Sworn to the State: A Magical Quest

There was never a more loathsome subject for you to study, and a more enjoyable subject for Godei to teach, than mentsh. That bonny array of etiquettes and manners sallied forth against the fortress of your mind, and you did all you could to shut them out. Even when you had to begrudgingly sit down and learned that the capital of Vaspukaran is Nachivan, it is a large city, the country is big, and the Patriarch has an oversized hat and ceremonial breastplate, you persisted in your opposition to learning the basic strictures of politeness and high society against Godei's wishes. It is not that you were a rube, or that as a peasant you were particularly thickheaded. It is that it was a philosophy that made you miserable.

Zurahna has said that everything and everyone has an order under heaven. There are hierarchies of Angels, and hierarchies of souls, and the five levels of being, and the ten attributes of God, or thirteen attributes if one is feeling particularly randy that day. There is a certain way of things that is drawing from the secrets and revelations of creation. When God created the world, when God sunk Babarak, all was under a certain plan of creation that you attribute to a terrible sort of finality. You didn't have to like it or approve of it, but it simply was, and it was comprehensible precisely because everything followed a certain order and plan and logic. It didn't have to be a logic that mortals could make sense of, but you could learn it and apply directly to your studies. It never cared that you were a peasant: only that you were a proper servant of God. All souls are equal under heaven.

Mentsh cared little for cosmic neatness. There is no particular reason why when sitting you have to recline on your left, except if you are in a Pusi household, in which case you should recline on your right (although most books on Mentsh also call Pusi inferior and that you should not associate with them). There is an enormous amount of religious disagreement about the various customs, and whether it is acceptable to sneeze in the company of a social superior (yes, but only if your superior has sneezed first). Worse, it spits on your heritage. It bars commoners from certain professions, imposes the "chambers" on the country, with the chamber of the Upper Priesthood having the greatest status and greatest privileges. God's power is absolute and divine, but the priests draw their power as much from the social conventions they have imposed. They have power because they say they have power. You don't agree.

It was then especially exciting for you to learn that many of these conventions have collapsed or been forgotten in the wake of the country's fracturing. A vicious part of your mind even whispered, once or twice, that it was a good thing that your village was burned because then you would no longer be bound by convention to marry a man from another village and carve out a plot, uselessly and endlessly farming until you withered and died. You suppressed such thoughts, but the underlying sentiment has stayed with you. It was never a question of staying in Kintaanen, no matter how much your mother and grandmother smiled and laughed at your declarations that you would become a queen. You would gather up your family, and they would form the royal house. Your sister Aisha would have become a princess, your brother Yokan the royal bodyguard, your mother the Dowager, your father the vizier, your Baba the greatest general of her generation…


But that's gone now. Instead you do have Godei, who is at least an extremely knowledgeable man. He once said to you, from memory, "Vashti, I will tell you right now the major orders of Vaspukaran. These are the orders: There are the Red Penitents, who are heretic militants who revel in violence, the Holy Wordsmen, who print and sell artisan's works from their monasteries and centers of learning, the Maranines, who teach and guide the children of Vaspukaran, the Black Bands, who have become the monsters of the frontier, the Cheshvans, the nomads' in priest's clothing, the Melikane Order, which we both know have long since forgotten the path of God and become Meliks, and the Vicars, who are the protectors and judges of the living and the dead". He then proceeded to go on a long lecture about how the various orders grew from the administrative organs of the Patriarchate and then split off in the wake of its collapse, spreading out and providing the order and disorder in the land. It was really quite fantastic, which is why you actually remember parts of it.

Really, it is amazing how one man can know so much but cannot even time for his only pupil, you think as you stare at his empty room. His bedroll has been made to look neat, his books are even stacked in a sane fashion across the walls. Even his sword has been carefully placed in its mantle hanging against the wall, a side-sword sitting in its elaborate leather sheath looking prim and proper. The only trace of mess or activity are strange splotches of green on one of the walls and a pot of green paint tucked away in the corner. You cannot discern its purpose, but it also does little to disturb the tranquility of the scene.

The only thing missing from this wonderful image is Godei himself.

