The coin drops

	“She’s in the forest!” Lumira said desperately.  She looked to Viri, but Viri, to Lumira’s horror, was looking at the people with cuts on their bodies in disgust.

	“Linus… could this Maw Demon… thing have anything to do with Slicce?” Viri asked.

	Linus considered that.  “Possibly.”

	“Would Lumira know anything about that?  She was here the whole time, and with me in the Feywild before that,” Viri pointed out carefully.

	“No.”  Linus squinted.  “Of course Lumira isn’t responsible for your attack, Viri.  Is Slicce?  She appears to have mutated claws.  There are Abyssal energies that can cause that.”

	Lumira sidled towards the exit, but Linus took a long step to block it.  “Where do you think you’re going?” Linus said coldly.

	She clenched her fists.  “Away from you, you madman!”

	“Why don’t we ask the people you mind-controlled what they think of that suggestion?” Linus said darkly.

	“She didn’t mean to,” Viri said unhappily, but Linus looked at her with a cold glimmer in his eye.

	“Did you not specifically say she went out to stop it and then rejoined it instead?” he asked pointedly.

	“Because Slicce asked me to!” Lumira protested.

	Linus rolled his eyes.  “What a sterling and justifiable excuse.”  He turned to Viri.  “At the risk of sounding callous, I am disinterested in the excuses of your bodyguard.”  He released his grip on his sword.  “Duty compels me to punish the wicked.”

	“I did what comes naturally!” Lumira said.  The shake in her voice robbed her moral outrage of its fiber.  Linus snorted.

	“Sure.”  He looked pointedly at the groups of her victims being led to their homes by guards, tending to their wounds, or holding their stomachs in pain.  “Naturally.”  He turned back to Viri.  “Viri, I’m terribly sorry that your visit to me has turned into such a disaster, but I’m afraid that if there’s a corrupted satyr on the loose here, in addition to the one who should have just known better,” he added, glaring at Lumira, “I can’t stay.  I have to go find Slicce and fight her.”

	“Do you, though?  It’s not safe.”  Viri looked sadly at all the hurt people.  “Can’t there just be a bit less violence?”

	“Viri, my friend, think about that,” Linus said.  “She had to wait until Lumira was leaving the village before she could approach.  Then she had to sneak into the walls to come here.  If she weren’t up to no good, why would she feel the need to be covert?”

	“Because she was afraid of you Paladin thugs,” Lumira snapped.

	“I wasn’t even here.  I also hosted you and others at a party here several months ago with no trouble, even after one of you started a non-magical orgy at the tavern,” Linus pointed out.  “No.  Slicce is involved in this, one way or another.  First all the disappearances on the road, then a demon attack, then she just happens to be here when things go mad?”  He shook his head.  “Lumira said she met Slicce at the exact spot where you were walking to get a snack an hour later, but somehow she never saw this Maw Demon?  Nonsense.”  He turned to Lumira and leveled an accusatory finger.  “You are no citizen of the Alliance, Lumira, but you are still guilty of who knows how many crimes of influence by magic, possibly much worse.”

	The satyress crossed her arms.  “Who appointed you judge arbiter?” she asked curtly.

	“Lord Dagult Neverember and the Council of Waterdeep, by the vested authority of the Lords’ Alliance,” Linus said at once.  “I hereby exile you from the grounds of Conyberry and its vassal lands, by punishment of hanging, under the banner of the Lords and the power of the Triad.  You have one hour to collect your belongings, close your tab at the inn, and leave forever.”

	Viri’s eyes flew wide open, and she clapped her hands over her mouth.  Lumira scowled.  “You arrogant Prime brute!  I gave these people a good time and that’s my reward?”

	“Utter another word of defiance and I feed you a cold iron javelin,” Linus said flatly.  Lumira took a look at the glinting metal weapons strapped to his back and took a hasty step towards the door.  Linus stood aside and let her go.

	“Should’ve gutted the bitch,” one of the revelers said from the corner.

	Viri grabbed Linus’ arm.  “What are you doing?  She’s my protector!” she protested.

	“And a bloody good job she’s done,” Linus said coldly.

	Viri looked away.  “How could…” she started to ask, when the soft sobs of the half-elf siblings caught her ear.  She glanced at them to see the brother shivering under his blanket, staring at himself in blank horror, while the sister just shook and sobbed, her head in her hands.  Viri’s protests faded.

	“Perhaps… we do not belong in this world,” Viri said slowly.  It hurt like a punch to the heart, but she said it anyway.

	Linus felt a sudden surge of emotion.  His eyes welled up.  She was so innocent.  “No, Viridian, that is not what I meant,” he said heavily.  “You are clearly beyond reproach.  But satyrs are not trustworthy if they are not bound by magic, and I’m sorry you had to see why first-hand.”

