While Aoife slept in their allocated room, Orynn secured the room and headed down to where Narcissa and her brother kept their stores of ingredients for their mostly nefarious work.
Aoife had been very specific about what was needed and was taken aback when Orynn confirmed that everything she had wished she had to make specific salves and poultices were readily available here.
It had always seemed ironic to him that such powerful healing items were held by such despicable people, but that seemed to be the way of the world. People in power were rarely anyone that you should look up to or trust…at least in this world anyway.
The only reason Narcissa kept these items was because both her and her brother continually went too far with their morbid experiments and there was no other alternative for saving an experiment in the late stages if you didn't have the capabilities to resurrect or to bring people back from the brink of death.
Their attempts were almost always botched in some way though because they lacked the natural ability to heal. All they knew well was to destroy. Fleshcrafting was nothing but death and as much as they wanted to think of themselves as creators, they were nothing more than peddlers of misery.
Orynn's fingers lifted to his throat almost subconsciously as he walked the halls, well aware that his chances of ever being able to communicate with others normally was well beyond his reach now and the thought filled him with equal parts of sadness and fury.
How much different would things have been with Lexi and Aoife if he could have just outright said what he was thinking? How was he supposed to reassure the humans held in the dungeons?
He stopped in his tracks as a sudden thought popped into his mind.
He couldn't write as it had never been taught to him, but he knew enough of the letters to understand what words that were familiar to him were. He was guessing though that Aoife would be far more eloquent than he ever could be so what was stopping her from writing something to those in the dungeons?
Something like that could be delivered quite easily under the pretense that he was delivering some sort of healing salves to them too at the orders of Eromaug. Narcissa couldn't go against that even if she wanted to.
Orynn chirruped happily to himself, startling himself with the noise and looking around himself carefully.
This really wasn't a place for a servant to be seen happy, the Daemons would talk and then things would change for the worse.
He forced his face into a neutral expression even though that little spark of excitement burnt brightly in his chest and he hurried on to the storecupboard.
He opened the door carefully, terrified that he might bump into Narcissa or Ely down here as they wouldn't let him take things without a fight and how else could he tell them that for this, Eromaug had given his permission?
Thankfully, there was no sign of them in the strange smelling storage and Orynn unslung the bag from his shoulder that he had brought and began to stalk down the aisles carefully examining the labels on the bottles and vials as he went.
Once he had everything he needed, he hurried across to the few desks that sat in the alcoves and raided the drawers for parchment, adding a good stack of those to the bag and tossing a couple of inkstones and quills from the desks in there as well.
He doubted that they would be missed and even if they were, the rampant imp population would be blamed for missing items.
With a self satisfied smirk he began to make his way back to their rooms, thankful that he hadn't bumped into anyone who would have made this more difficult than it needed to be.
When he got back to the room he methodically laid everything out on the table and set about making something for them both to eat. Eromaug would expect them back to work on Lexi's condition and he would rather that she was fully ready for the task at hand.
He had just finished dishing out the meal onto plates when Aoife appeared in the doorway, rubbing her eyes sleepily.
"What time is it?" she asked groggily, blinking the sleep from her eyes.
"Time is irrelevant when you're serving Eromaug." Orynn answered flatly, "You come when he calls, or try to be there before he does. It's as simple as that."
"Seems like a pretty shitty way to run a realm if you ask me." Aoife grumbled as she sat herself down on the benches and frowned at the array of items already laid out for her.
"Wow. Did you really manage to get everything?" She asked with a huff of disbelief.
"Of course," Orynn shrugged, placing the plate in front of her, "You should eat. I want to ask you to do something for me when you're finished with eating."
Aoife eyed him warily.
"Like what?"
"It's nothing too difficult. Just, I cannot talk and I cannot write. Lexi's mates and her mother are still down in the dungeons and I wanted to reassure them in some way that we were working on a solution and just to give us a little time."
"Oh? And how do you propose to do that?" Aoife asked through a mouthful of bread and cold meat.
"I was wondering if you would write something." Orynn said hesitantly, "I thought we could deliver it inside some healing salve or…something, and if Narcissa asks, we can say that the order came from Eromaug so that he still has leverage on Lexi."
Aoife chewed thoughtfully as she scanned the items in front of her.
"I mean, I can throw together a general balm I think from the items here…it would pretty much heal anything." she said finally, "How are you going to get it down there?"
"I'll take it," Orynn said without hesitation, "I have been there before and it also shouldn't make them suspicious of you just in case they think you are trying to get to see them to work on plots against Eromaug to escape."
"Okay. That sounds good." Aoife answered, "But, I will ask Eromaug if I can send a general balm down to them, and I will also use the exact reason that you gave me, to explain why I want to do it."
"But what if he says no?" Orynn asked with a deep scowl on his face.
"We'll do it anyway, but at least this way, he will think that we have made our peace with our situation and I think that will give us a little more freedom than we have now."
A small smile appeared on Orynn's face as she reached for the parchment and inkstone's.
"Now, tell me, what exactly are we going to write on here?"