Kre shook his head, “Ok, but what exactly is it? Is it dangerous? Is that why Talimar didn’t want him to do it before?”
Beleg scratched at his chin and looked up at Dain, as if silently asking how much to share with the young man. Dain could only offer a shrug in return, gestured at the mostly burned down candle on the desk, and then deliberately turned back to his notebook, fully removing himself from the conversation, likely for the rest of the evening.
“Well,” Beleg rumbled, “we have lots of different scenarios that we like to have on hand. Like when we pretended to be a woodcutter family during the goblin ambush. That’s a scene that we’ve run before, and it’s always served us well. Here though, it would not work. Wood cutters do not visit Yahaestra.
“Talimar and Kersath know this well, given…” he paused here and shook his head. “Well, they’ll share what they will about their pasts. All that matters is that there are some scenarios that we’ve all practiced and consider viable, and there are some that we dare not try. The crimson wombat was one of those. Kersath thought it up a few years back when we were thinking up ways to infiltrate a band of rogue Ylveryans. They weren’t too hot on Ylveryans of his kind, so he thought that we could offer his brutalized body up as a tribute to the brigands to earn their trust, but Talimar steadfastly refused. Said something like he would never knowingly and intentionally bring harm to one of his own.”
Dain tapped the desk with a finger and tilted his head towards the flickering candlelight. “Time’s almost up,” he said softly.
Beleg nodded and placed a finger to his lips. “We’ll continue this later,” he whispered.
Kre nodded, looking at the candle as well, trying to see the magic behind it. Dain had explained its purpose on their first night, but Kre had not yet seen nor felt the power that the arcanist boasted. In theory, the candle had the power to contain any sounds within its sphere of light. Those outside its radiance would not be able to hear anything said from within, thus protecting their conversations with as much secrecy as would be needed in a place like Yahaestra. It was also why Beleg had shoved some blankets around the base of the door.
The young man very much wanted to step outside the candlelight and see how well it worked, but both Dain and Beleg assured him that it did and that they had no time to waste on lessons right now. The candles from their last two evenings had burned down all the way before they had finished their covert meetings, but this one still had a few minutes of life in it if they snuffed it now.
“May I?” Kre asked, gesturing towards the candle. “Keep it and study it, I mean.”
Dain cocked his head slightly and smiled. “I don’t see why not. Just be careful with how you use it so as not to let the secrets out.”
Kre nodded as Dain snuffed the candle. Once the wax cooled slightly, Kre scooped it off the desk and massaged it back roughly into a cylindrical shape, keeping just a bit of the thick, fibrous wick exposed. Once it hardened back up, he would stash it in his pack and run some tests on it when he had the time and privacy to do so.
“Get back downstairs,” Beleg growled, back in his role as the harsh taskmaster now that their privacy was no longer assured. “Be up early with breakfast ready. Runny eggs this time or you’ll be sorry.”