Matteo listens sympathetically to Brundir's story.

"I'm sorry you got dragged into the world of death this way. It is a terrible life you have been dragged into, one that will slowly drain your humanity. I do understand your desire to defend yourself, and don't worry, I have no intent to sit and let a blade split me open. I carry the stick for that reason." He taps the staff propped up next to his chair. "I still remember all Jex's training, he wasn't often stabbed and the killing came by surprise to most. And I kept these knives too, worst case they can get me out of a scrap I figured."

Brundir gives a wry smile, "Never like the thought'a bein' human, anyway. That aside, we need ye on these trips. Jex brought skill with those knives, but we've got ways of workin' around that. It's all those other skills we'd 'ave a hard time figurin' around."

Matteo looks quizzically at Brundir. "What skills are those? You may have noticed that my relationship with the truth is a little different to his, I'm no more an infiltrator than I am a killer."

"Well, I know that I've never been t' Saramei," Bründir notes with a chuckle, "An' if somebody told me we're sneakin' into Sheercleft, they'd want me around."

Matteo smiles. "Well that I can certainly help with, I know how things work there and I know my way around some places. If you're comparing to Sheercleft though you're in for a shock. Sheercleft is a stitch on the tapestry compared to where we're going."

"Then it's settled! Well, mostly, that is. There's th' matter of yer mask, but I'm not much fer that work. Might be we should see Seid on that. I'll admit I'm curious about all this between yerselves - Matteo an' Jex, I mean. Not sure if th' mask's got anythin' t'do with it, but couldn't hurt lookin' into it."

"You can take it. Or we can take it together. I would like to see it destroyed and that shadow of Jex with it "

The pair get up to leave together, heading for the library. Matteo walks in silent contemplation, for all his friendliness and honesty he lacks Jex's outward confidence to speak to those they pass or to start any casual conversation with Brundir.

As they enter the tower, past the dwarven builders planning their works for the day, they find not Seid, but Vark by the fireplace. Matteo holds the door for Brundir, inviting him to enter first.

The dwarf gives an uncertain smile, "Oh no, yer not puttin' that on me. Jex's yer problem. I'm here with ye, an' I'll help any way I can, but I'm not about'a throw away half'a someone else. Besides, it still seems odd how Jex came in normal as what's normal fer'im, then he finds this mask an' a month later we've got Matteo with Jex stuck in a mask." Brundir shrugs and stands, "Whole thing seems wrong t'me, an' it looks more wrong th' more it goes on. Truth-be-told, I odn' even know if I trust Matteo, 'cause Jex ne'er even told us much o' where he came from, an' Matteo's told us th' same or less."

Lord Halfshield nods to the door before starting towards it, "Come on. I know a bit about everyone 'cept you. Fer all I know, yer one o' these 'Dawn God' fellas we gotta stop. Hell, maybe ye are an' just don' know it? Maybe ye got a dozen names in that 'ead. I'd like t'know who ye really are in all this. If it's Matteo, that's great. If it's not, then he can go with Jex an' this mask business."

Matteo cocks his head to one side, "What would you like me to tell you? I told you where we came from and where we went. I don't mean to be withholding anything, but nothing else seemed relevant. If you asked Jex, he'd feel we'd told you more than we should."

Matteo follows Brundir in as they speak.

"And don't think of the mask as holding Jex, think of Jex as the bad, killer parts, and Matteo as what is left underneath with that all stripped away, you aren't killing half a person, just purifying their soul of evil memories and a damaged mind."

He looks up in slight surprise. "Vark! Good to see you! We had been looking for Seid, do you know where he is? Perhaps you can help though."

“Oh!” he exclaims, clearly startled by the unexpected visit. The tail end of the conversation he overhears brings his quizzical gaze to Bründir for a moment before he turns back to Matteo.

”Uhm, s-sure yeah, Seid went to go grab us some breakfast, he should be back soon. What was it that you needed help with though?”

Matteo holds out the mask.

"This. The murderer assassin that was Jex seems to use it to take back control of my body, and I'd like to know how to prevent it, or destroy it without inadvertantly releasing him back to take over again. It's outside of my understanding though, so I wanted some other opinions."

“Oh,” Vark says, flashing a look of realization towards Bründir. “Uhm… I- I don’t know Matteo. If Jex is stuck in the mask and we destroy it, that might be destroying him too. Me and him don’t usually see eye to eye but… he’s one of the Acharnost. Wouldn’t… wouldn’t it be better if we could figure out how to… how to uhm, well, to put the two of you back together? The curse that lies on the mask is beyond me, but I was actually just talking to our friend Morben, the Marquise’s son. He might have a way for us to teleport quickly to Sarameia, and he invited all of us to his place to talk about it. He might be able to help with this too.”

Matteo shakes his head as Vark speaks his eyes widening in an expression of horror as he mentions putting Jex back into him.

"No, no, no no. Please. Why would you want to put us back? Jex is a murderer, a liar and a cheat. Destroying him isn't killing a person, we are two parts of the same person, you would just be destroying those evil parts that used to be me. The parts that kill for money, trust no-one, lie to you all and even plan for the death of his friends. It is the part that had a tormented childhood that twisted him into those things, the part that was rejected and abandoned and taught that life had no value. Now I have a chance to be who I should have been if I had grown up in a loving home with my parents. Is there no part of you that you wish you could be without? That you could extract and destroy? Because I have that chance, to be someone better and I beg you to help me have it."

