The walk to the Silver Gilder was about half an hour, which wasn’t bad by itself, but considering how many books Analia had, it was going to take all day to haul her stuff to the new house. Nym wondered if he could talk her into renting a cart or something. He could probably use air magic to lighten the load enough that it wouldn’t be too difficult to haul.
Navarim followed closely, a slight glow of arcana around him the whole way. He was taking his bodyguard job seriously, even though neither of them knew much about what he was supposed to do. He walked far too close to Nym’s back for about ten minutes before Nym got annoyed and told him to stop.
“Just walk next to me like a normal person,” he instructed Navarim.
Things were much more natural then, and they both relaxed. When they got to the inn, Navarim went in first, and they went upstairs together. Nym started to knock on Analia’s door, but hesitated. He took a deep breath, hesitated again, and then steeled his will. Before he could actually knock, she jerked the door open and said, “What are you doing lurking in the hall?”
“I was just about to knock,” Nym protested.
“Oh yeah? How long have you been standing in front of my door?”
“I don’t know, a few seconds?”
“More than a few.”
“How would you even know?” Nym asked.
“When you got kidnapped, I decided maybe it would be a good idea to keep a better eye on what was going on around me. There’s an air golem floating down at the end of the hall watching us. There’s another one on the roof too.”
“You’re up to two golems now?” Nym said, surprised. “Congratulations!”
“It is completely exhausting. I don’t understand how you can keep three or four of these running at the same time,” she said. “No way I could do it with anything but air.”
“Still though, nice job.”
“Thanks, but don’t try to change the subject! What happened? Also who is this guy?”
“This is Navarim. He’s going to be helping keep us safe at the new house?”
Analia gave Navarim a scrutinizing look, to which the mage just looked back at her, boredom evident in his posture. “Okay, you get in here,” she told Nym. Then she pointed at Navarim and added, “You can wait out here.”
“Up to Nym,” the mage said.
“It’s fine. I’m just going to help pack up some books.”
“Sure, take your time. Lot of books in there,” Navarim said, peering over Analia’s shoulder into her room. She bristled, but Nym hurried her back through the door. He tripped over a stack of books in the process, and swore quietly while clutching at his knee where it smacked against the bed frame.
“Okay, the quick and dirty version of this for now,” he said. “Some people thought I knew some stuff I didn’t, we got that all cleared up, I’m working on a government contract now, but it’s classified and I can’t give you any details. I got us new housing out of the deal, so we can stop being cramped in these rooms and save a bit of money.”
Analia stared at him for a moment, then said, “How much of that is true?”
“Technically? All of it. Kind of.”
She squinted at him and said, “Yeah, we’re not done with this conversation, but we can hold off on it until later. Tell me about the new bodyguard.”
“Friend from before I came to Abilanth. I think they assigned him to guard me because I already knew him and they figured I would trust him.”
“Do you trust him?” she asked.
“Not particularly,” Nym replied. “I mean… I trust him to not let me get kidnapped without a fight, but I don’t trust that he’d be more loyal to me than to the- to our employer.”
He had been about to say ‘the Collective’ when something had physically forced his mouth to reshape the word. The power of the geas he’d agreed to was a bit scary. It had interfered so smoothly that he hadn’t even had a chance to think about resisting when it took control of him. Nym instantly decided that he hated it.
“And who is this employer?” she asked.
“Military project,” Nym said. This time he managed it on his own.
“Who’s in charge?” Analia asked.
Nym didn’t say anything. He wasn’t even sure if he could.
Analia regarded him silently for a few seconds, then slowly, she said, “Nym, have you been geased?”
Once again, the answer was silence. She waited for him to answer, and when he didn’t, she started swearing. “Okay, we’re going to have to tease the information out of you. The geas isn’t going to let you just tell me, that’s pretty standard procedure.”
“How do you know about geases?” Nym asked.
“I’m a member of a noble family. This is standard training. Let’s see. First question: are you still in danger?”
“No.”
“Are you compelled to lie?”
“Uh… no?”
“Are you under a geas?”
Nym didn’t say anything.
“So you can’t lie, but you also can’t answer on topics you’re not allowed to talk about. That sounds like a standard confidentiality geas we use on servants and employees that are given access to sensitive information, and not a particularly binding one. Those force you to lie to cover them up.”
“Analia, can we please drop this?”
“Not a chance,” she told him bluntly. “I cannot picture a scenario where you’d willingly agree to be geased, which means you were coerced into it. This is going to be a long, frustrating conversation, but I need to know all the details so we can figure out how to break it.”
“You can break a geas?” Nym asked, surprised.
“Theoretically? I’m not sure exactly how, but I know it’s not easy. I might have to actually reach out to my father for help. Damn, I don’t want to do that.”
