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The Mighty Nein were, by this point, well-accustomed to the fuckery of Caleb’s version of the Happy Fun Ball. Traps that aimed to charm or ensnare, magic-dampening effects, and room after room after room full of the exact things required to entice each member of their party.
Caduceus stunk of plant sap and nectar from where the plants of the greenhouse had ensnared him. Jester was still covered in paint from the trap that had charmed her, encouraging her to express herself so frantically she ended up just throwing paint at the walls. Veth was still deeply upset after an encounter with a false Yeza and Luc, back from before she’d become Nott, promising her a chance at a new start.
So when the Nein stepped into the next room, it was a strange relief when it was not immediately appealing to at least one of them.
The room was very dark, only the barest hints of arcane light illuminating its outlines. The light from Caduceus’s staff revealed what must be a wizard’s paradise: floor-to-ceiling bookshelves along each wall, yet more books stacked on the floor, boxes full of high-quality parchment and ink, and spell components of all stripes, with more than enough floor space to draw ritual circles and the like.
The decor was a strange mix of styles – most of it resembled Zemnian architecture, but the wood was clearly vermaloc, and there were pearls and obsidian and onyx set into the edge of every piece of furniture. After just a few moments of glancing around, the more observant members of the Nein could easily point out the Beacon filligrees scattered all around.
“Essek…” Jester breathed.
Beau frowned. “I mean, yeah, this looks like something Essek would–”
Jester cut her off, grabbing her arm and pointing. “No, look!” she said with a half-sob.
The center of the room was lowered slightly, forming a kind of nest with a truly excessive amount of pillows, blankets, and other soft things. It was the exact same size as the dome, and seemed designed as a location for a cuddle pile.
Essek was sitting in the middle, swaddled and buried under so many warm blankets only his face was visible. His eyes were closed, and he had a soft, blissful smile on his face.
“Essek?” Yasha called out. “Can you hear us?”
“I don’t think so,” Caduceus said with a heavy sigh. “He’s under the influence of something.”
“Is this something we can dispel?” Fjord asked, glancing around nervously.
“May be a bad idea,” Beau muttered. “This room in particular seems loaded with magic shit.”
“Plus, we don’t know if he’s charmed. He might just be sleeping. Or drugged,” Veth sniffed.
“I can find out,” Caduceus said. He sat down at the edge of the pit and placed his staff over his knees, beginning a ritual casting.
Jester set her jaw and wrinkled her nose. “Fuck this,” she said, and jumped into the pit.
Clamoring protests went up behind her as she sank into the pillows down to her knees. She immediately felt something tug at her mind, encouraging her to lay down and rest, just have a little nap, you’ll feel so much better, look your friends are all here, but she pushed through it and waded through the sea of comfort to where Essek sat.
“Hey, Essek,” she said as she kneeled in front of him. “Are you awake?”
Essek’s expression shifted, slowly, as if moving through treacle. White eyelashes fluttered as his eyes slowly opened, and his smile widened, bright and uninhibited.
“Hello,” he said, slurring his words more than a little. “You’re here.”
“Yeah,” Jester smiled back at him. “We’re all here.”
“Ah…” Essek slowly glanced past her, but his pupils were completely blown, and it looked like he was struggling to focus. “That’s… good. Yes.”
“Mhm,” Jester reached up and pulled the blanket off Essek’s head and shoulders.
Underneath, he was dressed in an outfit much fancier than even his Shadowhand attire, layers and layers of soft silks in deep blue and midnight black, with white and silver accents. Fine embroidery created geometric patterns in the cloth, and the clothes were so loose and layered they completely hid the shape of his body beneath.
Jester also knew that Essek enjoyed jewelry, but she’d never seen him wear this much at once – his pierced ears were heavy with long, fancy earrings, he had rings on every finger and bracelets all the way up to his elbows, and his neck was adorned with everything from a thin choker to a dramatic necklace that plunged all the way to his navel, half-hidden under the blankets still covering his lower half. He even wore a diadem on his head, a beautiful silver piece with a single amber set in it, woven partially into his braided hair.
He looked like a prince straight out of a storybook.
“This is so fucking weird…” Beau muttered, jumping down into the pit herself. She blinked heavily for a moment, then righted herself and crouched down in front of Essek as well. “Hey, man,” she said. “How are you feeling?”
Essek smiled at her far too wide, all loose-limbed and placid. “Really good,” he said, eyes half-lidded and words slow.
“Uh-huh…” Beau knew immediately that that was weird; Essek, an internationally wanted man, was a nervous wreck on a good day. Beau also knew full well that putting a wizard in a room like this was like setting a toddler loose in a toy store – there was no way in hell Essek would ever voluntarily sit still and do nothing in here.
“Is Caleb here?” Essek asked, tilting his head to the side like a curious puppy (and wow, that expression looked all sorts of wrong on his face).
“Um… No,” Jester said, glancing at Beau. “He’s not here. But we’re here! We’re gonna get you out, Essek.”
