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c-is-for-circinate · 5 years

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Ten episodes into Critical Role (starting with the second season, and NO SPOILERS PLEASE), and okay yeah, I get why people like the show.

There’s a lot to talk about and I’m sure most of it’s been said before, but I’m just in love with how nuanced and contradictory these characters are. And contradictory is exactly the right word, not just because of how they oppose each other (though goddamn that is fun), but how they oppose themselves, how every single character is this mess of characteristics that don’t match up on first glance, except they actually fit together to create such rich characters.

Like Fjord, okay, start with him--he’s not the leader because this group is too much of a disaster to have a leader, but he’s the most consistently calm, solid, reliable, and generally sensible person in the whole group. Which is not usually how you’d expect your party’s half-orc to behave, but that’s fine, that’s just messing with race expectations, that’s easy. What’s interesting about Fjord is that he’s so clearly the group’s token decent guy, the honest man. He has an eldritch nightmare and actually tells the others about it, which nobody else in that fucking crew except maybe Jester would. He’s a straightforward guy who seems like he was maybe actually normal once, again unique in this group, who also happens to be a warlock with very clearly eldritch powers he doesn’t understand. And he has no problem whatsoever with using and expanding those powers, or with killing, or with stealing and conning and enjoying any ill-gotten gains the group may collect. His objections to the team’s plans are almost always practical and logistical (the ‘this seems very complicated and also is likely to end in this very obvious disaster when this logical hole gives way under us’ sort), not moral. It consistently feels like, if he hadn’t had whatever disaster shipwreck eldritch sea-beast warlock pact experience set him off on this path, he out of the whole group would be obeying laws and being generally decent to the people around him and working a simple, honest job with some hard labor involved, and he’d be happy with it--but he’s on this boat now and he’s in completely, and he’s just as forthright with that loyalty as he is with everything else.

And Jester is flighty and silly and fun and describes a childhood that horrifies the entire rest of the group in blithe, carefree tones, and I love it so much because it makes so much sense. Sure, she was isolated, secluded, and hidden from the world for years--but it was important for her mom’s business, and her mom loved her, and it was normal, and it was fine. Because that’s normal to her. And she’s completely carefree about her childhood, just like she makes a carefree game out of slaughtering gnolls and being entirely willing to kill guards or other sentient people, with the same level of fun as she gets pulling minor pranks. She would happily and generously give away pastries or money or healing to anyone, and then turn right around and fuck up their entire day just because it’s funny, and not even see a conflict there. Except that every once in a while we get a glimpse of just how desperately lonely she’s been for so fucking long--and it only comes out when she’s talking to or about the Traveler. It’s never when she’s talking about home, or the brothel, or the room when she was locked in, because those things were normal and fine. What’s not fine is the idea that she might lose contact with the Traveler, or maybe her mother. And of course that’s it. Because everything that was normal and fine and happy and funny had to be okay, because it was life, and that’s just how it was, but the Traveler and maybe her mother were the things that made it all okay, and if she loses them, she loses everything.

And I haven’t even begun to figure out Nott yet, Nott who seems in many aspects like the most straightforward member of the whole crew--not in the Fjord way of directness and honesty, but in the easy, tropey, simple-to-classify way. The goblin rogue who loves picking pockets and collecting shiny things, quick and sly and easily intimidated, with quick fingers and a bit of a background in alchemy, it all makes sense. Nott makes sense. Except that if you take a step back and look around at context, Nott makes no fucking sense at all. I have no idea why she’s out here, adventuring with these losers, instead of back home with the other goblins. We have seen zero other goblins out and around populated places so far. Even her partnership with Caleb straddles the line between ‘oh, of course’--a couple of criminals who met in prison and helped each other escape and decided it was more practical to stick together? sure! makes sense for a goblin!--and ‘wait, what the fuck?’. Why was Nott in any sort of prison that Caleb would ever be in to begin with? If she was arrested by humans, why didn’t they just kill her outright, given the attitudes most humans we’ve seen seem to have to goblins? She is so friendly and ready to hang with the rest of the group, is so delighted to play with Jester, she’s such a social creature, so how did she ever end up playing sidekick with this socially awkward human disaster to begin with?

And right, speaking of Caleb, the man is a goddamn mess, even putting aside all of his stubbornness and his mysteries and the actual literal mess of him. He’s shy and awkward and anxious and scared around people, except for when he decides to very intensely threaten somebody with murder and disembowelment, just as a matter of course. He’s anxious about everything, but he’s okay with monster-hunting. And he’s fine with murder, so long as it isn’t done with fire, he’s one of the first to go in for robbing corpses, he straight up does not give a shit about the people he and Nott rob, he doesn’t trust or even particularly like the rest of the Nein, he doesn’t (appear to) care about other people at all--except that he would do anything for Nott, full stop. And he has strong feelings about parents and kids and families, and he gave Jester the money he swiped from the spider lair because he got angry at her for being an apparent spoiled rich girl and wanted to apologize, and because it seemed important to her an he cared. And all of these truths hang together around the central figure of this one guy with a fucked-up past he doesn’t have words for, who prefers books to people and doesn’t really know what he’s doing, in the world, in general, even at the fairly low level he thinks he does.

And of course Caleb keeps clashing with Beau, because Beau is simultaneously so self-invested and yet also somehow more interrogative of the whole world around her than anyone else in the group. Beau wants to know all of Caleb’s secrets. She wants to know everybody’s secrets, but she wants Caleb most of all, because he’s spent the most effort trying to keep them that way. And she’s so curious about her party members, so curious about things going on in the world--she asks more questions about random shit than anyone, she’s currently spearheading both the investigation into the Gentleman and, with Fjord, the Zadash revolutionary’s club, because she wants to know. Except Beau never gives off the impression of actually liking anybody or anything she discovers. (Fjord trying to give her lessons on complimenting somebody without making it sound like a backhanded insult was amazing.) She has ‘chip on my shoulder’ writ so large across her it might as well be in neon. She is Out For Herself; she hates the system but she’s not going to go looking for ways to take it down, not when she can drink and fight shit to get cash that she can spend to drink with. But she can’t stop asking questions. She Doesn’t Care, but she can’t stop trying to learn more. And right, the constant back and forth of ‘yes she cares’-’no she’s a self-interested bitch’ could feel wishy-washy, but instead it just feels right, because Beau is very young and very angry and very impulsive, and she is very bad at effectively caring for the things and people she cares about, and it is so clear that she’s been treated so badly and had so little power to fight back. And now she’s got the power to fight back so she lashes out and she hits things and she’s constantly mean, and she chokes out the little girl she got arrested to protect two days earlier because nobody ever taught Beau how people actually take care of other people, did they. She needs to know Caleb’s secrets because Caleb having stuff going on that he won’t talk about means that there are factors at play that can affect Beau’s life that she can’t control, can’t even know about. All I know about her parents so far is that they had enough money to pay a temple to take her away when she caused too much trouble for them. Which actually appears to say pretty much everything that needs to be said.

And fucking Mollymauk Tealeaf, the one goddamn spoiler I had for this show before I started it and I am simultaneously gutted over him from day one and grateful to be prepared because I do not think I would take losing him well as a surprise. Molly is so fucking good. He’s a good character, and he’s such a good person, except he would cheerfully deny it with a grin if anyone ever accused him of it. He is such a tremendous cynic. He has been all over and he believes that people in groups of any size are stupid, dangerous, probably corrupt, generally bigoted, probably lazy, and out for themselves at every turn. No horror anyone does can surprise him, and yet he’s blithe and easy about it all. Of course people are terrible, that’s just how people are, no sense getting depressed over it. He’ll just slide his way in with a smile and a deck of tarot cards and a bit of flash and dazzle, use people’s vices against them, maybe run just a bit of a con if it looks to be profitable, and slide right back out again. Except that by god, Molly cares every bit as much as Beau does and unlike her, he actually knows it. He was ready to go to the mat for any- and everyone in that circus, called it a family and held on to it as hard as he possibly could even as everyone in it bickered and hated each other and were ready to jump town and leave each other behind. He is so kind to people with less than he has. And he’s never forceful about it, he never pushes his care forward, he just makes a few gentle comments to Jester about expectations and disappointment that might help ease the crushing blow he so clearly sees coming her way, without actually calling her out or starting an argument. He just suggests to Nott that there exist people in the world that shouldn’t be robbed, not because they’ve no money worth stealing but because those people can’t afford to lose what little they have. At some point he took it upon himself to be the person who keeps an eye on everyone else in the party, whether to try to defuse an argument or pick someone up when they’re down or corner them and take them to task, quietly, out of earshot of all the others. It’s impossible not to get the sense that Molly is already more invested in this group working and staying together than anyone else here, and he takes that fact as a given, and he’s ready to put in the quiet background work to keep it in one piece. He’s already brushed off or buried whatever mourning he did for the broken circus family he so clearly loved so well, and it should be a contradiction, but mostly it just feels like Molly is too used to being ready for things to go south and people to leave, because life is just shit like that and you take what you can get. He treats love exactly the same way he treats money: a thing that’s hard to come by and well worth collecting if you possibly can, to be enjoyed and played with to the very fullest while you have it, because soon enough it’ll be gone again either way.

