Keeping Up Appearances

Muld and Syndi prepare to do the Wizard's bidding.

8.

Keeping up Appearances

 

They had not slept at all the night before, but Muld and Syndi were too wound up to even miss it.     Following their conversation with the wizard, they had spent the night pacing around the apartment trying to figure out a way to highjack the Queen Eioldth and debating the ethics of such a move in their situation.

As much as they could without looking strange to someone spying on them with a scrying device, they spoke telepathically.

But Muld knew that the wizard would expect them to be upset and frantic, so he advised his fiancée to play the part.    So it was an odd night of two levels of communication between them.    The ‘public’ discussion they had which they expected the wizard to hear through his magic and private plans which they exchanged silently between them.

By morning, they had a plan.

* Remember, sweetheart, that wizard is almost definitely spying on us this morning with his crystal ball, so be very careful what you say.   He will expect you to be nervous, upset and a bit scared, but determined.*   Muld sent to her telepathically as they came down the stairs to the guild offices a bit before opening time.

*I’m certainly nervous and upset, and extremely scared.*

*Just stay as focused as you can, don’t worry, we’ll get through this.*

*I’m so glad you’re with me.*    She squeezed his hand.

*I’m here for the duration.*

*So have you figured out a viable excuse to get access to the airship?*

*I’m still working on it.   We need to say something to each other or the wizard will think it’s odd.*

“I wish we could say something to someone,” Syndi said, the image in her mind of a nefarious mage sitting in a darkened room peering into a crystal ball and listening to every word she spoke, “Hopefully nobody will think it odd that we just disappear for the day.”

“It’s a chance we have to take,”  Muld replied, while at the same time, telepathically sending *Hopefully Alleania will sense something is amiss when we go by there.*

 

They exited into the guild’s office, finding their four friends had just arrived.    All of them were attempting to dry off from the heavy downpour.

“Is it raining?”  Muld jested, which caused all four of them to give him sour looks.

“How are the two of you this morning?”  Tadd asked them.

“We’re fine,”  Muld quickly replied telepathically telling Syndi to smile.    Her attempt was rather forced, which of course the nosy Halfling sensed.

“You both looked a bit upset yesterday after you got that note during the tour of the ship,”   Tadd said, closely observing their reactions, “Is everything alright?”

“It was just some family problems,”   Syndi replied, not looking at any of them.    “I’d rather not discuss it.”

“In fact,” Muld added, “We’ve got to attend to some business relating to that, so we’re not going to be here today… and probably tomorrow as well.”

The sighs and frowns were subtle, but Muld didn’t blame them.    The four of them were working hard and they probably thought it was unfair.   But what choice did they have?

“I will make it up to all of you,” Muld said, “For every day Syndi and I have not been working, I will give each of you a paid day off when we get this business settled.   I just ask you four to bear with us.     You four will be in charge and I give you the authority to make any decision in my absence.    Just vote on anything where the four of you disagree, and go with the majority vote.   I’m quite sure you’ll do the right thing.”

“It sounds like you plan on being gone longer than a couple of days, boss,”   Mutt commented.

“I hope this can be all settled quickly, but that might not be possible.”

“Is there some kind of trouble?” Rick asked, glancing at Jevon, who just looked down at his papers.

“No, nothing to concern you.”

“Is there anything we can do to assist you?”   Jevon asked, looking up to stare Muld square in the eyes.

Muld was surprised when he ‘heard’ Jevon project a thought at him.    I know what is going on, Muld, he thought, I met up with the Changeling girl and she told me all that she knew.

Muld pretended to be glancing at some invoices on his desk and mentally sent back, a quick telepathic message.

*Syndi’s parents are being held captive by a wizard who wants us to steal the new airship and several other tasks, yet unknown, before he will release them.    He is monitoring us by crystal ball, so play along as if you don’t know anything.    If we don’t return in a few days, we may need your help.*

I’ll inform Ant for you, if I can find her.   Jevon thought, and Muld handed him the invoices.

“Jevon, I’ll let you take care of everything for me.” 

“Sure, Muld, don’t worry about a thing.”

 

There was a knock on the front door right then and Tadd hurried over and opened it.    A very wet servant of Lady Alleania stood there, glancing around until she found Syndi.

“Hi Lena, is something wrong?”   Syndi asked the girl.

