>>5810164>>5810169>>5810211>>5810257“There’s nothing else for it: you needed to get this out in the open, to explain to Izirina what you had discovered. She deserved to know. You explained this to the goblin at the centre of it all, who simply… Shrugged.
“What?” Zith-Zi asks, still groggy from waking up when she found you leaned over your desk with quill and parchment before you. “I don’t know this human girl, or lizard girl, or whatever she is. You want ME to tell You what to say to her?”
It DID seem faintly absurd, and yet… What else were you to do? Izirina had rejected your every overture, some informed by Logan Pearce, and you had nothing else to go on.
“Why not just write, uh… What I told you?” Zith-Zi asked, scratching her head in contemplation and perched upon the side of the desk. “Skip the whole roundabout secret letter nonsense, or at least make it productive, ya’ know?”
“She deserves to hear this in-person,” you said. “Wouldn’t YOU want to hear something this… SERIOUS face-to-face?”
“Well, yeah,” she said, as if speaking to a child, “but that’s ‘cause I can’t READ, wiz-kid.”
You stopped what you were doing to stare for a moment, feeling a mix of pity and disdain, which in turn inspired guilt. Zith-Zi, for her part, seemed to feel no shame at all.
“What’s with the look?” she asked.
“Nevermind,” you mumbled.
The goblinness sighed, and picked up the quill from the ink-pot, shaking it off with a messy spatter and handing it to you.
“Just tell her you have dirt on her,” she said. “That you discovered something that could incriminate her whole family as, like… Conspirators to a crime or whatever. That you’ll tell the Paladins. Spooky her. That’ll get her attention!”
“I don’t want her to HATE me!” you protested. “I want her to be my… My friend.”
Zith-Zi reaised her eyebrows.
“What?” you demanded.
“Your FRIEND, huh?” she said, smirking. “You travelled through the Goblin Wastes, fought tooth and nail, skipped school, and bargained with me for your… FRIEND?”
You blushed at the implication.
“You just don’t get it,” you muttered.
“Oh, I think I do,” she laughed.
This badgering proved the motivation you needed to get on with writing, at least. You allowed your uncouth (temporary!) roommate to inspire you with he rsuggestion. You had no intent to phrase the letter like BLACKMAIL, obviously, or like an accusation. Rather, you wrote that you had discovered dire and dark secrets about the Archmage, and about Izirina’s genesis, and that you desired to share them with her—to let her know what she reallyw as and where she came from.
‘I am still, as ever, your friend,’ you wrote, ‘and I wish not to disturb you, but rather to bring you closure, and to help you, if you so desire.’
You paused, and signed it: ‘Come to the Mirror Maze, where we first spoke at length.’