Work Text:
"Hey, Prime?"
Pumat's ears absently twitched at the sound of his name, but he kept his eyes closed. If he was careful enough, he could make the last finishing touches on this amulet with what little he had left.
There was the movement of air, and the voice came again. "Prime."
Luckily, he'd been doing this long enough that he could respond without losing concentration. "Yeah."
There was a longer silence than usual. "You're gonna lose it."
Pumat scowled. The magic was burning through the bones in his fingers as it left his body and entered the amulet, but he'd been able to successfully ignore it until now. He could feel sweat starting to gather on his hand, but he ignored that too. "Whatever you gotta say, spit it out."
"I am," the duplicate said firmly. "And you're gonna lose the work."
Pumat gritted his teeth, and there it was, the telltale waver. The tremor in his hand was starting to act like an empowered Shocking Grasp spell, the muscles jittering and spasming.
"I can salvage this--" he managed, visualizing the wildly dancing energy and trying to find the center of balance in it, to bring it under control again.
A hand touched his.
Pumat's eyes snapped open with a sharp yelp.
The magic arced like a small explosion, lancing up the fur on the back of his hand, the amulet, the worktable underneath. The duplicate caught some of it too, judging from the startled yowl.
Pumat yanked his hand back to his chest, cradling it carefully. "I had it, Me."
The duplicate shook his hand firmly a few times, and then looked at Pumat with a sigh. "No, you didn't." He nodded to the hand against Pumat's chest. "Look."
Pumat did, and instantly regretted it. He could see that the surge hadn't lanced electricity up the back of his hand so much as flash-fried the whole thing. The sweat he'd been feeling had been blood--
"--that must've gotten pushed out by the magic, there." The duplicate stepped closer, reaching for Pumat's arm. "The equilibrium got outta whack because you're drained, and you overclocked it to make up for the difference." He shot Pumat a slightly irritated look. "You gotta stop doing this to yourself. I said that me and the others could handle this one."
Well, at least he knew which duplicate it was. For whatever reason, Quarten had been the last one created by the Assembly, but had become the mother hen to the rest of them.
Pumat scowled up at him, but let Quarten take his hand and start soaking up the blood with a clean towel. "You guys weren't here when I started this batch. It's a top priority for the Assembly."
Quarten frowned down at him. "Another one? Prime, this is--"
"Exactly why I have this shop in the first place," Pumat snapped. "And why I have you three."
"So, why don't you let us help you--"
"Hey, Me!" one of the other duplicates called from the front room. He peered in, armed with two bowls of steaming rabbit stew. Segund, then, since Tertis had more bulk to him. "Caduceus just answered-- oh. Hey, wow." His eyes widened when he saw Pumat's hand and the bloodsoaked towel. "Bad reaction?"
Quarten, who was still tending to Pumat's hand, had the gall to look annoyed. "Overclocking to finish another of those amulets."
"I'm right here," Pumat growled, taking the towel from Quarten before turning to the other one. "And what do you mean Caduceus just answered?"
Segund winced, offering a bowl to Quarten and setting the second one on the worktable near the half-finished amulet. "Oh, um. Well."
Pumat raised an eyebrow at Quarten. "Well?"
Quarten straightened his shoulders and shot Pumat an unintimidated look. "You remember the firbolg that came through? With that ragtag group of adventurers?"
As if there had been another firbolg that Pumat had seen in all his time in Zadash.
Pumat blinked. "Oh, yeah, him." He frowned curiously at both duplicates before he picked up the spoon with his left hand and gingerly started eating. "He's back in town?"
Segund looked embarrassed. "Um, no. We've been talking through Sending spells."
Pumat's eyebrows jumped. "You've been using a third-level spell--"
"Three of them," Segund added quickly while edging towards the door.
"Three of them?" He looked from one duplicate to the other. "You've been talking to another firbolg instead of conserving your energy for this?" He waved his bloody hand at his workshop.
"Considering that you're not letting us take on more rush orders for the Assembly," Quarten said dryly as he leaned his hip against the worktable. "I don't see why we can't use our magical energies the way we see fit."
Pumat scowled. "If you're each using a third-level spell in order to talk to Caduceus, then how many potions and lots of ammunition are you preparing each day? We still have those standing orders from the Righteous Brand to fill before they send out the next batch of soldiers."
