Treasonous Elf is Treasonous

 Idriyl continues to make bad life choices.

Also, I wrote this up rather seriously because Idriyl is a Very Serious Boi, but last night's campaign session was full-on Keystone Cops caper-level hilarity. Also, apparently, Jeff, our DM, has been sitting on the fact that the cat Idriyl befriended is a final boss from the beginning. GOOD TIMES.

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January 26

Bendelfort, Kingdom of Shira

My dearest sister Ave,

It is three in the morning and I am writing to you from a hard wooden bench in the corner of the local constabulary’s offices. I’m not currently under arrest, though it was touch-and-go there for quite a while. (Am I perversely pleased that when the City Guard returned to attempt my arrest they brought a full dozen, heavily armored men? Yes, I believe I am.)

The Caravan is all being interviewed for our various parts in an incident that went down tonight. My part having finished rather quickly, I’m cooling my heels in the corner, listening to the patchwork of our tale being stitched back together--most of which I was not, myself, privy to. It paints a fascinating picture. Let me see if I can reconstruct it for you, Ave.

Our tale began where it ends: at the Sloshing Boot. 

Having mostly finished deciphering the notes we’d stolen from Bedeview the Black's underground abode, my companions and I were remarking that some people we had been seeing around town seem to have disappeared. There was that guy--the one with the funny hair--that was missing from his usual spot at the bar, and also that one older lady who used to wander the streets in the morning asking after some lost item--people like that… people, honestly, who are so much set dressing in our lives that we only thought of them because their absence was like finally noticing a hole worn in an everyday tapestry.

Initially, we asked around rather casually. But when our monk, Grigor, noticed that a friend he had made in the City Guard was also among the missing, we took up this mystery in earnest. We started gathering intel that led us to the South Side of town--a shadier, more rough-and-tumble quarter where, of all things, my cat friend Aiyu had been seen lurking about. 

I did, of course, ask Aiyu about faerie involvement, because, so often these days, it seems that any time we begin an adventure like this, it leads me directly to having to confront and kill some new Fey creature. Aiyu took great offense at my off-handed accusation and, after saying “Not Faerie,” a way that seemed significant, refused to talk to me about the matter again. 

That is, until we met Aiyu again on the street on the South Side of town. Then, all of a sudden, he had a great deal to talk to us about, but it was the kind of chatter that was rather obviously a stalling technique.  So obvious, in fact, that Theophania, Papa Bernard and I all came to the same conclusion at once.

But for the fact that we had left behind two companions at the Sloshing Boot, we still might have thought nothing of Aiyu’s behavior. He’s a cat, after all, and we were feeding him scraps of Papa’s dried bear meat. It’s hardly out of character for a cat to simply want the gravy train to continue by any means necessary. However, it was clear that, in specific, Aiyu did not want us returning to the tavern.  One of the people we left behind at the Sloshing Boot was Zavala and I have not forgotten my misstep regarding bargaining away his freedom to the pixie. A chill ran down my spine at the thought that he might be in harm's way. Besides, if the Fey were disappearing people for their own uses, Zavala, in particular, is a target they would find difficult to resist. Fortunately, Theophina has her own reasons for worrying whenever Zavala is left to his own devices, so we three were filled with a sudden anxiety to return to the Sloshing Boot as quickly as possible. 

Thus, without preamble or warning, I grabbed Aiyu by the scruff and shoved him into my backpack.

However, having a backpack cursing and screaming in Elven and Sylvan… and ear-piercing cat howls as we dashed like madmen through the midnight streets of a town under a post-Fey war barricade might not have been the wisest choice of action. 

The City Guard were on us in a flash.

I will leave my story there for a moment, as I hear Nerys recounting her impression of the events that took place in the tavern in our absence… ah, it seems she was so heavily sedated that all she can repeat is “He drugged us.”

