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Among her colleagues, she’d been nicknamed the “Venomous Volstrucker”.
It was rather apt, given her penchant for and proficiency with poison. And how she could easily fell even the mightiest of monsters or the most heinous of humans with but a few drops of it.
She’s had plenty of practice in perfecting her craft.
And sometimes, she didn’t even need to use any of her concoctions, for poison takes many forms. Be it a pointed barb of a quip, planting seeds of distrust, or pulling the strings of foolish hearts, she is a master of manipulation and has left many men, women, and all manner of fools broken and bloody, both physically and emotionally.
One should know better than to trust a spinner of webs like herself.
And yet, for so very long, there had been one target that has yet to fall to her methods.
The very man that trained her by transforming her from a humble and naive farm girl to a brutally efficient killer, all for the sake of the Empire.
Trent Ikithon.
She’s had plenty of practice in perfecting her craft.
But it was never enough. And she suffered for it every time, whether it was the master threatening Wulf’s life or “refreshing” her on discipline through punishment.
Ikithon saw himself as untouchable, invincible. Yet he was but an old man.
An old man with contingencies upon contingencies, always planning ahead, always having his eyes and ears everywhere, continuing to elude death at every turn. What a stubborn arschloch.
It’s fine. As a former Archmage in the Assembly once stated, death is but a waiting game.
So she continued to bide her time. For even time is a poison, and she had the advantage of youth as a woman in her thirties and he in his late seventies.
However, she knew that even that would become another mild inconvenience for the man, especially after he had obtained several of the Kryn Dynasty’s sacred relics.
If he could unlock their secrets, he could achieve more or less the means to prolonging his life in a manner similar to the Dynasty’s ritual of consecution.
And even after his former “partner” chose to walk away from helping him, Trent continued to conduct his own research into dunamis, even co-opting what Derogna had been able to uncover through her own methods.
She couldn’t help but wonder what the master wanted to do with these “potions of possibility”. Perhaps he intended to push forward with an evolution of the Volstrucker by utilizing the Kryn’s own magic against them.
Her forearms continued to ache as they had been for the past seventeen or so years. A constant source of pain that Ikithon assured would lead to strength and focus.
Even in the months since the attack on the Zauberspire in Zadash, she continued to bide her time.
The reemergence of Bren had thrown a spanner in the works that was Ikithon’s well-oiled machine of control. So of course he would make him his top priority.
So when Bren had finally returned to Rexxentrum alongside his new companions, he wasted no time in sending an invitation to dinner at his tower. And she and Wulf were ordered to attend as well.
The dinner was charged with tension as the master spun his web, intent on breaking Bren further, intent on bringing him back into the fold. And if Bren were to attempt to murder him, he would be welcome to try.
But she knew better. Ikithon as he was at the time was simply untouchable. And he would continue to have his eyes and ears spy on his movements, especially with the discovery that he was no longer wearing that stolen veiler.
Ikithon ordered her and Wulf to tail the Mighty Nein, to discern what they were doing and why they were traveling to Eiselcross. They discovered that Derogna had been murdered and that despite the claim that she’d simply gone away, nothing escaped Ikithon’s notice. He had a plan just in case where he would force Bren to comply in having a “discussion”, using Derogna’s demise and the Mighty Nein’s involvement as her supposed escort as leverage to get him to cooperate.
Thus why she and Wulf were deployed.
They hadn’t counted, however, on losing the group in the Biting North. And they were forced to return home and report the failure.
She and Wulf were punished accordingly, with her punishment being quite severe as her own poisons were used against her. She was fortunate that along with those poisons, she had also concocted antivenom serums.
Of course, following her punishment, her serums were destroyed with the promise from the master that if she were to fail again, there would be no recovery.
So she had taken a gamble with her next encounter with Bren, suggesting that he and his group infiltrate Vergesson and steal some more veilers from Trent’s stores.
Needless to say, they had been clumsy. But fortunately she had been able to avoid punishment by joining Wulf in tracking the Nein to Nicodranas.
If they couldn’t capture who were clearly now traitors to the Empire, the best they could do was to capture those close to them. Marion Lavorre and Yeza and Luc Brenatto.
Family could be quite exploitable as a weakness. She would know.
Yet the Nein escaped capture once again. And she was fortunate to have the excuse of being “too late” in stopping them, claiming that by the time she was at the Tidepeak Tower, she was unable to Counterspell Bren’s attempt at a Plane Shift.
Strangely, Ikithon did not punish them this time. Instead, he suggested that they would bide their time. He posited that at some point, there would be a moment where Bren would let his guard down.
That moment finally came at the Blooming Grove. Ikithon told her and Wulf to come along. They were ordered to terminate the Mighty Nein or capture them alive, but the one who absolutely must be eliminated was Bren. He had become a thorn in his side for far too long, a dangerous loose end to leave alive.
That declaration had left her stunned. Up until now, Trent had been content with letting Bren go about his business, resorting to manipulation to wear him down and get him to give in to his true nature that he had forgotten by growing “soft”.
She recalled that ever since Vergesson, the master had been unusually agitated. Had Bren truly gotten under his skin that badly? That would have been a first.
But no, Trent was petty. He was petty that Bren would ignore him.
So now he was an old man with a grudge that absolutely must be resolved.