"We're making quota," Segund murmured, his ears drooping a little while his hand was on the doorknob. "We've been careful."
"Unlike a certain someone," Quarten added, shooting Pumat an unimpressed look. "If the numbers add up, we should have the batch ready by tomorrow night."
"Hey, is it all right if I--" Segund was already opening the door again, looking a little too hopeful.
Pumat waved the hand still holding the spoon. "Go. We'll talk after the shop closes tonight."
When they were alone, Quarten sighed gently, still frowning. "The shop's already closed, Prime. We don't cast Sending unless we're sure we're not going to get interrupted."
Pumat frowned. "I know I lose track of time when I'm working, but I don't lose track that badly."
The duplicate raised his eyebrows at Pumat.
"What?" Pumat asked defensively.
The duplicate looked directly at Pumat's damaged hand.
Pumat cuddled it closer to his chest with what he hoped was a quelling frown. He was supposed to be the original, dag nabbit. His duplicates staging a mutiny wasn't something he needed.
Quarten sighed again. "How many of those things do you have to do now?"
"Five," Pumat grunted. "They've got some warmages that they're sending to Bladegarden."
Quarten frowned. "I thought they already sent the ones they had from Rexxentrum."
"From the Academy."
Pumat turned away from the look of horror on his duplicate's face. As he ate more of his stew, he saw Quarten hold a hand over the half-finished amulet.
"There's at least four anchor points for the enchantment to latch onto," he pointed out.
"They need strengthening," Quarten murmured.
Pumat grunted.
"Something's gotta give, Prime."
Pumat grunted again, not disagreeing with him. One good thing about having duplicates was that he didn't have to explain himself to, well, himself.
The hand flipped over, revealing faint lines in the fur of the duplicate's palm. "We're working in shifts, and we barely have one or two guys to man the store if we get customers."
Pumat frowned. "I thought you said you guys had it handled."
"Not if we're going to be taking over the amulets."
Pumat scowled up at his duplicate. "What part of 'it's a top priority' did you miss?" Top priority usually meant that it was something Prime handled by himself, which any of his duplicates should know by now--
Quarten's expression reminded Pumat uncomfortably of his mother. "The part where you soaked this towel." He held up the towel in question, the bright red stark against the white terrycloth.
Pumat resumed eating, his ears lowering in irritation.
"Y'know, if you talked to Caduceus, you might feel better," the duplicate offered gruffly. At Pumat's confused glare, he shrugged. "How do you think we've been able to keep it together while filling these orders?"
Pumat set down his spoon, picked up the bowl one-handed, and tried to drink the broth. When his hand wobbled, his duplicate smoothly caught it, and tilted the lip of the bowl to Pumat's lips. Pumat finished the stew, and licked his lips as Quarten pulled the bowl away and picked up the spoon. "Well, you're gonna have to stop Sending to him for a while, if you three are going to help with these." He motioned to the half-finished amulet.
Quarten nodded. "I'll finish the conversation tonight, and then Send him one last message tomorrow." At Pumat's confused look, he added, "Twenty-five words isn't much of a conversation, but seventy-five's not bad."
Pumat looked at his duplicate for a long moment. Seventy-five words from one person could be a good bit of conversation, depending on what the person said. Then again, getting distracted by a pretty face when they had work to do…
"You'd like him," Quarten murmured. "He's not like the people in our old village."
Pumat snorted, trying to imagine Caduceus side by side with any of the firbolgs back in the forest they came from. "Pink hair was never really a fashion statement back there."
Quarten rolled his eyes. "You can admit that he's pretty, Prime."
The problem wasn't that he wouldn't admit it. Even he couldn't miss how… eye-catching Caduceus had been when one of his duplicates had called him to the front of the shop.
But if a mane of pink hair could distract his duplicates, it didn't bode well if Pumat himself ever got to know him. He hadn't ever fallen in love before, and Caduceus seemed like the kind of firbolg who wasn't interested in that kind of thing.
In an effort to cover up his discomfort, Pumat frowned. "So you're admitting that a pretty face is distracting you from your work?"
