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“Urgh this suuuucks.”
“You were the one who led to this entire state of affairs you realise?”
“I know, but how was I supposed to know it was going to end up like this?”
Caleb laughed softly, his hands buried in Frumpkin’s soft white fur as they sat at the long table. He looked completely unbothered by what was going on and Beau resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at him. While Beau, member of the Mighty Nein, could have easily gotten away with fighting with Caleb even here, Beauregard Lionett, Expositor and lead investigator into Trent Ikithon, probably couldn’t. Somehow it seemed when you gained responsibility they also expected you to have things like dignity and solemnity. She settled instead for kicking him lightly under the table just to watch him wince; he was such a squish even now, and turning to glance up at the clock again. Caleb followed her gaze.
“Allura said they might be a little late, ja?”
“Mmmm. But that was like, six hours ago.”
“Twenty seven minutes actually.”
“Don’t make me actually punch you out a window. I hate meetings. Especially formal meetings. Especially formal meetings where we have to talk about things. Especially formal meetings where we have to talk about things to people that I’ve never met. How come you aren’t more nervous, you’re going to have to talk too!”
Caleb shrugged, somehow indicating that he was unbothered both by her threat and the looming prospect of having to talk to a bunch of strangers about Trent Ikithon. She narrowed her eyes at him.
“Did you get someone to cast Calm Emotions on you beforehand or something?”
“Nein, just…I am simply here as the evidence. You are the one who has to explain your findings and investigation. And question the Lord and Lady. I can simply sit here and ignore it all.”
Any response to that Beau might have made, which would have included that he was not evidence, was not going to leave her alone to do all the talking and she expected some fucking back up while interrogating the Lord and Lady, was lost as the conference room door finally swung open and Allura came in, followed by the two people that might have some of the answers Beau was looking for. She scanned them both quickly, automatically checking for threats and information.
Allura looked the same as always, maybe a little happier than Beau might have expected considering the circumstances. She was turning to reply something to the beautiful half elven woman following behind, with long dark hair neatly tied back and piercingly bright eyes. She had a feather tucked into her hair and a long knife strapped to her side. Following her came a tall human man, with white hair and round glasses. He had a long, well made blue coat on and half hidden under it was a holster with a device Beau had only seen a couple of times before, and never one as intricate and deadly looking as this one. It certainly looked like he knew how to use the gun better than Nott had. And…there was something familiar about him as well…she frowned at him, trying to place where she’d seen his face before. Maybe he was one of the people her father had traded with when she was young?
“Lord and Lady de Rolo, this is the Wizard Caleb Widogast and Beauregard Lionett, Expositor. They have some information and questions about the Residuum from Whitestone. Caleb and Beau, these are Lord Percival de Rolo and Lady Vex'ahlia, rulers of Whitestone.”
“A pleasure.” The lady said, taking a seat opposite Caleb and giving him a sharp look up and down. Caleb, Beau was pleased to note, didn’t shrink back but met her look calmly, though she could see his fingers tightening their grip on Frumpkin. After a moment passed Lady Vex’ahlia smiled, something that changed her whole demeanour from haughty arrogance to confident but understanding leader of people. Lord Percival waited until his wife and Allura were seated before placing himself opposite Beau, staring at her with an intensity she found a little odd.
“Have we met before?” She asked bluntly. She didn’t recall ever meeting a fifty year old white haired man with a gun before, and she had definitely never been to Whitestone before but…he did look increasingly familiar the more she looked at him.
“I don’t believe so.” He said after a moment. “I think we both would have recalled that meeting.”
A slightly awkward silence fell. Beau definitely had the impression that he knew something, and that his words had been rather pointed, as though he expected her to grasp something. But what it was she wasn’t yet certain. She almost blanked out Allura beginning to talk again, fetching out the scrolls of evidence against Trent Ikithon and the paper trail that Beau and the other members of the Cobalt Soul had so painstakingly hunted down over the past year or so.
Most of the discussion centred around how Trent Ikithon had managed to get hold of enough residuum to perform his grotesque experiments and why it wasn’t being more carefully kept track of. Beau led the questioning against the de Rolo’s, determined to find out why they had been just passing around such a powerful and dangerous substance without checking who was receiving it.
“When exactly did he receive the Residuum?” Lord Percival asked, flipping through the notebooks that had been found in Trent’s quarters and looking more and more disturbed by some of the things written there.
“We’re not entirely certain, that’s one of the reasons we had to call you here.” Allura said, glancing through her own notes and writing. “We were hoping you might have some records of who buys or trades it, dates, people, anything like that.”
The two rulers of Whitestone exchanged a glance and then Lady Vex'ahlia turned to them with a slight shrug.
“I’m sorry, but we don’t have all the complete records, as I said it depends on when he bought the damned stuff.”
“You don’t keep records of the movement of the Residuum?” Caleb asked, speaking up for the first time.
“We do, but unfortunately the records from before the rebellion are, quite frankly, non-existent. If this Ikithon got hold of the substance while the Briarwoods were in power then the paper trail might end there.” She said.
“Which means we would have no idea how much of it he removed or when and where he took it.” Lord Percival agreed, snapping shut the notebook with force and looking disgusted by what he had just been reading.
“It was at least fifteen years ago, but it could have been longer than that.” Caleb said softly, eyes drifting to the long sleeves covering the many many scars.
“Could you find out?” Beau asked. They seemed sincere enough, but she wasn’t going to trust them, especially with the way Lord Percival kept looking over at her whenever he wasn’t distracted by something else. Normally she would just have put it down as some gross pervy old man eyeing her up but he seemed much more thoughtful and calculating than lustful. And he had a super fucking hot wife anyway so she doubted he was looking for anything else. But it was still setting her on edge.
