smacks him, but he drinks the potion of Cure Moderate Wounds. James swings and misses. 

Lithos drops the fireball at his feet. The warden swings at Lithos, who fails to dodge the blade and drops like a rock. Warden M'Hole swings at James and misses. 

Vinnie: “You got this– NOOOOO!” 

He casts Clone on Monster’s corpse, and this Cronenberg body-horror version of Lithos stands back up. James: “WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?”  He fails, however, to get the warden to turn and look. He swings the cursed mace but misses. 

Amergin steps in and keeps Lithos from dying. Lithos withdraws from the rats but still gets bitten. Warden Hammer M’hole attacks James, missing and then hitting; James is swaying but he doesn’t go down. Whisper stabs the warden, and the warden goes down. 

Vinnie: “That dude was kind of bad ass!” He kind of slurps at the fallen warden, and another one of his teeth starts glowing. We turn back and search the Vault, and this time find the rest of our stuff. We kit back up, and get Vinnie to, well, zombify the warden. 

Upstairs in the warden’s quarters, we find... well... It’s very richly decorated; the index of the vault is totally doctored. The Canary Diamond is up here, but not in the inventory. There’s three flasks of fine whiskey worth about 100 GP each; into the bag with ‘em. We use the lever to open the outer door, so we can finally escape the prison. 

 

"Okay," asks Amergin. "Now how do we get out past the riot?"

 

And Lithos, who has had more than enough of all this, looks at Vinny and thinks, You could pull the lever.

 

Vinnie: The sleep lever? 

 

Lithos: The one marked gas that we thought was the sleep lever. 

 

Vinnie: Oh. Good thinking, kid.
He pats Lithos on the shoulder with a Mage Hand.   

Vinnie takes his new zombie out through the secret door and into the tunnels. About five minutes later the last sounds of rioting suddenly cut off in agonized screams. Vinnie and Warden Zombie return a few minutes later. “Okay, it’s all clear now.” 

Whisper, also in telepathic contact: What’d you do, Vinnie?

“Nothin’! I got no hands! They was just screamin’ because of the sleep gas. 'Cause they saw it coming again.” He nods to the warden zombie. “He's the one who did it. I think this is a bad guy. We should kill him.”

We check through the tunnels. There are two sets: guards, cells, etc. The second set connects the warden’s chambers to the guard chambers with the ballistae guarding the gates. Baldy does a bit of ventriloquism so it seems like the warden is speaking: “We need you to let us out when we come through.”

The guards are convinced, but Whisper stops to have a little chat with Lithos – having slit the throat of his clone. A chat to the tune of, "It's a good thing you're dead back there. You'd better think about who you're going to be when we get out of here, because you can't be you anymore." 

 

We exit The Hole and head up the passages. Somebody has left a rock arrangement that looks a bit like a golem's shattered hand, and we find a scroll from Gorm telling us where to meet him. The whole group stops, looking at that note. Looking at Whisper, and Amergin, and Vinnie, and Lithos. It's decision time. 

 

"Do we meet him?" Whisper chalks on his slate. "Or do we just fade out? Our reputation is fucked. Mom and Dad are going to be heartbroken." 

 

We go back and forth, with Lithos pointing out that we'd been set up to become the bad guys: Gorm sent us into the prison telling us that we could escape fairly soon, but with wholly inadequate equipment to manage that and a "man on the inside" who was a fucking demilich. Everyone else, rightly, points out that we -- by which they mean Lithos -- just genocided a hundred or so political prisoners. Lithos, who is pretty well fed up with taking shit from everybody he meets (with the exception of his siblings, except that even that seems to be giving way all of a sudden) points out that they'd already killed several guards and started a riot; there was no way they were going to come out of this with their reputations intact.

Vinnie takes this as his cue to admit -- brag -- that, well, he was the one who killed the senator. He's a connoseur of souls. That's why he devoured the warden's soul over our objections. That's why he couldn't resist the senator. They were powerful, forceful souls and -- unlike us -- up to his exacting standards for taste. What he wants now is the tarrasque’s soul and the Rogue Caminante Guy’s soul. We'll help him get them; that's why he came with us. In exchange, he’ll use Wish to make it so the events in The Hole never happened. 

