Like a rift opening up beneath specifically and only the center cushion of your loveseat to swallow your boyfriend whole.

The instantaneous transition from sitting to standing is the least disorienting of the things that's happening. He's suddenly hungry, after ?⁠weeks? of that feeling not even having a place in his body. He can hear his heartbeat in his ears, almost sickeningly loud. He's got a headache like he just drank a barrel of dwarven whiskey.

He's alive.

"Psst! Why's he just standing there?"

"Internal monologue. Give him a minute."

"..."

"Um."

"Mister Greenhilt, was it? What might you say if I told you I had just had a mild-to-moderately debilitating seizure?"

"I'd suspect you might be related to Elan."

"Don't be mean!"

Even if he's kinda right.

"Okay, okay. Do you need clerical attention about it?"

"Ah, no, I merely need to confer with my own partymembers. Would you give us all a moment?"

"Well, we just had our own private team huddle. Fair's fair, I suppose."

"You probably did. I mean you're probably right."

Sabine's already standing at his side. (She's concerned, but if anyone can pick up that he hasn't lost his cool, it's her.) Hilgya has barely begun to flirt with her counterpart; Zz'dtri hasn't seen any reason yet to acknowledge their opposite's presence; Yikyik is staring balefully at the halfling; Thog is, as ever, inexorably Thog. He corrals them.

"I imagine you're all wondering why I just claimed to have had a seizure."

"No," Zz'dtri whispers.

Yikyik shakes his head too.

"Okay, yes, I was talking primarily to the team members who have opinions."

"I figured you were probably making up more details for that 'king' story you just cooked up. You are okay, right honey?"

"Yeah, what's the matter? Is there a hitch in the amulet plan?"

"Yikyik, don't wander off on your own, stay near at least one partymember at all times, ideally Hilgya. Zz'dtri, get a Protection from Law from Hilgya, and just to be safe, put those damn scimitars away. Hilgya, you're trying to scam me, right? You're going to take the amulet when we're through the elemental passages? Cool. We only need it for like an hour and a half. Take it after. Thog."

What... does he even have to say to Thog? Did he ever actually know Thog? Was he ever even in control of Thog? He just sort of wound him up and let him go, whenever he needed destruction more than he needed to keep track of the situation.

What a waste. He thinks Thog might've hit level 20 in that arena. Think what could be done if that was aimed.

"Thog, we'll talk later. Sabine..."

No.

"We'll talk later. Any questions, before I get into the changes to the main plan?"

"I was only gonna steal it if the opportunity came up. For the record."

"…"

Sabine reaches for Nale's hand.

Thog reaches for Nale's other hand.

...he can hold Sabine's hand. He is not holding Thog's.

"cruel stng of rejection no stranger to thog."

"Anyway. We're dropping the kill-your-double schtick. It wasn't going to work, and it'd sabotage our actual longterm goals if it did. Yikyik, yours is the only one on the table, and that's because I think it might be salutary not just to our goals but to theirs to kill that awful little freak. He's got multiple books to go before he's even interestingly horrible. But Zz'dtri, I want you collaborating with that high elf; Hilgya, continue as you were but without the metonymous dagger in your brassiere; Sabine, try to reach out to H- to the rogue, no matter how suspicious she is. I'll be helping that along, and handling Roy and my brother myself. Any further questions?"

"what thog do?"

"Stay –"

Pause.

"Why don't you go play with Elan? I think you might actually get along quite well."

Hilgya puts her hand up.

"As long as you're playing priest of Odin, should I hit Zz'dtri with the Protection from Law now? It'll cover him for nine hours, with the houserule."

"Please do. I appreciate your not trying to incinerate me once the jig turned out to be up, by the way."

She smiles breezily.

"You were nice enough about it!"

She buffs Zz'dtri.

"Okay, here you go. Anything else I should cast now?"

"No. But if you know of anything you can summon with Detect Thoughts or Discern Lies, I'd like you to have that on standby. ...a non-Evil anything. The rest of you, dismissed."

He doesn't let go of Sabine's hand.

Thog runs off towards Elan.

"not-nale want to play? nale think we get along."

She nods and heads off to continue to seduce her counterpart!

(He's cute, in a shy and awkward way. Honestly, she can see herself deciding to spare his life on her own anyway.)

"Yeah!!"

He turns to Roy.

"Roy, can me and Thog play together?"

"I—what? Elan, we're about to set off on…"

He sees that Nale and Sabine are apparently embroiled in private tactical talk still.

