After what should have been a full night’s rest, the hero’s party were roused by the golems and summoned to breakfast. Trailing out of their rooms one by one starting with Ernest, they find the table from the day before filled with meat links, strange bread-like products, fruit, bitter-brew, and various other items.

Not one to wait, Ernest started eating before his companions and asked mundane questions of the golems and soul stone, as he had started the night before. The most intriguing things to him were the various experiences with the houses of nobility and the best ways to schmooze up to them. Marvin and Rory arrive in time to see the first plate finish, and start digging in and listening to Ernest prattle on.

Rachel finally leaves her room alongside a golem. The trio look over briefly at her and wave and think nothing more of it until the golem also sits down between Rachel and Marvin.

“Um…” begins Rory before being interrupted.

“Hi guys!” says the golem with a nervous chuckle, “I know this is a surprise for me but it’s good to see you again. Kind-of see you at least. Not with eyes or anything but whatever is going on.”

Marvin finally drops his utensils to his plate and immediately wraps the golem in a hug, sheerly on impulse, and begins crying.

“Shhh shhh, I know you big lug,” says Margarette through the golem, patting him on the back. “Rachel told me a bit and at least you got me this far. We can talk normally until you have to leave.”

The rest of the group scratch their jaws or look otherwise awkward, and continue on with breakfast while ignoring Marvin for the time being. After shedding a fair amount of tears, he comes back to himself.

“There’s so many things I wanted to talk about,” he mumbles while going back to his breakfast.

“Well, we can talk before you leave. It may seem like I’m stressing this, but you know you can’t all stay here forever right?” Margarette states while looking around the table. “Rachel was telling me last night she had a funny feeling about things before all this started and I assume the rest of you have had time to think on things.”

“Yeah,” instantly replies Ernest. “One of the things that has been bugging me for a while is how all of these nobles know all of us but we know next to nothing about most of them. Almost all of our work ends up coming through the nobles at some point but we don’t even have time to question it. For instance, we all know of the Handbell family right? Got their start after clearing out a nest of monsters in the land they got titled to, hunters the lot of them. Mostly at least.”

“I know you like your stories so skip to the end, 30 seconds or less,” says Rory.

“Aw come on man! There was going to be an epic build up and everything!”

“Yes, followed by some conspiracy theory or other loosely connected to our current circumstances and we all stare at you at the end of it. 20 seconds.”

“Gah fine! We’ve never received any information about subjugations or what have you from the Handbells, which is suspicious right? Every noble family sends requests to the country or at least reports about things from time to time but we never hear anything about that. So what about them? Well, I got talking to some of the folks around here and found one Saidel Handbell.”

“That’s me!” pipes up a cheery voice from the soul stone wall.

“And long story shorter, it turns out they’ve been hunting vampires since they were landed! A hundred and fifty years of vampire hunters!”

“And vampire hunting horses! Don’t forget Mr. Horse!”

“Yes yes, the noble Mr. Horse and family. So, I’m thinking there’s got to be something going on behind the scenes! Out of the groups sent to subjugate Brinlog, one of them had two people from the Handbell territory!”

“So,” says Rory slowly, while cupping his hands in front of his mouth, “What you’re trying to get at is that Brinlog was colluding with vampires, for some reason or another, to eliminate our group, when we haven’t even received a vampire extermination request.”

A moment of silence only broken by Marvin’s utensils working on his food seems to stretch awkwardly into the distance. Rachel takes a sip of her drink and stares at Ernest from across the rim, squinting her eyes.

Finally unable to handle it, Ernest says with a sigh, “Well yeah it’s a long stretch but isn’t it better than nothing?”

“Do you guys even want to deal with that kind of intrigue?” interjects Margarette. “I know we have always had to deal with a bit of that but isn’t it a bit of a stretch?”

