even acknowledging that hiding his mother's illness is treason and therefore asking anyone for help would be asking them to commit a crime at best and risking getting turned in at worse, AND acknowledging that he's probably tried to appeal to the bright queen+kryn dynasty to let him study the beacon (if he wasn't too paranoid to do so) and they said no, essek DOES still have people he could've turned to.

they added verrat for a reason*, they showed us that essek isn't actually alone, and that there are high-ranking figures that don't agree unilaterally with the dynasty's rules. essek could have confided in verrat or others, hell he could have tried to petition the crown to let him at least research typhros and try to find a cure. surely the dynasty would support trying to cure the one thing that kills them forever, no? idk maybe it's a stretch but i'm just saying essek had options

but essek decided that not only could he not trust anyone in the dynasty (effectively saying everyone in the dynasty is too blindly religious to entertain anything he has to say, looking down on them for their, in his opinion, ridiculous devotion) but he also decided that he will be the one to unearth the secrets of the beacon when centuries (millennia?) of people before him could not.

essek thinks he can crack the code while deceiving the dynasty right under their nose and working with a foreign, antagonistic power with unknown motivations. he thinks he can control this situation he's created and he thinks this so resolutely that he is willingly, knowingly, risking the lives and souls of himself, his family, and his country.

essek's arrogance comes through in so many of his choices and interactions (sneering to trent about how it would take centuries to teach trent the basics of dunamancy despite only being a century and change old himself, his snide comment to his mother about her faith, the fact that he LITERALLY floats above others) and it's one of my favorite things about his character because he is smart. objectively, he is smart. and yet his belief in his own intelligence makes him do such stupid things. not only is this realistic, but it's FUN

it's so fun to me how he disdains the dynasty for its "blind" belief in the luxon but doesn't recognize his own blind faith in his own abilities. and (putting this below the cut bc spoilers for campaign 2 and essek's story)

but after watching i did want to go back and listen to matt's description of the circus performance from the original show because i remember when i first watched campaign two, the first time i had ever watched any dnd show, that was the moment that got me. i'd enjoyed all the banter in the bar and the interactions between the characters but listening to matt's imagery, picturing the things he was describing, feeling the feelings he wanted me to feel, that was the moment i was hooked on this kind of storytelling.