I miss the roses. Sure, I miss the clan as well, but mostly I miss the roses. The roses were a reminder of how simple clan life was supposed to be. We marked the edge of our territory with hedges of yellow roses, so we were the Yellowrose clan. Simple. Each year flowers grew and wilted, just as people were born and died, but the hedge, like the clan, remained. Simple. We had a master Gardener who traveled the clan border each month to see that the hedges were intact, and to prune them when necessary, and we had a Chief who looked over the clan in much the same way. Simple.

Of course, nothing can be simple in all ways and forever, for the master Gardener was not just caring for the roses, but also served as the highest adviser to the Chief, and made certain that the clan stayed in harmony with the forest around them. The Chief’s word was law, but the Gardener’s word was wisdom. Thus it was a great honor for me to be chosen as master Gardener Vani’s apprentice. She taught me such wonders, showing me how all things are connected in the eternal wheel of nature. And each year, as the wheel turned and the roses wilted, she would walk with me to the oldest of the hedges, the bush around which our ancestors had set their very first camp, and as the first petals fell we would each catch one to keep with us always to remind us of the lessons the roses had taught us. We each kept a small leather pouch around our necks at all times which held the petals we had collected. Mine was nearly empty, hers was filled to the point of bursting. But all was well, for in good time, as the wheel turned, petals would fill my pouch as my lessons and experiences filled my soul. I would be ready.

Except I wasn’t. When the time came, when Gardener Vani took ill and nothing she or I could think of made her better, I looked at the three measly petals in my pouch and knew I could not be who I was meant to be. Not yet. And I certainly could not stay here to watch my mentor die, only to then be the one who was tasked with guiding and comforting everyone else when I myself was lost and devastated. That night I packed what few possessions I had and left. I was meant to be the one who cared for the border, but instead I crossed it and never looked back.

I found a road, met up with a caravan headed for Baldur’s Gate, jumped off in Elturel, and sought work in the fields. The skills I had learned came in useful, as I was soon hired to care for some flocks of sheep and goats, and my care greatly increased their yield in both wool and milk. As my employer, a human named Cedric, was an aging cheesemaker who was impressed by my skill with the animals, he decided to also bring me in on all aspects of the business, eventually sponsoring my admittance to the cheesemakers’ guild. Not only that, but because he had no heirs he gave the flock and business to me when he was offered a position as deputy guildmaster at the guildhall of Daggerford. I threw myself wholeheartedly into my new business, establishing my market stall, as Cedric’s before it, to be the best place for goat and sheep’s cheese in Elturel. And on the days that the work kept me busy enough not to think of the roses, life was good. Life was simple again.

But now it is once again time to face complications. The blessed city of Elturel was swallowed by the earth today. My market stall, my workshop, and the cellar where I kept my stock are all gone. The fields where the flocks grazed as well. As we all fled down the road toward Baldur’s Gate I managed to find Gerbo and Zanna, the young gnome siblings I paid to watch the animals on market days, and they told me the flocks had fled across the hills when an early tremor took down the fence. At least they hadn’t gotten pulled down with the city, but it stung my heart to think of the poor animals lost in the wilderness. I thanked Gerbo and Zanna for their help, gave them all of the money I had which I didn’t think I would immediately need to survive, and sent them back to their parents.

Now the question is what to do next. The sensible thing would be to head to Daggerford and ask assistance from Cedric. Or at the very least go to the guildhall in Baldur’s Gate and seek advice there. But I have already spent too much time running and hiding from my past tragedy. Perhaps this could instead be an opportunity to hone the skills Gardener Vani taught me. Perhaps if I can stay and handle what has happened here, I could some day return to the clan and face the shame of what happened there. I still have my pouch with its three petals, although there ought to have been eleven in there by now. Hopefully that will be enough to guide me for now.

“Attend to your studies, Arendiar!” his father snapped, jostling the boy from his daydream. Quickly, the young Yuan-ti straightened himself on his stool and looked sorrowfully at the reproachful face staring down at him.

“Sorry, father. I was daydreaming. Forgive me.”

The older Yuan-ti’s face softened, but only slightly. “Be better,” he said.

Arendiar nodded once, sharply. “Yes, father.”

The image of his father’s face stayed with the boy, the disapproval spurring him ever onward.

Arendiar was standing, back straight and head high, when the carriage finally pulled up. His father’s face was nearly unreadable as the carriage door opened and a lavishly dressed human man stepped out. Arendiar made no move to acknowledge the man, and he observed him only when he could do so without turning his head. His father had been very clear; this was the most important day of the boy’s life, the most important day in the lives of all of the family Palandarian. Arendiar was not to mess this up.