We tentatively agree, and Vinnie settles in to rest and prepare his spell. We wait until he’s well and truly resting, and shove him in the bag of holding. Muffled voice: “Are you fucking serious? You still want me to work on that spell?” 

Amergin: “Yes.”

So now we have an incredibly powerful demilich in a bag of holding. Ironically, this will not hold him; but it does give us a chance to discuss things with some confidence that he won't be able to listen in. Whisper takes off, because he doesn’t see any way out of this that doesn’t end in disaster. He can’t take on Vinnie; none of us can. The best he can hope for is to be a loose end, and maybe discourage Vinnie from doing anything to our parents just by being out there. James goes off with Whisper, because Whisper is more terrifying than the rest of us.

Lithos, Amergin, and Archibald agree to the deal, because that's the only way to undo this massacre.

However, with the party thoroughly split and the Demilich largely in charge, this campaign is probably over. 

A Dream, A Nightmare, A Transformation, part two

Viewed from the outside, it was amazing that the training center could remain anonymous, even in the middle of nowhere in western Oklahoma, even with magical protections. It wasn't even a single training center; it was two parallel academies, one for magi and one for outsiders, even if nobody liked to use the word academy for such things anymore. 

It had taken Chris a few minutes to work his way up into the hills, but once he was safely out of sight he'd dropped down onto four legs and let his wolf's body race. Wolves couldn't do that here in the Mundus, unless they'd learned to store Grey the same way that magi did to inform their spells. Chris didn't care; he'd been out in the Grey enough recently that even if somebody noticed, it wouldn't seem out of place. As long as he didn't do anything that would require Cleanup's attention, he should be fine... and he was betting that anything within half a mile of the training center would be thoroughly scrubbed so that Cleanup never had to deal with it. 

He stopped on the edge of the Witchita Wildlife Refuge, and resumed a human configuration. That wasn't all the Dark Heart needed, though, so he dropped from the taller, leaner body of a wolf in human form to his own, original form: purely human though a magus, and nothing more. 

Very good, the Dark Heart pronounced. Now, through your own power, I will be one with you. 

He staggered back as it moved within him, mimicking the power that he'd used to absorb its essence, to take it into himself. He had pulled it in and captured it so that it could rest; that had been the bargain. Now it poured itself into him, destroying itself as it transformed him. Thousands of years of divinity washed through him, revenge and reconciliation side by side, destruction and mercy walking hand in hand: dark fires, cold imperatives, the nightmare weight of divine judgement. 

He felt the fallen god's last, ambivalent emotions as it finally let itself go: regret and relief, mixed and inseparable. Then it was quiet, and he stood in the wilderness burning silent and strong, wings spread behind him, tail lashing at the ground, claws and fangs extended. He reached for the Reconcilation side of this strange new power, this strange new self, and felt himself fall back into his original body. He'd need to find a mirror to make certain it was unchanged, but standing here, now, he felt like his old self. 

Thank you, he thought, to the last of the departed god, and you're welcome.

A Dream, A Nightmare, A Transformation, part one

Chris was drifting on the edge of sleep when the Dark Heart spoke to him again. It is time.

...What?

You are worthy. The voice echoed through him, shaking him, too impossibly large for even a wolf's toughened flesh. 

All right. I... What do you need?

You offered me rest, but I need -- I CRAVE -- release. You are a worthy successor to my power... and my duty. You play at being a wolf, but for this you must drop the act. 

Alone in his bed, Chris considered that. He was still inside the training center, and even Antoinette had come to believe that they had no real privacy here. Whatever the Dark Heart had in mind, it was likely to attract attention from the magi, and he couldn't afford that. So, All right, he thought, and pried himself out of bed. Let's go find a place where I can do that.

It was a matter of small minutes and quick movements to get himself out the door, out of the dormitory, and across the campus to the gates. A tired-looking magus looked up from his phone as Chris trudged towards him. "What?" he asked, bored and impatient behind his desk.

"Christopher Black, Registered Outsider, requesting a one-hour pass to go outside."

"Vehicle?" 

"None. I'm not going anywhere in particular, I just need some time to myself -- and I can't get that here."

