She wasn’t exactly the brains in their adventuring party, and she hadn’t told anyone butEdenabout her father, so she needed to be a bit more underhanded.Asthe others– mostlySerLiamPrizeandCaptainMorganaSilversword, the two do-gooders of the group– pieced together the puzzle ofTheTwelve,Calamityhad to subtly plant puzzle pieces they could find.
For two of the names, this strategy worked well.
First had beenCinesha, a captain in theQueen’sGuard.Morganahad fought alongsideCineshawhen they were younger and was horrified to learn that his power grabs had evolved from underhanded conduct to full-on evil scheming.Theparty intercepted his attempt to liberate an artefact called theBladeofBrotherhoodfrom the collection of a local, lesser royal.Theblade would have compelled any who saw it drawn to fight alongside its wielder– a power dangerous in even the most noble of hands.
Then there was an old hag calledSpiderhook, who lived deep in theWalstallWood.Ratherthan seeking out an existing artefact, she had lured and entrapped several artificers in an attempt to create aCrystalofConcordance– a gemstone pulsing with light that would hypnotise anyone who looked into it.Havingspent years in theWalstallWood,Gorlag, the half-orc berserker that brought most of the party’s muscle, led the quest to disrupt the infusion and defeatSpiderhook.Sadly, it wasGorlag’slast mission with the party; they travelled home to their clan in the wild north soon after.
In their research to defeatCineshaandSpiderhook, the party uncovered evidence that led them to two more members ofTheTwelve.HiyeiHajunwas a mage just one spell away from becoming a lich, and the party managed to disrupt the ritual, stopping him from binding his soul to theQueen’ssceptre.Thenthere wasLadyNideta, an emissary from across thePasmagneSea, who was already using a powerful artefact calledTheDiplomat’sQuill, compelling other signatories to accept any termsNidetaput forward.
A blade that rallied others to war.Ahypnotic crystal.Asceptre with undue influence.Aquill that could sign entire nations over in one stroke.Combinedwith theSupremacySphereandDiademofDominion, the two mind-control artefacts they’d already destroyed, it was clear thatTheTwelvesought total domination.Butthe party was still only halfway to stopping them.
The momentum was high, but eventually, despite the party’s best efforts andCalamity’sbest attempts at being discreet, the leads dried up.Edeneven revisited her home in theAstralPlaneto try to find answers, but her only leads pointed back toTrulnuroth.SowhenEdencame back empty-handed,Calamityhad no choice but to give her a name to share.
“We’re looking forTheVarjo,”Edensaid to the party as they convened in her andCalamity’sroom at theAdventurersGuild. “They’rethe leader of a shadowy crime syndicate here in the city.”
“Finally,”Yorickcried, collapsing back onCalamity’sbunk where he sat. “It’sbeen ages since we had a lead.”
“Wait a minute,”Liamsaid, andCalamityfroze, wincing; she should have known better than to hope they would accept the intel without question. “Wheredid you get this name?”
Calamity caughtEden’seye.Playit cool, kid,Calamitythought, butEdenbroke immediately.
“I heard it in theAstralPlane,”Edenlied. “Whispers, allusions, all that sort of thing.”
“From whom?”Morganaasked, always takingLiam’sside.
“Uh…”Edenlooked over atCalamity, butCalamitywouldn’t meetEden’seye. “Trulnuroth.”
The others gasped, and evenCalamitycouldn’t keep a straight face, turning to gape atEden, who shrugged apologetically.
“You spoke to thePrinceofPandemonium?”Morganaasked, aghast.Calamityknew none of her friends were particularly superstitious, so it was a surprise to hearMorganause the moniker instead of his name.Sheheld back an almighty eye roll.
“No, not directly,”Edensaid, shaking her head. “Ijust heard they were connected.”
This wasn’t technically a lie.Theothers nodded their heads, thoughLiamwas still squinting his eyes as if he didn’t quite believe the druid.Calamityglared at him until he went wide-eyed and turned his attention to his own feet.
The rest of the group started strategising for how they could get more information aboutTheVarjo–Yorickwanted to go undercover, whilstMorganawanted to interrogate somecriminalsshe’d encountered during herQueen’sGuardyears.ButCalamitydidn’t weigh in, and that wasn’t surprising; she was hardly the decision-maker in these kinds of conversations.
Instead, she was subtly pulling her less-than-modest robes tighter across her.Becauseshe had come back fromPandemoniumwith one other thing besides names– a new bit of bling.Andif anyone looked closely enough at the small stone pendant around her neck, they would have seen the rune forTrulnuroth’sname carved into it.
Chapter5
Chloe
I’d like to sayI’dspent every moment since theRenFairein a revenge-fuelled montage of main-character moments– doing yoga in front of a perfect sunrise, journalling in perfect cursive, hiking myself into a new personality.Butif we’re telling the truth, most of it was me sitting in the same sagging desk chair, trying to figure out what to bring to theLuauinStardewValley, and maintaining a first-name basis with every food delivery driver in the local area.
The only thing that had changed was the running commentary in my head, which now belonged to a girlI’dmet exactly once, and who, statistically, should have evaporated from my consciousness immediately like every other hot strangerIsaw and parted ways with.Butno;Teddy’svoice, acid and unmistakable, haunted every dumb decision.EverytimeIwent to binge aLet’sPlayor start a new download onSteaminstead of doing something “of consequence”,I’dhear, “keep flitting through life unbothered.”
Phil, for his part, was delighted by this development. “Youfinally have a nemesis,” he’d declared, afterI’dcomplained to him andJackabout theTeddyVoicefor the third film night in a row. “Nowyou can undergo your main character transformation.Geta montage.Maybea makeover.”
“Excuse me,”I’dgasped, swatting his arm, “are you suggestingIneed a makeover?”
“I would never,” he’d said, dropping his head to myshoulder. “Butwho doesn’twanta makeover montage?”AndIsupposed he had a point.
Over the next couple of months, though, my “nemesis” did actually motivate me to do thingsI’dpreviously only joked about.Istarted listening to self-help audiobooks without irony whilstIgamed and even bought myself a journal with an inspirational quote on the cover.Itwas the first time since uniI’dwritten anything that wasn’t a work email or a backstory for aD&Dcharacter.
The journalling, as it turned out, was as close asI’dever gotten to therapy, if therapy was just arguing with yourself in increasingly smaller handwriting until you earned either a breakthrough or a hand cramp.Itseemed to make a difference, helping me curate the chaos inside me into intelligible thoughts.
The prompt that changed everything was: “Describea time you failed but had fun doing it.”Thefirst thing that came to mind was my misguided attempt to brew mead last year.Myfriends had played along, even pretending to like one batch, but it had been truly vile.ButI’denjoyed every moment of it anyway, even asI’dhad to sweep up broken glass from an unstable bottle, and asI’ddesperately trawled the forums online for advice.I’dfelt likeIwas doing something new; likeIwas piecing together a puzzle, even ifIhad to make a glorious mess of things in the process.Iwasn’t sure whyI’dstopped trying.