Now Nym could practically feel the geas compelling him to keep his mouth shut. Analia didn’t seem to notice this time, probably because she was so caught up in thinking about her family that she’d stopped paying attention to him.
“Analia, can we talk about this later? I promise that this isn’t a trap, I’m not in any immediate danger from my new employer, and that I will do my best to cooperate with all your questions once we get settled.”
She gave him a long, hard stare, then said, “I paid for your room last night when you disappeared. Your stuff should all be untouched in there. Let’s get everything packed up.”
* * *
Nym had significantly underestimated the number of books they could take in one trip. Her trunk was full of mostly personal stuff, but he hoped that once it was emptied out, it would hold most of her collection. He supposed they’d find out soon enough. He ended up hauling it, because of course he did, but at least with Navarim around, nobody stopped to question the blatant use of magic.
They made their way through town to the house, which took almost twice as long now that the sun was fully up and people were about their business. Eventually though, they did make it to the new house, Analia’s trunk in tow. She paused when they got there and looked curiously at the business right next door.
“Is this a menagerie? How fun!”
“Really? You like that?” Nym asked. “I thought for sure you’d complain about the smell and the noises.”
“Of all the cute animals? Of course not. I’ll have to make some time to go browse their collection and see what’s for sale soon.”
“Huh,” Nym said. “Well, okay then. One less problem.”
While Analia was unpacking her stuff into the room she’d picked out, Nym got a message from Ophelia. [Nym, Analia told us you were under a geas, but that you’re back home safe. We’ll be there this afternoon to try to figure out how to break you out of it. Don’t worry, you’re not alone in this.]
Even in his own thoughts, Nym couldn’t speak of the geas. As much as he wanted to respond to the heartfelt message, all he could say was, [Thank you. I’ll be here and I’ll make sure to get the pastries.]
Three trips later, they’d finally cleared out both rooms and returned the keys to the innkeeper. The Silver Gilder was officially no longer their home. Nym sat at the table, sweat dripping down his forehead and exhausted from the heat. “It’s so hot out,” he moaned. “Can we do just a little blizzard? Just for a bit?”
“What do you mean?” Navarim asked.
In response, Nym wove together the snow making spell in the middle of the sitting room and let it start filling the interior of the house with cold air and snow. Almost immediately, it started cooling down. Nym relaxed into his chair and said, “That’s so much better.”
“Do you think you could modify it to not generate snow?” Analia said, annoyed as she brushed some off the book she was reading. Nym got a look at the cover as she waved it around, Bound by Geas. It looked like she had no plans to drop that line of questioning.
“Probably,” he said. “I’ll work on it I guess. Not right now though. I’m tired.”
“Didn’t you promise pastries?” she reminded him.
“Yes… yes I did. Damn.”
The trip to the bakery was uncomfortably warm, and by the time he got back to the house with Navarim, it was just as hot as it had been before the miniature blizzard. Navarim was left to lounge in the sitting room while Analia dragged Nym off to continue working on puzzling out the shape of the geas via the technique of asking a thousand questions.
The Earth Shapers showed up in the late afternoon. Everyone gathered in the sitting room for a meeting, where Analia announced the results of her questioning. “From what I can tell, Nym is currently geased with prohibitions against talking about the geas, talking about his new employer, and talking about any sort of details about the job. He was coerced into it, and it has some standard refresher clauses in it. I believe the new employer is the same organization that kidnapped him two nights ago. The job isn’t really a military contract, but it is somehow involved in the military. The bodyguard is under a similar geas.”
“Is it dangerous to him?” Ophelia asked.
“Not unless he tries to break it. Then the geas will try to stop him. They can be very aggressive if Nym tries to put himself in a situation where his only option is to violate it, up to the point of killing him before letting him betray the terms of the geas.”
“That does not sound good,” Bildar said. “And Nym can’t say anything at all?”
Nym sat there, mute, and watched them all talk.
Analia shook her head. “He can’t even acknowledge that it exists. Fortunately, the geas isn’t compelling him to lie to cover it up, otherwise it would be much more difficult to tease out the truth of it. If we can think of the right questions to ask, we can puzzle out the whole thing.”
“Wow, you got a raw deal,” Nomick told Nym.
Nym thought for a second, and then carefully and deliberately said, “I am trying to fix my matrix.”
Navarim, who’d been mostly amused by the conversation and hadn’t said much other than introducing himself, whipped around from where he’d been standing in the kitchen to stare at Nym. Slowly, eyes wide, he shook his head ever so slightly. No one else was facing towards the kitchen, so Nym was the only one who saw.
The other mage must have thought the comment was too close to relating to the Collective, and he seemed kind of scared now, so Nym just settled back into his extremely comfortable chair and didn’t say anything else while the rest of the group discussed the geas. It wasn’t like there was much to add to the conversation anyway. His friends continued to debate how best to break the geas while Navarim just shook his head in the background.
