He has a spell that tells him when anyone puts something in his mailbox, because otherwise he'd forget to check it for years and it would be even less useful than it currently is.

A gust of wind flows down the mountain to check his mail.

Usually whoever delivers the letter bolts after their task is done.

This person is not bolting. He is calmly walking away at a comfortable pace, like he's not completely terrified of being snatched by the Lord of the Howling Mountain.

Well. It's probably polite to read the letter first.

He materializes by the mailbox and opens it.

Hey,

I'm from a bit of a ways away and have heard about you from some people in the nearby city. I'm sure you can guess what they said. I'd like to hear your side of the story, if you're willing to spend a few minutes talking to a random stranger about it. Do you mind if I drop by for a chat?

- Veron Chandler

He glances down the road. The person who delivered the letter is still visible, walking away from the mountain.

Just to see what happens, he conjures a note and seals it with the wax from the parcel. (It reads: Most people find my reputation intimidating.)

The wax is an inky black that seems to eat light, and when pressed to the letter, swirls with a deep purple. The entire note turns black and then disappears.

Down the road, the man who delivered the letter stops, catches something out of the air, and reads it. He looks back at Serik, then turns around and begins walking back.

Serik stands by the mailbox and waits.

"Hi," he says. "A few people find my reputation intimidating too, I don't see why that means we can't talk. Is now a good time...?"

"I'm not busy. And I'm really curious what you can possibly have heard about me that made you think 'oh, yeah, definitely a good idea to get that guy's attention'."

He snorts, then shrugs.

"Call it force of habit? I have a history of tripping over problems and landing face first in them."

"And so this time you decided to get in ahead of the game and leave a note in trouble's mailbox?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

"I suppose there's a kind of logic to that."

"Plus, I'm - I somehow became the person most experienced at dealing with weird problems that everyone else is rightly afraid to touch. So uh. Hi. I'm Veron, professional lost person, pleasure to meet you."

"What are you expecting to accomplish here?"

He shrugs, awkwardly.

"I'm not expecting much in particular, I don't know enough about the situation. I'd like to hear what's going on from your perspective? You kidnap people, what's it for?"

"To torture them."

"... Okay," says Veron, after a brief surprised pause, "why?"

"Because it's fun. Also because the mountain will explode if I stop."

"Which part of the torture's important? Is it like, feeding people into a magical meat grinder, or..?"

"...why?"

"Well, maybe there's a way to get you the thing you're looking for without kidnapping people for it. I know at least one erinyes that would be, uh." He coughs. "Happy to be tortured?"

"At least one what?"

"Uh. An erinyes is a type of devil, specifically a type that's human shaped, female, and has a pair of wings. Devils are things that live on another plane of existence and are typically super evil and want to hurt people for fun. Some of them react to this societal quirk differently than others."

"Where are you from?"

"Toril. It's another plane of existence. I've been a professional lost person for years now, when I get lost, I get very lost."

"What does 'another plane of existence' even mean?"

"Uh. Shit, how do I explain the weird shit that doesn't make any sense in a way that makes sense. Um. Okay, so. You have this world, with all of its associated worldly things, like material objects and a coherent magic system and underlying sensible physics, and all of everything is sensibly arranged and self contained and follows one set of rules. Another plane is like - another place, possibly like this one or possibly not, but the rules there might be completely different from the rules here. Geography might change based on the time of day, people might be arranged differently. Or maybe not. There are ways to move between planes of existence, and I have done that. Multiple times. Was that a reasonably clear explanation?"

"Reasonably clear, yeah."

"I apologize on behalf of the multiverse. For the." He waves a hand, awkwardly. "For the weird shit."

...he giggles.

"But in your case the weirdness of the multiverse will probably come in handy! ... Though now that I think of it I maybe don't want to set you up with an erinyes, I hesitate to help one get out of Hell without getting to know them pretty well. Devils are the types to sweetly agree to your face and then set your house on fire and eat your soul a year later in a perfectly legitimate and legal fashion. I bet there are other options, though."

"I would be kind of annoyed if you set me up with somebody who set my castle on fire and - ate my soul? I'm not even sure that's a thing but it sounds pretty annoying."

