Candle Guy's personal assistant, possibly fuckbuddy, opens the door and lets Veron in. She recognizes him, so there's none of the business with passwords. "Do you have the items?" she asks.

"They should dry off all right," she estimates, and she shuts the door behind him. "This way, this way, he needs them as soon as possible. Fucking paladins."

She titters slightly at this joke. "I wonder if you can make 'em lose their powers that way or if they have to be into it or what?" She shows him to where the candles are to be set up and then nips out to get a rag to dry the damp off them.

"Um," hisses Veron, alarmed. "Are you insane? That's a paladin. Proper thing to do is run away, killing her would get a fuck ton of them on both of our heads!"

That is pain. Pain is the thing that is. The wind goes out of him and he doubles over, coughing.

"Oh fuck you," hisses Veron, "you are not killing someone on my watch." And then he tackles Candle Guy, grabbing at the crossbow and trying to keep it from getting reloaded.

Veron overpowers him. He retrieves the emergency knife he keeps in his boot, and - cuts the crossbow's string. Great, cool, good deed of the day's done. Time to book it while everyone's busy.

"... I surrender?" he says, realizing that running is no longer an option.

"Wait in that corner of the room," she gestures, "on your knees, hands on your head, while I tie these two up."

"Right," sighs Veron, going to the corner and doing what he's told. Under his breath he mutters something about, 'Candles should not be fucking dangerous, how was I supposed to fucking know he was a crazy person.'

"They're shadowing candles," she says, giving Candle Guy a kick to his swatted leg when he stirs, then taking off her gauntlets and removing a spool of rope from her belt. She starts tying up Candle Guy. "As you saw."

"Yeah. As I saw. Ugh. Shadow things. Paladins. Crazy people with crossbows. This is not what I signed on for. I'm a nice guy, I swear." Look, there's his charming smile, isn't it charming?

"Look at me, doing as you say. Making no sudden moves. Practically a model citizen."

The griffin squawks, displaying the sharpness of its beak, and also follows its paladin.

"I don't give false compliments!" he explains defensively. "I really mean it, you have pretty feathers."

"Ragnar cannot quite understand you, you know," says the paladin.

"Well, charm is the universal language."

"I am not sure you will find him charmable either."

"Well, you obviously haven't known me for very long. I'm very charming." Look, there's his charming smile.

"Perhaps this will work on the mayor. I met you under poorer circumstances."

"Trying to keep you from being shot was poor circumstances? I got punched. It hurt. A lot."

"Oh, that I appreciate. That would be why you aren't tied up. But you were helping to make woke shadows, and those serve no good purposes."

"Helping is sort of. Blowing things out of proportion. I didn't realize they were evil candles!"

"No? You thought he had peculiar decorating habits?"

"Some people," he says sagely, "are weird. I don't judge their weirdness. You really should publish information on what sorts of candles are evil, I would have avoided them."

"What exactly were you doing for him, anyway?"

"Aheh. I was the idiot smuggling the candles."

"And you think peculiar decorating requires smuggling."

"Well. Uh. Yes?"

"Really."

"You could have come to us."

"And be arrested for smuggling?"

"Do you know what woke shadows do?"

"... Kill people? Probably?"

"Sometimes. Not usually. More often they give people intolerable nightmares and whisper awful things into their ears while they're awake. Sometimes those are bad enough to kill outright, and we find people dead of fear in their sleep. Sometimes they drive people to suicide or violence. Sometimes they're just bad enough to torment the victim until they've placated whoever controls the shadow."

"And now for every set of candles you brought him there are a few shadows, loose now, and after I've turned you in I'm going to have to track them all down and destroy them, because otherwise they will never stop."

"Um. Sorry?" Pause. "... Do you want help?"

"I would like you to tell me what you know about how many shadows he may have made and where they were sent, who they're hurting."

"Places is most important, names might be useful too. Why are you not counting the ones you just smuggled?"

"Because they're not an issue, you took care of them? When I say just smuggled I mean just smuggled, I'm pretty sure I still have some of the wax on me, I don't hang around places after I smuggle things, that would be stupid. Places - the area around the docks? Ebonwood street, near where it crosses the river. There's a spot near the bar, the, the one whose name I can't remember, Silver Short, or something? About a five minute's walk south from an inn, the one with the white trim?"

"I may ask to borrow you from the mayor so you can show me these places."

"I did just offer to help," he points out dryly.

"Yes, but you're under arrest and can't go around helping people on your own recognizance. You see, the last time you were allowed to help people on your own recognizance, you helped a shadow-waking mage. Hence, asking the mayor."

"Right. Joy."

"You understand, I'm sure."

"Yes, perfectly, I will not see the light of day again, I'm excited. Do you think they'll feed me moldy bread or watery porridge? The question's just so pivotal to my daily life in the future, you see..."

"I haven't inquired after the prison conditions. It's not really my end of the whole business."

"Winter Light doesn't care about the end results of going and paladining at things?"

"We can't be everywhere and do everything. We can stop dark things from being made and kill the ones that are around anyway, which is important, unambiguously good, and uniquely requires a paladin's skillset. We must trust those we work with to appropriately handle what we cannot personally take responsibility for."

