Stanley spent a while longer raking us over the coals for the whole “murder of the other team thing” before taking his leave. “Just stop killing people!” he said as he departed beyond some thick tapestries and golden cords.
He left us in the green room with a bowl of fruit, barrel of ale (it seemed, at least from Iago’s attachment to it), caviar, and some crackers and cheese. A charcuterie. Very civilized.
“So this is how the other side of the wall lives,” Iago commented as he poured a drink into the barrel and then tried to abscond with the rest of the barrel.
This obviously did not work.
Meanwhile, I turned to Carji. He was still in the green room, as was Graj-drull, his bandmate and family member. “I really liked your set,” I said, then being struck by an idea, dug through my things for some paper. “Can I get your autograph?”
They were trained bards after all. That was pretty cool. How many of those did I encounter in everyday life?
“Ah, don’t kill us!” Carji flinched as I held out the writing implements.
Again, my friends had not done the best job in supporting me that we weren’t going to kill him and his relative belatedly, so now, being trapped in the green room with us seemed to have completely eroded any goodwill I might have generated. I wasn’t sure if Genocide Felegum or Typical Iago was to blame more for that.
“No, no, it’s okay,” I said for what felt like the hundredth time in a tiny, inescapable room. “I just want an autograph.”
Carji took the pen and paper and narrowed his eyes at me. “You attacked first.”
“I did not attack anyone. If we’re pointing fingers, though, I think that the real villain is the guy asking bards, people with years of skill and ability, to fight each other to the death for his entertainment.” I sipped a cup of tea. “But that’s none of my business.”
Carji gave me a considering eye. He signed his name, and the complicated logo of the Rats of Glomphordshire. He looked like he was thinking, about to say something.
But then Felegum and Iago, scenting a fresh way to terrify someone, ruined my play for information, and Carji and Graj-drull retreated to one corner of the green room, refusing to speak to me or any of us anymore.
I really didn’t see why that was necessary. We knew so little about Reinbach (except that he obviously sucked and talked in a disturbing way), let alone why people in this city were willing to risk their lives to entertain him. Was it really just because of the lifestyle?
Zeno drank. “I think that went perfectly,” he reflected on our performance.
It had been chaos. If that was indeed what the crowd wanted, we had delivered in spades.
I sighed and made up little napkin bundles of fruit and cheese from the board for the rats. They accepted them with a hungry suspicion and made to leave, arrested by the stone wall under the tapestry that Stanley had disappeared through. More tapestries were lifted, gold cords disturbed, murals knocked on to no avail.
The green room had no exit.
The rats took their goodie bags back to their corner and holed up there, even more ill at ease if that was possible.
“Have you played the squid before?” Tem asked Zeno pleasantly.
Zeno spat out his wine. “What?”
“Lake Norka was a long time ago,” Helli said snarkily.
“Yeah,” I added. “A squid was played, but not like that.”
For a beautiful moment, Zeno looked annoyed with everyone.
A few hours passed. As you might imagine, the rats were miserable. I tried to talk with them again, but again, thanks to Felegum and Iago, any attempt on my part to talk with them was met with extreme suspicion and distrust.
Just as things were getting well and truly uncomfortable, Stanley returned.
“Oh good!” he said as he swept into the room through a previously solid wall. “You’re here. Sometimes these things don’t work.”
I didn’t think he had anything to be worried about on that account.
“But no, seriously, what was that?” Stanley put his hands on his hips. “Did you not read the welcome packet?”
“Did we not get the welcome packet?” Zeno asked Felegum, who would know.
“I don’t think so,” the sorcerer replied.
“That explains a lot.” Stanley sighed.
He went on to explain that the arenas could be controlled by songs and that through our performances we would be able to turn the tides of battle. “For a Song and Dance Crew, you really don’t sing or dance,” he said, “much.”
“We really lean into the ‘Crew’ part,” Felegum said.
The rats continued to look very uncomfortable.
“Can they… leave?” I asked. “They’re here because we saved them but like, they’re their own thing–“
“Well,” Stanley said, “they came in with you guys so now they’re just here.”
This was unhelpful.
Stanley went on to explain the complexities of the competition, like how specifically we are not supposed to kill people on stage. “It’s supposed to be a battle of music and then undertones of a death battle,” he clarified.
“Our set did great,” Iago said huffily.
“I did,” I said, surprised at this sudden support.
“Unlike them,” Felegum said at the rats, “who all died.”