The human man approached the two Yuan-ti without a word. He spared a nod to the father, and then began to examine Arendiar as though he were a product to be purchased. He held up the boy’s clawed hands and let out a disappointed groan. He squeezed the boy’s bicep and actually scoffed. He grabbed the boy’s head and turned it this way and that, though what he was looking for or at was beyond Arendiar. After a long moment, the man stepped back and turned to the father.

“His scores?”

Arendiar’s father held out several sheets of paper, which the well-dressed man accepted silently. He began to look through them slowly, and Arendiar wanted nothing more than to go back inside, where his mother and his sisters were. Failing that, he simply wanted to relax his shoulders. But his father had been very clear about how this was to go, and he would not disappoint. He had to be better.

After an uncomfortable amount of time, the man finally sighed. “Impressive scores. I am not sold, mind you, and he may be returned to you within the month,” he glanced down at the boy, then amended, “or perhaps the week. But for now, we will take him on.” The man reached into his cloak, a rich blue garment that excessive for the warm weather, and withdrew a hefty pouch that jingled in his hands. “Congratulations, Mr. Palandarian. Your son is officially an apprentice of the Guild.”

Arendiar’s father laid a gentle hand on his son’s shoulder, and then pushed the boy forward. The man in blue turned around and made his way back to the carriage, and Arendiar followed, knowing what was expected of him. As the carriage pulled away from the Palandarian home, Arendiar risked the wrath of both his old and his new family to look out the carriage window one last time. What he saw, all that he would remember for years to come, was his father’s face, unreadable but for a flash of pride, and a sliver of disappointment when he saw his son looking back at him.

“Why did you waste our resources on this one, Loris?”

Arendiar said nothing, once again standing perfectly still as others spoke about him. The man who had just spoken had been introduced as Master Gerhault, one of the leaders of the Guild. It was disheartening to hear such comments, but Arendiar did not let it show. That would be unthinkable.

“His test scores are quite good, Master Gerhault. Better than most, in fact. I believe he will be an asset to the Guild, in time.”

The Guildmaster grabbed the papers from Loris, still dressed in his rich, blue cloak, and glanced through them. “Good,” he admitted, then thrust the papers back at Loris, “but hardly the best I’ve ever seen. An asset in time, you say?” Gerhault looked over Arendiar with a disapproving look. “How much time, I wonder?” He brought a hand up to his heavily bearded chin, considering. “Look at those claws!” Gerhault threw up his hands, as if disgusted anew. “What could he possibly be good for?” He paused for another long moment. Neither Loris nor Arendiar said anything. Finally, he continued. “Well, what’s done is done, and I won’t have you wasting your time on a trip to return him. Stick him with the Guard. Perhaps he can serve some purpose there.”

“As you wish, Master Gerhault.”

The Guildmaster dismissed them, and Loris turned to walk out of the room. Arendiar wanted to say something, wanted to defend himself and his abilities. But all he could see was his father’s face, staring at him, with disappointment mirrored in his reptilian eyes. So instead Arendiar simply buried his reaction, turned silently, and followed the man in blue to his future.

Arendiar swung the heavy broadsword downward as hard as he could, but the other trainee, a girl not much older than Arendiar himself, simply held up her shield. The broadsword clanked harmlessly against the wooden shield. The gild did not even flinch.

“Hold!” Yelled Founth, the training captain of the Guild Guard. Arendiar was breathing heavily now, but he pushed through it to stand up straight and wait to be yelled at again. The girl, a human named Landa, did the same. The captain came up and stood before them. “Landa, good form. But you,” he said, pointing at Arendiar, “what the hell was that?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Arendiar said, trying to keep the misery out of his voice. “This sword is too heavy for me.”

The captain scoffed and grabbed the sword from his young trainee. He flipped the sword around several times, finally tossing it up and catching it again. “Seems fine to me. I thought I told you to work on your strength, uh…” he paused, thinking, “what is you name again?”

Arendiar bit back a wave of resentment. He had been training with the Guard for five weeks now, and his own training captain still didn’t know his name. One would think, he thought bitterly, that with all the yelling he had done at the boy, the name would have stuck. “I am Arendiar Sagatias Palandarian, sir.”

“That won’t do,” Founth said. “Too long. Let’s see. A. S. P, huh? Alright, you’re Asp, then. Much quicker.” Arendiar said nothing. He knew that arguing would do no good, and even the thought of doing so conjured that ever-present image of his father’s face. “Anyway, Asp, I thought I told you to work on your strength. Have you been doing those exercises you were given?”

“Yes, sir,” Arendiar said. “Every day, sir. I’m sorry, sir. I do not mean to disappoint you. I am trying, but I just don’t seem to get any stronger.”

“Well, you’re in the Guild Guard,” Founth replied. “You’re no good to the Guild if you don’t even have the strength to properly swing a weapon. You’re useless with swords. You’re useless with spears. You’re useless with axes! What the hell are you good for?” Founth threw his hands up in frustration. After a moment, he calmed down, then shook his head. “They sent you to me because Master Gerhault thought you were worthless to the artisans. It turns out you’re even more worthless here.” He shook his head, then started turning around. “I need to speak with the masters. You don’t belong in the Guild.”

