TheRiverScribe

listen i cannot get over how thoroughly m9 confuses and terrifies every npc they encounter

ludinus comes to a meeting to talk to the group who negotiated a meeting between the leaders of warring nations and may have just stopped a cult from unleashing a betrayer god on the world. they should have a good place in mind for a safe, neutral location to bring royalty to, right? clearly, they know their stuff.

NOPE. they immediately suggest a) a pirate island they apparently got BANNED from, b) a VOLCANO where they were planning to take a leisurely sacrilegious vacation, and c) a forest that’s corrupted with an ancient unknown evil and slowly eating itself, where one of them apparently LIVES. the most feasible option they come up with is their STOLEN PIRATE SHIP, which they named the balleater (imagine the brain static) after murdering the leader of an entirely DIFFERENT eldritch cult (and most of her crew). he doesn’t fully understand what the happy fun ball is, but allura vysoren didn’t want to go in, and they’ve apparently been in TWICE?

turns out, as he realizes during their talk, they had zero intention of organizing this incredibly valuable cease-fire, and all they wanted to do was get their giant murderous friend back. toeing the line between two warring nations is their SIDE GIG. they implicate themselves as having committed piracy, high treason, grand theft: boat, espionage, sacrilege, and murder, and then they ask him, totally sincerely, if they could maybe please have pastries at their next meeting. oh, and chocolate.

the blue one— who, he has a sneaking suspicion, may very well be the strongest of all of them— compliments him and he realizes he forgot for whole consecutive minutes that’s he’s the head of the cerberus assembly, that they think he’s more powerful than them.

still reeling, he takes them to meet with his colleague of decades, whose methods he doesn’t love, but tolerates because they get results. somehow, he has the sneaking suspicion they won’t get along.

but it’s worse than he could have imagined, because apparently one of them was one of trent’s best students??? and he’s standing in this study, which he knows is stripped of the knowledge they’re flimsily pretending the empire doesn’t have. they have to hide national secrets from this group, now, and somehow ludinus is getting the feeling they’re not doing such a great job. and he watches this meeting with dawning horror, because it seems like they want trent dead. and it seems like they don’t mind doing it themselves. for the first time in years, ludinus doubts himself in that old way he did when he was still learning— he doesn’t think he’s strong enough to stop them.

for a moment, the wizard— caleb, was it? trent called him bren, but that didn’t go over too incredibly well— pulls at one of his sleeves, and ludinus recognizes those scars. for a moment, he doesn’t think he wants to stop them.

also, there are only seven of them?