It makes your heart sink in your chest. Godei has been, for the past few weeks, been disappearing and reappearing with an alarming frequency. He never has time to talk, he locks himself in a room or central chamber for hours, and it seems like the only thing he can't do is care about you. It's not as if you demand his company. You don't think you're being especially demanding. You were never demanding. Your mother called you the "silent child", preferring to watch and gaze with those unnatural silver eyes of yours than wail incessantly. That came later, but only because you so often felt yourself left behind. Your sister was groomed to become the leader of the commune, your brother would eventually take your father's place in learning how to ride moa and shoot a gun. You would get to learn how to weave and get married off, and that would be it.

You never doubted that your family didn't love you, but they never told you so. They never complimented you on a thing you did, because to do so would be to single you out in the commune, and that would have been terrible. Instead, you were shunted aside, noticed but not appreciated. Just another child in the village, like your friend Boros who never got to play anything more than the meek peasant boy until the day your world collapsed around you. You idly wonder if he survived. Probably not.

The terrible thing about being an observant child is that everything hurt. Boros or Gad, the monastery's placid shepherd boy, might have been able to coast through life with a degree of obliviousness to their own minuteness, but you could never do that. You paid attention to the fact that few people paid real attention to you. Stray looks gave you a flutter of happiness, someone speaking to you a rush of adrenaline. At least then someone was paying attention. It was always outrageous that someone named after the greatest queen in history, the Bambisnan Vashti, the last queen of Babarak and the one who ushered in the world-ending flood through sheer will, was just an afterthought in the eyes of her own village. But complaining about it would have been impolite, untoward, or utterly inappropriate.

You didn't become a Vicar, reach out and touch the mysteries of God, to repeat that experience. It's the core of why you never wanted to learn mentsh, even leaving aside the misery of its histories. So having Godei barely even paying you any mind for two weeks after the greatest accomplishment in your life, facing off against the shade of Sako and surviving, becoming a fully ordained vicar that ought to have his full respect…

It certainly isn't what you would expect from your teacher.

The sword on the wall bears mute witness to your struggle, left behind just as you are. Godei never used it much at the best of times despite its obvious beauty, and you always aspired to have one of your own. When you asked him about it, he shrugged you off and said that swords are for soldiers. Put aside by its master, the sword waits for him to no avail, gathering dust in the pristine emptiness of his abode.

Fine. If he wants to be like this, then you'll retaliate. You save the sword from its neglect, seizing its considerable heft and clipping the belt of its scabbard around your waist. If he gets angry about it being gone then perhaps he'll finally talk to you about something. As you leave the room, your eyes linger on its empty place on the mantle and you stop, hesitation giving momentary pause to your plotting, and you almost snuff out the act of rebellion right then and there. But then you remember him breaking your promise, and your heart hardens.

No, you won't put it back. You're done being the silent child. You will make him notice you. The door slams shut behind you as you march towards the library, intent on asking Abbot Tado where your master is.

The monastery's library is a huge square structure attached to the side of the main courtyard. You push open the heavy metal double doors with their calligraphic designs and enter inside. Light streams in from the high windows, bringing some color to an otherwise bland wall. At the near end a group of four huge printing presses, normally worked by monks and nuns to produce the paper documents and woodcuts that the monastery sells to the surrounding area, lie untouched and dormant. On the floor there are still the old stains from where giant bookshelves once stood, now replaced by this printer's workshop. You idly wonder what it must have been like before printing, to laboriously copy books by hand. It must have been terribly repetitive.

Towards the far end the library better fits its moniker, with the tall shelves of wood reaching to the ceiling stuffed with books, some shuttered behind chains and cabinet doors that prevent robbery. Winding stairs reach up to the top of the high ceiling, allowing full access to every cavernous tome in the monastery's collection. Every now and then, when you've browsed, you've even noticed sections of the library storing books in different languages other than Vasparak. The most notable is the library's small collection of Radita, claimed by the librarian Igo to be one of the last in the world. It's always disturbed you to think that a language could simply be stamped out like that. The Radita lost their war with Vaspukaran, the Patriarchate descended on their cities, smashed their idols, and annihilated their language. Now all that was left was this trifling collection.