“Wait, sir!”

The training captain turned back sharply, surprised. Arendiar turned as well, equally surprised. Next to him, the girl, Landa, was the one who had spoken. “With all respect, captain, if he is suited for close combat, what about ranged?”

“What is that, trainee?” The captain said, partially amazed, partially annoyed.

“I’ve been sparring with him for five weeks, captain,” Landa continued. “His arms are weak, sure, but his footwork and hand-eye coordination is exemplary. I’ve heard you say so yourself, sir.”

“Your point, Landa?”

“Give him a bow, sir. I mean, the Guild has already invested in him. It seems a shame to not even try.”

“The Guard does not use archers,” the captain said, although Alendiar noted that he spoke with no small measure of uncertainty. “Although, we do have some hunting bows around, and I suppose it’s worth the attempt, before bothering the masters.”

Arendiar did not know what to say, so he said nothing. He was speechless. And, a few minutes later, when the captain watched Asp hit five bullseyes in a row, he was, as well. For the first time since arriving at the Guild, Arendiar could imagine his father’s face beaming with pride once again.

The caravan bringing Master Hectov to the coast was more than half way to its destination when they were attacked. Asp had been in the guard for a couple of years at that point, and the scrapes he had been in had taught him much. For one thing, it taught him the value of cover, which is why he had darted into the trees the moment the bandits had surfaced. He hoped that the Guildmaster would not count his tactical maneuver as cowardice. He knew that his friends wouldn’t. They had seen him operate before, after all.

It had been an odd thing for Asp, developing friendships within the Guard. In those first few weeks, he had grown accustomed to being stared at, being mocked for his weakness. But Landa, and a few of the others, had come to actually like him. His use of the bow made him different from the other guards, and he had developed a certain knack for strategy and tactics. He did not fire blindly at his enemies; he chose his moments, sneaking in an attack when it would do the most good. His favorite tactic was to shoot his enemies when they were engaged with his friends, and therefore the most distracted. The Guard had come to trust his instincts, and his arrows.

It was for this reason that he had been selected as one of the guards to escort Master Hectov on these trade negotiations. Their numbers had kept most of the riffraff at bay on the way, but these bandits had attacked in greater numbers, and his friends were only barely holding the line. Asp was just about to take his shot and even up the odds on the line when he noticed something. A second group of bandits, much smaller than the main force, were sneaking up on the carriage from the opposite side. Cursing under his breath in a language nobody there would understand, Asp ducked back down and waited.

With the Guild Guard distracted, the new bandits, only three of them, it seemed, crept up to the carriage door and ripped it open. Hectov, too busy watching the battle through the carriage front window, was caught completely by surprise. The bandits pulled him quickly out of the carriage, their leader drawing a long dagger and moving to slit the old man’s throat. Asp knew that the time for tactics was over and let an arrow fly before he truly had time to process what was happening, striking the bandit leader straight through the left ear. Asp knew he did not have time to fire again, and so ran blindly up to protect the guildmaster. Before Asp could react, the guildmaster had slipped a fine rapier into his hand, and Asp struck without hesitation, cutting down the second man. The third panicked and took off running, taking a rapier slash to the back in the process. He ran straight down the road, and Asp, not willing to let things go, drew another arrow and fired, killing the man instantly.

The rest of the guard finished off the remaining bandits and secured the small caravan. For several long moments, Master Hectov said nothing as the most medically inclined members of the caravan checked him and the guards over. Finally, after everybody had been checked out, the guildmaster approached Asp.

“You saved my life. Indeed, all of you did, but you…thank you. There is not much I can offer, but if there is anything you would like, any favor I can give in return for my life, please name it.”

Asp looked around at his friends, all of whom were doing an admirable job of pretending not to be paying attention to them. As much as he enjoyed their company, he realized in that moment that he did not belong with them. For all that he was glad to have friends, he had never truly enjoyed his time in the Guard. He nodded his head then. “Master Hectov, there are two things I would ask, if I may risk taxing your generosity. First, my friends here have risked their lives for the Guild, as is only right, but I would ask, if you are able, to increase their salaries, if only a little. It would mean a great deal to me and to them.”

The old man sighed. “I cannot promise much, but I will see to it that their efforts are rewarded.”

“Thank you, Master,” Asp said, then lowered his head. “If I can have only one boon, I understand completely. But, if you would indulge me, I would ask this: I would like to leave the Guard, Master. I was apprenticed to the Guild to learn to be an artisan, sir, and I would like to begin that path.”