The magus set his phone aside and turned to his computer, typing slowly enough to make Chris slightly crazy with impatience. It had been a long day, with the trip into Tulsa and the skinless corpse and the ice skating, and he wanted nothing more than a full night's sleep... but apparently the entire Universe was conspiring against him on that. 

"Yeah, all right," said the magus, as something flashed on his screen. He plucked a piece of paper and gathered a bit of Grey, then inscribed two separate glyphs on the paper: one at the top, the other at the bottom. "This one will let you out, and this one will let you back in... but if you take more than the hour you're allotted, we'll know -- so watch your time out there." He sat back, dark-skinned and brown-eyed, with curly hair cut short. "Word of advice? We don't get a lot of these requests, and most don't get approved. Somebody likes you, so don't screw that up."

"I won't," Chris told him. "That's why they like me."

He took the paper and walked out through the gate, watching as the upper glyph burned away.

Taking down the office

 Apropos of nothing, really: 

(Okay, so I haven't actually poured gasoline on anything, but just cleaning out the desk is feeling pretty damned good.)

Music for moving to a new job: 2 Weeks Notice

 Infinite Skillz:

Okay, true story: at the send-off lunch yesterday, I stood up to give a speech. I'd thought about this in advance, and I intended to keep it short and sweet. I was just going to say, "It's been a pleasure working with all of you. I hope your time at the city has been better for my time at the city." Emphasis on for, as in because of.

I had not reckoned with the presence of loud-ish Mexican music in the background and possibly the secret expectations of my co-workers, because apparently what everybody at the table -- including my own dear wife, who was sitting right beside me -- what everybody heard was this: 

"I hope your time at the city is better than my time at the city."

And you know what? Fuck it. I'm not even going to try to correct it. First off, nobody would believe me. Second, even if it's the exact opposite of what I meant to say, it's not entirely untrue and maybe people needed to hear it. But mainly, I'm not going to try to correct it because it's the single most objectively funny Freudian slip I have ever made in my life.

Driving Needs, part sixteen

"Okay, where to now?" asked Chris, once they'd returned their skates and left the ice rink. 

"Karoake," said Antoinette. 

"Karaoke?"

"Karaoke," she affirmed. 

"I have," Chris said, "this vague image of karaoke as a thing where people get up on stage and sing songs."

"Yeah, that's pretty much it." 

"Oh!" said Elyssa. "That sounds like fun." 

"Singing?" asked Chris. "Or watching other people sing?" He couldn't help sounding dubious. 

"Well, both really," Elyssa said. 

"All right, you win," Chris said. "Now I'm afraid." He was only half-kidding. 

"Really?" Antoinette looked at him across the roof of the car. "You'll fall all over the place on ice skates, but you won't sing? Why not?"

He shrugged and unlocked the doors, then climbed into the driver's seat. After a few minutes he said, "I think it's because I don't mind sucking at skating. You all know I'm athletic, and it's something I could learn, so it doesn't bother me as much. Singing is... I can't look at how badly I sing and reassure myself that I have a good voice and could pick it up with practice." He glanced at Antoinette. "And also, I'd want to get some practice if I was going to step onto a stage and sing in front of people."

Antoinette considered that, then nodded. "All right. No karaoke. Take us back to the training center." 

Elyssa mimed a pout. "Aww..." She gave it away by grinning at Chris in the rear view mirror. 

"Karaoke's best kept for when we're old enough to drink, I'm told," Antoinette said. "And anyway, magus Frummelt has something else in mind for our training, starting tomorrow."

"All right," said Chris, and pulled up GPS before setting his phone in its cradle on the dashboard. "We're heading back."

Wizard and Warden, prequel three

Darkvision was essential on the waters of the Opreto. There were shiplamps, of course, but they burned a lot of fuel and still missed things; a sensible captain used them sparingly. Cleave Sparkstone had been a ship's captain for eighty years now, and if the current venture wasn't entirely sensible he still intended to keep his crew focused on what would work. 

The wizard and his pet warrior had done a grand job of clearing the decks; his people had taken injuries and a few were out of commission, but nobody had actually died and nobody seemed likely to. If they could finish off these pirates, it would cement his name as a captain that nobody should want to cross.  

"Starboard side, close," said his First Mate Porphyry, leaning over the rail. "Tracking just ahead of us. Hold course."

