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PART 1: DEVOTION
Riz glances over his board, waiting for the coffee machine to finish brewing the next batch. There’s still a small pile of notes to add. He taps a pencil against his arm, trying to see if he’s missing any other links. A beep pulls him out of his thoughts, and he takes a moment to take a sip before he heads back to his pins and string. He’ll probably have enough time to get his four mandatory hours if he finishes this soon.
Fig’s phone rings as she contemplates her latest recording. It’s late, and she really should turn in for the night. As she stretches to stand, her crystal rings. Riz’s contact card lights up her screen. Smiling, she swipes to pick it up, kicking back in her chair. His excited chatter washes over her, and despite the hour she laughs along with the stories of his latest antics. Sometimes he calls because he just needs to think out loud, and sometimes he just needs to talk through a problem. Whatever the reason, she’s thrilled to forgo sleep to chat to her friend. Riz must pick up on her sleepiness, because he laughs, thanks her for picking up his call, bids her goodnight and tells her to get some rest.
Adaine sighs. Sure, she’s paid for her work as the Elven Oracle now, but it’s still work. She glances at the clock. There’s still a bit more time before she has to settle down to trance for the night. She rubs at her eyes, reaching for the records of Oracles past she was perusing to try to understand her powers better. Maybe she can control the visions to give her more warning so she can use the information to keep everyone safe.
Kristen usually leaves the research to the people best suited for it, but it’s her duty to be the best cleric she can be for her party. She cracks open the heavy textbook she’d borrowed, a medical text on the biology of the major species in Spyre. It’s already late, the evening having been consumed by her homework and her duties as student body president, and she has trouble keeping her attention on texts at the best of times. She sets her crystal to focus mode, lets it play its white noise, and gets to reading.
Gorgug finishes his homework. His eyes are scratchy from the lack of sleep, but there’s still more he wants to do tonight. He pulls out a fresh sheet of drafting paper from a drawer and flips open his standard reference manual and gets to work. The flashbang had been a huge boon, so now he was working on variations - stunning, knocking prone, exploding damage. Anything for that slight edge in the heat of battle. If he can present this work in class tomorrow, maybe Mr Hopclap will let him take a nap.
Fabian’s arms are sore, but he pushes through. He whips the battle sheet through the air, towards the targets at the other end of the room. He hits once, twice, three times, but misses the last two. He wraps the sheet around his arm and goes over to reset the targets to try again. He’d nearly not been enough before. He won’t let it happen again.
PART 2: ASCENSION
Riz’s office is dark. His eyes glow faintly, barely illuminating the magnifying glass he’s examining the handwriting through. Something about it is a bit off, maybe the ink or the shape of the words…
The person who gave him the case thinks that a document may have been forged, so he’s looking for evidence or motive. It’s a boring case, but it’ll pay well if he manages to find something, so he pushes through. He could get his mum something really nice for Moonar Yulenear, or even just help with the groceries. If dad was around… He shakes his head. No use dwelling on it.
“Hey, kid.”
Riz’s head snaps up. Twisting in the direction of the voice, he sees his dad leaning against the door, a small smile on his face.
“Dad?” He scrambles to stand up. “Um. I mean. Agent Gukgak, sir, senior sir. Why are you here? How can I help?”
“Oh, Riz. I’m not here on task force business. I got a part-time job myself, believe it or not. ‘Patron Saint of Those Working Late as an Expression of Love’.”
Riz’s eyes go wide. He opens his mouth, then closes it again. “How?”
“A thousand small acts of worship, they said. Your mom’s always been like that, working so hard for you to have the best life she can give you. Your friends, too, giving everything they have to make sure that you’ll all make it home after every adventure, that you’ll always have someone to lean on.
“All I can do is grant small blessings to those who are working late, trying to give their loved ones a brighter tomorrow.”
He pauses, smile widening. “They let me come down to give you a hug, kid.”
Riz launches himself at his dad headfirst. His dad’s arms open wide, standing up straight to brace himself for impact, and lets Riz clutch at him with desperate arms.
“Hey, Riz, you’re alright,” Pok says, steady.
