So he did remember, though apparently not the part where he promised Hylltywyll tribute. How much tribute and how many times was never specified, so Hylltywyll took that part into his own hands and decided it would be as much tribute as he wanted, every time they met. It sounded like a perfect arrangement to him.

Hylltywyll raised an eyebrow, unamused. It was obvious Vonoros was lying. His magic pinged in his mind at the false words coming out of the Triton's mouth.

Hylltywyll extracted another coin purse from the man's pockets and untied the drawstrings, opening up the pouch and revealing the glint of the golden coins within. He slowly counted out twenty coins, putting them all into one hand, and holding them for a moment in front of him, just slightly out toward Vonoros...

Before he turned his hand and dumped the handful of coins directly into his shadow, the coins vanishing into the darkness like they had fallen into the abyss never to be seen again.

"How much was he paying you?" Hylltywyll asked again, his eyes locked with Vonoros'.

The pouch in his hand was still heavy with coin, but it would grow lighter with each lie.

“Awesome, thanks pal”, Vonoros would say seeing Hyll hold out his payment right in front of him before he could stand up and get it through it would drop its contents into the shadows themselves.

It was hard for the triton to settle his thoughts on the fellow in front of him, on the one hand, he’d saved his life before and saved his ears from his boss’s yelling, on the other his power seemed terrifyingly absolute. He didn’t want to get on his bad side, there was no telling what the little fellow could do to him. Remembering back to the last time they’d meet their encounter ended with him getting knocked out and feeling drained of his energy.

He decided to be honest and match Hylltywyll’s piercing gaze, “Eh, my bad I simply misremembered aha, I think he was gonna pay me around fifteen solars for my hard work. If possible, if you slide me an extra 5 solars from him for that verbal punishment I took, it'd be greatly appreciated. I mean Mr. Great One that Lies in Shadows why shouldn’t I get that at least for my time?”, he grinned wide and awaited the fae’s response.

Hylltywyll looked incredulous. Did he really just basically ask for 20 solars again after obviously getting caught in a lie and Hylltywyll showing his disapproval of being lied to? And, he just lied again. Hylltywyll's magic didn't tell him the number, but it did tell him it wasn't 15 or around 15.

He counted out 15 solars, emptying the coin purse a bit more, and then repeated dumping them right into his shadow so Vonoros could watch them vanish, along with Hylltywyll's patience. If he didn't tell him the true number soon, he'd just drop the whole pouch into his shadow and tell Vonoros that he doesn't give money to people who lie to him.

"How much was he paying you?" Hylltywyll asked for the third time, now with a slightly furrowed brow and a hint of annoyance in his voice. Trying to act cool and mysterious could be fun, but such an act was hard to keep up when you were dealing with such fools that couldn't take hints to save their lives, or in this case, their salary.

The gold-coated man even looked at Vonoros with a bit of disbelief at how easy this puzzle was to solve. Just tell the truth and he would get the money. He then realized it was his money being given away and renewed his efforts to move, but the gilded coating on his whole body still slowed his movement to the point he felt like he was trying to move through nearly solid metal.

The triton’s smile grew a lot smaller as he saw his payment get sent to the realm of shadows quickly as the fae looked him in the eyes repeating the question once more for the third time. Vonoros was not going to pull a fast one on him any time soon and he didn't want to find himself pissing Hylltywyll off any further. As much as he’d like the extra cash in his pocket getting trapped in one of those shadow pockets the dark fae was dropping the solars wasn’t worth it.

He holds his hands up and chuckles, “Fine fine my bad ya got me, it was just a total of ten solars”, finally telling the truth, “Please forgive me Great One that Lies in Shadows, I am but a human being it’s in our nature to give into greed and that stuff. Can’t blame a guy for trying though. I mean ten solars is barely enough to get like 2 sandwiches that’ll cover my lunch for today I guess? Hey, fae dude can you like summon like two sandwiches out of those shadows of yours? What is the upper limits of your power dark mysterious shadow lord?".

Finally, he told the truth. Ten solars barely made the pouch seem much emptier as he picked out. This time, instead of just tossing them into his shadow, he upturned the coin purse, sending everything else in it tumbling down into the darkness before dropping the ten solars back into the emptied pouch and tossing it at Vonoros.