Hectov was silent for a long time, considering. When he finally spoke, his voice was low. “The others will not like it,” he said. “Master Gerhault will be difficult to convince.” He looked around at the blood-stained road, and specifically at the body of the bandit leader who had nearly killed him. The guildmaster exhaled slowly, then nodded. “But I will see to it. Anyone who argues with me can face down three bandits themselves, and then try to tell me you do not deserve it.”

“Thank you, sir,” Asp said, picturing his father’s face over the guildmaster’s. When he spoke next, he was not sure which one he was speaking to. “I will not disappoint you.”

The next few years passed quickly for Asp. True to his word, Master Hectov had pulled the necessary strings to see Asp transferred from the Guard to the artisans. As the old man had said, there were many who argued and fought against Asp’s new position, and many more who grumbled about it, either openly or behind his back. Asp did not care. He was, finally, doing what he wanted to do. And, amazingly, he excelled at his new task to a degree that had eluded him in the Guard.

Before anything else, Asp came to excel at tinkering. He seemed to have that certain touch when it came to mechanical devices, particularly locks. Asp, after taking a few of the Guild’s locked apart and reassembling them, seemed to be able to mentally envision the internal workings of a lock, visualizing the tumblers and what was needed to do to move them. As Master Gerhault had predicted years earlier, Asp’s claws made creating delicate lockwork a bit more difficult, but picking locks became second nature to him with relative ease.

After showing promise with locks, though, Asp was transferred to the alchemical lab, and this is where he found his true passion. The Guild ran a large and popular apothecary in the city, and they were always in need of balms, salves, tonics, elixirs, and concoctions of all kinds to sell. Finally, Asp’s testing and study from his time before the Guild began paying off. After Asp had moved to the lab, the apothecary began to see a boost in business, with word of mouth exclaiming that their offerings had gotten better and better. Even the guildmasters noticed the correlation, and eventually even the harshest of critical voices fell silent or, in some cases, even turned to praise.

Shortly after his twenty-first birthday, though, something changed. Asp was working in the lab when one of the Guild couriers walked in with a missive, accompanied by Loris and Master Gerhault. Asp ceased his work immediately and stood in respect for the Master and the journeyman, but neither man said anything. The guildmaster simply indicated toward the courier, who nodded and handed the letter to Asp. He nodded his thanks and silently read the letter.

After a few moments, Master Gerhault cleared his throat. “Guildmember Asp, the Guild would like to offer you its condolences. If you would like to request time away to attend to your father’s funeral, I would of course approve.”

Asp stared at the letter for a moment, reading the words over and over. The brief explanation of his father’s murder should have bothered him more, he thought, but all he could focus on was the description of the cuts found on his father’s face, that face that he had pictured so often over the years. He wondered now, strangely, if in the afterlife his father looked as he remembered him, or if he looked like he was described here. After a moment, he realized that he had not answered the guildmaster, which was rude. His father, had he still lived, would not be pleased.

Asp looked up at the guildmaster and bowed his head low. “I thank you for your consideration, Master. But that will not be necessary. His wife and daughters will see to that. I have Guild business to attend to.”

The Guildmaster and the journeyman shared a glance, but Gerhault nodded and excused himself from the lab. Loris stayed a few moments more, asking Asp if he was alright. Asp assured him that he was and continued on his work. He worked late into that night, the letter all but forgotten off to the side. Still, all night, Asp kept picturing his father’s face, cut up and ruined.

Asp adjusted his mask, designed to fit comfortably over his nose and mouth, and squinted through the darkness at the vials in front of him. It was late at night now, and he was alone in the lab, as he usually was at this hour. After all, he wasn’t supposed to be here now, and he wasn’t supposed to be working with what he was working with. If he were caught, it would likely mean expulsion from the Guild. The thought conjured the image of his father’s face, again, and yet again, Asp had to wonder whether that face was marred for all eternity.

He took a moment to rub his eyes, tired from long hours of work with little sleep to rest them. Much had changed since he had received word of his father’s death. At first, Asp thought little of the event. Such things were inevitable, after all. But the thought of his father’s face, sliced and mangled from his assailant’s blade, haunted him. For years after the news had reached him, Asp searched for answers, in books, in clergy, and in self-reflection. But for all that he had learned of the afterlife, in all of the various forms it seemed to take, he could find no evidence one way or another regarding a soul’s appearance. What did his father’s face look like now, he wondered? And he wondered it constantly.

Without ever consciously meaning to do so, Asp eventually came to believe that a person’s appearance at the moment of their death was their appearance forever, in whichever afterlife they found themselves in. It was, therefore, a great insult to mar the body, and especially the face, unnecessarily. That was the reason Asp had started wearing the mask. Sure, whenever anyone asked, he told them it was to keep the alchemical fumes out, which he supposed it did, to a point. But really, he did not want to spend his eternity as his father surely must.

