Fools and Fates

Fools and Fates "..iiiitch." echoes down the hallway where stone and dust is all that remains of a demonic wall that harried the party. The portal where the majority of the vault raiders entered finally closes like a wound scabbing over the fabric of reality. It leaves Dante, Thyme, and Icarus separated. Left to their own devices.
"Welllll," the hornless tiefling starts as he drawls the word on, "they're dead." Matter-of-face with a roguish shrug of his shoulders. "They shall be missed, but their efforts not in vain. We shall carry the torch on. We shall find the treasure in this vault, as was your dying wishes." A hand clenches for great justice, held close to a face with tightly closed eyes. "We shall live on. Richer. Better." Eyes open as he looks at Thyme, "And before this place goes from 'angry at us' to 'obscene murderous intent'."
"E-he!" Icarus replies, wide eyes matching a wide smile.
Thyme stands enamored with the portal as it closes and fades into oblivion. Since they were not joining the others, it gave her time to truly appreciate the arcana that Robin had conjured. It leaves her curious and wondering about everything that lies between it. That void between all things. Her thoughts are quickly interrupted by Dante Perdita. Shifting to look to him as he pays his respects to the others, the beads in her hair jingle faintly. “Well, that is a bold assumption Dante. I should think whatever is through that portal they can handle. That’s what I feel anyway. Ah, but I also sense this entire vault to be rather angry at us. I am not so sure we can progress without the others. Strength in numbers as they say.” Her eyes shift to the priest. “And we cannot forget about our new friend. Perhaps you can help us in finding more answers so that Dante and I can acquire materials to aid our Breaker in need and to make this place less angry.” Icarus Whyte looks between the two. Eyes flick like a sugar fueled ping pong ball as each of them speak. "Answers? Why. Yes. I have many answers." And he is saying none of them for no other reason than he has the social graces of an old, drunk bat.
"Bold as it may be, I know it deep in my heart," Dante says, keeping up dramatic levels of heroism in his voice. "Bards will sing of their tales. The moment they went deep into the unknown. Crushed by a ceiling. Or a golem. Or a golem ceiling." Which sounds absurd until his eyes shift to the wall that -had a face- not too long ago.
The fashionably dressed eldritch knight reaches for a book in the adjoining room and places it upon his ever mounting book tower. Jenga for people that don't like to research. "See, I have an idea. We know were the treasure is. We know where two exits are. We know that one room, despite being filled with light, is unguarded. Our noble heroes have created a path for us to use. It would be a disgrace to their untimely deaths to not use it." A thought, "Icarus, you said you knew 'the words' to use? Go use them."
Not exactly what Dante planned, Icarus skitters away into the hallway.
Dante Perdita dashes back to the portal room with the tapestry, gripping the doorframe and leaning to peek his head around the corner to see what the crazy old bat is doing. "So, you getting enamored with our benefactors, Thyme? They are fancy. Cept, y'know, the Candle with the keen eye and the 'no fun allowed' attitude." Funny, Alexa never announced herself as a Candle. Thyme lets out small chuckle. “ Her twisted sense of humor during this adventure into the vault has begun to slip out. A reading not long before all this had happened had set her on a promised path of adventure, and here she stands with two eccentric people. Frankly, unsure which one is more trouble. “Quite the idea should it…” She watches Icarus skitter out into the hallway. “Work.”
Thyme steps into the study to find an ever-growing tower of books placed meticulously by Dante. A finger runs along the spines of the books as eyes curiously read over the titles. “Strange, I don’t recall her bringing that up. If what you say is true, then it would seem many people in this party hold secrets or half-truths. Not that it is a bad thing, or a good thing. Subjective really…” She laughs softly. “Curious why the interest though. Does it bother you that she is a Candle? Afraid she will discover things about you that you don’t want people to know?” Tilting her head around the side of the books to look at Dante in the doorway. The old man stands before the highly warded door. "I know you," Icarus says to the door with surprise and familiarity mixed in. A hand reaches out to touch it. It quickly recoils, "You'll not fool me so easily." The door is not responding. "Don't say such things! All show no tell." He claps his hands together, "Bantas Su Skyben," in infernal. The runes along the archway begin to fade away until they emit the smallest amount of light.
Dante's head remains peaking out from the doorway to where Icarus is. "Wrong door, old man, the one back here," he directs. "The Breakers need safe access to their rightful goods." Icarus' head turns sideways as he walks back, "But you said they have died. E-he!" Got him there. Dante rolls his body back into the room, "We need something suitable to bury them with, no?" Which one is more trouble indeed.