Seeing a new opportunity to terrorize Carji and Graj-drull, Iago naturally joined in. Again, I am not exaggerating; this was exhausting to deal with.
“You need to get the crowd’s support!” said Stanley over Felegum and Iago’s heckling. “Without it, you won’t be able to plug into the arena.”
“You mean the wine isn’t the reward?” Iago said blearily.
Stanley sighed explosively. “The rest of you, are you following?”
“Yes,” said Zeno.
“Most bands build their own set as part of their songs. That’s where more of a battle advantage comes in. Sometimes,” he said, waggling his eyebrows, “the set goes a little too far…”
All these mentions of my name were really getting to me.
Zeno had been watching Stanley attentively all this time. “You remind me of a man who used to sell deodorizing oils,” he said.
Stanley grinned at the recognition. “These tickets are all diamonds,” he replied, perhaps quoting a former role.
Iago peeped up from the ale. “Do we get a cut of ticket sales?”
This twigged another member of our group to follow the smell of money. “So, Stanley,” Helli said, “what do you get out of this?”
“This is my job,” Stanley replied with a confused smile. “I am paid to do this.”
“I mean,” Helli asked, “how much are they paying you?”
A pause. “That makes me uncomfortable to disclose.”
“But if we get offed,” Helli persisted, “that’s uncomfortable for you.”
“Yes,” Stanley agreed, somewhat hesitantly.
“And you make a commission, yes?”
“…Yes.”
This back and forth continued for a little longer as Helli and Stanley both came to the conclusion that they were both People of the World and could probably be persuaded to work together for mutual benefit.
Zeno, meanwhile, was more focused on other matters. “When’s our next round?”
“Two days,” said Stanley. “But you have a dinner coming up. There will be lords and ladies of the city present, and you’ll meet important people and the three other artists there.” He sighed. “You need a good, cohesive look.”
I already knew what was coming.
“We need outfits,” Zeno said, eyes already glimmering purple thoughts.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying!” Stanley, thrilled, held out his arms and two clothing racks appeared, as though summoned from the walls themselves at his left and his right. For a slightly short, portly human with gold rings on his fingers, he made the gesture look as grand and practiced as a stage performer.
“Maybe,” Felegum said, steepling his fingers, “we can be a band that doesn’t like Lord Reinbach. Like, edgy.”
“Why though? He’s so nice,” said Stanley, flipping through clothing options.
Zeno waved off Felegum’s idea, saying by way of explanation to our PR guy: “He’s from the north.”
“Ah, that makes sense.” Stanley leveled a glare at the Fallow’s Reacher. “I bet he eats pot pies.”
Felegum sighed, long-used to being the butt of jokes between the twin cities. “Just wait until you hear about pineapple upside down cake.”
Zeno and Stanley said in unison: “Pineapple right-side up cake!”
“Why would you put pineapples on the bottom?” Zeno hissed at Felegum, as though one man could atone for the sins of his entire city.
Once this indignity against pinefruits had been dealt with, Stanley was able to slip us some information on our three competitors.
First was a troupe led by Jaylor Dwift, a talented vocalist. She had the support of the youth and promised to be a hard one to displace.
There seemed to be a niche for us in the competition for something local, something that elicited a memory of home.
“Well,” said Felegum, “I will admit that most of the talent in the group is concentrated in Iago…and Kel. No, it’s mostly Kel. We should use them as a focal point somehow.”
“I know some folk songs,” said the bard going by the name of Kel. “But I was planning on saving them for later rounds.”
“Okay, so we want to create your brand around Kel,” Stanley said, massaging his temples. He gave Zeno a look as one searching for a lost item, not finding it, and then getting angry at the room for not having it. “What else do you do?”
“I have other original compositions,” Zeno said, cagey as the day was long.
“Would I know them?” Stanley asked, with the air of one already knowing the answer.
“Yes.”
This brought our PR guy up short. He had not expected this response or its tone, calm, assured, neither proud nor angry to be doubted, simply stating a fact.
“But,” Zeno continued, “I’d like to save the best for last.”
“Of course, of course,” Stanley said. “The finals will, after all, feature all the groups performing at the same time.”
This sounded like an absolute mess and not even a remotely musically viable, but again, that goes to show you how much I know about music. Not a lot.
Helli, easily the most companionable with Stanley at this point, suggested subterfuge and sabotage. Stanley wholeheartedly agreed.
“Some people,” he said, “find their instruments stolen.”
“Oh, we’ve seen that,” said Felegum.
