But now? Now he had a chance. Now he could do everything he had spent his entire life working to achieve.
WHAT: Essek receives another surprise gift, which brings with it a dash of introspection. WHERE: His towers. WHEN: Late afternoon of May 24. WARNINGS: Spoilers through C2E97, if you're worried about that. STATUS:Complete!
Essek didn't need Caleb's keen ability to uncannily understand the passage of time to know that he had been cooped up in his towers for longer than he'd intended. The windows in his laboratory may have only ever shown a night sky and the lights illuminating the room never burning down like a normal candle might thanks to arcane magic, but he could feel the tension in his back and shoulders that were indicative of someone who had been hunched over a desk for too many hours. There were still a few unmarked homework assignments left for him to go over, but Essek needed a break.
Standing, Essek rolled his shoulders before looking up around the room, his eyes drifting over stacks of books, carefully shelved components and vials, and various papers filled with notes before they snagged on the small form of a sleeping bat. As soon as his eyes fell on Malla, who was hanging from her favorite corner of the tall ceiling, she seemed to rouse, flapping through the air and right to his shoulder.
Essek smiled, both to himself and to the familiar that easily made herself comfortable as her little claws hooked into the fabric of his shirt. "Shall we see what the others are up to?"
With a snap of his fingers, the lights fluttered out and Essek's eyes adjusted to the darkness effortlessly. He floated through the room, making it a few steps downward before he paused, then sunk the few inches until his feet were on the solid stair. He continued, enjoying the soft thump of each footfall in a way that was still entirely new.
It hadn't been all too long ago since Essek's towers had first arrived in Vallo, but his attitude toward them had warmed greatly in the time that had passed. Though he still felt no desire to live within them as he had in Rosohna, having had opened them up to the presence of others that weren't only servants under his employ had done much to add warmth to the space. The walls may have still been stone and the furniture sparse, but it now held the memories like that of Caleb reading the spines of tomes before making selections or Jester surreptitiously replacing books that he no doubt would find a doodle within sometime in the future. There were touches of a life with companionship, such as the parasol that had come from Exandria or the housewarming gift from Blue, that had been lacking when these towers had been nestled away in the Firmaments.
Though he didn't live in the towers, Essek still spent at least a little time each day there. Sometimes it was simply to pick up some components or a book to take back to the house for whatever magic he and Caleb were experimenting with. Other times he would spend hours there reading or researching or correcting written assignments from school, seeking out a bit of solitude because, as much as he had come to care for his friends, he sometimes needed a break from the unique brand of chaos that followed much of them to recharge. The solitude never felt like his life before Vallo, though. There had been a shift and he had welcomed it.
As soon as Essek stepped off the final stair, he reached one hand out toward his robe, the more simple garment that Caleb had bought him when they had first arrived in Vallo floating toward him, the elaborate robes and mantle he had worked so hard for now retired to a closet. He snapped the fingers of his other hand once more, the lights on the first floor extinguishing as well.
With the lights out, he should have been left in relative darkness. Instead, an odd glow caught Essek's attention from the corner of his eye. No, he realized as his stomach seemed to fall within him. Not an odd glow at all. He had seen it many times before.
Essek's life had revolved around the Beacons for as long as he could remember. Even before he had been born, there had been an expectation that the Luxon would choose only a soul most worthy to be the child of an Umavi. It had become painfully clear as he reached adolescence and spent each passing day with no memories of anyone other than Essek Thelyss that it hadn't been the case. Even by then, he had been recognized for his ease in learning Dunamancy, his ability to weave control of dunamis effortlessly between both graviturgy and chronurgy apparent, though his natural talent with the former was incomparable.
Prodigy, they had called him and still did. It might have made his being in his first life acceptable to most, but not to Essek. Instead, it only left him feeling that he had more to prove -- to himself, to his den, to the Kryn as a whole. His focus was absolute, with little time for the distractions that some might have leaned into when living. He called his people's view of the Luxon an obsession, but his own interest in dunamis could have been called the same; it was an acceptable on in his eyes, however, as he simply wanted to learn all he could. He needed to understand whether this force was better than the pull of Lolth that so many of their fellow drow were still under. He needed to know what else was possible, how much they didn't know, where they could go.