"From what I've heard it's not pleasant. I don't know if it would work on you, I'm not really an expert in soul related things and hesitate to make claims about another plane of existence. But yes. Ideally it would be something everyone could walk away happy from."

"What even is a soul?"

"It's... well, where I come from, it's sort of. The bit of someone that contains everything they are? What would be left if all of the non-essential parts of a person got stripped away, and all that was left was the central essence of the person and who they are. The part that's above someone's squishy breakable body. On my plane of existence, when someone dies, the soul goes to an afterlife if nothing else has any sort of claim on it. But again, I don't know how things work here, you might not apply."

"Yeah, we don't have anything like that, I would've noticed when I was building my immortality," he says.

He nods.

"I think even if you don't naturally have a soul, you should still avoid signing any contracts with devils to hand one over. It's the sort of thing that would probably backfire horribly in some way. But I'm digressing a little."

"A little, yeah. Seems like useful advice, though."

"Thanks, I try. That time in Hell was not time wasted. Anyway. Can you see yourself being happy with someone that would be more than happy to be tortured...?"

"I'd be happy to be introduced. Can't promise I'd devote myself to them forever or anything."

"Sure. But I'd like to find a solution that works for everyone that doesn't involve, uh. People getting kidnapped and tortured."

"You might end up disappointed."

"I might," he agrees. "But I'll definitely be disappointed if I don't try."

"Eh, fair enough."

"So does your ideal situation look like this? With the kidnapping and the torture and the mountain that'll explode if you stop. Or are there things you wish you had in your life that your lifestyle might be inhibiting?"

"I'm not delighted about the mountain that'll explode if I stop. I've been working on it."

"Any way I can help with that? It seems like it'd help if you were under less pressure to torture people, at the very least."

"You probably can't do much for it, but I don't know a thing about your otherworldly magic so maybe there's something."

"I'm mostly not a master of otherworldly magic. Just a guy that's good at handling weird situations, finding things, and staying alive. What sorts of things would be helpful?"

"Mm. Part of the problem is that anything you could use to help me fix the exploding mountain, you could also probably use to really fuck me up, and you seem nice but I don't really know you that well."

"That's fair. I think actively meddling in your magic in a helpful fashion's not a thing that I could make happen in any reasonable amount of time. It's the kind of thing that takes a brilliant wizard a couple of years of dedicated hermitude to pull off. Conceivably the explosion could be contained in some way - a wizard could probably move the entire mountain to another plane of existence - but that doesn't seem to actually solve the inherent problem. If you need more time to think or more mental space to think in or something, I can probably help with that in some way."

"The mountain exploding also kills me and my daughter and all the people I kidnapped, whether or not we're on it at the time. What do you mean by mental space to think in?"

"There are potions that improve long term memory, working memory, and make it easier to process information and make inferences. Some more permanent items, too, but it'd be easier to get you a potion for it. I don't think you work like a wizard or a sorcerer or something, but plenty of spellcasters find that sort of thing helpful."

"Hmm. Sounds maybe useful, but how long does it last? If I was going to fix the mountain the fast way I'd expect it to take a month or two straight, no breaks including to sleep, and if your memory potions helped with that but only lasted a day they wouldn't make it worth trying."

"Ah, yeah. A potion wouldn't work, there. Something more permanent would be better for something that long."

"I won't turn down magic memory-helping artifacts if you find me some."

"Sure. But then there's the problem of how I don't know you very well, either. That's not to say I'll stand here and play trust tug of war, just. I feel it's only fair to warn you that I will probably rig any magic artifacts I give you to at the very least teleport away if this does turn into a grudge match. Not that I want that to happen, just. Cards on the table. I try to be fair."

"Yeah, that's reasonable," he says. "And I appreciate the honesty."

"Sure. I appreciate the calm and reasonable conversation. I uh - have not actually had a lot of these, the change is nice."

He laughs. "Oh? What do you usually get instead?"

"Oh, you know. Things like, 'Your blood will feed our elders, your bones will go to our dracolich god!' and 'Your soul will be tormented for all eternity!' and the like. Often there's monologing of evil plans and how I'm too late to stop any of them. Occasionally someone will ask me to join them as their second in command or something, except I won't get any say in what they're doing. I'll just be doing the complete opposite of what I'd been doing before for no reason. Because they asked me to." Eyeroll. "And clearly that is sufficient motivation."