"Hold course!" he called, and listened as the word was passed back. Lizard-folk didn't swim as quickly as some aquatic species, but they could hold their breath for a long time. Tracking the fleeing attackers across the water required caution, patience, and skill. "Anything from the prisoner?" he asked the Bosun, who was waiting beside him. 

"I'll check."

A moment later the Bosun was back, the warrior beside him. She was back to her regular size, sensibly armored in studded leather, and smiling as she said something to his bosun. "Captain," she said by way of greeting. "The prisoner says she knew this was a mistake and that sooner or later we dwarves would strike back. She'd like us to sink the boat her people are using and let them swim away; she says she can guide us to the cave they've been using to store their booty."

"You believe her?" 

"Yes and no," the warrior admitted. "I think she was the war-leader's wife, or mate, or whatever it is that lizard-folk have. I'd be willing to bet that she actually did argue that they should change tactics or quit while they were ahead. She still came along to protect him, though. And I'm sure she doesn't want any more of her people to die."

The wizard Valerius joined them on the foredeck. "How goes it?"

"We're tracking them," Cleave told him. "It's not easy, holding our speed down like this, but we're still with them." 

"Could you sink their ship?" asked the warrior Malwyn, looking at her wizard. "If you could, we might convince our prisoner to lead the rest of them out of Opreto and settle somewhere else."

"They're pirates," Cleave observed. "Silverkeep law says their lives are forfeit." 

"True," said the wizard Valerius. "How many of your crew are you willing to sacrifice to make that happen? Right now we haven't lost anyone. If we back them into a corner and annihilate them... I don't think we can manage that without losses. And they're lizardfolk on the water; they might surprise us."

Cleave ground his teeth, but the wizard was right. 

"We've already hurt them, badly," the warrior added. "The ones who stayed behind are likely--"

"SHIP!" called the First Mate, looking ahead. The rest of them saw it a moment later. 

Valerius sighed. "My turn, I suppose," he said, and strode for the railing. Malwyn followed automatically.

Driving Needs, part fifteen

Ice skating didn't terrify him, but Chris was more than willing to admit that he wasn't any good at it. He wobbled out onto the ice, struggling desperately to keep his balance and held upright mainly by the fact that the rented skates were laced as tightly as he could manage. Antoinette glided past him, then turned in place and continued moving backwards so she could look him in the face. 

"Well?" asked Elyssa lightly. "Are you terrified?"

"No," Chris answered firmly. "Awkward, unbalanced, and--" He tried to extend a leg and propel himself forward, wobbled, and promptly fell on his ass instead. "--And a little bit sore," he admitted, then set about the task of getting back upright. 

Two years earlier, he would never have gone out on the ice like this. He would have expressed disinterest and avoided it. Now, after the Incident at Pettibone -- which was how the Magi apparently all referred to it -- he cared less, about his dignity and about everything else. And he was supposed to be just a wolf, so he was supposed to be beholden to his magus, even if this wasn't strictly a situation where she was giving orders. He knew Antoinette wouldn't press the issue if he really refused, and that made him perversely more willing to go along with what she wanted. Was that how teams were formed? 

He tried again, and this time he went further before he had to reach for the wall and steady himself. Elyssa was more certain on her skates; she didn't skate backwards, but she seemed perfectly in control of her starts and stops, her turns and sweeps. Was this something that wolves learned when they grew up out in the Grey? Was he giving himself away by not knowing this already?

If so, the damage was already done. The knowledge was thin consolation, but he held to it anyway. And while this might disprove Grundus' theory -- that he was an older, more powerful wolf pretending to be young and inexperienced -- it would also lend weight to Magus Frummelt's theory that he was a wolf who had been raised in the Mundus, by magi; possibly even a halfbreed. 

"You're getting better," Antoinette said, coming up beside him. "You're nearly all the way around now."

A small child swept past him and he flinched, stumbled, and went down again. "Better isn't good," he said. 

"Maybe not," Antoinette admitted as she helped him back up, "but it's a lot better than worse."

A Minor Rant About Changing Jobs

I'm changing jobs soon. Not just moving within my current employment, but heading off to another job for a different employer at a substantial increase in pay for doing a job that's a lot of what I'm doing now, but with a much better focus, a chance to learn the ropes and possibly even get training, and without twenty-something years worth of accreted other-duties-as-assigned. 