"Okay. Fine. You and Thog can… play… until it's time to go."

And as long as the part of Elan's Mother is being played by Roy Greenhilt…

"Make sure that you both go to the bathroom before we leave."

"Yay!"

Meanwhile:

"Okay, baby. Do we need to find someplace that nobody will overhear us?"

Instead of relying on the honor system. Plus, the rogue Nale wants her to reach out to keeps glaring daggers in their direction.

{...love, you're telepathic.}

Oh right!

{…Right. Okay, then, what's up?}

Her mental voice carries more concern than she'd previously been showing.

{Your apartment in Dis has a great view of the Spire of Thorns. The rent's higher than you could afford on what Cedrik pays you, but you're blackmailing the landlord, which you explained to me at one point is the Lower Planes' equivalent to rent control. You could live a little further out, commute into work by teleport, but without faint screams you have trouble sleeping; something inside you thinks that you're back in the Abyss and there's something coming.}

All of these things… are true. She'd weakly make a crack about him being the telepathic one, but—

You explained to me at one point.

Sabine doesn't know everything, and isn't much of a magic nerd, but she's thousands of years old. You don't need to be particularly nerdy to learn a lot, over that kind of timescale.

Time travel is not a thing. And—she doesn't have an eidetic memory, but she knows she'd remember telling Nale about her bosses. About any real details of her life in the Lower Planes. Sure, he's well aware of what her job is, but there's a difference, she's found, between mortals intellectually knowing that she's a demoness who works in Hell and…

Your apartment in Dis has a great view of the Spire of Thorns.

Time travel is still not a thing!

And yet.

She has so many questions. The one that gets promoted to reality is {Honey, what happened?}

{...we made it through the dungeon. Elan refused to join me, and his party got the upper hand. The talisman was destroyed. I swore vengeance. We... harried them, for a year or so, tried – more or less in vain – to even distract them from their actual priorities. Eventually, Elan wound up in Tyrinaria. On unrelated business travel, mind you. And I didn't even really know what to do. Father outplayed me like a rank amateur, got me to play his game while he tested Elan to see if he was the worthier heir, and I knew he was doing it and I didn't know how to make it stop. It drove me crazy, I think. I started taking risks. I killed Malack. And Father... finally realized, I guess, that he couldn't get what he wanted out of me. And that he could get something better from Elan.}

(The memory occurs with some frequency, these days. The cold lurch in the gut. The feeling, not sharp so much as bright. The life bleeding out of him... Laurin, Disintegrating him before he had actually passed -10 HP.)

(Damn that old witch.)

Nale doesn't verbalize the memory, but Sabine can pick up the gist of it anyway. She touches his cheek.

Lee would probably want her to ask him if he saw what (or who?) sent him back.

{I'm sorry, baby. I'm sorry that your dad got under your skin, and…}

She's not sure she knows how to phrase the regret part, especially since she doesn't have the memories like he does. But…

{It sounds like I couldn't help you avoid any of it. Is this the first time?}

It seems like the first time, but maybe Nale's done dozens of loops and it's just that the first death was the most painful!

{It's the first time that I know of. And... thanks.}

Why does that feel...

never mind.

{Anyway. I'd been dead a little while, and we were talking about. I don't know. My regrets. And some kind of portal happened. And I... was here. And now. Instead of there, and then.}

…Huh.

{…Huh.}

She doesn't really know what to follow that up with.

{Well, um. Let's do our best to extend your life expectancy, right? And…}

This feels silly to say, and she's not even sure why she feels the need to say it. But.

{If I ever… I dunno, start to say or do something that's exactly the same as something I did the first time around… tell me?}

She realizes as the words get out. She's been in plenty of unequal relationships before. She's been the less-equal party, even! But with Nale it feels… wrong. Is that hypocritical? She knows that in the beginning she didn't care about it being the other way around. But that was then. And apparently, now…

Well. Is now.

{I can do that, I think.}

Whatever felt so never mind, that feels... sort of the opposite. It's encouraging, maybe. That she... admitted something might be bad for her.

{And maybe you can tell me if you think I'm... making mistakes. And I can... try to... be... normal. About it. If you do that.}

Her first reaction to the grit-teeth tone of his thoughts is to giggle. But she straightens her face.

{Sorry, I know you're being serious. I just…}

She takes a deep breath, shutting her eyes for a moment.

{That might be hard for me, too. Not because I'm scared of how you'd react! But… well, normally my job is to encourage mistakes, right? And…}

There's still a part of her that screams why are we saying this! whenever she goes to express something even a little vulnerable to Nale. But… she trusts the part of her that feels right about it more.

