[IC] Servants of the Dark Lord

[Flagg]

To Carthage then I came, where there sang all around me in my ears a cauldron of unholy loves.
- St. Augustine, Confessions

A new day was breaking behind the city, its jagged skyline shadowed by the rising sun. Ozgad's Folly the place was called now, after the pirate king Ozgad One Hand, who had made an ill considered last stand here against the marauding orcs and beastkin of the Gorelord. The Folly was not this place's original name, nor was serving as a port to desperate pirates and lowlifes its original purpose, but few things in the vast desolation of Nagath were called now by the same titles they wore in the days of their glory, or served the same uses.

He sat back in the saddle and fixed a battered pipe in the corner of his mouth, lighting it as he surveyed the mudplains and marshland around the Folly. A few small villages- if that word could be used for collections of huts on stilts- could be made out in the faint dawn light, home no doubt to toadfolk and crab-farmers, eeking out an existence in the salt swamps, under the dubious protection of the city they helped to feed.

His gaan-lizard shuddered beneath him, letting out a cantankerous snort, signaling its displeasure at the fetid atmosphere they had recently entered, so different from the dry heat of the ashlands they had spent weeks traversing. He gave his mount a sharp kick and it plodded forward more briskly, towards the darkened Ozgad skyline.

He could almost hear Them now, a barely audible thrumming just below the surface of things. Finally, after so much hunting, so much pain and death and weariness, the final Pieces were assembled in one place. It was ironic, he supposed, that years of toil and planning would come to fruition in a squalid backwater. But it mattered little. From humble beginnings could come great things. Even gods.

[Doctor Kelso]

This particular beginning was, indeed, humble.

Lon sits in the center of a tavern that he found in a small, small village just on the outskirts of the city that he found throughout his travels. Well, calling it a tavern was generous; It was more like a slightly-larger-than-average hut where the men (and the occasional women) came to drink after a hard day’s work.

Lon has his lute across his lap and the meager, battered case sitting at his feet, the tatty flap open. A few coin sit in the case; Nobody liked to be the first one to ‘donate’, his mother had always said. So you lay out a handful of coin ahead of time and everyone thinks they’re just following the example of someone else. People liked following, after all. Lon is many things tonight, but most of all he's a very hungry bard.

A smile too broad flits across his hungry lips and a chord hums from the bowl of his lute. The noise is supposedly pleasant, in-tune and soon falling into a steady pluck of strings and his voice soon to follow.

♪“Oh, folk of the ci--” Pause. “Village fair. What is it that I see over there?”♪

For effect, the music halts and he places a hand to his brow. Typically this is where someone in the crowd would call out an object. Nobody does. Without missing a beat (in actuality he does miss a few), the music picks back up.

♪“Well so it does seem that tonight shall be a scream. Now let us...”♪

He trails off into a sullen silence. It turns out the song doesn’t work when the crowd is non-reactive. The handful of tired folk in the bar are seemingly just that and where a smile once was there’s no a massive frown plastered onto his lips. Pleadingly, the brown-haired man looks to the faceless woman sitting in a corner.

“Oray,” he mouths and stage-whispers. “Help me out!”

[Village Witch]

Some folks would argue that napping and resting your eyes are two different things. Oray would consider these folks amateurs. Napping, she’d say, is the act of going sleeping for a short enough span of time that you didn’t simply turn in for the night. Resting your eyes, however, is a far more involved process. You’ve really got to get into the sweet spot between asleep and awake and stay there. Resting her eyes is, generally, fairly unprofessional but so long as Oray reacted to sound no one could tell she’s doing it. For instance, there’d be no way for Lon to know that she absolutely was not watching his back as he played so long as she perked her head up when she was called.

Overall Lon had been an easy gig except when he called on her to do things during his performances. A faceless veil stares at him from across the way and beneath it Oray is giving a stink eye that’d be impressively cantankerous were it not hidden. She’s only ever been good at two things: hiding and shooting. Oray had come to find that shooting indoors was by and large frowned upon which made her no real help at all.

“Do a flip!” Heckles Oray, helpfully. She’d have been content but her stomach rumbles. Loudly. Right, that’d been why she was resting her eyes in the first place. He’s hungry, she’s hungry, the town is miserable, and slowly but surely it’s creeping onto Oray like some horrid disease. She misses the road. She wants an ale. She should’ve been a bounty hunter like her grandfather. “Minor key it, Lon!” She offers, slightly more helpful than the last time. It seemed the time for a sad, well placed shanty.