"Well, what happens if they screw it up?"

"Then they will have screwed up. I'm needed elsewhere handling dark things. Mishandled prisons can be fixed by people other than paladins, and there are not so many paladins around as all that."

"Wonder if there could be, say - mini paladins from the Winter Light. That don't do the smiting but go and fix wrongs with systems."

"There are novices and retirees but they have work in the enclave, and again, you don't need any amount of paladin to fix a prison, it doesn't require lifting heavy objects or hitting things or speaking in layers or riding a winged quadruped. You have a lot of high-minded political philosophy in you for a shadow candle smuggler."

"Well, have you met any shadow candle smugglers before that didn't want to smuggle shadow candles?"

"I haven't met any shadow candle smugglers in particular at all apart from you. Why were you doing it if you didn't want to?"

"Because I first thought they were decorative, and then I was afraid."

"You could have given an anonymous note to a paladin enclave."

"Alas."

"Yeah. Next time something decorative turns out to be evil, that's what I'll do." He does not sound like he actually expects to be smuggling things anytime soon.

"It's possible the mayor will decide to be lenient with you, since you did help me."

"Mm. That helps."

"I'll be telling him exactly what happened, you can be sure."

"Sure. Thanks."

And eventually they reach the town hall, and the paladin picks up the prisoners from her griffin's back - they're both awake, now, and squirming and swearing at her - and puts them over her shoulders and gestures with her head at Veron to follow her in.

Veron... Looks at the griffin. Right. Yeah, let's not piss that off. He follows the paladin, sighing.

Veron waits. He is tempted to play with his knife, but refrains, because he is technically a prisoner. He picks at a thread in the annoying heavy coat. This thing's seen better days, he probably looks a little shabby. He wears nicer clothes than this, really, the coat's just good for smuggling things! .... He shouldn't actually say that. Ever.

"My name is Kaja," she mentions.

"Veron. Hi, nice to meet you. ... Sort of. No offense to you." He waves to the mayor's office.

"I'm sure. What did you do before you smuggled candles, anyway?"

"Eh. This and that. You know, keep the bills paid, keep the pantry stocked."

"Your deciding to describe it that way makes it sound illegal."

"It mostly was, yeah. Smuggler."

"Anything else - peculiar in the way of shadow candles, that I might need to track down?"

"No, the candles were new."

"No powder that looked like it might have come from bones - or for that matter unpowdered bones - no strange nasty-smelling perfume, no unrecognizable preserved organ meats?"

"No, no, and - eugh, no."

"Good."

"I'll avoid those, now. Really, pamphlet or two - 'These are the nasty materials that summon bad things, do not smuggle.'"

"There aren't good reasons to smuggle any of those things."

"Living another day isn't a good reason?" he wonders mildly. "What if someone really liked a certain kind of perfume I think is nasty, should I judge them for having different taste?"

"Nobody keeps that stuff around because they like how it smells, Veron."

"Well I know that now! But I wouldn't have, say, two months ago. Pamphlets! They could save lives!"

"Not every mage who might like to make or summon dark things already knows how."

"Then we'd be able to storm the place and arrest the mage and confiscate the materials."

"Interesting. If only you had someone who knew how smuggling works and knew the right people to talk to. My, where would you find one of those."

"Tell it to the mayor."

"Sure."

"I'm curious, though, what exactly would you do?"

"What, like - the specifics? Or in general?"

"Both."

"In general... Go be undercover man? Play turncoat? Try not to get stabbed in any alleyways by angry people? Specifically, keep up the cover, actually smuggle harmless things with permission or something, talk to lots of people, mention to customers how I occasionally trade in oddities, pretend not to have a moral compass, that sort of thing."

"And perhaps most importantly not spend this time in jail."

"Eh, well, it'd be nice."

"Do I or the mayor have any way to be sure you won't just run off and never be heard from again?"

"... I don't know? Do you? I don't know the powersets of paladins."

"Well, I can't think of anything magical to do about it."

"I also lack in solutions. Unless they gave me a - buddy or something, to follow me around and threaten to stab me if I got uppity. Because that's cheerful."

"A paladin buddy? I'm not sure how many dark things this is likely to produce per day after the shadows are cleaned up."

"Did I say paladin? I did not say paladin."

"Who else, then?"

He shrugs. "I have no idea? You think I've thought this far ahead? I'm making it up as I go."

"I think you'll have better luck convincing the mayor if it's easy for him to implement when you present him the idea."

"Mm. Guard would be suspicious, no one would talk to me if I regularly talked to one, because nobody's that stupid. So it would have to be someone not obvious. I have no clue who."

"Me either."

"Eh. Worth a shot. We'll see how the mayor likes me and my charm."

The door to the mayor's office opens. "Come in," says the mayor, shooing whoever he was talking to before.

Hooray. This is exciting. In goes Veron, he's excited.

"With a paladin and her sword in the room, sure you were," says the mayor. "What have you got to say for yourself?"