"That's just silly. If I was the evil-plans type and wanted your help with them I'd at least try to seduce you or something."

"... That has happened. The attempt, I mean. It didn't, ah. Succeed."

"Aww." He laughs. "Sorry, that didn't look like a comfortable memory."

"It's fine. It was just... memorable. She seemed to be under the impression that showing up in my bedroom and making suggestive comments at me would reduce me to an obedient quivering puddle. Shockingly, it did not."

Giggle.

"Maybe don't try to seduce me. Or at least pick a better method than 'show up in my bedroom in the middle of the night in a third of an outfit.' I felt a little insulted on behalf of - well, maybe not men everywhere. People that are interested in women everywhere, maybe."

"I promise if I try to seduce you I will do a much better job than that. Not that I'm planning on it particularly."

Snort.

"Thanks. I... think."

He laughs.

"But anyway. When do you next expect you'll want to kidnap someone for torturous purposes? And is there something in particular that you're looking for in a torture subject?"

"I was thinking of going out sometime this year but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I pick people that I find attractive and I think will have interesting reactions."

"Are you willing to hold off on snatching anyone for a little while, see if I can find you anyone that you find attractive and likely to react in an interesting fashion that wants to be there?"

"Sure."

"Thanks. So, uh. What sorts of people do you find attractive? The townsfolk seemed to be under the impression that you only snatched women...?"

"I take men seldom enough that the public memory can forget about it if they try hard enough, and they do. It's a little silly."

"That sounds a little silly, yep. So. Specific traits that are attractive, or is it like." He waves a hand, awkwardly. "Difficult to describe auras people have, or something? I know it's kind of hard to distill things like these down to a simple list."

"Mostly the difficult to describe thing. Although you can probably get pretty far just asking yourself 'is this person really strikingly pretty?'."

"I can probably manage strikingly pretty if I can manage to find someone that'll be willing. Do you care if it's magicked strikingly pretty?"

"Not especially."

"All right then. I'll warn you if you should avoid breaking a permanent polymorph or something. I'm assuming even if it's magicked you want it to be... thorough?"

"Thorough how?"

"Like... no parts that are hidden by illusion, everything looks like how it actually is. No secret hidden tails or whatever."

"No secret hidden tails! I might not mind an unhidden tail. If you find someone with a tail I'd be happy to be introduced to them as-is."

"I wasn't thinking of a tail being worthy of being hidden, it just came to mind as an easy example of a disparity between illusion and reality. What's most likely to happen is I find someone, bring them to you, and then we all talk about possible prettying options if you do not find them strikingly pretty enough. So they can be both a thing they're comfortable with and something you find attractive. And I'd be there to be the practical one that'll help figure out how to make that happen."

"Sure."

"What occurs in the torture? Just assume I lost all my squeamishness in Hell and absolutely nothing you say will shock me. Or that if it does I'll be fine regardless."

"I don't keep a list. Why do you ask?"

"I want to be able to let people know what they're signing up for."

"If they're picky about exactly how they get tortured they're probably not a good fit. —and if they don't want it to be sexual they're definitely not a good fit, I realize I haven't mentioned that explicitly yet and I probably should. As for how bad it gets - I make my victims almost completely impossible to kill, or they'd be dying pretty regularly. The spell has a side effect that kills them anyway after a hundred and fifty years, but I'm working on that. Depending how good your mind artifacts are, I might be able to just fix that one, actually."

"Good to know. Do you monopolize their time, or are they free to do other things when you're not torturing them?"

"They're technically free to do whatever they want when I'm not torturing them. Most of them don't, but that's because they're terrified of getting my attention. Somebody who was here on purpose could read my books and admire my lovely gardens or whatever and I wouldn't mind at all."

"That'll help, I bet. If I bring you someone and they decide they don't like being tortured by you, would you be willing to let them go? Ignoring the thing that kills them after a hundred and fifty years, that is."

"Yeah, sure," he says.

"Okay. Um. How many people do you currently have?"