Figuring she’s done enough slacking Oray gives the room a good once over. She’d come to find that there’s a surprising amount of people who will readily hit a bard and she’s not sure why. Sometimes the song dragged out too long. Sometimes they’d smiled at the wrong person. Either way it helped to have a good look around once per song to see if anyone was rarin’ for a swing be it at Lon or at someone else. She was hoping she wouldn’t have to escort him out of a bar fight. Again.

[Dead Cruiser]

Ozgad's Folly, though a remote village overrun with pirates, still possessed a small constabulary. That was to say, a single sheriff that collected modest fees from pirates taking refuge, posted bounties for those that disrupted the peace, and put any lawbreakers that did not pay him to the sword. The constable, Jerez, lounged comfortably in the stilted shack that served as both his home and office. Easily one of the richest men in town, he sat back in a wicker chair, feet perched on the desk he used to draft bounties, and smoked a fat cigar.

A heavy knock at his door broke him from his dozing, and he answered gruffly, "Enter."

Though the orange sunlight of dusk briefly entered the smoky abode from the opened door, it was quickly shut out again by the hulking figure the ducked down through the doorway. Though he squinted to get a better look at his visitor, Jerez already knew who it was. A half-giant from the hellish badlands to the south, whom he had met some days prior to arrange a bounty. Jerez sat up straight to greet the man, who seemed no worse for wear despite his days allegedly spent hunting outlaws in the wilds of the marsh. The only difference was a hefty burlap satchel slug easily over his shoulder.

"Good hunting?" He asked casually.

The beast didn't answer him, but instead upended the satchel onto his desk. One, two, three, four human heads rolled out, thudding wetly onto the papers scattered atop it. One rolled a ways and dropped onto the floor. Jerez licked his lips, eyeing the severed heads with slight alarm. The bounty had been "dead or alive," and if he brought them in breathing he would have killed them men himself. Still, he was not used to the casual brutality of barbarians. He looked up at the monstrous man, whose body seemed to fill the entirety of the shack.

"I see..." He said, quieter than before.

"The four men," the half-giant said, the room seeming to shake with the dark timbre of his voice, "As agreed. My payment?" He held out a meaty hand, easily large enough to Jerez's skull like a handfruit.

"Of course, of course." Jerez said, after a moment's pause. He gripped his cigar in his teeth has he retrieved his purse, counting out an assortment of rough coins into the man's hand. Silvers and coppers, peasant's pay that he assumed the brute would be grateful for.

As Jerez stopped, the half-giant did not withdraw his hand, but carefully counted out what had had been given. Jerez eyed him carefully, as an irritated expression crossed his brutish features. His thick fingers curled over the coins, securing them in his leathery grip.

"Less than half what I was promised." He said, his tone neither questioning nor threatening. A simple statement, but it unnerved Jerez none the less.

"Yes, well," the constable, who found himself sweating, began to explain, "It's a reduced bounty for dead men. After all, I can't confirm their identities with only heads. Sure, I can see their faces, but I have only my memory to go by and I cannot say for sure-"

He was cut off by the barbarian suddenly flinging the remaining heads to the floor with a brush of his hand. The towering man loomed over him, leaning across his desk with his knuckles upon the wood. The desk creaked loudly under his weight, and Jerez could smell the blood and gristle on the man's hot breath. He glanced at his eyes only briefly, but in that moment did not see rage, but cold focus.

"Remember quickly." He said curtly.

Jerez jumped from his seat like he had been shot, and blindly grabbed a loose handful of coins from his purse and flung them onto the desk. The half-giant stood up with this, the wood of the desk seeming to sigh with relief, picked out the few gold coins among those that had been thrown at him, and left the shack without another word.

Zoa squinted into the sunset, his payment clutched in his fist, his belly empty and his thirst great. He licked his chops like a wild dog, fangs poking out over his lips as he did so. He could only hope that the tavern in this squalid town had enough meat and ale to satisfy him, and no less than two spare beds that he could push together once he was too drunk to stand. With that he set off carefully down the stilts, and toward the center of Ozgad's Folly.

