Part Thrice: Mother Banana KUMQUAT!

Rook hitched a ride down the mountainside in a cart with a merchant on his way to the Illychnaev market by the caravan her friends from Meadowmere set up camp. Content in the companionable silence, the old dwarf hummed a strange melody as she thumbed through the pages of the worn tome Moira had left in her possession.

Page after page of field notes in elegant handwriting. Masterful sketches of herbs with endless recipes of remedies and poisons alike. A small section dedicated to creatures that fueled nightmares. Detailed maps, a lengthy list of popular trade routes… interesting enough, for sure, to keep her occupied for months. She made mental notes as she skimmed the pages, some numbered, others dog-eared, faces of Meadowmere citizens coming to mind with each subject. Jack with recipes. Willow and her love of Astral creatures. But it was near the back of the tome that held the most interest for Rook.

Pockets of handwritten notes, folded neatly and placed with corresponding flags and crests. Flags she recognized easily enough. Most of the Duchies wore them proudly. She even recognized some of the family crests. Velasquez, Jernigan, Royce, and Chambers were easy to pick out. Unironically, a bloody thumbprint marked the Dejardin crest, the bottom corner smudged red. But the last dozen or so pages held pockets marked with crests Rook did not recognize. A purple crest, gilded on the edges. Proper. Important looking. Another looked to be a modified version of the crest that the Grimm family used to seal their letters and paperwork. The very last pocket of the book, by far the fullest pocked, held no identifier. A vast array of colored ink stained the pages. Letters Rook dared not open in the presence of a strange dwarven merchant, even if he paid her no mind.

She settled into her uncomfortable seat in the back of the cart, surrounded by crates of clinking vials, sloshing ale barrels, and tightly bound herbs, losing herself in the maps again when the merchant brought the cart to a sudden stop.

“By my wife’s grey beard! What in the hells is that?” He exclaimed as he stood in his seat, eyes squinting to somewhere in the distance as Rook spun from her place and followed his gaze. There, about thirty feet in the air, less than a quarter mile away, two figures fell from the sky.

Familiar figures. One she knew on sight to be Grimm, and the other suspiciously like Kalen.

“Mother banana…” she grumbled.

The merchant started moving toward where her friends were falling. Not wanting any more unwanted or unnecessary attention thrown toward Grimm, or Meadowmere for that matter, Rook snapped her tome shut and scrambled out of the cart. Tripping over her feet, she managed to reach the merchant before he stepped off the main road.

“Forgettable face,” she gasped. Best not to leave traces. The merchant paused, blinking as if waking from a nap. [Suggest:] “Home.” She pointed back the way they came, hoping he’d understand her meaning. His confusion was clear as she led him back to the cart and helped him into it. Grabbing her portable junk drawer pack from the back, she secured her tome safely inside and set to work getting the horse turned around.

As soon as the merchant, whose name she regrettably never learned, was out of sight, she turned toward the hedges Grimm and Kalen tumbled into. There was only one reason they’d suddenly appear mid-air, and there was only reason that reason would have happened.

Kalen blinked.

And if Kalen blinked, Grimm was doing something suspicious enough to put someone in danger. Or someone put Grimm in danger. Or both.

Probably both. Meadowmere has a strange and dangerous habit of finding trouble.

The sound of combat in the distance pricked her ears. A growl. Grimm’s dark chuckle. A blast wave of energy and she saw Grimm back in the air. What on earth was going on?

The closer she got to where things were going very, confusingly wrong, she started to find bits and bobs from Grimm’s pouches. Papers, potions, coins, an artifact skull, a very odd-looking silver coin she’d never seen before. She tried to scoop up everything she could. Gathering up what she could of the papers, the skull, and the silver coin, and threw them in her pack. She managed to grab a couple of potions, but when she finally went to grab the coin scattered on the ground, a tiny hand beat her to it.

“Mine!” The angry fairy snatched the coin. He didn’t bother to look up at her before he moved on to the next collection of coins on the ground.

“Hermies?” Rook asked. He didn’t pause at all, just kept shoveling all of Grimm’s coin into his hat.

“What? He broke the code. It’s just what he owes us!” Imend piped up from behind a bush, clearly also hunting for more of Grimm’s things. “By the way,” he reached into his pocket and produced Grimm’s black and blue eye patch and tossed it at her, “what’s this?”

The moment the leather touched her skin, the buzzing static in her earshot through her head like a bolt of violent purple lightning. She let it drop to the ground. There was no time for this. Not now.