The walk to the Silver Gilder was about half an hour, which wasn’t bad by itself, but considering how many books Analia had, it was going to take all day to haul her stuff to the new house. Nym wondered if he could talk her into renting a cart or something. He could probably use air magic to lighten the load enough that it wouldn’t be too difficult to haul.
Navarim followed closely, a slight glow of arcana around him the whole way. He was taking his bodyguard job seriously, even though neither of them knew much about what he was supposed to do. He walked far too close to Nym’s back for about ten minutes before Nym got annoyed and told him to stop.
“Just walk next to me like a normal person,” he instructed Navarim.
Things were much more natural then, and they both relaxed. When they got to the inn, Navarim went in first, and they went upstairs together. Nym started to knock on Analia’s door, but hesitated. He took a deep breath, hesitated again, and then steeled his will. Before he could actually knock, she jerked the door open and said, “What are you doing lurking in the hall?”
“I was just about to knock,” Nym protested.
“Oh yeah? How long have you been standing in front of my door?”
“I don’t know, a few seconds?”
“More than a few.”
“How would you even know?” Nym asked.
“When you got kidnapped, I decided maybe it would be a good idea to keep a better eye on what was going on around me. There’s an air golem floating down at the end of the hall watching us. There’s another one on the roof too.”
“You’re up to two golems now?” Nym said, surprised. “Congratulations!”
“It is completely exhausting. I don’t understand how you can keep three or four of these running at the same time,” she said. “No way I could do it with anything but air.”
“Still though, nice job.”
“Thanks, but don’t try to change the subject! What happened? Also who is this guy?”
“This is Navarim. He’s going to be helping keep us safe at the new house?”
Analia gave Navarim a scrutinizing look, to which the mage just looked back at her, boredom evident in his posture. “Okay, you get in here,” she told Nym. Then she pointed at Navarim and added, “You can wait out here.”
“Up to Nym,” the mage said.
“It’s fine. I’m just going to help pack up some books.”
“Sure, take your time. Lot of books in there,” Navarim said, peering over Analia’s shoulder into her room. She bristled, but Nym hurried her back through the door. He tripped over a stack of books in the process, and swore quietly while clutching at his knee where it smacked against the bed frame.
“Okay, the quick and dirty version of this for now,” he said. “Some people thought I knew some stuff I didn’t, we got that all cleared up, I’m working on a government contract now, but it’s classified and I can’t give you any details. I got us new housing out of the deal, so we can stop being cramped in these rooms and save a bit of money.”
Analia stared at him for a moment, then said, “How much of that is true?”
“Technically? All of it. Kind of.”
She squinted at him and said, “Yeah, we’re not done with this conversation, but we can hold off on it until later. Tell me about the new bodyguard.”
“Friend from before I came to Abilanth. I think they assigned him to guard me because I already knew him and they figured I would trust him.”
“Do you trust him?” she asked.
“Not particularly,” Nym replied. “I mean… I trust him to not let me get kidnapped without a fight, but I don’t trust that he’d be more loyal to me than to the- to our employer.”
He had been about to say ‘the Collective’ when something had physically forced his mouth to reshape the word. The power of the geas he’d agreed to was a bit scary. It had interfered so smoothly that he hadn’t even had a chance to think about resisting when it took control of him. Nym instantly decided that he hated it.
“And who is this employer?” she asked.
“Military project,” Nym said. This time he managed it on his own.
“Who’s in charge?” Analia asked.
Nym didn’t say anything. He wasn’t even sure if he could.
Analia regarded him silently for a few seconds, then slowly, she said, “Nym, have you been geased?”
Once again, the answer was silence. She waited for him to answer, and when he didn’t, she started swearing. “Okay, we’re going to have to tease the information out of you. The geas isn’t going to let you just tell me, that’s pretty standard procedure.”
“How do you know about geases?” Nym asked.
“I’m a member of a noble family. This is standard training. Let’s see. First question: are you still in danger?”
“No.”
“Are you compelled to lie?”
“Uh… no?”
“Are you under a geas?”
Nym didn’t say anything.
“So you can’t lie, but you also can’t answer on topics you’re not allowed to talk about. That sounds like a standard confidentiality geas we use on servants and employees that are given access to sensitive information, and not a particularly binding one. Those force you to lie to cover them up.”
“Analia, can we please drop this?”
“Not a chance,” she told him bluntly. “I cannot picture a scenario where you’d willingly agree to be geased, which means you were coerced into it. This is going to be a long, frustrating conversation, but I need to know all the details so we can figure out how to break it.”
“You can break a geas?” Nym asked, surprised.
“Theoretically? I’m not sure exactly how, but I know it’s not easy. I might have to actually reach out to my father for help. Damn, I don’t want to do that.”