This belief was also the reason that Asp had shifted his focus from the tonics and salves of the Guild apothecary to the other side of the business: poisons. Most poisons, if properly made with the level of care and attention expected of the Guild, left little or no outward sign on the victim. They left no scars or disfigurements on the body for the soul to carry with them as they passed. And so, it had become Asp’s life’s work to design better and better poisons, each more potent than the next.

Unfortunately, Asp reflected as he poured the contents of one vial into the other, perfecting poisons required testing. Asp’s Yuan-ti blood had rendered him immune to poisons, and therefore he could not test his concoctions on himself. To test on other members of the Guild was unthinkable, and although in his darkest, most desperate moments, the thought passed unbidden across his mind, that was a line he would never cross. Despite everything that had happened at the beginning of his time there, these were his friends.

Animals, on the other hand, held no special place in Asp’s heart. When the Guild’s cellar had developed a rat infestation, Asp had seen it as a personal boon. Perhaps some deity of the afterlife had noticed him and his work and sent him test subjects, and dozens of them, at that. They had proven useful, and when his testing had inadvertently rid the Guild of the infestation, his standing amongst his peers had risen. Unfortunately, he now needed to find his test subjects elsewhere, from unwanted vermin to creatures of the nearby woods and finally, in a fit of desperation to test his latest work, one of the Guild’s journeyman’s pet cats.

Asp looked over at his right hand and found it was shaking, just slightly, so he forced himself to slow his breathing and calm himself. He could not blame the Guild for being upset over his actions. He could not blame the Masters for ordering him to go back to making balms and tonics, or even for commanding that he never again use his work time to concoct a poison. All of these actions were well within their rights, and Asp made no attempt to fight the decision. And for a time, Asp obeyed both the letter of their orders and the spirit of it. As the weeks and months passed, though, he felt the need to experiment again. And so he did. One night, he snuck down into the lab. His Yuan-ti eyes had always given him the ability to see in darkness, at least shapes, and he had been using that to his advantage now for nearly two years.

Asp opened his eyes. He had no recollection of having closed them, nor any idea as to how long they had been closed. He was tired. Intellectually, he knew that his experimenting, night after night and after long days of work, were wearing him out, but he refused to believe it was anything but worth it. Looking in front of him, he saw that his newest batch was ready. It was just a small batch, only four vials worth, because anything more might be noticed. Asp reached for the empty vials and yawned just before reaching them, then he suddenly froze when he heard a frightening sound. From the room next door, the door that led into the storeroom of the apothecary, he heard a key enter a lock.

Time seemed to slow for Asp then. It must be later than he thought. Nearly morning, in fact, if someone where coming into the lab from the storeroom. It meant that the shopkeepers were preparing to restock the apothecary shelves with product made in the lab the day before. If Asp were caught in here now, with the poison he had been forbidden to make, it would be over for him. Moving as quickly as he could, Asp poured the poison into the nearest four vials. He knew he couldn’t leave them in his station; he would be caught, so he quickly put them on the nearest surface he could find and hide behind a large wash basin in the center of the room.

A moment later, light from a lantern flooded the room and Asp heard soft-shoed footfalls on the lab’s stone floor. The sound drew closer and Asp held his breath, thinking a silent prayer to whichever god of death had blessed him with the rats. Whoever it was must apparently have been listening, because the footfalls stopped about a dozen paces away. Unfortunately, the next sound Asp heard nearly stopped his heart. It was the sound of a small, wheeled cart being pushed back the other direction. Asp risked a glance that confirmed his worst fears. He had placed his poison on the cart with the finished tonics. Apart from a very mild difference in coloration, the poison would be indistinguishable from the tonics.

When the clerk left the lab and closed the door behind him, Asp quickly made his way to the other door and slipped through it, heading back to his quarters. He was breathing heavily as he fell back into his bed. He needed to think fast. He obviously could not simply walk into the apothecary and take those four vials. There would be too many questions. He could offer to take a shift as a shopkeeper, although that would be suspicious, as the artisans only ever manned the storefront when specifically ordered to do so. Asp was still trying to come up with a plan when exhaustion overtook him and he drifted into a fitful sleep, dominated by the disappointed, scarred face of his father.

It was mid-morning when Asp finally awoke, his eyes shooting open in the horrifying realization that the apothecary had been open for hours. He dressed quickly and rushed down to the apothecary. To hell with a plan, he thought to himself. I need to get those vials. By the time he got there, he had already managed to calm himself, at least enough to not rouse too much suspicion. He walked in and was greeted by the shopkeepers, and Asp forced himself to talk pleasantly to them, pretending to be more bored that anything else. As he spoke, he casually browsed the shelves, hoping he could possibly find his poison vials before some customer did.