"About thirty, why?"

"Ah."

He has the expression of someone who maybe has a problem with that.

"I wouldn't need as many if I fixed the spell so I didn't have to keep replacing them."

"That... helps." A little. It helps a little. It mostly doesn't, though. "I suppose I can't ask you to let them go until I have a better replacement. What with the exploding."

"What with the exploding, yeah. If I was really sure you'd come through with the fancy artifacts and the people who actually want to be here, I'd let a bunch of the older ones go, but if I let twenty people go now and you vanish or fall off a cliff or can't find anything or decide you don't feel like helping me after all, then I have to kidnap twenty more people much faster than usual and everyone in Oroshe is terrified that this is the new normal. I like my nice stable reputation, I don't want to disrupt that."

"Right. And that's. Not any better." He rubs the bridge of his nose. "How often do you torture people...?"

"...why do you ask?"

"I'm trying to figure out if I could possibly get you a willing subject before your next torture session."

"...the longest I could reasonably give you is a week. Do you think you can manage it in a week?"

He considers.

He's had worse deadlines, really.

"Yeah."

"Okay. Try not to feel too bad if you can't manage it."

"Try not to be too surprised when I do."

He shrugs.

"Anyway. I think that might be everything? I find you a willing subject in a week, see if I can find anything to help with the immortality spell problem, hopefully everyone walks away happy?"

"Yeah, sounds like it," he says.

And hesitates for a moment, and adds—

"I wasn't trying to say I didn't think you could do it. Just, it's not necessarily under your control whether you find anybody, or whether if you find somebody they end up getting along with me, and my hobbies and my three-thousand-year-old spell design mistakes are neither of them your fault. And it brings me no joy when people blame themselves for what I choose to do with my time."

Veron blinks.

"Thanks," he says sincerely, after a surprised pause. "Sorry if I sounded a bit snappish, I'm. Kind of used to everyone underestimating me by now."

He smiles. "Yeah, it's all right. Anyway. Nice meeting you."

"Nice meeting you, too. Pleasure speaking with you, I'll see you in a week."

He waves, casually, then turns and walks down the trail he'd been walking before. This time, though, after four steps an inky darkness swallows him - rather like with the letter - and then he disappears.

...Serik giggles.

Five days later, a letter is placed into Serik Tanaikon's mailbox by someone who's just a little bit smug.

A bolt of lightning flashes down the mountainside and deposits a grinning Serik a few feet away.

Veron is not alone!

Next to him there is a small shadowy figure, bouncing anxiously on - its? her, that's probably a her - heels.

"Hello," says Veron, brightly.

"hi," says the little shadowy figure next to him. Yep, that's a she. And she is nervously edging behind Veron in order to hide.

...awwwwwww, she's adorable. He takes a step back so as not to crowd her.

"Hi."

"This is Ssaskxssix." That word he used should not be pronounceable by a human. He said it anyway. "She wanted to come say hello."

"but that's probably hard to say," she clarifies, peeking out from behind Veron, "with the usual human vocal range. so, um. i should probably get a nickname."

"You can definitely get a nickname," assures Veron, which she seems to find very comforting.

"It's nice to meet you," he says, beaming at her. She's so cute!!

She considers him, looking at him with piercing lavender eyes. They glow faintly.

"it's nice to meet you, too," she decides, with obvious deliberation. "... Saskia. as a nickname. if that's all right?"

"It's lovely."

"It's very pretty," Serik agrees. (Ee. She is so cute.)

"thank you."

She seems to find this sufficient reassurance to venture away from the protection of Veron. A little. She edges towards Serik to peer at him from a closer distance.

He smiles at her. "You're very cute."

Her shadowy form wobbles a little, and she ducks her head, embarrassed.

"thank you."

She considers him again.

"... you'll let me look at your books?" she clarifies.

(Veron is attempting not to make a face and is failing.)

"Absolutely. I've got the biggest library in the world, want to see?"

"yes!!!"

She bounces a little, clearly pleased.

"It's up in my castle," he says, gesturing up the mountain, "should I fly you there or would you rather go on your own—? You can come too," he adds, in Veron's direction.

"!! i want to fly!"