[Sierra]

Three days’ hard ride. Three days it took her to get out this far into the ashlands. Whether from sorrow or fear it was too late for recompense. She wanted certainty she could not be found. The resources of the northern marches were considerable and no chance could be taken even with many hours head start. Her first leg, she rode for nearly eighteen hours out of the Godsfang range, making a stopover in some bump-in-the-road nowhere town she couldn’t remember the name of. It was all day from there to the next nameless hole and again here. Here she could take a day and set out at a slower pace.

She pondered the notion of why here? She set out with no map, nor any plan. She just rode west with no goal in sight at first. Yet somehow she felt like this place was her destination, as though she had meant to end up here. She only gave the thought a few more seconds as she rode into town. She and her horse were both exhausted. She practically fell out of the saddle in her dismount and made her way towards what she gathered to be a tavern. She wanted to find a place for both her and the horse to stay for the night and get them both some food. She hadn’t brought much in the way of survival gear in her huffed departure.

It had only been three days but the heat was just barely becoming tolerable. When the scorched ashlands air first hit her it had felt like fire. The mountains were much cooler to the point of almost snowing year round. For what she was used to, she was handling the heat remarkably well. She was handling her hunger somewhat less well, and sped up her pace towards what she presumed would be a reasonable place to eat.

The tavern was felt busy for such a small town. It was barely a tavern to start with, but had a hustled atmosphere to it. The tired crowd was too preoccupied with either food or alcohol to notice her. A little anonymity was never such a bad thing. The power recognition held was not always controllable or benevolent. She found a seat to the side somewhat near the door where she could rest her legs for a moment. She would need to hang around the counter briefly to ask about food for people & horses. The counter was also where most of the building’s current population were, save for a cloaked figure and smallish male struggling to play music off to the side.

[Kassarock]

The sands beneath his feet were as black as coal. Karliege climbed the crest of another dune in the moonless darkness, as cold unchanging stars stared down upon him. The air was still and dry, there was no wind or rain here. There never would be. In this place time had no meaning, and the night would go on until all creation fell back in onto itself and into the void. How long had been walking here? He could not tell, but it felt like he had been here forever. No... not forever, there had been a time before this place, how else would he know that there was such a thing as days and nights otherwise? But it had been a long time, such a long time, since he had seen the sun.

He looked out across the rolling desert and saw something in the distance. It was a church. He frowned. Karliege knew of churches, and he felt like this was not a place where they were found. He did not like churches either, but he couldn't remember why. He cast his eyes around him across the shadowed lands, there was nothing else for miles, except the outline of range of jagged mountains rising far off upon the horizon. He must he either go to this church, or wander the desert. He chose the church, maybe there would be an answer there.

And so he went onward, limping across the dark sands. Sometimes he rested upon them and wished for a fire to warm himself from cold, or water to quench his terrible thirst. But there was nothing that would burn here, and there was no water to be conjured from beneath the ground. He walked for days, or was it weeks? But finally he found himself at the foot of the church.

He recognised it now. It was his church. He had been a deacon here once. A flight of broad steps led up to the great wooden doors, on either side rose two spires that reached up into the midnight sky and the eerie unblinking pinpricks of light above. What was his church doing here? It should be... It should be... Karliege could not remember where it should be. He did not want to walk up those stairs, and open those doors. But he knew he must, and he couldn't seem to stop himself from moving forward.

The doors opened with a slow creak. Karliege realised it was the first sound he had heard in this strange and silent place. It was pitch black inside. No light came through the heavy leaded glass of the windows. So Karliege raised his hand commanded the light to come to him with a whisper. The air above his fingers glowed blue-white at the sound of his voice. It looked unearthly and unnatural, it was Mage-light.

He could now see the inside of his church. It was as he remembered it. The long stone flagged aisle flanked by columns that lead down to the apse with its high semi-circular painted dome. That was where the altar was. Karliege began to walk towards it, the mage light bobbing along behind him. There was something different there. The statue had changed. There should be a statue of... of who? He couldn't remember, but it shouldn't this. The statue was of a figure that barely resembled a human. It was made of teeth and fire and cloaked in shadows. Karliege knew what this was. It was a demon.

"Why have you brought me here?" He whispered to the figure. It slowly turned its head to him and spoke.