In the dark, Asp could not see color, and so he did not know with absolute certainty what tint the poison had. But fortunately, he had made hundreds of tonics over his time in the Guild, and knew what they should look like. He just needed to find ones that looked different. He managed to keep the conversation going, but it felt like an excruciatingly long time. He did, finally, find what he was looking for, a vial with slightly off-color liquid. His heart skipped as he reached for one.

“Need a tonic, Asp?” One of the shopkeepers asked with a laugh. “I’d have thought you’d have enough of them back there.”

Asp made himself chuckle. “Can’t very well steal from the Guild, now can I? Even artisans get headaches, you know.”

“Oh, I bet,” a second shopkeeper chipped in. “Mixing this with that, and that with the other thing. I can barely keep the finished products separate, let alone their ingredients!”

Asp nodded in false sympathy. “It’s not easy, to be sure. Speaking of, are these here just from yesterday?”

The first shopkeeper glanced over and nodded. “Yeah, we stocked those earlier.”

“Slow morning?” Asp asked, praying that the hope in his heart did not seep into his tone of voice.

“It is now,” the second shopkeeper said. “Earlier, it was a hell of a rush! We almost had to wake one of you artisans up to help out!”

Asp’s heart sunk, and he moved the bottle he had spotted out of the way to see what else was there. He grew hopeful when the vial directly behind it was identical in color, and the one behind that, as well. But his joy was short-lived when a quick glance at the others showed they were regular tonics. There were only three vials of Asp’s poison on the shelves.

The wayward alchemist was still considering his options when everything in the apothecary went mad. The front door burst open and several city guards burst in, followed by a well-dressed civilian that Asp did not recognize. They were screaming something about murder, and everything was chaos. It took nearly twenty minutes for everything to calm down, at which point several of the guildmasters themselves had been summoned. Master Gerhault was the first to speak.

“Now, what is the meaning of all this? Why does the city guard make a scene in our apothecary?”

A man in a slightly better version of the guard uniform stepped forward. “My name is Captain Rethin. This man here,” he said, indicating the civilian who was with them, “claims that he purchased a tonic from this shop this morning, and when his wife drank it, she was killed.”

“That is absurd!” Master Gerhault said. “Ours is the greatest, cleanest, and more careful apothecary in the city! Our poisons are very clearly marks and kept behind the counter where they cannot possibly be mistake for our other products.”

“Are you calling me a liar!” The man yelled, his face flushing red.

Before the guildmaster could respond, Asp knew that he needed to take control of the situation before this ruined not only his life and career, but the entire reputation of the guild. Asp stepped forward and held out his hands. “Please, sirs, there is no need for this.” He turned to the man. “Sir, of course you have the Guild’s deepest condolences, but I assure you, whatever happened to your unfortunate wife could not have resulted from our products. And I can prove it. Please, if you would merely point out which of our products you purchased, I can prove that they are safe for consumption.”

The man was still furious, but Asp’s demeanor and calm voice seemed to give him pause. Reluctantly, he pointed at the vials near which Asp was standing. Asp nodded, and reached for one of his poison vials, unstopped it, and raised it up. “If these were not safe, surely, I would not dare to drink it myself. But I stand by my own work, and the work of all of my colleagues.” Asp pulled his mask down and drank the entire vial, silently thankful that he was immune to poison, and hoping that nobody else knew that.

The guards and the civilian watched Asp closely, but nothing happened. After a long moment, Asp reached for a second one. “As you can see, there is nothing wrong with these.” He drank the second vial, and again, nothing happened. He could see doubt beginning to form in the man’s face, and so he reached for the third and final vial. As his gloved fingers closed around it, though, he heard Captain Rethin speak.

“I will taste this one,” he said. “That will prove it.”

Asp froze, his mind racing. Obviously, if he handed this vial to the Captain, and the other man drank it, the Guild’s reputation would be ruined, and several of their members, undoubtedly including Asp himself, would be prosecuted for murder, and of a city guard captain, no less. A crazy thought occurred to Asp suddenly. His fingers had always been dexterous. He could switch the vial with one next to it, but he needed a distraction.

In a moment of inspiration, without letting go of the vial, Asp turned his head toward the guildmaster. “Is that alright, Master Gerhault? I was going to reimburse the apothecary for the tonics I have consumed in this demonstration, but if the captain is drinking one…”

Everyone turned to the guildmaster to hear his response, and while they were all looking away, Asp switched the bottles, praying that his luck would hold and nobody had see or heard anything.

“Yes, yes, of course,” Master Gerhault said, annoyed. “Let us be done with this farce. I will cover the cost, that doesn’t matter!”

Asp nodded differentially and handed the vial to the Captain of the Guard. He took the vial suspiciously, sniffed its contents, and then, cautiously, downed the liquid. The guards, and the civilian, watched him with trepidation, but of course, nothing happened. Finally, the Captain turned to the man. “We’re done here.” He turned back toward the guildmasters. “I am sorry to have bothered you gentlemen. My men and I will take our leave now.”