“Or their sets collapsed!” Stanley continued.
I was aghast.
“Set, are you feeling okay?” Felegum asked.
“Not now!” I said, hastily examining myself for signs of tampering by other teams.
“This is all hypothetical, of course,” Helli continued, “but how much gold were these bribes typically around?”
“Oh,” Stanley said, waving a hand, “in the hundreds.”
“Ah.” Helli shrugged. “As you can see, we are but humble.”
“Actually, I was thinking about telling a story with this next set.” Zeno was looking off into the distance, no doubt evolving some plan that would be both chaotic and surprisingly well orchestrated.
“Oh, do tell!” Stanley leaned forward with enthusiasm. “I can make up sets.”
This caught Helli’s attention. But other members of the group were also quick to be thrilled by this prospect.
“What if we do something on Egonia?” Felegum suggested, perhaps wanting to follow the fire theme.
Stanley quashed that idea, saying that we had better stay far, far away from Egonia. “That’s already being covered by another group.”
Obviously this was not great news, because the people who cared about the disappearance of Egonia were probably the people who lived there.
“We should do a tale of Csipherus,” Zeno said.
This was exactly not what I had been expecting. “Yes!” I said, already calculating outcomes. “We could spread the good news about my city. Tourism could kick back off again!”
Zeno nodded, deep in thought. “If I had a few months I could invent new instruments, but…actually I’ll just throat sing.”
What followed was a brief discussion on a) us not being here to advertise Csipherus and b) how one plugged into one’s throat.
“You don’t,” said a much-aggrieved Stanley. “You sing into it.”
“Oh!” Zeno blinked. “Those weren’t around eight years ago.”
“Oh yes, they’re relatively new in the competition,” Stanley said. He mentioned that the amplifiers had been made by the high magicians of the city, which piqued several of our interests.
“Set, can you rap?”
“What?” I had never expected anyone to ask me this question, let alone Zeno. It took me a few moments to process it and come up with an answer. “I mean, probably.”
I could read verse.
“I just see you in the corner writing all the time,” the bard said.
“I’m just keeping track of our travels and important notes.” It wasn’t like I was managing the contents of HFVNN like Felegum was, a monster task.
“Do you have any cookware?” Iago asked.
“Yes,” Stanley said with rank suspicion, “but you shouldn’t wear it.”
With that part of the show sorted, Zeno asked for outfits and Stanley was only too happy to oblige. The bard thumbed through designs and made noises to himself about showiness and catching the eye from a distance, etc.
“Do you know who I am, Steve?” Iago asked Stanley.
“No,” said Stanley, now much more worried.
“We found him,” Zeno said.
“I am found out,” Iago agreed.
“He’s a traveler!” Felegum pointed.
“Aayy, he knows!” Iago luxuriated in the moment.
Anyway, we moved onto the more pressing task of trying to figure out costumes. Felegum suggested Tormani silks (“Like the desert!”), and this so enraged me that I was on the verge of reminding everyone that the Tormani and Csipherian sartorial scenes were very different and detailing how, in painful minutiae, when Zeno gave Felegum a look and Helli cut in with a question about adding amethysts to our costumes.
Probably because we all knew they were going to be purple.
I was determined to be supportive, so I took one for the team and did not fight this.
We ended up going with purple and gold for the dinner, with notes that we’d put together costumes for the next stage once we, uh, actually put together an act for the next stage.
“Now, as for lodging,” Stanley said, “we can take care of you here or back in your old inn, or in a city-sanctioned hotel in the second dahn.”
This was an easy choice to make.
“We’ll take the second dahn hotel,” Zeno said on behalf of literally all of us.
It was called the Sydney Hotel and had an excellent restaurant. “It’s classic Reach’s Fallow fare,” Stanley said, with a concerned look at Felegum, “so you probably won’t like it.”
“Is he just not grown up enough, Steve?”
Stanley closed his eyes with the patience of a saint. “I’m not here to babysit you,” he said. “We’re going to dinner tonight and then you can be on your own until the next round. I’ll have the dinner jackets ready in two hours. It’ll be a rush order but I think we can make it.”
He left, the way he always left. Tem tried to follow after him and walked right into a wall.
Weird, how they kept locking us in places. Did this competition have a history of people trying to escape from it midway through?
Iago tsked at the fallen paladin. “You need to do it with confidence.”
He ran into the wall to the same effect.
As we rested and chatted, we gave Tem crap about throwing Helli into the lava and Zeno played a restful song. Conversation drifted toward the battle again.