At any rate, I’m really enamoured of this show that has characters so nuanced by ten episodes in. (Granted, ten episodes clocks close to 40 hours, but shhhh. D&D time is different.) I chalk a ton of it up to, ‘oh, shit, this is why voice actors are the perfect people to put on D&D as a massive serial fiction adventure’. Every single person at the table makes a living out of putting nuance into characters with just their voice, so of course they know what they’re doing, and they’ve all played zillions of characters (their IMDB pages are so long, jfc) with plenty of nuance to begin with. They know how to do this shit.

The other thing, I think, is that everybody at the table feels safe with the idea that they’ll have enough time to draw these characters out all the way to the end. Everybody in this group has so many secrets, so many of the linking pieces that lay out and explain the layers and contradictions, and nobody is rushing to pull any of them out on the table right up at the start, because everybody there is totally secure in the idea that they’ll get 500-odd hours to tell this story and it doesn’t all have to happen yet. Character death is always a risk, but the only healer isn’t going to up and move to another state, and nobody is going to get married and have no time any more, and the DM’s manager at work isn’t going to suddenly start assigning Thursday night shifts and all of the sudden scheduling is a disaster for so long it never gets fixed. Nobody is going to decide they don’t care any more and just stop showing up. They’ve been at this together a long, long time, and also they’re making an actual show about it that they actually get paid for, and they can take as long to tell the story, and make it whatever story, that they want. It’s a really different kind of energy than any D&D game I ever managed to play, and even different from most shows that never know when the ‘cancel’ hammer might come down from the network.

It’s pretty cool. I like it a lot.

#critical role #yes I am blacklisting that tag #that I just used to tag my own post #NO SPOILERS I AM SERIOUS #driveby meta attack #just can't help myself with the wordspew sometimes #that final Farscape post is still a mess of a draft #so many thoughts #so little time

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words-writ-in-starlight · 5 years

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prompt for the hozier fic thing: “Like Real People Do,” maybe something with Caleb or Molly or Both? If you wanna 😬

For this ask meme, which is still open! I have no idea what this is but I sure did enjoy writing it.

"So," Mollymauk says, leaning against the door to the room Caleb has tentatively claimed as his own. "So."

"So," Caleb says gamely, and puts down his pen.

Molly's return still seems like a dream, impossible and untouchable, not even a month since the tiefling managed to track them down. They're lucky they're such a distinctive--and trouble-prone--group, or Molly would never have pulled it off, even with all his blood hunter's skills. As it was, he claims that it was a simple issue of approaching someone in each city or town he passed and asking about recent trouble, and then working his way down the list of their most distinctive members. And so, a month ago, they returned from a minor job to find a scruffy, annoyed-looking purple tiefling leaning against their gate.

Jester screamed, Fjord swore, and Beau punched him. Molly had taken it with relative good grace, insulted her cheerfully, and immediately went down under their combined weight in the most violent hug Caleb has ever been involved in.

Alive he may be, but Molly's not always quite himself--a delicate way to say that sometimes Molly is not Molly, Molly is Lucien. Whatever magic brought him back once as a clean slate failed to do the same a second time, and instead he is Molly, but a Molly written over the watermark of who he was before he was Molly. Lucien never surfaces for long, and in the long run Molly seems to be winning out, smothering the man slowly under the weight of Molly's sheer immediate realness, but each moment of being Lucien clearly shakes Molly to his core.

So, yes, the fact that Molly is speaking to someone tonight means that Caleb puts down his pen and closes his spellbook without a fight.

"So," Molly says for a third time. "Beau says that you--might understand a little of my situation. She said to ask you about Bren Aldrich Ermendrud."

The smooth movements of Caleb stopping up his ink well and closing his book don't stop, but they--stutter.

Right. Of course. While the extent of Caleb's past still isn't known to everyone, that he has one--and a dark one--is an open secret. But an open secret that is almost never discussed with him, nor anyone who doesn't already know, and Molly...

There's just been so much else to tell him, so much to say, that Caleb's secrets have slipped through the cracks.

"I do not think it is the same," Caleb says, watching his hands pack up a sheaf of parchment like an automaton. "You are not Lucien. You are yourself, you are Mollymauk Tealeaf, and you prove as much every time you silence him. He was a bastard, maybe--and you are a dick, maybe--but all you have of his are your skills and your scars."

"So," Mollymauk says for the fourth time, and closes the door behind him, ambling over to sit down on Caleb's bed. He's replaced the trinkets on his horns that he had to sell for passage, costume jewelry mixed indiscriminately with real gold and even a dainty mithril chain that Jester had joyfully spent all her savings on, three days after his return. His coat was, apparently, a lost cause, although he's been collecting fabric for another, and so instead he's taken to wearing the most outrageously bright colors he can find, purportedly in protest against the eternally dim sky. Caleb suspects it's also because Lucien prefers black. Today, Molly is wearing a vest in a brilliant shade of ripe-wheat-gold that clashes terribly with his scarlet eyes, and he stands out like spilled paint against the still-spartan contents of Caleb's quarters.

Caleb half-turns in his chair, so that he's facing Molly, and silently sends Frumpkin toward the bed. His familiar rubs adoringly past Caleb's legs on his way, and Molly smiles as the cat jumps up to join him. Frumpkin is probably adding orange cat hair to Molly's current colorful arrangement, but from the way Molly hefts him up and plops him unceremoniously into his lap for a good cuddle, it's not a concern.

"You didn't die too, right?" Molly asks, and it sounds like half a joke. Only half, because the other half is nearly desperate. Desperate for what, Caleb's not sure. Reading people still isn't his strongest suit.

"No," Caleb says flatly. "I went mad for eleven years."

Grimly, distantly, he's gratified by the way Molly blinks, obviously taken aback. "I beg your pardon?"

"Bren--all I changed was my name, verstehen? Do you understand?" Caleb goes on. Logically, he knows that he's probably lost Molly already. Hell, even he doesn't really know where he's going with this, why this is suddenly so important that Molly hear, but his mouth is opening again and he's leaning forward and he doesn't think he could do anything in the world to stop it.

"You are a different person, you are yourself and not Lucien and that is not true for me. Beauregard should not have sent you to me. I am--I am more like him, than like you."

Molly is still watching Caleb like Caleb's speaking a foreign tongue, but there's a slow-dawning wave of anger starting to make the confusion ebb out of his face. Molly's patented self-righteous indignation, boiling to the surface over--something. Damned if Caleb knows what. Caleb continues, in a rush now, trying to get out in front of the riptide of Molly's determination.

"I did--terrible things. I was glad to do them. It does not matter what else happened or what I did afterward or anything else, all that matters is that I did them and I wanted to, when I did them. I could have a thousand names and never change that. You are--it is different."

For once in all his lives, Molly doesn't say anything. There's a long moment of silence, while Caleb realizes that his heart is racing and his hands are shaking and his chest is aching and breathless. He drags in several breaths, too quick and too shallow, and clasps his hands tight to stop their trembling. Time for that later, he tells himself in Molly's voice.

"You are the real one, now," Caleb says when he's sure his voice won't shake. "Not Lucien. Eventually he will realize it and--" Caleb raises a shaking hand to imitate smoke, being blown away on the wind, and then laces his fingers together again.

There's another moment, shorter, and then Molly lets out a breath and says, "How do you know?"

"Because you are too--too stubborn to do anything else," Caleb says, his voice shuddering over a faint, gasping laugh. "Ha. Long may you--long may you reign. Lucien can eat shit."

Molly smiles, still a little distant, still riding the edge of that self-assured conviction and anger, but he smiles, and looks very much himself when he does. “And how do you know that you are still the same man who did those terrible things?”

Caleb opens his mouth without knowing what he’s about to say--because I am, because I’ve never been anyone else, because someone has to pay for what I did and if I’m someone else then where’s the justice there--and Molly’s on his feet before Caleb can marshal a response. Molly swoops down on him like the bird he’s named for, a flurry of bright purple and flashing metal, and kisses Caleb firmly on the forehead.

“Thank you, Mister Caleb,” Molly says, closing Caleb’s mouth with two fingers on his jaw. “And for what it’s worth--more things change a man than a grave.”