“If we had a sample perhaps, we could at least narrow down the timeframe. Or if you could find out how much he took, whether it was one order or several over time…” He shrugged, pushing his glasses up as he looked at her.
Beau glanced at Caleb, who had gone very quiet at the mention of a sample, fingers twitching as though he wanted to start scratching his wrists again. Frumpkin purred harder, butting his head against Caleb's hands and Beau clenched her teeth.
“We’ll see what we can do.” Allura was saying, looking pensive. “Perhaps there are more records hidden away, he was a very secretive man, he hid all his tracks very well.”
“Perhaps. I’m sorry we couldn’t have been of more help.”
“Not at all, thank you for coming by on such short notice, especially right now.”
“Not a problem, after all the help you’ve given us in the past we would never refuse a request like this from you.” Lady Vex’ahlia said, smiling at Allura who shook her head.
“Nonsense, this kingdom owes Vox Machina a debt that might never be repaid, you owe us nothing.”
“I wasn’t talking about a debt to the kingdom, I was talking about a debt to you in particular, Allura. It was easy enough to be on our side when we were powerful and well known, it was less easy to stand up for us when we were nobodies with a string of bad luck to our name.”
“Wait, Vox Machina?” Beau asked, sitting up straight as she looked at them. “You two are part of Vox Machina?”
“Well yes.” Lady Vex'ahlia was saying but Beau had swung around to stare at Lord Percival again. He looked so different, so much older, she hadn’t put it together until now, until the name had jogged her memory.
The battlefield had been strange and ugly, and the deep seated fury at having to fight and kill people just because some all powerful being had asked it of her, for nothing but entertainment; had warred with the burning need to protect her friends and the knowledge that the other group were gunning for them just as hard. She remembered fighting a group just as strange and powerful and utterly insane as the Mighty Nein were, remembered two small gnomes and a half elf who just hadn’t stayed in one place long enough for her to get a good hit on him for ages. That was where she had seen him before, standing across from her and raising that gun! Six bullets speeding towards her, a haughty dismissive tone followed by a surprisingly feral grin and a battle that had been as exhilarating as it was deadly. The wife hadn’t been there that time, but now she was looking she could definitely see a resemblance to the irritating raven man with the seemingly endless supply of daggers.
“Rich boy!” She hissed, rising to her feet.
“Ah, so it is you.” He sounded pleased that she knew who he was, and made no move at all to get to his feet or reach for his weapon. Caleb, Allura and Vex’ahlia were all looking confused and tense, preparing for things to devolve in an instant.
“Learned to catch a bullet in your teeth yet?”
“That depends, learned to actually hit something yet?”
“Oh I’m a very good shot.”
“Could have fooled me, what was it, six bullets?”
“I hit with four of them.”
“Only two of which did damage!” She pointed out smugly, pleased at the slight look of irritation.
“Yes, catching a bullet is a neat trick.” He frowned, looking down at the gun strapped to his side.
“I’ve got plenty of others.” She retorted, sitting back in her chair and folding her arms. Caleb was looking between the two of them unsurely as Allura leaned forward and asked.
“You two have met before then?”
“Oh yes, about thirty years ago.” Percival said.
“Thirty years! It was less than two!”
“Mmmm, a bit longer for me I think. Which is why I wasn’t certain if it was you.”
“Percy darling, would you mind telling the rest of us what the fuck you are talking about?”
“Oh, we just got into a death match and he tried to shoot me and I fucking lived!”
“You did murder Scanlan, and you were doing your best to kill myself.”
“Eh, he got better.” She assumed that was the gnome’s name. “And I never actually killed you. None of us did actually.”
“Did you know he was going to get better?”
“Hey, you almost killed Fjord! Self defence pal, self defence!”
“Likewise.”
He still hadn’t gone for his gun, or shown any real fear of her, and Beau supposed that meant he didn’t actually hold any hard feelings about what had happened; though she was also positive that it would have been very different if his friends hadn’t been brought back at the end of it all. They paused, staring at each other challengingly before Beau blurted out.
“So, can you try again?”
“What?”
“I wanna catch more bullets! That was like, the most super epic thing ever! C’mon, it’ll be fun!”
“You’re…asking me to shoot you. With my gun. That kills people.”
“Well it’s not like you’re a good enough shot to actually hit me anyway…” Oh, and there was that familiar look of irritation on his face.
“I am certainly good enough to shoot you.”
“Even if you were, I’d just catch them again.”
“Oh, learned to grow four extra hands have you?”
“...maybe. But just get a healer or two on hand, you try and shoot me, I try and punch you in the head, a good time will be had by all.”
“Hold on,” Lady Vex’ahlia broke in, “There will be no punching of my husband in the head thank you very much. He needs all the brain power he has left. And preferably no shooting either.”
“Uh, ja. No shooting Beau please. Again?”
“I can’t wait to tell Jester I met you again! She’s gonna be thrilled! Maybe we can get Fjord to go T-Rex again!”
Her musings were cut short as Percy laughed, pushing his glasses up his nose and looking nothing more than amused at the whole conversation.
“This is just delightful, Grog is going to be so pleased, probably Scanlan as well. I simply must invite you all to Whitestone, whenever you please, consider it an open invitation.”
“And then we can practise the catching bullet thing.”
“And then we can practise catching bullets. Though no punching please, I’m far too old for that nonsense.” He ignored the objections from both Caleb and his wife as he smiled at her and Beau couldn’t help grinning back.
“I always thought you would be an insane weirdo too.”
“Well, it takes one to know one.”