	“When they throw their revels in the Feywild, it makes us all so happy,” she said in a small, aching voice.

	“I wish she had noticed that this is not the Feywild in time to stop herself,” Linus said heavily.  “I am so sorry that your trip here has been marred by such things.”  He removed a glove and rested his hand on her shoulder.  She flinched away.  “Let’s go.  We can still talk for a while.”


	Lumira grabbed the money bag from her room and threw it into the pouch she had tied around her waist.  Her eyes stung with tears.  That selfish Prime!  That boring, fun-killing human!  That… that… PALADIN!

	She all but slammed the door off its hinges as she shut it and stomped down the stairs, blowing past the glowering innkeeper and out into the square.  She turned to the gate and walked towards it, still fuming.

	Something hard slapped against the back of her neck.  “You fucking animal!” a voice shouted.  “Get the fuck out of this town!”

	Lumira scrambled to her feet, one hand cradling her injured neck.  There was one of the partygoers, one of the women who had trailed the drummer around, with a handful of rocks.  Lumira felt a jolt in her stomach as she saw the number of people gathering around her.

	Linus waded through the crowd and deftly grabbed the rocks out of the hands of the woman, who glared at him and said something Lumira didn’t hear.  She took her chance and all but ran for the gates.


	Outside, she stomped past the guards, then buried her head in her hands.  Despite all her rage, she couldn’t quite quash the tiniest spark of guilt at what she had seen.  It was true, she was just obeying her nature, but Viri had convinced her to stop before…

	Before…

	Lumira paused her stomping about.  What had Slicce done?  Slicce had been powerful enough to override her control of the revel’s magic, while Lumira had barely been enough to keep it going by herself with those boys helping her.  Slicce had been talented, but not that talented.

	And then, when they had woken up in the field, Slicce had said…

	Lumira felt the earth drop out from under her.  Slicce and she had been in the fields.  In the fields.  OUTSIDE the village.

	Lumira spun back around to stare at the village in shock.  How had she done that?  She was pacted to Viridian.  How was she able to have moved that far from her without pain?  How had Viridian not felt the drunkenness that Lumira had felt, so strongly that it had overwhelmed even her satyr nature?

	More importantly, how had she been so tired after just one conversation with Slicce to manage to sleep through the pain she had had given to her through her sympathetic bond to Viridian when the demon had punched her?  Lumira staggered.

	Then she turned and ran, as fast as she could, through the farm fields to the south, away from the village and the trees and the river.  She ran and ran, until she had to stop, and doubled over, panting.  When she straightened up and looked back at the village, she felt nothing.  She didn’t feel her pact summoning her back to the village.  She didn’t feel the lingering ache in her jaw from Viridian’s lost tooth.  She felt nothing.


	Viri and Linus slowly walked past the gate, both quiet and heavy-hearted.  “My friend, I’m sorry,” Linus said softly.  “This is all a mess.”

	“I just can’t believe she did that,” Viridian replied in the same tone.  “And she tried to justify it.”

	“Most people who do bad things try to justify, to avoid taking blame.”  Linus would have continued, but then he saw Lumira running up to them from the south.

	“Viri!  Viri, quick!” Lumira panted.

	“Huh?”  Viri blinked.  Her friend was sheened with sweat.  “What?”

	“Pinch yourself!” Lumira managed.  She doubled over, heaving for air.  “Pinch yourself, quickly!”

	Viri boggled.  Linus looked back and forth in confusion.  Was he translating their Sylvan correctly?  “Er, I don’t understand,” Viri said nervously.

	“I can’t sense you through my pact magic!” Lumira said raggedly.  “Please!”

	“Oh…” Viri blinked again as realization dawned.  She reached down and grabbed a little twig from where the logs of the forest had been dragged to build the walls, and pressed it firmly into her arm.  She winced with pain.

	Lumira shuddered.  “Nothing!  I don’t feel anything!”

	Linus looked back and forth, nonplussed, but Viri gasped.  “Something is breaking your pact magic here?” Viri guessed.

	“Did you feel it when I got drunk last night?” Lumira demanded.

	“No…”

	“And I don’t feel the pain from your jaw any more!  Something’s been slowly wearing down the spell that binds us since we got here!” Lumira said.  She drew in a long, deep, steadying breath.

	Linus looked to the trees.  Slicce wasn’t there.  “I wonder if it’s the same thing causing Slicce’s mutation,” he mused.  “I wonder if it will do the same to you if you stay.”

	Lumira shuddered.  She hated Linus, but she hated the thought of losing herself more.

	“Maybe we should investigate her new tempt,” Viri said nervously.

	“And by we, you mean Linus and the Farview lads,” Linus said.  “If there’s an Abyssal taint present so intense that it’s overriding planar Law magic, then there isn’t another person for a hundred miles that can handle it.”  He blinked.  “Except for one.”