#caleb widogast #mollymauk tealeaf #widomauk #critical role #cr2 #starlight writes stuff #fic meme #ask meme #idk normally i have kind of a broader concept at hand #but i just really like the idea of molly coming back and his second death causing lucien to like...leak through #and it occurred to me that you'd have him and caleb (and nott but she's a different situation)#who both have RADICALLY different opinions of whether or not they Are their past selves #incidentally molly is trying to reassure caleb that he's a different person now #and on the one hand he has the best of intentions #but also caleb doesn't totally...WANT to be a different person #because before bren was a monster bren was happy #and caleb widogast has never been happy #idk i just threw this concept together on shift and now i have some feelings about it #queue deeper than the sea of stars #Anonymous #asked and answered

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midnigtartist · 5 years

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No particular request, just a warm up Widomauk drabble

Time has made it more tolerable, but Caleb is certain that he will never be anything but unnerved by the heavy, meaty sound of a body as it slides off the end of Mollymauk’s sword, hitting the ground with a thud. The tiefling flashes him a roguish grin, spinning his blood soaked, ice laced semitar in hand. Its strange energy cast a dancing, cold blue light across the damp cellar walls. Caleb reciprocates with a smile of his own, lip pressed tight, the corners twitching upward into a crooked grin which Molly seems to thrill at sight of. He flashes a bit of fang, sparing Caleb a quick wink before he takes off sprinting. Caleb watches him go, listens to the sound of his boots pounding against the slick floor, stomping through puddles even once he’s rounded the far corner.

What had at first seemed like a quick clean up job had quickly turned into a tunnel crawl, as the Nein soon discovered that the cellar was connected to network of twisting catacombs. Merrow slither up and down dank halls, dragging bloated bodied across broken stone with no clear indication of which direction they’re coming from. The low ceilings and the cold, damp air, the deep shadows and maze like structure of the catacombs have everyone's hackles raised. Worried for what it might mean to become lost in the twisting tunnels, Caleb has taken to dragging the tips of his fingers along the slick walls, bringing up the rear as he puts the stone to memory, forming a mental map to guide the group back out. However, as more and more merrow slink their way out of the crumbling tunnels and darkened alcoves the Nein has been spread rather thin. Now that Mollymauk has run on ahead Caleb finds himself completely alone, save for Frumpkin, wrapped around his shoulders like a scarf, and his dancing lights.

“Eh- that is alright, though.” he says to the open air. “Mollymauk will not have gone too far.” Each step is deafening in the empty hall, his fingers twitch up to tug at the glove of blasting.”And- uh-you know, Caduceus is not to far behind us”

And he and Nott have their copper wires, he assures himself, patting down the pocket at his left hip to feel the bulk of the spool against his palm. “So everything is alright”

Frumpkin murmurs in what Caleb hopes is agreement, and so he pushes on. Fingers dragging across jagged stone, memorizing each dip in the tunnel under his boots, every dripping stalactite that he passes.

“This is alright” he mutters, cold, wet stones echoing his mantra back to him. “They would not leave you down here alone. We are a- a team, ja. No , they would not leave you. This is fine.”

He could stop, hunker down against the wall and hope that their other cleric has not himself gotten lost. He could do that, it's honestly far more appealing than the alternative, which is to run ahead into the unknown darkness in an attempt to chase Mollymauk down. Caleb instead, decides to compromise. Carefully he unwinds Frumpkin from his person and sets the fey cat on the ground.

“Go find Mollymauk” he instructs the cat. His bushy ginger tail flicks once in understanding and then Frumpkin disappears down the hall as well.

More alone now then ever, Caleb tucks his hands under his arms and leans up against the slick wall.

“Everything is going just fine.” he says again, in the hopes that he might start believing it. What is it their strange circus man says? Change your attitude, change your perspective? So perhaps if Caleb focus less on the fact that he is a very squishy wizard, separated from his companions in a catacomb crawling with merrow, maybe if he stops thinking back on tales of haunted crypts full of the shambling undead that mothers would tell their misbehaving children, maybe then he will feel less like spilling his guts over the wet tunnel floor.

Five minutes pass, hardly five minutes have passed since he’s sent Frumpkin on ahead before Caleb hears the distant clash of metal and muffled shouting, coming from up ahead. Panic seizes Caleb’s chest like a vice. It's a risky thing, but a calculated risk, that he drops his sight and hearing and shifts his scenes to Frumpkin, instead.

The sounds of battle reach him before anything else and when he blinks into Frumpkin’s sight he sees many pairs of familiar boots. Seems that the rest of the Nien have stumble upon each other, as well as the merrow’s nest. He counts, one, two, three, four, five wretched fish men surrounding Jester, Beau, Molly and Nott. Their massive bodies blocking exits, making it hard to maneuver. They hiss and scream in voices not made to manipulate air, thrashing wildly with pointed claws.

Jester’s spectral lollipop strikes one, stunning it momentarily but hardly moving it, its scales and muscle just too heavy. Nott is up on Beau’s shoulders, trying to gain vantage on marks that are far too close, while Beau struggles to maneuver with a forty pound goblin on her back. Her staff hits the floor with a resounding crack that makes Caleb finch, missing the merrow’s skull by a solid foot. The creature rears back, but as it brings is webbed fist down it shrieks, bring its other hand up to clutch at its face. The clawed fist falters, catching Beau on the calf, rather than tearing onto something more vital.

“Fuck!” she shouts, kicking the merrow back with her heel. “Seriously dude?”

Behind the merrow, Mollymauk shrugs. “Trying to help” he shoots back. Blood dribbles from the crimson spot on his neck. It's all he manages to get out before he’s slammed to the ground by a thick tail.

A second merrow screams, hefting its bulk over Mollymauk before he can stand, effectively pinning him the ground. It screams again, lunging at a his neck with its jagged teeth bared and there’s a moment between the attack and the golden glint of Mollymauk’s sword pressing the creature back by the jaw where a shot of primal fear wells up like bile in Caleb’s chest.

Caution be damn, he thinks, dropping out of Frumpkin’s eyes. As soon as he can hear and see and move damn it move, he pushes his trembling legs forward, sprinting into the darkness.

It’s luck, he thinks, and his own innate sense of true north that prevents him from stumbling blindly in the wrong direction, because in the cave like tunnel systems of the crypt the shouts of his allies seem to echo from every hallway. He counts footfall as he runs, how many had Mollymauk taken away from him? He counts heartbeats, how many of them before he reaches the others? As he rounds another bend a flash of color along the far wall confirms the other’s location. Caleb is not an athletic man, his lungs burn and his side is aching but instead of slowing down he takes a gasping breath and runs faster.

The hall opens up into a tight space, no larger than a common cellar, entrances on either side. The scene, not so unlike he’d left it, with the exception of two bloodied merrow corpses on the ground, their blood mixing with the stagnant water and Mollymauk is backup on his feet. Breathless, Caleb staggers against the wall trying to asses his options. There are still three merrow, two crowding in on Mollymauk, Nott and Beau, while the third is pressing Jester back into the corner. An arrow flies, striking the merrow in the side of the head. It howls, dissonant voice grating like metal on metal. The howl quickly becomes a gurgle as, in a flash of pink Mollymauk blinks into existence at its side. He thrusts his blades up- up through the center of its chest. It loses a pitiful noise, and slumps forward. Mollymauk grunts under the sudden weight.

With that one taken care of Cable instead turns his attention to other two, closing in on Nott and Beau. He aims a firebolt at the one. It strikes the creature in the side. It wheels around to face him, and as it does Beau staff cracks down on the top of its head. It collapses to the floor in a heap of limbs

“Nice of you to join us!” Mollymauk calls. He’s got a boot up on the shoulder of the merrow he’d just killed, trying to tug his swords free from between its ribs. Blood trickles from the corner of his mouth

Caleb, in response, offers him a small, nervous smile and tries very hard not to worry about the blood steadily pooling along Mollymauk jaw. At least now he is up and standing.

The final merrow, sensing that it's outnumbered now, lets out a horrid scream, lashing around so that it now faces Mollymauk. Mollymauk who’s still struggling with his semitars. Caleb can’t react fast enough, but Jester can. Her lollipop comes shrieking at the merrow, slamming into its side. It slows but it doesn’t stop.

“Molly, watch out!” she shouts.