“Out…?” Essek just looked more confused. “Why?”
“Something is wrong with Caleb,” Fjord said from the edge of the pit. “We’re going to help him. But we’ll need your help as well.”
“Oh…” Essek blinked heavily. “But there’s… nothin’ wrong though.” The dopey smiled returned to his face and he leaned backwards, the heavy jewelry all over him shifting with a sound akin to falling rain. “He’s really nice… And… He loves me…”
He giggled. Not in all the ten years they’d been friends had the Mighty Nein heard Essek Thelyss giggle before.
“Oh, that’s just wrong,” Veth whispered, rubbing her arm.
“I can try to dispel it?” Yasha fiddled with the hilt of Magician’s Judge.
“Don’t waste it. Not until we figure out what exactly this is,” Beau said, carefully inspecting Essek’s face.
“‘s me,” Essek replied, unhelpfully.
“Yeah, we know it’s you, buddy,” Jester said, smiling sadly. “Does Caleb… visit you a lot?”
Essek nodded, his head lolling slightly. “He… talks t’ me,” he slurred. “Shows me things. Cuddles with me.” He smiled again. “He’s so… he’s so nice… and… warm… and handsome…”
“Mhm,” Jester nodded as well. “Very handsome.”
“He’s charmed,” Caduceus said from behind them, finalizing his ritual casting. “Every inch of that pit is covered in enchantment magic.”
“Really?” Veth asked, eyebrows raised. “‘Cause I was just about to say he’s high. Look at his eyes, his pupils are fucking huge.”
“Might be both…” Beau muttered. “Elves are more resistant to charms, and Essek is a stubborn motherfucker who can summon black holes. If I were fucked up and evil Caleb, I wouldn’t want to take any chances with him either.”
“Caleb’s not evil…” Essek slurred, tipping forward this time. “He’s lovely… An’ he loves me.”
“Yeah, he does,” Jester said, gently brushing some hair out of Essek’s face. The diadem was cold against her fingers. “And we’re gonna help him. But we need to help you first.”
That hollow confusion was back. Essek had the same little crease in his forehead he always got when he was trying to puzzle out a particularly difficult problem. It was just concerning that the problem this time seemed to be less unravel the fabric of reality and more form a coherent sentence.
“Don’ need help,” he murmured eventually.
“Too bad, we’re gonna help you anyway,” Jester chirped, dipping into her bag of diamond dust.
“...’kay.”
Beau hopped out of the pit. “Jester’s got the charm, someone needs to clear the drugs.”
Fjord motioned to step into the pit, but Veth threw an arm out to stop him. “You’ll get your scrawny ass charmed too, idiot,” she snapped. “Let Cad handle it, he’s better with this stuff.”
“Wasn’t going to offer, but sure…” Caduceus grumbled. He shivered briefly as he stepped into the pit, then waded closer.
“Hi…” Essek said with a loose smile as Caduceus kneeled in front of him.
“Hello, Essek,” Caduceus replied. “You’re going to feel a bit strange in a moment.”
“...Why?”
Neither cleric answered as Jester pressed her diamond dust-covered hand against Essek’s sternum, followed by Caduceus’s a hand on his forehead. Greater and Lesser Restoration were cast simultaneously, clearing away all traces of drugs and enchantment.
Essek gasped, and lurched backwards. His eyes went wide, his pupils constricted, and he glanced from person to person like he was seeing them for the first time.
“Essek, are you okay?” Jester asked, putting a gentle hand on his forearm.
“You– You can’t be in here!” Essek choked out. “This entire place is a trap, you need to go!”
“We know, hot boy,” Beau groused. “We’re here for Caleb.”
“Caleb–” Essek suddenly went pale. “Caleb. He’s… He’s lost his mind. Something got into his head, and he–”
Something skittered near the ceiling. Essek’s head snapped up, and he froze in genuine terror.
One of Essek’s few weaknesses was his crippling fear of spiders. He’d panic so badly at the sight of them that it wasn’t even funny to show him a tiny house spider as a joke, he’d refuse to enter entire rooms if he merely suspected there were spiders in them, and had on more than one occasion used high-level graviturgy just to get them away from him.
Like all of the Nein’s rooms in the Folding Halls, this room had clearly been designed with both comfort and torment in mind. The mechanical spiders that crawled down the bookshelves now were the size of rats, and there were dozens of them. Their swollen abdomens were loaded with a purple-pink liquid, and their fangs glistened in the dull light of Caduceus’s staff.
“No, no no no, please–” Essek gasped. He scrambled to his feet, revealing what was really keeping him trapped here.
Blankets and pillows shifted as previously unnoticed chains were pulled taut, attached to various points on the edges of the pit. They were thin, silvery, and apparently a lot stronger than they looked. They blended in seamlessly with Essek’s jewelry, and were attached to bracelets, anklets, a thin belt around his waist, and the choker around his neck. Each limb was restrained to multiple points, giving him very little room to move.