Now Nym could practically feel the geas compelling him to keep his mouth shut. Analia didn’t seem to notice this time, probably because she was so caught up in thinking about her family that she’d stopped paying attention to him.
“Analia, can we talk about this later? I promise that this isn’t a trap, I’m not in any immediate danger from my new employer, and that I will do my best to cooperate with all your questions once we get settled.”
She gave him a long, hard stare, then said, “I paid for your room last night when you disappeared. Your stuff should all be untouched in there. Let’s get everything packed up.”
* * *
Nym had significantly underestimated the number of books they could take in one trip. Her trunk was full of mostly personal stuff, but he hoped that once it was emptied out, it would hold most of her collection. He supposed they’d find out soon enough. He ended up hauling it, because of course he did, but at least with Navarim around, nobody stopped to question the blatant use of magic.
They made their way through town to the house, which took almost twice as long now that the sun was fully up and people were about their business. Eventually though, they did make it to the new house, Analia’s trunk in tow. She paused when they got there and looked curiously at the business right next door.
“Is this a menagerie? How fun!”
“Really? You like that?” Nym asked. “I thought for sure you’d complain about the smell and the noises.”
“Of all the cute animals? Of course not. I’ll have to make some time to go browse their collection and see what’s for sale soon.”
“Huh,” Nym said. “Well, okay then. One less problem.”
While Analia was unpacking her stuff into the room she’d picked out, Nym got a message from Ophelia. [Nym, Analia told us you were under a geas, but that you’re back home safe. We’ll be there this afternoon to try to figure out how to break you out of it. Don’t worry, you’re not alone in this.]
Even in his own thoughts, Nym couldn’t speak of the geas. As much as he wanted to respond to the heartfelt message, all he could say was, [Thank you. I’ll be here and I’ll make sure to get the pastries.]
Three trips later, they’d finally cleared out both rooms and returned the keys to the innkeeper. The Silver Gilder was officially no longer their home. Nym sat at the table, sweat dripping down his forehead and exhausted from the heat. “It’s so hot out,” he moaned. “Can we do just a little blizzard? Just for a bit?”
“What do you mean?” Navarim asked.
In response, Nym wove together the snow making spell in the middle of the sitting room and let it start filling the interior of the house with cold air and snow. Almost immediately, it started cooling down. Nym relaxed into his chair and said, “That’s so much better.”
“Do you think you could modify it to not generate snow?” Analia said, annoyed as she brushed some off the book she was reading. Nym got a look at the cover as she waved it around, Bound by Geas. It looked like she had no plans to drop that line of questioning.
“Probably,” he said. “I’ll work on it I guess. Not right now though. I’m tired.”
“Didn’t you promise pastries?” she reminded him.
“Yes… yes I did. Damn.”
The trip to the bakery was uncomfortably warm, and by the time he got back to the house with Navarim, it was just as hot as it had been before the miniature blizzard. Navarim was left to lounge in the sitting room while Analia dragged Nym off to continue working on puzzling out the shape of the geas via the technique of asking a thousand questions.
The Earth Shapers showed up in the late afternoon. Everyone gathered in the sitting room for a meeting, where Analia announced the results of her questioning. “From what I can tell, Nym is currently geased with prohibitions against talking about the geas, talking about his new employer, and talking about any sort of details about the job. He was coerced into it, and it has some standard refresher clauses in it. I believe the new employer is the same organization that kidnapped him two nights ago. The job isn’t really a military contract, but it is somehow involved in the military. The bodyguard is under a similar geas.”
“Is it dangerous to him?” Ophelia asked.
“Not unless he tries to break it. Then the geas will try to stop him. They can be very aggressive if Nym tries to put himself in a situation where his only option is to violate it, up to the point of killing him before letting him betray the terms of the geas.”
“That does not sound good,” Bildar said. “And Nym can’t say anything at all?”
Nym sat there, mute, and watched them all talk.
Analia shook her head. “He can’t even acknowledge that it exists. Fortunately, the geas isn’t compelling him to lie to cover it up, otherwise it would be much more difficult to tease out the truth of it. If we can think of the right questions to ask, we can puzzle out the whole thing.”
“Wow, you got a raw deal,” Nomick told Nym.
Nym thought for a second, and then carefully and deliberately said, “I am trying to fix my matrix.”
Navarim, who’d been mostly amused by the conversation and hadn’t said much other than introducing himself, whipped around from where he’d been standing in the kitchen to stare at Nym. Slowly, eyes wide, he shook his head ever so slightly. No one else was facing towards the kitchen, so Nym was the only one who saw.
The other mage must have thought the comment was too close to relating to the Collective, and he seemed kind of scared now, so Nym just settled back into his extremely comfortable chair and didn’t say anything else while the rest of the group discussed the geas. It wasn’t like there was much to add to the conversation anyway. His friends continued to debate how best to break the geas while Navarim just shook his head in the background.
