Umber

In which the evil rogue learns that while a sense of consociation may have kept party members’ blades from his throat on more than one occasion, assassins don’t have quite that fraternal feeling. (dj, sab)

An account of the hitherto unknown fate of Frito, rogue turned assassin whose skills if not charm were missed by the party until the arrival of Jake, and who even in death continues to dog the party’s footsteps.

Two or three minutes after Tully goes into Dyson’s tower, she comes back out and stops a villager. “Hey Ben, have you seen our visitors?” she asks.

“Yes, ma’am, I think they’re setting up in the cottage. All except for that short one, that is. I haven’t seen him around for a while.”

“That’s too bad, since he’s the one I was looking for. If you see him, could you send him over here? Dyson wants to talk with him, since he didn’t get a chance to earlier. I guess Dyson’s still hoping he’ll meet someone who can help him with his research.” The villager nods and continues on his way.

Tully heads off, talking with at least one other villager before she disappears out of sight around the corner. She’s out of earshot, but based on the villager’s gesture at the cottage, followed by a shrug, Frito assumes that the conversation was essentially repeated.

Frito, with all due caution, goes to meet Dyson, wanting to surprise him if he can, dramatically appearing next to him. Naturally, he is as prepared as possible for trouble. He approaches the tower cautiously, watching all three stories of windows. Seeing nothing, he approaches the door. It is unlocked, and swings open fairly quietly. Keeping the door open as little as possible, Frito slides in, closes the door smoothly behind him, and quickly shifts left into a shadow cast by a pillar. Dyson sits, facing him, at a table across the room. He is apparently unaware of Frito’s entry and does not look up, instead continuing to read and occasionally marking some scrolls that lie before him. The room is dim, and he works by the light of a lantern.

The hard stone floor is almost laughably easy to cross silently, and in the dim light Frito slips by, barely a shadow himself, across the room to stand by Dyson’s side. He mutters occasionally to himself as he works, but does not show any sign that he is aware of Frito, though the rogue stands but inches from him.

A gentle clearing of Frito’s throat and a low, “You were looking for me?” sends Dyson simultaneously trying to turn to him, stand, and move backwards. Instead of doing any of these, he manages to send the lantern flying and tangle his robe, the chair and his leg, and crash to the floor in a heap. Frito reaches out and catches the lantern in one hand and set it back on the table.

“Steady on, old boy!” Dyson shouts, as much to himself as to Frito as he disentangles himself and stands. His surprise is quickly forgotten as he says, “This is precisely why I asked you here, precisely! I said to myself, ‘Dyson, you old fool, you’ve been going about this all wrong all these years! You’ve been trying to understand things by working like a bloody wizard, all charts and books and symbols! I’ll bet that there’s another approach to magic, one far more primal, one closer to Truth and Reality! And if that isn’t magic, why I don’t know what is!’ I admit, I get distracted sometimes, but I’m not some deaf and dumb drongo! Now tell me, tell me all, tell me how you shape the supernatural forces that surround us! Fascinating it is, simply fascinating! Do you see it, can you touch it? Does your mind warp it?”

He goes on in this vein for a while, clearly excited, before he calms down enough for Frito to get a word in edgewise.

Frito thinks to himself, “One hesitates to tell him, ‘Tell me everything,'” then asks, “Why did you want to see me?”

“Just what I said, old boy, just what I said. I wanted to talk to you about my studies, which relate to the various types of magic and how they work. For example, how does a bard manage to get the same effect as a sorcerer? Why can’t they cast as powerful spells? Is it just dedication, or is there a fundamental fact of magic that prevents them from doing so? As it relates to you, how do you do what you do? What kind of arcane effects can you accomplish?”

“AAARRRHHHHGGGG!” Frito thinks to himself, barely suppressing a loud groan. He tries to explain it, but feels that he’s obviously in a different league than this guy. After flatfooting through some daft explanation, he asks whether there are any other people around that Dyson may have spoken to on this subject, other than Bane, Magnus, Psydney or Hadrack.

Dyson listens carefully to Frito’s explanations, occasionally asking questions clarifying his technique. His questions are astute, enough so that the rogue actually gains a slightly better understanding of it himself.

“So essentially, you channel your natural abilities, in combination with an extraordinary, one might even say supernatural, awareness of the world around you, gained by prodigious physical practice and rigorous training, into effects that transcend the mundane! Simply amazing. Not entirely different from my approach, but different enough to perhaps reveal a part of the underpinnings of Magic itself. I must think on this further.

“As far as interviews with others, I have not had the opportunity. So few travellers of your stature come this way. This is why I am so excited that your group has arrived here! But you must let me show you the fruits of my prior research. I have developed an item that may well serve to focus your arcane abilities even further than they are currently. It is of little use to me, since my abilities in your arena are so limited, but it would be a great service to me if you could try it.”

He gets to his feet and starts up the stairway, a spring in his step. Frito, waiting down below, gives thanks that he did not give in to his initial impulse toward Dyson.

And that was the last we saw of Frito for a long while. Reliable but very anonymous sources report that Dyson killed him and dumped him in a pool of water near the tower, where sometime later, a different reliable and extremely anonymous source reports, this occurred. When he crossed our path again, he was decidedly thinner, and paler and, well, undead. And definitely not our friend anymore, if indeed he ever was.