"Worship me and my power shall be yours." Its voice sounded like steel drawn against stone, and echoed with distant screaming.

"I have no need of your power." Karliege answered in defiance.

"Worship me and I shall make you richer than any man alive."

"I have no need of your riches"

"Worship me and you shall live forever in youth and beauty."

"I have no need of youth and beauty."

"Worship me and I shall release you from this place" There was roar in the demon's voice, it was angry.

"I shall not worship you or anything else demon! Now be gone!" He brought his staff down upon the flagged floor and the statue vanished before his eyes. Karliege was alone inside of the church once again, the werelight trembling above his head. He breathed a sigh of relief and turned to leave.

The doors slammed open and a mob poured in. They carried burning irons and torches and pitchforks. They were screaming and baying for blood. An inquisitor lead them who held a length of rope in his hands. When he saw Karliege he pointed at him and bellowed for them to seize him. Karliege raised his staff to drive them off, but his words turned to dust as he tried to speak them. His magic and power was gone and he was helpless before them. He turned to run and as he did so he saw that the altar was gone.

A pyre was raised up in its place.

Hands seized him for all sides pulling and tugging at him. He smelt his flesh roasting as a branding iron was put to his face. They were stripping of his clothes and beating him. The inquisitor sat upon his chest and pressed him into the floor. The rope was around his neck. Tighter and tighter and tighter! He gasped for air, choking. Tighter and tighter! Until it all went black.

---

Karliege awoke with a start. He tried to suck down air but couldn't. The chain the chain of his amulet was wrapped around his neck. His bad right arm was pulling it as tight could! With his left arm he tried to prise it from his neck and throw it off. WAIT NO! That was what it wanted him to do! He seized his bad right arm instead and wrenched it down. Pain exploded in the limb and blood began to seep through the bandages between his fingers. It spasmed and twisted in his grip until he threw himself on his side and pinned it beneath him.

For a few minutes he lay there panting on the marshy ground he had camped upon. His neck hurt and his arm was in agony. But he was alive, and he had won. Karliege began to laugh. It was an unhinged laugh that would have sounded more like a scream to anyone that had been listened. And someone was.

"Hah! Not tonight Sarcen! I win again! You can't kill me and you can't trick me! I win again, demon!"

Above him was the faint outline of a shadowy figure. It was looking down at the cackling sorcerer with an air of venomous hate. Then the sun began to rise. And it was gone.

---

Ozgad's folly loomed in the distance above the salt marsh and the silted huts. It had been four years since he had been here, but Karliege did not think it had changed much. Though it was a pirate fortress and hive of scum now, it had once been a very different place. One of the royal cities of Daigon's ancient Kingdom. He would begin his search here. Most of Daigon's great domains were inhabited by much more dangerous creatures than mere men. He doubted he would find much here, anything of great value or power would have been taken long ago. But perhaps amongst the oldest parts of the city there would be knowledge he could use. Anything... anything to help him achieve his goal.

But before that, Karliege knew he must eat. Last night's exertions had taken much of his strength, and he hadn't eaten real food in what felt like weeks. Actually... perhaps it had been weeks? His sense of time was all muddled since he had acquired the amulet. Self consciously he reached beneath his cloak to check it still hung there. The great blue stone was cold to the touch. Soon he would unlock its full potential and begin to collect more like it. Soon. But food first.

There was a shack at the side of road which seemed to be some kind of tavern or ale house. He hadn't drunk any ale in years. Perhaps he would have some of that as well. Ah... but food and ale cost money didn't they. He had forgotten about that. He frowned and bent down to pick through the dirt. It took him a few seconds but eventually he had gathered a decent handful of pebbles and silt. That should be enough.

He held the stones in his left hand and gingerly placed his right over it. He brought them together to his mouth and began to whisper the words into the space between his two palms. He told the stones to pretend to be something they weren't. He coaxed them with spells of change and illusion. He bent shadows and light around them, until they resembled something quite different. A waft of pale smoke drifted out between his closed fingers. Went he opened his hands, it was a pile of silver coins sitting amongst the silt instead of pebbles.

Of course it was just an illusion, and a temporary one at that. Not his finest work, but enough to trick and ale wife into feeding him for free. What was the saying? Worthless as wizard's coin? He should really get his hands of some real money, he shouldn't be wasting his magic on frivolities like this. He picked up his staff again and limped into the tavern.

