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“Essek,” Caleb placed his hand on the drow’s as they packed away their books, their most recent study session over, “I uh. I got you something. I meant to get it a while ago but I got lost and things got complicated but I found them and, well, I wanted you to have this.”
Caleb reached into a pocket on the inside of his coat, pulling out a small drawstring bag, and dumping the contents into his own palm. He picked up one of the two small items between his fingers and held it out to Essek, who offered a hand to take it.
Instead of just placing the item in his hand, though, Caleb took Essek’s hand in his own, and slid the ring onto one of the unoccupied fingers.
They made eye contact and Essek smiled teasingly. "Are you proposing, Widogast?"
Caleb’s face turned bright red. “No.. Uh, these are,” he cleared his throat and slid the other, identical ring onto his own finger, “They’re magic. Essentially modified sending stones. I thought they’d be useful if you needed to contact us, or if Jester ran out of spell slots, or something...”
Essek stared wordlessly at the ring for a moment, his expression unreadable, but a soft purple spreading across his cheeks and ears. “Thank you, Caleb.” He looked up to make eye contact again, smiling warmly. “This is very nice.”
Caleb watched as Essek gathered his books, swiftly vanishing them into a pocket dimension, the stone bright amber against his finger.
“Use poison and radiant! Fire won’t do shit!” Beau’s yell echoed through the dark cavern.
“Shit.” Caleb thought, filtering through his components for something that might injure these creatures. As he was looking, he saw the ring he’d been wearing since he put it on a few weeks back, and started digging for the components for the spell Essek had shown him that night. Now was as good a time as ever.
As he was looking for the silver dust he needed, his hand brushed a jar of molasses. “That could help...” he thought, pulling it out and smearing some on his hand.
Slow was an excellent spell, but only providing the enemies didn’t resist. These guys seemed to be pretty good at resisting it. The one closest to Fjord slowed to half its usual speed, but all the others seemed to brush it off easily.
Considering they’d fought just a few hours ago and hadn’t had a chance to rest, Caleb was already in a bit of a rough shape. He may not have been tanking blows, but he wasn’t exactly the most hardy of individuals.
He started digging for the silver dust again, giving one of the creatures a window of opportunity to strike him, dealing a harsh, but not too brutal blow before Jester knocked it aside with an oversized, serrated lollipop.
Caleb cursed himself as he failed to find the silver dust, his hands instead falling on a catmint flower, which he pulled out and began to cast with.
Before he could complete the spell, however, one of the monsters charged into him, knocking him to the ground. Caleb felt a few of his ribs crack badly as he hit the uneven cavern floor, the verbal components being knocked from his mouth as the creature dug a long, sharp claw deep into his side.
Caleb felt a strong, cold, paralysing sense of dread wash over him, he gasped for air but found it difficult to draw any. He could taste blood in his mouth and his whole body hurt beyond anything he’d felt before.
He tried to yell to Jester or Caduceus but his voice was too weak and they were too preoccupied with the other monsters to notice him bleeding out.
Caleb knew he was dying, but none of his friends did. If only he could get a message to one of them, just one person who could tell a cleric.
The ring, he realised, was cold against his finger. This had never been its intended use, but perhaps Caduceus had been somewhat right about fate.
Some days were boring. Essek hated the days where he had to stand by the Bright Queen’s side and do basically nothing. Today’s business didn’t concern him in any way, his presence was merely formality.
The dens were bickering about some issue with a system Essek knew very little about, and he’d zoned out near entirely, thinking instead to a spell he’d been working on at home.
He had almost reached the solution, he thought, there was just one component that seemed to be missing, but he couldn’t place what it was.
He was making a mental list of every component he kept in his home, trying to find one that would fit, when a voice came to the back of his mind. Weak, but definitely present. It was strained, barely a whisper, but the Zemnian accent was unmistakable.
“Essek,” Caleb’s voice said, “We are where we were sent. Second chamber, the left tunnel. We need help, I need help. Call Jester if you must. Please, I’m-” The spell cut off before the last word, but Essek felt like he could guess what it was, and the thought filled him with fear, dread, and panic.
“Shadowhand? Is something wrong?” The Bright Queen’s voice cut through the thoughts that had started racing through Essek’s mind, and he realised he was sweating and shaking.
“I’m terribly sorry, my queen, but I have to leave.” Essek made a halfhearted attempt to mask his panic, but it was barely, if at all, effective.
The Bright Queen opened her mouth as if about to ask for an explanation, but Essek was already casting, his mind focused on the caves the Mighty Nein had been sent to, asked to investigate a strange threat, dangerous creatures no one had seen before.