Marvin finally cuts into the conversation while cutting into his third plate. “Not as much as you might think. Starting about what, six months ago, haven’t we been thrown into close call after close call? It seems a bit long of a cycle of misfortune to just be pure chance. But the thing is, everyone was having trouble right?”

“23 people and two entire teams since the start of the new year,” says Rory. “Let alone how many injuries kept certain people and groups out of service for any length of time, but that didn’t seem unusual until you mentioned something.”

“And did you know,” echos the voice of the Other from behind them, “one of the ways I play into various fears is that nobody really knows where I am or where I’m going?”

The hero’s party looks towards his voice and staccato steps as the Other strides into the room.

“If you want my advice-”

“Not generally,” mutters Marvin.

“If you think there’s a national problem, nobody generally expects the dead to be alive. I’m sure there was enough evidence left at the scene that the general populous would find it hard to believe someone survived losing that amount of blood in a fight with a dragon nonetheless. Ah, pardon me miss, I’m sitting next to you. And with the dragon missing as well, they’re known to be capricious and secretive, even the sadistic one, so it wouldn’t be a stretch to say nobody would actually know.”

“‘Do you want to live or do you want to die,’ was it?” Rory replies. “If we do go back after letting things cool down, is there any magic you can use on us to change appearances, permanently?”

“Oh~, magic you say,” says the Other, waggling his eyebrows. “I have just the thing!”

With a shout the other snaps his left forearm down and a pair of sunglasses appear. As he whips them open and places them on his face, his right hand dips into a pitcher of water on the table and slicks back his hair.

“Ta-da!”

Everyone, person and golem, stares at the Other for several seconds as he stays frozen with a grin and his arms wide open.

“You know,” says Margarette, leaning towards Rachel, “He does look more like a villain this way.”

“Right~”

“Totally.”

“About time.”

“Couldn’t agree more sir!”

“It’s an old trick but a good one.”

Rory, nonplussed 1 at this development, says in disbelief, “But you didn’t do anything! You still look the same!”

At this, Sebastian takes on a teaching voice to interrupt, “Ah, but he doesn’t! You may not know it but how a person dresses, walks, and talks, become a part of who they are whether they like it or not. It may be a bit extreme, but I was in show-biz, so I know a thing or two about convincing the audience you have more people in your troupe than you really do. Each of you pick a nobleman or woman in your head and imagine this. Change out their gallantry with clothes like you’re wearing, add a few holes and patches here and there, and smudge some soot on their hands and cheeks. Could you honestly say they were the person you started with, if you met that beggar on the street? If the royal guard met someone like that who said ‘I am the king!’ what do you think would happen?”

As Rory continues to struggle with his reluctant acceptance that it would be difficult to match the two persons at such extremes, Sebastian continues.

“A well trained eye can spot a person by how they walk if they know them well enough, so there’s no changing that for you. However, freckles and a hairstyle change for the girl, magic glasses and hair oil for the skeptic, a significant armor change for the hero, and a shoulder pet for Ernest, new clothes for all, let alone in six months after everyone believes you’re dead, they may not recognize you if you went back tomorrow.”

Rachel tilts her head slightly and says, “So, should I learn to spit or something as well? Would that help?”

Ernest laughs and says, “What, are you finally going through your rebellious 10 year old phase?”

While Rachel glares at him and puffs out her cheeks, Sebastian honestly responds, “If you can handle it, you may even want to learn to swear regularly too.”

As Ernest doubles over in laughter, Marvin speaks up. “It sounds like at the very least taking the long way back will give us more time to think and plan.”

“Great!” says the other, clapping his hands and throwing a piece of fruit in his mouth. “It seems like you’re making progress, so if you decide to leave before I get back, here’s some parting gifts for you. If you’re still around tomorrow, I’ll join you for breakfast. Probably.”

Handing out widgets and polygonal fruit to the non-golem members of the table, the Other stands up and heads off down one of the corridors.

[1] nonplussed - surprised and confused to the point of being unsure how to react