There were a few people in the gloomy interior. A bard was playing music. How nice. He hadn't heard music since before his time in Colndil's house. He sat at the counter next to a young woman wearing armour. Karliege cast an appraising eye over her. She was rich, he could tell by here clothes. His father had been a wool merchant and draper, he knew good cloth when he saw it.

He let the pile of silver coins that had only minutes ago been pebbles fall onto the counter.

"Bring me bread, grule and ale. Meat if you have any."

He turned to watch bard and frowned as he did so. Something was off. The veil of reality was full of ripples in this place. He could feel magic other than his own. It was powerful and it was close. It almost seemed... familiar? Maybe there was something worth his time in Ozgad's folly after all.

[Sierra]

The busyness had slowed down marginally, or at least enough to Adrianna to steal a seat at the counter. Eventually her presence would attract one of the serving wenches. The overworked servers here were a far cry from the well-compensated castle servants that surrounded her before. A great many thing she had never experienced growing up as nobility. She was nothing if not resilient though. She certainly had to be to make it this far out into the scorched ground of Nagath. A less adaptable noble child – any of her brothers she was convinced – would have turned back within a day unable to continue.

A rough figure took a seat next to her. There was no necessity to, as other places were free that were not adjacent anyone else. ’Here we go again.’ She held back rolling her eyes, suspecting what was soon to follow. She expected the raggedy traveler to hit on her as a few had before. At best he would give up at her first dismissal. Worst would require a swift punch in the mouth. ’Don’t. Make. Eye contact….’ She noticed him looking her over out of the corner of her eye while she made great effort not to let him notice that she knew.

He seemed to go back to his own business as he tossed some coins onto the counter. The flicker of silver attracted the attention of a serving wench almost immediately. She took the opportunity to offer money of her own. She dropped a couple of gold coins on the counter from a coin purse she kept tied to her waist, hidden behind her cloak. Gold was rare to see out here as payment. Most people never had enough money on them to carry gold coin. “Something hot to eat … and if you know where, a place to feed & stable a horse for the night,” she asked of the server who had come to see what the two were interested in.

From the few glances of the man next seat over she had gotten, she pieced together he was a weary traveler – probably very scrapped for cash too – who probably had lost a fight recently. The bandaged right hand was telling of something. He seemed too unbruised to have been mugged, no. He didn’t seem built like the fighting type. She diverted her mind elsewhere instead of practicing silent judgement. She had been taught to read people with just a glance: to know their prides, their fears, their debts. At its heart, diplomacy was a silent war between two negotiating parties as each tirelessly strove to find any tidbit that helps them encourage, or extort, a more favorable exchange. The skillset had never come easy to her but she had studied and practiced for hours on end to become adept at it. Even now she was not as good as she wished she could be. Her learned perfectionism ate at her esteem.

[cider]

"Fragile." The old man puffed on his pipe. "That's how I'd describe it. There's a constable upholding what he considers to be law." He made a face at Carrick and looked off in the distance, towards the silhouette of Ozgad's Folly. "If you're looking for peace, I'd suggest heading back the way you came, friend."
Carrick made a slight nod and looked around while untying his horse. There were a few hamlets spread about in these plains, including the little one - barely more than a fishing dock - he was standing at now. People were walking in front and behind him, traveling to and from Ozgad's Folly a few miles to the east. Yet while the area wasn't desolated, it surely felt like it. Vegetation was sparse and the trees not nearly as leafy as they'd ought to be. There where noise from birds - sea gulls, in particular - and people, but hardly the welcoming kind. It wasn't a buzz, more like a solemn and dispersed mass at kanisa, or church. Carrick hadn't faced hostility here, but he was starting to wish he had instead of spending another day in this perpetual gloom. Yet if it was hostility Carrick wanted, he held no doubt that he'd find it soon enough. Ozgad's Folly was merely an hour's ride away.
"Did you want something else?" the old man offered. Carrick looked down on him. The smoker, called Huffy, was puffing on his pipe, his beady eyes wavering. He seemed uneasy. Carrick tended to have that effect on people. Then again, any man as defenseless as this one ought to be constantly uneasy in these parts. Still, Carrick and Huffy had already been breaking bread, the fisherman offering Carrick a taste of today's catch. Shouldn't be this nervous. Maybe he hadn't seen a threll before, they were rare in these parts. Carrick hadn't thought of that.
"Thank you for the hospitality. Be safe." he answered and mounted his horse. Huffy looked at him in a funny way, as if the prospect of safety wasn't even worth considering, but he declined to answer and tipped his straw hat as goodbye. Carrick put his horse in a steady trot in the direction of Ozgad's Folly. He was wielding his swords and leather armor, his Vanir mail tied to the horse. Riding into town dressed as a man of the Vanir might not be the best choice. Normally Carrick wouldn't give a damn, but this time things were different. He wasn't looking to capture or kill someone, but rather make allies. Different indeed. Still, Carrick had no doubt a place like Ozgad's Folly would be ripe with conflict regardless, and Carrick tended to draw conflict like shit drew flies.