“Our lives were on the line,” said Genocide Felegum. “I think we were in the right.”
“We were just trying to play a great tone!” protested Carji, who was, I might add, still fully present.
More harassment of the rats followed, especially when people remembered that Carji was the rat who had initially attacked Zeno as he played.
That was not the most comfortable hour, but it passed. Stanley returned with our dinner jackets and we changed into them while he amped us up about the coming events.
“Eat nicely,” he said. “Things have been…interesting recently.”
“Any cultural faux-pas we should avoid?” Helli asked.
“I have a trick for this, actually,” Tem said, proud to share. “You pick someone else and you do what they do.”
Stanley nodded, in spite of himself. “That’s a good one,” he admitted, though perhaps that was more out of a desire not to tell a fully grown dragonborn what to do.
We walked through hallways and corridors out of the stone box we’d been stuck in for seemingly endless hours, and we got to a large room with long tables on either side, populated by people in great clothing. I hadn’t stolen many things from high society people (mostly because I did not tend to run into them much in my formerly burnt-out husk of a city) but it was easy to tell that that was what these people were.
We were ushered to a smaller table by the front.
There were three other groups present.
The first was a cadre of eight dwarves wearing thick brown leathers, coveralls, and sporting sooty mussed hair. Iron drums were slung over their backs along with other metal instruments. It was hard to tell what these were, and given that they seemed to perplex even Zeno, I imagined that these must have been invented instruments.
Next was a group surrounding a tall elf with long hair. She wore a seafoam green dress, and though she was clearly in a band the other five people around her were just not as striking.
Last was a duo. I am being vague here because the duo themselves was being vague. They shapeshifted between being trolls, leopards, deer, and all sorts of earthy beings. This was, as you might imagine, bizarre to see sitting at a table. Especially since they were so calm about it.
“What’s their deal?” Felegum asked Stanley.
“Druids.” Stanley’s lips were pressed into a thin line, as though this was a coup de grace of fashion and he wished he’d thought of it first. “They call themselves the Cycle of the Sun and Moon. They have a new performance called Pheromones.”
Zeno, meanwhile, was sizing up the dwarves. Something about one of them seemed to catch his eye. I followed his line of sight and beheld none other than the foreman of the rail exchange.
That horrible guy we’d ticked off all the way back in Egonia.
“Is it frowned upon to be friendly and talk?” Iago asked Stanley.
“We,” Stanley emphasized as though by speaking it into existence he could control the outcome, “are going to be cordial. Oh shh! He’s coming!”
I looked up. Down a corridor lined with pipe organ brass, a figure in dark clothes with a cane and tall boots strode into the hall.
“It is a great honor,” Lord Reinbach said, “to welcome these groups to the Battle of the Bards. We hope that one of these groups will be able to achieve transcendence. A feat which no group has been able to do so far.”
Transcendence. Why was that word twigging something in my memory? Why did I not like the sound of that?
“By transcending legend, transcending fate, I invite you to connect with the very gods of performance,” Reinbach said, extending his hands.
Felegum shot Zeno a look.
“I do hope that this meal will be to your liking,” he said, then smiled. “Today we are cordial. But do know that in the future, the world likes a spectacle. And so do I.”
The lines of people around him stood and applauded.
A table spun out of the floor, and a few people sat at it, slightly smaller figures in maroon or burgundy robes. One of them was playing a small lyre. As Reinbach sat down, the table lifted into the air, becomes both a literal and figurative high table, allowing the lord to watch his guests from above.
Some people clapped. Zeno did not. Tem also did not, but that seemed to be more because she was mimicking Zeno than any personal feeling of hatred or distaste on her part. Felegum clapped, but in a polite disaffected way. Perhaps this was the true difference between Reach’s Fallow and Fallow’s Reach.
A dwarf turned and looked at our group with utter hatred. I had to admit, it did not sit well with me knowing that there were four of us that could be recognized here and that indeed we had been.
All these complicated feelings were also coming to me through the distress of having to wear something not Csipherian or black, and the bulk of my mental energy was devoted to keeping myself sane in this moment of purple-festooned extremity.
It would be so easy to just disguise myself and be in nice black clothes again. I took out a little bit of fleece and contemplated the spell.
But then I looked at Zeno. He’d wanted purple. This was a big deal to him.
And, say what you will, he’d trusted me when I’d asked him to. He still wore that ring.
I put the fleece away, at great personal cost.