Which, of course, was how he had ended up passing over the two Beacons to the Cerberus Assembly in the first place. It had been a choice that had shaped every moment of Essek's life since as he awaited the fruits of his treason while carefully hiding the betrayal from everyone he crossed paths with. He had committed an offense that would carry no punishment other than execution and he hadn't an ounce of regret, not when he spoke with his mother or brother, looked the Bright Queen in the face, shared a smile with Quana, watched as war broke out and lives were sacrificed. The regret hadn't come until much later, when the Mighty Nein had stumbled into his life and forced him to see how his actions could impact the lives of people he actually cared about.
Essek had never actually gotten the information he had been hoping for from the Assembly. He had been patient, knowing that while the mages working on the research may have been talented, they did not have the same grasp on Dunamancy that he did. And so, to have witnessed his machinations be unraveled by a handful of adventurers, a human holding one of his stolen Beacons -- the very same Beacon that was now sitting innocently on an empty chair in his foyer -- aloft as a bargaining chip for their lives… it was a wonder that his life could even look the way it did now.
It was impossible for Essek to know how much time passed wherein he just stared at the Luxon Beacon before him. He didn't know why the magic that encompassed Vallo had felt the need to bring it here. Was it a test? Was this some sort of temptation to be passed before him, to see if he was truly worthy of the second chance that had been given to him?
Because it was a temptation. Essek could feel that immediate desire for knowledge rising up inside of him, a feeling that had never really gone away but now felt downright dangerous once more. He didn't always mind that danger. He had welcomed it, allowed it to drive him forward as he blurred the lines between danger, innovation, and progress.
Essek had opened the vast majority of his towers up to Caleb, others having less access than the wizard, but there were places that only he still knew about or could unlock. It would be so easy for him to take the beacon from where it sat and store it away in some other pocket dimension, unable to even be detected outside of when he might remove it for the experimentation that he was yearning for. He would no longer have to rely on some sort of tenuous trust between himself the ilk of the Cerberus Assembly. There would be no hurdles, no blind devotion of an entire system of government and culture between himself and the answers that he was so convinced he would be able to find, if only he could reach out and ask them.
"If I don't do it, the first person who does -- I don't trust them."
The words had been spoken in the belly of a ship as his treason was laid bare, but echoed in Essek's mind now. He had never trusted the Assembly more than entirely possible. He didn't even know if the research he would receive would be as thorough as he had hoped it would end up being. But now? Now he had a chance. Now he could do everything he had spent his entire life working to achieve. Now he could explore dunamis as far as he wanted, with no regard for society expectations or laws or anything else that might stand between him and discovery. He could bend the limits of literal time and space and reality.
Except, no -- no, he couldn't.
Essek released a breath, his eyes closing and cutting off the dull light from the beacon as he lifted one hand to press his fingers to his temple. He knew the scope of what he had been researching. He knew the path that his fixation had taken him down. He didn't want to walk in that direction, not anymore. The war-filled consequences of his world might not follow him here if he did do the research he had been aching to do, but that didn't erase them from his conscience.
On a different scale entirely, he also didn't want that solitude that he had once inhabited so thoroughly. Now that he knew what it was to live in a house full of laughter, instead of silent servants and dark rooms. Now that he knew what it was to make the final connection in a spell or the soft explosion of failure with another, the warmth that filled him at a shared grin with Caleb, regardless of the outcome, so much better than the cold, smug satisfaction he once knew. Now that he knew what it was to have friends, rather than only himself.
And while Essek may not have made a promise to Caleb or any of the others regarding just what he might do should this very impossible situation occur, he couldn't help but think that using such logic to hide away this Beacon would cross a line. Lying wasn't always bad, everyone could have their share of secrets without issue -- but this, Essek knew, was different.
As he fished out his device from his pocket and unlocked the screen, Essek couldn't help but think how the man he was only six months ago would not recognize the man that he was in that very moment. And, not for the first time, he thought that wasn't a bad thing. Not at all.