This is being framed as a situation where I received an offer that was "just too good to pass up". That is the kind of bullshit that management comes up with when they don't want to admit that they fucked up and failed to prevent an entirely preventable situation. It's not that I got an exceptionally good offer; it's just that someone was willing to pay me what I'm worth. It's not that I'm moving to an amazingly good work environment, it's just that after years of being largely ignored, trying to find ways around weird and unnecessary roadblocks, and being vastly better-appreciated by every other department that I worked with than I was by the so-called leadership of my own, it'll be really nice to work with people who clearly want me there. 

Six months ago I suggested that they -- our IT management -- really ought to get me a minion, someone I could introduce to all the things that I do and who could work on projects that I simply didn't have time to get to. Four weeks later, management came back with the suggestion that I should cross-train with at least one of my co-workers. Leave aside how insulting that is; when something comes up with one of "my" systems that A) needs troubleshooting, and B) would therefore be a valuable learning opportunity, I need that particular co-worker to take care of issues coming in from another system so I can focus long enough to fix the problem. End result: no management experience for me, no training for my co-worker (who frankly already has enough to keep up with), and nobody in the department has a clear idea of what all I actually do.

Even so, I asked my soon-to-be employer for a full three weeks before I started with them, because I knew it was going to take that long to pull together my documentation for whatever poor bastard(s) my current job responsibilities got dumped on. As it happens, the hiring cycle for my new employer stretched that out to nearly a full four weeks. 

Turns out I'm going to need all of that -- possibly more, but that's not my problem. I have two significant projects that I'm trying to finish before I go, if I can block out the time now that word has gotten around and everybody is suddenly panicking about the fact that I'm leaving. 

And then, last week, my former boss -- now our deputy CIO -- started trying to get re-acquainted with my website-related duties, because he'd tried to add a new editor and suddenly learned that it isn't as easy as just putting them in the right group in Active Directory. That particular internal site is running on ridiculously old Content Management software, and desperately needs to be moved to something new. To add a new user, you need to go into the goddamned SQL, open a particular table, and add the new user there.

This was the point where our Deputy CIO suddenly remembered that he'd had An Idea to move that whole Intranet site over to Sharepoint. That was the point where I sent him a link to the site that I'd finished setting up for that purpose between Christmas and New Year's of 2021, and reminded him that I'd informed both him and our actual CIO that this was done and ready to go, multiple times. What I'd gotten in response was basically, "This'll need to be run past the other department heads," and then radio silence. 

But here we are, looking at this now, with our Deputy CIO suddenly realizing that this was about to become his problem, and he says to me, "I know you're busy pulling documentation together, but could you go through this site and get it up to date? It'd be a nice feather in your cap before you leave."

What I told him at the time -- on the phone, unprepared for this bullshit -- was that I had two solid projects that I was trying to finish before I leave, and I couldn't make any promises. What I actually think, after taking several hours to process the fucking audacity of it, is: NO. This thing was not a priority for management/"leadership" for two and half years. I am not the reason we are not already using it, and thus not -- by extension -- the reason it's out of date. Should we switch over to it? Absolutely. Is that my problem in any way? Not at fucking all. 

And this bullshit, years of this bullshit, is exactly why I'm not going to miss this job one bit. It's not that it's a horrible place to work, exactly; but if I were recommending it to someone in good conscience I'd have to advise that they come, work here for a year or two to get some experience, and then start looking elsewhere.

Wizard and Warden, prequel two

Their two familiars disappeared into the rigging, Valerius' bat flapping silently to the forecastle while Malwyn's owl circled aft. 

"No sign of boats," Valerius said, half-leaning on his staff against the sway of the ship. 

"Nothing alarming back here," Malwyn answered, just before she caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye and gave an undignified squeak. She cut down at the scaled hand caught the top of the rail and a reptilian forehead raised itself up. 

"Malwyn?"

"Lizardfolk," she called loudly. "No boats, they're just swimming over."

"That," muttered Valerius, "explains a lot." He muttered and gestured, and a handful of glowing red darts launched themselves at a pair of lizardfolk who were coming up over the port railing. 