The smoke-like hair wafts away into the dungeonesque vault as Dante Perdita returns to the study with Thyme. "You do remember our time in the mountain outpost, no? To the subjective whim, a Candle was able to walk into a heavily fortified location. Yet here we are, in a heavily fortified location, skulking about. Who do you think she will throw to the wolves to save herself from any blowback, mm? Her friends? The hired, expendable outsiders?" A hand pats on Thyme's shoulders, "I do not need to see the future to know that we are not in a suitable position. Westgate would be a poor home for the likes of us." His gaze lingers as those haunting amber eyes glow like pools of molten gold set in a field of snow.
The hand hand releases, "All the better that they are dead and we should not remain to be further implicated when that thing," he points to the portal in the other room, "turns on and people start asking questions, no?" Thyme’s finger lands on the spine of a book in the middle of this great resource tower which Dante has built as she listens closely. She taps it once and then promptly pulls the book out. The ones above drop down and while the tower shifts slightly, it holds it form.
“Why does that make her any different than you and I? Would you not do the same? Are we not doing the same in some round-about way?” She brushes off the cover of the book gently. “Some threads get untwined, some get pulled, pluked, and even scorched.” The mystic holds up the book, it reads ‘Playing With Fire’. “A risk, yes.” She pauses for a moment, meeting eyes with his before continuing. “But I think you are just as much a pyromaniac as I.”
She smiles turning her gaze to the portal room. “I’d like to see what becomes of them, what becomes of the truth this Candle hides, and most importantly, the treasure in that other room.” Tapping the small coin purse tied to her leather belt under her embroidered coat. “As a traveler, coin is always welcome…no, needed. What becomes of them now, should she toss us to the wolves, or should they live or die, that’s for the strings of fate to decide. I am excited by whatever outcome.”
She turns on the heel of her boot and passes Dante with a faint grin at the corner of her mouth. Placing the book gently down on the small desk in the room as she passes by it towards the treasure room. “Icarus.” Her voice rises and echoes through the chambers when calling his name. “Is this something you are willing to do? Use your words to open this door instead? I feel not completing the task in which the breaker set out to do would be a dishonor to Gigareth. They have come all this way….” "When they return I shall," Icarus says, rubbing his hands together to garner some warmth. "More than words. Tone and song. I mimic my brother well, e-he." The hands open up, "Sacred weapons belong in the hands of the sacred alone." Eyes shift to Dante. Two against one.
A sly smile on Dante's face as thinly painted as a line. "The cards are delt, the die is cast," he says like a chilly wind on a warm summer hill. He heads towards the other room. "With neither key nor words, what other choice do we have to put our fates in the hands of a Candle, a Breaker, and Honor?" It is 'honor' where he shakes his head. "To get access to the riches of a merchant's vault and a fraction of it is our pay. We at the card table with no choices but to dance on the strings of our dealers and the rules of the game when we could have it all." A sigh of defeat as he puts a hand on the door frame. "I respect your decision to play for the players, not the prize though. Tis a better, wiser course with merriment and cheer. To see the fruit of their goals and hold them close. What a glorious sight it will be! A tale for the bards."
The sellsword crosses to the other room where the rubble of golems reside. Magical torches flicker. They snuff out.
The door closes. It -locks-. The grinding of stone follows before a fresh crash barring one side.
"Goodbye, Thyme, may the fates keep you safe in the hours to come," says a voice muffled beyond stone, steel, and wood. The torch restarts itself, leaving the portal room barred from the east. The vault feels more alerted. More alive. She should have seen it coming, she should have felt the intent behind his words. Like any other shady person. But he was a bit different and even though that was something she had learned early on, she still stood there at the closed stone door in relative shock. While they both were bullshitting one another and even the others in the party, Thyme felt relatively okay in the presence of Dante. A mutual understanding, or so she thought.
A heavy breath of air leaves her lungs as she stares blankly at the door. “I never said I was with the Candle and I never said I’d stop you.” She says behind the stone following his muffled goodbye. She turns and leans her back against the door, sliding down to sit at the base. “Unfortunate... but I already knew you were The Fool.” She speaks so calmly and patient in the situation. She is aware of the betrayal, but it is an emotion left on the winds as it is what fate had conjured.
“I suppose I can wait but this vault is not happy, worse so now.” Her eyes then shift to the room with the portal. “Or I can take another risk.” She pulls open the leather card holder, shuffling her tarot cards in her hands. “Let us see where things lead now.” She says in another soft-spoken voice. Spreading the cards out in a long open spread across the floor. She selects a card. The Empress. “No? Then… let us see where the threads lead us.” She tucks the cards away and stands, making her way to the teleportation circle.
A momentary pause within the room.
A confident placement of her feet within the center.
And a trust in her cards.