The civilian stepped forward too, embarrassment etched on his face. “I…I’m sorry, too. It’s just, she drank the tonic and died. It must…” tears started appearing in his eyes, “it’s just that it was the only thing that made sense to me. I…I’m sorry.”

Master Gerhault accepted the man’s apology and even refunded the price of the tonic, expressing his condolences and, of course, accepting no blame. Asp merely watched everything until the guildmasters started to usher out the guards, and when he was sure nobody was looking, he grabbed the last vial and tucked it into his pocket. He did not dare to breath his sigh of relief until he had returned to his room. He could, as always, see his father’s face, disappointed and hideous. He took some small solace knowing that the woman who had died went to death wearing her own face.

That night, Asp was called to the private quarters of Guildmaster Hectov. The two had spoken occasionally over the years since Asp had saved the older man’s life, and Asp assumed that Hectov wanted to speak to him to thank him for again helping the guild. It was possible, though Asp did not dare hope for this, that he was going to be offered another boon. Unfortunately, when Asp arrived, it was clear that Hectov was not in a happy mood.

“Sit down, Asp,” the old man said.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Do you know why I have called you here this evening?”

“I imagine it has to do with this morning, Master.”

“Indeed,” Hectov said, then took a breath. “There is no purpose in delaying this or avoiding the issue. Asp, I saw what you did this morning. I saw you switch the vials.”

Asp’s heart froze, but he did what he could to disguise his reaction. “Yes, sir,” was all he could manage.

“I admit, it took me a while to figure out why, but when I returned to the apothecary to examine which bottle you swapped out, I found it was gone. You took it, I imagine.”

“I did,” Asp said, trying to keep his comments as short as possible.

Master Hectov nodded grimly. “You are an intelligent man, Asp. I will not patronize you with this. We both know what almost happened today, and we both know that it was your fault. We also cannot forget that somebody lost their life to your mistake.”

Asp said nothing. There was nothing to say.

“You were ordered to cease your work on poisons. You disobeyed, and now a woman is dead and the Guild was nearly shamed, perhaps beyond reclamation. This is unforgivable, Asp.”

The Yuan-ti did not break eye contact with the guildmaster. “Am I to be expelled from the Guild, then?”

Hectov took a very deep breath. “You should be. You very much should be, Asp. But, while you caused the problem today, you also solved that problem with your quick thinking. And while I have already repaid you for it, I cannot forget all those years ago when you saved my life.”

“Sir?”

“After what you’ve done, Asp, you cannot stay here anymore. However, for what the Guild owes you, for what I owe you, I cannot expel you from the Guild. I am therefore making you a journeyman of the Guild, in the trust sense of the word. Only I will know why you are leaving the Guildhouse, and you may continue to enjoy the benefits of Guild membership, but from this point on, you will need to find your own means of support. Travel. See the world. Learn. And, in time, perhaps I can allow you back within these halls. I am sorry, Asp.”

Asp stood from the chair he was sitting in and bowed. “I understand, Master Hectov. I do not deserve the mercy you have shown me, and I swear, I will…” he paused, picturing his father’s face from so many years ago, when he was studying at his father’s table in his father’s house, “I will be better.”

On the rocky cliffs near the edge of the Dwarven lands, there is a small settlement of winged Tieflings. Their wings and prehensile tails afforded them the ability to forage, survive, and even thrive in the harsh terrain, and the dwarves, though known for jealously guarding what was theirs, left them alone, as they had no use for such a remote and elevated location.

It was here, in the small village of Independence Peak (as the local Tieflings called it), that a blue-skinned Tielfing was born and was given the name Thyellus Vrochi (Thigh-ELLE-us VRA-chi), which meant “Rain Tempest,” because he was born during a fierce rainstorm in the mountains. Thyellus was a normal child, and although he did not excel in any field particularly, he quickly grew into a love of music. As a boy, he dreamed of becoming a great composer, and took the word “Nocturne” as his virtue name.

Unfortunately, fate would intervene and put Nocturne on a slightly different path. Nocturne studied music and learned to play the lute at a young age, hoping to one day join a Bard’s college to compose great music. At a local festival in Independence Peak, Nocturne had his first opportunity to play before a crowd during an amateur exhibition, the local equivalent of a talent show. When Nocturne got up to perform, he was very nervous. When he went to strum his first note, the string broke, which cause the crowd to laugh at him. Still being a young boy, Nocturne visibly pissed himself from embarrassment, causing the crowd to laugh even harder. Mortified beyond belief, Nocturne tried to leave the stage, tripping over his own feet and landing face-first on the ground. The crowd absolutely lost it.