"One, I was a smuggler, not a - I didn't do any summoning. Two, I didn't know they were evil candles at first, and then when I did I was afraid for my life, and then when I saw a paladin I was very much for not killing her. I got punched for it. It hurt."

Blink, blink. "Uh. Okay."

Veron also gets up. He's going to behave. Unless he sees a chance to book it, then he might reconsider.

"I could have him carry you in his claws instead, would that be preferable?"

"Nnnno, no it wouldn't be, getting on the lion bird, yes ma'am."

"It's Sister if you want to be formal," she says lightly. And when he has gotten on the lion bird she clucks orders thereto and the lion bird takes off.

He makes a very undignified squeaking sound and clings to her tighter than necessary.

"Ragnar is not going to drop you, Veron."

He'd say something like, 'Well tell Ragnar that he is a wonderful lion bird.' But he can't. Instead he makes another squeaking sound, this one longer and slightly higher pitched.

"Are you all right? It will take days to get there if we don't fly."

Oh, don't worry. Veron is already clinging on for dear life, thin air or no. At least he isn't squeaking anymore.

And then they land in the paladins' compound.

Veron doesn't immediately get off of the lion bird. He's sort of - stiff. Also still clinging to Kaja. He even makes another squeaking sound, though this one's softer than the ones earlier.

Squeaky noise. The answer is squeaky noise.

"Are you all right? Do you need a glass of water or something?"

Veron does not move. He accepts the glass of water with a slightly hoarse, "Thank you," and sips at it while focusing on his mission of not moving.

"Are you afraid of heights?"

"I have," he says dryly, "never been on a flying thing before. I have, in fact, never been that high up in my life. Tops was - third story of an inn."

"Some people love flying the first moment they try it, though. Are you afraid of heights? Do we need to put you on something better at overland travel than Ragnar to go back and look for the shadows? Pegasi can make good time on the ground."

"It's fine." He waves her off. "Go - talk to paladins. Do paladin things. I will sit here and tell the ground that I love it very much."

Veron drinks his water and he sits.

"Mhmm," he lies. "Totally fine."

"Ready to go back?"

Kaja hops onto the lion bird. "He's a griffin," she says mildly.

"True. I hadn't before."

"Yup. Learning experience for us all. I know what a griffin is. You've met a person who didn't, didn't know what a griffin was."

"They're fairly common paladin mounts, you know."

"Smuggler. I don't exactly ah, hang around. Paladins. And their flying griffin mounts." (Don't look down don't look down aaaaah)

"It's almost entirely griffins and pegasi. Our order has one person on a unicorn, from an order that does less flying."

"Less flying. From a paladin. How interesting. Flying is so. Great. It is great. Gets you places faster."

"Unicorns can run very fast, but unfortunately putting you on one would require asking you personal questions first."

"Personal questions? Why would personal questions be required?"

"Unicorns abhor contact with non-virgins."

"Yes, the thing."

"Yup. The thing. The thing with paladins. Besides the - the - sword and griffin and - and glowy thing."

"Actually, not all orders require chastity, but ours and the one that uses all those unicorns do."

"Okay. Great. Why the - the difference, is it the unicorns, are they very demanding unicorns for their fantastic ground based travel?"

"Winter Light doesn't assign new paladins unicorns. It's just to reduce distractions and conflicting loyalties for us."

"I'm pretty sure that's not customary even in orders that don't call for chastity - are you okay?"

"Fine, totally fine, I am absolutely fine, why wouldn't I be."

"Well, you're babbling. I promise Ragnar won't drop you."

"Oh, great, yes, don't drop me, that would be bad, I would die."

"That would be the principal disadvantage, yes. We can land a bit sooner than planned and walk the rest of the way? Once we're over the mountains?"

"It's fine, I am fine. Look, I'm talking, isn't that great, I didn't talk before, this is improvement."

"If you say so. I can't read your mind, you know."

"Mind reading doesn't seem very paladiny. I'd be surprised if you could."

"So if you do need me to land you will have to tell me so in words."

"Mhmmm. Which I can definitely do, because I'm talking now, and that is great."

"Mm-hm."

Eventually they are back in town. She lands.

"... Shouldn't she be back by now...?" he wonders after the hour, squinting at the sun. He looks at Ragnar.

Ragnar looks at him. Ragnar makes a tweeting noise.

"Um. ... Look for Kaja," he tries. "Please?"

Ragnar squawks. He looks around, then looks at Veron again.

"... Find Kaja?"

Ragnar tweets again and continues looking at Veron.

"I have no idea how to talk to a griffin. I don't want to run off, but I do want to make sure your paladin is okay."

Ragnar growls in a liony manner.

Veron sighs. "Kaja. Where? Please. Just - sniff the ground, or something, lion birds are like hounds, right, that's how it works."

"Oh. Um. Are they okay?"

"He may be eventually. The shadow's gone, anyway, and I explained to his family what had been going on."

"Right." Sigh. "Okay."

"Are you up to showing me where you think shadows may be now?"

"Yeah. Pretty sure I am. Ready to go?"

"Lead the way."