He was tempted to just keep those coins as well, and just say they were his tribute or payment for lying to him, but he was more interested in just having the dumb Triton leave than in a few coins. He'd already stolen so much off the old guy anyways, ten solars was practically nothing, and he wasn't even done yet.

Hylltywyll looked at Vonoros with contempt. It wasn't his fault he agreed to take a job for such little pay. That had nothing to do with Hylltywyll. Talking about summoning sandwiches and switching back and forth between calling him "Fae dude" and shadow lord and ehatever else. It was inconsistent at best and demeaningly sarcastic at worse. Where was the respect that Hylltywyll deserved? And was that a challenge? Asking him what the upper limits of his power was? Was he sure he wanted to know that?

"The upper limit of my powers? You really want me to show you?" Hylltywyll asked ominously.

Seeing all those solars fall into the shadows was a very strange sight, tons of solars just suddenly gone into some mystery destination. It sure was a shame but Vonoros didn’t care that much, that the old man had it coming as long as he got his share of coin he was fine with it. Sure he didn’t manage to pull a fast one on Hylltywyll but at least he wasn’t on his bad side yet. If he could just turn a man to gold like that and control shadows there was no telling what this fellow could do when angered. He caught the pouch of solars and tucked it into his shorts pocket, a grin plastered on his face.

“Thanks there fella, I appreciate your generosity a lot, good sir dude”, he’d say crossing his arms as the shadow fae asked him in an ominous tone if he was sure he wanted to see his power.

“Uhhhh, yeah I’m pretty sure I'm sure, whatcha got? What’s the upper limits of your power, can you cover an entire city in shadows? Can you make yourself some sort of super big shadow monster? What’s your deal?”.

Hylltywyll was sure he felt one of his eyes twitch as Vonoros talked. Cover a whole city in shadows? Turn into a giant shadow monster? Both of those were ridiculous. How powerful did he think Hyll was? Well, maybe he could do those things if he learned how, but he didn't know magic like that yet. He could cover... this whole street in shadow, and make himself... a bit taller... No, those weren't impressive enough. He needed to use his most powerful magic, something flashy and impressive.

But no, he also couldn't cast anything that would attract too much more attention. A few passerby began to notice the strange scene of the golden man having his pockets rifled through in the middle of the street, so Hylltywyll decided to hurry things up. He decided to use something a little more subtly impressive.

"Behold!" He said dramatically, waving his hands in an exaggerated fashion. This kind of thing should impress an idiot.

Suddenly, in front of Vonoros, a mirror image of the Triton appeared, mimicking his every move. There, that was some impressive light magic. Hylltywyll invented that spell himself! That should keep him busy while Hyll finished up here.

Going through all the man's pockets was taking too long, so Hylltywyll just climbed onto the man's head and slipped the entire robe off of his shoulders. It hit the ground with a clanking, showing it was definitely still loaded with plenty of goodies for Hylltywyll to find at his leisure.

He jumped back down and stuffed the whole robe into his shadow before taking one more look at the man. Hmm... He did still have quite a few nice accessories on... Maybe Hyll could take just a little more time looting him. The mimic should keep him busy for that long.

---

Hylltywyll's Mirror Mimic

The triton stood idly by, ready to be completely amazed at the powerful and strange figure in front of him. Vonoros’s eyes were glued to Hylltywyll as he waved his hands around, this guy must be doing a very intricate and difficult spell to cast, he thought to himself. Each wave of his hands must mean something they're so powerful that whatever he was casting it must take a lot of energy and practice, Vonoros paid close attention assuming that Hylltywyll truly had an almost deity-like magical ability.

“Woah! Trippy”, he’d exclaim, staring at a replica of himself almost mirroring every detail about him.

Vonoros would take a look at him, “Damn you even got the scars right down to the length”.

He wasn’t exactly super obsessed with himself, not like his sworn brother but it was almost just really fascinating and perturbing to see himself in front of him. It didn’t stop at just looking like him, the mirror mimic was copying his movements, eyeing him in the same way he was doing. Not needing much to be entertained Vonoros was thoroughly distracted and enthralled not paying attention to Hylltywyll as the shadow fae took his former boss’s robe.

Wow, that worked even better than he expected. Vonoros was entirely distracted by his spell, playing around in front of the mirror image of himself, studying it, and watching it copy him. It was like a child or an animal seeing a mirror for the first time and being confused. Not quite as adorable when it was a grown Triton man doing it though.