Essek finished his muttering and the bright lights of the throne room vanished as the spell pulled him away, and he focused everything he could on getting into that cavern and helping Caleb .
He felt heavy, intense pain as he teleported into stone, his body aching all over, but he could feel he was close. He just needed to adapt where he was aiming slightly and-
Perfect.
Essek found himself teleported into the entrance of the chamber, he could see flashes of magic, the glint of blades, a large lollipop, a mixture of glowing pink unicorns and green beetles, and monstrous corpses scattered about, only a few creatures standing.
His eyes scanned the area, falling on one of the terrifying creatures hunched over a heavily wounded but unmistakable body in the corner.
Essek held out a hand and muttered under his breath, bright white anger clouding his vision as the monster was lifted from its position and hurled into the cave wall, its body lying broken and lifeless where it hit the floor.
Essek barely paid mind to the corpse he’d created, he glided hurriedly across the cavern, passing Beau as she delivered a killing blow on another one of the monsters.
“Essek?” she asked, but was left ignored as he made his way hurriedly to the body he could see was no longer breathing.
He became numb as he reached Caleb, emotion overloading his body to the point that he wasn’t sure he’d feel anything ever again.
“Jester!” He heard himself yell, his hands pressed firmly to Caleb’s clavicle, searching for a heartbeat he knew wasn’t there.
Tears were running down his face, and Essek let himself cry for the first time in years.
Large, warm hands found their way over Essek’s, and he saw soft grey fur and pink hair.
Caduceus moved his hands over Essek’s, gesturing for him to remove them, but he couldn’t bring himself to, and found himself instead collapsing over Caleb’s chest, his whole body shaking as he sobbed.
The firbolg squeezed Essek’s hand reassuringly before pulling away, and Essek watched him pull out a diamond and started casting.
The sounds of combat faded and the Mighty Nein’s yells echoed through the cavern as they realised what had happened. Nott had fallen to her knees beside Caleb’s head, and was saying something in a panicked, heartbroken voice, but Essek couldn’t make out any words over his heart racing in his ears, and his chaotic, overlapping thoughts.
Caleb couldn’t die. Not Caleb, who was the Mighty Nein’s most important asset, a hero of the Dynasty, the one who returned the beacon. Caleb, whose mind was too excellent. Who had mastered Dunamancy as a concept in basically one lesson, who’d made his own spells in schools that weren't even his specialty. Caleb, whose bright red hair fell in his face as he worked with an intensity that made butterflies attack Essek’s stomach. Caleb, who wasn’t just important to the Nein or the Dynasty, who was important to Essek. Caleb, who wasn’t consecuted, wasn’t able to escape death like so many people in the Dynasty. Caleb, who Essek realised that he would give up his own consecution for in a heartbeat if it could save him.
Caduceus pressed the diamond next to Essek on Caleb’s chest, and it glowed green with a magic Essek couldn’t quite recognise. The green spread from where the gem touched the human, and soon his whole body was glowing green, making Essek spring away from the body and look on in awe.
As quickly as the glow had started, it stopped, and Caleb took a deep, gasping, slightly wet breath. He’d barely drawn his second breath when Caduceus’s hands glowed again, pressing this time to the deep, dark wound in Caleb’s side, which began to sprout a fungus that covered the wound and fell away, leaving a healed over scar in its wake.
“Scheiße...” Caleb propped himself up on one arm and looked to his friends surrounding him, his gaze meeting Essek’s and staying there. “You got my message.”
“You scared me...” The words broke as Essek said them, and Caleb smiled weakly as he raised a hand to wipe away some of the drow’s tears.
“Es tut mir leid. You were fast acting enough to make sure I was safe, though. Thank you, I find myself in your debt again.”
Essek couldn’t help but laugh, and Caleb’s chuckle in response made a blush creep across his face. “It was your rings that saved you. I’ll consider them responsible, and accept them as another favour.”
Essek reached for Caleb’s hand, taking it in his own and, feeling bold and a little dazed from the mess of emotions he’d felt in the last few minutes, pressed his lips to the ring that sat there.
He looked to the human’s face, watching his cheeks turn bright red, and there was a moment’s pause in which nothing and no one seemed to move.
Then Caleb tugged, pulling Essek close and cupping his face in his hands as he pressed their lips together.
And Essek kissed back, feeling the tension that had taken over his body fade away.
"Well isn't that nice." Caduceus said after a moment, and Essek almost jumped as he remembered all their friends were watching.