“Shit,” Beau growled as Yasha crushed two spiders against the wall behind her. “Essek, what the fuck are these things?!”
“The- their venom, it… you’ve seen the effects,” Essek managed to stammer out, his voice high and terrified. The chains wouldn’t let him stand fully, so he was in an awkward, hunched over position. “He’s been using them to keep me docile, if you’re bitten the same will happen to you!”
The spiders had reached the floor now, and started to crawl towards the pit, with more and more of them pouring out from the space above the bookshelves. The Mighty Nein instinctively closed ranks – Jester and Caduceus summoned Spirit Guardians, Fjord sniped down any who came too close using Eldritch Blast, and Beau, Yasha, and Veth did their best to smash or shoot any stragglers.
Essek wasn’t doing anything to help. He couldn’t. The rings on his fingers were interconnected with little bits of metal, which snaked down the back of his hands and attached to a bracelet there as well. He couldn’t even bend his fingers, let alone weave complex spell somatics.
The spiders kept coming. The edges of the pit were dripping with venom, and the bodies were starting to pile up.
“Essek, we need to get you out of here!” Jester yelled. She rushed over to him, hamster-unicorns flying, and reached up to start to remove the chains from his arms.
“No!” Essek snapped, frantically pulling his arm away. “Do you think I haven’t tried that?! They’re enchanted, they’ll go off like a bomb if you–”
A spider slipped past the Nein’s defenses and brushed against Essek’s leg before Jester’s spirit guardians killed it. Essek jumped with a scream and collided with Jester, his diadem digging into her collarbone as he trembled against her.
“Essek…” Jester looked around desperately. “There’s gotta be something we can do! We can’t just leave you here!”
“You’ll…” Essek swallowed, straightening up as much as the chains would allow. “You’ll have to. It’s… I’m used to it by now.” He clearly tried for a smile, but even a grimace would be a generous term.
“...Essek, how long have you been stuck here?!” Fjord shouted in horror.
“...I don’t know,” Essek’s composure cracked. “I– I don’t know, it’s been far too long, and Caleb is getting more insane by the day, you– you have to stop him, you have to!”
“Essek!” Jester whimpered through tears.
“Listen to me,” Essek demanded, grabbing Jester’s shoulders even as he trembled with fear. “You cannot get me out of here in time. These… things are just going to keep coming. There are hundreds of them, they’ll keep coming no matter how many you destroy, and if you get envenomed once, it’s over.”
The spider army was getting far too close for comfort.
“There’s a- a hidden door, there,” Essek gestured frantically at a nearby bookshelf. “Take the green book off the shelf and it’ll open for you. I don’t know exactly where it will take you, but Caleb comes through there a lot when he…” He swallowed, looking vaguely sick. “...visits.”
“How the fuck are we gonna shake these spiders though?!” Beau yelled as she kicked one across the room.
“You won’t need to,” Essek said, clearly trying and failing to keep the tremble out of his voice. “They’re just trying to get to me.”
Caduceus placed a hand on Essek’s shoulder. “...I’m so sorry,” he said, “but I think you’re right. If we want to stand a chance against Caleb, we cannot afford to burn ourselves out here. We’re going to have to leave you here for now.”
“NO!” Jester cried. “Essek, don’t! I don’t wanna leave you!”
Tears formed in Essek’s eyes. “I don’t want you to leave either,” he whispered. “But you have to. You have to.”
Beau patted him on the shoulder, looking grim. “We will beat some sense back into him,” she said. “We’re gonna get Caleb back, and then we’ll come back for you. Promise.”
Essek gave her a thin, watery smile. “I will hold you to it, Beauregard,” he said. “Thank you.”
The Mighty Nein sans Essek climbed back out of the pit. Jester stayed as close as she could, trying her best to keep him in the range of her Spirit Guardians for as long as possible. “I’m sorry, Essek,” she sobbed.
“Don’t be,” Essek told her, and smiled in that way that people do when they don’t want you to see just how terrified they actually are. “I will see you soon.”
Yasha grabbed Jester’s arm and pulled her along, away from Essek and towards the newly open secret door. Against her better judgement, Jester kept her eyes trained on Essek for as long as she could, unable to look away.
She watched as his face crumpled, helpless terror overtaking him as the first spiders began to climb up his body. She watched as he squeezed his eyes shut, straining against the chains as spiders settled across his body – on his shoulder, clinging to his arms, on his legs, and by his waist.
The door slammed shut as soon as the spiders bit down, injecting their venom into him. She didn’t see Essek’s fear melt away as the venom did its job. She didn’t see him collapse, first to his knees, then onto his side, buried in a pile of pillows. She didn’t see the spiders skitter away from him, their work complete.
None of the Nein saw the enchantment take hold of Essek once more, the venom making it easier than ever to attach that chain to his mind. None of them saw the tears that fell down his cheeks, before those too were cut off.
None of them saw the drugged-out, blissful smile return to Essek’s face.