Mollymauk glances over his shoulder, sees the merrow coming his way. The vein on his neck burst and the merrow hisses in agony as its eyes fill with blood. This doesn’t stop it. Writhing and howling, its tail twisting grotesquely on the damp stones, the merrow swings its taloned claw out in wild reaching arch. It catches Molly across the face and he’s sent spinning. When he falls, he falls in slow motion, the world around him a blurry watercolor and oh, some still lucid part of Caleb’s brain whispers, oh this is the first time Molly has fallen since his most fatal fall on the Glory Run Road. That though becomes a roar, and the roar fills Caleb’s ears and thunders in his veins and flexes through his fingers as his hand gives a sharp tug on the glove blasting. Two of the three flare slam into the merrow, which gives a final, choked scream before it too collapses to the floor. Caleb can hear its flesh crackle and its skin pop under the heat of the inferno. Were he not watching Molly so intently, perhaps smell of it would have him unnerved. As it were, he’s too busy counting seconds, too busy counting heart beats. Molly doesn’t stand.

He counts the steps, one, two, three, four, it takes for Jester to reach him

She lays glowing hands over his chest and Molly jerks forward into Jester’s arms, cough up the blood on the back of his tongue. Jester gives him a good few whacks on the back with her fist, before quickly bundling him up into a hug.

Caleb counts breaths, watching the rise and fall of Molly’s chest even out. He feels his fingers twitch up into a fist.

Feet pound in from different directions. Fjord appears from the tunnel ahead with Yasha at his heels and a moment later, Caduceus enters from the tunnel behind.

“Y’all alright? We heard fightin’” Fjord asks. He glances over a Beau, who’s holding her leg out for Clay to inspect (“You think it’s infected?” “Probably”) over to Molly and Jester on the ground.

Molly pushes himself to stand. “Took a little tumble” Molly says, dusting over his pants. “Nothing to write home about.”

“Mollymauk can I speak with you for a moment.” Caleb says. His outburst is sudden and his tone firm. Molly seems to senses this, his smile faltering, a rare crease forming between his brows. A hush instantly falls over the room.

“Course.” Molly says. He gives curt little nod, indicating Caleb to lead the way, and so he does.

Caleb leads them back out into the hall they’d come from, just far enough to be out of sight of the doorway before he stops them.

In the low light Caleb’s human eyes can just barely make out the thin line of worry in Molly’s face.

His fingers graze Caleb’s elbow tentatively, and Caleb resists the urge to roll his eyes. He is not made of glass, as simple touch will not break him, or he would have shattered long ago.

“You doing alright, dear?’ Molly asks, so sweetly.

“Nein” Caleb says, not so sweetly, and he wraps his fist around the lapel of Mollymauk’s coat.

He doesn’t kiss him kindly. There is no bubbling nervousness in the way he kisses Molly. He does not kiss him like this is the first kiss he has had in over a decade. Instead he bares his teeth, nips at Molly’s lower lip and Molly moans against his mouth. He kisses Mollymauk like statement, like a correction, kisses like a man making an amendment. He could not, had not been able to kiss him before and in doing so had nearly lost the opportunity. Selfish man that he is, Caleb will not allow it to pass him up second time.

When he finally pulls away, the air between them is damp. Caleb feels the trembling of Molly’s fingers against his wrist and he sighs.

“I waste so much time for a man so obsessed with it.” he says dully. “I should have done that the moment you were back.”

Molly’s watches him curiously, silently repeating the words as if he’d misheard them. Whatever tension that had filled his chest, all the worry and the fear and the dread, is suddenly lifted, stolen away on Molly’s breath. A wry smile crack across Caleb’s face.

“Do not act so surprised, Mollymauk, this has ah- been a long time coming, ja?” he reaches up, patting Molly’s cheek once, twice, letting his fingers linger against the peacock feathers there. “You will try to be more careful in the future, won’t you?”

“Mr. Caleb, if you’re going to kiss me like that, I must say, I think I may be more inclined to throw myself into bodily harm.” Molly says, pressing their foreheads together.

Caleb gives him a pointed look, and Molly smiles, leaning in to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth

“Can’t make any promises, dear, but I will try to behave.”

#critical role #widomauk #midnigtwrites

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night-filled-mountain · 6 years

Text

So the Labenda Swamp/Berleben episodes, while they had plenty of stand-out moments (KIRI! CALI! Shaving with a greatsword! Awkward hug!), weren’t exactly my favorites this campaign. Intra-party tension, lots of combat, lots of single-minded focus on their job (...their purely mercenary job for a crime boss, with no element of emotional investment or even a whiff of heroism). Basically, they had the generally grim atmosphere that you’d probably expect from a shitty swamp town. By the end of ep. 23, I was really craving some downtime for the group, some richer, softer interactions, juicy character development, and maybe an altruistic side quest that would help me really root for the Mighty Nein (much as I adore their shadiness).

...I cannot express how hard Hupperdook delivered on all of this. I loved this episode so much, you guys. SO MUCH.

Highlights:

There was so much goodness that I think I’m going to have to divide this up based on characters. Starting with...

CALEB

This episode was like the grand payoff for all of Caleb’s conflicts with the others about his inability to integrate with the group. Practically every little thing he did confirmed his affection for them and his determination to be kind and playful and fully present for them, to shed his sad-loner persona and become a team player:

-Magically lighting Beau’s firecracker for her with no hesitation, even though they’re both well aware of his issues with fire

-Encouraging Nott in her dance plans with Jester--i.e. encouraging her to enjoy herself with someone other than him, which feels incredibly healthy for both of them

-Hasting Jester to improve her piano-playing, and tossing gold in the “tipping hat” for her

-Having a civil (and hilarious) conversation with Fjord about the hazards of rooming with Molly in a party town--and actually inviting Fjord to share a room with him and Nott, which I kind of wish we got to see, although the way things actually turned out was equally satisfying

-Telling Yasha he was sorry she wouldn’t be going out with them because he counts on her as his social-anxiety buddy

-Gently checking up on Fjord re: his flirting anxiety (more on that later)

-Participating in the drinking contest--again, with no hesitation (and killing it!). This went against so many of Caleb’s usual scruples (not spending money frivolously, avoiding crowds and social interaction), not to mention making him extremely vulnerable, both physically and emotionally. He had to know that some of his closely guarded secrets might come out, and he had to extract a promise that they wouldn’t let him pass out in the gutter...but he went through with it anyway, trusting the group to take care of him. And they (specifically Jester) justified his trust.

-THE DRUNKEN SINGING. Counting and singing both seem to be compulsions for Caleb, especially in stressful situations (we’ve seen him sing a version of that “Mighty Nein” song on the battlefield, haven’t we?), but even after the heartbreak of the waltz scene, nothing can quite beat, “One of those things is true...aaand you are blue.”

-Speaking of which...

JESTER

-That waltz honestly might have been the saddest (and sweetest) scene of the entire campaign. In a situation that would normally be ripe for high comedy (the most awkward, inhibited member of the party gets super drunk and agrees to dance with Jester, trickery cleric and perpetual agent of chaos), we got a quiet slow dance and a line so poignant in context and delivery that I’m tearing up just thinking about it. The way Laura/Jester’s face instantly crumbled (even though Jester knows nothing of Caleb’s backstory). Her instantly softened tone, the complete lack of teasing. Caleb’s broken little “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m...I’m sorry.” His sudden reversion to Sad Loner Eternally Punishing Himself, as he walked away to seek out solitude in some filthy gutter. Jester’s determination to Not Let Him Do That, to keep her promise and get him into bed. “I’m sure Astrid loves you very much.”

...Yeah, I’m not sure how to do that scene justice other than crying about it.

Moving on to somewhat lighter tidbits...

-“I go over and give Caleb a kiss on the cheek.” 😊 (I need to make a whole separate post at some point about Caleb and touch.) (...About everyone and touch, for that matter.)

-Jester has never been drunk. I always kind of figured that her habit of ordering milk was just an in-joke about Laura’s pregnancy, like the pickles--but no, it’s a legitimate character detail stemming from her sheltered upbringing. I felt sorry for Jester and Laura when she was the odd tiefling out in the drinking contest, but in retrospect, it’s really good (for Caleb’s sake as well as their finances’) that they had a Sober Friend on deck.

-Her conversation with Caleb about “hidden skills” made me wonder, not for the first time, whether she’s actually had a lot of sexual experience as she often implies, or whether her childhood surrounded by courtesans (and her habit of spying on their clients) has simply made her feel qualified to speak on the subject. Passing the written exam but not the practicum, as it were.

-Her frantic (and mostly futile) attempts to get her teammates to say who they’re attracted to while under Zone of Truth were good fun, but her frantic attempts to get them to say whether they like her held a bit more weight, I think. Jester is, without a doubt, the best-liked member of the Mighty Nein--I don’t think there’s a single teammate who couldn’t have truthfully answered that question with a resounding “Yes”--but Jester, with her history of isolation, her social inexperience, her lingering fears of being left alone again, still feels insecure about whether her friendships are sincere. Give Jester hugs, is what I’m saying. Give her ALL the hugs.