Of course, the room is not as austere as it seems. One need only lift their nose up and sniff. Smothering the musk of old books and dust, an overwhelming fragrance of sandalwood greets you. The shelves, the tables, even portions of the printing press have been made from sandalwood. This secret ostentation belies the true wealth of the Holy Word; they are an order that plays at poverty but have stores of riches in unlikely places. This library and its concentration of sandalwood is only the tip of a secretive iceberg that you have no doubt Abbot Tado hides behind his affable smile.

The tranquility of the library, emptied by the demands of the siege, is disturbed by the sound of the Abbot arguing with an unknown, rough voice. You approach with a certain element of stealth, crouching behind one of the printing presses, until you spot them.

On the one side, near one of the reading tables, stands Abbot Tado, resolute, his tiered beard still ungroomed and unkempt from the recent stress and work. The man he is talking to is someone who you feel like you recognize, but cannot place from where.

The stranger's hair is short and black, ending in sharp edges. His face is hard and square, and completely clean-shaven. His eyes are covered by a clean, bright red blindfold, and when he talks he does so with such an edge of aggression that you almost think his tongue might lash out of his mouth. He is entirely topless, his figure lanky and unnaturally chiselled, as if he was carved from a block of stone, marred by the enormous number of scars covering his chest and back, some from whipping. Two pieces of ragged white cloth stained red with blood are tied around his knuckles, and as he talks he squeezes his fists together absentmindedly. His pants are baggy and loose, ending above the ankles, and he wears simple black shoes made out of cloth.

You push yourself up against one of the printing presses and take a deep breath. This man is a Red Penitent, the very people Godei warned you about "revelling in violence". He's told you precious else, but what you do know is extremely unpleasant.

Abbot Tado is at the end of a rant against him. "...You will not do any such thing under my roof, Bluff."

"Here's the thing, uh, Abbot. Here's the thing. I kill Vicars. You understand? I respect your rules under your roof, but Abbot, oh Abbot, I'm not much of a man to be patient. Sometimes my mind wanders or my hand slips and bam, I kill a vicar. You know very well why I do. We've been over this before. I've been here before with the same request. You want the Red Penitents to help you? Hand them over."

There's a certainty in his demand that makes your skin crawl as your mind races to absorb the fact that this man is here to kill you, and the only thing standing between you and him is an old abbot. You pull up your knees, sitting against the press, and pull Godei's sword closer to your body. At least he can't see you. Wait, how does a blind man even kill vicars…?"

"In my house," Abbot Tado says in a voice quaking with rage, "in my house you come and threaten my guests, and suggest that I ought to just let you kill them. I don't care about your order's sacreligious commitment to indiscriminate violence. You will not have them, Bluff. You will not."

"You know, Abbot," the man called Bluff says as you hear the tapping of his footsteps against the tile of the floor as he walks in a circle, your heart racing every time the sound of his footsteps get closer to you, "I respect your courage and your principles. But courage and principles- they don't do anything against power. And here's the thing: The vicars are enormously powerful. Even these days. Did you know that the Melik sitting right down there in the valley has gotten himself two Vicars?"

"I...never heard of any such rumors." The abbot says with barely restrained alarm.

"Not rumors, but yeah. Yeah, he did. He's got this long-time one, can't remember his name, but they call him The Builder, because he makes golems and sends them out to do all kinds of monstrous things for him. Could be one in this monastery right now and you wouldn't know till he struck. And the other one...oooh, that one's new. Calls himself the Grand Sage, some kind of hedge witch with delusions of glory. Showed up to the camp and has been cooking the army's stews and broths. Purportedly making them stronger with blessings." Bluff stops walking then and you have to resist the temptation to peek around the printing press even as you are distracted by this new. Two Vicars? How would you ever...how could you ever fight against him? What is Godei doing in all of this? Does he know?

"Huh," Bluff suddenly says after he stops walking, "that printing press right there."

"What about it, Bluff? I thought we were speaking about these Vicars."

"No, no, we were, I just…has there always been a kid wearing a vicar outfit hiding behind it trying to eavesdrop on us or is that a new addition to the library?"

Oh no no no no how

"What are you talking about now?" The abbot practically spits out, "are you playing a mind game with me? There is no-" He stops because he must have seen you too.

You try your best to stay behind the press, not making a sound or moving at all. You are frozen in place by indecision, still shocked by him seeing you.

"Bluff," the Abbot says in an almost begging voice, "Bluff, don't do anything rash. She is seventeen, Bluff. She doesn't even know who you are."

