Arc 10: Post 39: With Measured Kindness
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With Measured Kindness
1st of Abadius 4708 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)
A man in red and yellow, his face a touch frantic, navigates his way between mule carts driven by straw hatted drivers scarce less surly than their charges, stout dwarfish porters porters and 'elvish' entertainers whose ears might have been lengthened by more than nature's hand. Magistrates in robes in Abadaran white and gold rub shoulders with sellswords, drunks and slack jaws come to see the Jewel of Empires yet unclaimed Absalom upon the shining sea. It seems to you as though looking down from the eyes of a swooping falcon that the expanse of the bazaar below is as endless, a sea of frantic life, of feast and famine and all things between. Not near so grand nor so filled with wonder as cities of the High realm in flower for all they seek to take for themselves its architecture, its murals, even its manner of street signs.
Alas not all in this expanse are free to walk as where please. Men and women, even a handful of children are collared and branded upon their cheek, some bound with chain so fine it could not hold flitting lark and yet they follow in the wake of their masters eyes cast down with veiled hate or silent misery, Azlant's memory just the same. At the very least the builders of this city knew what they had wrought for sign that leads among the covered slave pits is marked truly: Misery.
Here at least you catch a glimpse of black hair, ached brows lording over eyes like clouded amethyst. A pair, man and woman, moving briskly with the military precision of an army long gone from the world, they come to what might be counted one of the most salubrious of the pits, in spite of or perhaps because of the horns and chain of Asmodeus marking the wall before the shallow stairs. The pair out of time do not go inside at once but walk among the graveled paths and look down into the roofless rooms appointed such that every slave is still able to practice their craft for the audience of their potential buyers: scribes and smiths, gem cutters and physicians, all educated slaves with prices to match for the trusting soul who wants to own not merely the service of the staff but their very lives or as you soon watch unfold, those interested in the gratitude of the freed.
Under the name Irimia of Alxor, translating to something like 'masked one from behind the curtain', they woman aquires six laves and manumits them on the spot drawing looks of mingled contempt and pitty from the Chelixian slaver who had just taken her money, but she does not make her offer on the spot, simply asking the newly made freemen if they are interested in a job. One decides to take his chances elsewhere while five follow their new employers to a townhouse that looms over a small colorful Varisian camp like an overbite. The people seem familiar with their neighbors if not overly talkative, more worried about the ex-slaves, recognizing perhaps the touch of Chelish in their accents.
"Gold, we have much and much we will pay for leal service, six times what the slaver claimed was the going rate for scribes and scholars and he was lying though his ass, but if you betray our secrets you will have none to pay coin to but the Ferryman."
"We... we are sworn to..."
"Earthly secrets, I don't give a dead rat's ass where you keep your souls. We find ourselves in the possession of certain historical information which would be of extreme value, but only if place in the proper context by those with a skill study old maps other hints of the land."
Two more scribes depart, three remain to enter the service of the ancients. You are not alone in hunting the secrets of the High Realm and they had lived in elder days, not merely dreamed of them.
***
4th of Abadius 4708 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)
As the days wind on and the weather turns fouler, though not so much as to be troubling to the hand of the spectral crew, you are left with little to do but wile away the time with stories and song. Mostly stories for you, even as a child you never saw the path of a Dancer as your escape. Anippe is interested, but so are the Blackscale iruxi, those that aren't trying to pick up on a sailor's skills from Pepper. So the five of you recount nautical stories over and under the waves. A pity the sea had seen fit to give you fodder for yet more tale telling.
"Ship to port, she's lost her main mast and most of her rigging. From the looks of things she's taking on water too, like she's been in worse weather than us. She's not flying colors, but the ship looks Taldan or Andoran," Pepper recounts. No reason to get someone atop the mainmast when the ship has eyes in the sky to watch the horizon.
"And you're sure it's not a... ghost ship right?"
Anippe too has been telling some stories, many of which concern the war with Geb and so the sorts of trickery the ghost ships of Geb play to get at their prey.
"There are definitely sailors walking around on deck, not shuffling about," Mina's feline companion confirms. "Some wounded, none dead and moving."
"Then we should help, definitely..." Mina looks towards Sirim a little sheepish. "How long's the ship going to keep for?"
"Nineteen more days, it's another eleven to Cassomir at our present speed."
"So we can help them?" The words are half a question, though more aimed at Gorok.
"As long as they do not ask for too much and if the signs are good?" he in turns looks to you.
The signs had been thoroughly average, almost worryingly so. Ah, maybe I'm seeing things rather than not seeing them. You shake your head and side...
[] With Mina, you should help the battered ship
[] With Sirim, you have a time limit and no way to tell when the weather might turn
[] Write in
OOC: Enjoy.
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