#vesuria

Vesuria dumped her things by a footlocker and made a beeline for the washbasin, tipping lukewarm water into it from a porcelain ewer. She'd taken a short nap and washed up before meeting the Emprex, but she still felt haggard—battered muscles, bones, and organs sored. It was like someone had shoved her emotions into a pickle jar and shaken them around. She peeled away the edge of her wraps and began unravelling the left hand.

She slowed, reminding herself to breathe. She wasn't in her mother's line of sight anymore. The basin's water rippled and steadied. It was a precious commodity now, she remembered, even just to wash their hands and faces. With the right amount of gold, it was a luxury they could afford. When had she blindly crossed into someone who could afford a place like this?

She wondered how much of the city knew the severity of the situation, who knew they were using a vital but limited resource. How many were in the dark, creeping towards drought without knowing to make an effort to use less? Why was the Lap of the Gods not among the first to stop using so much?

"Can I see?" Ayo asked from behind her shoulder. She had rested her harpoon and bag by the door and padded over.

Ves blinked out of her stupor. "Sure," she agreed, without knowing what she was saying yes to.

Ayo took over, taking the loose end of dressing from Ves and slowly, carefully unwinding the rest of her wrap. Ves faced her, giving her easier access.

Ves had re-used her wraps from the morning; they spiralled away like dead leaves, stained a deep red and brown. The two meshed, blood indistinguishable from dirt and sweat, speckled with a petechiae of Ruidium crystal shards. Her knuckles were still roughed up from her night of wall-punching and that day's fight, but from a distance it was difficult to tell how bad with the pigmented skin of her lower arms. But Ayo noticed; she stared at the split and peeling skin, up close and personal.

"I feel it more when they're gone than when they're on," Ves said to fill the silence. She lightly flexed and clenched her fingers, relishing the bruise-like ache and pull of tender skin over bone. Her nails had looked better, too, despite how short she kept them.

"Is this all from today?" Ayo asked, looking up into her face.

Ves snorted. "No. Me and Varis were punching the outside of the tavern the other night. Varis' looked worse, you should've seen them—but they shouldn't've copied me. Idiot."

Ayo's brow furrowed even as a grin tugged at her lips. "Why the hell were you doing that?"

"Stressed about the moms, remember? Varis was just trying to be supportive."

Ayo clicked her tongue. "Right."

Ves half expected her to chastise, but Ayo'd just experienced her moms. She probably understood better now than when Ves originally confided in her about them. As for Varis—well, she could give them an earful later if she felt like it. She appreciated their support, in whatever odd form it took.

Ayo beckoned for Vesuria's other hand and Ves gave it over, letting Ayo unravel the second wrapping and pile it on the counter beside the basin. Ayo submerged Ves' hands and rinsed away any residual dirt, then retreated to her travel bag, returning with a whiskey-brown glass bottle.

Uncorking it, she tipped some onto a cloth, motioning again for Ves' hand. Ves hesitated, but even expecting it, hissed through her teeth as Ayo dabbed it to her knuckles. The bite of antiseptic zipped through her nerves, then settled after a jaw-clenching moment.

Her mind snagged on a memory of her mother applying something similar to her scalp and lip after a bar fight, her care always coming at a caveat—her hand twitched, an almost-flinch.

Ayo smiled wryly at her, holding her still. "You can take a Gloomstalker's bite but you can't handle a little sting?"

"I didn't take anything," Ves reminded her with a scoff. "It knocked me out."

Ayo shrugged a shoulder. Softer, with the tenderness she always had when talking about her closest friends, said, "Dermot taught me a bit of first aid growing up. Fat bit of good it's done since we left Jigow, though."

"Seems like Dermot likes feeling helpful, though. Can't totally take healing away from him, y'know?"

Ayo's cheeks coloured. Normally Ves enjoyed it—it always brought out her moon-pale freckles—but this one seemed like it came from shame. "Yeah. I guess."

"It's helping now."

Ayo shrugged again, this time with both shoulders. The moment lingered. Ayo's thumbs swept across the back of Vesuria's wrists. Ayo laid their palms together, fingers stretched, the tips of hers reaching Vesuria's second joint. Vesuria could've folded the tips over Ayo's if she wanted. She didn't, but let them relax and curl. Just a bit lower and Ves could've felt Ayo's pulse or sunk her thumbs into pressure points to release tension.