"Sure, I'll come too," says Veron.

He smiles adoringly at Saskia and offers her his hand (and pulls some power in case flying with her is too different from normal people for his windriding spell to cover it).

She bounces, then flits over and takes the offered hand. Her hand is a bit cold and has a strangely smooth texture, but is perfectly solid.

Veron follows at a more sedate pace, hovering somewhere between amused, pleased, and a little protective.

He squeezes Saskia's hand gently, and folds all three of them into the wind. They flow insubstantially up the mountain and past the lake and over his stunningly gorgeous palace and in through the skylight of his eight-floor library, and he rematerializes them on the top floor, looking over the balcony at all the floors below.

Saskia cackles with delight when she sees the library.

"oh - so many - may i...?" She moves a little towards the nearest bookshelf, looking at it longingly. "i'll be careful and put everything back where i found it."

"Oh, you don't have to worry about them, they can't be permanently damaged and they'll put themselves away if they're out of place for a year. Go right ahead."

"eeheeheehee, thank you!!!"

She flickers, and then she's at the nearest bookshelf in the blink of an eye. Another blink later, and she's got an open book in hand.

Well, this is adorable.

Yes! It is!!! Aaaaa she's too cute he doesn't want to torture her he wants to scoop her up and spin her around and hug her and pet her and give her books!!!

Veron looks at Serik thoughtfully.

"Did I do too well?" he wonders.

"...maybe a little. Is it that obvious?"

"Little bit."

Giggle.

"I'm glad you like her so much. The reverse, too, she already likes you a lot. Not just for the library."

"Well, you've at least successfully found someone I think is attractive and interesting," he says. "But I don't want to torture her nearly as much as I want to hug her and give her nice things."

"Really? She'll be so disappointed."

"Well, if torture counts as a nice thing... you'll note I didn't say I don't want to."

Snort.

"Have fun," he says, dryly.

He looks like there's a thing he might want to say, and studiously isn't saying.

"Thank you!"

(He looks like he has noticed Veron not saying something and is curious but politely isn't asking.)

"You're welcome."

(Veron looks like he has noticed Serik noticing, and is extra studiously not saying anything.)

...he giggles. "All right, what is it?"

Veron makes a face.

"... Don't mistreat her, all right?"

There's more to it than that, but wow it is so incredibly not his place to bring any of it up at all. Let's just leave it at that sentence and call it quits.

"I really, really don't intend to," he says, gazing adoringly at her again.

(She is on book number three, she's skimming very quickly to get a feel for the books in this language. The style is much different from what she's used to, she wants to see the variation within it more than she wants to read the books right now.)

"Good," says Veron. Yep. That is all he's saying on that subject because nope.

Then, just to be sure that the subject gets changed:

"Oh, also. I have presents for you."

"Ooh, presents."

He reaches into his bag, and he retrieves a slightly tacky looking circlet, and a less tacky looking ring that is outright pretty.

"I apologize for the." He waves the tacky circlet helplessly. "The this. But it's a circlet of intelligence and I couldn't find one as good that was less. This." Shrug. "The ring's a ring of clear thought."

"It's fine," says Serik. "I appreciate your presents even if one of them is kind of stupid-looking."

"Yep. I can try to look for less stupid-looking alternatives, but I figured getting you these as quickly as possible was more important."

He offers the stupid-looking circlet and the ring to Serik.

He accepts them and puts them on. One at a time, ring first.

The ring expands working memory sharply, and the circlet enhances conventional memory, and seems to speed up how quickly he can think. And also it looks terrible on him.

They're probably going to both be at least a little useful.

"...huh," he says. "Oh, I like that. That's useful. Thank you very much."

"You're welcome! Do you think it'll help with the spell creation?"

"Definitely!"

"Good, glad to hear it."

He smiles.

Saskia flits back after a little while, bouncing on her toes happily.

"i like your library a lot!"

"I'm glad!"

One might get the impression she's smiling, if she had a mouth. She does not have a mouth.

"i think i like it here. do you have a place i could stay that won't get too bright? m'lord said that this isn't as bright as it gets here, i don't think i'd like that very much."