An hour later Carrick was about to enter the village, for a village it was. The hedgarls, the title of scholars in the Vanir, had correctly claimed the village to indeed be a village, but Carrick had doubted them. A place of the repute and influence Ozgad's Folly held ought to be larger. Then again, maybe this was what was considered large in the comparably desolate lands of Nagath. Truth be told, Carrick himself had only visited a few locales in Nagath that was larger than Ozgad's Folly, and Carrick had traveled farther than most. Yet despite it's humble size, Ozgad's Folly was technically walled. It was a palisade, not much taller in height than Carrick himself and in desperate need of repairs, but it was a lot more in the ways of protection than any other place in the area could offer.
The entrance to the village was guarded by two men armed with spears who looked more like ruffians than guards, and probably were, too. It was dusk and the night soon to descend upon Nagath. No people around, most of the villagers and travelers probably inside by now, at home or at a tavern. Carrick thought he could smell the scent of rain drifting in from the sea. The two "guards" approached Carrick and halted him. They had let a woman walking a few minutes ahead of Carrick pass freely, as far as Carrick had seen, but then she had been neither armed, ahorse nor threll.
"Who are you?" the shorter of the two demanded. He was a squat, squarely built man with a hard look. The taller one was leaner with a handsome face.
"My name is Carrick. Who are you?"
"That s'posed to be funny, threll?" he answered. Carrick shrugged and dismounted. He judged the shorter man the more dangerous of the two and quickly walked up to him, striking him square in his nose with his iron-studded elbow. The man fell like a sack of potatoes. Before the taller one could lower his spear, Carrick descended upon him and wrenched the spear out of his hand while tripping him with his leg. They both fell to the ground, Carrick on top with a hard grip on the man's wrist. He punched the man in the face a couple of times, making him fuzzy, before drawing his short sword and putting it against the man's neck.
"You best be very quiet and listen to me. Understand?" Carrick said as he established eye contact with the man, who nodded in response. "Who do you work for?"
"Jerez!" the man managed to wheeze, sword pressed against his throat. Carrick looked at him quizzically. "The constable!" Carrick nodded. From his research, the constable seemed to do well enough, but he doubted the man had established any actual order in Ozgad's Folly. Furthermore, Carrick seriously doubted the constable was this man's only employer.
"Wrong. You work for me." The man seemed confused at first, but then slowly nodded. "Good lad. I'm going to go of you now. Reach for your spear and you're dead, got it?" The man nodded again. Carrick did as he said and stood up, watching as the other man took a few deep breaths before sitting up on his knees. He was about to say something, but Carrick interrupted.
"Like I said, my name is Carrick. What is yours?"
"Fennel."
"Like the vegetable?" The man didn't respond. "Very well. Fennel, I want you to kill that man." Carrick pointed towards the squat guard lying on the other side of the road. Fennel looked first at the man, then at Carrick, seemingly at a loss. Carrick simply waited, still pointing. A few seconds later, Fennel got up and strode over to the man. He unsheathed the sword at his hip, but instead of finishing off his partner, he turned to Carrick. Carrick tapped his short sword and shook his head.
"Don't do anything stupid now, Fennel." he said. Fennel seemed to hesitate, his courage quickly faltering. Carrick seemed to have that effect on lesser men. Fennel cursed under his breath and turned towards the unconscious man, slitting his throat.

