Chapter 5- Part 8

Bresbin stood watch as the sun set on the second of Vult, his mind racing. Pienna had told him only some of it the day before, and finally today she had told him all of it. For once he had not needed to put on an act with her. His eyes grew big and stayed that way.

Wheels within wheels, Bresbin fumed, turning the matter over in his mind for the hundredth time. Medani gave – ha! – sold the Dark Lanterns the information that set me off on this mission, but even the Dragonmarked House hadn’t understood it fully. Every scrap that came our way, from Phiarlan, from Thuranni, by Fernia even the scraps that the Halfling inn masters had pieced together, nothing approaches the whole picture!

Even Pienna would not have known the whole thing, save for her cousin who was worried about selling his tinkertoy warforged.

Was Pienna right? Did the fate of the world rest on some half-understood quest involving an odd group of a half-orc dragonmarked scion, a warforged built and programmed with something that no one would admit to, a half-Khyberspawn mystic ex-criminal hermit, and a Silver Flame preacher that Thrane had lost track of? What was next, a group of halflings were going to drop a magic ring in a volcano and thereby heal the lame, the blind, and those afflicted with hemorrhoids?

“F’test,” the goblin muttered. And to think his Grandfather Delavane’s biggest worry had been that some forgotten cousin in Darguun would feel shame that a Delavane would swear allegiance to a human king.

Missy rolled over and fixed the goblin with a baleful stare. Pienna may have fallen asleep, but the panther hadn’t. Bresbin shrugged and dropped his eyes, a tacit acknowledgement that he’d broken sound discipline.

He was not foolish enough to drop his simple goblin act in front of a druid’s animal companion. The panther was a good deal more intelligent than any other cat, and more than some people.

His façade worked yet again. Missy dropped her head down next to her mistress’. Bresbin pursed his lips and went on mulling things over as he stared at the lake.

They were back in warmer climes, which meant that it was merely damned cold rather than freezing. According to a nearby mile marker they were one hundred miles south of a town called Niern. Pienna had come down this way via her plant-traveling because she’d needed to turn into a fish to check a seal under Lake Galifar. She’d come back up saying that it held just fine.

Except for the seal that Ama’shay had been watching, there seemed to be no urgency about the places that Pienna visited. It was likely that she had felt the sting of the criticism from the druid named Aruunis and she was overcompensating as a result. Bresbin was trying to figure out how to get her back in the fight, away from the tedious if exotic travel to muck-encrusted stone slabs. It suited Breland’s needs for the Reachers to beat back Aundair, and Pienna was a most powerful druid. As far as Breland was concerned, her time was far better spent blowing apart Aundairan wizards.

Of course if this half-assed prophecy was correct, he needed to get her back with Delegado’s band. Which meant that he needed some intelligence on the Tharashk scion’s whereabouts. Which meant he needed to be somewhere with more intelligence resources than this lakeside campsite in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

I need to get back in the game, he thought to himself. I need to get this intel to Breland, and quickly. I’ve no more time to be wasting with a leaf-worshipper and her pet cat.

Missy opened one eye again to look at him, then closed it.

A cat that would like to eat me, no doubt.

Bresbin fingered his bow. The tension of going deep-cover around such a powerful nature priestess was getting to him. One slip, and he would be done for. Maybe ebtter to get out now. One arrow into the cat’s skull while it slept. Another into Pienna’s. If she wouldn’t go fight Aundair again, that might solve a lot of problems.

Or cause more.

The goblin figured at the very least he ought to leave her alive until she transported him to somewhere civilized.