{Nobody in your dad's gang ever appreciated you. And it was hard, watching that. So I think that kinda shaped how I want to approach things. But I can try.}

{Then we'll both be trying. ...want to go over to Haley and see if we can make a decent impression on her together?}

Grin.

{She seems like she's already made up her mind, but sure.}

Although, now that she thinks of it, Haley's demeanor definitely has tones of sublimated sexual frustration. Mmmmm.

{Oh, does Operation: Actually Work Together With These Guys For Real involve dropping the regular human rogue act early?}

{Early, yes. Now, no. It really wouldn't help our case... ironic how telling the truth makes it so much harder to get people to trust you.}

Focus. "Hello, miss Starshine. I... wanted to clear up a few things, since you seem to have taken away a poor impression of our party."

Ironic, maybe, but not really surprising when you're a demon.

Ugh, first Roy and now these guys?

"It's nothing personal," she lies, "it's just that adding more people to a group means that everyone's share of the treasure goes down. And since we're doubling our group, that means that each of us will be taking home half as much as we would have initially."

Also, your girlfriend is obviously an evil skank.

"Oh! I can't speak for my whole party, but I'm not actually here for the monetary gain and neither is Sabine, our wealth is beyond excessive for our level; do you think your leader would accept us contributing our shares to your own? I don't want you to feel shortchanged. Literally."

...that's going to make her more suspicious...

"I really want this to go well," he confesses. "I... have a personal stake, in our parties getting along as well as we can. So I'm trying to offer an olive branch, not a bribe. Unless you want a bribe, in which case I'll bribe you."

Well, now Haley has a jumble of intensely mixed feelings.

On the one hand, it's really gratifying to be openly offered a bribe! Like, technically that was the Thieves' Guild's entire business model, but there's a difference between seeking out protection money and being proactively offered it.

On the other hand, appealing offers coming from shady people just make the shady people seem even more shady.

And next to these two feelings, there's…

Well, it kinda stings, actually, for Roy to respond to her concerns with "treasure isn't important" and "that's because you have trust issues" and for these Linear Guild guys to listen to her!

"I… would totally like a bribe," she admits. "What's the 'personal stake'? I mean—"

She shakes her head.

"You've gotta see how suspicious this whole thing is, right? The way your party is so weirdly similar to ours? It would make zero sense if it was just random chance! Which… I guess it sounds like you just said it isn't. So I guess, besides the money, I wanna know what your angle is."

(Not that she expects to hear the whole truth, or anything like that. But hey, the sanitized version is better than what angle, we don't have an angle!)

"Can you keep a secret?" he asks. "It's really not much of one, and it's going to be less of one soon, but. Your Elan. He's... my brother. But I never got to know him, and he never got to know me. And I think we both suffered for it. So I came up with this big, elaborate, stupid plan... the weirdly similar party composition was an actual coincidence. Hilgya's a recent hire, but Yikyik and Zz'dtri I've known for years, and Thog and Sabine have been with me since I was a snot-nosed little bastard."

He sighs. "And I was going to... I don't know. Adventure under the pretense that the Talisman of Dorukan is all we wanted, isn't it a funny coincidence we got here at the same time. But that's dumb. I want my cards on the table."

As many of them as he can safely show.

"I want to meet my brother. And I want to get it right."

(Sabine knows she shouldn't be pressing Haley's obvious buttons, but she also can't resist pecking Nale's cheek at the snot-nosed little bastard comment. Sue her, he's cute!)

…Elan and Nale do look, not to put too fine a point on it, exactly the freakin' same. And there's the name thing. And… she can't say that it sounds completely outlandish that someone related to Elan would, rather than immediately laying all their cards on the table, concoct some Wile E Coyote-ass plan about it.

(Elan himself would probably put his cards on the table. But if he thought it would work best as a fun surprise…)

A lot of the wind has been knocked out of her sails by Nale being so straightforward and… sensible. She can tell he understands why instinctively trusting people is a bad move. It doesn't make him trustworthy, but it makes him… something.

"Okay, well. I guess that makes sense. Just don't…"

She's not sure she actually knows what she wants to say. She wants to say something protective, maybe even overprotective, but what if that made Elan freak out? She hasn't even told him how she feels; what right does she have to tell his brother not to break his heart?

"Well, you said it yourself. You better make sure you get it right."

"Also, it's your job to convince Roy that I didn't twist your arm into bribing me or giving up your share of the treasure!"