-Jester’s concern for Kiri gets more adorable each episode. I especially like how emphatic she is about the fact that Kiri is a person, appearances notwithstanding (“She’s like you, she’s a little girl, not a pet”). Laura said in a Talks episode a while back that Jester thought of Kiri like a doll, but I definitely think her views have evolved. There was something especially touching about the music-box scene. Hupperdook seems to present several options for safe and wholesome environments in which they might leave Kiri, but I’m kind of rooting for Rissa and her father to take her in.

-Jester got to throw around her magic a lot in fun, non-combat ways this episode. Loved the Thaumaturgy cheers for Beau, and the Infernal whispers surrounding the blacksmith kids. But that Locate Object spell not only single-handedly saved their asses, financially speaking, but also changed the entire direction of their current adventure when it led them to that final scene, with the kids in the boarded-up shop.

-It was kind of amazing to see the different ways and specific moments in which each member of the Mighty Nein was affected by the kids’ story. For Jester, of course, it was when they said their parents were thrown in jail for “idol worship.” It is killing me (in a Very Good way) how we’re gradually finding the cracks in the Nein’s cynical, mercenary armor--the emotional buttons that can be pushed to lead them to propose (or support) an actual altruistic quest, despite their much-cherished self-identity as “a bunch of assholes.” Which, of course, leads me to...

FJORD

Holy cats, did this episode radically transform the way I see and feel about Fjord. I haven’t done such an intense 180 on a character since Beau’s one-on-one scene with Dairon back in the day. That was the scene that 100% hooked me on Beau. I went in feeling lukewarm and iffy about her, and came out finding her lovable, secretly vulnerable, and generally fascinating...and this episode had the exact same effect for me re: Fjord.

-His flustered reactions to flirtation have always seemed funny before, and they were funny in this episode too, up to a point...and then, as Travis played it up, it began to feel like something more. I love that it was Caleb, of all people, who sensed Fjord’s genuine discomfort and asked if he was okay. Whether that discomfort just stems from virginity/inexperience or from some kind of bad experience, it makes Fjord’s relationship with Jester--who defaults to flirting as a standard form of social interaction, because of her upbringing--a lot more interesting to me than it’s ever been before. Her offer of sex lessons would have felt like simple comedy in an earlier episode, but now it felt like a case of fundamental miscommunication, a clash between two people with very different backgrounds and worldviews when it comes to sex and romance...and I am All About It, I am so on board for that ride, it appeals to me so much more than Jester’s simple romance-novel-fantasy version of their relationship.

-In my notes on last week’s episode, I forgot to even mention Fjord confiding in Molly about the eyeball on his sword (and Molly’s poorly-timed and poorly-executed Charm Person spell), but Fjord and Molly’s relationship always intrigues me. In this week’s installment of their roommate shenanigans, we got Fjord’s rather jaw-dropping line “Half of me’s interested, the other half is terrified” (I could just hear the fics being written on the spot). My shipping compass is all over the place at this point. On the one hand, Fjord has low wisdom and an occasional tendency to jump on board with crazy scenarios just for the hell of it. On the other hand, I could swear sometimes, looking back over the whole campaign, that the only people in whom he’s shown anything like romantic interest are Caleb and Molly. (If you want to get all metaphorical-innuendo with this, they’re the only two teammates he’s almost allowed to hold/examine his sword...yet, in both cases, he decided to refuse/hold off.)

-Fjord coaching Beau on behavior and facial expressions never, ever gets old. And for once, instead of trying to help her be more courteous and less off-putting, he got to help her ramp up her intimidation to a whole new level (for a couple of teenage punks! 😂). Molly and Caleb doing good cop/bad cop last week was a delight, but Fjord and Beau pulled it off just as brilliantly. (Are we ever going to hear what became of those kids, as they spent a day frantically searching for the thieves the Mighty Nein had already found? ^_^)

-And finally...HOW ABOUT THAT BACKSTORY, THOUGH!?

No, it’s not the first backstory drop we’ve gotten for Fjord; in fact, it’s one of the briefest. We knew about the kids who made fun of him for his tusks and drove him to file them down. We knew about his sailor background, the shipwreck, his near-drowning experience, and that he presumably made a shady deal with his patron (whether he remembers it or not). We knew about his mentor, Vandren, whose fate is still up in the air. Yet somehow, none of that had anywhere near as much impact on me as that one little line, that achingly hesitant response to the question of whether he’d ever been in an orphanage: “Yes. I was. They’re terrible fucking places.”

I’ve actually thought a lot over the course of this campaign about why I’ve had more trouble connecting to Fjord than to the other characters, and I realized that a lot of it boiled down to the fact that he’s just never seemed to have the same vulnerability. Yes, his backstory was painful, even traumatic, but there was a certain macho romanticism to it--explosions, shipwrecks, a shady kraken-esque magical patron, even the fact that the loved one he lost was a surrogate father. It was all a little bit too “classic hero” for me to really feel it down to my bones...and honestly, that also applied to Fjord in general. He was always so smooth, so polished, so badass and confident and leader-like. I never heard the same raw desperation in his voice as I did in Caleb’s when he talked about his parents, or Nott’s when she talked about her goblin heritage, or Molly’s when he talked about rejecting his forgotten past, or Jester’s when she begged the Traveler to appear, or even Beau’s (downplayed as much as she could!) when she was seeking Dairon’s approval.

But with that one line about his childhood, regardless of the specifics, Fjord has joined the club for me. I’m all in. I’d die for him as soon as I would for any of the others. ...And this turned out waaay longer than I expected. 😳 Moving on!

-Everything about Fjord during that last scene (and actually, everything about that scene in general) was pure gold. Fjord was so soft toward those kids; he gave us the gentlest rendition of the line “I’m the one asking questions” that I’ve ever heard. His quiet, eloquent, persistent appeal to the others to join him in a dangerous, unpaid, purely altruistic rescue mission did such a number on my heart.

-Also? “I would really like the opportunity to leave this place better than we found it” was a direct quote from Molly when he talked about his circus days under Zone of Truth--and Molly definitely noticed. I love, love, love that the members of this chaotic-neutral trash group are learning to appeal directly to each other’s backgrounds, issues, and specific values, not just to get a rise out of each other, but to activate the compassion that every one of them has buried beneath a hundred layers of cynical self-interest.

-Of course, Fjord and Molly weren’t the only people having their buttons pushed in that discussion, and Fjord’s wasn’t the only big backstory drop this episode! Which brings me to...

BEAU

-Though I was initially disappointed that the gang didn’t set off a whole bunch of them in the streets of Hupperdook, I am now thrilled and terrified at the thought of all the firecrackers she still has in her possession.

-Everything about Beau and Jester’s friendship is pure as the driven snow, and Beau getting Jester a flower necklace was no exception.

-Beau: *tries to snatch Molly’s tip for a dancer out of midair; rolls a natural one* Dancer: *grabs the coin, kicks Beau in the face, and winks at her* Beau: “I wink back. You know, I kind of liked that. That was kinda hot.” Me: This is the most quintessentially Beau moment I have ever witnessed, and I love her more than air.

-Low-charisma Beau and Molly leaning on the bar, totally ignored, for 15 minutes, was beautiful...but Beau’s “Sorry to interrupt your incessant flirting, but can I please have a drink?” is everything I have ever wanted from Beau and Molly’s frenemyship. I feel so fulfilled.

-Beau’s brief involvement in Jester and Nott’s dance plans (“Yeah, I know, I’m your second choice” / Nott: “No, third” 😂). Beau gets a lot of flak for arrogance, but honestly, her self-deprecation game is almost as strong as Caleb’s, and it is both hilarious and kind of poignant every time.

-Her defense of Nott from the racist (species-ist?) firecracker salesman. “Hey, don’t ever apologize for who you are, man.” Also telling her that Caleb is “a good guy”--which, coming from the one person who (a.) knows Caleb’s full backstory and (b.) isn’t Nott, is kind of huge.

-BEAU BACKSTORY DROP. BEAU BACKSTORY DROP. I wanted it SO BADLY, and I got my wish!! There was nothing about it that I didn’t love, starting with the fact that she confided in Nott. Out of all the Mighty Nein members, they’re probably two of the people with the fewest interactions, but it makes sense that the weird Caleb/Beau/Nott bond formed during Caleb’s backstory drop continues to strengthen.

-“Are you evil? Are you a bad guy?” / “No. I don’t...I hope not. I think it differs from day to day, depending on what I’m doing. Do you think I’m a bad guy?” This said so much about Beau herself, and also Beau’s self-image--and how heavily it depends on how other people see her, despite how vehemently she’d like to claim otherwise.