Texture-wise, their hands were more similar than not. Evenly-calloused palms and fingers, albeit from different sorts of work and training. Ayo drew away first, her blush no longer embarrassed, but pleased.

"I've always wanted to do that," she said, then pivoted abruptly to the bowl to dunk her own hands in like she could drown the admission.

Ves began removing her other layers. She had to resist turning her back like they were shy locker room girls and not two dating adults. Ves had no problem being nude in front of her party or even the other rivals, but Ayo was different. They'd never actually seen each other that way yet, not fully—only in passing, or towelled, or changing into sleepclothes. Ayo had been knocked out cold the first time the Gravemakers had hit up the bathhouse in Bazzoxan, then went without them later.

Ves had stripped down to her smalls when she glanced at Ayo. Ayo pretended to be studiously drying her hands, but she snuck a peek, which didn't stay a peek, but morphed into outright staring. Ves grinned for having caught her. Vesuria's midriff was usually out, but the context was different and new. She'd had to cover more of it recently because of how the curse of Ruidus spread over her ribs.

Ayo's eyes met hers. She blushed more furiously, but her gaze flit again to Vesuria's abdomen, lips pursing, absently reaching for the bottle again.

"Should you be soaking those?" Ayo asked, pointing to Vesuria's haphazard patch job. Vesuria glanced down. For a moment, when Ayo had been tending her, she'd forgotten about the extra wounds. Busted knuckles were her norm, having a crystallized elephant slam its tusks into her guts—not so much.

"Eh," she said, gently prodding one of the cotton bandages and wincing. "It should be fine. Or I can just put my legs in. Whatever." She dreamt ahead to Ayo seated between her legs, massaging her scalp, and smiled beatifically. "I can wash your hair."

She perked up her head for a quick scan of danger, adrenaline still hot and alive. She glimpsed swells of turmeric sands soaked in night before a blow landed from behind—Rae crashed into her, all metal and heft, jolting the air out of her lungs in a sputtered cough. Then someone squishier, humanoid, too hairless to be Varis, bounced off Rae and rolled off next to them. 

Sensing the danger had passed, she sagged. Weariness weighed her down to her core, her soul guttering after contending with evil manifest and visions and heartbreak. She didn't feel like they'd won even though they'd survived.

She flipped onto her back, shoving Rae off and gasping in fresh air. Her skin was tacky with blood, hers and not; the sand glued to those spots in a grainy glaze. She wanted to ravel herself up in the sand like a blanket or bury herself under it like a lizard and sleep. 

For a moment, while her pulse calmed, she lived in the sensory, her aches soothed by the sand. It'd been night long enough that any warmth from the sun was a memory. A black, cloudless sky yawned above and a tapestry of unfamiliar stars winked and swirled. Not that Xhorhas' constellations were familiar to her, but it was like learning someone's name and then they were gone before you could say it to them.

The twin moons, however, were the same. A pair of heterochromatic eyes peering down at their three prone and beaten bodies. 

The calm was short-lived. Gasping and paroxysms snagged her attention and she bolted up. Irvan convulsed and gagged, clutching his lower arm and cradling it towards his chest like it was broken. And it was, sorta, ruby blisters furiously erupting along the skin.

The heat added a hazy shimmer to the air like a desert’s mirage. Sweat slithered down her spine and over her cheek, making her feel slippery and off-balance when she needed to be light on her toes. Honestly, half the sweat was from nerves, not just the heat. It didn’t bring much relief, though, warming instantly on her skin and sitting there stagnant instead of evaporating.

She crouched low, defensively, creeping along. She’d always felt a bit like a mole in Vuthos. It was home, but it hadn’t been carved by goliath hands, so the rooms weren’t built to her size. Additions made for the half giants and non-giants were just that—add-ons, afterthoughts, even if they were made with care. The tunnels in its bowels were no different.

Around the bend, light banked like a kindling fire and the tunnel expanded into a leviathan, neverending cavern. Giants built large, but this—

Alcoves wove in and out along the walls like a tunneling serpent, reinforced with stone pillars, but the ceiling, far above, was jagged, like it'd been scooped out with claws. Another wave of heat rolled over her in greeting, carrying the scent of pumice, smoke, metal, and aged parchment.

Cimbarinth’s hoard. Holy shit.