"What are you talking about, old man? I'm just wondering why there's a kid wearing a Vicar Outfit hiding behind the printing press. I'm not sure why you would be thinking that I would do something to-oh. Oh Man, I think I get it. This is her? This is her? Hey, come out here, I want to see you. I can see you hiding behind there, girl."

"No thanks, I'm good, thank you very much." You yell from behind the printing press.

You hear a sigh escape from the stranger's lips. "Okay, well at least she can talk. Let me say hi."

"Bluff!"

When you hear his footsteps starting to approach you, you burst from behind the printing press with Godei's sword drawn in a high guard, lending strength to your arms and holding a solid stance. You can see Bluff clearly now, but he doesn't seem to be taken at all off-guard or even surprised. He walks back a step as if he wants to get a full look at you from behind his blindfold, but he's still standing only a few feet away. You would try and summon him to your Zurah realm, but you don't fully trust yourself with it and would need to lower your guard to do that.

"Well, there she is. Hey there, kid." Bluff says, more confused than anything else. His nonchalance unnerves you but you stand firm.

"I...am Pulagu Shulgi Vashti, second Vicar of the Vermilion Chamber, and I will not allow any harm to come to me, my master, or anyone in this monastery from you!" You proclaim to him while he stands in place rolling his shoulders.

"Right."

"So, uh…" you pause and try to figure out what to do next, "go away?'

"Nah." Bluff says as he stands in place, crossing his arms. "I think I'm good here."

"Well okay," you say, still holding your stance, "then we're just going to stay right here. Because I'm not letting you go anywhere."

"Sure, but I gotta ask you one thing, because if you look behind me the Abbot is looking mighty scared indeed, but you're standing here calm and confident, or at least as calm and confident as a seventeen year old Vicar can be. Do you know who I am?"

You rake the coals of your memory, and make an errant guess. "The Cassowary boxer from the fair?"

"Wait, what?"

"The boxer. There was a fair at our spring Vladwane festival, and one of the people at the fair was someone called...Blind Man's Bluff? And you're called Bluff, so I figured it might be you. He punched out a cassowary with a single punch and I thought it was amazing. But maybe it's not you, because Bluff was pretty nice and far as I can tell you're a pretty rude piece of work."

"I mean, sure, maybe. I did a lot of work as an entertainer before things went to shit- wait, Kintaanen?"

"Yes", you affirm.

"Huh. I don't remember you but I do remember that village. Swell place. Well you know what, Vashti from Kintaanen, I'll give you a freebie here. Put down your sword and we won't have a problem."

"We won't? You won't hurt me or my master?"

"No, no, I mean this problem right now." He points to you and then himself as he talks. "I mean I am absolutely still going to hunt down vicars, and that may include your master, but this issue with the blade, you put it down and we won't have a problem. I don't know if you heard anything else about me but you're right that I'm not a nice guy. Give me a reason to be nice here. You're just a kid after all-"

"No." You say as you stamp your foot on the ground and make a step forward, still holding the sword, flooding your body with your will as you demonstrate your power to him. "I'm not a kid, and I'm not going anywhere until you stop being a problem. This is Abbot Tado's monastery. You're his guest, just like us, so follow his rules. And you know what…"

You think about his demeanor and his scars and his past as a performer.

"I think I figured you out. They call you Blind Man's Bluff because it's an act. It's just a performance. I don't know how you managed to get into the Red Penitents, but I bet that this is all a big fakeout. You're just a thug trying to scare me, but you know what, I'm calling your bluff."

You give him a wide smile even as you hold your sword and he looks genuinely taken aback. He puts a hand up against his chin as if he's deep in thought, only to break out into raucous laughter.

"By Amalgast you are something, Vashti from Kintaanen. I just...wow. You're not wrong, you know. I am something of a thug, and a performer. I do like fakeouts. Honestly, I concede defeat here, you've identified that part pretty well. Never seen a Vicar who's so observant. You did get one thing wrong, though."

"What?" You ask, grin still on your face, guard starting to relax as Bluff's own stance does.

"That's the exact opposite of the reason they call me Bluff."