“I look like a douche,” I said, unable to resist venting my spleen at some point during this tense meal.
“You look great, Set!” said Felegum, whose worst sin in life (beside mass slaughter) was that he thought all shades of blue and brown automatically matched.
I laid my head in my hands, aware this made the purpling effect on my complexion even worse. “No, I do not.”
A first course appeared in front of us, consisting of a salad with dressing spiraled on top of it, almost in a garnish. With a singular clap from above, everyone who had been waiting around us set into their meals with zest.
“Tem,” said Zeno, “be careful not to let the scraps fall off the edge.”
Tem, who had been making a concerted effort to eat well and follow Zeno’s every action, looked perplexed. Zeno would continue to make comments like that, almost like he was speaking in a code or cant I didn’t have fluency in.
That being said, the food was still very good. Soup followed the salad, this one a lobster bisque. There were copious breadsticks and a sourdough loaf, leading into a main course of steak and asparagus. Dessert was a small chocolate cake that, on being placed before its intended recipient, gave a small eruption and spurted molten candied lava.
It landed perfectly around the plate, a chocolate volcano in miniature.
Zeno glanced over at the dwarves and then back at the dish. “Well!” he said. “That’s in poor taste.”
Unsurprisingly, the druids refused the steak but did eat dessert.
As though Stanley were deeply worried that we were going to cause incident if we stayed any longer than strictly necessary, he ushered us out as soon as it was polite to.
Nonetheless, muttering crept up from behind us.
“Think they can destroy our city and get away with it.”
Iago craned his neck back in the direction of the dwarves. “Who do they think we are?”
“Some people,” Zeno said, absolutely sounding judgey, “can’t hold their liquor.”
“You look vaguely familiar,” Felegum noted to the dwarf who we were all pretty sure was the foreman.
The dwarf in question continued to mutter, and not in a pleasant way.
Thankfully, we escaped that encounter without things escalating more than that. A carriage pulled by four moose led us into the second dahn and the Sydney Hotel. Each of us were given a key to a room in our block, numbers 303-308. I had 305.
Through Helli’s careful questioning of Stanley, we learned that each group was sent to a different hotel, most likely to avoid internecine squabbles. That being said, our hotel was awesome.
The beds were plush with large down comforters and comfortable sheets, the plumbing was both indoors and functional, and breakfast was offered in the morning. The innkeeper expressed that we were more than welcome to walk around, and Iago was pleased to find that there was a bar that was open late.
For some reason, Tem, who had traveled with us for over a year and probably had inferred that Zeno’s instrument was the bagpipes, had become enamored with calling them “blow squids”.
Zeno asked her to “please stop”.
As soon as we were left to our own devices in the lobby, I took off my purple jacket, revealing a black undershirt beneath it. I felt much better.
“I think,” said Iago, contemplating the bar, “Helli is worried about sabotage, but for other reasons.”
“You do you,” Zeno said approvingly to Helli. “I fully support this. In the meantime, everyone please brainstorm Csipherus.”
Suddenly, I felt enormous pressure. This was a good shot to tell people not only what had happened and how we’d stopped it, but also to remind the world that Csipherus was more than a bunch of undead. It was a beautiful place unearthing itself from its ruins.
“What if we did dragons we’d befriended?” Helli suggested.
“Oh, I like that much better,” said Tem.
Zeno said that maybe the dragons could be a separate thing. After all, we needed to tell a clear story. Draconic entities might make a good idea for a second act, though. For now, we could do a final battle with some dragons, but an undercurrent of hope. Thriller and throat singing, that was our current aesthetic.
Once she found that she could make requests of Stanley for set pieces, Helli took to the task with flare. She outlined the large octagonal room we’d need, requested a large hoard of gold (as well as a gold or silver tiara for herself), and drew up a schematic for the gate that would be the centerpiece of the battle.
I asked if it would be possible to hire backup dancers or extras for the zombies or Red Eyes, and this brought up the larger issue of who would be playing what in the extravaganza.
“I still think we’re going to need zombies,” I said.
Zeno gestured at his accompaniment, including stalwart Vincenzo, who I had totally forgotten about.
“That’s true,” I said, putting out of my mind the optics of real (un)alive zombies on stage for a moment, “but—and I can’t believe I’m saying this—I think we might need more.”
We decided on me, Tem, and “Kel” to represent the Sovereign Dungeoneering Company, while Helli, Iago, and Felegum would be the Red Eyes.