-Beau’s story wasn’t shocking or even surprising--it basically just tied together a lot of the hints we’ve already gotten--but there were so many little touches that killed me:

Her painfully realistic reluctance to pronounce her father a bad person

The fact that he hired the monks to straight-up kidnap her like some kind of horrific “scared straight” stunt (which is a thing that real parents do to real children, and that’s all I’m going to say about that)

The pained sarcasm of her, “Sure. Great,” when Nott asked if she was okay...and the brief dropped eye contact when Nott asked, “Was it hard?”

The looong pause and deeep breath between, “He was hoping...” and, “...they were gonna beat my indiscretions out of me.”

“I think all of the things that my father saw in me that he hated, the monks saw as a potential advantage.” I’ve always known that Beau’s first scene with Dairon felt raw and emotional and Important, but this scene finally gave us the context to explain why.

And, more than anything, the way her voice broke and dissolved into pained laughter when she said, “In fact, he told me he never wanted to see me again.” ...If this guy is still alive, the Mighty Nein had damn well better hunt him down and give him the full Syldor Vessar or Howaardt Darrington treatment.

...I have to note that amid all those dark emotions, something about Beau’s deadpan delivery of “I worked at a library” sent me into hysterics. (Also, “That had to do with the job that I had before the job that I had--”)

In short: For her first big backstory drop, this was deeply satisfying, but there are still so many things we don’t know! Why was her childhood “meant for someone else”? What about “I came to hate the town I was in and the system my father was a part of”? That seems related to her previous confession to Caleb, that she watched her father give up everything for the Empire and get screwed over somehow. And what about her comment to Dairon ages ago about how her father’s money (for her upkeep) must not be coming in anymore? Is he dead? Missing? In prison? I WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING.

Still not the end of the Beau moments, though:

-Beau getting Fjord out of awkward sexual propositions by pleading erectile dysfunction on his behalf. Best/worst anti-wingwoman ever. (Bonus: Fjord’s Very Southern, Very Offended, “She doesn’t know me like that.” 😂)

-She finally followed through with her long-ago threat to slap Caleb! (Caleb, luckily, was not in a state to care.)

-“I will fucking punch you if you try and kiss me.” Literally could not ask for more with Beau and Molly. Could. Not. Ask. For. More.

-Her anguished “NOOOO!” when Molly literally pulled the alcohol out of her body...and of course, ”Did you touch inside of me!?”

-Despite finally dropping backstory of her own, Beau is still #1 when it comes to digging out other people’s: “I mean, Nott’s over here trying to pull my heartstrings, but it seems like you should be the target. Do you have a thing with kids in orphanages?”

Speaking of heartstrings...

NOTT

-So happy to see more of her friendship with Jester (“Do we need choreography!?”), and an attempt to revive their Detective Duo dynamic.

-It’s been a while since we saw Nott deal with racism (species-ism?). Still as much of a gut punch as ever.

-I loved seeing her gratitude to Beau for taking care of Caleb, along with her determination to make sure Beau is doing it right. I’m still not sure how I feel about Nott’s whole “I am the parent” attitude, but she’s certainly a better ‘parent’ than most of the Mighty Nein have ever known.

-She did a fantastic job bringing out Beau’s backstory without overshadowing Beau, but she still got off some great lines in that scene: “So wait. Little townsgirl, her parents are wine-makers, now you’re a brutal assassin martial artist who can kill anything...what happened in between those two things?” and “You were bootlegging your old man’s hooch!?”

-“I never thought of you as an optimistic person, but that’s a very positive way of looking at it.” Okay...I may finally, finally be letting go of my cherished image of Scrappy Urchin Child Nott, and warming up to Maternal Nott. Watching her earnestly encourage her ever-growing collection of adopted children is kind of the best. (She was also great at “pulling Beau’s heartstrings” during the final scene, though I couldn’t help thinking that a lot of her “Don’t you think the children should be with their loving parents!?” rhetoric would’ve hit home for Caleb as well.)

-The drinking contest was a delight from start to finish, but Nott’s match was probably my second-favorite. (Nothing could beat “little Caleb” triumphing over his mild-mannered opponent.)

-It was a small moment, but it made me inordinately happy to see Nott and Molly profusely congratulating each other after the contest and then DANCING TOGETHER. They’ve barely exchanged a word since (1.) Molly wrenched deeply personal confessions out of Nott with Charm Person, (2.) They clashed in the aftermath of Scrollgate, and (3.) Nott offended Molly pretty seriously during his Zone of Truth backstory. Every single moment of Mighty Nein friendship/concern/camaraderie in this episode gave me so much life, but these two were a highlight.

And, speak of the devil...

MOLLY

It’s been quite some time since Molly got a big chance to shine. I’m mildly concerned about that, but that’s a matter for another post. (And it will probably get cleared up soon anyway--I think Tal just has a somewhat quieter play style, and takes a while to settle into his characters.) That said, the Molly moments we did get in this episode were absolute gems:

-Straight-up knight-in-shining-armoring Rissa with the punks who were harassing her. Nothing will ever be quite as gloriously creepy as blood maledicts.

-“Do I have masculine wiles!?” / “You have...pan wiles.” / “I’m into it.” (There’s this very specific voice Molly uses once in a while, this tone of pure childlike wonder, that sends my Molly love into overdrive. The lines that come to mind are, “Can I!?” back when Fjord joked that Molly could take the mirror from Pumat Sol’s shop, and “I won a strawberry!” back at the Harvest Close festival. I love that I can now add “Do I have masculine wiles!?” to the list.)

-Drawing alcohol out of Beau with his blood-hunter powers to ease her hangover

-“Whatever team you’re on, I don’t think I play for that one...It’s Team Fuck-Off, I’m well aware.”

-Throwing up on Fjord, and then tenderly bringing him to bed (...not that way)

-His “Say no more, I’m in” as soon as Fjord made it clear that the quest to break the kids’ parents out of jail was personal for him. In perfect accordance with his carnie past, Molly often walks this delicate line between “keep your head down, don’t make trouble” and “be the chaos you want to see in the world,” and I love that a friend’s Strong Feelings can single-handedly push him from one side to the other.

-I feel like there are probably more Molly moments I’m forgetting because I’m at the tail end of a post the size of Mt. Everest here, and I am most sincerely sorry.

BONUS

Yasha was barely there this episode, for obvious reasons, but I still desperately want art of her cuddling with Kiri!

IN CONCLUSION

This episode was amazing and I cannot wait for next week.

#critical role #c2e24 #caleb widogast #jester lavorre #fjord #beauregard #nott the brave #mollymauk tealeaf #yasha nydoorin #kiri #caleb #jester #beau #nott #mollymauk #molly #yasha #beau and caleb

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conceptstage · 5 years

Text

A Marriage of Convenience {Chapter Eight}

“Jester.”

Jester looked up from the bag she was packing to see a familiar green cloaked figure sitting on her bed. She grinned and jumped to her feet. “Traveler! I haven’t seen you in so long.”

“It’s only been a few days though I know it feels like forever when you’re so young. What are you packing for?”

“I’m taking some of my toys and sketch books to Beau to play with together and show her some of my drawings.”

The Traveler was still smiling but he seemed tense. “You’ve gone to see your friend every day this week.”

“Well, yeah, she’s all alone up at that house. She needs me.”

“I’ve been feeling a little lonely myself, Jester. Do you not need me anymore?”

Jester gasped and ran over to jump up on the bed next to him. “Of course I still need you. You’re my first friend ever. But this is the first time anybody ever needed me. I can’t just forget about her.”

The Traveler was quiet for a moment before turning his grin to her and reaching out to pat her head lovingly. “Of course not. You have a good heart, Jester. Your friend is lucky to have you. Just do me a favor? Cause some trouble every now and then.”

The little blue tiefling giggled. “Of course. I’ll stay here with you all day tomorrow, okay? I promise.” She turned and scooped up the bag before running out the door. “Bye bye!”

The Traveler stared at her retreating back and frowned when she was out of sight. With a heavy sigh, he faded away.

Jester was silent as Fjord rowed them forward. The only sound was the echo of the shifting water against the wet stone walls. The darkness in the cave laid over them like a blanket. Because she was a tiefling, she could see marginally better than humans in the dark but there wasn’t much to see.

“You said five minutes,” Nott muttered, leaning over in Jester’s lap to look down at the water. “How much farther?”

“Well, I’ve never actually been in here,” Fjord said, frowning. “I only found out about it today, I happened to see them go in here.”

“You actually saw them? Jester asked. “Did you see our friends?”

“Well, I don’t know. What are they like?”

