Chapter 43: 3.5 – The Keep Over the Borderlands

The room smelled of oil, old blood, and bitter resentment. And beeswax candles. Robin wrinkled his nose as he stepped carefully away from the closed door behind him.

The place was so ostentatiously luxurious as to be downright tacky. True wealth was never so obvious. There was far too much gold plating and there were furs draped over everything.

Robin did a quick pass around the room, slipping the most profitable looking items into the storage space in his ring. The cadaverous old priest owed him that much, at least, for tormenting him in the tunnels beneath Yvon’Rael’s mountain (as Robin had come to think of the place).

His petty larceny would have the side benefit of disguising his true purpose here: the search for information. There was a desk littered with parchment. Robin would begin there. The chest at the foot of the priest’s bed also seemed promising, though Robin was a bit leery of what he might find there.

Nobody likes finding someone else’s extracurricular marital aids.

Not without a lot more wine than Robin currently had flowing through his veins anyway.

Pausing his petty theft, Robin moved over to the desk to search through the correspondence there. Once again, [Tongue of the Fallen Tower] came to his rescue, as without it, there was no way he would be able to read any of the languages represented here, and there were at least three he could see.

Shuffling through the papers made enough noise that it prompted a small chorus of squeaks from a wicker cage set next to the desk. Looking in, Robin could see several mice. Why would Gis have—

Robin suddenly felt queasy. He knew exactly why Gis had mice. The mental image of the priest calmly composing missives while the snake that lived in his eye socket calmly gulped down whole mice was not one Robin wished to dwell on. He put it firmly out of his mind and went back to picking through the letters on Gis’s desk.

There was quite a lot. The priest seemed to be fond of written orders. Several letters seemed to be from Basgar. Robin eagerly read through those, hoping something would leap out as being obviously what Avanus was after. Nothing did, though Robin quickly began to piece together a solid idea of Basgar’s plans for the region.

It wasn’t good.

The tyrant had seized control of the Keep with the help of Gis, some other minor clergy of Urkhan, and a company of top mercenaries hired out of the Gilded Lands. Since then, he had began relentlessly building up his forces, recruiting heavily from the local citizenry. Sometimes by force.

Ah! Here was something. Basgar and Gis were deliberately building up food stockpiles and causing shortages in Bordertown to drive the more desperate to enlist. Robin managed to find the location of one of the warehouses from the correspondence, but there were clearly several more he couldn’t ferret out just from the letters present.

It was useful, but Robin didn’t feel it was quite the smoking gun Avanus needed. He kept looking.

The next thing he found was a rather insulting letter Gis had clearly intended to send to Basgar but never did, for whatever reason. It described the priest’s encounter with Robin and the Sisters Sharp in the tunnels in fairly unflattering terms.

‘Here you go, little ones,’ Robin murmured as he fed that one to the mice.

The overall plan was starting to take shape in Robin’s mind as he read through the priest’s correspondence. Take out some of the nearby Marcher Lords before that fractious bunch could unite against the external enemy, keep the Gilded Lands happy by selling off the spoils in exchange for whatever Basgar needed to fuel his war machine, then start conquering the nearby city-states under the banner of Noviel. In relatively short order, Basgar could snip off the closest bits of all three countries and make himself a fourth kingdom, right in the centre.

The Gilded Lands could be bought off. They’d still have a trading partner and they hated mounting extended campaigns. War was expensive, and the Merchants who ruled would have to pay a premium to cross the Fens and attack Basgar. The Marcher Lords were fractious; it was unlikely they would unite in a force large enough to challenge the newly strengthened Keep.

Noviel was the only real threat. The city-states were much more tightly knit than the Marcher Lordships, and had much deeper pockets. Robin couldn’t find anything that would protect Basgar and Gis from them except possibly arrogance.

Still, there was clearly a threat building here against Noviel and her sister city-states. Lantha would certainly want to know about this. It might even alter their plans. Robin grimaced and started tucking away the contents of the priest’s desk. He’d wanted to be more subtle, but with this proof, he’d have to adapt.

He would set the place on fire right before he left. That would cover his tracks. It wasn’t subtle, but maybe he could make it look like something else. An accident or an assassination attempt gone wrong.

Robin froze, looking at the letter in his hand. This was it! This had to be what Avanus was after. This letter was a confirmation of orders and a receipt of payment from…some kind of agent provocateur. Gis had brought in a specialist to stir up antipathy between the various rebel factions in Bordertown! No wonder they were at one another’s throats and incapable of mounting a united front!

It was signed with a mark, not a name. In place of the signature, there was simply a small symbol. It looked like some kind of dart or small dagger with a triangular flag trailing off the handle. Unsurprising but annoying.

Now that he knew he was going to set the place alight, Robin went ahead and broke open the locked drawers of the desk and looted the whole thing. Anything small and valuable went into storage, including a small pouch of coin, several sheets of fresh parchment, some nice ink and a quill.

He’d achieved his goal, but Robin found his eyes drawn to the chest at the foot of the priest’s bed. He was already ransacking the place. Might as well take a few more minutes and loot the chest as well.

It was all of dark wood, and Robin noticed that several of the motifs from the screen in the chapel were also carved into this chest: the clenched fist, the lightning, and so on. He carefully checked it for traps but was unable to find any. It wasn’t even locked!