I sketched up some ideas for costumes, clothing my cohorts in white shenti with gold accents reminiscent of the old gods of Csipherus. For Tem, I added florals and a cape of purple with gold and pink blossoms. For myself, I kept the aesthetic white and gold, but added dark accents where I could, keeping my cloak dark, evoking a thunderstorm moving over a wide plain. Around my arm and forehead would each go a band of purple. For Zeno, I went all out. He was the centerpiece, after all. His shenti was white trimmed with purple, and I added a gold cloak with a purple sun design on the back. The sun was the Csipherian one, a sun in dawn with the double triangles of the underworld below it, evoking time passing in the mortal and immortal realms.
For the Red Eyes, I chose red and black. With tall boots. Not unlike a certain lord. A subtle, but present association.
Helli suggested that we talk strategy as well. “Look, we’re going to sneak away and sabotage them in the night.”
Felegum hummed, perhaps his signal that we’d figure this out on the fly.
“The dwarves will be easy,” said Zeno. “We just have to needle them.”
The druids posed a more interesting question. Someone suggested redirecting their pheromones, and Felegum mentioned that he just had a wind cantrip.
I was most concerned about Jaylor Dwift. She both seemed like a gifted musician, but also our strategy to beat her would be similar to any strategies used against us: we were both groups built around a single musical talent.
Felegum asked Stanley to hunt him up another drum technical manual (of the intermediate level) and I asked for a notebook. I had an idea. We had many spoken verse styles back home, and what more fitting way to honor them than a performance?
Helli left to do Helli things. This was probably espionage, sabotage, or subterfuge. Felegum also left, elated that he was in the second dahn at last and finally had access to government buildings. Iago, predictably, went to the bar.
I did clock Helli having a nice chat with the concierge before I headed up to my room.
“We have some people in our group with…sensibilities,” she said, as though that word would explain all the strange things we were about to get up to. The concierge nodded, no doubt having encountered “sensibilities” in the past. “If anyone comes asking for us, would you please let us know? Tell them we aren’t in.”
“I am happy to accommodate any requests,” said the concierge. “Within reason, of course.”
“Of course,” said Helli, slipping him something as they talked.
I dropped my things off in my room, and then knocked on Zeno’s door.
“That guy is so creepy!” I said, obviously referring to Reinbach.
“I told you guys!” Zeno cried. “You didn’t believe me! You thought I was being dramatic!”
“Well, to be fair, you’re always dramatic.”
“Ugh!” He wrung an invisible neck.
“Actually,” I said, leaning on the door, “I wanted to talk with you about that.”
Zeno got very focused. “Yeah?”
“I’m not liking him,” I said honestly. “I don’t like how this could go. Keep the ring on for now, okay? As long as we’re in this city. If you’re not wearing it, I can’t do anything.”
“Okay,” Zeno said, surprising me. “You want to tell me more about it?”
My face colored. “Uh, it’s literally a spell component?”
This was not, strictly speaking, a lie. I had gotten the ring for the purposes of casting this spell. However, the deception that I’d had to undertake to acquire it was severe and honestly mortifying. How did I explain that?
Maybe a more well-rested Set would have an answer. This Set, exhausted from battle and a tense and heavy dinner, did not. All I had was awkward silence and weird standoffishness to a dude who had, again, been pretty chill, all things considered.
“Okay,” said Zeno in the way that meant he had a feeling there was definitely more to the story and would find out.
I left, equally awkwardly, and I realized at my door it had been a bit stupid to write the inscription in Csipherian when only one other person in our group could read it.
-o-
Stanley came by the next morning to deliver the first of our requests, including Felegum’s music book and my notebook. Helli asked Stanley for a good artificer to fix Nisbit, who had endured so much on our behalf.
We discussed throwing favors to the crowd at the end of our performance. Cookies wrapped in gold foil–to look like us distributing the gold of Csipherus. I was excited, that sounded like a great idea.
Other people, though, had more requests for Stanley.
“Can we get gas masks for Egonia, Steve?” asked Iago.
“Find us Jaylor Dwift’s weakness,” I said with intensity.
“You may have more luck yourself on that,” Stanley told me.
“You sure, Steve?” asked Felegum.
Helli asked for the names of the other PR people working with the other teams. Yuven, Lane, and Andricord.
Then, we dispersed. Felegum went to customs (as we knew he would), Helli went to the artificer, Iago stayed at the hotel to drink, and Zeno went to go place some bets.
As for me? I was in a cafe, thinking about lyrics.
Angsty Teen Breakfast Blog 