Malwyn focused, letting the outside world fall away. There was only her blade, the battle, and the aura of icy cold that she channeled into the steel. A faint white patina of frost covered it, and when she struck the lizardfolk warrior staggered back, the edges of the wound in its chest black with frostbite. She swung again, but missed. 

The sailors were fighting back as well, harpoons and belaying pins and a couple of well-placed nets all deployed to deadly effect, and for a moment it looked like the attack would break. Then a lizard-man appeared on the bow, having apparently climbed the anchor, and smashed down the first sailor to come at him with a long trident that seemed carved from pure ivory. Two more came up behind it, even as Valerius surrounded himself with a quartet of illusory images to make himself harder to hit.  

A series of fiery beams lanced out from the dwarven wizard's hand, striking the lizardfolk warleader; the warleader staggered back, but shook off the damage, raised his spear, and threw it. 

By sheer luck it found its target, and Valerius staggered back. Blood stained the shoulder of his robe.

Malwyn broke off from the injured lizard-warrior and flung herself between them. She felt the brush of a bone-tipped spear against the back of her hair as she moved, but another sailor moved in with a belaying pin and she lost track of the enemy behind her. She couldn't get up the stairs and reach the warleader and his guards, but she could distract them... 

She cast the spell she had prepared earlier: Enlarge. 

The warleader, now half her size, lowered his head briefly, hissed, and then flung himself forward. His guards followed at his heels. 

She caught him with her enlarged greatsword before he could get close enough to attack, cut him and poured frost into the wound. The warleader twisted, ignoring the injury, and stabbed hard with his trident, driving it into her thigh. She'd need to remember to dodge; at this size, she was an easy target. And how the hell had he gotten it back? That had to be magic.

The two guards continued past her, angling for Valerius, but Valerius met one of them with Shocking Grasp. It wasn't enough damage to take the guard out, but it was definitely enough to set it back on its heels. 

Malwyn swung at the warleader, and this time both strikes connected; with the additional damage from the aura of frost around her blade, he went down. 

The guards were still focused on Valerius, and two of his illusory doubles disappeared to when they attacked. Valerius and his remaining doubles gestured at the undamaged one, and it collapsed, paralyzed. Malwyn brought her sword around, and cut down the injured guard; at the edge of the railing, one of the lizard-folk looked up to meet her eyes, then threw itself backwards into the water. 

A moment later the attack was over. The lizard-folk who could were escaping; Malwyn thought that was less than half of them, maybe as little as a fifth. 

The ship's captain, Cleave Sparkstone, came hurrying down from the raised stern. "What now?" he asked. 

Valerius was looking at his pierced and blood-stained robe in disgust. "Find their ship," he said quietly, looking over at Malwyn. "If we can't find it, we question to the prisoner here." He gestured down at the immobile lizard-woman at his feet. 

"Ropes," growled the captain. "Bind this one to the mast!"

Challenge: Skills

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews. I have not been following along as reliably this year as I did in previous years, but I'm still participating! Mostly.)

This week's prompt is actually my thoughts on social media which right now I do not have. However, I did finally come up with an answer for last week's prompt. A week late, but here it is: 

Prompt: A Skill I Wish More People Had, And Why

I wish more people were skilled at taking no for an answer. 

Yes, sometimes more discussion is needed. Sometimes arguing back is appropriate. But I feel like the world would generally be a better if place if more people practiced answering, "Okay," when they got told "no".

Also I wish people were better at time management. And yes, I am looking directly at the fact that I'm answering last week's prompt right now.

Driving Needs, part fourteen

"Cleanup crew's here," said Captain Saintcrow. "I think it's safe for you three to take off."

Antoinette nodded. "What's the final count? What the hell actually happened here?"

"Not sure," she answered. "We won't know until all reports are filed, and even then we might get something wrong. But I've got at least four magi who got together to summon a skin-stealer from the Grey, and a fifth who they apparently sacrificed so it could wear his skin. The skin-stealer then managed to shoot all four of them, dumped the weapon somewhere, and cozied up to a businessman whom it promptly skinned in his own hotel room. He managed to fling himself off the balcony, possibly with its help, and you and your wolf caught up with it before it could finish getting whatever it wanted from me. Meanwhile, your other wolf found the dead magi, allowing us to keep that from becoming public knowledge... all in all, I'd say all three of you have done some really good work today. Tom's people seem to agree."