“Caleb is super smart and talented!” Nott said.

Fjord frowned. “I meant what do they look like. I can’t see talent.”

“Oh. Red hair? Curly? Always looks like he’s kind of on the verge of a breakdown?”

“Ooh, that’s accurate,” Jester said, nodding. “And Beau is super pretty, like a fairy tail heroine! Her hair is, like, half shaved and she has a bun. She wears a lot of blue. And Molly is… Yasha, how would you describe Molly?”

Yasha looked up at them from staring at her feet. “Purple,” she said shortly before looking back down.

Nott looked back at Jester. “Who’s Molly?” she whispered too loudly.

Fjord cleared his throat. “I did see a purple tiefling sitting in the boat. Was that your friend?” Yasha just nodded. “I- uh, I didn’t really see the other two. I didn’t have the best view. The tiefling was just kind of hard to miss, honestly.” He opened his mouth to continue but paused and narrowed his eyes as he looked ahead. “I think we’re coming up on some docks,” he whispered.

Jester leaned around him and nodded. “Yeah. I don’t see any people on them.”

“Hello!” Nott called. “Caleb?!”

“Shhh!”

Everyone in the boat got silent, even Fjord stopped rowing, but there was no sign of movement or voices on the docks. As they got closer, they could see a hallway behind the docks and the faint flickering of candle light. “I think we’re clear,” Fjord said, though he kept his voice low.

He grabbed some rope to tie off the boat and huffed as he jumped up onto the dock. As he was bent over tying the rope, there was a flick of movement out of the shadows behind him. Jester gasped. “Fjord, look out!”

The boat jolted as Yasha surged forward and there was a ringing of metal as her sword clashed with another mid air above Fjord’s head. Yasha pushed against the sword as the assailant came into view in her darkvision. It was the goliath woman from the tent. She growled as Yasha knocked the sword back, barely keeping her grip on the sword as Yasah took the opportunity to jump out of the boat.

The boat swayed violently back and forth, nearly tipping over several times while Nott held onto Jester for dear life and screamed. “Fuck water! Fuck water!”

Jester wrapped her arms around Nott and shifted her weight in the seat to keep the boat from tipping over entirely. “We’re fine!” she exclaimed. “We’re still up!”

“I’m drowning! I’m gonna drown!”

“You’re not drowning, we’re still in the boat!”

“I’m definitely drowning! Tell Caleb I love him!”

The goliath recovered from Yasha’s parry and swung background. The two greatswords clashed in the middle, throwing sparks. Fjord watched in awe as the light from the sparks almost made it look like there were wings sprouting from Yasha’s back in the shadows.

He rolled out from under the woman and nearly tumbled off the edge of the docks but he managed to get to his feet. “Shit,” he hissed. “I really didn’t want to do this.” He held his hand out to his side and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath in through his nose and out through his mouth. A moment later, a sword appeared in his hand. Jester’s mouth dropped and she was momentarially able to block out Nott as she shouted out her last will and testament.

“Caleb gets all the stuff I stole from Beau and her mom! He also gets all the stuff I stole from the Academy! He also gets all the stuff I stole from him when we first met and I was too shy afterwards to return to him because then I'd have to admit I took it!”

The sword in Fjord’s hands seemed to almost drip water. There was a glowing eye in the hilt that followed her when she moved and barnacles that grew along the blunt edge.

Fjord stabbed his forward and with perfect synchronization, he stabbed through the goliath’s back as Yasha’s sword sliced her head from her shoulders. Fjord’s jaw dropped as he watched the goliath’s head drop into the water and her body tumble to the ground by his feet. “Oh, fuck, I just killed somebody.”

Yasha reached down to help Jester out of the boat as the tiefling held Nott against her chest. “I killed her most,” the tall woman said. “Honestly, she probably would have survived the wound you gave her.”

Jester turned to Fjord and glared at him, pointing furiously at the sword. “What the fuck is that! Where did you get that magic sword?! How long have you had it?!”

Fjord cleared his throat and made the sword vanish. “C-Can we talk about this later? We should save your friends.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that you had a magic sword? I thought we were friends?”

“Jester, we are friends, I just… This is new. Just a few weeks. I haven’t really figured out myself how I feel about it.”

“I could have helped you.”

“I know. Thank you. We’ll talk about it later, okay? I promise.”

Jester was still obviously upset but she nodded and started walking to the end of the dock where the wood gave way to stone. She sat Nott down on the ground and goblin let out a heavy sigh of relief. “That wasn’t so bad,” she said, unconvincingly.

Fjord walked passed them towards the dimly lit hallway ahead. “Good. Because we’ll have to take the boat back out the other way.”

Nott didn’t respond, just laid down flat on the cold, hard ground and groaned. Jester pat her back softly. “Come on, Nott. We’re almost to Caleb.”

Nott huffed but pushed herself up to her feet. The hallway was mostly dark. There were lit candles but they were easily fifty feet apart, leaving them in a weird half lit limbo. They were all quiet, the only noise in the hall being the shuffling of their shoes and soft metallic ‘bing’ everytime Yasha’s sword hit one of the metal spikes on her belt.

They came upon a ‘T’ in the hall. One path led right and the other left with no signs or other indication of which way they should go. Fjord frowned and looked closely down each hallway but they were both darker than the last and his darkvision didn’t reach far enough to see the ends. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe we can try one and then the other?”

“That could take too long. What if Beau’s about to die? What if we have to barely make it to her with no time to spare and if we go the wrong way now we’ll miss her?”

“Jester, I don’t- Shh… I hear footsteps.”

Fjord pressed himself back against the wall of the hallway they’d just come though and the others followed suit. After a moment of silence they could all hear it to. It was hard to tell how many people were coming or how far away they were because of the echo against the stone walls. Fjord summoned his sword once more and Yasha pulled her’s off of her back. They waited for several seconds, possibly even a minute before the sound of the footsteps got to the ‘T’.

Fjord jumped around the corner with his sword held out in front of him and two swords came up to clash against his in the air. “Stay right-” he started just as one person in the other party started shouting as well.

“Don’t try and stop us, we’re-”

“-there, I don’t want to-”

“-leaving and we’re coming back with-”

“-hurt you but I will if you-”

“Fjord!” Jester called but they couldn’t hear her over their own yelling.

“-my friend Yasha and she’s gonna tear this-”

“-try anything you won’t leave me a choice!”

“-place a brand new asshole!”

“Fjord! That’s Caleb and Molly,” Jester said, stepping around the corner with Nott close behind her. Nott threw herself and Fjord’s leg and bit him in the thigh.

“Fuck! Nott what are you doing!” he exclaimed, shaking out his leg.

Nott pulled her teeth out but held onto his leg. “Don’t point that thing at my boy! I’ll kill you!”

“Nott!” Caleb said, stepping out from behind Molly. “You came.”

Nott dropped off of Fjord’s leg and ran towards Caleb. He bent down to hug her and ruffle her hair. “Of course I came! I wouldn’t just leave you here alone!”

Yasha stepped up to Molly as the tiefling sheathed his weapons and he gave her a grin. “Are you alright?” she asked, her voice monotone but her eyes worried.

“Never better, dear. Thanks for coming. We were actually just coming to get you so that you could help us save Beau.”

Jester frowned. “What? What did they do to Beau?”

“She did something stupid and sacrificed herself so that we could escape. The blue fellow took her away to an undisclosed location after she offered him a deal.”

Caleb frowned as he stood up completely. “We can’t go back for her. That man is the leader, he’ll be heavily guarded. They will kill us, Mollymauk.” He turned to Jester next. “I know that it’s very sad, but there is no hope for her. She would want you to be safe.”

“I can’t just leave her. She and my mom are the only family I’ve got in the whole wide world. She’s not blood but she’s my sister and I’m not leaving here without her.” Jester started marching forward down the hall that Caleb and Molly had just come down. “I’ll go alone if I have to.”

Molly instantly moved to follow her with Yasha trailing behind. “I’m with you.”

Fjord sighed but followed as well, leaving just Caleb and Nott standing at the intersection. Nott frowned. She wanted to follow, she wanted to help Beau, but Caleb came first. “We can go back to the house,” she said quietly. “You might have a few days to look for all the books you need before we have to leave.”

He shook his head. “No. I need her to find those books. And she’s the only one who knows about the missing one I’ve been searching for for seven years. I need her.”

He started down the hall after the others and Nott nodded, reaching out to take his hand as she walked beside him. “Okay.”

Jester led the charge down the hallway. They came back to the cells and the dead body of the second guard and continued forward. They came upon a wooden door with the sounds of screaming and voices on the other side. Molly and Yasha exchanged a glance and nodded, each pulling out their weapons nad getting into position. Fjord stood on Molly’s right beside the wall and called forth his sword. Caleb and Jester stood together in the back with Nott resting on Caleb's shoulder and propping her crossbow on his head.

