Sailing Home (Everyone)

"I mean, we collaborated on it," Sithani offers, hoping to spread any blame around. "It wasn't all Thimb. And she's telling the truth; we didn't show it to Laerdya or Luther."

Bending down, she pats Hamish.

Korogur chuckles again and gives Glen a long side-glance. "Yeah, uh, you're not wrong. Just to be clear, friend? If you'd tried to hurt my girlfriend, you'd be dead six ways from midsummer." He flashes a dazzling smile. "So it's a good thing we all want her to be safe and happy and free."

---

Tree watches these antics with a wary gaze that turns quietly tired when she recognizes the thing in the familiar's mouth. Stooping to take it gently, she nods. "Yeah. That... that happens," she says with a weary sigh. "At least you had sort of a good reason, I guess?" she offers, not meeting anyone's eyes.

Glen laughs, not at all unnerved by the veiled threat and used to this kind of braggadocio from fellow soldiers. "Of course. Hurting her was never in the cards. We just want her safe and happy and walking the path she wants to walk." Glen looks tempted to make a similar bragging threat, but decides not to. Best to let that slide until they know each other better. But the amusement in his eye gives a tiny hint of it.

"It was actually very helpful," Sunrise offers. "We really wouldn't have had any reason to suspect you went with him willingly without it." With a small smile she adds, "We would have burst in here treating it like a rescue mission, and wouldn't that have been disastrous?"

Hamish looked up at Tree hopeful for pets and confused and disappointing when they did not come after their good job delivering the thing.

"It was a really clever cipher," said Thimb, "and your diary is way less embarrassing than mine. Which, I mean, I guess fair is fair, if you want to read it when we get back...?" she offered not really sure what to say here. "And, er, I don't want to pry, but, um- well, t-there was this part where you talked about some sort of monstrosity and really intense research and then just... stopped? And it was kind of alarming? And if it's, uhm, if it's personal, then, I-I get that, but..." she trailed off hoping the question stood.

How did people like Sunrise talk for a living?

"We originally assumed you were upset about the aboleth," Sunrise adds quietly. "But it seems we underestimated the variety of creepy things you could have found in the library, so now we're not sure. If... if you can, we'd appreciate clarification." She gives Tree a crooked grin. "If nothing else, to make sure we don't have anything else to worry about when it comes to Laerdya."

Korogur falls silent and doesn't seem to notice the glint in Glen's eye; instead, he steers the ship for a time, watching the horizon and his instruments. "...they would lock her up forever in that tower, you know," he eventually says, his voice quiet. "Not in chains. But they'd drape guilt around her and fear and wrap her in gauze and tell her she could leave 'tomorrow' and it would never be tomorrow no matter how patiently she waited."

---

Tree looks confused by this line of questioning, frowning slightly. "I... I told you. I found the body my mother made for me. It's not a... it's not a normal replacement body. It's packed full of her special metal, the kind which soaks up spells for good or ill. Perfect for her to layer protective spells on me, but I'd be a sitting duck for any mage who wanted to control me. I'd practically have to go into solitary confinement for my own safety. And going through her notes was how I realized... I'd caused the plague."

Sunrise's expression is pained. "The special metal that makes people around it susceptible to the plague. So you'd not only be susceptible to magic, you'd put people around you in danger. So you couldn't leave the tower, couldn't really have friends. Nice." She sighs. "You know you really didn't, though, right? You didn't make the amulet. Whatever flaw caused the magic to backfire, it wasn't your doing." Shaking her head, she adds, "You said people would turn on you if they knew, and maybe they would, but they shouldn't. This isn't your fault."

"But that... that can't work, surely?" Sithani wracks her brain for anything she's heard about the workings of the Clone spell.

Arcana check:

"Thimb, do you know how it works? Surely it wouldn't preserve the raw materials of the simulacrum? It's meant to create a new, fully-functional body, right? You can't have a fully-functional body with huge chunks of metal in it; otherwise battlefields would be much less hazardous."

[The DM reminds you that xer own body has huge chunks of metal in it, lol. It's all in where you put it, really.]

---

Tree shakes her head. "The body becomes flesh as part of the spell, yes, but Mother's metal is special and I'm not sure how it would affect the resurrection. Honestly, I'm not keen to find out if the metal stays behind as metal grafted to my bones, or if it becomes flesh with the rest of the material but retains its magical absorption. Do you want to be the first to find out? Because I prefer not being an easy target for every apprentice itching to try out a Charm spell."

Turning on Sunrise, her cheeks flush with something like anger. "Do you know how many people are dead because of me and that amulet? Nobody does. I tried to find out, you know? But the toll is too high for the city officials to keep track of. If it's not my fault, whose is it?"

"Your mother's, if anyone," Sithani interjects. "Boccob the allegedly-foresighted for making such a spell possible. Moradin for creating that metal to begin with." Assuming her most comforting tone of voice, she continues. "Of all the things we deserve blame for, how people react to us is not one of them. You are not to blame for your mother's panic and bad luck in spellcrafting."