“Missed you,” Riz mumbles.
“Oh kid, I missed you too. So much.”
Pok’s arms are tight around him. Riz relaxes for what feels like the first time in days, lets the exhaustion catch up to him. His head goes fuzzy, in that thick and syrupy way that makes his brain slow down and his body feel heavy.
“Think you can get some rest?” Pok’s voice breaks through Riz’s thoughts.
Riz nods, reluctantly pulling back from his dad and padding over to the futon Fabian had showed up with one day and never taken back. He collapses into it. As his eyes drift shut, he feels his dad pull a blanket over him.
“Can you stay? Until I fall asleep?”
“Yeah, kid, of course.”
Riz falls asleep to the sensation of his dad’s hands smoothing his hair down and tucking the blanket in around him.
Sklonda worries, sometimes, if she's only passed her bad habits onto Riz. It's late. She was supposed to meet up with Riz for dinner but he messaged to say that he was staying at Mordred Manor to give his friends a hand with their work.
Without anything waiting for her at home, she's still in the office, her cubicle littered with case files. Every now and then, she moves enough to trigger the light sensor, making her squint as her eyes adjust out of darkvision. The case was going before a judge next week, so with time rapidly running out, she had to finalise her files soon.
She blinks, then startles when a hand lands lightly on her shoulder. The lights flicker on as she realises she fell asleep. The hand lifts away and she reaches for a gun that's no longer at her hip.
She turns, eyes narrowed, then quickly widening despite the brightness.
Backlit by fluorescent lights, her husband stands, hand hovering above her shoulder, his face framed by a brilliant stained glass halo.
Stunned speechless, she raises her hand to meet his.
“Lon,” he whispers.
It breaks the floodgates.
“Pok…”
“Hey, lovely,” he says, and leans down to gather her into his arms. She turns and wobbles to her feet, winding her arms around him. Hiding her face in his shirt, she feels the pressure build in her face until she's sobbing into his chest.
“I'm so sorry for leaving you with all my messes. You're doing so well.” His hand rubs big circles into her back.
“I hated you, for leaving,” she chokes out, one broken syllable at a time. She has no idea why this is the first thing she says.
“I know,” he says, sounding a little choked up himself. “I did too. I’m so sorry.”
“I forgive you.”
Slowly, her breathing evens out. Pok’s arms lose their desperate grip, and she pulls back to look at him. Her eyes focus on the details, refreshing her mental image of him.
Quietly, he says, “I have to go, but they’re giving me more leave to visit. I might be able to see you again soon.”
Sklonda nods, lets go of Pok. “I love you,” she says.
“I love you too,” he replies, as a celestial beam envelopes him. She looks as long as she can, but the light becomes too bright and she has to shield her eyes.
When the light fades and the room comes back into focus, there’s a lime green sticky note on her files.
These have been organised, it says. I love you. Take care of yourself. x
She smiles, pockets the note, and flips through her finalised pack. It still needs some refinement, but the structure is there. The rest can wait until tomorrow. In the meantime, she might still be able to say goodnight to Riz if she drops by the Manor.
PART 3: BLESSING
Cathilda doesn’t visit Seacaster Manor that often anymore, but when she does, she tries to go all out. Tonight, she’s working though dishes to stock the freezer and putting together kits with instructions so Fabian always has something on hand. She hums to herself as she moves through the kitchen, finding the ingredients that she needs. Just as she was about to chastise herself for forgetting to grab more flour from the store, she notices the cupboard door ajar, with just enough flour to complete her task for the evening.
Digby and Wilma pore over Gorgug’s plans for upgrades to the Hangvan. Not that he needs it; their son is an accomplished artificer in his own right now. Wilma grabs a pencil to do some quick calculations on a piece of scrap paper. The pencil doesn’t blunt, even two hours in, bright lights of the workshop hiding the fact that it’s the wee hours of the morning.
Sandra Lynn races home after another night shift in the Mountains of Chaos. Baxter fights against a strong headwind, exhausted, but soon it calms and turns into a steady tailwind to carry the two of them home. Dawn paints the sky in its watercolour glory. Sandralynn takes a deep breath of the cool air and enjoys the sunrise, right before they begin the descent to Mordrer Manor.