"All right," said Antoinette. "You've got my number. Ping me if you need anything else."

Chris nodded, because as one of the Ministry's ROs that was what he was supposed to be doing at this point. He was still thinking about the fox, and his feelings were ambivalent: he wanted her to want him; he wanted her far, far away. 

He followed Antoinette back to the car, still distracted, then forced himself to focus and unlocked the doors. 

When they were inside and pulling away, Antoinette said: "So... Elyssa and I have a bet. Neither of us has really seen you scared, and, well, given some of the situations we've been in that just seems wrong. So we have a couple of challenges for you, beyond just driving the car."

"Driving the car isn't--" Chris cut himself off. "All right. What did you have in mind?" Whatever this was, he would go with it.

"Ice skating," said Elyssa.

"Ice skating?" 

"Ice skating," Antoinette told him.

Chris forced his jaw to unclench. "All right. Ice skating."

Driving Needs, part thirteen

"Can I ask you something?" asked the fox, squatting down beside Chris where he was keeping watch on the skin-stealer's body. 

Chris suppressed a momentary nervousness and said, "Sure." 

"When you first got to that conference room, did the smell of gunpowder seem unusually strong?" 

Chris considered that. "Yes. I mean, also blood and voided bowels, but... yes."

The fox nodded. "I thought so. It seemed to be concentrated just inside the door, like the intruder stopped to shoot everybody on the way out."

"I didn't get far enough into the room to compare," Chris looked at the body in front of him, then met the fox's eyes. She was older than he was by several years, unexpectedly attractive with that red-brown hair and those dark brown eyes, that hint of sharpness to her teeth. He ignored that particular stirring -- and what the hell could he do about it, really? -- and added, "Thought it was better to close the door and call it in."

"You're young for Enforcement," the fox told him. "All three of you are. Most teams don't get sent into the Grey until their fourth of fifth year, when they've established themselves." 

Chris froze, then deliberately rolled his shoulders. "You've been looking at our files." 

The fox tilted her head. "Does that bother you?" 

"Yes," he said immediately. "It shouldn't, and I should have known you would -- but I didn't, and I don't like being surprised." 

"We're investigators," the fox said, looking away to check over their surroundings. "It's what we do."

Chris nodded. "I know. Like I said, I should have expected it." They squatted side by side in silence for a long moment, and then he said: "Makes it damned hard to cultivate an aura of mystery, too."

The fox laughed, a startled bark. "Mystery? Around a fox? That's catnip for us. You do that, you're all but asking for us to take an interest."

Chris chuckled. "All right. If I have to guess -- and I'm guessing you want me to -- even after reading our files, you're wondering how an inexperienced group like us wound up covering an established first responder like Captain Saintcrow in a very public, very unusual situation like this."

The fox smiled at him and offered a slight shrug. "You were on the scene before we were; we'd have had to interview you regardless. I'm not saying you're wrong, though."

Chris rose to his feet and turned away from the murderer's corpse. "Magus Frummelt," he said simply. "He knew we were nearby on other business, so he tapped us when this came up."

"Your magus reports to him?" 

Chris nodded. "She does."

"If I'm reading your files right, all three of you have stumbled into some things that should have killed you and managed to survive. Is that why he brought you onto his team?" 

Chris hesitated, knowing that the fox was probably reading his expression no matter how blank he kept it. "I'm going to say yes, but if you want more detail you're going to have to ask Magus Frummelt."

"Ah." The fox waited for a heartbeat, then asked: "So why didn't you follow the skin-stealer? By all accounts your senses are excellent. You and Elyssa must have both known that you were sending her down the fresher trail. You're not a coward, either; if anything, I'd have expected you to throw yourself after the intruder."

Chris nodded. "You're not wrong. It just..." He remembered the voice of the dark heart. "...It seemed more important to find out where that thing had come from and how it got here."

"Well," said the fox, "you weren't wrong either. And you probably saved the Cleanup crew a lot of headaches; if one of the mundanes had found that room first, it would have created a lot more work."