“L-later…” she stuttered, trying to regain her composure. “Promise. Trouble.”

“No.” Imend showcased his slashed, bloody shirt, “now. I think I deserve to know now.”

Before Rook could answer, a flash of purple magic flared in the tree line behind Imend and Grimm could be heard in the not-so-distance “BLAST!”

The line of trees that protected Imend, Hermies, and Rook from view from the battle splintered and Grimm stood in the wake, Sam behind him.

[Suggest:] “FREEZE!” Sam yells as she propels herself into Grimm’s side and sends him flying. [Push]

“Can somebody tell me what in the Nine Hells is going on!?” Sam roared. Her voice cracked, audibly stressed. She made eye contact with each one of them. Hermies, then Imend, and then Rook.

“Rook! You’re alive!” The anxiety melted momentarily from her face. It was just a moment before it lined her face again, “Where have you been?!”

“Rendezvous?” Rook shrugged sheepishly. Grimm groans from his place on the ground and everyone’s attention turns in his direction. Another explanation that will have to wait for another day.

“Somebody has a plan to snap him out of this, right? Because all I had was brute force, and I don’t think it worked,” Sam turned toward the group, waiting for an answer that would never come.

Grimm finds his footing and drags himself up by a tree. He’s tired and sluggish, but that doesn’t stop him from ramping up for another attack. Purple emanates from underneath the bandana and the buzzing returns to Rook’s ears.

“Rook!” Kalen calls from behind Grimm, “the favors!” He points toward Grimm’s other sword buried in the ground about ten feet away from her. Rook searches the ground for the favors. Kalen’s shiny blue favor sparkled in the sunlight, and right next to it was another favor.

The favor she had once given to Eilonwy.

“Mother banana KUMQUAT!” Rook growled as she made a run for the favors. Stupid deer-faking changeling. A vision of Eilonwy handing Grimm a favor to turn him on their friends enraged her so bad it blurred her vision.

As she ran she reached into her pack to retrieve one of the restore potions and threw it toward Kalen. “Kalen! Here!”

Grimm started to laugh as the purple glow grew brighter. “I don’t think so, Little Bird,” [Push] Grimm launches Kalen back into a tree, “Shape-shifting mutts don’t get second chances.” Grimm picks up the potion and applies it to himself.

With a look of disgust, Grimm turns toward the blue favor, glistening in a ray of sunlight. He cracks a wicked grin as he points to the gem.

“Sunder.”

And the gem bursts into thousands of sparkly blue shards, the magic shattering with it.

Just then, an angry, orange blur crashes into the back of Grimm’s neck and starts pummeling Grimm with his tiny fists. “Snap. Out of it. You big. Stupid. Mortal!” Hermies was unrelenting. “And gimmie. All. Your. Gold!”

Rook took the clouded favor and threw it to Kalen. And just to make sure the favor made its target this time, she gave it an extra [Push.]

Kalen, keeping his eye keenly on the favor, “Mimic: Sunder!” And the true changeling favor exploded in a burst of prismatic shards and was no more. The shockwave sent everyone to their knees. The purple magic that pulsed underneath Grimm’s bandana dissipated, and confusion spread across his features.

“W-what…” he stuttered, “what happened?”

“KNOCK OUT.” Imend cracked Grimm in the back of the head.

“You tried to kill me, that’s what,” he spat. He bent to relieve Grimm of another pouch, “and I’ll be taking this.”

“Like I said, I think some distance is what’s needed here,” Kalen said. “Does anyone have anything to secure him?”

Sam produced a set of manacles and wordlessly handed them over.

“We need to protect Meadowmere,” Kalen said, “but we also need to protect him from Meadowmere. And from himself. There’s a place in the Citadel we can take him to where he won’t be found by those who will want answers, and will keep him from attacking us further.” He turned to Rook, “You’ve been looking to join the Order, it seems only fitting to have you escort him there with me. We can get you squared away while we’re there.”

Unsure how to answer, she just nodded. What was left to do?

“Will he get help there?” Sam asked.

“That is the goal. I have friends there who may know how to help.” Kalen responded. “They will have the tools to keep his powers restrained. Keep in mind, this isn’t a summer camp. He will be imprisoned for his safety, and ours.”

“And what about this?” Imend produced the eye patch again, offering it to Rook, who refused to touch it again. “I deserve answers.”