Deliberations in Death
Twenty-Fifth of the Second Month 294 AC
You set down the note from the Sand Speaker with satisfaction leavened by a small measure of amusement at the tone. Wyla, it seems, does not take well to unexpectedly simple answers, or perhaps simply to the notion of less experienced researches stumbling upon an answer she had struggled to find. In the end what matters is that you have another path for the dead to walk under the light of day in your empire without carrying the shadow of death itself in their mind, and you can think of some here in Sallosh who are far more likely to make use of soul forging over bodies of metal and gears.
The people of Sallosh had returned to their city with cheers and no small measure of relief, cheers for the Empire, for the legion, and for 'the good governor', as Vargo had come to be called.
But there are others in Sallosh you would meet this morning, those who took no part in the cheering crowds nor the bustle of life resuming. "Your Excellence, if I could have a moment of your time?" you ask, making your way into the spacious but still relatively plain solar the lord of Sallosh had taken for his own.
"Of course," he replies with a smile that is far more genuine than the strained expression of two weeks past. If Vargo could not be said to have covered himself in glory fighting alongside the fifth, neither could be be counted as one who shied from the fight. You suspect he will keep to his ledgers from now on, neither troubled by the specter of cowardice, nor wishing to find his destiny with sword in hand.
The smile fades somewhat as he listens to what you have in mind, uncomfortable with descending into the catacombs so soon after his return, but he sees the sense of it.
***
The tunnels beneath Sallosh are darker and colder than one might expect from the short flights of stairs you had taken to get down here. The water of the lake seeps through the porous sandstone in steady drips. Like soft crying in the distance, it's echoes at times almost too soft to hear even for you, and at others so close you could swear the source is right behind you.
Carefully, you raise the silver star the specters of ancient artificers had given to you as a mark of their alliance and call out into the dark, "I come with news of great import for all who dwell in this city."
"Come forth and be recognized!" Vargo adds, his voice steadier than the slight tremble in his hands show him to be in truth.
Pale wraiths step forth as though woven from the silver light reflecting off the pendant. You could not say how many there are, the edges blurring away into luminous haze, but the leader is one whom you recognize from your last meeting. "We know of your victories, Dragon Lord, but it is for the living to celebrate them. We merely linger here so that knowledge might not be lost before stepping beyond this Sphere."
"Another path opens as it does for all of those who awoke in memory of Sarnor's dark fate..." You recount Wyla's discovery in more detail than you would provide to most, reasoning that scholars would find it worth listening to, especially those who dealt in the forging of not only magic but souls.
Whispers pass through the ethereal cloud like evening wind over dry grasses. "Clarity..." the lead scholar muses as though he does not quite believe the word. "You would offer clarity in this form, divested from the distractions of flesh and wordy things. For myself I accept and many of my fellows also, for we wish to travel your realm and see the lore of this new age rather than merely share our own. However, we would ask for something of you?"
You nod, more curious than wary for the dead of Sallosh have from the start proven reasonable.
"We need no homes nor roof to guard us from the elements, but we know how terrible the legends of the wandering dead can be the world over, and would not trouble the living with our company unduly. It would be best if halls for the dead might be built beside your centers of learning that we might dwell there when not at lectures or the reading rooms?"
Vargo clears his throat. "Couldn't you just buy a house? You would not need that much room surely."
"Most would hesitate to sell their abode to a specter who shows unbidden on their door one moonlit night. Even if that is not so, it would trouble the neighbors. We do not wish to be the cause for which mothers clutch their children close and people walk furtively down theirown streets," the specter continued. "Having a dwelling of the dead endorsed by the crown will lay to rest at least some of those fears we hope."
What do you reply?
[] Accept, have some sort of undead accommodation built in Sorcerer's Deep for those undead who cannot easily pass as the living
-[] Write in any proposed details (optional)
[] Refuse, creating those kinds of official boundaries may well raise more suspicions in the long run than it quiets fears in the short term
[] Write in
OOC: The number of Scholars you get will be finalized once the question has been settled. Some of the ghosts are really concerned about terrifying people by their mere presence and generally doing harm to the living by. Many of them died in fear and hopelessness, but they have been fighting against it as best they can ever since they started teaching their descendants. Not yet edited.