Having overheard the story told to the guard by Zavala, “he” surprisingly may be Zavala’s himself. Apparently, Zavala used his legendary charm to convince a suspicious bouncer to join himself and Nerys at the bar while he played bartender. They were playing a game to keep the bouncer from discovering that Grigor had not simply gone upstairs to retire for the evening, but to investigate a sound overheard in the private rooms of the Sloshing Boot’s proprietor, the half-elf, Riccardo. The bouncer seemed particularly interested in a particular bottle hidden behind the bar, and so, being game, Zavala poured drinks from this special container for all three of them. The drink held the very sedative that was likely used to drug all the people who have gone missing in town. It knocked out Nerys instantly.

Grigor, meanwhile, had uncovered a dark secret.

Riccardo was a priest in service to the Queen Below. Above his bed hung a portrait of her, which seems rather bold since Grigor insists he passed through unlocked doors. This seems particularly at odds with the fact that Grigor sprung a trap in a steamer trunk that nearly eviscerated him… which was also unlocked? 

I will admit, Ave, I am beginning to wonder at our monk’s past that so many doors and treasure chests appear before him suddenly unlocked. Though, perhaps, I have finally uncovered the power of that sword his master gave him? 

Speaking of swords, mine is on the far side of the room at the moment.  A guard there keeps shooting me a rather dark, somewhat murderous glance. I am not, for once, returning his ire. 

As Bellamy had once again disappeared, I had hoped that Theophina could talk our way out of the confrontation with the guard. It started plausibly enough. She claimed we were hunting pixies, but had been overwhelmed by the sheer number of them, and thus were rushing to gather our companions at the Sloshing Boot. She valiantly tried to shoo them in the other direction, but the squeaking and carryings on of my backpack confused the soldiers. They suspected we had a living pixie with us and ordered me to drop my pack. I complied. 

And they beat Aiyu senseless.

Immediately, without even checking the contents of my bag.

The cat, Ave. My friend. Dead.

My anger flared, Ave, like a flash of white hot lightning. I thought the cat to be dead, forever. Papa Bernard was able to spare Aiyu, but in many ways it was too late. The beast had awoken. It was as if my own heart had been bludgeoned by these ignoble humans. I think, too, the fact that one of Philip’s men served among them only further stoked the embers that are forever smoldering just under the surface. Thought was gone. The only vaguely coherent idea in my head was that I should cause a distraction that would allow my two companions to continue to the Sloshing Boot poste haste. So, I pushed them away, unsheathed my mighty weapon, and screamed at the guard to stand and deliver. Only it was not money I wanted from these soldiers, but their honor.

When the first of them attacked me--the soldier who glares at me now with such suspicion and dislike--a dark tendril of FeyWild magic struck back. I knew that if they saw what moves through me, they would forget my companions completely. I would be the only enemy. I knew, too, that this had been a choice that would likely mean my freedom… or my life.

Theophina’s quick thinking spared my life.

She used some kind of thaumaturgy to black out the city’s light posts. I suspect that in the sudden and magical darkness, the city guard feared that something more terrifying than a rage-fueled elf might be arriving on the scene. They made a tactical retreat. I will give them that, too, and not call them cowards, because who among us does not fear the dark? Especially when so many of their current enemies are literal bogie-men and invisible sprites.

In the chaos, Aiyu also fled. 

He shouted after me in Sylvan that he thought that I was on his side. It was an accusation that confounded me until I realized, upon reaching the Sloshing Boot, that “his side” was that of the kidnappers…. 

It will no doubt come as a shock to you, dear sister, but I still consider Aiyu my friend. 

However, I doubt my companions feel the same. 

Perhaps this should be a sobering moment for me. After all, I’ve discovered that Aiyu and Riccardo serve the Queen Below and, presumably upon her orders, are disappearing good citizens of the Kingdom. Having read Bedeview the Black’s notebooks, I can only suspect the missing have become test subjects in his perverted, infernal experiments. In short, they’re being tortured, probably to death.

Yet, the moment that sticks with me, Ave? 

A casual, off-hand “joke” shared among the soldiers about discovering Riccardo was “fey” in the bedroom. 

And they wonder why I confide in a cat.

There was talk of burning the Sloshing Boot to the ground. I would join them in that, but then I would want the whole town to be next. Possibly even the entire nation.

Your treasonous, wholly unrepentant brother,

Idriyl