His eyes well up as he speaks and he thrusts out the mask away from him, letting it clatter onto the table. "This mask is not cursed. It has given me a gift, separated the parts of me that are evil and bloodthirsty. Leaving behind my conscience that had been buried for so long."

Once again, Vark gives his exasperated dwarven companion a look, this time a frown of concern. He mutters a short phrase under his breath and a spectral red hand appears to gingerly drag the mask over to him. 

“Matteo… Jex might be… difficult, and self righteous, and hypocritical, and…” he pauses as he realizes how easy it would be to go on reaming the rogue without ever reaching an actual point. “He’s a killer, yes. But… I’m a killer too, all of us are. Death is part of life, even if it’s hard and not nice, you can’t just take out the difficult parts of someone and throw them away. You feel like you hate Jex because you’re his opposite, he’s like your… your shadow. But everyone has a shadow. And together you’re a whole person. And with you as part of him, and all of us beside him, well maybe we can make him better. Someone who can fight for whats right and make hard choices and do the hard things that… well that you couldn’t do… but someone who doesn’t feel like they need to lie and cheat and steal just because. All of us really haven’t been together for very long but I feel like I’ve grown so much with everyone’s help. As much as I hate to admit it, Jex has been part of that.” He turns to Bründir. 

“Maybe we should talk to Nakia. Other than Matteo here she’s the only person who really knows Jex, Maybe she could help sort this out somehow.”

Matteo shakes his head.

"You don't know him. What he's capable of. There is another path, sometimes you just have to take it first, and show others that there is another way. There may always be a need for killers and death, but I've done my time serving it, now I want to show you all the path of non-violence, maybe along the way you will see options you never realised existed. " He sighs, looking around him. "I don't know how to show you. Maybe Seid will understand. He used to work with the cult, if he could send that part of him away..."

He shakes his head again.

"And Nakia wants nothing to do with me, she is a broker of death and what I am now goes against her whole life. And she's angry at Jex for becoming me. If it weren't for the children, she said she'd be packed up and gone, but I'm not worth losing what Jex has built here."

Brundir holds his hands up in a sign of resignation, "Yer runnin' through what has us 'ere. You an' I stepped out on th' road t'gether, so you know what I've seen. We knew Jex b'fore that mask, an' we don' know what happened that brought Matteo 'round. If he thinks it's got t'do with that mask, there's not much I can argue. Seems odd he'd use it without a problem, then one day it up 'n splits 'im in two like this. That's why we came 'ere. It's not my strong suit, so I figured you 'r Seid might know what we can do."

Vark lets out a heavy sigh now sharing Bründir’s resignation as there is clearly no changing Matteo’s mind. 

“Okay, let me try and take a closer look.” Vark walks over to a clear space on the floor and sits down, cross legged. The red veined mage hand follows, carrying the mask to float in front of him. Bründir has seen Vark identify numerous magical items by scanning over them with the codex’s ruby light, but this time is different. He places the runestone beneath the floating mask and traces a few sigils on it’s surfaces with a finger. A beam of red light emits straight up from the artifact, washing out the spectral hand and locking the mask in its glare. The light reveals a network of criss-crossed lines: the matrix of the mask’s enchantment, cast in crimson. Vark’s eyes begin to glow that same color as he begins to study them. It’s a couple minutes before he speaks again.

”Oh… okay, yes there is something here,” he says. With a wave of his hand, a section of the lines appears to float off the surface of the mask and expand, revealing a cross section of several layers. “Aha! Okay so, the mask functions using charming magic. It alters the minds of anyone who views the wearer to make them forget that they saw him. We already knew that, but here,” he points to a set of glyphs which run along the inside of the mask and glow brighter as he focuses on them, “It’s like part of the enchantment reflects back at whoever is wearing it, molding to them. If worn too much it could make people forget about him even when he’s not wearing the mask, even when he doesn’t want them to, even us. But somehow we all still remember Jex just fine… even though,” suddenly he looks to Matteo, the red glow fizzling out from his eyes. “Even though he’s forgotten himself.”

Matteo shakes his head.

"We knew the mask is dangerous, but I haven't forgotten myself. I remember all to well, everything I did and everything that happened."

“Well, I don’t mean literally but… I don’t know, I just still don’t think it’s as simple as getting rid of Jex. Actually, if it’s the mask that has separated you, and we do destroy it, maybe that would make the two of you join back together.” The light fades as Vark takes the mask in his actual hand and lifts it up, glancing at the place where he’d seen those tricksy aspects of the enchantment on the inside of the mask. Then he squints. “Hey… there’s a crack here.” He looks up at the others and shrugs. “Maybe it’s just malfunctioning cuz it’s broken. If that’s the case then we just need to find someone who can fix it.”

Matteo nods. "I had been worried about that myself. That's why I was hoping someone could be sure of the consequences of its destruction."

He peers over to look at the crack. "Or what we did broke it. It was moulding to us, as you describe, and we split and it tried to follow us both. I believe Jex made a conscious split of his mind, he couldn't cope with what he had done with his conscience intact."