"Hmm," he says. "I should probably just make you something, it'd be easier than trying to find a guest room that doesn't get any sun. What do you want in a room?"

"a bookshelf. a chair. a place to put things that i want to keep. maybe a desk?"

"She doesn't need to sleep," clarifies Veron.

"oh. yes. i can if i get bored though. can the chair be good for that if I want to?"

"Yeah. I can also just make you a bed. They're comfy. Hmm - I bet you'd like to be near the library - do you need to eat...?"

"you can make me a bed if you want! yes, i'd like to be near the library. i don't need to eat but i can if i want. most human food tastes weird."

"All right, time for me to do architecture," he says. "You can come watch if you like."

And he turns into a breeze and descends to the bottom floor of the library and reappears and walks out. There's a corridor there with room for another door; he makes one, and shifts the shape of the castle around it until he can install a cute little spiral stair leading down below the library.

It takes her a bit longer to get there, being unable to turn into wind, but she uses judicious application of flickering speed and incorporeality and gets to where he's working soon enough. She would love to watch.

Veron follows, though he takes noticeably longer to get there. He tries not to shadowstep unless he needs to.

"D'you want your own magic bath?" he wonders. "The ones aboveground all have windows."

"... what for?"

...okay, shadow people don't need to eat or sleep, sure, fine, but do they seriously not need to bathe...? He looks at Veron in case Veron can help resolve his confusion.

Veron will save him. "She can be insubstantial at will, and won't take along anything she doesn't want to. So anything that she doesn't want on her can stop being so whenever she likes. Dirt's also less... sticky on the Plane of Shadow, it, uh. Wants to stay on the ground. A bath would be more for the novelty than practical use, though she might find the dirt here harder to get off than what she's used to."

"you're stuck with things that get on you all the time? that sounds terrible!"

"A bit, yeah. Thus, baths."

"It's a little terrible, yeah. But baths are nice. I'll build you one in case you turn out to like them."

He regards the new staircase thoughtfully and murmurs, half to himself, "It should be pretty..."

"i can try having a bath," she agrees, easily.

"... Would it help your design sense if I brought you to the Plane of Shadow to look around for a bit? See what sorts of things are there?"

"—huh, yeah, I bet it would," he says.

"Your mountain won't explode if you leave, right?"

He laughs. "It will not!"

"Just making sure. Uh, getting there's easier than getting back, we won't pop out on this plane on your mountain. You can probably do all right with that wind thing, but just in case - can you turn yourself insubstantial? You can navigate the Plane of Shadow without it, but everything shadows build isn't built to accommodate it."

"it seems really inconvenient to have to be physical all the time."

"Yyyep. But humans are pretty used to it."

"I can turn into wind, fire, water, and lightning, but I can't do 'completely insubstantial'. Should I build a spell for it before we go? What does being insubstantial look like?"

Saskia demonstrates! She goes from mostly opaque to mostly transparent, a faint hint of Saskia-shaped darkness. Demonstrably, she waves a hand through a wall.

"like this."

"Depends on how long it takes you to build a spell for it. It'll be inconvenient but isn't necessary, you'll just miss out on being able to go indoors in some places. There are still some indoors places you'll be able to see, just not all of them. Whichever you prefer's fine."

"...are there really places that air can't get in and out of? And I can go through windows usually, and sometimes walls if they're thin enough."

"Windows aren't so much a thing in the buildings I'm talking about. No reason, there's no sun, everyone can be incorporeal, and the view mostly isn't. You can probably figure out a way into a place as air if you try, but it might be more a bit more of a hassle thank you're thinking, things are a little..." he considers phrasing. "The Plane of Shadow moves. Mostly the geography, but buildings too, sometimes. The buildings stay still by being built out of things that are very sturdy. Nobody would be accounting for getting air anywhere in particular, because nobody needs to breathe. And that thing that dirt does, where it wants to stay on the ground? Air kind of does it too, it doesn't try to find holes in things like it does on material planes. It doesn't push. So there are a number of factors here that don't lend themselves well to getting places as air. Possibly you could overcome them, but I'm not going to guarantee it."

"Hm," he says. "Is there any reason I shouldn't just - temporarily turn into a shadowperson?"