"Oh, I could make you regret giving me that kind of leeway. It's a dowry for my brother, I could say, and then where would you be."

Furious blushing!!

"Okay, well, he. He wouldn't believe me if I told him that you said that you're already so rich you don't care about the treasure so we might as well take your share!"

"I'm not going to actually make you regret it. ...Sabine might," he nudges her teasingly, "but I'm Lawful and she isn't. And I'm party leader, and she isn't. So you're safe."

Liiiittle nudge towards thinking of Sabine as personally similar, similarly long-suffering, not just attractive and threatening... some people would call it manipulative, but the things he's saying are literally true and he isn't even using any magic so those people can shove it.

If she had her tail out she'd flick it playfully! As-is she just winks.

"Mostly safe," she adds, not just to tease Haley but to help Nale's assurance not come across as insincere.

Yeah, Haley's experienced in rogue-to-rogue communication. She snorts.

She's starting to feel… itchy. It's probably all this standing around.

"I guess you probably wanna talk tactics with Roy, then. And… also talk to Elan."

It's probably gonna be fine. And if it isn't, she can say I told you so for the rest of the adventure.

"Yes, probably."

He retrieves and hands over a pouch of platinum pieces.

"The bribe I mentioned. If you still want it."

"Hell yeah I still want it!"

Opening the pouch to count out its contents, she goes off so she can see if Belkar and the kobold have stabbed each other yet.

They'd better Goddamn not.

He sees if he can find Roy. He feels somewhat buoyed, by that having gone so well.

Roy's standing near the dwarves; while Nale, Sabine, and Haley were talking, Hilgya broke out a deck of cards.

"Hey there," he says when he notices Nale approach. "Did you guys get everything cleared up?"

"...yes. We needed to clear up that... I was deceiving you, about the reason we seek the Amulet. Our king is not good and noble. Nor is he a king. He's a despot and a madman, and he sits comfortably behind the throne, not in it. I thought the Amulet would aid us in seeking his overthrow, and... as a Lawful man myself, I knew you would not be entirely comfortable. But it is far less comfortable to found this endeavor on lies."

Huh.

"Okay, just so I've got this straight: there's a puppetmaster evil advisor type back home that you want to overthrow, and he sent you to get Dorukan's talisman or amulet or whatever, and you were… going to help him but changed your mind? Or does he not even know about this magic item and you were trying to keep quiet about it before you got to know us?"

"He's got no idea, no."

...that's not a lie, even if the only reason is that Tarquin doesn't give enough of a damn to check.

"I thought that lawfully carrying out the orders of a Good king sounded better than plotting to overthrow an Evil vizier and his puppet-ruler. But I realized abruptly that lying wasn't going to work; it might get us the Amulet, but you'd know the whole thing was under false pretenses, and the possibility of getting your actual help outweighs your use as... well, not to put too fine a point on it, pit trap fodder."

Snort.

"I mean, politics isn't really my thing, but it seems to me that toppling dictators shouldn't make you less Lawful just because you live in their country."

Honestly, this is a breath of fresh air compared to the way Roy's old adventuring party dealt with people. He doesn't know what Haley was…

Okay, Nale did just tell him that he had lied to him. And Haley has better Sense Motive than Roy. But he's literally clearing it up right now!

"Thanks for letting us know. I don't think that should affect the plan to team up. Speaking of which, do you already have a strategy in mind? Pretty much all I know about this dungeon is that Xykon's throne room is here."

"Yes. There are three... sub-dungeons, I suppose... tied to Earth, Air, and Fire. The Water dungeon never made it past the planning stage, for reasons obvious to anyone who's worked with subcontracted architects. There's a rune at the end of each, and if all three runes are pressed within a minute of each other, they'll open up into the Talisman's chamber. From which you can progress down towards Xykon, and I can send... someone, probably Hilgya and Yikyik... to the surface with the horde of slavering beasts the artifact allows them to control."

Roy nods.

"That sounds simple enough! Although… Hilgya's your cleric, right? Xykon's a powerful necromancer; it might be useful to have double the clerical power when we face him."

Beat.

"Also, I don't think I knew about the horde of slavering beasts."

"Ah. Yes, the Talisman commands some powerful monsters, which I intend to levy against m- the vizier. I'll speak to Hilgya about staying on; technically her contract only extends through the conclusion of our quest, but the extension clause is reasonable, and I certainly can't argue with your logic."

"All right, cool. Thanks for being flexible."