When he jumps forward Bluff's first aim is your sword wrist as he tries to disarm you, as you might expect of a pugilist. It is at that moment that you simply release the sword, darting your arm down towards his stomach in a single stab of concentrated Karogen, anger and wrath welling to the tips of your fingertips and outwards in a visible wavefront of righteous fury. It is a good plan, which is why when he grips the sword by the blade with one hand and then snapsa punch straight towards you with no preamble, a force so powerful that when it collides with your own attack it creates an explosion. The sonic boom of sheer power hits you before the punch does, sending you across the room and into one of the printing presses along with a blast of wind that takes the air out of your lungs. Dust erupts from the press as wood crashes, a combination of your weak Hastata and your Rongen the only things that cushion your fall.

The smell of sandalwood is now an overwhelming odor that stings your eyes and nose.

You only have time to register the pain in your arm as he simply jumps across the room, a punch aimed straight at your face that rolls towards your face with all the inevitability of a shooting star towards the earth, only to stop at the last moment, stopping with such ease and control that you wonder if it was just an illusion. Then, just like that, it's over. You peer through dust-filled eyes, still shaking from the near-death experience, to see Bluff with arms crossed, head tilted down towards you. He holds Godei's sword in his hands, and he wordlessly bends it in half before letting it drop beside you with a clatter.

"Not bad, kid. That distraction with the sword would have caught me a year or two ago, especially since I didn't expect it. I've fought people with a lot more experience who wouldn't have thought of that trick. But you can't just point a sword at me and expect me not to retaliate in kind."

"That wasn't...kind," you rasp, "What...what was that? What did you...do? That wasn't Karogen...there wasn't any anger there, no feeling…"

"That's the trouble with Vicars. They always think they know all the hidden tricks and their route is the only route. Closeminded folk. Of course, I don't punch Vicars because they're closeminded, I punch them because they're witches responsible for most of the ills in this country." Bluff explains to you as he offers you a hand up. You don't take it, instead pushing yourself further against the ruin of the printing press, feet shuffling away from him.

"Come on, that was a friendly spar. You think after that you have any doubt that I couldn't kill you if I wanted? I wanted to make a point. You had your sword out and kid or not I didn't want the sword out. I asked you to put it away and you probably thought that I wouldn't be able to handle you. That's the bluff. Every Vicar thinks that."

You say nothing, pulling your knees up to your head and burying your face in them. You see the abbot, shrunken and afraid in the corner. Why wouldn't he be? He can't stop this man either.

"Well, alright." Bluff says with a sigh as he crouches down to your level, a few feet away. "then I won't bother you much more. I just wanna ask you one question. Not a very complicated question. I always ask a Vicar this question before I kill them, but for you I just want to ask it for future reference. You give me it and I'll leave you alone, I swear to God. It's not...well, it's not good luck to kill guests under a monastery's roof. Yeah, let's go with that."

"What...what is the question?" You manage to whisper.

"I want you to tell me why you're a Vicar. Everyone has their reasons, but most of them were never very good. But you know what, you're pretty young, you haven't really been in touch with the main organization, far as I can tell you probably never even left this monastery since you became an orphan. Kintaanen must have burnt down during the Masked Lord's path of slaughter through the Ischak plateau. Am I right?"

You glare at him, but nod after a few moments.

"Well, alright. So look, kid, just tell me why you're a Vicar and I'll leave you alone."

"How do I know you will."

He rubs his face and stands up, turning back to the Abbot. "Hey Abbot, do you trust me?"

"I hope you get sewn up inside a moa and die, you foul monster." The Abbot shouts back.

"Thanks Tado. You see, he gave me his endorsement, and well, mine is pretty ironclad. Just give me the answer and I'll leave you alone."

Article:

This is no time for a philosophical discussion, or a long treatise of your beliefs. Your mind races as you think about what to say to this monster of a man who stands before you. You have no idea if he'll actually leave, if he's toying with you, or whether this is all a terrible dream and you'll wake up soon. For the sake of your composure, you opt to believe him, and start trying to formulate a response, thinking as best you can under the circumstances.

All you can give him is the core of your belief, what you want from the Order without hesitation or qualification. Beyond everything else you could name.

Why are you really a Vicar?

[] To avenge the family that I lost.
[] To make a safe place for the people I love.
[] To become someone others can look up to.
[] Refuse to answer him.

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