Most attention-grabbing were the mountains of coin, so much that it became its own light source with a low, twinkling glow. Plinths offered manuscripts and tomes, fitted into scroll housings or locked behind glass for protection. Cut and uncut gems were sprinkled everywhere like a handful of spices thrown over a meal, mostly shades of red and yellow—rubies, fire opals, amber, jasper, and of course, garnets. Tools and armour, robes and statues. Vesuria got dizzy taking stock. It wasn’t just wealth in sheer numbers, but knowledge and history.

She couldn’t make heads of tails of the order, if there was one. Some sections were like curated galleries, themed around panoplies of armour or rows of books that belonged together, while others looked completely random to her eyes.

She slunk over to the closest heap of coins. They radiated heat just as much as her mom—like she was the one drawn to their warmth, she the pup. She plucked a single platinum piece from the pile. It didn’t burn, but it was warmer than her skin. She wondered if Cimbarinth’s breath was hot enough to melt it into soup.

She carefully set it at the foot of the pile, hyperaware of any clinks or what could come avalanching if she misplaced something.

She grinned. It was exhilarating standing where she wasn’t supposed to be, laying her sights and fingers on what must’ve been hundreds—maybe a thousand?—years’ worth of collecting. Cimbarinth had never shared his exact age; the best they had was an estimate from the giants.

How many people had stood here or were allowed to stand here? How many others had snuck in and been met with a disgruntled dragon or their death?

How much had he stolen, and how much was gifted to him?

She was tempted to push further in, test herself and get something juicier, but her throat ached and she wanted to succeed, which meant being smart, which the entire mission wasn’t, but she could still be strategic. She’d learned from the City of Brass she couldn’t suffer heat exhaustion—a thing she was half convinced was made up—but its oppressiveness still managed to blur her thoughts.

She crossed to the next mound, more money dotted with weapons and armour. A sword-hilt called to her, studded with jewels and giving off fluttering pulses of magic. She oh-so carefully wrapped the hilt in her fist, then stopped. She released it and stooped to remove a single gold coin by her foot on the pile’s edge.

She turned it. Did dragons keep every item accounted for? How could they miss one coin in an archipelago of riches? For an Order partially founded by a dragon, Cimbarinth withheld a lot of the finer details of his kind. Their focus was more on Desirat and the devils and humanoids that worshipped her.

It was easy to pocket, though she wasn’t sure anyone’d believe her if she told them where it’d come from. Gossip like that would end its way back to Cimbarinth, so it’d have to be her lucky, personal coin.

For a split second she wavered, debated returning it and leaving empty-handed, forget the whole escapade. The coin was a nothing-weight, but she was acutely aware of it, too, like it shone through her clothes for all to see. For all her planning and sneaking and eavesdropping, whenever she tried to focus on the why, it dodged her. There was no fame or glory when it was secret and no monetary gain if she didn’t spend it. Pride, sure, but what else? What was the point? Gods, this was why she drank.

The why didn’t matter, she told herself. It was the doing. Ugly truths were the most elusive. Still, her body refused to release her, like she’d become another belonging in the hoard.

“Vesuria.”

A thrill sparked up her spine. Fight or flight surged in, but she couldn’t outrun Cimbarinth in his lair, nevermind fight.

She turned slowly, palms up and fingers splayed. His voice was thunder, but he was in one of his dozen humanoid forms, a goliath. He was a similar height to her like that, but more wiry, any indication of muscle hidden under robes, his sleeves tucked into one another. His expression was a shade shy of neutral, a slight frown with a furrow between his brows. Disappointment.

“Hey,” she said lamely. More blood rushed to her face, anxiety and shame thrashing inside her. “I, uh, got lost.”

His rutilant eyes—tall, slitted pupils, one of the few tells of his true nature—flicked to her pocket. She plastered on a sheepish grin and, just as slowly as before, scooped out the coin and lowered it to the ground. She patted it before straightening.

His nostrils flared lightly even though the rest of his expression remained intact.

“I’m sorry,” she rushed out, snapping down her head in a rudimentary bow. “I’ll leave.”

“While lost?” he countered calmly.

“I mean, I can go the way I came? I’m sorry, I was just curious.” He was an obstacle between her and the exit, but she strode forward, head still bent, hoping he’d overlook it and step aside. She was young, not not known for wanting anything more than praise and attention and drink—

A full-sized dragon’s paw landed in her path, and then Cimbarinth was in true form, filling the space like its king. Garnet scales glittered as brightly as his gems, golden horns spiralling back and flowing into his craggy spines. She stumbled backwards, finally lifting her chin.