About ten minutes later, the two men entered the office of Jerez, the constable. The man called Jerez was in his middle-ages and hardly looked as capable as Carrick imagined an alive man of the law would look in a town like Ozgrad's Folly. Carrick decided this made it even more likely that the local constable was still in office due to him working for the criminal element rather than against it. Jerez was sweaty and shaky, looking as if he'd just been through an ordeal. Or maybe it was just the tension of being the law in a lawless place.
"Fennel? What are you doing here? Who is this threll?" Jerez exclaimed, cigar in mouth. Fennel opened his mouth to answer, but Carrick shoved him aside and strode up to the sitting constable.
"You're supposed to be the law in this town. Somehow I don't think you're doing a very good job."
"What? What the fuck did-" Jerez was cut off by Carrick backhanding him hard across his face. Jerez tried to rise, reaching for a dagger on the table but the man was far too out of shape and unprepared to be even close to reaching it before Carrick slapped the dagger off the table and into a wall. He grabbed the constable by his collar and pulled him across the desk, throwing him to the floor. Carrick kicked him in the gut, causing Jerez to first wheeze, then cough and lastly vomit. Turning his eyes towards Fennel, Carrick asked;
"Tell me, do you prefer to do the bidding of this creature, or work for me?" The tall man looked at Jerez with disgust. Carrick imagined few people, if any, working for Jerez held any respect for the man.
"I suppose you." He paused. "But you won't last a week if you carry on like this." Fennel subconsciously took a step back while saying it, as if expecting Carrick to lash out.
"No, I wouldn't either." Carrick responded. "Nor do I intend to beat every single man and woman here into submission. Just the pitiful ones." He kicked Jerez once again. Fennel didn't seem to catch the slight. "No. What I want is for you, Jerez, to take your shit and leave Ozgad's Folly within a fortnight. Permanently. Before you do that, however, you will set up a meeting with whoever you're working for and declare that you would nominate me as your successor." Carrick waited for Jerez to catch his breath. The constable sat up and looked at Carrick nonplussed.
"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about, I don't work for any-" Carrick cut him off by slamming his boot down on Jerez' leg. The man howled in pain.
"Curse you, fucking threll! Fine, I'll do it." He started to climb to his feet. "I don't see the point though, don't you realize Javira will simply have you killed for upsetting her order?" he said, trying to stand upright. Carrick offered a weak smile.
"You will contact this Javira in one week. By that time I suspect we'll be well acquainted already. Meanwhile, I want you to do whatever it is you were doing before I stepped in to your office. In return, I'll make sure you leave this place with your coffer's lined with coin. Do you agree?" Jerez seemed surprised that Carrick would offer something in return. Nodding, the constable turned towards Fennel.
"What the hell have you gotten me into?" Fennel shrugged, while Carrick picked up the stuff he'd thrown to the floor along with the dagger and put it back on the desk. Then he turned towards Fennel.
"Now if you'd please show me to any of the taverns here, I'd appreciate it."
"There's only one tavern here, sir."
"Oh? Lead the way, then."
Sir. Carrick liked the sound of that.

[Kassarock]

Something was wrong, something was horribly wrong. The magic Karliege had felt wasn't simply close, it was here, inside this tavern. He could feel it like a cold breeze whispering down his back. It stank of acrid metal and smouldered like the heart of the sleeping volcano... just waiting to erupt. It was old magic, and it was so powerful. It filled the air and overpowered Karliege's own sorceries. Even Sarcen's immense demonic shadow seemed but a flame in comparison to the inferno he felt. There was only one other note in his cacophony that Karliege knew, the sinister emanations of the jewel at his neck. Daigon's jewel.

He almost reeled in his seat. This tavern was filled with with a power as great as Daigon, how could such a thing be? That would be impossible, no one, no one apart from perhaps Justinian himself had been as powerful as Daigon. Colndil had been the greatest wizard in a hundred years, and even he could have never matched his feats. The records and rolls of the College of Sariya, deep beyond the southern deserts and stretching back five hundred years, produced no name that could have bested the ancient Lord of Nagath. It was impossible.

And that was when it saw it.

Her wrist. As the woman next to him had brought her purse out from under her cloak he saw the bracer she wore upon her wrist. It burned with Daigon's magic like a beacon to Karliege. Open mouthed he gaped at it in disbelief.

