Chapter 71: Part Of The Party

Chapter 71: Part Of The Party

Hiral shook some of the water off his raincoat as he stepped into the building, the wind picking up outside and whipping the rain almost horizontally down the street. The storm had moved fast, charging the town like a runaway bull, and the visible wall of torrential rain was only a block away by the time he made it back to the building where the others should be waiting.

“That’s almost as bad as the storm-wall out there,” Hiral said, Left and Right dripping wet beside him.

“At least you have a raincoat,” Right said, and ran a hand down his arm to skim off some of the water.

“Oh, come here, you big baby,” Hiral said, absorbing and then resummoning his doubles in quick succession. “Better?”

“Much, thank you,” Right said.

“I have to ask, though,” Hiral started, pointing at Right’s legs. “You have pants when I activate Foundational Split, the same ones I do. Why don’t you have the raincoat?”

“Because we choose not to take a copy of it with us when we split,” Left explained. “For me, it would interfere with reaching the tattoos. For him”—he pointed at Right—“it’s about image.”

“The glowing Meridian Lines and tattoos look pretty badass in the dark,” Right said.

“Look badass?” Hiral asked. “So, let me get this straight. You’ve been complaining about being wet even though you’re choosing not to take the raincoat with you?”

“I thought I heard you three arguing,” Seena interrupted before Right could reply, poking her head out from behind the staircase. “Come on. The others are this way.”

“We’re not done with this conversation,” Hiral said quietly to Right, then turned his attention to Seena. “Not upstairs?” He then noticed the floor in the building was higher than the road outside, saving it from being covered in a layer of water.

“Found a nice central room in here. Completely dry, and no Troblins!” Seena said. “Yanily was disappointed, but I’m pretty sure Wule was terrified we’d find another one of those paintings. He’s still traumatized. How about you? Find anything else out there?”The roots of this story extend from novell bìn origin.

“I checked a couple of buildings,” Hiral said, following Seena toward the back. “Only one of them was in any shape to keep us out of the rain, and honestly, it was worse than this one.”

He noted how well the stone walls around him had held up. The architecture was definitely different than what Fallen Reach had, with the Lizardmen using larger blocks that tended to be rougher around the edges. Still, whatever they used to fill in the cracks had stood the test of time and prevented even the slightest draft. The thick wood of the ceiling and braces had to have been brought in from somewhere else—no way it came from the twisting trees found in the swamps.

“No sign of Lizardmen, either,” he went on. “Not for a long, long time. Maybe this is morbid, but I didn’t even find bones. But...” He hesitated. Did she need to know about it? Yes, yes, she did. “I think I saw the briar patch the Prince was sealed in inside the dungeon. I don’t know if it’s still in there... but...” He trailed off, seeing something on Seena’s face. “What is it? Did you find something?”

“Cutlery!” Yanily answered as Seena and Hiral entered the somewhat crowded room.

The two parties had moved a large table—somehow still in one piece—over next to one wall, and stacked their packs in the other corner. Dripping raincoats hung from hooks near a door on the far wall, and Cal was handing out rations to anybody who even looked in her direction. Seeing how cramped the room already was, he reached out and pulled Left and Right back into himself, the tattoos rising up to coat his skin again.

“That is cutlery?” Hiral asked, eying the almost foot-long knife Yanily was holding up. Then again, the fork he had in the other hand was just as absurdly large.

“Lizardmen and... are there lizardwomen?” Yanily asked. “Whatever. If they’re the same size as the ones we fought in the dungeons, they had big hands. Need big spoons and stuff.”

“Spoons?” Vix asked. “For what?”

“Soup,” Yanily said knowingly.

“Back to the grown-up talk,” Seena said with a shake of her head. “Follow me.”

With a wave of her hand, she led him through the room and the door on the far side. The next room over wasn’t in nearly as good of shape as the first, the far end of the building simply missing and the rain pouring outside, but Seena turned to the right instead of continuing.

“Stairs?” Hiral asked, noticing the stone steps descending into the foundation of the building. “Why not camp down there?”

“Uh... you’ll see,” Seena said, and Hiral had no choice but to follow her down. As soon as he got to the bottom, he understood her reluctance to spend more time than necessary in the small room.

His skin practically crawled, like it wanted to jump off his body and slink its way back up the stairs, and there was an aura of fear lingering like a bad smell. In the center of the room, a totem like those inside the dungeon stood propped in the dirt, leaning slightly to one side. Coiled shadows writhed in its eye sockets and loosely hanging jaw like a mass of worms. Looking at the base of the totem, Hiral found the corrupted roots and the expected line of shadows leading to the wall and beyond—in the same direction as the briar patch.