"It's easier to turn into one than to stop. It happens naturally to people if they stay in the Plane of Shadow for long enough, actually. If you could magically make sure you can turn back, then no, it'd likely be useful. You'll be more vulnerable to light and certain kinds of holy magic, but those won't be much of an issue if you can switch between forms."

"oo."

And that seems to be Saskia's entire commentary on the matter.

"Very few things are irreversible when you're me! Let's see how long it'd take to build—"

He pulls a bit of power and tells it what he wants. Veron is right, it is easier to do it than undo it, but building a spell that switches him back and forth still looks much easier than he was expecting. "Huh, not that long," he comments. "Probably less than an hour, especially with the mind artifacts. If that's longer than you'd rather wait, I can skip it for now, though."

"i can read in your library," ventures Saskia, shyly.

"I don't mind waiting," shrugs Veron.

"Yes," he says, smiling adoringly at Saskia, "you can absolutely read in my library. If you feel like wandering around, you can do that too, but please stay out of the northwest wing; it belongs to my daughter."

"i will probably just stay in the library, but thank you."

"... If you'll be busy for a while, is it all right if I check on your other guests? With you and with them, I would rather not scare anyone."

"Fine by me. Not sure how they'll feel about it."

"Anything any of them are twitchy about? I imagine they wouldn't appreciate the weaponry."

"They probably wouldn't," he agrees. "But I'm not well-placed to tell what they'd be afraid of from someone other than me."

"Fair enough. I'll try to be as nonthreatening as possible."

"Good luck."

"Thanks. They all in the village at the lake we passed by?"

"Unless somebody's gone for a walk, yeah."

Nod.

"If there's nothing else, then I'll go do that?"

"Sure."

He waves, then walks off to find an exit so he can talk to some torture victims.

Saskia waves back, then looks at Serik curiously.

"how does it work to build your spells?"

"I'm not sure how usefully I can answer that without knowing anything about what I'm comparing it to," he says. "I'd offer to teach you how to do it, but I don't know if you'll want to learn - you'll probably mess up a lot at first, everybody does, and when you mess up with this magic the power tends to come out as heat and light. I set myself on fire a few times before I got the hang of it."

"oh. no, i don't think i'd like to learn it if that's what happens when you mess up. i'll stick with - you don't have a word for it, i'm going to use wizardry? i like being a wizard."

"What's being a wizard like?"

She considers.

"scholarly. it's very... i need to keep a lot of things in my head at once. it's hard but i like it."

"Huh. Sounds interesting," he says. "Well, you can watch me build this spell if you like, but it's not going to look like much, I'm just going to sit down and close my eyes for a while."

He goes to sit down in one of the chairs in the lounge in the middle of the bottom floor of the library.

Saskia watches for a little while, then goes off to read.

Veron has found an exit, has put away all of his weaponry into his bag of holding, and is walking towards the lakeside village. He's still not entirely sure what he's going to say, but he trusts that he'll figure that out when he gets there.

Most of the cute little cottages give the impression of being empty, or at least of containing someone who wishes you didn't know she was there.

But at the very end of the row, past the last house, there's a girl sitting on the lakeshore staring out at the water. She looks about twenty, and is definitely strikingly pretty.

He has ever met strikingly pretty people before, and the circumstances sort of makes it affect him even less than usual.

When he wants to, he can walk with absolute silence. Actually, he sort of defaults to that, now. Usually it's useful, but in this case he thinks it wouldn't be appreciated. Instead he makes an active effort to keep his footsteps audible, so she can hear him walking.

She looks up when she hears him, and regards him with a mildly puzzled expression.

Veron does not look like a swan. He's not terrible looking or anything, but he stands with a calm and easy confidence that someone that was recently kidnapped by an all powerful sorcerer wouldn't be likely to have. His dark clothes are strange and foreign, he wears more jewelry than is strictly fashionable, and there's something off about his black hair. He looks at her with carefully modulated concern and moves in a way that is easy to read and very purposefully nonthreatening.

"Hi," he says.

"Are you where he's been all week," she wonders.

"Sort of, yeah. May I?" He motions to the empty space next to her.

"Okay," she says, somewhat suspiciously.

He sits, giving her plenty of space.