"Gods be damned..." He swore beneath his breath, unable to blink at the sight before him.

Did she know?! Did she know that she wore a token of power that surpassed a lifetime of his own work and study?! Why did she have it?! Where did it come from?! And what... What did it do? That, that was the most important question of all perhaps. The possibilities were most... intriguing.

A tankard of warm soul smelling ale and a bowl of something that could have been a sort of fish stew banged down on the counter in front of him as the alewife scooped up a generous helping of his worthless silver. Karliege snapped back to where he was suddenly. He could still feel the low hum of the bracer in the back of his mind but it was no longer consuming him. It almost seemed as if the world had been stretched thin for a moment there... two tokens of Daigon in such proximity... perhaps that was the cause.

Against his chest, his gem felt warm to the touch. That was wrong, it should be cold, it had always been cold before...

Karliege grasped the ale tankard with both hands and drank deeply for courage. He was going to get to the bottom of this. He had sacrificed so much to obtain his power, to obtain Daigon's gem. The desert. Colndil. His arm. The Wastes. The long, terrible nights. And here... in a fucking alehouse... fell something of equal magnitude by sheer serendipity? Impossible.

"Mhmm" He coughed, his throat was so tight his voice came out as rasping squeak. "Where... where did you get those bracers?"

[Sierra]

Adrianna’s mind raced the path across the ashlands and through the craggy pass into the mountains. The mind was amazingly good at finding it's way home. She swore silently in her head, cursing her brain for returning her to that where she fled. Now was not the time to be homesick. A greater revelation dawned as the moment soaked in. All the bustle, the strangers of the tavern, seemingly some specific patrons almost, even the air around her felt ... welcoming? It wasn't a feeling that had words. It was as though some imaginary force had drawn her here to this backwater tavern in the middle of this gods-forsaken hellscape.

Humans only claimed to have five senses, but there seemed an innate ability to sense presence around oneself. Most people never paid it mind. For Adrianna the tavern was nearly overwhelming in this way, but there was more than just people here. There was an energy in the air. She stayed silent, head bowed lightly, almost meditative, just for another moment. There was something radiant; it was close to her. Her bracers felt ... different, as well. It wasn't a sensation she could describe. She supposed magic might be at work. The notion was strange really, for how would she know what magic felt like in the first place?

The clatter of a bowl of stew of some variety clattering down in front of her shook away her introspection. Her inquiry had gone unanswered as well. The wenches at this establishment were evidently less personable than others she'd crossed paths with. Though the food was no better or worse than anything else she'd been served. Brief inspection of the gruel was cut short by an unexpected inquiry.

She hadn't noticed the adjacent man’s minor revelation nor his interest in her gauntlet pieces until now. A direct address was much harder to not notice. The first thought in her head was what made it matter? Why would that be of interest to a stranger? The obvious answer was he was a thief with intent to sell them for all they're worth. She had no intent of letting that come to pass. His interest seemed ... odd. The way his body conveyed his fixation with them was similarly indescribable to the sensation of the bracers themselves. Coincidence couldn't explain this away. “Custom forged, hand tailored. Why?”

The truth was that the Corvello family metalworks didn't have a blast furnace hot enough to process such a high grade steel. The metal was salvaged, smelted again, and then cast just for her. She never knew or cared about where the material came from. Why should she? Metal was metal ... or was it? She was questioning things she had no reason to question. Something was off. It was one of those things a person could feel in their bones. She waited for the inquisitive ruffian to answer, but she was briefly distracted. She heard whispers ... or some small noise. It wasn’t distinguishable quite what it was, but the feeling there was someone ... or something, over her left shoulder. She glanced in the direction out of the corner of her eye to find empty space only.

She had developed the thought that he knew something about this. How though? She could think of not one rational notion why she would suspect such a thing, yet she strangely felt confident about the idea as though some masterful authority on who he was had told her personally. Nothing about this was normal, or right, or even okay. This was myths and magic and things she had never needed nor wanted to understand. She turned her attention back to the man next to her, glancing over him many times. Did he really hold any answers? She couldn’t shake the irrational feeling he did. The uneasiness of her whole demeanor was painfully evident, and she had yet to realize just how poorly she was concealing it.