They wasted no time in literally smoking out the Mighty Nein and drawing Bren out of the pathetic hovel that one would call a “temple”, and Trent kept his focus on his former pupil, intent on euthanizing the stray pup once and for all.
Such focus would be his undoing, as it left him blind to the ingenious creativity of the Mighty Nein. He had been slow to notice the Expositor leap above and on top of him, wrapping a strange collar around the master’s neck. And as Bren had dispelled his defenses and his winged boots, Trent fell from the sky as if he were part of a casting of Meteor Swarm.
The impact left him winded and he tried to escape from them, but his attempts at both physical and magical egress were thwarted. And soon after, Bren had walked forward, despite how close he was to death. He fastened the collar around his neck closed and attempted to activate some sort of mechanism. When he failed, she could see some confidence returned to Trent’s face.
So she stepped in and finished the job.
As it turned out, the collar had left him silenced. And with his hands stuck together with a few drops of sovereign glue, he was effectively neutralized.
This was it. This was her chance. She had been waiting so long to finally murder this man.
So she made sure to coat the dagger at her waist with an extremely potent toxin. His death would happen in seconds. She could finally end his miserable existence.
Finally, she could rise above him.
She didn’t get the chance. She didn’t get to achieve her need to kill him.
The Expositor and Bren, they both appealed to her that he needed to live.
How could they, after everything he put her and Bren and Wulf through?!
He had to die. He couldn’t be allowed to live. He needed to go.
She needed to end this tale of tragedy now.
But then the Expositor raised a very important point.
Killing Ikithon would only satisfy her own need for revenge. But how would that resolve everything else?
Another would simply replace him and continue where he left off.
There would be another Ikithon who would resort to pain and murder to keep the Empire strong.
And no one would know the truth. He would be a martyr to the Empire. He would be remembered as a true hero, and she and everyone else present here would just be seen as murderers and traitors. Only death would await them, or even exile.
But sparing him, making his crimes known, putting a face and name to the cycle of abuse that could not be denied, to prevent more children from being thrown onto the pyre…
She hated to admit it, but the Expositor had a point. The story must be told in order to break the cycle.
So she raised the dagger… and threw it aside, the toxin coating the blade evaporating once enough time had passed.
She couldn’t go through with it. She had wanted to rise to the top, to enact true change.
She would not have achieved that with his death.
How ironic, then, that she is where she is now because Bren— Caleb had rejected the position formerly held by Trent Ikithon when the Martinet offered it.
Was it something that Caleb had in mind all along? Was he actually leaving it vacant for someone else? Did he do this… for her?
Soon enough, she had her answer as she was approached next.
She did not hesitate.
And so she had made history as the first Volstrucker to rise above her ranks and take a seat among the Cerberus cabal.
Perhaps he did indeed intend for this. As she would attempt to enact change from within, Caleb would do so on the outside as a teacher with the Soltryce Academy.
She still has Wulf by her side, elevated to be her right-hand man.
She knows that Caleb has his own path to follow, and she has her own.
And it’s here now, in her office, that she eyes her old poisoner’s kit. The kit that had been her weapon of choice for many years when spellcraft would not suffice.
The serums she had created are long gone, and with them the knowledge of how to make more.
She had long thought herself to be poison incarnate. The “Venomous Volstrucker”.
And yet, through the unexpected and at times undeserved kindness of Caleb Widogast and the Mighty Nein, she had felt like she had been cured.
It is still a long and dark road ahead if real change is to be made. And she cannot afford to let her guard down. Like Trent before her, there will surely be many attempts on her life. And most definitely there will be plotting against the “unsung heroes” that are the Mighty Nein.
But at the very least, they have a friend on the inside that could do her part in delaying such plots.
She looks at her old kit and then picks it up. She then walks to the nearby fireplace.
She recalls the last time she had tried to use this kit. It was in an attempt to end her own life when the pressure became too much.
And yet again, it was that Expositor that stepped in to intervene and save her life.
They should be bitter enemies. But she feels indebted to her.
And if someone like Caleb, who was once groomed to be part of the Assembly, could willingly cooperate and become a strong friend and even family with someone like Beauregard Lionett who represents the very organization that opposes them… perhaps she could follow suit.
Perhaps she can even attempt to pay it forward by providing aid to the Cobalt Soul in secret.
But that is a thought for another time as she takes her kit and tosses it into the fire.
Strange. She recalls the fire that had consumed the homestead of Una and Leofric Ermendrud. She recalls when Bren broke and attacked her, leaving behind the horrific scars she still bears today.
And yet as she gazes upon the fire as it consumes the kit, she feels content.
Perhaps it’s another case of being cured of the poison running through her veins.
Perhaps she can finally begin to live her own life, even amidst the den of vipers that is the Cerberus Assembly.
Perhaps… she could do as the Mighty Nein have done and leave the world better than she found it.
But she cannot do so in the ways that they could.
She can only do so through her own actions and her own way.
Wulf joins her in silence as the kit is reduced to ash.
Tomorrow would be another day of deception, plots, and treachery.
And she will be ready for it.
Come what may, the Dwendalian Empire will become strong.
Perhaps stronger than before with the toxin that was Trent Ikithon now purged from within.
But only time will tell.