Roy thinks for a moment.

"How do you think we should split up the dungeon teams? And do you know if the elemental theming is more like 'the fire dungeon is done up in red and orange with a couple of fire traps' or 'the fire dungeon is literally on fire and you'd need Resist Fire to survive it'?"

"Generally the former, though Air does require the ability to fly. Zz'dtri has a 10-minute-per-level Fly variant prepared in four of his slots, which should cover it, especially if your wizard has the standard version for emergencies. As far as accompaniment for them, I imagine miss Starshine wouldn't go amiss as ranged fire support, and of our party Yikyik is best suited to aerial melee and target defense. Hilgya has the Fire domain, and should thus be on the Fire team; I have little other input on that front. And, ah, I would like to be in whichever team contains Elan."

Roy nods along. He doesn't actually know for certain that Vaarsuvius has Fly prepared today¹, but he'd be really surprised if it turned out that wasn't the case. Like, come on. It's Fly.

"Yeah, okay… maybe Durkon should do the earth dungeon so we don't have all our clerics in one…"

¹During this particular waking block of the dungeon sleep-wake cycle, which after a certain point has little to do with whatever the sun is doing on the surface.

That last sentence Nale said finishes processing in his brain.

Roy looks over at Elan and Thog.

Thog is currently giving Elan a piggy-back ride. The latter is seeing if he can juggle during. (It's ambiguous at best whether he can juggle under normal circumstances.)

O…kay. At least they aren't breaking anything?

Back to Nale.

"Uh, basket."

He should probably be more professional.

"Okay, so we've got Zz'dtri, Yikyik, Haley, and probably V in the air dungeon, Hilgya and three others in the fire dungeon, probably Durkon in the earth dungeon, you and Elan together…that leaves Sabine, Belkar, Thog, and me unassigned. I guess we could round everyone up again and ask if they have any bright ideas?"

Not that he's expecting much from Belkar or Thog.

"...regarding Belkar..."

He sighs.

"I don't mean to be impolite. But. Why."

"I ask myself that very same question constantly."

Okay, he should probably give Nale a real answer so he doesn't look completely unprofessional.

"When I was putting the team together I really needed a tracker. My father, from whom I inherited a Blood Oath of Vengeance against Xykon, spent decades unsuccessfully looking for him; I didn't want to still be hunting when I hit my fortieth birthday. I'll probably cut him loose once we're done with this campaign."

"I suppose I can respect an alliance of convenience with someone you would not otherwise tolerate, in the interest of a more important goal." That describes his entire life between ages 3 and 19 (tolerating his father in the interest of not being stabbed to death by his father), so it'd be pretty hypocritical to whine about Roy doing it. "That said, I would like him to be on your team, because of your party you seem likeliest to have any actual ability to control him – if only by picking him up and throwing him when necessary."

Roy shrugs.

"Fair enough. I still don't have a preference between earth and fire; do you wanna get our teams back on task so we can sort out the rest of the logistics as a group?"

"Let's."

Roy claps his hands.

"Okay, gang, there's just a couple things we need to work out and then we can get this ball rolling again. I've got a pretty good feeling about Nale's plan."

"Aww, I was just about to win!"

This is technically even true, since she's been spending the last few turns intentionally drawing the game out.

Durkon had in fact noticed that he was consistently a turn or two away from losing but figured he was just getting really lucky.

"Ah, I s'pose we'll just hafta call it a draw fer now!"

Elan drops the balls he was trying to juggle and points Royward.

"Let's go!"

"thog mighty steed!"

"Wow, you morons are so in sync. It's like you're twins or something."

"thog do have several long-lost siblings..."

"He's not one of them. Blonde hair is recessive and part-orcs can't have it."

Beat.

"And that's the only reason."

Yikyik strolls over, sheathing the short sword he'd been polishing, and stands by Nale's kneecaps in something approximating parade rest.

Eventually, watching Belkar and Yikyik got boring and Haley went over to where the elves were doing, apparently, nothing.

"Hey, V, in case your superior elven—"

"Yes, I heard Sir Greenhilt."

Vaarsuvius packs up the folding chair and follows Haley to the rest of the group.

Zz'dtri follows.

"You mock elven skill bonuses because you had to spend your human bonus feat to use that longbow," he notes in a whisper, just barely smirking.

Rude!

"You wouldn't say that if you'd ever heard V actually talking for more than a minute," she grumbles.

She stands next to Roy, especially since she's at least ostensibly his second in command.

Roy nods to Nale.