Hylltywyll left Vonoros to his own devices as he went about stripping the gilded elder of everything of value he still had on him. A very nice, shiny watch. That was nice. A ring? What a big gem in the middle. Probably not important, it was Hyll's now. Oh, is that a broach of some kind of coat of arms or something? What a precious family heirloom. Yoink.

The man managed to let out a muffled groan of complaint through the gold sealing his mouth shut as all his trinkets and treasures vanished into the gremlin's shadow one after the other. Hylltywyll even pulled off his shiny belt that was made of some kind of black scaled leather with a fancy gold belt buckle that looked like a dragon's silhouette, causing his pants to fall down around his golden ankles.

Hylltywyll looked very satisfied with his spoils. He gave one more glance to Vonoros and mirror Vonoros before silently slipping into the shadow of the old man and vanishing like all his ill-gotten treasure.

It took the triton a few moments to realize that his shadow fae friend had left calling out, “Yo dude where’d you go? Can you make another one of these?”, he said pointing at the mirror mimic.

No response came back; it was only him, his mirror mimic, and the gold-encased owner in the street. People were starting to take notice of the odd scene murmuring and glancing over. Vonoros spent the next few moments messing with the owner wholeheartedly and had a good chuckle about him getting pantsed and all of his money stolen. Rolling on the floor and hysterically laughing, “HAHAHAHA LOOK AT YOU MAN, YOU LOOK SO DUMB RIGHT NOW”.

At that moment, three guards made their way over to him confused about the scene that was before them. He quickly stood back up and smiled, “Hello there guards what seems to be the problem?”.

The guard questions him, “Problem, what the hell has happened here, we received reports of some unruly behavior going on and this is what we see. Can someone please explain what’s going on?”

The triton smiled realizing they were asking him for an explanation, he could control the story perfectly since he was the only one out of the tree who could explain, “It’s not too much of a big deal my friends, I was having a nice chat with this fellow here”, he’d place his shoulder over the goldified man, “And suddenly out of nowhere this powerful mage just turns him to gold and steals his money and stuff. Imagine my shock as I see this happen before my very own eyes, honestly makes me worried about my safety”.

The mirror mimic rolled on the ground, its mouth moving the same as Vonoros, laughing, but no sound came out. As Vonoros turned and spoke to the guards, the mimic's back faced the guards while it followed along, as if it was also addressing someone in front of it, in this case, the living golden statue.

As Vonoros tried to back up and put a shoulder around the golden man, his mirror copy bumped into him as it mimicked his movements in reverse and got between the two of them. Where the two Vonoros skin touched, the real Vonoros felt a burn as if the spot was hit by incredibly intense sunlight, the mirror mimic being a construct of pure light magic.

The old man's expression showed more and more anger, his brow furrowing and eyes narrowing. He could move his face more than before, and more muffled sound managed to make it out of his mouth. Unseen by him and unnoticed by the real Vonoros, the gold coating was starting to melt away, the molten metal vanishing as it flowed off of him in streams.

"This...bastard...and his... weird dog. ROBBED ME!" He shouted to the two guards as his face was finally cleared of the golden coating, the rest of his body following suit as the melting gold worked its way down.

A burning sensation would come from Vonoros’s hand as he felt it touch the mirror mimic version of himself. It felt as if he was touching a blazing fire or the sun itself, a faint burn mark appearing on the back of his hand.

“Owww godammit mirror me, be careful there”, he scolded the mirror mimic quickly taking his arm off of his golden-encased former employer.

A faint buzz and murmuring noise started to pick up the triton glanced around trying to look for the source before turning to his former boss. Suddenly before he could make another move the gold that covered the man completely vanished entirely. With rage and fury in his eyes, he screamed telling the guards the true story.

“Welp, can’t blame a guy for trying huh”, Vonoros chuckled as the guards prepared themselves to bring the triton in.

“Quickly Mirror Me, hold them off while I escape”, he’d yell to himself only to find it simply copying his actions, “Dammit looks like I gotta handle this myself”.

He then reaches into his shorts pocket pulling out a dark hood placing it over his head and covering his face. Soon enough his head starts changing contorting into a terrifying skeletal grimace (1). Everyone looking at him from the guards to the employer feels great dread and horror in their hearts, not able to move a single step towards him. With that, the triton quickly sprints off cackling at the fun day he just had as he runs away.