"A pretty face who hasn't had a chance to talk to another firbolg in about twenty seasons?" Quarten offered mildly. "He traveled with one for a little bit when he joined those adventurers, but she went back to her village after her husband and son were rescued from slavers."
Pumat blinked. "Slavers?"
"Called themselves the Iron Shepherds," Quarten said, an ear flicking with palpable disdain. "Apparently the half-orc and the blue tiefling got kidnapped by those guys, along with another friend of theirs. The group went to get them back, and met Caduceus along the way after they lost that lavendar tiefling."
Pumat tried to remember the people in the group, and gave it up as a lost cause after catching a knowing look from his duplicate. "It's why I have you guys to mind the shop, Me."
Quarten shrugged. "I wasn't judging, honest. Anyway, Caduceus signed on when he figured that they needed his help, and that they could help him do something too, though we're not sure what that is just yet. They dismantled the slaver ring, rescued a whole buncha people who'd been kidnapped. And guess what?" At Pumat's confused headshake, Quarten continued. "Looks like their boss was an oni. Seems like the slavers were kidnapping kids from Nogvurot in order to feed him."
Pumat swallowed carefully, not entirely sure if the stew was going to make a reappearance sooner than he would have liked.
"If it makes you feel any better, the slavers are all dead," Quarten offered.
Pumat nodded a bit weakly. "So, when did the Sendings start?" he asked, hoping the change of subject would help settle his stomach.
"Well, after those guys bought out our stock, it looks like they headed southward to the Menagerie Coast," Quarten said. "They were going to go investigate something, though Caduceus has been a little light on the details."
Pumat frowned. "That's not good."
"Hey, adventuring types have all kinds of secrets," Quarten offered with a shrug. "You remember what it was like back at the village. And then in Rexxentrum."
Pumat sighed. Yeah, he did. It hadn't been easy to be the only firbolg in the village who had a talent for arcane magic, let alone the kind that required extensive study in order to develop his powers. Meeting non-firbolgs for the first time had been an exercise in tightly-controlled panic as well as learning to be selective in what questions he answered when he was in the Academy.
Quarten nodded knowingly. "Well, Caduceus had a rough time of it -- kept drowning, poor fella -- so he ended up reaching out to us. You remember the first time he cast a Sending, right?"
It had been unexpected, but not entirely unwelcome, though he didn't exactly want to admit that out loud to his duplicate. Of course, the downside to his duplicate being able to follow his line of thinking without needing an explanation was, well...
Pumat scowled, not liking how his duplicate's expression turned just a little smug. "He's surrounded by his buddies, isn't he? Why didn't he talk to them?"
Quarten sighed. "You remember that one adventuring group from a couple years ago that came into the shop and kept arguing with each other?"
Pumat rolled his eyes. "You three had to kick them out how many times?"
"Five," Quarten said with a shrug. "These guys that Caduceus is traveling with aren't that bad, but he felt a bit weird reaching out to them when they were busy having to deal with their own emotional baggage."
"So he asks me if I really think he brightens up the room?" Pumat asked, just a little incredulously.
His face was fine. If it happened to be flushed, it was just some latent backdraft from the overclocking. He was fine. Really.
Quarten didn't look fooled. Dag nabbit. "Maybe he needed to hear that he turned heads everywhere he goes." Before Pumat could object, he snorted. "You're allowed to like him, Prime. We already do, and we've been talking to him."
"Yeah, which I'm sure he appreciates in the middle of Allhammer knows what," Pumat muttered. "If he's not giving any details about what's happening, he's either in trouble, in danger, or both."
Quarten huffed. "You're not wrong. Still, I think you'd benefit from talking to him. He'll lift your spirits, if nothing else."
Pumat scowled. "Oh, sure, I stay back here working on projects because I'm such a thrilling conversationalist."
"Like we were any better when we were first created?" Quarten offered. "It just takes practice. You know all about that."
Pumat grumbled. "Aren't you three supposed to be closing up shop?"
Quarten smiled. "Already on it, Prime."
Just as his duplicate was about to open the door, Pumat cleared his throat. "Um."
"Yeah?" Quarten's ears lifted.
"The next time you talk to Caduceus," Pumat said slowly. "Tell him to swing by the store when he gets into town, all right?"
Quarten grinned. "Sure thing."