“No, ma’am, I just was sent with a message from Mistress Alleania that she and Archmage Drake had something come up and so she was canceling classes today.”

“Oh…”   Syndi looked at her fiancé a bit worriedly, for the plan had been to find a way to tell the Drow sorceress about what was going on.

“She told me that she’ll let you know about tomorrow’s classes this evening.”

“Is she still at the sorcery tower, Lena?”

“No, ma’am she left with Archmage Drake in a big hurry as soon as she gave me this message to pass on to you and lady Allea.”

“Well, okay then; that probably works best anyway.”

The servant girl bowed and allowed Tadd to cast a Repel Water Cantrip on her cloak.

“It will only last about five minutes, but at least that will give you a head start,”   The Halfling told her, and the girl thanked him and rushed out into the rain to try to make it as far across town as she could before the spell ended.

“I wish I’d thought of that Cantrip this morning,” Rick mumbled, feeling the sleeves of his damp tunic.

“We need to create some water-proof cloaks,”   Muld said and he was about to tell them how this could be easily done, when there was another knock on the door.    Tadd was still standing next to it and he opened the door to reveal a royal page wearing a leather poncho.

“Master Muld?”   The page said, bowing before the practical magician.

“Yes?”

“Sir, I have been sent from King Eleazar, on behalf of the royal shipbuilders.”

All the color drained from Muld and Syndi’s faces as fear that somehow their plans of stealing the Queen Eioldth had been discovered.

“Yes?   What do they want?”   Muld asked nervously.

“Well sir, it is rather embarrassing, actually.    It seems that the shipbuilders were meeting with His Majesty this morning, going over one last checklist before the official launch of the Queen Eioldth tomorrow and they found a rather delicate oversight.”

“What sort of oversight?”

“Well, in their rush to meet the launch deadline, they neglected to have certain practical magic spells cast upon the ship.   Specifically, they had planned to have spells that repelled insects and vermin cast upon the airship for the comfort of the crew.    But these were neglected and even now there have been found an infestation of cockroaches, mice and even more worrisome, termites.”

“No, that wouldn’t be good at all.”  

“Master Muld, His Majesty has personally requested you to cast these spells today on the ship to save embarrassment tomorrow at the launch ceremony.”

A light dawned in Muld’s eyes, “I see… yes, that would be possible.   However, I would have to have everyone on board the ship to leave - you see, if there are any bugs hiding in their clothing when the spells are cast, they would just infest the ship again.”

The page looked puzzled, “But if that happened, wouldn’t the spell still repel them?”

“No, not if they were on a living creature’s body that was aboard the ship when the spell was cast.    They’d be immune to the spell, so this is why everyone needs to be off the ship.”    It was a bald-faced lie, for the spells would indeed repel any insect on the ship after the enchantment was completed.    Muld prayed that none of his guild members would question him, for he had never mentioned it to any of them when he was training them.

Thankfully, none of them said a thing and he told the page that they would arrive to cast the spell that afternoon at three.

*That is the time of the changing of the guard and that might give us time to sail off with the ship.*   Muld explained to Syndi telepathically after he told the page the time.

*We got extremely lucky*   Syndi sent back to him and she also projected the thought over to Jevon.    Fortunately, when they sent a thought specifically to someone, usually they could hear it in their mind if that person knew there were telepaths nearby and had prepared their minds to receive the thoughts.

Jevon smiled slightly and nodded subtly as the page took his leave of them.     Both Syndi and Muld were thankful that he knew what was going on.   If for no other reason, at least he could explain their actions to everyone afterwards.

“Well, Syndi and I will take this; we can swing by there after our meetings.”   He turned to his fiancée, “We’ll have to prepare some things for this job, my dear, as it is a big ship.     We’ve got a busy day, so we’ll leave the rest of you to get to your work.   Jevon, thanks for taking my orders."

“No problem, boss; you can return the favor with some vacation time.”

“Absolutely - all of you will get some.   Now if you’ll excuse us, Syndi and I really have to hurry off.”

After telling everyone farewell and receiving a cryptic (to everyone but Syndi and Muld) ‘good luck’ from Jevon, they hurried off to make their preparations.

“Something odd is going on,”   Rick said to the others as the engaged couple rushed out into the pouring rain.

“Don’t be so paranoid,”   Jevon replied with a reassuring grin.

Rick wasn’t convinced though, and something told him that Jevon might know more than it seemed.