If Robin was hoping for piles of gold and gemstones, however, he was disappointed. All he could see when opening the chest were vestments and various paraphernalia of worship. He swiped the expensive-looking beeswax candles, of course, but didn’t touch the priestly robes. Gis had worn them, after all. Just the thought made Robin’s hands feel like greasy beetles were scuttling all over them.

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Moving the robes out of the way, however, he uncovered more sinister items: a bloodstained bowl and dagger, a small book bound in dark leather, and a horned and runed skull. The whole set screamed ‘unholy sacrament’ and Robin was torn between trying to smash the things and not going near them with a ten-foot pole.

He’d have left then and there had he not spotted that there was a false bottom beneath the paraphernalia. The size of the chest’s outside didn’t match that of its insides. He was trying to figure out how best to move the unholy-looking crap in the chest when he heard the sound of voices approaching down the hall.

You are too late, foolish pip. Your doom is at hand!

Twin points of crimson light flared to life in the skull’s eye sockets. Robin fell back with a yelp. Fucking demonic voices from a possessed skull! If he’d had any doubts before that Urkhan was sketchy AF, they were gone now.

He slammed the chest shut and scrambled back into a corner where he veiled his presence with a [Visual Phantasm] offset just slightly from the wall. That place was lit by candlelight and a few stray beams of sunshine coming through the shuttered windows. It would be next to impossible to see anyone in here at the best of times.

Robin managed to conceal himself just in time. The door slammed open and Gis strode in. The priest’s eyepatch was already off, and Ghen undulated from his anchor of Gis’s eye socket. The snake’s tongue flicked out, tasting the air.

The only thing that saved Robin was the planning he’d put into this escapade. The whole point was to get in and out without tipping off Gis that he or the Sisters Sharp were here. The Marcher Lordships were primarily beastkin, and Basgar was already making aggressive moves toward them. It made sense one might be here as a spy. Robin flicked his fingers through the gestures of [Lesser Phantasm] and filled the air in the room with the scent of scared rabbit. Hopefully it would be close enough to scared rabbitkin.

‘Ssspiesss! Rabbit ssspiesss!’ Ghen hissed loudly. ‘The ssscent of fear isss thick!’

‘We passed no one,’ Gis snapped, ‘and the shutters are latched from the inside! The spy must still be here. Search them out, Ghen!’

Robin needed a distraction, and fast. Well, he’d already planned to burn the place, right? He used [Mask of Myriad Faces] to shapeshift into a rabbitkin, then cast three cantrips in quick succession, counting on his illusion and the element of surprise to buy him time.

The first was a [Lesser Phantasm] of a rabbit’s scream, cranked to 11. Robin timed it to cover his casting of [Legerdemain]. Silently he cursed himself for not casting it when he first got into the room. The duration was long enough he could’ve easily maintained it and then he wouldn’t have needed the extra step.

Gis practically jumped out of his skin at the sound of the scream. Robin used the distraction to set the remaining papers on Gis’s desk on fire with [Legerdemain]. They went up like dry hay. The snake was whipping wildly through the air, tongue flicking, seeking the source of the terrified rabbit’s scream.

Robin set fire to the rug beneath the chest in two places. He wanted that skull cracked and burned by fire if he could manage it. There was no telling what the spirit in that thing could or would tell Gis. Better if it were destroyed.

The third and final cantrip was a [Lesser Phantasm] to hide him before he dropped his [Visual Phantasm]. He needed the more powerful spell to act as a distraction, so even through the protection offered by the lesser was, well, lesser, he had little choice but to do it that way.

Gis was shouting for the guard. The room was in chaos. It was now or never. Robin used [Visual Phantasm] to conjure the image of a rabbitkin scrabbling out from behind the bed hangings across the room. It fooled the priest but the snake was cannier.

Robin darted for the door, throwing it open to make his escape. Gis, facing the illusion, was caught by surprise. The snake, more suspicious by nature or equipped with better senses, was not so easily taken in. As Robin began bounding down the hall on his rabbit feet, the snake opened its mouth and shot a bold of red-and-black energy toward him.

The bolt slammed into Robin, burning into his fur and burrowing down into the flesh beneath. This time, the rabbit’s scream was real and it burst from Robin’s own throat.

The pain was intense but it only spiked more adrenaline into Robin’s veins. He ran faster, risking slower progress by serpentining his run in an attempt to throw off the snake’s aim.

It didn’t work. Another bolt slammed into him. Robin’s vision flickered for a moment, but he managed to gasp out a [Healing Note], and the world stabilised around him.

That snake was too talented a shot. Fuck. What was he thinking? Robin threw an illusory brick wall behind him with [Visual Phantasm], completely filling the passageway. It wouldn’t stop anyone running through it, but it would break the snake’s line of sight. Can’t target if you can’t see.

There were shouts and the sound of booted feet running toward him now. Robin cursed. He needed an exit, and now! The windows? No. They were too high to climb or jump to. The doors would be guarded. It was fight his way out or—his nose twitched.

The garderobe.

Robin groaned, both because it was cliche and because this was going to be disgusting. There wasn’t any help for it, though. He didn’t have time to figure out any better option.

He followed his nose and burst into the water closet. There was a board with a three large holes cut into it. No partitions. Fun. He had time for a deep breath and a world of regret for the life choices that brought him to this point before he pried up the plank and jumped down the slimy shaft, making his escape.

It was a shitty way to end the day.

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