“The Princeis still in there,” he said, shuddering slightly. “After all this time, it’s still sleeping.”

“And how annoyed do you think it’ll be if we wake it up now?” Seena asked, then shooed Hiral back up the stairs, obviously having had enough of the small room.

“Very,” Hiral said, turning and ascending the stairs. “I’m surprised Yanily didn’t break the totem as soon as he saw it.”

“Yanily is jealous, but don’t tell his spear,” Vix said.

“Shhhh! She’ll hear you,” Yanily hissed.

Seena turned back to Hiral and took a step closer. “We weren’t saying the things Fitch said we were,” she said quietly. “We’re not keeping you around just to get into the dungeons.”

“It’s one of the reasons,” Yanily piped up.

“Not helping, Yanily,” Seena seethed out of the side of her mouth without turning to look at the spearman.

“It’s true, though,” Yanily said. “And Hiral’s doing the same thing too. Aren’t you, Hiral? You want in the dungeons just as much as we do. What’s wrong with that?”

“It’s... not the only reason I’m with you,” Hiral said, looking at Seena.

“And it’s not the only reason we want you with us,” she responded. “Sure, yes, maybe it’s oneof the reasons, if we’re being completely honest about it. But you can’t still think we secretly hate you or something.”

“I... don’t,” Hiral said, fighting against his own inner demons rising up again. His rational mind knew it was just his own history making him even consider Fitch’s words as possibly true. The setup—the active intent to hurt him—was so obvious, but he still couldn’t just let it go.

“Good, because we don’t. I told you, you’re part of this party,” Seena said, a bit of the fire back in her eyes. “And”—she turned to Seeyela—“if Fitch doesn’t watch what he says, there’s going to be a problem between us.”

“Not just with Seena,” Nivian said.

“I know,” Seeyela said. “I’ll talk to him after he cools down a bit. Hiral, you don’t know me as well as the others do, but I hope you’ll believe me when I say Fitch’s opinion isn’t everybody’s. Has Seena told you what his problem with Islanders is?”

“No,” Hiral said, still trying to silence the nagging doubt in his head. Could any reason really justify his behavior?

“It’s a bit of a story, but the short of it is he blames a merchant from Fallen Reach for his sister’s death,” Seena said. “He’s been angry for years and... then... here you are.”

“It’s a hard thing for him to get past, and you, coming down from Fallen Reach with a merchant...” Seeyela said. “You’re like the perfect target for all his pent-up hate. But he’s not a bad guy, if you can get past it.” She shook her head and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Sorry, I’m not trying to make excuses for him. Just... when we all get to the Asylum, give him a chance to get to know you as something other than an Islander. You might be surprised at what you find when you get past the hate.”

“The merchant... was it Arty?” Hiral asked.

“No, it wasn’t,” Seena said. “And, really, we don’t even know for sure what happened to his sister. Look, I’ll give you the full story later. Now’s not the time.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Seeyela picked up. “If I can get him to stop being...”

“An asshole,” Yanily filled in.

“Yes, that,” Seeyela agreed. “If he can behave, can you give him a chance?” she asked Hiral.

“I’ll think about it,” Hiral said, part of him completely recoiling at the thought of spending more than five minutes with the infuriating man. And why did he have to be the one to give the other a chance? Hadn’t he already been doing that?

“That’s more than fair,” Seeyela said. “Even if it doesn’t work out between you and Fitch, you’re still one of us, if you want to be. I don’t know exactly what’ll happen when we get back to the islands, but you’re welcome to stay with us if you want to. And, no, before you even think it, I’m not just saying that.”

“She isn’t,” Caleon said. “She’s a terrible liar. Like, the absolute worst.”

Hiral nodded while he watched Seeyela. The way she looked him in the eye, the steadiness of her voice, and the lack of fidgeting. His high Atn took it all in and told him she was telling the truth.

“I’m going to keep an eye on Fitch. Make sure he doesn’t go too far,” Lonil said, taking advantage of the small break in conversation to slip out the door.

“Are we good, Hiral?” Seena asked him, while everybody else looked on.

“We’re good,” he said. “I’m sorry I believed what he said, even for a second. I...”

“It’s okay. We all have things we struggle with.”

“For Seena, it’s her cooking,” Yanily said, and Seena rolled her eyes.