“Ready?” Molly asked. No one spoke so he reached forward and rapped his knuckles against the door.

The doorknob turned in slow motion as Jester’s blood rushed through her ears.

Finally, the door was pulled open to reveal a short, unarmed gnome holding a mug of ale nearly half her size. She raised an unimpressed eyebrow at them and took a sip. “You must be Beau’s friends. Come on in.”

#critical role fic #critical role #beauregard #jester #fjord #caleb widogast #nott the brave #yasha #mollymauk tealeaf #a marriage of convenience #chapter eight

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feral-renaissance-cat · 6 years

Text

Waiting Is the Hardest Part

(Turns out I’m not done processing. You can read parts one and two so this will make more sense.)

Death was proving to be terrible for Molly’s self-control. As he suspected, the flask Taliesin had given him never ran out, and neither did the box of cigarettes nor the bag of pills. He lost count of how much he drank and smoked and how many pills he swallowed, since his stomach never felt full and he never blacked out from intoxication. Furthermore he had a suspicion that the only reason he felt the effects at all was because he expected to. He didn’t dare test out this theory for fear that he would realize there was no effect and he would have to go back to being bored.

He had remained in the hazy space ever since Taliesin left. Whether it was the drugs or the nature of this strange plane, he did occasionally see what looked like some of the art and messages from the first place he had been. As before, he spoke out to the no-one so he could have something to do, and since clearly someone had listened before when it brought Taliesin to him. At first it was ramblings, but eventually he dictated his last will and testament.

“I leave my Tarot cards to Gustav. He saw something in me, so perhaps he’ll be able to see something in them as well. My swords I leave to Fjord, if the others ever rescue him. For that matter, if they rescue Jester, she can have my tapestry. I’m sure she’ll come up with some mischief to do with that thing. Yasha knows what she can have out of my stuff. Whether she’ll actually take it, I don’t know.” He took a long swig from the flask. It was a strong mead made with peach blossom honey that he had had at some fancy place that he couldn’t remember, possibly because Taliesin had never thought to give it a name. Whether the memory was real or not, the mead was good and it sent tingles through his head as though someone had struck his horns with a tuning fork.

“To... To Caleb, I leave my coat. It would clash horribly with his hair and he would look ridiculous in it, but maybe he can use it as an extra blanket on nights when he needs something to keep him cozy. To Beau, I leave the rest of my skein. She can take it herself or use it to drug someone else, either way I hope she has fun with it. Nott can have my jewelry. She might have already taken it if the others haven’t told her off for ‘disrespecting the dead’ or whatever. It’s fine, I don’t need it anymore. My money can be divided amongst the party, but some of it has to be spent buying everyone a round at the next tavern they visit.”

Molly pulled out the bag of pills. He had taken four at once the last time, and while they had caused him to see shapes in the fog while feeling very good about things, he couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if he took an entire handful. Clearly it wouldn’t kill him, but he wasn’t sure what increasing the dosage by that much would do, if it did anything at all. Though the bag felt like it only held a dozen or so pills, when he shook it into his palm he had to quickly pull it back because suddenly they were spilling everywhere. He tipped about half his handful back in, because even he wasn’t that reckless, not to mention he didn’t want to try to swallow more than fifteen at a time. He popped them into his mouth, washed them down with mead, and that’s when the visions started.

There was no way of discerning direction in this place, so Molly simply went where his feet took him. He saw shapes in the fog again, but this time he walked towards them. The fog parted to reveal what appeared to be Pumat Sol in a tutu waving a magic wand over Nott’s head. A shower of glittering dust fell around her and she transformed into a lovely young halfling woman in a simple peasant’s dress. Her mask fell to the ground and shattering into a thousand pieces.

“Nott?” Molly asked. “Are you okay?”

Neither Nott nor Pumat Sol paid him any attention. Nott was too busy frolicking in her new dress and Pumat Sol was shaking hands with three other versions of himself that had just appeared. Molly kept walking.

Next he came across a small cabin in what appeared to be some backwoods clearing. Yasha was chopping wood with her sword. Beau sat on the cabin’s porch in an unbuttoned flannel shirt whittling some small figurine. Molly went up to Beau and waved his hand in front of her face. She kept whittling. Molly turned around. Yasha was no longer chopping wood. Instead she was using her sword to cut the heads off gnolls before tossing them into a pile already taller than she was. Molly hastily fled.

The next scene was far more serene. Fjord and Jester were sitting side by side on a bed. Fjord had his arm around Jester’s shoulders. Jester was cradling a tiny baby with sea-green skin and budding horns on its forehead, and it was sucking the end of its tail the way some babies sucked their thumbs. Molly had never seen Fjord smile like this. However, as Molly got a closer look he noticed one of Fjord’s eyes had no iris; it was simply an oblong pupil in a glowing yellow orb. Molly didn’t even bother speaking. He just left.

In the distance Molly could make out the shape of Taliesin. He was speaking with a cloaked figure. Though the hood of the cloak was up, Molly could see that the figure had bandages tightly wound around his eyes. Molly said nothing, and yet the figure still looked up in his direction with those unseen eyes, if there were any eyes beneath the bandages at all. Molly ran before Taliesin could notice him.

Molly was starting to pray that the drugs would wear off soon. Taking that many had been a terrible idea. It wasn’t until Molly spotted three other figures through the fog that he realized he hadn’t seen Caleb yet. “Caleb?” he called, stumbling forward.

It was Caleb, or so Molly assumed. This man had the same color hair, like the last dying embers of a fire, the same nose and chin and his eyes were the same shape, but he was...clean. He wore the uniform of an imperial mage, his beard was neatly trimmed, and his posture was tall and confident. He was flanked by an older man and older woman. The man had streaks of ember-colored hair amidst his grey and his nose was the same shape as Caleb’s. The woman had Caleb’s eyes and a similar pattern of freckles across her face. They were dressed far more modestly, but the hems of their clothes were blackened and smoldering.

Caleb’s eyes turned to Molly, except they weren’t Caleb’s eyes. These had a hard gaze that made Molly’s insides turn cold. A smirk spread across the man’s face. “Mr. Mollymauk,” he said. It was Caleb’s voice, but usually when Caleb called him that Molly couldn’t hold back a smile. Now Molly wished above all else that Caleb would have ignored him like the others. The man held out one hand. “Come to receive your judgement?”

“J-Judgement? For what?”

The man chuckled as he walked forwards. A pit opened in Molly’s heart and all his hopes fell through it. “I am sorry it had to be me, but those who commit crimes against the Empire must be punished.”

He was within arm’s reach of Molly. Molly took the man’s face in his hands. “Caleb, what did they do to you?” He had wanted to see Caleb whole again someday, but not like this. Never like this. It was as though all the empty spaces between his cracks had been filled with malice.

Caleb gently yet firmly pushed Molly’s arms down. “We must make an example of criminals such as yourself.” He put one hand over Molly’s heart. His smirk twisted into a gruesome grin. Lorenzo’s voice came out of his mouth. “An example it is.” Flames spread from his fingertips. Molly tried to back away but he was transfixed by the sadistic look on the man’s face. That horrible smile, those eyes reflecting the fire that was now burning through Molly’s chest, it was too much. Molly closed his eyes and screamed as the searing pain ate its way to his heart.

Then it was over. Molly felt cold, so so cold. He opened his eyes, but everything was total darkness. He blinked, but it made no difference. No matter which way he turned, no matter how hard he strained his eyes, there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. And Mollymauk knew.

It was the darkness of the grave.

Molly hyperventilated. He wanted to scream but his chest felt crushed. He reached out his hands. Not only could he not see them, but they found nothing, not the lid of a coffin nor thick soil, simply nothing.

The silence was suddenly broken by a cracking thunderous sound, like boulders falling from the sky one at a time. They fell all around him, but Molly could not see them nor tell where they came from. He lost count of them, and over time he thought it would never end.

Then the hush returned. Molly was terrified that he had gone deaf as well as blind. Just as he was about to call for help, there was a voice. The voice was all around him, louder than the thundering boulders from before. Somehow it sounded like the voices of nearly every person he had ever met speaking at once, though with an underlying timbre that shook him to his core.

“Mollymauk Tealeaf, it is time to go.”

#critical role #critical role spoilers #mollymauk #mollymauk tealeaf #cr spoilers #spoilers #is it thursday yet?#this is the last one #I'm done #it's up to the players now #get well soon Molly #edited for that extra twist of a glaive #because sometimes I'm an awful person

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