Nocturne was inconsolable after the incident, until, that is, the judges announced him as the winner of the exhibition. They said that they had never seen a funnier act, and that Nocturne was a natural comedian. At first, Thyellus assumed they were mocking him, but as he was ushered up to the stage to receive his prize, the crowd was applauding and smiling at him. In that instant, Nocturne realized that he had tremendous potential. The prize for the competition was a small sum of money, enough for the winner to enroll in a distant school. Nocturne opted for a bard’s college that specialized in the art of the jester.

Surprisingly, Nocturne found that life at the college suited him. He looked different from the other students, but bards were, by and large, fairly open-minded, and if anything, his blue skin and solid silver eyes gave him an edge, as it added to the absurdity of his look. While not the smartest or the wisest of the students, Thyellus still managed to excel and distinguish himself. Eventually, he graduated with recommendations from the school, and was released out into the wider world to make his fortune by making a fool of himself.

At first, Nocturne’s dreams were grandiose. He fancied himself the jester to nobility, to counts and dukes, and perhaps someday even kings and emperors. This dream, however, was soon shut down hard. The nobility all seemed to have their own entertainment, and those who did employ jesters usually employed whole families of them, the position passing from father to son, through generations of trusted jesters. None would entertain the idea of a stranger being allowed that sort of access to such powerful figures.

Despondent, Nocturne turned to performing in taverns and at fairs, and eventually managed to join a travelling caravan for introductory wages. It was a miserable time for Thyellus, and he often thought of leaving, but he had nowhere else to go. Finally, the caravan cut him loose when they arrived in a port city and could no longer afford someone who was not hauling his own weight. This eventually led Nocturne to the docks, where he would entertain the dockworkers for coppers in the slow hours of their days.

While working the docks, though, Nocturne met an older sea captain named Bez Yumora who was outfitting a long-term sea voyage. The captain was looking for some entertainment to keep the sailors distracted during their off-duty hours, hoping to curtail some of the fighting that had broken out during his most recent tour. Nocturne, who had been born in the high mountains and had crossed the land, thought that the chance to experience the sea was worth the low pay the captain was offering, and took the job.

Surprisingly, Nocturne really enjoyed the sea, particularly because he was allowed to sing and joke all he wanted, and didn’t actually have to work. However, Nocturne had developed during his time as a jester an unfortunate habit, one that would cost him dearly. Nocturne seemed to find every situation funny. He could always see the absurdity in any situation, and the more serious the incident, the funnier he found it. This would not have been a problem, except that Captain Yumora had a daughter, Urodlivy, who was as far from a catch as you were likely to see.

One day, Urodlivy accused one of the sailors of having attentions toward her, which angered the Captain beyond anything the sailors had seen. He threatened to beat the sailor, throw him overboard, and any number of other punishments for besmirching his daughter’s honor. It was a very serious incident, one that Nocturne could not stop laughing about. This, naturally, brought the Captain’s ire down on him, and when all of the threats turned from the unfortunate sailor to the ship’s jester, all Thyellus could do was laugh uproariously.

Captain Yumora ordered the crew to bind Nocturne’s hands and legs, and then he ordered them to throw the poor Tiefling overboard. They neglected to bind his wings, however, so Nocturne simply flew, which enraged the Captain even further. Nocturne was still laughing when Yumora drew a hand crossbow and shot him through his left wing, sending him plummeting down into the frigid water. Nocturne’s vision started to blur as he sank, his last sight being the wavy, distorted image of the ship sailing away overhead.

Nocturne should have died there, but somehow, he did not. Instead, he felt himself being pulled downward, somehow neither drowning nor freezing to death. But the darkness was everywhere, and Thyellus assumed he must have gone mad, or died and was experiencing a far more boring afterlife than he had ever envisioned. He just kept sinking, far lower than anyone could have survived.

Then, all of a sudden, there was light, as an utterly massive eye opened and stared directly at Nocturne. The young Tiefling had never felt abject fear on that level before, and, without intending to, he burst into laughter, unable to do anything else. The massive eye regarded him for a long time, then, shockingly, seemed to laugh along with him. Then Nocturne felt something slimy touch him on the shoulder, and his vision blurred, then faded completely.

When Nocturne awoke, he was above the surface of the water, lying on a hot, sandy beach. His wing was restored, and he could feel changes within him. He could hear echoes of great knowledge, things he could not quite grasp, not yet. He felt the sides of his neck and noticed gills, shut now that he is above water, but ready to breathe beneath the waves. But more than that, he knew, with shocking certainty, that one day the seas would rise and consume the land, and only one sort of person would be spared. Only those who had made their deals with that greatest of all beings, the massive sea beast that somehow had a name, a name Nocturne somehow knew: Uujar.

Nocturne did not know how, or when, or even what the terms had been. But somehow, he knew he had made his deal. He could feel the sea running through his veins, and he knew more power was yet to come. What the price of that power was, though, what Thyellus Vrochi would need to give in return, he had no idea. Yet.