“Okay, I get it,” she said. “You’re mad.” He hadn’t slammed the paw even though the weight of it made a regular step rattle her teeth. His head snaked down to her level, staring her head-on.

“I’m not,” he said. She believed him, but found it hard to surrender the tension in her shoulders. “But I can see that you have lost focus.”

“Focus?” She prickled. “I haven’t ‘lost focus.’ Everyone’s curious even if they don’t say so. I can be curious without losing sight.”

“You believe your lie.” His nose dipped towards the floor, eyes boring into her like awls, his head longer than her body. “Do you think Desirat’s cultists waver in their devotion?”

“They should,” she muttered. “Some have to.”

“Those cases are rare, and lead to a lifetime of unravelling her influence. Their devotion is what makes them so dangerous—and what we do so necessary. We are not responsible solely for ourselves, Vesuria, but all of Exandria. To slip with our devotion puts that in jeopardy.”

“I didn’t ask to be part of it!” Ves defended, sounding petulant to her ears, her voice shrill next to his rumble. She thrust a fist against her chest, above her heart. “I believe in the cause, but I didn’t choose it. Mother did.”

“Then why do you continue to train? You are not required to be part of the Order.”

Rearranged, his words could’ve made ‘The Order doesn’t require you.’ “I don’t—” The heat in her cheeks rose to her eyes, stinging and wet. She wanted a stone or wall to kick, but ground her heels in. “I like it. I do. But I just—that’s not all there is, right? Why is doubt bad? Doesn’t it mean you come back more devoted? You’re telling me you’ve never doubted anything in your whole long life?”

Sweltering air rushed over her from his exhale, fanning out her hair. Thoughtful, not challenging.

“This is a discussion for your mother,” he decided. “Whatever your feelings, they have wrought the same outcome. I cannot let your misdeed go unpunished. I cannot make exceptions on this.”

Vesuria’s axis tilted. She finally understood the source of her tension—she wasn’t scared of Cimbarinth. Never had been. He was her guardian, mentor, the source of her nascent power. He’d never harmed or threatened harm before. He wasn’t the unpredictable flames of a fresh and well-fed fire, but the glowing cinders left in their wake.

She was scared of getting caught. The consequences. Not physical harm, but punishment. Her mother.

She licked her lips and swallowed, barely a drop of moisture left in her mouth.

“So what now, then?” she asked.

So a human friend lost an arm. Any tips on forging a new one?

Oh my gods, that sounds awful! Suffice to say, we didn’t sleep much last night. Reva was having fits about this curse or corruption all night. We beseeched Cimbarinth for his aid and knowledge on this. Sensing our distress and earnest pleas, he’s helped us research today, going through all of the tomes he has available. Unfortunately, there isn’t much we could find out about this. Red magic crystals there was few and far between. General magic crystals we found some stuff, but nothing about them being tied to the Ruidus. We did find plenty of myths and folklore surrounding Ruidus. It is the Moon of Ill Omen after all. Most of the myths are related to those born under the full red moon who are said to be cursed for life or any large battles in a war that happen there are said to be met with grave misfortunes. The memory magic and your Aeormaton friend is a little beyond our knowledge, unfortunately. The heights of the Age of Arcanum still hold many mysteries that died with those mages and have yet to be rediscovered. Much of the magical theory behind an Aeormaton is lost knowledge. Cimbarinth says he spoke with some recently who may know more. He will be reaching out to see if he will offer aid. Also my word, he lost an arm. That's dreadful. I sent over sketches and notes with tips for forging of prosthetics. It’s quite complex unfortunately and it requires a very good forge that can forge specialized metals. The major issue is the weight for most people, they need something durable yet light. Mithril or Adamantium is normally the best but they can be very rare or expensive. We can only forge them within the Plane of Fire. Reva says she will reach out to her family for help or supplies. It’ll have to be forged to the person who needs it. I know you’re supposed to do this on your own, but I don’t think any of us expected for you to get involved in something quite so serious. Cimbarinth says he has an old friend in Ank’Harel and will see if there is anything we can do to help. If you want us or someone else to come help in some way, please let us help you. I’m glad you’re alive. You are the light of my life, our torch in the darkness. Stay safe. Ky