Jawbone opens up the next video in the series. There’s only two left in the module. He’s going to do it properly this time. He can’t promise to never let down another student, but he can train to become actually qualified in the role he’s found himself in. The cup of tea is perfect when he reaches for it, bitter without being astringent, just a hint of natural sweetness. The cup lasts him the whole video and well into the next one, still warm.
Gilear knows he should have headed home hours ago. But there’s still some paperwork he needs to go through for various student requests, and he wants to be able to make it home on time tomorrow to have dinner with his growing family. He glances at the photo in the corner of his desk, miraculously clean despite the best efforts of his still-worse-than-average luck and the menaces of the student body. He takes a deep breath, smiles, and gets back to work.
Gorthalax doesn’t sleep. Doesn’t need to, as a devil. But it's so late it’s almost morning, and he’s still looking though the Hellion’s latest match recordings and statistics. The room is the perfect temperature, and when he rewinds the footage, it lands on exactly the right frame.
Sklonda falls asleep over the case paperwork spread out over the kitchen counter. Before she can mess up her hard work, the electricity in the building crackles for a moment before settling down again. It’s not much, but it’s enough to wake her up. When she wearily blinks her eyes open, her gaze lands on a key piece of evidence she’d overlooked. Reinvigorated, she reaches for her coffee, somehow still lukewarm despite the fact she made it hours ago. It takes her just under an hour to finish slotting the piece of evidence into her case. She smiles, slow and lazy, and heads to bed. In the fraction of a moment before sleep claims her, she feels a pair of lips brush her forehead, and she smiles.
PART 4: WORSHIP
It's late. Seamaster Manor has cleared of its study night stragglers, leaving just the Bad Kids piled around a desk.
Kristen's latest paper about the nature of fallen gods has then all fascinated, given their various run-ins with them over the years.
Kristen and Fabian each have several email chains going with academic researchers about their findings. Turns out you can just email a professor and they'll absolutely talk your ear off if you show a sliver of interest. They read the latest replies and compare notes before sending their replies.
Fig has some books Wretchrot found in the library in the Pit. Despite her academic misgivings, Fig helps Adaine go through them, scrawling important information on neon coloured sticky notes.
Gorgug and Riz man the board. Riz sits on Gorgug’s shoulders, occasionally leaning forward to link some groups together. Gorgug works through the newest notes, pinning them to the board under the right groups.
A knock at the door pulls everyone out of their thoughts.
Fabian gets up slowly to check. It’s probably a freshman who forgot something and wants to take a look at the lost and found.
Instead, he finds a cardboard box with “hope this helps” written on a lime green sticky note on it. His silence summons the other Bad Kids. Riz takes one look at the box and starts looking around frantically. He frowns.
“I think that’s my dad’s handwriting,” he says.
One Detect Magic later, and the box is dragged inside and opened.
Inside, they find a cornucopia. There’s a box of Fabian’s favourite ballpoint pens, a stack of sheets stamped with “Classification: General”, a container filled with pick-and-mix pushpins, and, of course, several pads of neon sticky notes and stacks of pastel index cards.
Underneath the stationery is a carton of the tea from Fallinel, the one that Adaine missed and Riz tolerated. Kristen insists they take a break to have tea. Fabian fishes out the good tea set. Adaine starts the kettle that she’d talked Fabian into buying a while back. Fig rummages through the cupboards to find some fancy biscuits squirreled away. Gorgug physically carries Riz into the kitchens as he puts up a token protest. Soon enough, the soft scent of tea fills the space, and there’s a moment of quiet as they all tiredly munch on their snacks.
When they get back to it, the research breakthroughs come thick and fast. Refreshed eyes reveal new links that had danced just out of reach before the break.
(One by one, the sleep pile forms on the comfortable couches as the hours pass.
On Saturday morning, they’re woken up by the sunlight streaming in through the windows and the smell of fresh pancakes wafting in from the kitchen.)