"So," he says, "if everything keeps going to plan I am hopefully going to be able to spare you and everyone else here from, uh. This."

"...how?"

"I offered to find him willing subjects. I'm from another world and have access to a few others, and I've met a lot of very strange people, so this isn't quite as crazy as it might sound."

"...hm."

"We'll see how it goes. I'm a little nervous about it, personally. But I trust the person that volunteered to know what she's doing."

"...are you sure."

He considers the question seriously. He already had, he wouldn't have come here with Saskia if he wasn't certain she knew what she was doing, but it is the sort of thing that is worth reconsidering. Just in case.

"Yes," he says, with absolute certainty.

"...hm," she says, in a slightly different tone.

He smiles, a little.

"So. Is there anything you need or would like to have? I don't think I could push for everyone to walk out of here forever tomorrow, but I bet if there are things you'd like to have I can make sure you get them. Whether it be material items or a trip to a place that is not this mountain. Or something."

"I'm not sure you can get me the thing I want."

"Is there a reason not to ask? I might just surprise you."

"It's not pleasant to hope."

"That's fair. If you'd rather not, I understand. But if you ask me for something, I will do my absolute best to get it for you, and I make a habit of doing the impossible."

"...if he doesn't do this to anyone else, that's... enough. I don't think there's much you can do for us."

"All right."

He doesn't precisely agree with that statement, but he thinks he'd rather not push.

"...it's not that there's things you can't do, it's that there aren't things."

He nods.

After a moment she adds, reflectively, "I suppose it's true that you can't kill us, but even if you could, you shouldn't. I don't want the mountain to explode."

"I am trying to avoid the mountain exploding," agrees Veron.

"Good."

"... How are the others here? I uh. Hesitate to go knock on doors and ask. For obvious reasons."

"None of us is okay. Some are better off than others. I'm newest, I have the most - me left."

"Ah."

"I think I could be let go and be okay afterward. The rest of them are probably going to kill themselves as soon as they have the option."

Veron nods, gravely.

"How are you getting him to do anything?"

"I um. Put a letter in his mailbox, and then had a calm and civil discussion with him. It was a bit bizarre, actually."

... ???

"I know! Usually these things involve dramatic confrontations and annoying evil monologues and destruction of important objects or something! But he just explained why he was acting the way he was and what he wanted, and I gave him a possible alternative that worked for him and he agreed to try it!"

...she smiles slightly.

"I'm not complaining about the lack of dramatic confrontations, mind, it's just. Weird."

"It does sound like him. He's - very straightforward."

"He is. It's nice."

"Could be worse," she agrees, wryly.

Snort. "Yeah."

"Why did you even decide to go near him—?"

"I have this habit of tripping into increasingly more dangerous levels of trouble. At some point I became good at handling it, and now I guess I'm taking initiative."

"...are you immortal?"

"I am not! It's kind of a miracle I'm alive, actually."

"Yes, it is."

"Several miracles, really. In regular intervals. Occasionally in quick succession."

...she giggles.

"I'm not sure you can get me the thing I want," she says, with slightly different emphasis from last time.

"Well, what do you want? If you're willing to say."

...she shakes her head.

"I understand. No pressure."

She gives him her puzzled/considering look again.

That's not an expression he knows how to respond to. An archdevil, sure. A dragon, easy. An all powerful sorcerer with a mountain rigged to explode, not a problem. A slightly cryptic assessing look? No bloody idea, what do.

... He smiles?

She giggles again.

He ducks his head, embarrassed.

"I have not yet outgrown the dorky smile of some bumpkin kid from Hilltop." He smiles a little. "Maybe one day," he adds, in a tone that says 'But probably not.'

"It's a good smile."

"Thank you, I do my best."

"Have you found out what you wanted to know?"

He considers. "Yeah, close enough. Thanks. Do you want me to leave you a way to contact me?"

She shakes her head.

"All right. Uh. Want any - I don't know, books, cards, puzzles, or - something?"

Headshake.

"Okay. Do you want me to come by again later for conversation? I uh. Can't imagine you have many people to talk to."

"I don't know."

"All right. I guess I'll be back if I get the chance, then."

"Okay."