Glen nods, his eyes likewise on the horizon. He breathes the fresh, open sea air. "Yes. I don't want that either. It's..." He pauses. "I've never been to sea before. Grew up in the forest. No doors, no locks, no bars. But. There's so much, in every direction. It's beautiful, and wild, and free." His eyes soften. "People don't belong in cages, physical or otherwise." It's clear Glen isn't just talking about Tree.

"Arguably your mother's, yes," Sunrise agrees quietly. "She made the metal, she made the amulet. Any mistakes were therefore her mistakes. If we had to lay blame, we could say she should have been more careful, should have tested more stringently for side effects."

She frowns then, instinctively reaching out towards Tree. "But I could also argue it's nobody's fault, not really. Laerdya didn't know, couldn't know, because the metal is so new and an amulet like that had never been made before. How could she even know what to look for?" She shakes her head. "But whether it's her fault or no one's, it's certainly not yours. You accepted a gift from someone you had no reason to distrust, at least not about something like that, and wore it in good faith. None of that is blameworthy."

Korogur's own eyes soften and he nods, his gaze on the horizon. "They don't. I can't pretend my life is freer or better than anyone else's; we still have to eat, which means we have to work, which means we have to do things a lot of people couldn't or wouldn't. And I have to retain ties to my family, even when they are... imperfect," he says, hesitating as he finds a diplomatic word. "The life of a pirate isn't as easy and romantic as the bard songs make it out to be. But she's happy here with me out here in the fresh air, and that's not nothing."

---

Tree's shoulders sag and she looks down at her feet. "I... I know. But I'm a wizard too. I should have known faster, I should have worked it out sooner. And if I'd been born whole and healthy, and a full-blooded elf for my mother, hale and long-lived, then none of this would've been necessary. She didn't mean to do this. She was just trying to save me from dying young."

"That's not how guilt works, and it's not how responsibility works." Sithani reaches out and rests a hopefully-comforting hand on Tree's shoulder. "Trust me. I'm a philosopher. I'm, like, twenty per cent more likely to be right about this than the average person."

"You're right, it's not nothing." His face clouds slightly, and he looks down. "I know I got angry and spoke out of turn last night. And I'm sorry." He sighs. "Part of my anger is because Thorn is in a cage, too. He was in a hovel in the slums, and now is in a secure compound, but he can't go where he pleases, do what he wants to do, for fear of his own safety. He's safe, but he isn't truly happy. He isn't free." Glen sighs. He wrestles with something a moment, then decides better than to ask what is on his mind. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to... I'm sorry."

Tree gives a wet laugh at the joke, swiping at her nose with her sleeve. "That how it works?"

---

"That's unfair," Korogur agrees with an unhappy frown. "I never really knew what to do with... that situation. You can flirt and smile and be available if someone wants to talk, but if they don't come to you for help... what can you do? I couldn't just steal Thorn away without his consent, you know? Well. I could've, but it wouldn't have helped probably."

Sithani nods. "I'm a very good philosopher. Just ask me about jumping into the same river twice."

Glen nods. "I understand, and yes, you couldn't have acted without him coming to you. But. I just." He takes a deep breath. "You can probably tell I care a lot for him, and I'm trying to look out for him as best I can. It's part of why I don't particularly fancy getting killed again." He grins. "But. I don't have any specific plans for how or why this would happen, but, if it came right down to it, would you cross swords with your own kin to help him?" His eyes are hopeful. "I'm going to see him when we're done with all this, and I'm sure it would really give him a boost, if you would." He tries to temper his expression a little. "But. I understand that family is family, and these things are complicated. So I'm not going to make you run me through here on the deck if you can't." He smiles, warmly.

"It's true," Sunrise affirms with a smile. "Both the part about philosophers being right about philosophy and about how guilt works. You didn't have any more say in the circumstances of your birth or the way your body works than anyone did, and the fact that you know magic doesn't mean you're omniscient."

Thimb summoned up a handkerchief to offer Tree instead of her sleeve. "New discoveries are always exciting and always dangerous because we wizard types get so excited we just start going. It's... kind of a professional hazard? I once turned myself blue for a solid three weeks because it turns out that chimera feathers make a great replacement for ostrich feathers but if you brew them into a potion of alertness... Blue. This is obviously... bigger, than that," she stammered, "but I think everyone knows that running big unseen risks are part of allowing magic to be accessed freely? No one wants bad things to happen, but you need to gamble on an unknown when dealing with magic, even the parts of it we do know. So even if it was your fault, which, it obviously isn't... we as a society have decided that catastrophes are an acceptable risk in exchange for everything that is magic!"

Thimb blushed realizing she had been preaching and awkwardly cleared her throat. "Um, anyways. Not your fault. Um, can I ask one other question? You mention Mother a few times, which... doesn't seem to be Laedrya. Who are they?"

Sithani can't resist smiling fondly at Thimb's impromptu speech. "That requires a certain amount of unpacking, but I admire the spirit."

Sunrise shakes her head fondly at the "chimera feathers = blue" story. "See, this is why I just stick to bardic magic. I sing a song, stuff happens. Simple. No color changes involved."

"But surely there's scope for experimentation," Sithani suggests. "Different instruments, different keys, different scales - actually, how does your magic work? From what I understand it's to do with cosmic harmonies or the music of the spheres or something, but what is it experientially? How does it feel to use?"

"Amazing," she says primly.